Some Portal and Portal Storm ideas

[OrenAudeles]

Portal Storm sizing and duration

Portal storms can be a temporary area-denial mechanism to spice up exploration instead of being used as an "are you well supplied enough" check. For area denial purposes Portal Storms can have differing sizes, danger levels, and lifetimes.

• Size determines how far from the portal effects are noticeable, and the area that spawned mobs can move around while being "supported" by the portal. Outside of that radius the mobs will decay and eventually die.
• Duration determines how long the portal will stick around. Ranges from a few hours for the smallest to several weeks for the largest.
• Danger determines the distribution of mobs that come out of the portal.

Rough description of portal size delineations

• small: 15ish tile radius, sticks around for a few hours at most. Low danger mobs that auto-die if they are outside the radius for too long
• medium: 40ish tile radius, sticks around for 12-18 hours at most. Medium danger mobs that can live longer outside of the storm's radius
• large: 150ish tile radius of effect. anywhere from 2 to 7 day lifetime. High danger mobs that can live up to another week outside.
• huge: possibly global effect so mobs can wander everywhere. All danger level mobs in high numbers flood forth. Lasts for some time longer than 7 days, no longer than 21. Auto-die rules apply once the storm ends

Portal frequency and effects

The closer you are to the storm center(s) the more intense the effects, so if you're far away you might see occasional mobs that wander over but not get totally fucked by other storm effects.

Larger, longer lifetime, storms occur less frequently. Only one huge storm can exist at a time, and there is a period of calm before it spawns where no other storms are active so you can prepare yourself.

Non-storm portals and making them useful points of interest

Idea taken from various "World is now game-y, with monster dungeons and stuff!" series I've read:

• portals are enterable, but monsters can't exit until some time limit has passed or monster density reached. Then they barf out some number of monsters and go dormant or autoclose.
• go in and figure out how to close the portal, maybe have them be a source for exotic materials so there is a good reason to go in even if the portal is in an out of the way place