On Writing Areas

The Shortest Section of Our Guide...

This section is short because these three area headers, #RESETS, #SHOPS, and #SPECIALS, are sufficiently explained in the original guide. Perhaps what is not emphasized is the need for comments in the #RESETS.

Comments make life easier on the IMP (IMPlementor, if you hadn't guessed by now...) in charge of the areas, and on you, the builder, in the long run. By commenting on the resets, you tell an IMP where exactly those mobs are supposed to load, the objects those mobs are supposed to carry, what doors are closed, locked, and so on, what rooms you have designed to be random, and etc. Not commenting means the IMP will likely have to interpret what all your resets mean; you, too, will have a harder time deciphering where everything goes if, six weeks down the road, you have to change things slightly because something messed up and you only just discovered it.

Comments are your friend, and will help everyone out, including yourself, in the long run. They are easy to write, and you tag them at the end of each reset. Here's a sample list of resets:

M 0 1 1 5 1       * setting karn to room 5
G 0 1 -1            * giving karn a red stein
G 0 2 -1            * giving karn a bottle of pilzner
G 0 3 -1            * giving karn a bottle of wheat beer
G 0 4 -1            * giving karn a mug of dark ale
G 0 5 -1            * giving karn a glass of firebreather
G 0 6 -1            * giving karn a glass of wine
E 0 10 -1 5         * equipping karn with a brown shirt
E 0 11 -1 7         * equipping karn with a pair of breeches
E 0 12 -1 13        * equipping karn with a leather apron
E 0 13 -1 8         * equipping karn with a pair of boots
M 0 2 1 3 1       * setting ingrid in room 3
G 0 1 -1            * giving ingrid a red stein
G 0 3 -1            * giving ingrid a bottle of wheat beer
G 0 4 -1            * giving ingrid a mug of dark ale

We distinguish comments from the resets by an asterisk placed somewhere after the reset itself. The MUD interprets anything after the asterisk as a comment.

We begin our resets by loading Karn in the Red Beer Inn. Then we give Karn several beverages that he will sell to customers (specified in the #SHOPS section of the area). Lastly we equip Karn with several items, a brown shirt, some leather breeches, a greasy leather apron, and a pair of boots. All of these objects are found in the #OBJECTS area header of the Red Beer Inn area. Then we set Ingrid into the inn, etc. To make the #RESETS section look nice, indent by one or two spaces objects given to or equipped onto a mobile and objects put inside other objects.

That's all there is to resets. Wasn't that easy?

Last stop, mobprogs and scripts.