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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
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