Just found an old idea of mine which I posted in forums circa February 2012.. it was in my "Onedrive" which i didnt even know existed, however I thought the idea itself might be handy for Borneo/current update team to have a look at.

It's obviously massively out of date now (pre-puranium), however the concept is still valid and can be rolled out across other skills, and it was generally well received. The original thread was called "MAD Mountain", a tribute to the mining god that is MADitude.. probably even more appropriate now with his sad passing.

I also found a few question/responses which were part of the thread and ill include those under the post for extra reference.

~Nate~

OK, so here is an idea I knocked up regarding the Mining skill and a possible expansion for it. The mine itself is very high levelled and so would allow the game and the players to progress for many years to come.

I know there is a great amount of speculation regarding a new ore, and this idea does include one to make the skill expansion even larger; however the mine would still happily function without it. Obviously a new ore would have a large impact upon the game’s combat areas, and in particular Outlands where Obsidian weapons already overpower and rule the roost. But at some point an upgrade to Obsidian will be required if this game is to avoid stagnating; with many players already outgrowing all skills.

This isn’t a standard upgrade like the majority that happen to the skills; it incorporates a lot of ‘randomness’ and new ways to how a skill works. This is mainly down to how the Mining skill already works with its close relationship to combat, giving the ‘active’ player more credit than the ‘afk’ style player when it comes to the higher end ores and Outlands play.

What I have tried to do here is merge both ‘active’ and ‘afk’ play styles into one concept, so that both player types get a third playing choice. This is the only way I can think of that will allow progress in the Mining skill for all higher levelled players, without kicking the ‘active’ combat-miners in the teeth i.e. a safe mine where all combat exp they have gained for their skill becomes totally pointless and also bringing the higher end ores and some of that exp outside of Outlands so that the ‘afk’ players aren’t chained to gold/platina for the rest of eternity. More or less an evening the playing field, with both sides finding compromised grounds.

Please note that all names were simply made on a whim and levels/exp were the way I personally think would fit into the game well. Im certainly no mathematician, I have just used some basic maths to work from to show the idea as fully as I could.

The Concept

The mine will have several ores available to gather; however you will not choose a particular type to mine; this will be a “Mixed” mine. It would work in the same way some fishing locations work, where the fish you catch is ‘randomly’ chosen for you. You wouldn’t know which ore you were mining until the end of the timer (to avoid skipping lower ores out). The other major difference to this mine is that there will be ‘random’ auto-attacks present, from high CL creatures. These auto-attacks can potentially occur at the end of each timer and they are built into the concept as a way of bridging the ‘afk’ safety with the dangers of Outland player killers. Although they will be able to hit hard, the 10 second timers that occur at the start and during fights give ample time to heal and so again gives a relatively safe way of mining in comparison to Outlands where players can hit just as hard if not harder, without warning and with just 2 second intervals. This is the highest mine by a large distance, it should be somewhat trying!


Location – MAD Mountain. (The guy deserves some kind of recognition )
Level Required – Mining 125.
Ores – Gold 34%, Platina 60%, Syriet 4%, Obby 1.5%, [New Ore] 0.5%.
Base Timer – 400 Seconds.
Exp per Timer – 1100xp.

Auto-Attack Creatures
Demented Miner – CL 80 HP 85 (Max Hit 45)
Obsessed Miner – CL100 HP 100 (Max Hit 55)
Mountain Miner – CL 120 HP 115 (Max Hit 65)
Exp given for killing these can be put in line with the current game creatures.

As far are these creatures dropping items;

I would quite like to see mining given its own gem like the woodcutters Carnelian and the mythical Fishermans Lapis. I think it would fit well as a rare drop from the CL 120 creature and maybe give rise to a new spell to create a “Mining Event Orb”.

Another thought was that there could be some new ‘clothing’ drops designed in a mining fashion, which could again be very rare drops, but from all 3 creature types; each of them having their unique 1-2 items. For example a Miners Lamp, Mining Helmet etc etc. No stat points/bonuses for the items, simply collectables.


My Reasonings

Exp - 400 seconds gives 1100exp per timer (Base)

This equates to 9 ‘random’ ores per hour and 9900exp. By comparison at level 125 a miner can achieve roughly;
Gold (Ogre) – 6400exp (no crowding)/ 4800exp (full crowding)
Platina (Abydos) – 3600exp (no crowding)
Syriet (OL) – 17500exp (no crowding)
Obsidian (OL) – 20700exp (no crowding)

As you can see, the higher levelled the miners become, the bigger the gap will become between the ‘afk’ players at the gold mines and the ‘active’ Outland miners. I obviously didn’t take into consideration the effect any auto-attacks had in my concept mine, so 9900exp is the maximum without any auto-attacks occurring. Likewise, I could not factor in any player killers disturbing the Outland mining figures. This all depends on player CL level and ‘randomness’. But as you can see the experience gained from the concept mine fits in pretty neatly between completely ‘afk’ safe gold mining and the ‘active’ not at all safe, Outlands mining.


Level Requirement
OK, so I know the Syrnia standard for new level locations/items has a 15 level base, however the mining skill is not quite like the other skills. If the level requirement was set at 115 then there are already quite a few miners who can walk straight into this place and a lot of others who could do so within weeks. It would also give rise to more players simply not bothering with Outland mining; as getting to 115 isn’t so hard, which would cause the death of probably the most exciting aspect of the game (for some). With it being 125 it might encourage more players to take the Outlands gamble a bit more from time to time to level that bit faster.

This mine would very likely be the last mine in the game and I think it deserves that extra elite feel to it. Only the very committed miners are going to reach this place. Also with level 125 it sets a very nice/challenging goal for the vast majority of miners in the game.

If a new ore was introduced you would feel it would have to be the final ore in the game due to the power/aim of weapons which would make Outlands ridiculously difficult to skill in. Being able to get this ore at just level 115 I would find quite sad and monotonous. Unless a new way of working new ores into the game and combat is found.

Ore Mixture
I felt that the mine needed to incorporate the middle ores as well as the higher ores if it was to fully bridge the gap between playing styles. Simply putting high-end ores into the mine would make miners stupidly rich very quickly. With the percentages being heavily weighted towards Gold and Platina, I think this helps to balance the ore distributions and amount of earnings to a reasonable level. It also stops this mine taking away the Outlands markets and flooding the game with the highest ores, which are already fairly easily accessible. Instead it allows the Outland miners to still do their thing and reap the higher rewards for taking the higher risks. Based on these percentages a typical 100 hours of mining at this new mine would give you (not taking into consideration auto-attacks/crowding);

306 Gold ore
540 Platina Ore
36 Syriet Ore
13/14 Obby Ore
4/5 [New Ore]

This I believe is a decent split, with the [New Ore] being drip fed into the economy randomly and keeping it rare, like such a high ore should be. The mine would be more profitable than any ‘afk’ mine despite its costs to mine there and still not be as productive as the Outlands mines; along with the experience earned balancing in the middle. The middle-high ores such as gold-Syriet are the ores which are needed most in the game due to the bar smelting formulas and player levels, which you can only expect will increase. As you can see a fair amount of Obsidian would be mined and with a new Ore comes a new bar formula, which lends itself to using this spare Obsidian earned from the mine and the general economy, which is more or less redundant at the moment due to the Obsidian bar formula.


Access to this location
The most obvious choice would be to simply say a new island, but I would personally prefer a long quest that is mining based. On completion of this quest you would then be able to access this mine from Abydos (Going from disappointment to glory ) in the same way that we gained access to Beset Catacombs from the Beset quest. Im thinking something along the lines of maybe having to demonstrate your mining prowess by mining 1k of each ore (tin/copper-platina) and 100 Syriet and 50 Obsidian to make it slightly tougher and longer. You can put whatever fancy story line around this task as you wish

@ Tort, Lamb and several others – The combat levels on Auto-Attacks

There are quite a few miners that have reached the 100 level but have not continued that skill because to get decent gains they have to level their combat skills.

Great point there, but you’re simply preaching to the choir. Check my signature, I reached level 100 in July 2010...19 months later and my mining level is 107. Guess what I’ve been doing?

“a way of bridging the ‘afk’ safety with the dangers of Outland player killers. Although they will be able to hit hard, the 10 second timers that occur at the start and during fights give ample time to heal and so again gives a relatively safe way of mining in comparison to Outlands where players can hit just as hard if not harder, without warning and with just 2 second intervals. This is the highest mine by a large distance, it should be somewhat trying!”

Like it or not, Mining has always been closely linked with combat… lets be honest, the whole game is geared towards combat essentially. But for some reason the game is already not easy enough for some people and they want everything handed to them on a silver platter. There is a safe, lower ore and exp route and there is a dangerous, higher ore and exp route.

To put a completely safe mine into the game after 6 or so years that would produce the top ores in the game literally goes against the nature of the skill. woodcutters and fishers only need a small combat level – they are woodcutters and fishers, it doesn’t impact this skill and nor should it, they should all have the separate identities.

You are completely correct saying some of the current 125+ miners will struggle with the autos and all I can say is, that’s the exact point! They chose not to embrace the skill set-up and bot-check their way up the leader boards, for the most part ignoring Outlands. But you’re forgetting the other side of the coin; the miners who actually trained the skill the way game mechanics were created to allow the high end ores/exp gathering, the Outlands miners. Guess how many miners have the HP to be able to take on these creatures safely, but would not yet be able to because they haven’t got the level 125 mining! You know why they don’t have this level? It’s because they have already trained their combat levels to help with their skill in Outlands.

So when we compare what experience is needed by player to use this mine and using me as an example, I would need another 9.2 million mining experience to be able to mine at this location, even now at level 107/8. What’s that? Around 10 months’ constant mining I would estimate and im pretty active. Considering that ALL miners 100+ now have the use of Obsidian picks, training the lower levels of combat is far quicker and cheaper than yesteryear. Not taking into consideration that they could still take the risk similar to some Outland miners and completely afk at this location, simply hoping to survive any auto-attacks that may occur, with houses on Anasco to store items safely.

With the top auto-attack being just 65hp, that means you only require Health lvl 58 to be completely safe, assuming your willing to actually put in some effort and pay attention just once every 6.5 minutes (using base timer). Level 58 requires only 1.5 million experience points; it really is not a great deal of effort to put in; especially considering that most players already have some kind of existing combat exp. The rarity of Maximum hits makes the 65 a gamble once you have around 60hp also… I mean just think how often you actually see a true max hit from a creature.

To use a real current Outlands mining example, I have been killed in a single second when I had 92hp! No chance to heal, No idea of when I was going to be attacked. There are also several miners far higher than me in combat (cl120+) who mine out there and still they not nearly safe. Comparably this mine would be letting miners off easily with the level of combat needed to train. By the time a decent proportion of the game could mine here, you’re talking about regular player killers capable of hitting 70+ at ease! I didn’t make these auto-attack figures on a whim; I was actually quite conservative with them if anything, when we look at true facts and figures.

This is why I balanced them in the middle of Ogre mining (with its complete safety) and Outlands mining (that has hits just as high and higher, at intervals much smaller and with no warnings of attack). This is a level 125 mine! Not Rynir… it’s a place for the elite in the game to grow into, not just walk straight into effortlessly. The #1 miner in the game could happily mine here. Have you noticed that no Outland miners have complained about the very high mining level required here? Its because they are happy to put the efforts in for their skill

@Pedro, Jeff and Brina – New ore and its Usage

I think you’re completely correct on the concerns of how a new ore would affect the other skills such as combat and smithing. How this ore would be used outside of the mining skill doesn’t really go against this concept though and would really need its own topic for thoughts and considerations I think. If we deny a new ore to the game then essentially we are already capped in many skills. The way the ore is introduced/used I think needs to be different to what we have already been accustomed to seeing and you have made good suggestions on this imo.

And additionally to Brina; the ‘real afk/non-combat’ players already have a chance, the option of all other safe mines in the game. When it comes to mining at the high levels, ‘afking’ has its taxes. Pibird and Leicontis have killed a total of about 3 gnomes between them yet look... level 140 and 165 respectively. This range incidentally is the level I would personally be at if I hadn’t chosen the mining route to the higher ores. I have been penalised mining exp and they have been penalised higher end ores. Bringing those differences together in one mine is what I’ve tried to achieve here.

Lvl115 Lvl120
Gold – 5600/4325 6000/4500
Platina – 3150 3350
Syriet- 15250 16300
Obby – 18250 19400

400 – 670xp = 6030 400 - 850xp = 7650

+1 from me I have no comments or question all have been answered very well thought out.

Only question is that if this could be implemented with woodcutting somehow. Fishing have the Thabis thing would be great if woodcutting had something similar.

yes, nothing more to say. Post is well explained if a bit long but overall great Idea Nate

I like it aswell. well planned

I like it, though I'd be tempted to increase the mining level required (though probably keep the creatures the same). This is simply because since you wrote the post Puranium has been added at 120, and also more people are higher leveled miners. I'd say something around 140 would be respectable. (This may change the exp and/or timer for the ore to keep exp gains in line with the original layout).

Another point is should Pura be added to the drops? And if so at what percentage?

And more importantly for me as a smith, how would this ore be used? Due to the level requirements not many can use Pura items even now, with tools/weapons being most common but only 5 being able to wear full Puranium.
Should it be a continuance at a higher level or should a new use be found for it?
I don't have any ideas at this time what that use might be, but I'd be inclined to do that rather than tacking more armour/tools/weapons above Puranium.

I actually think it should be level 150 to start, and I have a reason. Pura starts at 120 and then you get the last piece, the plate, at level 148. Just keeping the trend with past metals, the next logical starting point is 150.

*Edit: This was if a new metal is released with the idea, the new metal should be 150 and so the place should start at 150 too.

Edited on 11-02-2017 23:25

foozard- as this was written before the implementation of pura, I'd assume the 'new ore' would be pura now?

Looking back at old suggestions glad to see the mining orb mentioned was added w/ 2 others think was in code but not added tho like dragon orbs lol. Glad to see older stuff being (re?)added

I also want MAD mountain. He was a better miner than anyone currently in the game.

100% agree with Pend there, MADi was in another league.

A legend he is.