[Rundvelt]

Well, I've bee a builder for a while, I'm totally hooked and I don't mind saying so.

But, what has begun to creep into my mind is if I'm actually building the best way I can. Like most builders, I have my own way of doing things, and this leads to my own, original areas. So, was wondering what you guys (and gals) do to build an area. Here's what I do...

1) Descide on Good or Evil
2) Flush out Theme
3) Create Room names (all of them, area layout)
4) Do all room descs
5) Do mobs, tailored after room descs.
6) Do objs, tailored after mobs
7) Mprogs for atmosphere / area quests
8) Recheck the area.

Also, what do you think about Mprogs and Descriptions. Both are necessary, but which do you think makes a successful area more then the other?

[Rundvelt]

Come on, there has to be builders on the boards here!

[Gemini]

Well, and im prolly got get yelled at for this, but find a codebase with no OLC. from what i understand of it, it serverly limits what you can do, where as a codebase such as LPC, where you write the code itself with all the mob/room/object info. It allows you much more freedom to make every room, every monster, every object, diffrent. Give monsters fun little abilities to help them kill mortals, or make a weapon that can be only used by a specific guild, even if more guilds have the weapon skill. stuff like that.

[Angie]

I am a bit confused about point 1. Do you build on a mud with a heavy Good/Evil theme? Why do you limit yourself so much right at the beginning?

Originally Posted by Also, what do you think about Mprogs and Descriptions. Both are necessary, but which do you think makes a successful area more then the other?

I'd be inclined to say mprogs. First, you need to have some descriptions anyway, so every area will have them, better or worse. Even if you have a whole range of dynamic descriptions, in the long run they will not add as much life, randomness and dynamics to an area as well designed mprogs will. They are also harder to avoid, unlike descriptions that a player can pretty much turn off by using brief mode. But both are important, not just necessary.

[Enola_Phoenix]

I begin by designing the theme of my areas (as almost all areas I do interlink and contain many small quest). After I come up with something that fits into the world, I design each room completely before moving to the next. This includes mobs, progs, descriptions, items etc.... That way once I'm done with that room I'm done.

But before all that, PAPER, everything goes on paper then on the world.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Gemini @ Aug. 27 2004,15:34) Well, and im prolly got get yelled at for this, but find a codebase with no OLC. from what i understand of it, it serverly limits what you can do, where as a codebase such as LPC, where you write the code itself with all the mob/room/object info. It allows you much more freedom to make every room, every monster, every object, diffrent. Give monsters fun little abilities to help them kill mortals, or make a weapon that can be only used by a specific guild, even if more guilds have the weapon skill. stuff like that.

What OLC limits you to depends completely on the OLC you're using. A good OLC system lets you do everything you mentioned.

--matt

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Rundvelt @ Aug. 25 2004,12:38) 1) Descide on Good or Evil 2) Flush out Theme 3) Create Room names (all of them, area layout) 4) Do all room descs 5) Do mobs, tailored after room descs. 6) Do objs, tailored after mobs 7) Mprogs for atmosphere / area quests 8) Recheck the area.

I think you're missing the most important step:
1. What need or desire among your playerbase or targetted playerbase is this area going to fill? Everything else proceeds from there.

I'd also think you can skip the "decide on good or evil" as that assumes a pretty one-dimensional approach to the world. Flushing out the theme kind of covers that step anyway, without having to limit yourself to one of two kinds of areas. (My theme will be....a community of artists dedicated to the pursuit of beauty above all else. My theme will be....an extra-planar fortress filled with cloud giants involved in internecine warfare over which God is most benevolent.)

--matt

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Enola_Phoenix @ Aug. 29 2004,16:40) I begin by designing the theme of my areas (as almost all areas I do interlink and contain many small quest). After I come up with something that fits into the world, I design each room completely before moving to the next. This includes mobs, progs, descriptions, items etc.... That way once I'm done with that room I'm done.

One thing we've found really handy here is to create standard forms on our wiki for keeping track of what's going on in an area from proposal to completion.

One starts out by filling out the proposal, which will include:
a) Area name
b) What need it fills
c) Out-of-role description of the area
c) In-role description of the area.
d) Overview of all sub-areas within the area
e) Overview of types of NPCs
f) Overview of major quests
g) Map

Once the proposal is approved, the person starts building, adding detail to the wiki form as he goes along. By the time he or she is finished, the form has a complete overview of the area, down to every NPC in it along with a link that takes you directly to the web mobprog editor with that NPC's prog loaded up, every quest, including the rewards, NPC shops and their contents, comments from senior builders, and so on. It's REALLY handy to have when someone who didn't build an area has to do some maintenance or upgrade work on it later and it's equally useful for those who need to review and approve areas. Its function is somewhat akin to commenting code, in fact. And really, for large areas, it's even helpful for the builder himself in terms of organizing and easily getting a second opinion on whatever he's working on at the time.

--matt

[Molly]

In my opinion what separates an excellent area from all those that are just fair is often consistency.
Everything must work together in a zone to make it really good; rooms, mobs, objects, scripts and resets.

I hate futuristic objects in medieval zones for instance, or zones where you can skip from a hot jungle to a tundra of snow and ice in just a few steps. . Climate, ecology, vegetation, wildlife, population, economy, architecture, culture etc. are equally important. Usually I start up by writing a background for my zone, which outlines those features, and also some sort of a plot, that I can use as a base for quests. The next thing I do is always a map, on graph paper. The map may need to be adapted as the zone develops, but it is the backbone of the world, and prevents bad linking (which is usually annoying).

To me all descs are equally important, object and mob descs as well as room descs. I cannot stand objects without descs (which is very common in some muds). And the more extra descs the better for me. The players get a choice whether to read them or skip them, which is always a good thing.

I prefer room descs to be kept rather short, around 4-7 lines. If they are longer they get spammy, and just tempt players to put brief mode on. If you cannot contain what you have to say to 7 lines, make another room, or use extra descs. The extra descs are also excellent for adding hidden and secret things, which only the players that pay attention find. In our mud there are so many hidden features in the zones, that even the most confirmed hack’n’slashers start reading all descs sooner or later, when they realise what they are missing out on otherwise. In our mud we also have listen/smell/taste descs and look behind/above/under descs, which gives a lot of extra tools for the ambitious builder.

In my opinion a good zone should always have several 'levels'; the basic ‘hunting ground’ on top for those just out to kill as many mobs as possible, and an  ‘extra desc’ level, for those just like to read and delve into the depths of a zone. And then the ‘secret’ level, which takes a bit more time, effort and brains to figure out, and where the quests and rewards are usually ‘hidden in the high grass’ (metaphorically spoken).

Flavour, imagination and creative writing are things that vastly influence the general quality of a zone, but there are so many different styles of writing, that it is hard to set up any rules here. Again consistency is a key word. Always stick to the same style of writing throughout the zone. There usually is no problem recognising talent or mediocrity in a zone, whichever style it is written in. Checking a well written zone is a sheer pleasure to me, somewhat comparative to reading a good novel, but a bit more interactive than that, because of the code and the scripts.

Mob_progs – (or scripts, as we call the equivalent in Circle code) – are really important, not just for adding flavour, but for adding all kinds of quests, quirks and challenges to a zone. A zone without scripts usually looks a bit dead, however well written the descs are. But a zone with too many scripts gets spammy and irritating, so take care how you set them up, and be particularly cautious with Greet triggers.

I am no big fan of code generated descs. However much effort that you put into the variables, they always get repetitive at a certain point, and they usually lack ‘flavour’. IMO they can never replace well written individual descs. The only cases when I find them acceptable are in grids, or large spaced areas, where the descs would otherwise have to be totally repetitive, because of the excessive workload involved in writing hundreds of individual descs for a prairie or ocean zone.

The order you make things in doesn’t really matter; there are as many methods as there are builders. Some like to make all rooms first, others prefer to finish each room in turn, with descs, mobs , objects scripts and resets. Whatever method you find most effective is good.

Personally I always write down all descs in wordpad before even opening the OLC. And I really mean ALL, including the extra descs. Then I just copy and paste the descs into the OLC, which minimises the time I need to spend on line (which is important if you are on dial-up like I am). Writing everything down first gives you a much better overall view of the zone than you ever get in OLC. You can also trim the descs to a fairly even length, perhaps moving some sentences from one room to another, or even from a room to a mob or object, or the reverse. (Also this gives you a back-up of your work, in case the Mud shuts down, or you work for one of those Muds where Builders’ rights are not respected, and the Admin refuse to give you a copy of your own work).

The last important quality in a zone is Game balance. All Builders want their zone to be popular among the players. The easiest and – in my opinion – cheep way of ensuring this, is to put some overpowered equipment in it. Builders that do this have really misunderstood their role. If people play a zone simply because the equip in it is better than it should be, the Builder should be deeply ashamed of themselves, and the Head Builder too, for allowing it to happen. Some muds try to avoid this by not allow the Builders to create objects at all, they have a small, trusted team that do this in all zones. To me that is the wrong path to go. Mainly because to me Building entails the entire zone, and the objects are an important part of that whole. But also because I prefer to trust my Builders – up to a certain point. No zone goes into the Game Port, without being thoroughly checked by me and preferably one more Head Builder.

Also, in our Mud, completing a zone is usually the only way to get an immortal, and the content of the zone gives you a hint of what new imms you should keep a sharp eye on. If the zone is full of cheat equip and ‘cute’ scripts, you might not even want to admit the builder as an imm. I do believe in second chances though, mainly because I was given one myself. I was known as a major Troublemaker in my first mud, and the head Builder told me I’d never get an imm in the Gameport. I ended up Head Builder and Imp. One of our more talented Builders turned in a zone that was so crammed with various – and very advanced – ‘cheat’ scripts that it made my head spin. He didn’t get his imm until much later, after some long and serious talks. But he ended up as Head Coder and Imp, and I trust him more than anybody else on the mud.

Last, a serious advice too all prospective Builders out there. Don’t cheat. You MIGHT get away with it – at least for a while - if the Head Builders don’t know their job. And cheating and overpowered equip MIGHT be fun for you and your closest friends – at least for a while. But it isn’t fun for everybody else, and in the long run it isn’t even fun for you. Cheating ruins every mud, and cheating imms is worse than anything else. So, don’t cheat.

If you want your zone to be popular, put some challenge or original feature in it, something that makes the players want to come back to it, after the first time. To solve a quest, figure out a hard puzzle, or whatever you can think of. Use your imagination. The sky is the limit. You can do it.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Molly O'Hara @ Aug. 29 2004,20:33) Everything must work together in a zone to make it really good; rooms, mobs, objects, scripts and resets.

Ideally this is the case for the whole world too if you're going for 'world immersion.' A world full of disparate zones that don't make sense when taken as a whole tends to break the fiction, at least for me. 'Zones' are fairly artificial constructs to begin with in the sense that worlds don't stop and start at 'zone entrances'. I think for immersion purposes, the ideal would be that a player never recognizes what a 'zone' is. All he knows is he's in the world and he's just come across a village, or wanders into the mountains and encounters a cave system with trolls living in them, etc.

--matt

[Molly]

Originally Posted by I think for immersion purposes, the ideal would be that a player never recognizes what a 'zone' is.

That is rather obvious, and that is also how our world is set up.

[Rundvelt]

Well, I define "Descide good or evil" as a genral statement for the "styling" of the rooms. For example.

I might be building an area focusing on an empire. Depending on good and evil aspects to room descs, it depermines the feel of my area.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Molly O'Hara @ Aug. 29 2004,21:13) Originally Posted by I think for immersion purposes, the ideal would be that a player never recognizes what a 'zone' is. That is rather obvious, and that is also how our world is set up.

No need to get snippy. Your post wasn't exactly full of revelations either.
--matt

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Rundvelt @ Aug. 29 2004,21:33) Well, I define "Descide good or evil" as a genral statement for the "styling" of the rooms.  For example. I might be building an area focusing on an empire.  Depending on good and evil aspects to room descs, it depermines the feel of my area.

My point was that 'good' and 'evil' are just two attributes out of a nearly infinite number that an area might have. Why limit yourself to black and white when there's a continuum. Heck, why limit yourself to a continuum when there are so many different ways to style an area that have nothing to do with 'good' or 'evil'.

--matt

[Molly]

Originally Posted by I think for immersion purposes, the ideal would be that a player never recognizes what a 'zone' is.

Creating a consistent world out of the zones from a number of different Builders is usually a job for the Head Builder, not the individual Builder - and sometimes a tough task.

There are however several ways in which the individual builder can help in achieving this impression. For example by taking care that the connection between their own zone and the main world is as seemless as possible. Or by adding references to other parts of the world to their descs, using mobs or objects from other zones in a quest, or something as simple as making a lookout place, from where you see the surrounding zones.

This is one of the reasons why the best zones and quests are usually created by good players, who know the world they play in inside out.

An apology to the list:  :-)
Sorry about the double posting on this quote. I thought I had pasted this comment into the first one, but I obviously must  have screwed up somehow. It was around 3 AM in my country by then, so I forgot to check it too before logging out.

Anyhow, since the post had already been commented on, I found it more correct to make a new post for this part, rather than just editing the first one.

[Sonya Jones]

Hi
I've been a builder for quite some time now, but over the last few years the way I build has changed a lot in many ways, and very little in others. I don't just build new zones anymore, I've become the updater for all the old zones in my game as well. The way I build in those is a lot different from how I build new ones.

I'll stick to the subject of new ones for this post.

I've never had any sort of list of rules that I follow for building, I personally find it too constraining. The only consistant thing I do is start with an outlined story for it. From there I build on the fly in OLC. I find I get a better feel for an area if I am walking around in it as any player would. I make everything up as I go along and save the quest scripts for last. After everything is done I drag out my mort and send her through the area for a final check.

Though this may sound insane to some builders,  it works for me. And you might think that it would take ages to finish a zone done like this, it doesn't. (for me anyway) Since I have never gotten any complaints about shoddy work from the people I turn them into, or more importantly the players who go through them, I'll keep doing it this way.

If this thread keeps going, I think that we would find that there are as many different ways to build as there are builders.

[Enola_Phoenix]

My previous post is kind of out dated, and just to show one of the different ways I have changed building.....

1) Decide Theme based on what is needed (Leveling area, mini quest, dedication).

2) Graph the area out on Graph Paper, each cell representing a room.

3) Initiate buildwalk, and create the entire area by walking in correspondance with the graph.

4) I still like to create entire rooms, which require 4 descriptions for all rooms not flagged indoors as to allow for change of weather, with the exception of mobs/objects/progs. Because of a new feature addreset.

5) Go back to beginning room and create mobs/objects etc for all rooms (initiate add reset).

6) Decide on mini quest and hidden items. Add all the extra descriptions and progs to mobs, rooms and objects for the mini quest.

7) Use a mapper and map the area, which records rooms and mobs in the room (and since you're an immortal nothing is hidden).

8) Convert map into text file and use spell checker (horrible speller)

9) Pray, have a nice mixed drink and copyover. (Anyone who uses lots of mprogs knows about that).

10) TEST!!! Test mini quest, and all mob progs for loops etc. etc. allow another immortal to test, then a player to test, and when I say test I mean try to break it, drag the mobs abuse the loop holes find the ways around the quest.

Luckily there are a few features that make building (with OLC) almost a snap. I think coders should cater to builder needs as much as players.