Valikorlia...

[kaddar]

Cry. Those images are saddening.

Here is kaddar's rules of levelmaking, some of these should have been followed in this case:

-Good trees - I tend to connect most of my trees, some people say tree connecting "sux" and that you should put random small trees and large trees together, but I disagree.

-Never have a level edge without a link, this rule prevents people from thinking "OH HEY LETS WALK OVER HERE" and then walk into a wall.

-Grass tiles should be random, I even had about 30 different random 10x10 sets of tiles I would mix and match for levels

-No open areas with nothing in it, even if you can't put an npc, put a sign, put a joke, put SOMETHING. Otherwise you are torturing your players

-Speed is not better than quality, I find that 5 good levels are much better than 25 bad ones. Many people are surprised when I tell them old val only had about 48 outdoor levels excluding frost. Why is this? The levels are varied and not square.

-Level generator is dangerous, you can use it to make an entire server, but you probably shouldn't. It's useful for making the base of an area, but you need to vary the terrain in that area afterwards. Edit each level individually, the only good of it is really mountains and quick tree edges. I don't like it because people with connect map off often get messed up when playing on servers (they can use it to go through barriers)

-Make indoor areas as soon as possible, I find many servers go and make the outdoor levels and say "oh, I'll do the indoor stuff later". They end up having doors with no links that players endlessly touch. I put this borded up door image I made back in old old graal on the door, and I usually don't NEED to because I make the indoor levels very soon, if not right after making an outdoor level.

-Explain where the player is, have signs, a minimap, and make sure they know where they are and where they are going. Nothing is more annoying than a player saying "where do I go to get to farms!?". Have a help booth or a website even that explains general newbie areas.

-Make new images, if you need to make ice, or a special intro sign, or something, go ahead and make the image for it. Wall ambience is nice in houses. If you're making a castle, make some npcs for knights in armor. Whenever I make a set of levels, I build a series of images as needed as I go. Background ambience can make one level seem like it is two.

-Have side stories that have no real purpose, I find that it makes players say "ohh, neat" when you have lots of npcs sitting around saying "I killed a monster north yesterday, he was big and green". Players will know where things are better and be more adventurous.

Thanks for reading. If there is anyone who plans to create a playerworld and wants to know how I would map for it, this should help.