Anyone interested in building?

[Solaghar]

Many people in the game probably have thought, "Oh I wish I could make such and such an area but I don't know how to build." Well, if you're one of those people, this summer is the time to start building! I'm going to have the time available to help you learn the simple art of building. It's really nothing too complicated and I'll make myself available to answer all of your questions.

What can we do? Well for your first area my suggestion would be for a simple area for low-mid level players that is focused on levelling with a single good quest. Many people start building cities or temples and I think this is probably a bit rough because it requires making a ton of items, shops and other slightly more complex things, especially a large number of quests or things to do which a normal city will contain. If you don't put enough of these things in your city, probably no one will ever find reason to go there, but a levelling area with a fun quest will get a lot of reuse by players. A levelling area is more fun, more useful to the game and requires simply a small area and some dangerous mobs to wander around in it, along with perhaps a few quest-related monsters and some equipment that would be directly used. That isn't to say a levelling area should be simple, but rather that it's often a very simple thing to begin with.

Some examples of simple levelling areas in the game currently would be Howling Peaks, Shilmista, Skull Caverns, Acid Aerie, Blobdlipbop Harbor, Rat Hill, etc. If you can come up with some ideas here, and you think you can write some descriptions and copy a few variables, you too can be a builder! So if you're interested in trying, post! If you want to take a small try I can let you do a little work in an area I'm building now to get a hang of some of the basics. If you want to run an idea past me, I can help you get it going and we can discuss the feasibility of it. But building is a lot of fun, and it's a great way to get more involved in the game. Nothing feels better than seeing some people go through an area you built and designed and they love it, it's way more rewarding to me than almost anything else you can do in this game. With more builders being trained in the game, we can also make things more fun and exciting, as we'll have more areas being built, and also new areas will get into the game faster as we'll also have testers, so it's a big benefit for everyone!

[Algon]

I am interested in building and would be extremely grateful for any tips on the best way to get started on this.

[Solaghar]

Well let's think of some ideas you have for an area. The best thing to do honestly is to think of the kind of place you'd like to see in the game but doesn't exist, its best to fulfill some need that isn't there. For instance with some of your characters, do you find some levels tedious because there's only one place you can go to adventure safely? For example I saw that Skullport was really boring as a starting city for new players because of a lack of things to do there. So I added both Haroloth-Magthere which is a combined fighters guild and levelling area, then Skull Caverns, which is simply an area to fight, make some money and a simple quest. These two areas which are both pretty simple have made Skullport a much better place.

Then think of a kind of theme you'd like for your area... who is it for? A forest type area would be good for rangers and nature-themed players, underground regions would be good for drow, dwarves and explorers, etc. I'm sure you can think of something easily enough. It's OK to build something your own character would like, after all, you're the one building it, haha. Once you have your idea, you can grab a piece of paper and start mapping it out simply. I use graph paper when I've got it, just a circle for each room and lines to connect them. You can add some notes to it. If you follow my suggestion of building an adventuring area, then you'd start thinking about what kinds of monsters are populating this area and what the overall 'story' is behind it. This will also give you an idea about what your quest will be. If you tell me some ideas you have, I can give some suggestions about which would be easy to code and helpful to the game!

[Algon]

If we come up with an idea for something, do we need to get approval before really working on it? It would not be fun to put a lot of time into something and then find out that it is not needed in game right now.

[Harroghty]

Yes, you would need approval. Please follow the guidelines laid out in help new builders. Feel free to look for ideas in the suggestion post that outlines what we are currently looking for and gives some suggested ideas (you are not confined to those ideas though).

In general, the old TSR books are fantastic resources for ideas. The "Volo's Guides" in particular offer all kinds of local color for you to build upon.

[Solaghar]

There's nothing wrong with brainstorming to get an idea you're excited about first though, but yeah, then you need to get approval once you've got it ready before you do the work of actually building, haha!