I thought we could have a discussion on what you think makes a good area and what players and imms think are common pitfalls. My information might be slightly outdated as I have not explored in a couple of years. I might also have missed some obvious purpose with some areas and if so, just spank me.

Usually the further away from central thera the area is the more rewarding it has to be to be worth going there. For example Trothon, it occasionally gets visitors because the rewards for going through it is pretty good. But on the other hand a place like the Ship Graveyard is hidden away in a remote place, under water and behind a semi maze. I know there are some rewards but usually when you can get those you have better from other places. To spice up and make an area like that frequented you need either better equipment from it so it can be a good regear place or a much better ranking place. Crystal Island is in a similar situation but atleast there you can get slightly better ranking and a polearm, but generally it only very paranoid people who end up there. One solution could be to move areas like those to increase there popularity. For example replace siren island with crystal island and move the ship yard so it is easy to find in aryth and add some better ranking mobs. Then just remove western aryth all together. I don't think cf really needs that many places to hide.

Good areas can be completely different but have a clear purpose and add a lot to the game. Loch Grynmear and Drogran Hills are completely different types of areas but both add tons to cf. Loch with the wonderful quests and puzzling and Drogran for being a good ranking area (lots of solo mobs without annoying abilities) close to a heavy traffic road. It also have some pieces of eq that fits a slot that is hard to fill for mages (bracers).

A bad area would in my opinion be Hardan Wood. It has no clear purpose at all. It is out of the way, it has death traps, falling damage, mazes and aggro mobs. Ranking is not very good and exploring feels more like looking after hidden containers than solving a puzzle. So the few rewards does not make up for it being such a pain and its lack of atmosphere does not help either.

Compare this to areas like Whistlewood were atleast I fast got a good "feeling" of the place and the rewards are also great. It has danger but no "stupid" danger like Hardan even though they have similarities. More great areas are K'tengs, Calandryl and veran for example, all for different reasons.

Some classic things I dislike about areas:
Too long mob names, like High Priest Nightgaunt aldandadakh'ofe of the third circle in the moon stands here.

Too much equipment on mobs that are just fodder. If you have 20 guard mobs they all does not have to have 5-6 pieces of eq.

Lowbie mobs that have things that should be higher level and on harder mobs. a sword named 'something cool' should not be level 12.

Too many hidden exits, like the path close to keep of the Fhalaugash. I guess it supposed to show thick forest when you have tons of rooms with none exits, but it just feels annoying.

This is not meant as an attack or anything, just want to get a feel what everyone(imms and players) feels are great areas and why. I also did not mention arboria etc obvious reasons.

Most places that are fun to explore have these stupid mazes at the entrance to them. Not sure for what reason but to tack on time and boredom factor. Mists near Thar Acacia is a good example...*yawn*

Add to this list mazes that have deathtraps strewn into the midst so you need to look in each direction.

I personally like ranking area with mobs spread out/that dont cluster. I think they should be spread out for a reason and not just to make a ranking area. Arial prisoners in cages was a good idea to spread out some mobs for realistic purposes. Drow students studying in their private chambers...There has to be a reason for single mobs to be in a room all the time.

I would like to see more variety of artifact items/weapons. More prog weapons of diferent types. More specialty armor that doesnt come from Silent TOwer or Hell. example: It gets boring when all hero paladins use the same two or three weapons. Make more!!

Puzzles and quests in areas need to be reasonable as well. Loch Grymnear is a good example of a good quest. It is obtainable with moderate effort.

I personally feel that having more would be a bad thing.

As it is, the reason all paladins use the same few weapons is that they are clearly superior to others.

However, if you then make a wider range of superior weapons, then everyone will have one, and it will be either overpowered or simply "prog-inflation". Either way, they will become less special, unless you keep the few better than the rest, and in that situation the same paladins will keep getting them.

(I use paladins as you did. Could be any class.)

Three key elements:

1. People should want to rank there.

2. People should want to get some items from there.

3. People will need to go through it to get to areas that have #1 and #2 above.

Every good area should have at least two of the three. I also think solid ranking areas should have some "overlap"; maybe nice ranking for level 25 to 35 evils, and nice ranking for level 30 to 40 goodies (but that's just my opinion). Fosters PK conflict, which is all good.

I agree with the comment about too much equipment on "fodder" or ranking mobs. There's a few tools we have to address this in the design process.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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I think overlapping ranking areas are way too few. Out of the age old ranking area list I can only find 6 ranking areas with overlap of good anevil ranking, and out of those, I can only see a few seeing any major PK situations. Would be real nice to see more brawling over ranking spots.

I definitely agree that we don't need to be spamming every place with 500 pieces of EQ on the ground after an hour or so of ranking. I did want to note though that in some cases that gear being around offers a great ranking advantage. Whether that is encouraged is out of my hands, just don't forget =).

Yeah, that can help out a lot. My idea wouldn't so much remove all that gear as it would be to limit when it appears.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go tinkering with existing areas. Just new ones, as they get designed and implemented.

Evermoon is safe!

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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I thought that was well-written and pretty cool input. Most everything you wrote about makes sense, and gives room for even more thought (and the more experienced imms up here give lots of good thought already)!

Personally, I think some areas do not need to have any beneficiary rewards at all. Sort of like the world itself - not every part of it is frequented or beautiful, yet it likely contains some bit of culture or characteristic that makes it a unique location on the map. People can choose to explore the place, or they can choose to go somewhere more interesting or rewarding. And I don't think it's a waste that not a lot of people are always within an area doing or getting something - wouldn't that be somewhat fake, that every place is popular and beneficiary?

Sometimes I go or stumble upon a remote place, and use it for rp purposes the next time round. A Fortressite or Scion? Maybe that old, ugly place with nothing but death traps could teach something, or maybe you could use it as duel death grounds. Maybe that gorgeous paradise could be used to hold a wedding, or maybe you could try to soil it or act all morbid there. Areas are there to be used, and those are just some illustrations.

On another note, some personal little peeves of mine are places with real winding paths, and even worse, death traps scattered about them. That's because I run about like a blind mouse in such places, and dislike stopping every step just to make sure I'm ok. And places that take up a lot of mv while walking, only to hit a dead end and needing to walk back...heh. (You can tell I'm pretty lazy in this aspect.)

Things I like are good layouts, interesting or fancy things for sale, and a streak of creativity (Voralia toy shop! Seaport food.) I like the whole of Seantryn for those reasons, and also the very useful and simple palace there. Another thing I like, is that surreal feeling I get when in certain areas like Trothon, Coral Palace, Thar-Acacia, etc..it makes me feel happy just to be in them. Anyway, that's all I can think of for now! :)

Well, what makes a good area?

Personally I think that a good example of a good area is Mortorn. (Except that as far as I know there is almost no exit once you've entered the spiked tunnel except going through all the duergars? But I haven't fully explored it at lvl 51 for 6 years since Tar Valon existed so I could be wrong.)

Mazes are always good, the truly are. Hidden exits are also cool if something in the room description can someway lead you to it.
Puzzels and quests are good stuff to.

I also agree about the long names on the mobs, they are fine if there are some keywords taken from the name. But I have encountered some mobs that doesn't have a key word that is in their name and I'm ending up attacking 5. or something like that, witch can screw things up a bit if you do something wrong.

Yeah, crystal island is a good example of something that could need a change. When I first got there it was after 1 hour of searching, I was truly happy to find it and me and my group mate started to explore it. Found nothing of value for us there witch was quite a disapointment because we really did have a hard time there. (To low lvls perhaps? We were 35 and 38 at the time I believe?)

Well, to conclude it all I'd say that there are FAR more really kickass super areas than there are even medioker ones, and I have yet to see a "bad area". :D Though I miss Tar Valon.