Area Style Guide

Area Style Guide, 2nd Edition

Introduction

Welcome to the Area Style Guide, which was originally written by Iandir and has been updated by Dovolente. This guide is intended to a) help new area writers find out what we expect of them, b) give the areas of Avendar a consistent tone/mood/feel, and c) aid builders in thinking up areas.

Many of these points will seem minor, or pointlessly strict. What we're aiming for here is to maintain the quality of Avendar and increase it. Minor sloppy points make the MUD look bad. Many of the founding staff endured years of MUDing on very poorly-written MUDs; if you think no one cares whether all the room titles match, you're wrong.

Some of the information here is a highlight of some key points that are buried in the OLC documentation. Check Leviticus for more information on the specifics of redit, medit, and oedit documentation.

Anyway, on with the pretentious and pedantic Area Style Guide!

Area Design

Area Concept

History

One thing that's important is that an area is well thought-out. This means having some kind of story to the area, a history behind it, and a purpose for each room. The history doesn't have to be complicated: Krilin Fortress was built by Baron Krilin to protect the people of the mountain community after their city was destroyed by hill giant raiders. After the fortress was built, they conducted several campaigns to wipe out the giant menace. Now the fortress has become the city, for the safety of the people, and Baron Krilin leads them.

A very simple story that adds a nice feel to the area, and gives it a purpose. Iandir could have just as easily said "Well, it's just this fortress, and everyone like lives in it and stuff." But that's not as cool.

An area that's not planned out will usually have things that don't fit, or don't feel right. For example, one builder had a forest with a garden in the middle of it. Who put the garden there? Why would there be a garden in the middle of the woods? When asked to explain these, it became obvious that he had not thought the idea through.

Something that the development staff expects to see are areas the build on the specific history of Avendar. Read through the MUD history, look at texts in the Earendam library or entries in the Canon. Read the "Race of Avendar" text in the Newbie School (room 3751). At this point (Aug 2011) we still need an aelin home area (Ilodaiya? -- and even if we get one for each race, why not two?) For more specific inspirations, read all the pillars/mob descs in the Titan Castle.

Or, many of our writers come up with ideas that are completely new but still build on the universe. Melikor came up with the idea for a tower of fire mages that lost control of their magic (or something) and their souls got put into the bodies of fire elementals. A great idea (that was never built, unfortunately). Nordath and Arisuth are good examples of fresh but fitting Avendar concepts.

Areas that don't specifically build on the world history (example, the original version of Iandir's monastery) were OK as the rough form of Avendar took shape, but after more than a decade of development and lore, there's no excuse for writing an area that is disconnected completely from the lore and backstory of Avendar.

Area Originality and Tone

Make sure that the area fits in with the feel of Avendar, as well. For one thing, we don't want areas that are based on a fantasy novel, movie, comic book, or anything. Inspired by, sure. Many of our areas will have the same tone as, say, Tolkien, but we will disallow areas that have Bilbo, Sauron, or Gandalf.

Furthermore, many times the area won't be the right mood, even if it doesn't directly take from a series. One builder wanted to make a Ravenloft-like area, but early implementors agreed that it really didn't go well with our other areas. Be sure to run your idea by some of the level 60 staffers before you get too excited about it.

Original, fresh ideas that build on the fantasy landscape are superior to boring, unoriginal ideas. (Although some of the old standbys are always good.) For example, it would have been OK for Avendar to have a cave system inhabited by gnolls. But to go on and add a cave system inhabited by goblins too... that's a standby, but in this example we already have something like it. We would want something more original, like Iandir's chaja caves.

If you wish to add a minor tribute to a person or work that has inspired you (such as Dovolente's nod to Robert Frost in the Nordath dell or Jolinn's dedication of the Patrician's Palace in a exdesc), such things should always be subtle and in harmony with the Avendar setting.

Area Location in Avendar

Make sure that we have a place to connect it in the world. Before you write it, you should know where it goes in relation to existing areas and how it might connect to them. Talk to senior staffers about where we could fit your area, and if there's nowhere, maybe you could write a connecting area just to lead up to your main area (like the Vorinden Road and Kor Thrandir).

Types of Areas

There are several basic types of areas. You have to decide which your area is. The question at hand is, why would adventurers want to go into your area? For most areas, the amount of traffic they get determines how successful the area is. (Although some areas aren't meant to be heavily traveled.) The area types are basically different reasons for folks to go into an area. The types may be mixed, and usually a successful area either does more than one of these, or does one extremely well. Area types:

• The City. People come here because it's their hometown, to buy things, to practice, or to cower in their guilds.
• The Ranking Area. People come here because it's got good ranking mobs. Examples: The Chaja Caves and the Griffin Aerie.
• The Equipment Area. People come here to kill the mobs for their eq. Example: Sythys Swamp.
• The Linking Area. People come here because they want to go somewhere connected to the area. Examples: The Arien Plains and Vorinden Road.
• The Quest Area. This is usually a rarely-traveled area with some really deadly stuff, used as a base for quests, or to hide really tough eq. Examples: The Shrine of Xiganath and the Caliphate of Dullaek Pak.

The best areas will combine more than one of these functions. Examples: Krilin - City, Ranking, Equipment. Chaja Caves - Ranking, Equipment, and Linking. So, plan ahead which types of area you want yours to be and remember to aim for more than one function. There are some areas we have right now that no one hardly EVER visits, because they don't serve the above purposes well.

Ashur has stated (as you'll see in his appendix, but it is quoted here for truth): "Design an area built on the concept that no matter where you go, there's something interesting to see. When you suck people into looking everywhere, identing everything, etc, etc, you have succeeded in a great way."

Plan Your Area

Area Map

You should map out your whole area on graph paper before you begin, and be sure that you have everything where you want it before you dig. It's annoying to see someone dig a 150-room area and then say "Can we delete this, I did it wrong." Well, either plan it out meticulously before you dig a single room, or look foolish and get used to unlinking rooms. (In the 20 areas Iandir planned/dug, he never changed the layout of one once it was dug.)

So map that baby out, and then number each room. For ease of writing in tiny squares, you could just number each room 01, 02, 03, and so on. If your vnums are 1500-1599, you could just mentally add the 15 when you dig. (If you have more than 100, you could use 2 digits for the first 100, then go 601, 602, 603 for the second.)

Also be modest with the size of the area. Areas with 50-100 rooms are good for new builders (and old builders). Trying to tackle enormous 300-room monstrosities can be overwhelming and drain one of energy and enthusiasm. INSANITY LIES THAT WAY. You have been warned.

Area Realism

As you plan the area on paper, try to think of the way a real building would be laid out, or how a real landscape would be formed. Avoid pointless hallways, or rivers that flow uphill, and so on. Don't get obsessed with this, but do pay attention to it.

Room Realism

As an extra, it's nice to have some realistic rooms. If I made a gigantic castle with no living quarters, kitchens, nothing, one would have to wonder where all the inhabitants actually live. But please don't go overboard on this, building in 100 bedrooms, 2 kitchens and 3 dining rooms. It's just nice to have *some* realism. Too much will make your area needlessly huge, and boring to boot. Not every area needs a kitchen!

Noexits and Traps

Make lots of nasty traps, if it suits your area. But generally avoid the use of noexit rooms. Noexits should really only exist if there's some type of puzzle or quest or mechanism to escape.

ALWAYS put warnings before traps or noexit rooms. Nothing is worse than having an inviting passageway that suddenly traps you for no reason. The idea here is to reward people who are careful in their explorations, and punish people who charge recklessly around. There should usually be something in the room desc that hints to what's ahead, or at the very least an exit description. (look west, "The ledge looks weak to the west").

Norecall, nogate, nosummon and nomagic rooms had better have a good reason for these properties. Rooms that have no possible way of escape, ever (noexit AND norecall or nomagic) shouldn't exist. If you have a great reason for a ton of noexits, ask senior staff about it.

Mazes/Randomized Rooms

Mazes are ok as long as they're not overdone. Ask the senior staff if your maze is worth having it randomized. Don't make them too hard, unless it's a high-level area or an area that's supposed to be a real pain to get into. (A newbie areawith a 15-room maze is way overdone. Newbies have problems with a 4-room maze, and even one randomized room can baffle a newbie. :P)

Area Credits

Make sure to set clear and consistent credits in aedit. The spacing should not vary from the format you see for other areas on the "areas" list (the start of the area name should be 10 spaces from the start of the builder's name). Type "areas" for countless examples.

Room Descs

Basics

Length

Room Descriptions should be at least 3 lines, and less than 15 lines. Too short, and it looks like the area was slapped together with minimal effort. Too long, and your writing needs to be more concise.

Spelling/Grammar

Rooms should be meticulously spellchecked. Spelling errors make our glorious MUD look like trash. Likewise with grammatical errors.

Room Names

The room name should be capitalized like the title of a book, with the first word and all major words in caps. Example: "The Lair of the Ice Wizard". Also, every room name should composed so that it could complete the sentence "Iandir is standing in/on/at __________". (A redundant in/on/at is OK, but not required.)

Content

Originality

Be creative in describing a room. People get tired of repeatedly reading "to the north is a hallway, to the west is a large alcove, and to the east is...".

No Narrative

Narrative in a room desc is a bad thing. What do we mean by narrative? Narrative is a) Telling the player how she feels as she walks into a room, b) Telling him what he's thinking, c) Describing a specific action that's taking place. An example of a and b:

"You stand in a dark and scary room. You are very frightened as you look

around, and you edge toward the door out. You almost panic as you twirl

around and find it gone!"

What if I'm playing a character who is absolutely fearless? What if my character was raised underground, and loves darkness? What if I know exactly where I'm going, and the disappearance of the door doesn't disturb me in the least? This is why you must avoid telling me my thoughts and feelings in a room desc. Using "perhaps" doesn't help any, as I've seen some do...

"You stand before an enormous gate, craning your neck to see the top.

Perhaps it was built to keep invaders out, or perhaps to keep people in."

There we are, telling me my thoughts again. These things are anathema. Also avoid describing specific actions or mobs in the desc:

"Sitting around the table, a group of barbarians laugh heartily as they

gulp ale and spit on the ground. One barbarian stands and stretches, then

reaches for his axe."

The problem with this is: Why can't I see the barbarians as mobs? What if I want to kill them? Rather than putting them in the room desc, make them mobs in the room, and give them some fun progs that make them come to life.

Progs

If you want to do anything special in a room, a sleep trap, a special effect, or whatever, let experienced builders know and they can help with it. There are many, many examples of what can be done out there. Use 'mpstat' for mobs, 'opstat' for objects, and 'rpstat' for rooms to see how others have set up progs for these things.

Mobs

Mob Variety

There should almost always be a great variety of mobs in your area. Past implementors have required that builders use at least 1/4 of the vnums in an area for mobs and objects. Exceptions may be made for rare cases.

Mob Population

It's the mobs that make your area come to life. Along with a great variety of mobs, we want to have a great number of mobs. However, don't go overboard. One builder put maybe 1 or 2 of each type in the area, and when told to put a lot more, the builder put (seriously) 45 of each mob type. It was kind of silly to see 15 mobs in each room. In general, a good sprinkling will average to about 1 or 2 mobs per room, although of course there will be clumps and bare spots.

Progs

Please use progs on the more important mobs in your area (maybe a cluster of basic ranking mobs don't need progs, but an individually named NPC who has a particular purpose in the area should have some sort of interactivity).

If you don't know how to prog, we can teach you. Mob progs make the world live and breathe, and nothing turns us on more than an area that interacts with the player.

Mob Act Flags

See the medit documentation for more details, but keep in mind the following:

• Always make any non-magical vertebrate animal act_animal. Griffins, unicorns, etc, count as magical.
• The badass flag is absolutely not to be used without senior staffer permission. The use of this flag will cause us to glare at you and lose respect for you.
• The warrior flag gives you mob an extra attack.
• The class flag is not fully implemented and is buggy.
• The track_gate flag is absolutely not to be used without senior staffer permission. See above for consequences.

Mob Levels

A variety of mob levels is usually good. Think of the level you want to have ranking on these mobs, and make the mobs 5-10 levels higher.

Mob Affects

Make sure the mob's affects are appropriate. Sanctuary should only be used on mobs who can supposedly use water magic. Use resistances rather than sanctuary if you think the mob should be extra hard to damage.

The same goes for detecting invisible... Maybe a bear could detect invisible by smelling you out, but how could an ordinary merchant see an invisible guy?

Mob Names

Be sure to make the mob's name include all the things anyone would think of to call it. If the mob's long desc is "A tall bearded swordsman stands here." You would want to make the name "swordsman tall bearded". Nothing is more idiotic than seeing "a hairy black beast" and typing "kill beast" only to have it say "They aren't here." This is extremely poor mob design.

If you name your mob, like "Jorgar the Barbarian Lord" or something, please do not use a non-fantasy name! This includes real life names like "Jonah", "Harold", or "Granny Smith". Would you really expect to see a guy named Harold in a fantasy world? We would deny a player named "Candi" in a heartbeat... so why should we have a mob named Candi? We absolutely should not.

If you're using one of our races, please make an effort to name them using our racial naming conventions. If you need ideas, see http://avendar.com/races.php .

Mob Damtype

Make the mob's damtype appropriate for the mob. We don't want little girls who smash, or cityguards who have flaming bites.

Mob Hit/Damdice

In medit, use 'setlevel' for the appropriate values. Also: make sure that the mob's hitroll is level/2, or higher for mobs meant to be particularly tough.

Mob AC

Use "help mob_ac" to determine armor class values.

Mob Offenses

Please use your head on this. I've seen people make little girls who can parry, dodge, bash, trip, disarm, and dirt kick. If it takes a freaking warrior 15 ranks before they can disarm someone, how did this little girl learn it?

Mob Wealth

Don't go overboard here. One builder put 1,000,000 gold on a mob. Wtf? Follow the guidelines for wealth given in the oedit documentation.

Mob Descs

Mob descriptions follow the same rules and restrictions as room descs. No saying "The woman drops her bundle and attacks" or anything like that. For a mob's short description, you must start non-proper-name words with a lower case letter.

• Wrong: "The mudslider"
• Right: "the mudslider"

TAKE NOTE: Race names are NOT capitalized!

• Wrong: "the Shuddeni priest"
• Right: "the shuddeni priest".

Objects

Object Variety

Just as with the mobs, we want to see at least 1/4 of the area's vnums used up by a variety of objects. If this means you have to put tables, chairs, cups, bread, shirts, and gloves all over the place, then do it. It brings the area to life.

Object Names

Just as with mob names, make sure the name includes everything an item would be called. It sucks to see "A blazing broadsword is here, shining brightly" and when you type "get broadsword", "I don't see that here." You should name such an object "broadsword blazing shining", and maybe even "broadsword broad sword blazing shining". On another note, always make sure that the FIRST word used in the name is the most common word you would use to describe it. If someone can't carry that much weight, it says "broadsword: you can't carry that much weight." Now, if someone had named this object "shining broadsword", it would say "shining: you can't carry that much". This looks silly.

Object Flags

Very rarely, if ever, use the anti-alignment flags. They should generally be saved for magical artifacts or other high-powered items that it really makes sense for. It's better to make more equipment usable by everyone, so that players have more reasons to slash each others' throats.

NOTE: the v4 values for weapons generally suck. The only ones that should be used are "twohands" to designate that the weapon takes two hands, or the poison flag. (Poison must be used rarely).

Object Values

Use common sense when assigning values. People put an avg 25 whip where it's easy to get, and then complain when an imp tells them to make it an avg 17 whip. What we're trying for here is a world where good items are hard to get. It should be a great day when you finally get your hands on an avg 25 weapon... NOT the day that you reach 15th level. I'd say the upper limit for normal EQ is avg 28, and even that should be limited to maybe 5 or 10.

It's far, far better to make 3 swords, avg 28, and limited to 5 than to make 1 avg 28 sword that's limited to 15. We like variety, we like rare weapons, and we adore a variety of rare weapons. Example: Iandir's death knights in Gogoth Castle. He gave them each their own weapon, and he limited each to 15. It would have been a lot easier to give them all the same weapon and limit it to 45, but again, we adore variety.

Magic Items

When you make potions/wands/staves/pills, don't use a greater spell unless it's really hard to get. Ksathan the Lich Mage, he can have them, but a level 35 mob with greater spell items is unacceptable.

When you are setting the spells on your item, don't forget to change "ghost" to "none". It looks bad otherwise.

Flag, Exit Descs, and Finishing Touches

Room Flags

Please make sure that all the room flags used in your area are appropriate. Nomagic, nosummon, nogate, and norecall rooms all need a reason for being the way they are, and should be extremely rare. If your area is very special, these things can be justified, but check with a senior staffer if you're not sure.

Do not use the "solitary", "private", "vault", "safe", or "newbies_only" flags.

The "nowhere" flag makes it so that people outside the room don't see you on "where". This is generally no longer used in Avendar--check with a senior staffer if you think you need it.

The "noneforyou" flag makes it so that people inside the room don't see anyone else on where. The "indoors" flag makes it so that area-affect spells rebound on your group, and so that you don't see weather reports. The "noweather" flag is for non-indoors rooms where you still can't see the weather.

See the redit documentation for more information.

Room Sectors

Do not forget to go through your area and change all the sectors. It starts out as inside, and most of our areas aren't all inside. (Even if your area is indoors, you have to go through and set the room flag "indoors" on every room.) If you're not sure what sector to make a room, check with other staffers.

Exit Descriptions

Exit Descriptions are the picky little things that you get when you look north", and you see "The trail winds to the north." These are most important if you've got a trap, a noexit, or a maze coming up. These are required for any new area (though some of our original area set may still be lacking them).

Appendix I: Fantasy works to read for inspiration

George R. R. Martin (Song of Ice and Fire)

H.P. Lovecraft

J.R.R. Tolkien

Lawrence Watt-Evans (Lords of Dus, Heroes of Ethshar)

Gary Gygax (Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide, Gord the Rogue books)

AD&D Modules

Robert Jordan (I guess... Put in at Jolinn's request :P)

Appendix II: Ashur's Appendix

Ia! Ia!

Ashur sez:

Regardless of the type of area you try to do, I have one major pet peeve and one major piece of advice (well, a few).

• Use mobs and objects. Use mobs and objects. Read this sentence again. Too many people map out some huge area without any theme, write 99 rooms, then have 6 mobs and 4 objects. That is so shatteringly lame, its unbelievable. When you have 80 mobs and objects, your area is thick with the chance to explore.

• A theme. Don't form scattershot crap, where you just plot terrain and then add random mobs. We want an area with history and depth-- mobs that have a reason for doing what they're doing, conflicts amongst your areas inhabitants, etc.

• Do NOT design your area around making an area for equipment or leveling or anything. Design an area built on the concept that no matter where you go, there's something interesting to see. When you suck people into looking everywhere, identing everything, etc, etc, you have succeeded in a great way.

• Make a mythos. Your area needs a background...it needs history, or culture. And that should be compatible with the rest of Avendar. All pre-conceived mythos (wheel of time books, xanth areas, whatever) are banned. Think it up yourself. No Tolkien mobs without permission, especially the demi-humans (elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc -- we don't have them).