Zone Design Documentation

The following Zone Design document was made with the following brief:

“Create a design document for a relatively small, in-game area that would be appropriate for a fantasy MMO. The documentation should be no more than 3 pages plus a map if desired and should be detailed enough that it could be handed off to a team to bring the environment to a fully playable state without additional input.”

I was given a time limit of an hour and a half. Images are not included in the page count. The following is my response:

Analysis & My Design Thinking

Since I had such a short amount of time to make this Zone Design Doc, I wanted to make a cohesive diagram to visualize my work. I focused on:

Elevation and geography
Creating clear POIs and what the gameplay could look like there (areas of wilderness for action, towns for buying items, etc)
Player pathways through the zone

As it would act as the final boss arena and was central to the main line story, I wanted the Temple POI to be visible from nearly every part of the map.

It was also important to me to set the tone for the zone using reference images. If this were a real Zone Design Doc, I wanted level designers and artists to have a good understanding of the Zone's creative direction.