Personally i find planning easy, I can always think of tremendous ideas and base my maps of real places and unique architechture / however when i get to the actually map building i loose all confidence with architechture and stick to boxes :\ but I have many sketches and base ideas for maps which i have never worked on and proabbly never will
When I am in that semi-asleep state, when I have just woken up but don't get out of bed, that's when I come up with ideas. That's my planning lol.
For me planning usually works out to be a vague concept, and then I build a really shitty proof of concept version, with minimal interlocking and no geos. If that works out like I want it to, onward goes the map. I've got one full map in the works, that was preceded by an utterly failed concept version and almost completely changed for what will be the final. I've got another proof of concept that worked great, but I'm not sure it'll be all that fun in the end. Beyond that, I plan to treat my first published map as an idea map and redo most of it, but that isn't a high priority for me.
I write down ideas over a course of about two weeks and then I put it all together to map an awesome mapzorz. Or I start building something and build off of it. The map I just finished was built, tested, and reworked for about two months.
Never Plan I never plan, except say if I want to build a Cops & Robbers map. I just go in and apply all of my excellent skill along the way, and my maps usually come out pretty good.
Personally, I have a main idea that I forge first and then plan from there. Most of my planning I just do randomly in my mind occasionally getting written down. After that it is a lot of trial and error.
It was Health class for me. :lol: but, yea I think it's better to just make it up as you go along, but with a general idea.
I basically just get a whiteboard and draw structures for maps when im bored and if they are cool then i add them into my map to create an uber tastic map. BTW this is Tex, shoop da whoop version!!
solo maps : down to the very last detail. i place weapons on my drawings, and they dont usually change. collaborations : i start building at random, and we build the whole map that way.
MLG: I plan out by drawing and designing on google sketch up. Solo: I build as I go, if I have a design I put what I have designed down and build around it.
I just find out what I want to create, then create/improve it while making it. But then again, it's not alot of thinking.
I sketch and re-sketch til I get what I want it look like. Lots of little details usually get lots in the process because of item limit and what not. There's so many sketches laying around my room, most just get thrown out but the ones I really focused on get forged. I may only have one map out right now but there are two maps getting forged right now and two more still getting it the planning stages. Most of the time I draw my ideas from things in real life, like one of my maps getting drawn up is based off the structure of a cell beginning to split (thanks science class) another is modeled after Mesa Verde then another is modeled after the first scene in the death star. With a hangar and hallways and elevators, even hidden chutes to the "garbage pit".