Posted by The Arcane(VIP) on October 16, 2000 at 06:23:08:
In Reply to: Amazing Mazes posted by Soren(VIP) on October 16, 2000 at 05:52:19:
Ysigrath = Good Maze Arboria Graveyard, Thar-Acacia, Sands of Sorrow = Bad Maze Suicides' Wood = Sadism --- Ysigrath took me two hours to figure out when I went there as Challen, years ago. Now that I know it, I can run between all major points quickly and without even pausing to look around most of the time. This is a challenging, yet rewarding, area design. Whistlewood is a bit randomized, but enough of it is static that learning key landmarks allows me to navigate to where I need to go fairly quickly, assuming I don't mind running into tough aggro mobs. Small randomized areas are fine... stuff like the Void, or the Shire mazes... they serve to slow you down a bit, and make it tricky to escape/chase in there if you need to in a heated PK situation. But when you get a few dozen randomized rooms linked together, it just plain sucks. It's not fun at all, and it's not really challenging... it's just tedious. And even if you've been someplace a dozen times, all you can really do is wander until you get lucky. Yes, there are brute-force algorithms that work, but these are still tedious as hell. No valuable knowledge is gained from going through and learning these areas, as you'll just have to do it again next time... or 15 minutes later, if you take too long.
Whistlewood = Pretty Good Maze