Ra'Dorcha
12-21-2001, 08:25 AM
The Problem with Zones
While zones are really useful, they aren't all smiley faces and puppy dogs. If you're not careful, they can really mess up players' sense of reality. The world does have some artificial distinctions — California is different from Nevada, and Berkeley is different from San Francisco, and the United States is different from Afghanistan — but they're not as abrupt as the differences that you often see between zones in an online game.
So, if you're using zones in your online game, you should carefully consider one rule: don't make zones entirely discrete. As with the real world, try and blend one zone into the next. Try and mention the background of one zone in another. Try and make your transitions between adjacent zones gradual. Every once in a while, hide a puzzle piece from one zone elsewhere. You'll still get all the benefits of a zoned game, but you'll also be creating a more realistic world.
Back in my early days of mudding, I played a DikuMud. My character was one of those healer types cause I was last person to join and the last person in our group was always the healer. I was fairly proud of the fact that in a game with 50 levels, I was approaching 30th level and had never died. Not once. I was following our parties secondary leader to kill a few dwarves, upon entering their zone, you would go north 3 times, east once, then north twice to reach the 1st guard we were going to kill. Well my briliant leader hit east like 5 times. Unbenowst to us, the admins had just added a new area that way. So insteaded of fighting dwarves we knew we could take, 5 storm giants pounded us before we knew what had happened.
I bring this up as an example of how zones should not be mixed. Mechanics wise, they placed an are for 40th level people right next to one for 25th level. Conceptualy, they stuck giants next to dwarves, not that it matter much cause a few rooms over was moria with goblins and the real minor monsters.
That was probably when I myself started to understand not only that a world should flow smoothly, but that designers really need to map out their words. Many areas overlapped if you actually drew them out.
idly mused by Ra'
While zones are really useful, they aren't all smiley faces and puppy dogs. If you're not careful, they can really mess up players' sense of reality. The world does have some artificial distinctions — California is different from Nevada, and Berkeley is different from San Francisco, and the United States is different from Afghanistan — but they're not as abrupt as the differences that you often see between zones in an online game.
So, if you're using zones in your online game, you should carefully consider one rule: don't make zones entirely discrete. As with the real world, try and blend one zone into the next. Try and mention the background of one zone in another. Try and make your transitions between adjacent zones gradual. Every once in a while, hide a puzzle piece from one zone elsewhere. You'll still get all the benefits of a zoned game, but you'll also be creating a more realistic world.
Back in my early days of mudding, I played a DikuMud. My character was one of those healer types cause I was last person to join and the last person in our group was always the healer. I was fairly proud of the fact that in a game with 50 levels, I was approaching 30th level and had never died. Not once. I was following our parties secondary leader to kill a few dwarves, upon entering their zone, you would go north 3 times, east once, then north twice to reach the 1st guard we were going to kill. Well my briliant leader hit east like 5 times. Unbenowst to us, the admins had just added a new area that way. So insteaded of fighting dwarves we knew we could take, 5 storm giants pounded us before we knew what had happened.
I bring this up as an example of how zones should not be mixed. Mechanics wise, they placed an are for 40th level people right next to one for 25th level. Conceptualy, they stuck giants next to dwarves, not that it matter much cause a few rooms over was moria with goblins and the real minor monsters.
That was probably when I myself started to understand not only that a world should flow smoothly, but that designers really need to map out their words. Many areas overlapped if you actually drew them out.
idly mused by Ra'