maps and creativity

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@soda.berkeley.edu>]

  I'm wondering if it is a good idea to have a 'standard' distribution
of maps.  tvangod's world is really cool, and it gives his server a
unique flavor--he and his crew have done an extremely good job with
their maps, they're mostly balanced and well-integrated.

  What I'm basically saying is that I'd really hate it if every server
had the exact same set of maps!

  I think it'd be ideal if everyone had their own high-level maps,
and took a little time to integrate other maps into a larger picture.


I propose this:  a central location to get smaller maps of various levels
for plugging into your own customized server-world, and archive these
by level of difficulty.

Here's a directory heirarchy I might envision:

level1-3maps/	level4-6maps/	level7-9maps/	level10-12maps/ .....
towns/		worlds/


where if you cd level7-9maps/ you'd see:

something like:
CTower/		firequest/	runedeath/
CTower.abstract		firequest.abstract	runedath.abstract


CTower/ contains the .tgz maps, and CTower.abstract is something by
the author describing the map.

Here's an example abstract:
--------------------
top level map: CTower/CTower
rating: 7-9
CTower  --	the Tower of the Stars
		by Peter Mardahl (peterm@soda.berkeley.edu)


A quest for the comet spell.  Players must question monsters to obtain
passwords to the higher levels of the Tower, and destroy progressively
more difficult monsters.  At the top of the tower is a weak lich, 
a spellbook of comet, the Luggage, and miscellanous stuff.

I rate the quest at level 7-9, though single players might have problems
with that lich.
-------------------------


  Dividing up the maps into levels like that might not be practical,
but every map should have an abstract.  Right now the maps are chaos,
and someone would have to examine a map to know if was what he wanted
or not.

  This idea is only half-baked, so I'd welcome comments.  Anyone willing
to maintain a map archive?  I'd do it, except I prefer to code.  This is
a perfect project for a non-coder.  Probably to start someone should
just collect and write (where necessary) abstracts.

Regards,

PeterM