Designing a Zone

[Faille]

If you're going to design a zone, what things need to be done, thought of, planned for, etc?

Here's some of the things I've come up with:

Design - Description
Design - Map
Terrain.
Interiors
Buildings
NPC
Mobs
Events
Custom Models
Quests
Skyboxes
Weather
Zone connections
Cinematics
Music
Sounds
Restrictions (Keys, Flags, on zone or section of zone)

[forge]

I'll prioritize some of the items later with some subsets for flow. However right now personally I would switch a few things. This is only because it helps me better get a feel for what I'm working with. I'd make the following format.

Design - Description
Concept Art - begins
Design - Map
Art - begin work on textures
1a. Buildings - Interior can start work on buildings (from concept art) that will later be placed on terrain
2a. Terrain - Can be handed off to the Interior people to start placement of items which sit on the terrain
2b. Interior/Exterior Dungeon Entrance - Can be handed off at this point to let Interior start on the exterior to interior connection
Terrain Zone connections - Talk with others to verify connect cords/zoning flow works
1b. Buildings - Any major placement items like dungeon entrances or otherwise outside major geometry work happen here
Terrain Texture - Need to have terrain art by this point
Weather - Very short process
Skyboxes - Once down to this point is done then interior people would get the updated file
Interiors - More work edits here
Buildings - More work edits here

This is just up to the point where we have a unfinished zone to upload then coders can begin placement of items etc.

[Skurd]

Seeing as I started designing the first outdoor zone for the test world, here's what I think is useful to do in order to get a decent map going :
- First know what your map will host (obviously the layout will be totally different for an infested sewer and a titan temple) and build your design around the content that it will provide
- Second thing should be to draw a pre-map yourself starting with zone connections and major Points of Interest, so your map will be focused towards the content and it's variables
- Build your heightmap by drawing the outer walls first and only draw the larger parts of your map (detail gets worked on within the editor)
- Import your heightmap and start working on the outer walls, fine tune them.
- Fine tune the major points (hills, camp grounds, valleys, pathways, ...)
- Add desired textures
- Work on zone parts one after another by adding desired details
- Modify textures to your likings
- Add objects, spawnpoints, triggers
- Adapt terrain to object needs (smooth out village / camp ground terrain)
- Walk through as a player and modify textures according to your likings (from a player PoV)

[Faille]

Designing a Zone - UberWorlds Development Wiki

Here's the basic work flow I've come up with for designing a zone. Will be working on detailed descriptions for each step to make them clearer.

The most important part is going to be the detailed design step, since everything that follows on from that needs to be listed in that design.


Can anyone sugguest anything else that needs to be in there?

Also, I know many of the steps involve sub steps, like texturing and so forth, but I haven't listed those here.

[tad10]

Lore/Story is in the wrong place prior to design description you need the basic lore for the zone. Why is the zone even there? Quests will open up the lore but it needs to be in place before the description/art.

Lore -> Detailed Description -> Implementation

[Faille]

Originally Posted by tad10

Lore/Story is in the wrong place prior to design description you need the basic lore for the zone. Why is the zone even there? Quests will open up the lore but it needs to be in place before the description/art.

Lore -> Detailed Description -> Implementation

Good in theory, but I don't think it results in something that is good in practice. I much prefer people to make great zones, and they come up with a reason for them, as opposed to trying to work out how to make a great zone to fit the 'Lore'

At least that's how I would prefer to do it for the first few project where our emphasis is on learning the tools and how to implement things rather then building fully designed mmo.

[Draegan]

If you don't mind me poking in here, and perhaps the issue is put to rest already. When I did MUD world design (ages and ages ago) I always did a rough draft of a zone theoretically first. Here's a run down of what I did basically:

Purpose
- World surrounding a central hub. Experience zone. Newbie zone. Transition zone. Loot zone. Etc.
Terrain Type
- Desert, Plains, Fields, Mountains etc.
Level Range
- Which bracket of levels was is this created for.
Theme and Population
- Wilderness, Civilized, Races, Creatures, Loose lore issues
Size
- Logistics of where your entry and exit points are. Flow from low to mid level. Flow into Dungeons.
POI's
- Dungeons, camps, rivers, roads etc.

Then you were done with the basics. You would then begin to populate different parts of your map, the different POI's based on your above notes. This is where you branch off and design individually different parts depending on Theme and Purpose. The only thing I would guess that would hamper you is draw distance, texture rendering, how much is on a persons screen at any given time.

The biggest thing, IMO, that was most difficult was creating the atmosphere. It's the little things that make a zone a good one. Those little critters, the wind, small camps, ruins, burned out firepits, broken down fences, carts, whatever. The every day details that you never interact with but will notice when they aren't there. Patrols like in that goblin merchant in Desolace in WOW are always nice touches. There is a lot of theory involved that I would be happy to discuss. This is the stuff that I love talking about when it comes to game discussion.

[Faille]

Originally Posted by Draegan

If you don't mind me poking in here, and perhaps the issue is put to rest already. When I did MUD world design (ages and ages ago) I always did a rough draft of a zone theoretically first. Here's a run down of what I did basically:

Purpose
- World surrounding a central hub. Experience zone. Newbie zone. Transition zone. Loot zone. Etc.
Terrain Type
- Desert, Plains, Fields, Mountains etc.
Level Range
- Which bracket of levels was is this created for.
Theme and Population
- Wilderness, Civilized, Races, Creatures, Loose lore issues
Size
- Logistics of where your entry and exit points are. Flow from low to mid level. Flow into Dungeons.
POI's
- Dungeons, camps, rivers, roads etc.

Then you were done with the basics. You would then begin to populate different parts of your map, the different POI's based on your above notes. This is where you branch off and design individually different parts depending on Theme and Purpose. The only thing I would guess that would hamper you is draw distance, texture rendering, how much is on a persons screen at any given time.

The biggest thing, IMO, that was most difficult was creating the atmosphere. It's the little things that make a zone a good one. Those little critters, the wind, small camps, ruins, burned out firepits, broken down fences, carts, whatever. The every day details that you never interact with but will notice when they aren't there. Patrols like in that goblin merchant in Desolace in WOW are always nice touches. There is a lot of theory involved that I would be happy to discuss. This is the stuff that I love talking about when it comes to game discussion.

It's definitely in the details that can make a zone ok, or one that is great. That also is one of the biggest difference between a mud and a 3d world I think, since all those little details need to be made, and they take a tremendous amount of man hours for what amounts to fluff.

Designing a Zone - UberWorlds Development Wiki

Thats the temple that I'm trying to develop as a guide to designing a zone. ideally, most of the hard thinking should be done in the design stage, and that design should pretty much detail everything from concept art onwards. Making all those things is where the real work load is, though I'm hoping we can attract more artists to the project in order to make that area more productive.

Feel free to drop by irc anytime, there's always someone around who is happy to chat about any area of the project 8)

[Draegan]

Fantastic Wiki you have there. What IRC are you on?

[darkblue]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Fantastic Wiki you have there. What IRC are you on?

irc.uberguilds.org
/j #uberworlds

[Blackguard]

When I'm designing zones for an MMO, here's my general flow:

Pre-planning: Come up with a bunch of random, stupid ideas and throw them down on paper (or a document of some sort). Things tend to emerge from random ass ideas. I'll just start describing my process from the point after which I know I am making a zone and have some idea of what it's for.

1. Determine what purpose the zone serves. Is it an evil forest? Who lives here? What needs to be communicated about the creatures and people who live in this area?

2. Rough out points of interest and locations within the zone. These often communicate the purpose of the zone and are rarely arbitrarily added (for example, if a race of native voodoo skeletons enjoy the water and worship waterfalls, that's the reason there is a river with a waterfall and places of worship right at the edge for the voodoo skeletons).

3. Run it by someone else. Get their input. Don't marry yourself to anything.

4. Start on the map. I draw with a pencil and graph paper. Typically I'll go through about 5 sheets of paper before I have a fairly concrete idea of where things are going to be.

5. Get more in-depth with the points of interest, locations, creatures, and anything else that needs to there.

6. Figure out how players should flow through the zone and make everything serve that flow.

7. Run it by someone else.

8. Finish the pencil version of the map, scan it in, color it in Photoshop, label it, etc.

9. Get more feedback from a broader audience.

10. Refine everything based on feedback.

Then I'm done with my concept of a zone. Depending on how good an idea I have of the zone and all of the other things I have to do, it can take anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks to concept it out.

I also have a few tricks that I use to make the zone even cooler, but I'll only reveal two of them here: Foreshadowing and Nostalgia. See that tower high on the cliffs above? Yeah, you can't get to it. Okay, you can, but way later. Or, look at this vista shot of the area you were in a while back. Remember the good times?

Foreshadowing and Nostalgia can be pretty damn powerful.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Food for thought...

One aspect of zone design that has been slowly declining is the art of 3D. When Quake came out and people were able to actually pass -under- themselves as opposed to the 2 and half D illusion of the Doom series...every level you were constantly encountering layers upon layers of a structure.

I look at WoW and EQ2 and etc...and dungeons and zones are very 2 and a half D. For all it's failures, VG had some very well implemented 3D environments. Harder to design...but definitely more enjoyable in the long run.

[Jonas]

I'm going to have to second Vhex here, paying attention to the 3D is very important. I made a deathmatch map for a retail game based on the Half-Life engine and one of the coolest parts of the map were the three interconnected areas where you could only go up and down a level on the ends, think "Donkey Kong" style if you were looking at it from a cross section. With 3D that becomes even cooler because you jump down to other levels (or die if you jump badly).

One last tip I'd add to this thread is something I used to do. I'd build "prefabs" in the editor that were based on the style for the act of the game. Walls with certain features, pillars with cool lighting, trim for corners, whatever I could think of that might fit with the style of an area, and then I'd use those as a base-line for detailing the layout as it was built. First sketch the layout with no detail, then once the game flow has been tested, go through it again (iteration) and fix the flow problems and start adding details to "finished" areas. One drawback was that using the same objects had a tendency to make some things look "cookie-cutter" (since they were), but if you use it right, people rarely notice. I'll see if I can find some screenshots that illustrate this, but I might take me a while to find the game...

God, I wish I had free time to work on this thing with you guys!