Builder's Guide

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by
Miracle (Dreams Mud)
2nd Edition - January 1, 2000

Contents
Prologue
Starting Off
Building the *&#@$% Thing
    Rooms
        Making rooms
        Room Flags
        Sector Flags
        Doors
       Connecting Rooms
    Mobs
        What is a Mob?
        Mob Descriptions
        The Technical Basics of Mob Making
        Mob Values
        ACT special function values
        Spell Affects on Mobs
        Special function values on mobs
        OLC Walkthrough of Building a Mob
    Objects
         The Technical Basics of an Object
         Object Types
         Wear Locations
         Extra Flags
         Adding Stats to Objects
             Adding Stats in MZF
             Adding Stats in OLC
         Various Object Tables
             V0-V3 Values Tables
             Object Balance Table
     Making Resets
         Resetting Mobs/Objects in MZF
         Resetting Mobs/Objects in OLC
         Guidelines for doing RESETS
Troubleshooting Guide
     MZF Problems
     OLC Problems
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
Epilogue

Prologue: The information given within is intended to help novice and intermediate skill builders with the rougher and more confusing parts of building an area. If you have a bit of experience with building already, there is really no need for you to follow the exact order of sequence described within the text. But, for everyone who is a beginner at building or a little rusty at their skills, I highly recommend following the sequence of events that I describe. If you intend to learn how to write an area in Notepad here, click on the BACK button on your browser and get the hell out of my building guide.

I. Starting Off

A. Write down the basic idea of the area on paper. Be sure to answer the 5 W's:

a. WHAT will the area be about?
b. WHEN will the area's time setting be? (medieval, futuristic, fantasy)
c. WHERE will the area's important parts be?
d. WHO are the major characters? (important mobs)
e. WHY will players enjoy the area? (bells and whistles, mobs, objects, etc.)

B. Discuss your idea with an immortal.

Make sure that your idea will be useful to the mud's theme. At Dreams, mostly any idea will be accepted because of the "fantasy" theme of the MUD, but make sure your area can be used. Nothing's worse than building 200 rooms of an area, then finding out your area won't fit the theme.

C. Map out your area on paper.

Once you have written down a basic idea and gained approval from an immortal now you are ready to start working on your area. The first thing I like to do before anything is to map the area out on graph paper. Doing this beforehand makes building the area A LOT easier and eliminates confusion later on while you're connecting rooms.

DOs and DON'Ts of Mapping

1. DO have some idea of how many rooms total you will have. Make a definite decision. 50, 100, 150, 200. Try and shoot for a multiple of 50.
2. DON'T map out a straight line of rooms. It has been done before, and it's not pretty.
3. DO use a straight edge and a pencil with an eraser to make the map.
4. DON'T use ink and rely on your eyes to make the straight lines.
5. DO write up a small map legend to your area map's major points. (keys, locked doors, portals, death traps, etc.)
6. DON'T just blindly throw everything in later on, it's very sloppy and people WILL be able to tell.
7. DO have a definite BEGINNING and END to the map.
8. DON'T have players guessing where the heck the area begins.
9. DO assign VNUMs to your room beforehand and mark them down.
10. DON'T try and remember every VNUM you used mentally. It's a bitch.

D. Make lists of your mobs and objects
Write down a list of every mob and object you are going to use in the area. You can always add to the list later. After you have done all this you will already have a huge headstart to your area. Organization does pay off in the long run.

II. Building the *&#@$% Thing

With all the preliminaries out of the way, you are now ready to start working on your zone. As you should know by now, an area is divided into FOUR major groups. These groups are ROOMS, MOBS, OBJECTS, and RESETS. I'll discuss each of them separately. To build the actual area, you can use any building program or if you are from the Stone Age, you can attempt to write an area using Notepad, but I wouldn't recommend that. For now, I'll explain the building portions using the most common tools, OLC (On-Line Creation) and MZF (Make Zones Fast). OLC is commonplace on most muds, and if you ask nicely enough, the implementor may allow you to use it. MZF is the most convenient of building programs though, since it doesn't require you to be online, (we can't all stay online 24-7, can we?), and it is also the most "straight-forward" of building programs.

A. ROOMS - Giving your mobs a home to be proud of.

1. What you should NOT do.

Before I tell you what you should do when making rooms, I'll first tell you what you should NOT do when making rooms for your area.

a. You should NOT use the same room description over and over again. Doing this makes the area look "cheaply" and hastily done. Using the same one maybe twice in an area is all right in special cases (i.e. a maze), but try to avoid doing this.

b. You should NOT connect all the rooms in a straight line. Try and add some variation to the exits, this will give the area more of a "nonlinear" feel, which is more fun for the exploring fanatics.

c. You should NOT stray away from your area's theme when writing the rooms. Having 45 rooms of a fantasy medieval castle, then throwing in 5 rooms that are aboard an alien spaceship just looks plain nasty and sloppily done. Unless the space aliens are somehow in cahoots with King Arthur, in that case it's ok, but I highly doubt that.

d. You should NOT start every room description with "You". I myself have been guilty of doing this on occasion. Instead of "You have entered a bathroom", you could instead write "upon entering this pestilent and disgusting washroom, you notice that...". This looks better.

2. Making rooms

a. Theme and Description Writing

When building the actual rooms, it's always a good idea to stick with the basic theme of the area. This makes the area's overall feel a lot better. For example, I'll use a room description from my area "Quake". This is the beginning room to the area and shows how you can set the tone of the area right at the start.

By writing this description, I immediately set the tone as "dark and foreboding" and by using the description of "silhouettes of large beastly humanoids", I also used a degree of foreshadowing to show that dangerous mobs were present in the area.

Ok, we'll look at another example, here is how to build up the theme before you reach an "Area Boss" type mob. Area bosses tend to be the strongest mobs in the area, and as such, they deserve a fitting introduction. I'll use a few examples from the "Shambler Maze" part of Quake to better explain this.

I'll discuss how theme was used in each of the four rooms. All 4 of these rooms used a great degree of foreshadowing to show that the Shambler mob was out for your blood.

In ROOM 1, the player observes a radar screen that show a large blue dot leaping around near where you are. This predicts eminent danger nearby. ROOM 2 and ROOM 3 used physical evidence to show that danger was present (hairy back, blistering scream). Finally, in ROOM 4 the player is right below the beast, ready to be leaped upon. Using these techniques allows a degree of excitement to build up, making the "Area Boss" seem more threatening.

Other ways to add theme are through the use of "extra descriptions" in rooms, one of the major ones I have done were for the "Story of Triforce" in Digital Nights 2.

Now, by adding an extra description to the room, the players can read a story that explains the storyline of the area better and adds more realism and entertainment value. Now, all extra descriptions don't have to be that long. Here's another example of clever use of extra descriptions. This is from my "X-Files" area.

The first message shows that there is something important going on at that cornfield, and the second shows that Mulder is a phonesex addict. You can add extra descriptions to anything. So have fun with them.

2. 2. Description Writing

When writing room descriptions it is important to make the player "see" the elements of the room as vividly and concisely as possible. Therefore, make good use of powerful adjectives and nouns to give the room as realistic of a feel as possible. Here are a few examples of good substitutions for "vague" adjectives.

These adjectives sound better than the plain vague adjectives and exude a better response from the reader. To wrap up the theme and description, just remember these main points.

After copying all your notes onto the program, you now have about 50-100 rooms or more, now you are ready to begin working on the technical portion of room making. This is the making of ROOM FLAGS and SECTOR TYPES. This isn't as complicated as it sounds, and after a while of trial and error, you'll be a pro at it.

A. ROOM FLAGS
Room flags are special flags that can be added to a room in order to provide or prevent a certain event from occurring. I'll list all the common ones, and give a brief definition of what each one does.

ARENA:  Able to PKill in these rooms.

CONE OF SILENCE:  No talking or spellcasting in this room.

DARK: You need a light during the day for this one. (Don't use it).

FAST HEAL:  Heals at 1.5 times your nomal healing rate.

FAST MANA:  Restores mana at 1.5 times your normal rate.