|
I prefer writing offline in a plain text editor with a spell checker, so I can take advantage of the spellchecking, and still keep my descriptions formatted the way I want to. Then I paste the descriptions in.
My process varies slightly depending on what kind of area I am building. I will relate them in two groups, urban and wilderness.
Urban area development:
1. Brainstorming, noting ideas, sketching out maps.
2. Do in-depth research on the theme and era of the area, and write down any relevant information found.
3. Summarize the ideas and the research information.
4. Make the entire road grid map in a mapper or on graph paper. I prefer a mapper like ASCIIMapper for PC, or Mapre for Macintosh.
5. Log onto the building port, create the new zone, then map the road grid with dig, set all the room flags and such to reflect a city area.
6. Survey the map, walk around in it to see that players can easily travel in it.
7. Create all needed doors and set their state.
8. Start writing room descriptions, usually in batches around three to five descriptions per day.
9. Think up locations and establishments in the area, such as shops and their primary trade, inns and taverns, weave them into the descriptions. (Overlaps 7)
10. Once the rooms are finished, proof read.
11. Make mobiles and write any scripts necessary.
12. Load/reset the mobiles and make sure they don't spam the place with odd loads.
13. Create objects for shops.
14. Create equipment objects for mobiles.
15. Test all scripting.
16. Run the zone through zone-check and see if anything appears out of the ordinary, if so, adjust it.
17. Release it to the game port.
Wilderness area development:
1. Brainstorm and think up ideas.
2. Map a rough outline of the area in a mapper, leaving room for more rooms if needed.
3. Think up ideas for locations, such as wayfarer's rests, or whatever might be there, if it is a larger structure, the first method applies.
4. Dig the area on the building port.
5. Add in the special locations where they seem most appropriate, alter the map accordingly.
6. Start writing descriptions offline in an editor. Often begin with the rooms around the special locations, and the special locations, then write the connecting rooms last.
7. Proof read.
8. Make mobs and objects.
9. Load/reset all objects and mobiles.
9. Write scripts.
10. Check exits, room sectors, and such.
11. Run the zone through zone-check.
12. Release it on the game port.
Of course, I might not entirely follow these methods every time, especially not if I am doing other things and have to break the work up in patches.
|