Map Tips

[Thanatos]

Granted this isn't a scripting question, or really POL specific. But I'm looking to completely design a map from scratch. I have a good copy of worldforge I've become comfortable with playing with the old Sanctuary designs, but now I'm looking to progress one step further in the creation of my shard, I want a full custom map, And tips or starting points for me to look at? Any help is appreciated! Thanks

[Yukiko]

Not wanting to steal any glory from the POL forums but a good resource for map and mul editing is www.ryandor.com.

He didn't have the files up for download last time I was there but there's a ton of info on the forums.

Now for the tips:

Disclaimer: You paid nothing for my tips so assume they are worth what you paid. I have been known to give erroneous info in the past.

First, if you are insistant on creating your entire map from scratch, look into using punts utilities for the map creation. They are a bit different than Dragon but Punt has put a lot of work into them and from what I've heard they're top notch. I can vouch personally for his wfmap utility that let's you edit an already existing map and his wfmulti that lets you create structures and save them as files that can be imported into a map or merged into the client side multis files.

Second, when creating coast lines try to be as random as possible. Avoid angles and straight edges as those rarely occur in nature. Think fractal!

Third, mountains are tricky to get to look right, especially the far (North and West) sides. If they are too high near the edge of the range they just look wrong even though in nature mountains can have high edges.

Fourth, when creating underground caves, get help. I still can't seem to get that right. All my caves use a teleporter and ya get moved to the "dungeon" area of the map with mine.

Fifth, remember when drawing the map that every pixel is equal to one square of InGame real estate. I know that sounds obvious but it's easy to forget and make areas bigger than you think they are. When I worked on my map I added some marble tile areas that were going to be parts of an underground city. Well, needless to say there's one I call the "grand marble room" because it is huge.

Now if you want to get a basic map that you can build on check out http://members.cox.net/darkshard/

He has ready made maps created with Dragon and he sells them for a reasonable price. I admit I used one of his for my basic design and added to it. Most of them have small towns and cities and some of his structures are well, different. The map might need more cities depending on your taste. You will probably want to add more roads too. But all in all I would say for the beginning mapper, give him a try. He also has templates for dungeons that you can buy. When you buy a map from him you get the map and statics MUL files plus the BMP that he used to create the map so you can add to it, and using Dragon, create a customized map based on one of his. I think it's money well spent.

He is extremely helpful and I think he has the dragon utilities available for download.

Hope this is helpful Thanatos.