Category:AREAS(BuilderInfo)

AREAS are a collection of ROOMS with a common theme in which to adventure in. AREAS can be as small as a single room, or a large as hundreds of rooms.

TYPES OF AREAS

MODIFYING AREAS

• Loki's CoffeeMUDification Project

Guidelines for Areas

Listed below are general guidelines for creating areas. These are guidelines, only, not requirements. However, these guidelines were developed over many years of area design. They are specific to the CoffeeMUD engine, especially the Official CoffeeMUD server.

• Areas should have a common theme. The Author of an area is not a common theme (an area Author could write hundreds of areas, so there is no need for this field to be limiting the area).
• Areas should have a tight level range. The lower the level of the area, the tighter the range. For an area below level 20, consider a 5 level spread.
• Players hate non-Cartesian rooms because it makes hand-drawn maps difficult. However, there are times when it is useful to mess with non-Cartesian layouts. Cartesian layouts do display better in the MUDGrinder, though.

Starting Zones

Special care should be applied to the areas where new players will begin. This area is your sales pitch for your MUD, so you want it to really shine, but not overwhelm. Starting areas should provide players with an opportunity to learn your MUD's features, but also enable veteran players to jump into the game. There are certain features that start areas should have to accommodate the variety of classes that CoffeeMUD has, as well as offset or introduce game features:

• Start areas should have a water source and food source so players wont die of starvation.
• Start areas should provide a variety of weapons so players can experiment with variants of their class instead of just the default weapon. This is especially important in the event that a player gets an allergy to whatever material the default class weapon is made out of.
• Start areas should introduce the combat system, including WIMPY and FLEE.
• If your MUD requires a specific type of room to logout from, be sure there is a room of that type in the start area.
• Your area should have a way for scholars to gain paper to write on.
• Your area should have resources for artisans to gather.
• Consider both indoor and outdoor rooms for your start area so that you can accommodate classes such as trapper, gaian and delver.
• Your mobs should either be all neutral, or have both good and evil mobs, so that classes with alignment restrictions can maintain their alignment.

City Features

• Cities should have laws.
• Special citizens:
  • Library (GenLibrarian)
  • Armor Mender
  • Armor Resizer
  • Armor Vendor (May have multiple for different armor types)
  • Weapon Vendor
  • Magic Shop
  • Potion Shop
  • Pet Shop
  • Pub (Food and Drinks)
  • Inn (Place to sleep, may serve food and drinks)
  • Class Guildmasters (Trainers)
  • Resource Vendors (GenResources)

Class Guildmasters

If you create a restricted access to a class guildmaster, use the appropriate zappermask based on the guildmaster's MOBTeacher behavior. If you create a MOBTeacher that can train all mages, make sure your zappermasks to enter his building reflects all mages (-baseclass +mage). If you create a MOBTeacher that can ONLY teach alterers, the zapper mask should also reflect that (-class +alterer)

Area Blurbs

For the Official CoffeeMUD server, consider adding the following BLURBS to your areas where applicable:

• AQUATIC - start off the description with the color cyan (^c). Add this blurb for areas that require lots of swimming, boating or underwater action.
• ECONOMY - Add any sort of economic biases for the area (IE, Shopkeepers preferring to deal with elves). (NOTE: Currency will be listed within the help file for the area automatically).
• LANGUAGES - Add this flag for areas where conversation may be important (IE, cities that sell things, RP areas).
• RECOMMENDED - Add this flag to all finished areas. Provide a recommendation for what levels, player skill sets (IE, hack-n-slash, observant, powerful, questers, RPers), and types of characters may enjoy adventuring in this area.
• RENTAL - For property areas that rent out their property. This Blurb should describe the rental costs and process. See Apartments of New Thalos for an example of the RENTAL blurb.
• TRAVEL - For zones whose primary purpose is to connect to other zones, this blurb can be used to list the commonly known linkages to the area.
• UNDEAD - start off the description with the color blue (^b). Add a short statement of the known undead presence in the area (heavy, light, ghosts, etc). Do not add this blurb if there are no undead, or if the undead are not generally known to the rest of the area's inhabitants.
• URBAN - start off the description with the color dark yellow (^Y). Add this blurb if the area is primarily a city or a district within a city.
• WILDS - start off the description with the color green(^g). Add this blurb if the area is primarily feral, or uninhabited by intelligent creatures, and of outdoor or cave type rooms. Do not use WILDS for water areas.

Area Tools

How to update the Area HELP file

After modifying the area's mobs' levels, you may notice that your area help file still shows the previous range of MOBS. This is because that data is generated on the area load at startup. You can reset the help file with the following commands:

• LIST RESOURCE STATS_(AREANAME) - Just to make sure you have the right file
• UNLOAD RESOURCE STATS_(AREANAME) - This will remove the help file entry...but fear not!
• HELP (AREANAME) - This will find that there is no help for that area, so it will generate a new help file for it (with the most current data).