Cultivating Your MMO Ideas - Wizards and Warriors: Massively Multiplayer Online Game Creation - page 56

Map Research
Making the various maps that you will need in your MMO can be quite a task.
You can make things easier by using other sources as inspiration. Some ideas:

n Landscape books : You can purchase or borrow a landscape book from
the library.
n Topology maps: Topology maps show different land/sea surfaces on a
map, such as mountain and sea heights.
n Google maps and real places : Google Maps is an extremely useful tool
for creating games based on different landscapes and places. If you are
making a game that

s based on the real world, for example being
located in America or in the United Kingdom today, you can use
Google Maps to help you start making your game maps. If you are
going to create a game that is slightly older, such as a gangster game
in the 1950s, Google Maps may still help as you will be able to find
the old parts of a city that haven

'

t actually changed that much from a
layout point of view. You may have to look at historical documents
to get a better overall picture, though.
n Aerial maps : There are many photographic resources (including Google
and topics mentioned previously) that allow you to get a bird

'

s eye view
of a particular landscape. These can form the basis of very useful
examples while building your own worlds. Want to know what features
you might see in the countryside or in a desert? By consulting real-life
pictures you can get an idea of how the land and buildings are
structured. If you are making a game that is not based on the earth, such
as the New Colony example, you can still use real life to get some
inspiration and ideas. You may have to make some changes to
represent your world if it is wildly different than the world you
live in.
n Historical maps : If you are making an MMO game based on a
particular time frame, such as a medieval-based game (even if it

'

' s not

based on a true historical time perhaps you are making a knight game

with modern technology), historical maps can be filled with useful
information.

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