From the NannyMUD documentation
2001-10-06
NAME
antharis - rules on the Antharis continentDESCRIPTION
As far as areas go, on this new continent we'll try to do things slightly differently from the mainland. BEFORE YOU START All the rules in area.r applies to Antharis areas as well as these. Read them all carefully. DEVELOPMENT OUTLINE 1. Explore Antharis with a test character. The ferry leaves 9 s, e, s from green. The entrance is /room/cont2/basalt_keep/pier1 2. Watch the maps of Antharis available on the Nanny WWW pages. (Probably http://www.lysator.liu.se/nanny/misc/maps/terrain2.jpg and http://www.lysator.liu.se/nanny/misc/maps/named.jpg) 3. Read all files under /room/cont2/doc/ 4. Read /room/cont2/doc/guidelines.txt one more time. 5. Join the antharis board and read it. 6. Think through where you want to put your area. At the current time we only accept areas north of, or in the cloudpeaks. There are two reasons for this: a. The continent will feel like a very thin skeleton if we don't start by concentrating our efforts on a smaller part b. The dwarven gates through the mountains is not coded yet. 7. If you have ideas for an area, mail them to the admin responsible for Antharis or the topography admin(s) _before_ you start coding anything. This will lead to a general plan for the area ahead of coding. It needs not be extremely detailed, but things that would make everyone very happy are: 1) A rudimentary map, either a scanned drawing or an ascii version. 2) One page of text describing the area's theme, major features, geographical content and future expansion plans. It is then assumed that this general plan will be followed by the area creator. 3) Some suggestions where you want to put the area. The location for the area will be chosen _prior_ to coding, as opposed to how it works on the mainland, where people come up and say, "Hi, I have an area ready, where can I put it?". The idea behind this is to avoid having a topographic mess. It will of course require more work by the topography admin in keeping track of progress and such. 8. Wait for response. (Yes, it may take a while) 9. If you get an ok from the admin, you can start coding your area. remember that your claim is only valid two Nanny-years, so keep us informed if you don't think you can make it in time. Make sure your claim is registered in /room/cont2/doc/areas.txt The use of time-dependant descriptions is strongly encouraged on Antharis since they add to the athmosphere and life of the environment. This is most relevant for outdoor rooms. Areas should and must refer to features visible on the master map of the new continent, as per the www page, if the areas are situated near or in them. This is very important, in order to create a better feeling of a coherent world as opposed to a patchwork of unrelated areas. Read the info on the areas already available on Antharis to make yoursel familiar with the surroundings of your area and make sure that it fits. It is a good idea to talk to the people responsible for neigbouring areas to make the integration as seamlessly as possible. 10. Write your tourist information files and put them _both_ under /open/info/name/ and /open/info/cont2/name/ where name is your name of course. 11. Prepare the message you want to put on the announce board. 12. When your sponsor feels that the area is ready for opening, let us know. There might be changes that has to be made to fit your area into Antharis. CODING Use the /room/cont2/antharis_room, antharis_time_room or antharis_water_room in stead of the /std ones. This is due to teleporting issues between that continents and such, they work just like their /std counterparts (in fact they inherit them and just set some properties). CONTENTS OF AREAS To be allowed to open an area on this new continent, it should contain at least two puzzles, or a quest. This is to add incentive for players to travel to the continent after it opens. It will take years before there will be as much to do down there as on the mainland, and so everything we can do to draw players (without giving in to the inflation trap) is encouraged. INFORMATION FOR MORTALS To open your area you also need to write a description of it for the tourist office on Antharis. This description shold be more extensive than 'I have an area located here and here, please visit.'. Try to make the description as 'in-game' as possible, that is maybe write a little about the history, legends or politics of the area. GENERAL If you want more background information about the continent than is given in these docs, feel free to ask the admin responsible for Antharis. Just because there is a map drawn and some places and cultures have been generally outlined doesn't mean that things _must_ conform exactly to the data in the overview section. All that's required is that it makes some kind of sense within the setting chosen for it, and that it doesn't collide with already existing areas/topography, and that it uses the already named features on the continent that are applicable. When connecting an area to the existing framework, you (the wizard opening the area) should, consulting the topography admin, write a few new /room rooms to make a smooth connection. The reasons why these rooms should not be part of your area are two: Your area will not block as much potential space for future area connections, and also the framework of the continent itself will be expanded. It is not much work, the rooms need not contain anything special other than good descriptions - it is very important that surrounding topographical features are mentioned here where applicable. FEATURES In /room/cont2/event the is an evend_daemon. It works by periodically checking a number of events, which you can program yourself, and according to the parameters of these events (frequency, minimal time between and so on) decide if it is activated. In that case it runs the code specified in the event which can be used to notify affected rooms of this. An example is the volcanic eruption event which affects Basalt Keep.