The basics of building.
The basic area commands.
Added August 17, 2002:
Well I am now addicted to RoD again (Realms of Despair). It has slowed down my
progress on getting my website work done, but I finally decided it was about
time I at least did an update. I am currently a working single mom with 4 kids
still at home. There is not enough time in the day or night to do all I would
like to do. I will soon be looking for a bigger house for us to move to, hopefully
in Jan or Feb we will be able to move. Summer is over and the kids go back to
school Monday morning......*jumps for joy*.....my house looks like a tornado
went thru it. Maybe I will be able to get things back in order and get some
work done on my website.
HOWS AND WHYS
**An explaination on how and why I am put this OLC Building Guide together.**
After mudding for almost three years, I started looking for more than levels.
To start out with I was trying to learn to build, but didn't ever get past
the making of rooms and had to stop mudding for awhile. Then when I returned,
I worked well over a year on setting, correcting, adding, and checking help
files. This in itself, gave me a good understanding of how things worked on
a smaug mud. Then I began learning to build. After I had the basics down, I
started redoing some of the building help files, as some of them were lacking
info on some of the things that obviously were later add-ons. Then as I came
across things that I did not fully understand, I began reading thru as many OLC
Building Guides as I could find on the net, even if they were not for smaug code
base muds. I found many of them out there, more than I thought there would be.
It was a little frustrating to not be able to find any info on certain building
commands. Some of the guides I went thru were only the help files put on a web
page, others were excellent on some parts and lacking on others. A few commands
I came across I could not find any info on, so I started picking other Builders
and Imms brains. :) But STILL I wanted more info, because I had decided to learn
HTML and make an OLC Building Guide with everything I could possibly findout
about building on it, all in one place. So I decided if I downloaded smaug and
installed it onto my 'stone hinge' (as my son called it) computer, that I could
test all the different commands without worrying if I would crash the mud or mess
something up by causing bugs. Then out of curiosity I started going thru the
smaug files..... First the .txt ones, which had some helpful info..... Then the
code files, and ooOOOoooOOOoo, I found all kinds of cool stuff to use to cross
check with my help files. So I started going thru each and every single file that
comes with smaug, making sure that each of my help files has all the correct info
and different settings that are possible for every command. This is where I am at
now...still amassing more info from the files, and this is why it is taking me so
long to get this thing completed.....that and 5 kids don't help much either. :)
If I ever get this thing completed, I plan on starting a new help guide that will
be for all the other Imm commands. A full and complete explaination of each and
every smaug Imm command, well to the best of my ability anyway..... And by all
means, if you see I have made a mistake anywhere, please feel free to email me
and point it out.
BASICS OF BUILDING
**Learning to build on a smaug mud with Smaug On Line Creation(OLC).**
So you think you would like to learn to build on a mud? Being an imm and
building can get to the point of seeming like just work, work, and more work
to some people. Usually if you love to read, are an avid role player, have a
good imagination, and a sense of humor; then you should not have problems with
learning to build, or with building on a permanent basis. While others seem
to get writers block, or become bored with building. One thing you need to
learn before even thinking about taking this step into "Imm Hood" is the fact
that you are becoming an imm to work and build, not to be able to slay and
harass others and make "way cool niffty equipment" for yourself! An imm does
not even need equip, as on most smaug muds, you can NOT die. Course some of
us prefer wearing some kind of equip, as to running around neekked. :) If
you have the requirements to become a good builder, then you will find there
is nothing more rewarding than finishing an area, and having it installed for
others to explore and enjoy.
***Building a regular full size area***
The best way to start an area, is get it clear in your mind what you want your
area to be like and have. Use a note book for jotting down ideas in. This can
be used to refer back to, and can hold all the information for your area, and for
future areas as well. Try to come up with a story line or plot for your area,
as this will help to make your area more fun to explore and will also help you
think of programs that can be added later when finishing up your area. Once you
have an idea for your area, you should write a note and post it on the imm board,
so others know what you will be working on. At this point it is a good idea to
sit down with some graph paper (which does not cost very much and can be found
at most stores) and map out your whole area. I find if I use regular graph paper
(4 squares per inch) that I can use 4 squares for one room. Which gives me enough
_ _ room to put the vnum # in the room also. This makes it easier to do things
|_|_| in your area when you are using the AT command, as you can look at the
|_|_| graph and see the exact room number. Putting your area on graph paper like
this also gives you a very good idea of how many vnums you will be needing.
It also helps to keep your rooms from overlapping each other, which can be annoying
on some maping programs like the one Zmud has. It can also confuse players and keep
them from exploring your area completely. Once your area has been approved and you
have been assigned your vnum's, then you are ready to get started. At all times,
remember to have fun with what you are doing and do not rush, you want to take the
time to make sure your area will be something that you can be proud of.
BASIC AREA COMMANDS
It is easier to learn one section at a time, so I have set this guide up in parts.
There are four parts to learning to build, they are:
ROOMS MOBILES OBJECTS PROGRAMS
AVEAREA LOADAREA
*****************************
The very first two commands that you need to learn are SAVEAREA and LOADAREA.
Every time you work on your area, you need to savearea often. This saves
everything you have done up to that point, and keeps you from losing a lot of
work when/if the mud crashes. If you spend 2 hours putting in all your exits
on an area that has 150 rooms without doing savearea, and the mud crashes for
some reason, then you just lost all that work, and wasted two hours of your
building time. Savearea OFTEN. If the mud crashes or reboots then you will
need to re-load your area to be able to work on it. Proto-areas do NOT load
back up when the mud reboots. I have seen many an Imm panic and yell "My whole
area is gone!!!" or "All my work has been deleted!?!". The work is still there
as long as you have been using SAVEAREA, it just has to be loaded.
NUM NEWZONES
********************
There are three ways to check to see if your area is loaded already. ONE is by
typing SCORE, at the bottom of score there is a line that will say either:
Area Loaded [yes] or Area Loaded [no]
The SECOND way is by typing VNUM for a list of all prototype areas that will
show which ones are loaded, by them having a * at the end of their line:
Zylara.are | Rooms: 1601 - 1605 Objs: 1601 - 1605 Mobs: 1601 - 1605 *
Bob.are | Rooms: 1606 - 1610 Objs: 0 - 0 Mobs: 0 - 0
Sunny.are | Rooms: 9701 - 9850 Objs: 9701 - 9850 Mobs: 9701 - 9850 *
The first and last areas on this list are loaded, the middle one is not. Or
doing the NEWZONES command, will list only loaded prototype areas.
The THIRD way is just by typing LOADAREA, if your area is already loaded, then
you will get a message saying: Your area is already loaded.
If it is not loaded, then it will be load after you type loadarea and hit enter.
NSTAROOM INSTAZONE
**************************
These two commands are used for adding resets to your area. When learning to make
rooms, you do not really need them yet. Later when learning Mobiles and Objects,
INSTAROOM is how you put a mob or object into the room you are working on and make
it still be there when the mud reboots or crashes. It is also how you set your
door type exits to be closed and/or locked at area reset time. I will go into these
more under the reset part of this guide. For now just keep in mind that these are
very important commands when you start working on moblies and objects. Almost as
important as savearea and loadarea, because you must have resets in your area.
STAT
************
This command will give you all the information on the area you are currently in. I
don't know why, but it always says the prototype areas are not prototype in line 2.
Read help astat for more information on this command. Example:
Name: {PROTO} Zylara's area in progress
Filename: Zylara.are Prototype: no
Max players: 1 IllegalPks: 0 Gold Looted: 0
Area economy: 0 gold coins.
Mdeaths: 0 Mkills: 0 Pdeaths: 0 Pkills: 0
Author: Zylara
Age: 0 Number of players: 1
Area flags:
low_room: 1601 hi_room: 1605
low_obj : 1601 hi_obj : 1605
low_mob : 1601 hi_mob : 1605
soft range: 0 - 0. hard range: 0 - 0.
Resetmsg: (default)
Reset frequency: 15 minutes.
Alot of the settings on proto areas are not set at this point. Later after you
finish your area and it is ready to be installed, the higher level Imm that is
installing it will set these settings for you. You will want to have some info
ready at this point:
1.) What you want the actual name of the area to be.
2.) What you think the reset frequency should be, 15 is default, could be shorter
for low level - highly used areas, like Academy.
3.) What level range your area is designed for, should be kept in a 20 to 25 range
about....a level 5 player will prolly die fighting in an area that is said to
be for levels 5 to 50....because mobs will sometimes jump in on fights.
4.) What you want the reset message to be, the default is "You hear some squeaking
sounds..." which I am sure you have seen in some areas. This message is seen
through out the whole area at reset time, so pick something that will not be
annoying, might seem out of season, or at a wrong time of day or night.
ETTING LOW HIGH VNUMS ON EVERY PROTO AREA WITHOUT HAVING TO USE ASET
****************************************************************************
If you think that later on you may want to go back and change something, or add
something else to your area, you can do this with out a lot of problems. IF you
ALWAYS remember to use you FIRST and LAST VNUM to make a room, mobile, and object...
even if the last vnum is just called a "dummy end thing". This way when the Imm
installing your area is finished, your area will still have this on astat:
low_room: 1601 hi_room: 1605
low_obj : 1601 hi_obj : 1605
low_mob : 1601 hi_mob : 1605
This means that even if you did not use all those vnums to make five rooms, five
mobiles, and five objects; the vnums are still there to use.
Now, say you only made three objects, two mobiles, and 4 rooms and did not use the
last vnums (# 1605) astat would show, even if the high is set to 1605:
low_room: 1601 hi_room: 1604
low_obj : 1601 hi_obj : 1603
low_mob : 1601 hi_mob : 1602
The vnum will only go as far as the highest VNUM actually used in the area. You
can still use those extra ones BUT they are not part of the area unless a higher
level Imm resets your high vnums and both of you will end up having to do extra
commands and extra work to get those newly added things to stay put... Believe me
it is easier to just create and set "dummy end things" in the first place, then you
don't have to bug someone to redo it just to make a few simple changes.
(NOTE: You do need to be high enough level to modify-proto to make changes though.)
ELP ON THE WRITING BUFFER
*********************************
This is the menu that you will get by typing /? while in the writing buffer. I
have added a little to it to help explain better.
Editing commands
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/? gives you this help menu in short form
/l shows you what is currently in the writing buffer, with lines #'ed
/c clear writing buffer out completely...deleting everything
/d [line#] deletes one line only...as in /d 5 deletes line #5
/g [line#] go to a certain line and enter a new line of text...as in /g 3
goes to the line and it will then let you put in your new text
/i [line#] insert a new blank line into the writing buffer, does not take
the place of the existing line, everything is moved down one line
/r [old] [new] global replace (I have tryed everything with this, and it does
NOT seem to work! I will look into it more later.)
/a abort editing and exit the buffer without saving
/s save everything in the buffer and exit out of the buffer
/! [command] execute a non buffer command (do not use another editing command)
Example: /! say I am in a buffer, just a sec. -OK to do
Example: /! /l -NOT ok to do
A little more info on the buffer..... If you do /d, /g, or /i then you are editing
that line and your next line entered will be the following line in the buffer.
Example - you do /l and you have this in your buffer:
------------------
1) This pathway leads north and south. North is a small cottage, with a
2) large tree in the front yard. To the south is the city street. There
3) are colored stones set into the dirt of the path. The house and yard
4) looks well taken care of. A wooden and rope swing is hnging from one
5) of the lower branches of the tree. The smell of fresh baked bread is
6) coming from farther down the road.
------------------
Then if you do /g 4 to fix the 'a' that was left out of hanging:
/g 4
(On line 4)
looks well taken care of. A wooden and rope swing is hanging from one
Then after you hit enter, to put the new line in, you will go to line 5 for the
next command entered because 5 is the next line. So if you want to go back to
line 6 at the bottom...you have to do /g 6. This is the same way when deleting
and adding a line. You will always go to the next line from the one you last
worked on. Getting use to the writing buffer takes a little time, but once you
do it is very easy. I know before I worked on ALL those help files I hated trying
to write a note, but it became natural quick enough.
HELPFUL BUILDING SHORTCUT
**********************************
This MAY only work for Win-95 and Zmud users-I havent used anything else. If you
have and can use this system, then playing around with it and the writing buffer
enough, you can be poping room desc into the mud in just a few seconds time, after
spending hours in wordpad, of course!!! Wordpad can make your building go much
quicker, by using copy and paste. I know that note pad doesn't work very well
unless you just copy and paste one single line at a time. Open up a wordpad window
and click on VIEW at the top, then click on OPTIONS, then click for NO WRAP. Also
the toolbar helps with faster copy and paste buttons. You need to check on your
Zmud settings also. To do this click on the GENERAL button on zmuds toolbar, then
click on the characters tab and see if you have a character put into the box for
SEPARATOR CHAR, and also that the box has a checkmark in it. Click OK. Once you
have these set, the first line on your wordpad file can be a line bar like this:
+++++++++1+++++++++2+++++++++3+++++++++4+++++++++5+++++++++6+++++++++7+++++++++
This is 79 spaces, which is the set max line length for stock smaug. Anything
longer than 79 spaces will be trimmed off. I like to use about 65 or 70 for my line
length. Then all you need to do is type in all of your room description, just like
you want it to be. Then click and drag to highlight all of your text for one room.
Then click on the copy button on the toolbar, this copies it to your clipboard, and
holds it in memory. Then click on your Zmud window to bring it to the top of your
desktop. Type- redit desc -and then in the writing buffer you can paste one of two
ways. First is with the EDIT and PASTE at the top of your zmud window, the second
way is by keys. Hold down your CTRL key and then hit the letter- v -the coped text
will pop into your zmud command line box at the bottom of your Zmud window. Be sure
to back space off the last SEPARATOR CHAR, that can show up on the very end of your
text sometimes, as this will not be removed otherwize. Then simply hit enter, and
/s to save...tadaa one room desc finished. If you use some symbols, they may mess
with your setting on Zmud, and make Zmud tell the writing buffer to leave the
SEPARATOR CHAR in your line. If this happens, turn off some of Zmuds character
settings or just put the lines in by copy and pasting one line at a time. You can
use this method for anything that is done in a writing buffer, including notes.
This, just like the writing buffer, gets easier the more you use it. It comes in
very handy for the people that have capped usage on their online time But to
start with, I just hated being in a buffer and missing everything everyone was
saying. *snicker*
