I'm in the process of making a Resident Evil RP, to improve my terraining skillz. I'm using Vrael's template so triggers aren't a problem. What are some design necessities and bad ideas I should know about for RPS? I don't RP much. I already know to call the heroes H instead of Jill or w/e.

I find Sie_Sayokas layout to be MUCH MUCH better.
Heres one of his maps if your interested:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?xwytzwgnwdz

Anyways, with that said...

TERRAIN

Basically, the Terrain is the most important thing in an rp *apart from the spawning*.
You need to add extended terrain every here and there. But if your no good with extended terrain, either dont do the extended terrain or go learn how to do extended terrain.
You may not be good with extended terrain. You may THINK you are good with ET (Extended Terrain), but you may not. So i suggest hosting a map and letting people see your ET, and let them draw their conclusion.

Anyways, do the terrain first, then add doodads. Since you are making a Resident Evil RP, make some terrain buildings via the Rectangular Terrain Tool.

SPAWNING
Now, there isint much to say on the spawning, since your already using Vrael's (or Sie_Sayoka's) layout. However, it would be wise to add some things as your own. Such as mass zombie spawn, group spawn etc.
Other then that, your spawning is pretty much done.

THE FUN
We dont want to play on a non interesting RP. What made Lathirion so famous is that there was a mountain. Or I could be thinking of Feyvern...Or both.
Anyways, you want good terrain and you want people to say "Hey, this _____ is pretty cool".
And you want a balanced map. Dont forget that. You dont want Leon Kennedy do 250 damage when Jill only does 50. Sure, you can make 1 or 2 units a little overpowered, such as Nemesis and the Tyrant. But dont over do it. With that being said, you want to make sure that the roleplayers dont haft to be like:
"pretend that this unit is named ____".
So what i am trying to say there is that you want good names.

CONCLUSION
If you basically follow the above, you will have yourself a pretty good map. Make sure you add big open terrain spaces so people can build towns and give your players lots of freedom. Maybe add some caves like you would see in Feyvern.

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Man, that took a load of time to type. Hope you enjoy it.

Yeah, thanks very much.

For terrain, I'm planning on having extended buildings, and when you enter buildings, you are teleported to an area with square terrain for the insides. That way, you get nice terrain AND easy-to-use insides.

For names, I was told to call the heroes H instead of Jill Valentine. Is this right? The nonheroes will have normal names like Nemesis, Zombie, R.P.D Officer.

For epicness, I will have a cool bridge, clocktower, radio tower, and RPD.

The big open areas will probably be outside the main city, over the epicbridge. I may have caves, but sewers are more likely.

I'll have a look at Sie's layout, although the reason I was going to use Vrael's is because I don't have to worry about ripping off someone elses map, but I can always move the layout without direct copying.

Thanks bro.

Yeah Sie_Sayoka and me are friends on battle.net, so he wouldnt mind if you used it.
"For names, I was told to call the heroes H instead of Jill Valentine. Is this right?"
In a "Resident Evil RP", I dont think you should do that. Its entirely up to you, though. Maps like Feyvern and Lathirion would have been way better if the heroes were just called "{H}".
But since you are making a SPECIFIC rp on a SPECIFIC series/event/etc., you should just name the heroes.
And for the entering/exit buildings, that is also a very good idea, since the player can design his own setting.

Well, im tired of giving this thread a wall of text, so you can just have a look at sie_sayoka's layout and decide what you wanna do.

Good luck.

Using specifically named heroes is what dooms every RE RP to being mediocre. Make sure you protect it with that Korean protector that beats OSM otherwise all the other bnet kidiots are going to edit it OVER 9000 times because YOU DIDN'T NAME ANYONE WESKER CUZ HE IZ SO COOL HOW COULD YOU LEAVE HIM OUT AND ALL THE STATS ARE TOO LOW WHY DOES NO ONE HAVE AT LEAST 25 ARMOR MAN YOU SUCK (you get the point).

Do not make blocky disgusting looking buildings out of rectangular like every other one of those RPs. There are plenty of ways to make structures without blocky terrain, especially if you're using badlands.

Yeah the rectangular buildings are one of the main reasons I am doing this. Depending on how much room I have, the insides of the buildings will be isom but set off in another area, but if I'm really stuck I'll make JUST the insides rectangular. I've got 256x256 to work with though, so it shouldn't be a problem.

SO. Heroes will be called H. Nonhero units will be named what they are.

If you'd like help on the map Zany, I think you know of my RP maps, and my RE knowledge.

Yeah, I was hoping you'd help a bit. It'd be sweet if you gave me an idea of how you think everything should be laid out, although I have a clan member working on that as well. It's still the design stage though.

I think quite frankly, a solid Raccoon City with some nice wilderness around it is the most basic and most successful layout any RE RP has had. You may notice most of the ones that try to make the city too small or the surrounding forests too large don't do well. The extended definitely has to convey the city feeling, and out and around outside should be a good Arklay Mountains and Forest. Beyond that, a blocked off area for interiors would be very useful.

Arklay Mountains, now THAT would be hard/fun to do. And maybe a mansion there if I can fit it. Should I try for the actual Coon city layout? Or just make it how I want?

Truth is the actual layout wouldn't be optimal for RP purposes. As nice as it would be to have it be accurate, let's leave that to the RPGs.