
Making Navigation Work (2017) - icey
http://gameshelf.jmac.org/2017/05/making-navigation-work/
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pugworthy
As a level designer many years ago for a team FPS, I found it worth while to
play and analyze lots of games from that level design perspective. There was
one interesting navigational design pattern in World of Warcraft I saw, what I
called the "20 second rule" at the time.

Essentially, any time you were on a path there would be something interesting
or noteworthy about every 20 seconds of walking. It might be that the path had
a bridge that crossed a stream, or it took a bend, or there was a large rock
or a small house, or a fork in the path. This was really noteworthy in
Teldrassil, the Night Elf starting area.

I think without these landmarks, you have this nagging feeling like, "Did I
miss something and should I continue down this path? Or should I go back?
Maybe I did miss something."

Overall it is astounding how easy it can be to get lost in a basic first
person game environment - one that you would never get lost in if it was real.
I found for my own work at the time, I'd do simple things in an essentially
symmetrical map like "Team A side of town has all brick buildings, Team B side
of town has timbered/wooden buildings". Or place a large distinctive building
on each side. Or have some aspect of the skybox stand out, like "hilly
Mountain to West, distant hills in East".

