I've been meaning to compile an "advanced zone writing strategies" guide
but got about 3-4 pages into it and figured people wouldn't be interested.
In this guide, I covered like a whole bunch of different types of grids,
among other things. Now that I've long lost what I've written, here are a
few things from existing zones to give you guys some examples of zone
grids. Maybe when I get around to it, I'll put up a guide for advanced
strategies on the webpage.

Example 1: Rare load equipment and random load location. (Vecna's)

    6 
    | 1: The initial load room Ali loads in.
    4 2: Ali's exit path for item #1
    | 3: Ali's exit path for item #2
    6 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 4: Ali's exit path for item #3
    | 5: Ali's exit path for item #4
            2 6: Ali's loading grid, one way out...
    | 7: Exit to crypt #1
    6 8: Exit to crypt #2
9: Exit to crypt #3
    7 11 10: Exit to crypt #4
    |/ 11: Exit to load location #5
8 - 6 - 9 12: Exit to load location #6
    |\
   10 12

This is actually the best load method I've seen to do random equipment
with. The mod starts at 1, and has 4 one-way exits to the equipment (the
mob is !sentinel and scavenger). From those equipment rooms, it goes to
room 6, which has exits out into the zone. There are 6 different places in
the zone for it to load. 

This grid is basically 25% chance of loading different equipment, and 100%
chance of loading the mob. If you added dead ends from room 6, you would
get less than 100% load for the mobs. If you only had eq in room 2, but
not 3, 4, or 5, you'd have a 25% load for eq.

Example 2: A simple rare load mob grid.
1: The mob starts here, and is !sentinel.
    5 2: Mob trap room, has no exits.
    | 3: Mob load out to zone.
2 - 1 - 4 4: Mob trap room, has no exits.
    | 5: Mob trap room, has no exits.
    3
    |
  zone 

This is a very simple grid, it can be elaborated on I just made it easy
for the sake of explanation. Basically the more chances of the mob being
trapped, the more rare the mob is. This is a common technique not just
for big equipment (gag), but for more inventive stuff such as pieces of a
quest, etc.

Example 3: Hack n' Slash Loads 

Basically, from one mob load room, you have the one way exits: u, d, n,
ne, e, se, s, sw, w, nw. From these, there are trap rooms, or more grids
(or a loop back to the grid). Mobs in this grid will load very rarely, but
always have the equipment they are known for (ie, "Jalharoth, Angel of
Death" in Mansion would always load with the blade of heaven).

Example 4: Quests over many different zones (cause Xueqin rules...)

                1: The mob starts here, and is !sentinel.
            5           2: Mob loads in zone #1.
            |           3: Mob loads in zone #2.
        2 - 1 - 4       4: Mob loads in zone #3.
            |           5: Mob loads in zone #4.
            3
            

This is a very simplified grid that I've seen Xueqin use, cause he rules.
Never really thought of it. Basically, if you want items or mobs in zones
other than your own, for a quest in your zone, you can have them load in
other zones while still very much a part of your zone. This grid would
have a lot of trap rooms, to make the occurances of these rare mobs very
rare.

Some things to keep in mind are that I'd rather not have people just
randomly tossing mobs into other people's zones, that's just plain rude.
Such as you wrote a beholder mob type thing and want it to load in
Shabboath. That would very much be fair to the writer of Shab, who
intended his zone to be one very specific design. If you have 2 zones of
your own, and want to do quests between them, it will be easiest to keep
all of the quest items in your zone (just how the mud loads items, it
freaks out if the item isn't in your zone but needed for a quest in that
zone).
____________________________________________________________________

NOTE:

When you make these, you need to make sure that all of the rooms are
!portal, !gate, !summon, and that the players basically have ABSOLUTELY no
way of getting into the grids.

Remember, no zone justies crack-pipe equipment. I have the final say on
balance, regardless of load chance. Basically, Bast1 was ruined because of
the insane eq, including some that were 'rare loads' to justify a 2h 7d7
+7/7 perm_soulshield wickedness (ie, blade of heaven...), etc. This just
won't happen here.

What do I mean by no zone justifies the equipment? Because once it is
gotten, albeit by a 20-man death squad or a necromancer, it comes into the
general mainstream equipment of the mud. The guy who spent 18 hours on his
necro gets it, gets fragged, and in a week it's on a level 20 secondary
somewhere. I'm not being cynical, it's just what happens. I don't mean
that zones shouldn't have some good equipment, that's why players do them,
but I definately want no more stone eq in the game, or soulshield items,
etc.

I really like items being unique and can go along with *anything* being
unique, I just really don't want uniqueness to be an excuse for
opium-induced stats. To make it unique, however, you'll need to flag it
artifact.

If you have an further questions, feel free to ask.

Thendar