Writing the World File

The first room of your world file should be the room where the area will connect to the rest of the mud. This makes the link easier to find when we try to attach it to the rest of the MUD world.

 

Death Traps

You may add death traps to your zone, but please keep the following considerations in mind when doing so. The most important rule for death traps is that their purpose is to encourage "intelligent exploration," not merely to "kill" players. They penalize people who are sloppy when they travel the lands... a truly careful player will rarely, if ever hit a death trap that is properly written.

First, make the death trap room INDOORS and make sure it is not DARK, so that the the title of the trap can be seen with an "exits" command from any rooms(s) connected to it.

• For example, assume that you are exploring. If you see "Certain Death" is the name of the next room to the west, then you would almost certainly avoid going there.

Second, if a room has an exit into a death trap, then there should also be an exit from the death trap into the original room. When a player dies, they make a "death cry" that can be heard in the surrounding rooms. By linking the death trap back into any rooms that a player can enter it from, you make this death cry echo back into eacho of those rooms. This is done to deter people in the victim's former group from joining them in their untimely demise.

• For example, room 10 in your zone is a death trap. Room 11 has an exit east into room 10. By this rule, room 10 should also have an exit (the direction it points does not matter) that leads back into room 11.

Third, a good rule of thumb is to have one death trap per 50 rooms in your zone. This should be about all that you really need to make careless wandering dangerous. Remember, the goal of death traps is to encourage more intelligent exploration of the world by making life more difficult for people who walk from place to place without ever looking where that next step will take them.

Fourth, always have an exit descriptions that say something really ominous about the possible consequences a player might suffer for walking into a death trap.

• For example, if the exit to the east leads into a death trap, then an exit description such as "The bridge sways ominously in the breeze. Maybe walking out onto such a fragile, old structure would be a VERY unwise idea?" might get the point across.

World Creation Fields

#<Virtual number>

Every room in your zone must be assigned a unique virtual number. No two rooms may have the same virtual number, and the number must always increase when you browse through the world file from the top to the bottom.

<Room name>~

This name is the "title" of the room. This title is used by the exits command and is the only thing a player will see when they walk into a room while in brief mode, other than monsters and objects.

<Description> (hit return) ~

This is the general description of the room. Make sure to use a carriage return at the end of each line and keep the lines of the description well short of a full page in width, since excess letters or words will no wrap to the next line inside the game. Be as creative and descriptive as possible when writing room descriptions. These are the most important part of the world files!

<Zone number>

The number of the zone in which this room is located. This number is used for resetting zones and monster zone movement. Ask us before you start writing your actual zone, so we can give you a zone number that is not currently in use. See the zone file for more information on zone numbers.

<Room flags>

Room flags allow an author to give individual rooms specific properties. Choose any properties that a room should have from the list below and place the letter for each flag into this field with no spaces between.

 

Property	Flag	Description
Dark	A	Either a light source or infravision is needed to see in the room.
Death	B	Any player who enters the room will die. Follow the rules for death traps.
Godroom	L	Only high level immortals can enter a godroom.
Indoors	D	The room is indoors.
No Magic	H	Magical spells and items can not be used in a no magic room.
No Monster	C	Random monsters can not walk into this room.
No Storm	E	Players may not teleport into a no storm room. The Shadow Storm will also never have an exit into a room with this flag.
Peaceful	K	Combat is impossible in peaceful rooms.
Private	J	It is impossible for people to move into a private room if two characters are already inside. Teleport will never take a player to a private room.
No Crime	M	It is impossible to commit a crime in this room.

<Sector type>

The sector type is the kind of terrain that a room will have. Although the table below does not translate directly into movement points, each type ot terrain is assigned a base number of movement.

 

Terrain	Value
Inside	0
City	1
Field	2
Forest	3
Hills	4
Mountain	5
Water (swim)	6
Water (no swim)	7
Fly	8

D<Exit number>

This command creates an exit in a specified direction. The directions are as follows:

 

Northwest 9	North 0	Northeast 6
West 3		East 1
Southwest 8	South 2	Southeast 7

<Exit description> (hit enter) ~

What a player will see if they type "look <direction>"

<Door keyword list>~

Keywords are needed any time a door is going to be used. These keywords respond to commands such as open, close, and pick.

<Door flag>

If the door flag is 1, then the exit can be locked, unlocked, opened, closed, and picked. If it is 2, the exit can only be locked, unlocked, opened, and closed. If it is 0, none of these commands will work.

The state of the doors after a zone reset may be controlled by a command in the reset-command table (see the zone file for more details). The initial state of a door is always open unless specified otherwise in the zone file.

<Key number>

The key number is the virtual number of the object which can unlock and lock the door (in the direction given). If a player carries or holds this object, they can lock and unlock it. When the key number is -1, there is no keyhole and the door cannot be picked. If door flag is 0, the value of this field is ignored. Do not put a 0 into this fied if there is a door, otherwise it may be unlocked or locked with a corpse.

<To room>

The virtual number of the room to which the exit leads. If this number is -1 (nowhere), then the exit does nott lead anywhere. This might be useful for adding an exit-description in a direction which does not actually lead anywhere.

E (extra description)

Extra descriptions may be added to any room where extra color is desired. They are very helpful for adding a story to a zone or adding clues to any internal quests that you do not wish to bludgeon people with in the regular room description.

<Keyword list>~

A list of the keywords that will allow the extra description to be displayed. The keywords must must be seperated by spaces.

<Description> (hit return) ~

The description that is show when a player types 'look <keyword>' and the keyword matches one of the above.