Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

Molly · 09-28-2002, 03:47 AM

Heh, TG_Hammer, I already built your wasteland zone. Sure enough, it's not 1000 rooms, but it's big enough to have players getting lost there for ages, since I use a lot of evil Builder's tricks to make it appear much bigger than it is. The guiding signs are all there - if you look for them - it even has a path marked by stakes, hence the name 'Llano Estacado'. Of course, the story is that Comanche Indians and outlaw bands, change the position of the stakes, to lead the unsuspecting wanderer astray... *snicker*

It's a desert, where the hot sun damages you continuously during daytime (by taking away hp), unless you stay in the shade and only move at night. It has a couple of waterholes, but one of them is posioned. It even has a mirage, that teleports you to another part of the desert, to make you more confused. It has some nameless graves and secret hiding places, like crevices and holes under stones. Some of these contain useful things, others contains aggro ghosts, scorpions or rattlesnakes - or both. And the animal population changes with the time of day, there is a totally different set of animals coming out at night, when the daytime animals go to sleep in their burrows.

The bad players shun this place like hell, since it is set as no-recall, no-teleport, and no-summon, and since finding the only way out is rather hard, at least the first time. The good players love it, because of the quests and challenges - (and rewards) - and they help keeping up its legends, by telling wild and exaggerated stories about their hardships and adventures at Recall Point.

Apart from that, one method that I continuously use for my zones is the 'scale trick'. I make a pretty large grid, with varied topography, and in this grid I put the entrance to a number of subzones. In the smaller scale, the grid, this entrance it just one room. You enter it and get to a new, much more detailed zone, a city, a castle, or an island. It's like looking at a large map, and then looking at an enlargement of a part of that map. Very effective, and it leaves you with the feeling that there is an actual world surrounding you, not just a path you walk along, as most zones are designed.

Using this method, I've built a large Space grid with different planets (for our Future Dimension), and the Mediterranean Sea, with surrounding countries, like Greece and Egypt, for our Pre Historic Dimension. Egypt was great fun to build, me and another Builder cooperated about it, and we both spent a lot of time studying myth and history of Old Egypt, to make it true to period, down to the slightest detail. So now it has temples, villages and countryside along the main artery, the River Nile, and above all a large desert in which the entrances to the Temple of Hatsepsut and the Valley of Kings are hidden. And you know what the old Pharaos used to do with their tombs to keep the graverobbers out, don't you? They are full of mazes, collapsing roofs, bottomless wells and other cute traps and Deathtraps. And of course of treasures beyond belief...

I wonder why the evil zones are so much more fun to design than ordinary ones. Perhaps I am just evil at heart, hehe.

09-28-2002, 03:47 AM	#16
Molly Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Sweden Home MUD: 4 Dimensions Posts: 574	Heh, TG_Hammer, I already built your wasteland zone. Sure enough, it's not 1000 rooms, but it's big enough to have players getting lost there for ages, since I use a lot of evil Builder's tricks to make it appear much bigger than it is. The guiding signs are all there - if you look for them - it even has a path marked by stakes, hence the name 'Llano Estacado'. Of course, the story is that Comanche Indians and outlaw bands, change the position of the stakes, to lead the unsuspecting wanderer astray... snicker It's a desert, where the hot sun damages you continuously during daytime (by taking away hp), unless you stay in the shade and only move at night. It has a couple of waterholes, but one of them is posioned. It even has a mirage, that teleports you to another part of the desert, to make you more confused. It has some nameless graves and secret hiding places, like crevices and holes under stones. Some of these contain useful things, others contains aggro ghosts, scorpions or rattlesnakes - or both. And the animal population changes with the time of day, there is a totally different set of animals coming out at night, when the daytime animals go to sleep in their burrows. The bad players shun this place like hell, since it is set as no-recall, no-teleport, and no-summon, and since finding the only way out is rather hard, at least the first time. The good players love it, because of the quests and challenges - (and rewards) - and they help keeping up its legends, by telling wild and exaggerated stories about their hardships and adventures at Recall Point. Apart from that, one method that I continuously use for my zones is the 'scale trick'. I make a pretty large grid, with varied topography, and in this grid I put the entrance to a number of subzones. In the smaller scale, the grid, this entrance it just one room. You enter it and get to a new, much more detailed zone, a city, a castle, or an island. It's like looking at a large map, and then looking at an enlargement of a part of that map. Very effective, and it leaves you with the feeling that there is an actual world surrounding you, not just a path you walk along, as most zones are designed. Using this method, I've built a large Space grid with different planets (for our Future Dimension), and the Mediterranean Sea, with surrounding countries, like Greece and Egypt, for our Pre Historic Dimension. Egypt was great fun to build, me and another Builder cooperated about it, and we both spent a lot of time studying myth and history of Old Egypt, to make it true to period, down to the slightest detail. So now it has temples, villages and countryside along the main artery, the River Nile, and above all a large desert in which the entrances to the Temple of Hatsepsut and the Valley of Kings are hidden. And you know what the old Pharaos used to do with their tombs to keep the graverobbers out, don't you? They are full of mazes, collapsing roofs, bottomless wells and other cute traps and Deathtraps. And of course of treasures beyond belief... I wonder why the evil zones are so much more fun to design than ordinary ones. Perhaps I am just evil at heart, hehe.