[crossfire] map design guideline (was: Summary)

[Juergen Kahnert]

Hi,

On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 02:10:46PM -0700, Mark Wedel wrote:
> - Better maps/quests - more on the thinking side, less on the 'you
>   just need to kill everything and your done' side.  How many more
>   maps are needed is a more difficult question - at some level, this
>   is ongoing, but we probably want to have some sort of goal for X
>   number of maps by 2.0 or something.  Some of these may be localized
>   puzzles (in the sense that everything for the puzzle is in the
>   dungeon itself), others may be broader, like pupland, where clues
>   are all over the place, etc.

introduce a "map design guideline". Only maps which won't violate the
policy are allowed to add / stay.

A map should make sense. It has to be harmonious and coherent. For
example, if you slay a dragon and reach the dragon hoard, you'll find
some random_treasure, like a hauberk, dagger, water, cake, ... Wow, this
dragon was able to collect real valuable stuff... But usually the dragon
will burn the hoard with fire. No treasure at all.

So a dragon should have a cave, with an entrance where you can fight and
hopefully slay it and at the end of the cave the dragon hoard. Don't let
the dragon burn it's own treasure.

Or the monsters living in a map. Why they're there, why they're mixed up
this way, etc.

Check out this map:

    http://www.metalforge.com/mapper/pup_land/lone_town/town_ud2.html

What's the idea of this map? Why there are lot of trapped monsters. Who
trapped the dragons there? For which purpose? Why they're not famished or
who fed them and how? Or how do they come in and out? What's making a
titan there? Having some vampires in the underground town seems
reasonable, but what about the titan and the dragons? I don't understand
this map. And there are lot of maps like this.


> - Remove some of the old/bad maps - this can be harder to determine -
>   what is really a 'bad' map?

Any map which violate the "map design guideline". ;-)


>   Maps with all hack and slash and no puzzle are not particularly
>   interesting, but at the same time, if we'd remove all of those,
>   wouldn't be much left

Indeed, the most popular map is raffle1_3.

<OT>
Ok, on metalforge it's "ElectricHatchery", but that's only because
"Flank" is camping there all the time. Other player hardly gets the
chance to do this quest.
</OT>

So maps where player could easily gain exp are prefered. It's important
to keep / create some hack and slay maps.

Or maps with easy treasure are also very popular. I guess intwell is
played so often because of the easy to get glowing crystal...



>   - it may be more that we need to better work on categorizing the
>   maps or something - that's a puzzle dungeon, that is hack and slash,
>   etc, and somehow have those tags on the exits themselves, so if you
>   wander accross a map, you could know the type of map (plus perhaps
>   other information, like level range?)  Because that is certainly
>   another annoying point - finding some map and then finding it is way
>   too easy or too hard - because many maps mix monsters, you can't
>   necessary look at the first few monsters to know.

Another point, the mix of monsters. Should also be coherent. Maybe we
need some more monster types, to avoid a bad mix of monsters without
having just one or two monster types in the map.


First try, just some catchwords, because I don't know if you like the
idea...

MAP DESIGN GUIDELINE

- Every map has to be coherent and harmonious.
- The map needs to have a clear story, a goal, a purpose.
- Don't mix up monsters without a relationship or a story.
- Don't trap big monsters. Add a way to let them [theoretically] enter
  or leave the map.
- Let powerful items be the reward of a quest, not just an item on a map.
- Avoid hack and slay style maps.
- ...

There's also some coding stuff missing. Don't let players solve a quest
more than once. Flag a player who started a quest and only let players
enter the quest map with this flag and without the "quest finished flag".

Also let a second player know, that there was someone faster starting a
quest. For example, you have to go to the "Tower of Ordeal". The
receptionist tells you "here is the key" for the tower, but you don't
get a key, because another player already has it. Let him say "Sorry,
someone is already doing the test. Come back later." instead.

And for the hack and slay part, I've an idea. Let the training company
sell special weapons which are able to catch monsters. Those monsters
are counted and sold to other players who like to train. There can't be
sold more monsters than catched. The less monsters the company has of a
special type, the more they're willing to pay for them and vice versa.
This could be extended with a trading system. The monsters also needs
to be equiped, but as long no player has sold the correct stuff, the
monsters are not ready to fight... There needs to be a rewarding system
to have high level player catching enough monsters.

    Jürgen