Do you have a type of area you fall back on when you're not feeling creative? Is there an area you can add onto that doesn't take a lot of thought, or do you have a type of area that you build, like a forest or ocean that allows you mind to go somewhat blank?

In general, if I'm not feeling creative, I'll either just work on mob progs, or not build at all. I find myself more likely to just not build at all than to force it when I can't get into it.

I built a bay adjacent to a city. Most of it is benign and newbie type stuff but my brain-dead activity is to enable it to have underwater access. I envision pearl-diving as an occupation.

Think of it, how would underwater swimming work, what mobs would you encounter, how should breathe work? The bland parts are obvious as well as the occasional shark or octopus. It's a brain dead zone to build but when you get that occasional spark of creativity, it will amaze you.

Iluvatar

In late 1996, on George Greer's old MUD called Dragon'Spire, I started an area called Tri-City. As many know, George is one of the Circle Developers.

Anyways, I got the area from his MUD after I had left and decided to run my own MUD. There was a 6 month gap between me working on DS and wanting to run a MUD. Tri-City has 1000, rooms and whenever I feel like building, but have no idea what, I work on that area.

I have had it for something like 5 years and it has 500, or so, completed rooms and a few hundred mobs and objects. My only major hurdel is that his levels were 250, and mine are 100, for mortals.

Try to imagine the issues of having to convert a Circle area to a SMAUG area format by hand. A client called AEX was created by Shogar, specificly for the purpose of changing area formats between codebases.

Anyways, Tri-City gets a little modifcation now and again, it is one of the few areas I keep on the Embassy. Areas on there are basicly mine and some staff's areas. Areas generally not open to the public or in release.

Since we are not open to the general playing public, we do not have to worry about people dying and losing equipment. It is a good thing, we still have mobs who think they are on a MUD with 250 mortal levels. Even if thier level is 100, they are still rather buff and can snap a mortal or immortal like a twig.

Since I am Head Builder, I have to check other people's zones all the time, before they can be added to the game. Typos, grammar errors, room linkings, object and mob balance, scripts, resets - all these things need to be checked. It's awfully boring, but someone has to do it. So, having to do this boring job means that creating things of my own gets almost like a reward.

When I am on a creative spree, I have the zone in my head almost day and night. Naturally there are long periods when I am not nearly that intense. During those periods I fix up the old zones to meet our current standard, and also build some large grid zones, which mainly have repeated descs, since they are mostly transport areas between the 'real' zones. For instance, right now I am working on a 1200 room grid, which will be the overall map of Ancient Greece. It will be used as entrance to a number of 'real' zones; Crete, Troy, Kolchis, Mychenai etc. Thee real zones need a lot of creativity, the grid mostly just needs accuracy in setting the exits right.

My fall back area is a city that was my first area I built. It's a modern day city, full of goths of all varieites. when I want something I can relate to and I don't have to think too much on, I add on an area to it. Right now there's 4 100-room blocks, and I have plans for at least 5 more. It sticks out like a sore thumb from teh surrounding mud areas, but eventually it'll get sectioned off and put on a continent where it will belong.

When I find myself lacking creative thought, I tend to build cities. This is personally annoying, since I find it hard to build unique cities, always finding too many similiarities in design or look between areas I've built before. But planned out streets with shops and homes leading off, filled with minor crowds of mobs I can build once and reset many times takes so little work.

Thats what I go back and work on when the area(s) I am working on come to a screeching halt. Taking a mob I have reset in 5 different places and making a couple of different versions of it to add a little variation. It is usually easier for me to come up with 10 different types of citizens than it is for me to think of 50 different ways to describe a road or a forest (which are two of the areas I am currently bogged down with).

The same with objects like weapons and armor. Giving the city guards different variations of of equipment with basically the same stats may not accomplish alot, but adds little touches and sometimes leads me to a brainstorming idea for the area I am having problems with.

One thing that I do sometimes is tackle an area that the mud needs, but no one wants to do, i.e., a small connector area.

On a side note to Tavish, have you read by Mish? It is one of the Area Design articles on The Art of Building. It might help you some with your forest area. I am afraid that the site does not have an article on roads yet.

Neranz Laverani, Seeker of Knowledge.