I was wondering if there are any plans to release a level building toolset? Users could build and test their levels maybe with the PTS (tell it to load a local lvl?). If the level is good they could submit it for inclusion in the game? Maybe have a mod town as a waypoint for playing custom user levels?

now this is intriguing

Guilds and custom dungeons? Intriguing indeed...

That sounds great. My only concern is how different it will be to normal, instanced dungeons.

There are a few things to consider
a) what if they made a dungeon full of hero's. heaps and heaps of exp. fair?
b) a dungeon full of relic chests, once again, fair?
I suggest if so, to make these dungeons non-exp loot or anything else. I say leave that to the Game Designers. Maby having minigame dungeons that people can create? with prizes? maby a 5 lane race dungeon, or a glatiator deathmatch (in a big arena, keep fighting bosses and heros that come in through allocated gates until you are the last man standing). nice idea, but limitations have to be considered

You can make it so the dungeons are fair. Assign point values to each item in the dungeon, keeping the dungeon to a certain point cap. That way, you can't over do it. If you put too much of one thing, you lose a lot of the other. Balance can be created, but it might take a lot to do.

Also, I'm sure if they coded it right, the code in the game could be something like this :
Code:

---

If dungeon=user then xp<original xp
If dungeon=user then loot<original loot  

---

and so on and so forth. It could work. Just make it so user dungeons provide less of the rewards than a standard dungeon, while keeping a cap that controls the design in some aspect or another.

my thoughts exactly

The best way I can see this is if to have parameters instead of designing every square inch. You would choose either a random-style or pre-set stage and then choose which bosses would be there. Each level would have a boss cap based on size. E.g. you could put Sissirat in snow king's lair, but you still wouldn't get past lvl 20. Or you could have a hdol-style random level with vergim as boss.

Still, there are so many balancing issues, this would easily expose the game to munchkinism. see http://www.orionsarm.com/intro/munchkins.html

What I think is that if it is no different from normal instanced dungeons, it's a bit pointless. If all you can do is to design the dungeon layout, put chests in, determine what monsters will inhabit it, and throne and boss at the end, everything within limitations with some customisation (such as the level of the dungeon, the difficulty of the boss)... then it is quite pointless.

It's similar in concept to player/guild housing, since it is a space they can exert control over.

I've never seen it done well. In UO since the housing was not instanced, it resulted in the land being covered.

In DAoC, the entire space was pretty pointless. Put things on hooks, yay.

In SWG the developers didn't get it right and player housing turned into a great way to grief people.

In Anarchy Online it was instance and was utterly useless.

In PlayStation Home it is instanced and you can decorate your apartment with trophies and images. I don't think anyone really cares about the trophies except the person who won them, and I'm just waiting to see the first reports of people filling their apartment with some sort of offensive images and luring people in there.

So, as was said above unless there is something special about it then there really isn't a point. And if you put something special in, its really easy to mess it up or to have it abused.

But hey, maybe this development team will come up with the angle that makes it all work.

I see no problem with player-created instanced dungeons, as long as the populated mob types conform with those in ordinary public dungeons, at least as far as xp and loot is concerned. Some ability to customize the mobs within certain limits would be fine. In other words, the ability to make the mobs weak and easy to kill should be prohibited. Making them harder than ordinary mobs would be fine, however.

So what if the dungeon is populated by heroes, champions and bosses? You still have to kill them to get xp and loot, same as everyone else.

If players have the option, then there may be a higher density of such mobs in the player-created dungeons than in the public dungeons. To balance this out, a death penalty could be globally imposed on all player-created dungeons, similar to, or even more extreme than HDoL. I wouldnt mind that at all, nor would I mind someone having access to such dungeons, that I dont.

/shrug. I just dont see it as being a problem, but rather a boon to the players that wish to take advantage of it. Anything that adds more (and different) dungeons will be a plus in my book.

haha think you are missing the point as sure if we had our way we make a dungeon with hdol queen, abby, hdol lvl 3 bosses, all in one so we dont have reset and run as often..

Yea, but I doubt that the devs are going to give us that option...otherwise no one would play 'their' dungeons.

I suspect that the allowed player-created dungeons will be similar to the dungeon levels 1-7 that preceed the boss lairs. Maybe they will allow us to create our own boss lair as well, but you will still likely have to get to the lair through the other seven levels. (At this point its all speculation, but sometimes speculation is fun too.)

Under the speculative scenario given above, I still dont see a problem.

My thought of it: Own guild -> own guild dungeon -> a single instance where you actually can choose for different themes, mixed or a specific elemental enemy set, and thats it. Just to train. Why I think this way? Simply because this is a hack and slash, and knowing the devs they will keep it like that.