In this article I hope to give inspiration and ideas to the new people who are desperate to get themselves and their scenarios noticed. If you follow these steps your scenarios should be great!

Thou Shalt See Other Maps

Before you jump into your scenario it is a very good idea to take a deep breath and look at other popular maps on AOMH. In the downloads section, there is a best files topic that only includes files rated 4.0 or higher by official reviewers. Although you might not see these being hosted, they are definitely worth checking out. You can see these files here. When you are looking at these, you will need to observe a few things. Lets start by the idea, an original idea tends to go down well with reviewers. Also pay attention to gameplay and eyecandy, are there any twists? And above all a storyline, more on that later.

Thou Shalt Be Original

No experienced designer likes to see another supremacy/escape/zelda clone. Lack of originality shows carelessness. They want to see new scenarios, with maybe a whole new concept! A good way to do this is having a Minigames Scenario or a minigame map. You can fit quite a few ideas in and some of them are bound to be original.

If you really are stuck for ideas, and cant think of anything that hasn't been done before, you could make an escape (or something else) but put a twist on it. I have seen an autoescape by Dannick where there are 3 teams of humans battling it out against each other and the hunters to survive. I myself started out by making twists on classic games - it can be extremely fun! Great ideas make great scenarios.

Thou Shalt Design Logically

It is usually always best to start a bit of terrain first and then do the triggers for that section. I really do not recommend doing them in big blocks as that can be very misleading.

Name your triggers, this is imperative. If you find a bug later on and you know its when Player 1 invokes rain, it would be far easier to find if you had taken the time to name your triggers rather than trawl through Trigger_1 to Trigger_47. This is a great timesaver - even in small scenarios.

Common sense is also a good thing to have. Make sure you have searched all the guide threads for anything to make your life easier. If you have random events, and want it all in one trigger, I strongly advise nottud's conditional effect triggers that can be found in his Editor Superpack.

Thou Shalt Have Cinematics

Cinematics are a god send. They force the players to listen to what you have to say. If you put all your instructions in the objectives banner, your map will be doomed to fail. The people who already know what to do will have pwned the other players in the time it takes them to read, and that's if they bother reading them at all! A cinematic can tell stories, lay out instructions or give hints. I recommend you have one at the start of your scenario to let the new people know what is going on.

But what makes a good cinematic? Just plain boring instructions will get people pressing alt f4 and begging for mercy. You need camera tracks giving good sight to some action, maybe a narrator or a fight. Music is also a must have to engage the players. Playing in silence is one of the big map killers, but it can be solved by having custom taunts but you reply completely on the players for that - never a good thing to do. Icons are also a great thing to have. Try some unique ones. If you have nxe3there will be a nice big list in the editor. You could also add dialog effects like fading text, if you have enough time.

A few good triggers to use are fade to colour and play dialog. Remember, including a : makes everything in front of it yellow and is great for names in play dialog.

Thou Shalt Use Grammar!

Grammar. You may disregard this but it tells the players a lot about you. If you were reading a cinematic what format would you prefer to see?:

TO PLAY TIS MAP GET UR MINO INTO DA PIT!!!!! - This is the worst thing you could do. It shows the designer did not even have enough intelligence to turn caps lock off and repeated use of exclamation marks is a big no-no. Bad words also show lack of care.

To ply thrw other mino in pit be4 u get thrown in 2! - A bit better but still bad. Most designers who use grammar treat this intro as a completely different language and fail to understand any of it. If they don't get the map, they'll resign before you can say 'Wait!'

To play, throw all your enemies into the pit of death before they do the same to you! - Perfect. Nice capital letters and a nice long text that could not confuse anyone. This is the type of grammar to go for, make sure you use it everywhere. It also makes sense. Word order is important too.

If you use grammar everywhere and have clear instructions, the 'What do I do?' messages will become increasingly less common and only used by people who cant read.

Thou Shalt Trigger Well!

Everyone loves good balanced triggers. Favouring in one players favour is especially dangerous. Your map will be seen as rigged and shunned. Make sure you test extensively to make sure bugs cannot give players advantage either.

High priority is so important it is nearly a commandment in itself. If your start trigger is not high priority, people will have a few seconds to act before the cinematic kicks in. High priority is a must for at least 90% of your triggers.

Also pay care to coding. If you are using colour code be especially careful. One wrong symbol and you get a trigger block. Your whole map could fall to bits if you do not locate these using a logical search method. This involves saving a backup and then deleting groups of triggers to narrow it down until you can find it and correct it.

Thou Shalt Eyecandy!

Not exactly needed but its still vital. Having just one terrain will show complete lack of care and people wont even bother to play your map. Mix the terrain and add embellishment objects like rocks and trees.

This leads me onto eyecandy critics. If one of these people get hold of your map and see a single thor hammer out of line, you can expect your score to take a dive. If you align objects perfectly, add embellishments and mix the terrain, you will give them no reason to do that. If you can get a 4 or a 5 from an eyecandy critic - you have done a great job! Its usually good to seek the critics out and ask them to playtest your map and take a look at eyecandy. They usually have loads of experience and can give you great tips.

Screenshots in showcases usually give people their first opinion. Eyecandy makes sure its a good one.

If you are bad at eyecandy (like myself) maybe enlist someone else to help you with the map, there's nothing wrong with that. Don't think that eyecandy is irrelevant. It is true that triggers are far more important than eyecandy, but totally ignoring it will make you number 1 on the eyecandy critics hit list.

Thou Shalt Have A Story!

Stories are the things that get people interested. nobody really wants to do an rpg if you just go around mass killing. Stories can turn the most dull RPG into something fun. Maybe something has been stolen and you have been sent to retrieve it? An old cliche is that the person who sent you is really the bad guy. Few people can pull this off well, and I would advise against it. Another old favourite is where you have to fight the map maker! I believe it was I that thought of that back in The Eternity Game (That never got released (Correct me if I'm wrong)).

A good ending always leaves people drooling for more. That way you could make a sequel or two. Make sure you end with a bang rather than a whimper. A gigantic battle scene with lots of special effects and loud noises is a lot better than just some text and a few camera cuts.

Thou Shalt Showcase!

If you don't showcase, nobody is going to know about your scenario. The most important thing is a good title. If you have a good reputation you don't need to worry, as just your name will attract people in. but if you are new you do not have that luxury. Try making the title sound as exciting as possible. At the top you might need a good banner, or at least some big text. Thou shalt know thine BB Code too. If you just have streams of text with no connectives or anything people will think its an eyesore and run away screaming.

Maybe have nice neat section like this guide, and clearly list your points. Tables are great too if you know how. A good tip is not to set a deadline until you are at least 50% through the project or people will hound you for it and that will take away precious test time. Its also a good idea to underestimate your progress. This makes you look really fast and releasing it ahead of your estimated deadline with everything done correctly also adds to your reputation.

Thou Shalt Bug Test!

Bug testing is your final obstacle. No matter how perfect you think your map is, you should test at least 25 times. Universal law dictates that as soon as you release your map and have given it to about 50 people, you will find a major bug. Bug testing is your last chance to avoid it. Don't let deadlines pressurise you. You will need to test every eventuality, consider every movement a player could make. Only then are you ready to release your map.

Conclusion

Hope the experienced designers also enjoyed the long read, and I hope the new people find it useful too. If you have anything to add please reply. Also say what you think of the guide.

Happy new year to you all, and watch out for the Battlefield Briefing!

[This message has been edited by Yeebaagooon (edited 06-06-2010 @ 04:00 AM).]