The plot of a zone is the main story of the zone. Such as: hack and slash, rescue the princess, find a precious stone, kill the dragon, or forging a special weapon. Most builders do not take the possible ecology or economic effects of an area into account. By this, I do not mean having a mini-model of an actual ecological environment, but rather having things that make the area seem more plausible. The best things to put in to make an area more plausible are useless objects that actually add atmosphere to the area. Food sources for the mobiles in your area are always necessary to fleshing things out, as are creating import and export goods for cities, complete with customs houses. Your zone should have a strong plot that is incorporated throughout. This can be done by using the different descriptions available. Mobile look descriptions and extra descriptions such as: trails, scrapings on the wall, etc. Trash objects can be created that are notes or maps. When designing your area and the plots within, you should always consider what kind of player you want playing in your area. Keep the levels and types in mind (i.e. role-playing, power-MUDder, etc). In doing so, try to have fun building the area. Make it well rounded and something that you enjoy looking through afterwards. If you find something you do not like, edit it and change it until you like it. It is always best to build when you are not bored of the area, since building when you are bored almost always turns out uninspired and boring areas. If you are having problems developing a plot try visualizing a story that happens in your zone. For example, say a princess is captured somewhere and her relatives are looking for her. Next, you drop some clues to her whereabouts by putting conversations in the looked at description of mobiles. You can set up some mobs so that when you look at them, you get "You strike up a conversation with the shopkeeper. He chats with you about the rise and fall of the price of wheat. Looking at the candy jar he sighs. You ask him why, and he relates a sad tale of how he has not seen a little girl who used to come into his store in a long time." Granted, this is not as elegant as a trigger, but not everyone can write them. The point is that you interpret the looked at description as something more than just looking, you can view it as a static conversation. You can then go around the area and throw in a few room extras leaving a trail to where the princess is. You can also put some extra descriptions on useless items lying about to indicate where one may find the princess. Once at the princess, you could have her relay a story of the location of a secret buried treasure in her looked at description, a nice reward for the rescuing hero. You can set up the buried treasure in a hidden container with no long description. Give it a short description of "the ground" so they get the treasure from the ground, and only know where this object is by the tale of the princess. When your players stumble upon something like this, they love it.