• denotes optional, not necessary for the room to function.

Sections that are enclosed in braces must be kept together, and placed in the order that the above example shows. Example: if there are doors north, south and west, all of three sets of door data must go before the extended description related information.

Example:

1000

The Lego temple~ You stand in a tiny, red temple; built entirely from Lego bricks. It is, sadly, not a very interesting place, and perhaps you should leave through the portal which leads south to a sunny garden. ~ 0 BC 0 D2 You see the grand portal of the Lego church. Beyond is an inviting garden. ~ portal grand~ 1 1001 1007 extra portal~ The portal is high and arched, built out of lego bricks of the finest quality. ~ extra brick~ The bricks are all in bright different colours. ~ M 110 H 90 S

1001

I. The vnum is the number used to reference your room. There may only be one room of any given vnum at one time. (see glossary)

II. This is the label of the room, and should be short. Characters with 'brief' mode on will only see this section of the room. Do not forget to end it with a tilde.

III. This is the room description. It should be a minimum of three lines, preferably at least four or five, but not more than eight to ten. (if you want more information than that, do it in extra descriptions) Do not forget to end it with a tilde.

IV. Room flags, sector types

The first slot of line IV is a hangover from old file format, retained for compatibility.

The second slot is room flags. A listing of room flags follows:

DARK (A) A light source must be carried to see in this room NO_MOB (C) Monsters cannot enter this room INDOORS (D) Room is inside (i.e. not affected by weather) PRIVATE (J) Room is limited to two characters (i.e. chat rooms) SAFE (K) Safe from pkilling and aggressive mobs SOLITARY (L) One character only can enter this room PET_SHOP (M) see addendum about pet shops NO_RECALL (N) players cannot use the 'recall' command to leave this room

Pet shops: the room that the pets are to be sold in must be flagged act_pet. However, the pets themselves must be loaded into the sequentially next room (ie if the shop is 1036, the pets MUST be loaded into 1037 for the shop to work).

The third slot is sector type. A listing of sector types follows:

Sector types:

type number move pts notes INSIDE 0 1 CITY 1 2 FIELD 2 2 FOREST 3 3 HILLS 4 4 MOUNTAIN 5 6 WATER 6 4 swimmable DEEP WATER 7 - boat required AIR 9 - fly spell required DESERT 10 9 will eventually affect thirst and recovery

V. Exit directions

Exit directions are signified by a line with D# on it, with # replaced by 0 for north, 1 for east, 2 for south, 3 for west, 4 for up and 5 for down. An exit line containing D2 signifies an exit south.

VI. Exit descriptions

This section determines what will be seen if a character looks in the direction the exit designates. Ie:

You see a river south.

Would be what would be seen if a character typed 'look south' and the above was the exit description. Do not forget to put a tilde on the line after. Ie:

You see a river south. ~

VII. Door keyphrase

If the exit you are working on is to be a door, you may define a keyphrase that the character may access to open the door and will see when he opens it. Ie:

D5 You see a dusty trap door. ~ trap door~

as the keyphrase will allow the character to type 'open trap' or 'open door' or 'open down' to open the entryway, and when they do, they will see the message: 'You open the trap door.'

VIII. Door state, Connecting room vnum, Key vnum

Slot one sets the door as open, closed, locked, etc. 0 denotes an open door, 1 denotes closed, and 2 denotes closed and locked.

Slot two denotes the vnum of the room that this exit links to.

Slot three denotes the vnum of the key used to unlock the door, if the door is lockable and if you choose to have a key that allows it to be unlocked.

IX. extra, extra keywords, and extra description text

E denotes the beginning of an extra description. Extras are used to flesh out room descriptions by giving keywords that may be looked at or examined to give more information. Also, to have multiple sets of extras, you must input all of the data under independent extra lines.

Example: in the following room description:

You stand under a trellis on which climb beautiful roses. A lovely flower garden extends to the north and west of here, and a path leads to a small white summerhouse to the south.

with the extended descriptions

E beautiful roses~ They smell sweet and are delicately soft to the touch. ~ E trellis~ It is made of wicker and painted white. ~

would yield the following result when 'exa beautiful', 'exa roses', 'look beautiful' or 'look roses' was typed:

They smell sweet and are delicately soft to the touch.

or the following if 'look trellis' or 'exa trellis' was typed:

It is made of wicker and painted white.

Do not forget to put a tilde after the keywords or the text.

X. Mana recovery adjustments, Healing recovery adjustments

The default recovery rate is 100% (normal). However, you may adjust recovery of mana or hit points up or down to 1% of normal or 200% of normal. To adjust mana, the syntax is M (ie: M 90 to decrease mana to 90% of normal recovery rate) or H to adjust hit point recovery (ie: H 110 to increase healing by 10%).

Example:

M 75 H 125

Note! Increasing healing or mana recovery is a room option that should be used very sparingly. Decrease of healing/mana recovery may be used more frequently.

XI. If your mud has clans, you may wish to have clan halls that are restricted from access by anyone who is not a member of that clan.

Example for a room for the hall of clan Moonstone:

clan Moonstone~

XII. S

S signifies the end of the room. All rooms MUST be ended with S.

6. RESETS

This is the section that installs all the mobiles in their various locations,equips the mobiles, locks and closes any necessary doors, randomizes any random room exits, and generally sets up the area and populates it.

To reset an area, the server executes each command in the list of reset commands once. Each area is reset once when the server loads, and again periodically as it ages. An area is reset if it is at least 3 area- minutes old and is empty of players, or if it is 15 area-minutes old and has players in it.

An 'area-minute' varies between 30 and 90 seconds of real time, with an average of 60 seconds. The variation defeats area time-keepers.

The #RESETS section contains a series of single lines.

The reset commands are:

I. M load a mobile into a room II. O load an object into a room III. P put an object in an object (gold in a safe, etc.) IV. G give an object to mobile V. E equip an object to mobile VI. D set state of door VII. S stop (END OF LIST)

Note! You may put a comment after an asterisk (*) on any line, but NOT on a line that is blank otherwise.

Breakdown:

I. Loading a mobile into a room

M 0

M signifies that a mobile is being loaded. 0 is a placeholder for a no longer used field. The third slot is the vnum of the mobile to be loaded; the fourth slot is the number of the room that the mobile is being loaded into; the fifth slot is the total number of copies of that mobile that may exist in the game world; the sixth is the number of copies of that mobile that may exist in that room.

Example: M 0 1000 1000 6 1

Will reset mobile 1000 into room 1000 once, but allow you to place five other copies of that mobile in other rooms.

Note that if you wish to have multiple copies of the same mobile you must enter multiple resets for them. Example:

M 0 1000 1000 6 2 M 0 1000 1000 6 2

Will reset mobile 1000 into room 1000 twice.

II. Loading an object into a room

O 0 1000 0 1000

O 0