This is a guide on what is an acceptable map and what is unacceptable. Only acceptable maps will be put in the official Crossfire map distribution 1) Check that all exits lead where they are supposed to. Unless there is a specific reason an exit leads only one direction (like a trap door or perhaps a teleporter), players should be able to exit back from where they came from right when they enter the map. One way exits/entrances should only be used on objects in which it is obvious it is one way. A house is not an obvious one way entrance. Remember, players may not have the three hours of time it takes to find the exit after being trapped in a map. 2) Try to make sure the maps are multi player accessible. In towns, this means the road should be at least a couple squares wide, buildings should not be trapped in corners in which case one character standing in front blocks access, etc. Likewise, try to make corridors in dungeons or mazes a few squares wide - especially if there is only a single path. If it is a maze with several different paths, single width corridors are acceptable. 3) Don't put: 3.1) extremely valuable treasure right next to the entrance, or nearby. Players should need to work to get treasure. If the treasure is fairly worthless (food, or non magical items), this would be acceptable. But a character should not be able to pop in, pick up a potion, spellbook, or a lot of diamonds, and then pop out again, without ever meeting a monster. 3.2) Don't put monsters of high experience point near to entrance where they are trapped. Low level player could boost ther experience high by using some weapons or spells from distance wihtout danger. For example find out trapped troll and get wand of fireball. 4) Try to keep the treasure in line with the difficulty. 5 potions should not be given out for defeating orcs or gnolls (even if there are a lot of them), but if you need to defeat several dragons to get to the potions, that is fine. Likewise, if it is likely a lot of spells will be needed to defeat the monster, and those spells have a chance of destroying the items, then perhaps a few extra items to take this into consideration is not a bad idea. 5) Any character class should be able to completely solve the map. The map should not require dimension door or other specific spells to get into hidden treasure areas 6) If a map require multiple players to simultaneous be on it to solve the map, put a sign or message so players know. Such maps would be those that require manipulation of levers or buttons in certain sequences in order to get through gates. Don't make ends of maps require multi users. This ruins that map for single players (not able to complete it), and makes a map that requires multiple players for only a small portion. 7) Try not to make the maps too many levels deep. To get to the goal, it should not require a 6 hour continous sitting, as the player works through each map to get to the next. Multi level maps are fine - just don't over do it. 8) Shops: 8.1) Don't put super stores in any towns or villages you create. With the growing number of maps, players can already make a trip to all the different towns to try and find certain items. A one stop find all shop is not interesting. A good maximum size is about the same size of the shops in the starting village. Also, making six magic shops of that size and putting them in the same town is not any better than one large magic shop. If you want to have specialized shops, then make each shop smaller. If you just want one shop that sells every type of item (magic, armor, weapons, food, etc), then a large shop is permissable. 8.2) Make sure the entire interior the shop is covered with tiles. Likewise, don't put shops that lead to areas without tiles without going over one of the 'magic doormats'. A player should never be able to get an unpaid item out of a shop, whether via exit that does not go over the magic doormat, or through spells. 9) Don't make maps which require high level characters that low level characters can wonder into without warning. Put a warning sign nearby, or gates or doors so the player can see they are in over their head, instead of instantly getting toasted the second they enter the map. 10) The structure of the map should make sense. That is to say, if you enter a house, the house should then not have a tower inside. Or a door to a shop. In other words, if a map has an exit to another map, that exit should make sense (ie, another level, tunnels, dungeons all make sense. However, another building the size of the original does not make sense. 11) Try to keep the difficulty throughout the map(s) about the same. The first monster in the map should not be the most difficult monster, nor should the last monster be orders of magnitude more difficult than anything before it. It is very frustating to play a map, killing most every monster without much difficulty, only to find that last monster unkillable. It is reasonable to have the monster increase in difficulty. Also, if the map has no quest or end goal, then having a very difficult monster around is not unreasonable, as long as it does prevent the player from progressing to the next map. The following are various suggestions for making good or interesting maps. A map that does not need to follow all these hints to be accepted, but following these hints will make for more interesting or playable maps. 1) Try to create only small maps. If you have a large map in mind, try to see if you can possible split it up in several separate sections, and place those sections in different maps. Many small maps use much less memory than one large map, since crossfire doesn't yet support swapping of portions of maps. Also, with small maps, the time to load it from and store it to disc becomes so short that it's impossible to notice. In this context, small means about 32x32, though it's actually the number of objects in the map which count. Also, remember that if you make very large maps, all generators will be cranking out monsters whenever anyone is on it. This could mean that a lot of monsters have been generated before a player even gets to the area where they are being created. 2) Make a plot! A map withot a plot becomes just another mindless "Kill'em all". For instance, create a story which explains why there are npc's here and monsters there, fragment the story up and put bits and hints of it in various writables (books) and npc-conversations. If you are going to make a mindless kill them all map, at least put some reward in the map that can only be accessed after all the monsters have been killed. The only thing worse than a kill them all map is a kill them all map which you get nothing out of. Avoid maps where all the monsters are lined up, and only one can attack you at a time. This just makes an easy (and relatively safe) way for a character to gain experience and treasure, and is not especially interesting or challenging. 3) Make puzzles! Use all those different object types: buttons, handles, doors, altars, pedestals, triggers, timed gates, etc... Hide special "keys" needed to get further in special places, and use text-puzzles to describe where they are hidden and how they must be used. The possibilities are endless! Remember, you can also hide buttons under floors, making it more difficult for the character to find the trigger points. 4) But don't make too much big labyrinths. Making of labyrinths is (too) easy with crossedit, just select auto-joining and make zig-zag with mouse. But the results of these are quite tiring. If you make ones, try make some idea into it. 5) Give the npc's information! An npc's knowledge about hidden treasure surely makes it interesting to have a conversation with it. 6) Feel free to add some traps, but be careful to not make them too deadly without adequate warning. 7) Don't mix the monsters too badly. Let there be at least some logic behind why they are grouped in a single room. Undeads together with undeads, for instance, but not together with kobolds... Big dragons usually don't live together with mice... Fire immune creatures generally dislike ice immune creatures. Also, limit use of monsters that multiply rapidly (mice, slimes). A map that is easily overwhelmed with these creatures quickly becomes useless. 8) Give your maps a meaningfull name (like John's tower, level 1). This way, these can be used instead of the map paths in the highscore file. A few reminders: 1) If you are creating a new archetype, it only needs to go into the general archetype distribution if it has an image associated with it, or it has general use (a new monster). Something that uses already existing images can be set up in the map file itself (through setting various variables). 2) With XPM seeming to gain popularity, changing the color variables for objects on maps might not have any affect. This might mean something that might be obvious with the changed color is non obvious because with X Pixmaps, the color does not change (also, remember those people with monochrome systems are not likely to see the color change even if they don't use X Pixmaps.)