Mappers, how do you plan your world layout?

[Silba]

Hello, I've been developing a map on and off for years and have never had any clear direction. I've just mapped what I wanted at the time, made it look good and consistent with the rest of my map and that's it.
My map is growing outwards from my only city so far and while it's fun I'm definitely at the stage now where I want to start mapping more often and have collaborators on board so I can get my map finished before I'm dead.

How does everyone go about planning their map layout? How do you know what to map next? How do you know where the next river or mountain is?

 

[Nemphis]

I know that feeling. But i never finish my maps, i always start from scratch and copy-paste my favourit buildings and spawns to save time. Maybe thats my problem? Either way.

If you want your map to just be playable, without any special story you could just write down on a piece of paper on what you want on it. You need to remember that there needs to be places for all levels and usually low level places are directly located outside or below the city in one way or another. There could be high level places close to the city aswell, but you could make it so that low lvl players cant reach it cause of reasons(lvl door is just booring, could use levitate areas).

I just noticed that this is a hard question for me to answer, I dont really know what to say. I think most mappers dont have a general idea on what they want to do, they just do what you have done and keep on mapping. You cant plan something that you dont know. If you plan everything it wont end up like that anyway because your base idea evolves and you change your mind, back and forth changing areas completely or updated. Mountains and rivers and dense forest for me is just fillers to make the landscape look good for exception that mountains provide areas which could be used for spawns.

If you do plan to plan a plan. Start small like you have this city and it should have a safe road for players to walk on all the way to X place. Then you could just fill the surroudings

 

[Astir Lotus]

To add something to what @Nemphis said.
If you plan to plan a plan on something huge. Lets say a continent.
Break it down to smaller pieces. What's more important? Demon spawns or Rotworms? What is most relevant to the state of the map right now?
Do I really need this orshabaal before adding this amazon camp?
Do I need this huge capital? How can I break this down? Different areas in the city?

What is the most important thing to add right now?
Maybe you add this amazon camp, and later think that this needs to be somewhere else. Well, then move it and adapt it to the area.
The way I think when mapping my map, is to basically adapt the map tp what the player can do. Can the players kill demons at this point? No? Then don't add it.
Should I add this cyclops mountain when there's already 2 others in this area? Is there something more important to the players progression?

 

[Zell]

Same here as every mapper.

Actually im working thinking on exploration, 1 city 4 ways north south east west, in all you found different things, a sand, a mountain, snow etc, different places but for same lvl, and then some ways let you cross another small places, not huge map like empty greens areas with trees, and then you find another small city, you rest and again, have 3 more ways, again more places for explore.

And thats the way i work, always have new harder areas, a litle bit npc sidequest, and a small city to rest.

When you have already a Big base + typical islands around you Will need think on finish and start another continent because you can ruin the Gameplay if has a large areas that are not funy just stay waiting on map click like from venore to ab'.

 

[rlx]

Oh, that is the biggest problem I've encountered so far. Dozens of ideas for various content, locations etc. but overall no clue how to fuse it into one senseful body.

In my particular example, I came back 1,5yrs ago with heavy desire to make something I would like to play from the base I've made 14 years ago. It was quite a nice map back then for a local server for 30-40 people. However nowadays it fits into "thanks for not aborting me" meme.

The long process of map making results in changing my mind or coming with new ideas so often that I can't properly finish 90% of things I start.
in the process I came into conclusion that making decent map elements from scratch is so hard for me that I've come up with an idea.
Because there are already many maps and servers released in the web, especialy at Otland, so I take them and just take favourie, good looking or necessary elements from them - sometimes a building, a small place and sometimes whole mountains, spawn areas etc - and hoard them in a separate file. As a result half of my map is taken from other servers/rl Tibia maps, neatly changed, retouched and joined together - and there goes most of my work, to make it looks as it is one consistent world.

 

[Blackstone]

I personally do not have that issue but here is what I do and that helps me:

I choose a very simple style, make a lot of content in a month (not just shaping), sometimes I look at existing maps to see how they were organized. It doesn't need to be well detailed overall but concentrate on which areas/spawns for what levels you want to place where and how far a walk between cities shall be. Rivers are placed wherever I feel like it (usually I look on the minimap and divide the map logically into pieces).
Just do some structural work first. The advantage is that you can easily redesign certain areas and improve your thoughts. Later on you can revamp those parts and go deeper into detailing.
I also tend to have "natural borders", the continents do not be complete but you can actually block paths by using trees/fallen down rocks, what so ever. That helps you to have your map in a playable state at all times.
Once you have a map of a certain size (a couple of villages/cities/spawns) you can easily extend that map. It will be easier from that point because you see the bigger picture already and usually have a vision of the map.

It's usually good to start with low level spawns and slowly go up the levels until you feel like there is enough spawns for all "stages".

Cheers
Blackstone

 

[zbizu]

tp room lul

 

[Artis]

I have no problem with finishing my maps but the last time i didnt have a free time for finish this one. do i need some patience and should do it xD

 

[Silba]

I know that feeling. But i never finish my maps, i always start from scratch and copy-paste my favourit buildings and spawns to save time. Maybe thats my problem? Either way.

If you want your map to just be playable, without any special story you could just write down on a piece of paper on what you want on it. You need to remember that there needs to be places for all levels and usually low level places are directly located outside or below the city in one way or another. There could be high level places close to the city aswell, but you could make it so that low lvl players cant reach it cause of reasons(lvl door is just booring, could use levitate areas).

I just noticed that this is a hard question for me to answer, I dont really know what to say. I think most mappers dont have a general idea on what they want to do, they just do what you have done and keep on mapping. You cant plan something that you dont know. If you plan everything it wont end up like that anyway because your base idea evolves and you change your mind, back and forth changing areas completely or updated. Mountains and rivers and dense forest for me is just fillers to make the landscape look good for exception that mountains provide areas which could be used for spawns.

If you do plan to plan a plan. Start small like you have this city and it should have a safe road for players to walk on all the way to X place. Then you could just fill the surroudings

This is reassuring and some great insight, thank you.

To add something to what @Nemphis said.
If you plan to plan a plan on something huge. Lets say a continent.
Break it down to smaller pieces. What's more important? Demon spawns or Rotworms? What is most relevant to the state of the map right now?
Do I really need this orshabaal before adding this amazon camp?
Do I need this huge capital? How can I break this down? Different areas in the city?

What is the most important thing to add right now?
Maybe you add this amazon camp, and later think that this needs to be somewhere else. Well, then move it and adapt it to the area.
The way I think when mapping my map, is to basically adapt the map tp what the player can do. Can the players kill demons at this point? No? Then don't add it.
Should I add this cyclops mountain when there's already 2 others in this area? Is there something more important to the players progression?

Haven't really considered the players point of view much, I'll have to keep that in mind from now on. Thanks for the pointers

Same here as every mapper.

Actually im working thinking on exploration, 1 city 4 ways north south east west, in all you found different things, a sand, a mountain, snow etc, different places but for same lvl, and then some ways let you cross another small places, not huge map like empty greens areas with trees, and then you find another small city, you rest and again, have 3 more ways, again more places for explore.

And thats the way i work, always have new harder areas, a litle bit npc sidequest, and a small city to rest.

When you have already a Big base + typical islands around you Will need think on finish and start another continent because you can ruin the Gameplay if has a large areas that are not funy just stay waiting on map click like from venore to ab'.

Oh right, that sounds pretty cool. I'm definitely going to keep this in mind when making my map now, thanks a lot

Oh, that is the biggest problem I've encountered so far. Dozens of ideas for various content, locations etc. but overall no clue how to fuse it into one senseful body.

In my particular example, I came back 1,5yrs ago with heavy desire to make something I would like to play from the base I've made 14 years ago. It was quite a nice map back then for a local server for 30-40 people. However nowadays it fits into "thanks for not aborting me" meme.

The long process of map making results in changing my mind or coming with new ideas so often that I can't properly finish 90% of things I start.
in the process I came into conclusion that making decent map elements from scratch is so hard for me that I've come up with an idea.
Because there are already many maps and servers released in the web, especialy at Otland, so I take them and just take favourie, good looking or necessary elements from them - sometimes a building, a small place and sometimes whole mountains, spawn areas etc - and hoard them in a separate file. As a result half of my map is taken from other servers/rl Tibia maps, neatly changed, retouched and joined together - and there goes most of my work, to make it looks as it is one consistent world.

I haven't really considered using other peoples work, I'll have to check what's available and maybe do some copy+pasting+integrating with some parts of my map, it sounds like a good idea to add content without spending too long and never finishing. Thanks for the idea!

I personally do not have that issue but here is what I do and that helps me:

I choose a very simple style, make a lot of content in a month (not just shaping), sometimes I look at existing maps to see how they were organized. It doesn't need to be well detailed overall but concentrate on which areas/spawns for what levels you want to place where and how far a walk between cities shall be. Rivers are placed wherever I feel like it (usually I look on the minimap and divide the map logically into pieces).
Just do some structural work first. The advantage is that you can easily redesign certain areas and improve your thoughts. Later on you can revamp those parts and go deeper into detailing.
I also tend to have "natural borders", the continents do not be complete but you can actually block paths by using trees/fallen down rocks, what so ever. That helps you to have your map in a playable state at all times.
Once you have a map of a certain size (a couple of villages/cities/spawns) you can easily extend that map. It will be easier from that point because you see the bigger picture already and usually have a vision of the map.

It's usually good to start with low level spawns and slowly go up the levels until you feel like there is enough spawns for all "stages".

Cheers
Blackstone

Thanks for the insight, this is going to be really helpful, appreciate it mate!

tp room lul

Been there done that haha time for a more casual RPG experience

I have no problem with finishing my maps but the last time i didnt have a free time for finish this one. do i need some patience and should do it xD

Do it!




Thanks for the replies everyone, I'm definitely going to read this thread a few times before opening my map editor. Appreciate it.