DARKOVER 2.0 Builder Documentation for Darkover MUD WORLD.TXT Version 1.0BETA Written by: Eldritch on Darkover (darkover.revnet.com 6000) Last Updated: 05/15/96 WORLD.TXT Index: 1.......The World File 2.......Room Archetype 2.1.....Ending the File 3.......Example Room 3.1.....Actual Example 3.2.....VNUM 3.3.....Short desc 3.4.....Long desc 3.5.....Zone/Flags/Sector 3.5.1...Room Flag Values 3.5.2...Sector Type Values 3.6.....Direction Fields 3.6.1...Magic Word Doors 3.6.2...Door Examples 3.7.....Extra Descriptions 4.......Comments and Tips 1.......The World File ---------------------- The .WLD file contains all of the information required for Darkover to generate all of the rooms for your area and connect rooms together. The file is a list of rooms in sequential order by their VNUMs and then ends with a few special lines (see Section 2.1 of this file on how to end the file). 2.......Room Archetype ---------------------- This is the archetype for a general room. The characters '<' and '>' are simply used to offset a numerical value and should not actually be added into a file. #VNUM Room Title~ Room Description ~ <zone number> <room flag> <sector type> D<direction number> exit description field ~ door keyword list~ <door type> <key VNUM> <exit-to-room VNUM> <more exits added here, if needed> E extra description keyword list~ extra description ~ S 2.1.....Ending the File After the list of rooms in sequential order by VNUM is done, you must add the following lines to the end of the file: #99999 $~ This should only be put in after the last room entry and should only be used once. 3.......Example Room -------------------- The following is an example of a room and then a breakdown of its component parts with explanations. 3.1.....Actual Example #6800 The Example Room~ This is a room used as an example. It's packed to the rim with lots of information to be used by builders. Perhaps someday this room will be connected with many other rooms and have mobs and objs all over the place. There is a blue sign here. ~ 68 ^3 0 D0 You see another example room to the north, behind a glass door. ~ door glass~ 1 6800 6801 D3 You see a hallway leading to another room. ~ ~ 0 0 6802 E sign blue~ The sign reads: I am just an extra description actually. ~ S 3.2.....VNUM The room VNUM is a unique number which that room possesses. No other room in the entire MUD has this VNUM. However, this VNUM may be used by both an object and a mobile. Sharing a VNUM with a mob or obj implies no form of connection however. 3.3.....Short desc This is the short description of the room, the title of the room. Keep this short (3-6 words), but accurate. Remember, this is what players see when they list exits or are walking around in brief mode. Remember to end the desc with a tilde on the same line. Be sure to use conventional punctuation for titles -- that is, capitalize all words except 'a' 'the' 'an' etc etc. Treat your room titles like book titles and capitalize accordingly. 3.4.....Long desc The long desc is what the player sees when typing 'look' in a room. For Darkover we have some guidelines in place for how this should be done. The long desc should always start with a indentation of 3 spaces. Do NOT use the word 'you' in your descriptions. Rooms should have a fairly detailed long desc, at least four lines. Try not to go over 10 lines though. Also, a few notes on ANSI for room descs. It's standard practice to have the short desc one color and the long desc another. It's important to make sure these colors go together and are appropriate for the type of room you are making. Blood red doesn't work for a Wooded Glade, but green and tan do. I suggest wandering around Darkover to get a feel for how color is used and what colors look good together. Using color is recommended. Note that the tilde for this entry goes on a separate line. This is important to keep long desc from running together with mobs and objs. 3.5.....Zone/Flags/Sector The first number in this line is the zone number of this room. This will be assigned to you by a god. See section 4.2.2 in INTRO.TXT for more information. The second number is the flag state of the room (see section 4.2.4 of INTRO.TXT for information and usage of flags). The third number is the sector type of the room. The sector type is not a flag, you just pick one and stick with it. Note that sector type affects how much movement it costs to move through that room. 3.5.1...Room Flag Values 0 No Flags ^0 Dark Player cannot see without a light. ^1 Death Death trap. Player dies instantly. ^2 No Mob No mob can enter this room. ^3 Indoors Player does not see weather messages. ^4 Not Used ^5 Not Used ^6 Not Used ^7 No Magic Players cannot cast magic here. ^8 Not Used ^9 Private Only 2 players may be in this room. ^10 God Room Only Gods may be in this room. ^11 Not Used ^12 Imp Only Only the Imps may be in this room. ^13 No Recall Players cannot magically leave or farsee into this room. ^14 Healing Healing doubled in this room. ^15 No Trans Cannot magically enter this room. ^16 Unused Internal Use Only. ^17 Light Room is always lit ^18 Silent No speaking in this room. ^19 Fog Movement goes in random directions 1/10th of the time. ^20 Tiny Must be shrunk to enter ^21 Limited Limited access room (affects only limited and Nolimited mobs) Do not use fog in a room with less than 1 visible exit. 3.5.2...Sector Type Values 0 Inside 1 City Streets 2 Field 3 Forest 4 Hills 5 Mountain 6 Water, shallow (able to wade through) 7 Water, need boat 8 No Ground, needs fly 9 Peace Room, combat cannot occur here 10 Underwater, must have breath water 11 Fire Plane, must have protection from fire 12 Ocean (not used yet!) 13 Earth Room, must have move thru earth 14 In Object, for inside enterable objects 15 Arena - Do Not Use 16 Cave, for inside caves and for mountains with no plantlife. 17 Astral, for totally different realities. 18 Cold, player takes damage unless they have Ward Ice 19 Desert, players get thirsty faster 20 Steep mountain, need fly or climb skill or a mount Right now the elemental rooms fire, earth and underwater are not 100% in, the characters just take 10 HP damage every 2 second they're in such a room unless they have the approtiate protection on. 3.6.....Direction Fields Exit direction fields begin with the letter D and then a number indicating which direction to exit leads to. The numbers for the directions are: (north) 0 4 (up) | / (west) 3-+-1 (east) + | / 2 5 (down) (south) So an exit D2 is a southern exit while exit D4 would be an exit up. This Dn line is the first part of the exit. The second line consists of a description of what the player sees when looking in that direction. A tilde should be placed on the line after this description. The next line is the keywords list for a door. This should contain all the keywords which the player can use to do something to this door. The first keyword should be something acceptable for an action, since this is the word the players will see when manipulating the door. For example, if the first keyword was blue, the player would see 'You open the blue.'. Door makes much more sense. If you are not putting a door here, simply leave a tilde at this line. The next line contains the door type, key VNUM and which room the exit leads to. The first value may have the following values: 0 Normal exit; no door. 1 Regular door. 2 Door with unpickable lock. The second number is the VNUM of the key which unlocks the door. If there is no door here, the value should be 0. If there is a door but it has no lock, the value should be -1. Details on how to make keys are in the OBJECT.TXT file section X.X.X. The third value is the room this room leads to. This can be any room VNUM in the MUD. Please note that if you make an exit to a room an exit heading back is not automatic, you must add the exit to that room's file. Also, you must specify any doors, keys, etc. leading back. 3.6.1...Magic Word Doors Magic word doors are nifty. To use them you must set-up a few things. The key VNUM of the door must be set to -2. This will make the door have no lock. Second, you must make the magic word you wish for this door to be the last word in the doors keywords list. Finally, you must write at least one of two extra descriptions for the room. The first has the extra description field of '##fordooropen'. This is the message shown to the room when the door opens. If this extra description is not here, the door will not open. The second extra description is '##fordoorclose'. This is the text shown when the door closes. If the text is not there, the door may not be closed. 3.6.2.....Door Examples For a normal exit, one that has no doors and simply leads to another room, the entry would look like: D0 The hallway leads on. ~ ~ 0 0 123 This exit leads north to room 123. PCs looking north would see 'The hallway leads on.' D1 A door leads into another room. ~ door~ 1 -1 124 This exit leads east and has a door. The door is pickable and has no key, and leads to room 124. D2 A thick iron-bound door blocks the way south. ~ door iron~ 2 100 124 This exit leads south and is blocked by the door. The door is NOT pickable, and can be unlocked with key number 100. D3 A door with a blue magical aura is there. ~ door blue please~ 2 -2 125 E ##fordooropen~ The door swings open to the sound of celestial applause! ~ E ##fordoorclose~ The door swings closed on silent hinges and the world seems a little sadder, and more silent. ~ This exit leads west and is a keyword door. When 'please' is said and the door opens, the room gets echoed 'The door swings open to the sound of celestial applause!' when 'please' is said again, the door swings shut and the room is echoed the other message. 3.7.....Extra Descriptions Extra descriptions are is something else which players can look at in a room. Signs are a common example of these. An extra description begins with the letter E on the first line. The second line contains the keywords you wish to assign to the description, followed by a tilde on that line. The last section is the text the player will see when typing 'examine <keyword>'. It should be followed by a tilde on its own line. You may have as many extra descriptions as you wish, simply start each new one with an E. 4.......Comments and Tips ------------------------- Note on the Arena: There should be **NO** physical or portal entry made into an Arena rooms except for Object #1204. This is an ABOSULTE rule. Again -- try not to use the word 'you' in any of your descriptions. We discourage the usage of 'xeroxed' room descriptions, but understand that sometimes it happens -- there's only so much you can say about a tunnel or hallway. Try to keep it down to less than 10% of your room descriptions. There is a program available that you can use to make wilderness areas (e-mail shadowy about it) but the program is still pretty rough (when he gets a chance shadowy will improve the program so it's usable). When building a zone: First, plot the zone out on graph paper. The zone does not HAVE to graph perfectly on the paper, but it's much nicer to the rest of us (and the mortals) if it does. Second, number all the rooms. Start with the number given to you by Rall and number on through the end of your zone. Third, write up the .wld file. Start with the first number, write the entire room out, then write the next consecutive room. For example, if your zone was #123, with room numbers 12300 - 12399, your first few entries would look like: #12300 The First Room~ This is the first room in the zone. There's not a whole lot to see here, since this is only the first room and this is only an example room. Really, this room's long description should be longer, but this is good enough for an example. ~ 123 ^3 0 D0 The room before. ~ ~ 0 0 12299 D2 The next room. ~ ~ 0 0 12301 D3 A door leads to yet another room. ~ door~ 1 -1 12302 S #12302 Yet Another Room~ This is the room description for Yet Another Room. Blah blah blah blah etc etc etc. ~ 123 ^3 0 D1 ~ door~ 1 -1 12300 S etc etc etc so on and so forth, on through the last room in the zone. When making doors, it's useful if you put your door exits in order -- that is, list the exits D0, D1, D2, D3, D4, D5 -- just for the sake of clarity. At the very very end of the zone, use this entry to 'close' the file: #99999 $~