The #AREA and <help> Formats of an Area

Section 1: #AREA

Here's how the #AREA is formatted:

Using Shamrock's Cafe, here is an example of the #AREA format:

#AREA
shamrockCafe.are~
Shamrock's Cafe~
{ ALL }  Anasadi    Shamrock's Cafe~
1 32000

Here's the breakdown:

#AREA
This is the signifier that the code uses to mark the beginning of a zone.
filenam.are~
When saving a file you need to choose a unique filename followed by the ".are~" extension. This is where you place it. Keep it short -- for example, if your area is titled "The Dell of the Darkness", an appropriate name might be dellOfDarkness.are. Shorter names are preferred, but not necessary, but you will want to use a capital letter for every word used in the name after the first word (e.g. "shamrockCafe.are"). No hyphens, underscores, or numbers, please. Do not forget to close the name with a tilde (~).
area name~
This is the name of your area, as it is shown using the command "whe", plus a closing tilde(~).
{25 50} Builder Sample Area~
This is the line that will appear in the 'area' command. The numbers in brackets signify the minimum and maximum levels that a player character should be before venturing into the area (or "ALL" for any player). Insert the area author's name in the spot labeled 'Builder' above, and the area name where the example says 'Sample Area'. Do not forget to close with a tilde (~).
firstNumber secondNumber
Question of the day: What is a Vnum?

You'll be seeing the term "vnum" a lot in this guide. Vnum stands for (V)irtual (Num)ber. The vnum keeps track of everything in Dawn of the Ages. Vnums make up everything you see in the game. Each monster, object and room has its own vnum. This enables Dawn to keep track of what's going on in the MUD. The way vnums are set up, the same number (e.g., 1000) can be used once each for a mobile, an object, and a room. This may be a bit confusing but you'll quickly catch on. Just remember, mobiles, objects, and rooms are all completely different categories. Thus there's no conflict if a mobile, object, and room all share the same vnum. It's enonomical (less numbers to keep track of) and makes things easier.

On many muds you have to declare the vnum as a range between some number xx00 to some number xy99, where "xx" and "xy" can be different, but the suffixes must end in "00" and "99" respectively. On Dawn this is not the case. Just write out the beginning number you choose for the area, and the ending number, keeping in mind that an area can have at most 32,000 of anything (thus, your secondNumber at most will be 32000). This is more an instance of convenience for the immortals on Dawn, so if they need to locate something, they know in what range to look for it. Dawn still uses a vnum system, but assigns a hard vnum to the area as a whole rather than to each individual part. We will discuss this in more detail later in mobprogs.

Section 2: <help>

The syntax of this section is:

<help>
<topic name="area">
<topic name="[keywords]" level="[level]">
[help-text]
</topic>
<topic name="[second keywords]" level="[level]">
[second help-text]
</topic>
</topic>
</help>

The [level] number is the minimum character level needed to read this section. This allows for immortal-only help text. The 'level' number is optional; you do not need to use it. If it is not used, the help is accessible to all automatically.

The [keywords] is a set of keywords for this help text. Don't use doubles for keywords, for example,'river rivertemple'. If you use 'rivertemple', a help inquiry on 'river' will also find this help.

The [help-text] is the help text itself. If a 'help-text' begins with a leading '.', the leading '.' is stripped off. This provides for an escape mechanism from the usual leading-blank stripping of strings, so that picturesque greeting screens may be used.

Now a little word on the syntax. If you know something about XML, you will see how it works without further words. You see, the help syntax is our first try to bring the XML syntax into the area files. If you know nothing about XML, here is a short explanation:

First of all, every help entry that is made in an area should be found under 'area' in the help-tree. Because of that, your entries are put into a frame consisting of <topic name="area"> and </topic>. With this frame, your entries are automatically put into the group 'area' in the help-tree. Now, when you create your own area-specific helps, they are also put into such a frame, which defines the keywords and the level of your help. The help-text is then entered into this frame. No extra tilde (~) is required.

Here's an example of a help section from Shamrock's Cafe:

<help>
<topic name="area">
<topic name="shamrock cafe" level="1">
Shamrock's Cafe is a small restaraunt and bar found along the forest trail
west of Midgaard. Shamrock's is open for business twenty-hour hours a day,
and they'll be happy to serve anyone who stops by.
</topic>
<topic name="shamrock cafe" level="51">
Shamrock's Cafe is an area for builders. It details many of the things they
can implement in their areas, and gives them a live demonstration of the
area as found on the web.

Here's the breakdown of Shamrock's Cafe:

MOBILES:
  VNUMS: 1-100       TYPE: REGULAR
  VNUMS: 101-200     TYPE: ATMOSMOB
  VNUMS: 201-300     TYPE: ENCOUNTERS
  
OBJECTS:
  VNUMS: 1-100       TYPE: REGULAR
  VNUMS: 101-200     TYPE: ROOM
  VNUMS: 201-300     TYPE: ENCOUNTERS
  
ROOMS:
  VNUMS: 1-21

A map of the area is as follows:

      20 - 18 - 19
            |    |
           17 - 16
            |    |
      13 - 14 - 15
       |    |
      12 - 11
            +
      06 - 07
       +     /
      04 - 05     09 + 08
       |    |         /
      03 - 02     10
            |
           01
            +
        :71:6003

</topic>
</topic>
</help>