Area Building

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Using the area builder is no substitute for reading and understanding the following builder documentation!

Download the area writing docs in a single zip file!

You can download the Area builder written by Estranged here
if you require the MacOS version you need to contact Drew.

This file is an overview to area writing.

We now have a Frequently Asked Questions Page.

There is a set of discussion forums available to post questions or examples.

-Tomasin

These documents were written by Tomasin, information retrieved from the source code of Mirkwood, Ozymandias's ozy.doc, and with help from Etaine of MadRom. Thanks also to Furey, Hatchet, and Kahn.

The world of Thera on Mirkwood is composed of different 'areas' for the players to interact with. Each area is stored in a ascii file that is read by the mud on bootup into the muds database. Fortunately, the format for an area is not a programming effort, but rather a fairly easy to use scripting format.  Thus you don't have to be a programmer to write wonderful areas... you just need your imagination and a little determination.

Stretch your imagination for your areas. An imaginative area is a fun area. Interesting (yet short) room descriptions are gems. Make discovery a triumph, a victory, and darn fun thing to do. Think in terms of game balance. A fun area is a challenging one, yet a rewarding one.

The name of your file should reflect some of its content, and should include a .are suffix. (ie, name.are) The file always begins with:

#AREA {<min-level> <max-level>} <your-name> <area-name> ~

The <min-level> and <max-level> are numbers indicating a suggested range of players' levels for that area. The rest is self explanatory.

The file must end with #$

In between the #AREA line and the #$ line is where your imagination area lies.

The different sections can be:

<vnums> are virtual numbers, and act like social security numbers. Objects, rooms, mobiles all have them, and they must be unique in their own group. By this I mean there can only be one object type with vnum 3100, and only one mob type of vnum 3100, and only one room of vnum 3100. The specific vnums will be inserted into your area by the Imps. When you write, just use X001, X002, etc., and we'll do a search and replace.

    * EXAMPLE AREA

Any questions or suggestions for these documents should be sent to Estranged.