Valarin
Builder's Tutorial: Putting it all Together

6. Putting It All Together
This is just a brief introduction to planning out a zone and building it. For a more thorough discussion of these topics see the Building Guide at the "The Art of Building" website.
6 . A

Planning Out A Zone

First and foremost you should have an idea of what type of zone you would like to build. Sit down and draw out a quick map of the zone and begin to plan out where room boundaries will be. Then begin drawing out a plan of how rooms and exits will be arranged in the zone. Decide on the types of objects and mobs that you would have in your zone. Once you believe that you have a good idea for a zone and have planned everything out to a reasonable degree, run your idea past one of the implementors (a post to the bulletin board with the details should suffice) and get permission to begin building the zone.
6 . B

Choosing The Level Of The Zone

While you're building the mobs and objects for the zone you'll have to determine early on what "level" your zone should be. The level determines the level of the mobs in the zone and the value of the objects you'll create for the zone. Higher level zones should have tougher mobs and better objects available for players. Generally your zone should have a range of 5 to 10 levels (ie. a level 1 to 10 zone) and mobs and objects should reflect this level (ie the 1 to 10 zone will have mobs of level 1 to 10 and objects that are fairly basic). The maximum player level is 50, however you can create mobs up to level 60 which would require multiple high level players to bring down.
6 . C

Building Appropriate Rooms, Objects and Mobs

First off, the room descriptions for rooms should be, at minimum, 3 lines long. A good maximum is ten lines long, but generally room descriptions should be 3 to 5 lines long. Don't include descriptions of objects or mobs in the room in case they don't load or have been removed from the room. This only applies to actual objects and mobs, filler mobs and objects, such as crowds or paintings on a wall can be placed in the room description. Always set the room flags and sector type right away, I learned this one the hard way, it's a real headache to have to go back through all 100 rooms of a zone setting the room flags and sector type then. Try to follow the rules of good english grammer while building the room, this can be tricky from time to time, but give it your best shot. Always set the exit descriptions when you add an exit to a room.

Keep your objects balanced, don't create wonder objects that boost every stat for a player by 10. Remember these stats are, generally, only out of 25 so a good object should only increase and one stat by 1 or 2. Better objects can be found in zones for higher level players. ALWAYS set the extra description for an object so that something is displayed when the player types in "look <object>".

Keep you mobs within a certain range of levels (see above). One or two super mobs are okay, just to give a bit of danger to the zone, but generally keep your mobs within a certain range to make you zone fair to the player exploring it.

6 . D

Using Zedit Appropriately

Almost always you'll want to load objects onto mobs. This means that in order to get the object the player will have to kill the mob which makes the object the reward for killing the mob.

Only load your mobs in a few locations. Sentinel mobs will have to be loaded in the rooms you want them in, but wandering mobs can be loaded anywhere you want. However, in order to make your life easier if you need to make changes, only load you mobs in a few locations and keep track of where in your zone you are loading mobs.

Always remember to close doors on both sides. Doors should be defined on both sides of an exit (if the exit has a door), and zedit should be used to close the door on both sides of the exit in order to have the zone work properly.

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