Satin (Gabrille Taylor) compiled the Rom 2.4/2.5 document, version 1.0, on the 9th of July, 1995. Amnarantur overworked this document for Dawn of the Ages, his last modification date being the 26th of March, 2000. Anasadi has since reworked this document, last modifying the document on the 22nd of March, 2003.
This file contains material and information from the Merc release 2.1 Area help files (done by Furey, Hatchet, and Kahn), material from the Merc Diku Mud code itself, material and examples from various area files that are found in both ROM2 and MadROM, as well as coding material that was adapted and modified by Alander for ROM1 and ROM2, and later by Madman for MadROM. It also contains information from Alander written for ROM 2.3 and ROM2.4x, from Zump for Rom 2.4x, and information from ozy.doc by Ozymandias. It was compiled and rewritten by Satin for Tesseract (hypercube.org 9000), and then adapted by her to Rom 2.4x. Many of the examples are drawn from Diku's Midgaard, and my example of a fountain is drawn from Conner's New Thalos area. Thanks to AsaMaro, who did write some of the hints you can find below. We also included parts from the documentation of the mobprograms, which was written by Newt.
An area file consists of 11 basic sections, as follows:
| The area header: | vital statistics for the area |
| The mobiles: | the stats and descriptions of all monsters in the area |
| The objects: | the stats and descriptions of all objects in the area |
| The rooms: | a listing of all rooms and exits in the area |
| Area resets: | instructions for loading/maintaining the area |
| Area populators: | instructions for populating the area |
| Encounters: | instructions for encounters in the area |
| Encounter tables: | the actual listings of populators and encounters in the area |
| The shops: | a listing of any shops that the area contains |
| Specials: | procedures to enchance the performance of mobiles |
| Mob Programs: | special procedures written by you to enhance the performance of the mobiles |
| Mob Scripts: | special procedures, where mobs resolve a script step by step |
Areas may also include special notes and procedures, such as a help file, information on where on the area should be placed, and any special code that should be written to make the area work properly. This should be included outside the main body of the area, but within the same file. In Dawn of the Ages you can put all your comments in the #RESETS or #SPECIALS sections. The comment line should start with a * -- in fact it can be any letter except M, O, P, G, E, D or S.
The area file (yourArea.are) should contain all these area headers, organized in the following manner:
#AREA [area header] <help> [help files for your area] </help> #MOBILES [the mobiles] #0 #OBJECTS [the objects] #0 #ROOMS [the rooms and exits] #0 #RESETS [the area resets] S #POPULATE [the area populators] #0 #ENCOUNTERS [the encounters] #0 #ENCOUNTERTABLES [the encounter tables] #0 #SHOPS [shops] 0 #SPECIALS [special procedures] S #MOBPROGS [the mobprograms] #0 #SCRIPTS [the mob scripts] #0 #$ [to terminate the file]Numbering
You will notice throughout this document that all these sections require numbers. For example, Hassan is mobile #1203, and the temple of Midgaard is room #3001. To make your area as simple to add as possible, number your files starting with "1" and go from there in order. Your mobiles, objects, etc. all should begin with "1" as the first entry.
MailingPlease send all area submissions to:
Anasadi (anasadi@gmail.com)
All areas submitted to Dawn should be sent as an attachment to a mail file. We prefer the name of the area to be short (seven to ten characters) and to consist only of lowercase letters (no hyphens, underscores, or numbers, please.) Examples include shire.are and midgaard.are.
If you are submitting your area on a UNIX system, please tar and zip the area file before sending it. The command to use is this:
tar -czf [name].tgz [name].are
where [name] is the name of the area.
Possible errataIf you notice anything wrong with or confusing in these documents, please mail me at anasadi@gmail.com. I will attempt to correct the error or explain the confusion as soon as possible.