On Writing Areas
Building Rooms
Recall that, before the first interlude, we were intending on building an area called the "Red Beer Inn". The map looks like this:
The Red Beer Inn
006 008 - 006
/ | / |
004 - 005 009 007 004
/ | | /
001 - 002 - 003 010
|
000
000 :: The Walk to the Red Beer Inn
001 :: The Entrance to the Red Beer Inn
002 :: A Room Filled with Tables
003 :: A Room Filled with Tables
004 :: The Bar
005 :: A Room Filled with Tables
006 :: The Hallway on the Second Floor
007 :: A Room above the Barroom
008 :: The Hallway
009 :: A Room above the Barroom
010 :: The Cellar
In addition to the map, we have the #AREA header done as well as the <help> section. We will now proceed, with the helpful hints of the first interlude, to describe a room or two of this inn. What better place than the first room?
#ROOMS #1 The Walk to the Red Beer Inn~ A gravel walkway leads a body straight to the entrance of the Red Beer Inn just north of here. The west side of the walkway is bordered by an unkempt thatch of thorny shrubs, over which hovers a thin, black lanternpost. East is a narrow strip of grassy lawn. A small statue, grey and humanoid-looking, stands in its midst. A little futher north on the lawn and close to the walk a sign, mounted on a wooden post and buried into the ground, tells the name of the inn and the current proprietor. The walk continues southwards through another pair of shrubs to a road beyond. ~ 0 0 1 D0 You see the entrance to the inn that way. ~ door~ 33 -1 1 D2 There's a road over there. ~ ~ 0 -1 :71:6001 E walkway gravel~ The gravel is very plain. ~ E shrubs~ You cannot tell what kind they are, but know you don't want to stick your hands in them. ~ E lanternpost light~ The light that burns within the lantern bathes the shrubs and walkway in a soft yellow glow. ~ E ground lawn grass~ The grass is well-watered and pleasant to the touch. ~ E statue humanoid gnome~ Haha! It's a lawn gnome picking his fat nose! ~ E sign wooden post inn~ ____________________________________ |\__________________________ ________\ | | ~ | | | Ayreon's Finest | )\| ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ | |\) |-< |-_ |_> |=] |-_ |-_ |-{ | | | ___ _ _ _ _ | | | _|_ |\| |\| # | | | | | prop. Karn Stonehammer | \|__________________________________| | | ~ E road~ You'll have to go there to find out. ~ E door~ Simple oak with a brass handle, nothing more. ~ E brass handle~ It's a brass handle. You need more elaboration?! ~ M 100 H 100 S
There we are, the first room completed. Now for a bit of explanation:
The first line, #ROOMS, tells the MUD server that this section of the area file is the #ROOMS section, wherein all the rooms are described. This includes room descriptions, extra room descriptions, doors, room flags, and so on. #ROOMS is one of the four main ingredients in an area file—the others being #MOBILES, #OBJECTS, and #RESETS—and is where the action in an area takes place.
The third line, "#1", is the virtual number, or vnum, we give to the room. When building an area for Dawn of the Ages, just start all of your room vnums and object vnums and mobile vnums with "#1" and go from there. The IMP in charge of the areas will later assign a static number to your area, so you may start with "#1" and not have to worry about changing numbers later. You can, if you wish, begin your vnums with just about any natural number (ie. 1, 2, 3,..., 10000, ...), the MUD won't complain. (The same cannot be guaranteed of the IMP, however. 😉)
Note that what was not said is as important as what was said. What was not said was to begin your vnums with "#0". The vnum "#0" is reserved for use at the end of the area header, that is, when the MUD server sees "#0", the server assumes the #ROOMS section has come to a close. If you start your area with vnum "#0", your area will produce errors. "#0" signifies the end of the #ROOMS area header, so keep that in mind when building your area.
That said, let's revisit the map we created above. Perhaps it's not such a good idea to start with "00" as our beginning room; let's rewrite the map to reflect the change:
The Red Beer Inn
7 9 - 7
/ | / |
5 - 6 10 8 5
/ | | /
2 - 3 - 4 11
|
1
1 :: The Walk to the Red Beer Inn
2 :: The Entrance to the Red Beer Inn
3 :: A Room Filled with Tables
4 :: A Room Filled with Tables
5 :: The Bar
6 :: A Room Filled with Tables
7 :: The Hallway on the Second Floor
8 :: A Room above the Barroom
9 :: The Hallway
10 :: A Room above the Barroom
11 :: The Cellar
That's better. Now we won't confuse ourselves as we describe our rooms. What line were we on? Oh, yes, line four, which contains the "room header", that is, the brief description of what the room is. When a player on a MUD types the command "brief" at her prompt, she will see only room headers, or what the builder writes in the room header. A short description will do, and most IMPs prefer all words—except articles and prepositions—capitalized unless there is a solid reason not to capitalize.
The next few lines after the room header is the "room description" that a player character, not in brief mode or blind, sees when entering the room. Room descriptions were dealt with in detail in the first interlude, and we assume here you've read it. If not, click over there and read it. 😈
After the room description comes a little bit of coding. These codes are called "room flags" and they detail the state the room is in. For example, a room may be permanently dark, so a player needs to bring a light into the room to see anything. Or a room may be no-recall, which forbids players from recalling to their homes. A room may also be of a certain terrain, a field, a city street, a plain of ice, and so on, making it easy or difficult for the player to move when traveling. The terrain we call a "sector". All of these environmental details are handled by the flags, which are described in detail here. The room we described above has no room flag affecting it ("0"—zero), and its sector is "city" ("1"), meaning the player moving across it will lose a little movement and not fall down due to slipping. Be sure to place all three of these numbers ("0 0 1") on the same line.
Immediately after the room flags, the exits are defined. There are six exit directions which a builder can choose from, north, south, east, west, up, and down. Each of these exit directions can lead to an open or closed door, and the door, if any, can be made pickproof, lockproof, transparent, no-pass, and no-close. First the builder defines the exit (D0, D1, D2, ...) and then, right beneath the definition, the builder writes a description which the player will see when looking in that direction (eg. "There's a road over there."). He follows this with a tilde (~) underneath the description. If the exit is a door (closable, that is), the builder will next write the door description ("door", "gate", "a slimy film", etc.) followed by a tilde (~); if the exit is not a door, the builder just types in a tilde (~) with no door description. The code after that—for example, what you see associated with the north exit in the room description above, (33 -1 1)—the code describes how a player can work the door (in this case the door is closable, but cannot be locked), what key will unlock the door (if any), and the room to which the exit leads.
You might notice in the above room description, where the south (D2) exit is described, a pair of semi-colons separate a pair of numbers (:71:6001). This is a hard-coded vnum, as opposed to the vnum we assigned our room with, and is a convention used on Dawn of the Ages. The second number of the pair is the same kind of number we assigned to our room, that is, it was chosen by the builder of that room. The first number of the pair is what the IMP in charge of areas gives the area as a whole, so all numbers a builder chooses (1 to however many rooms there are) are assigned a "hard" vnum. The hard-coded vnum is necessary for only two situations: first, if the builder intends on connecting a room exit or a portal (more on portals in the guide) in his area to another area; second, if the builder intends on using mobprogs in his area (more on this in #MOBPROGS). We use it above because the walkway to the inn will be connected to another area.
Once we've described the exits (there are two in the room above), we next add the room's extra descriptions. Again it's assumed you've read the first interlude, wherein a room's main description AND its extra descriptions are dealt with. As a suggestion, when writing a room description, one should write, for every noun used in the description, one extra description. The length of the extra description may vary, but extra descriptions should be there. Players generally don't like to walk into a forest where they read there are trees and, when they type "look tree", get the message back, "You do not see that here." Even a general extra description will do, eg. "The trees grow tall all around you." It's all a part of making a good area.
After the extra descriptions are written, the builder does a little more coding by adding the recovery adjustments. The recovery adjustments affect mana "M" and hit points "H". A number of "100" behind M and H means that a player standing in the room will heal normally, that is, at "100" percent. If the number were changed to "150", the player standing in the room will heal at 150 percent, or, in other words, a player who recovers 20 hit points per tick while standing in a normal healing room (H 100) will heal 150% * 20 hit points, or 30 hit points, per tick while standing in the room where the recovery rate is 150 percent (H 150). Two hundred percent (200) is the maximum allowable recovery rate on Dawn of the Ages. Conversely, if the recovery rate were changed to "70", the player will recover at a rate of 70% * 20 hit points/mana, or 14 hit points/mana, per tick. The minimum recovery rate for Dawn of the Ages is zero (0).
The builder then ends her room by adding an "S" at the end. This letter is capitalized, and signifies to the MUD server that this room is fully prepared for use by the players. A builder may then add more rooms, like we do next:
#2 The Entrance to the Red Beer Inn~ The noises of drinking and merriment beckon from the barroom to the east. Here the inn's patrons hang their coats and hats on the racks that stand next to the wall, seemingly unconcerned that a thief might sweep off with them. The room is bare of any other adornment save for a small lantern hooked an ogre's height upon the northern wall. There is also a door to the south, where the occasional boozy but merry customer passes through it to the walkway beyond. ~ 0 0 0 D1 The beer flows freely that way. ~ ~ 0 -1 3 D2 When the door opens, and patrons are always passing through it, you see a gravel pathway. ~ door~ 33 -1 1 E entrance inn~ It's all around you. ~ E coats hats~ The coats and hats are generally what you'd see on farmers and workmen. ~ E racks~ Made of simple oak, the racks can hold three or four sets of coats and hats apiece. ~ E lantern~ The lantern is kept lit, day and night. ~ E walls ceiling~ The walls and ceiling are wooden, and bare. ~ E floor~ The floor appears well-swept. ~ E door~ Simple oak with a brass handle, nothing more. ~ E brass handle~ It's a brass handle. You need more elaboration?! ~ M 100 H 100 S
We will skip, for now, to the end of the #ROOMS area header, to the last room. If you wish to see the #ROOMS in full, go to the area file at the end of the guide. The last room looks like this:
#11 The Beer Cellar~ The cellar is fairly large, and beer by the barrel-full lay one on top of the other along two walls and the staircase going up. The western wall is home to a few empty casks and a mini-brewery, where the owner prepares his own special brand. Two chairs sit next to the brewery, and midway up the wall above the brewery rests a large wooden mallet on a shelf. The room is dark and cool. Muffled noises from above, shouts, laughter, and the screeching of chairs along the floor make suggestions to the ear of the amusements happening upstairs. ~ 0 A 0 D4 There's fun going on up there. ~ trapdoor~ 33 -1 5 E trapdoor~ It shouldn't be too difficult to open. ~ E cellar~ It's all around you. ~ E barrels beer~ The barrels of beer are all labelled according to stock and date, "Karn's Red -- 13 Walkana", "Korumian White Ale -- 5 Tantalan", and so on. ~ E staircase~ The staircase is not well-maintained -- cracks line not a few of the steps and the panelling along the side is warped -- but it isn't likely to break even under the weight of a fat dwarf. ~ E panels panelling~ Many of the panels that adorn the side of the staircase are loose and warped. Hmmm. There's even one that seems to be cracked open slightly. ~ E casks~ They are merely awaiting liquid gold. ~ E brewery mini-brewery still~ Among more lawful types, this is what you'd call a "still". ~ E chairs~ They appear a bit rickety. Try one of them out and see what happens. ~ E shelf mallet~ The mallet is likely used to break open new caskets. Unfortunately it's locked tight to the shelf, so there's no taking it. ~ E ceiling rafters cobwebs~ A number of large, dusty cobwebs hang along the ceiling rafters, as well as a few hooks. ~ E hooks~ They're there for hanging lamps, presumably. ~ E floor ground dirt~ The floor is all dirt. Less work that way. ~ E walls~ Floor to ceiling barrels they are. ~ M 100 H 100 S #0
At the end of the #ROOMS section, we place a "#0" to indicate the end of the section. That's all there is to it. We will be back to visit the rooms as we populate them with mobiles and objects: as we develop more pieces of the area, we may find we want to change or add or deduct from the rooms to fit the mobiles and objects that go there. Room building, and building in general, is a process which often involves going back and forth between sections until the builder is satisfied with the results. As you'll learn with experience, even when you, the builder, are finally satisfied with the results, weeks or even days later you may find yourself rewriting portions of the area file.
*chuckle*
We will now move on to the second interlude, #MOBILES.