View source for OLC TIPS ROOMS

Rooms:
 1) The ENTRANCE of your area (where it connects to the rest of the
   mud) should be the FIRST room in the world file.
   
 2) Death Traps:  These are to encourage "intelligent exploration", not
   to just "kill" players.  You must follow these rules:
   
    a) If a room has an exit leading to a death trap, make sure to make
       an exit from the trap to the room.... this sounds strange, but
       if you don't, any people considering following won't hear the
       "death cry" upon the victim's demise.
    b) A general rule of thumb is OK to have 1 death trap per 100 rooms,
       if you want to put more then one, this is acceptable.  This is all 
       that is required to make "stupid wandering" dangerous.
    c) The exit leading to every death trap MUST have an exit description
       that describes something about the room they are about to enter.

 3) Room sector types denote many things, but a room type of "inside" does
   not automatically make the room INDOORS.  Therefore it will get weather
   messages and the like.  It's important to remember to flag these rooms
   as INDOORS as well (caves, inside a house, etc).

 4) Room titles should contain proper "structure".  For example:
       "The West Hallway" is more acceptable then "West Hallway".
   Also each word should be capitalized like a book title.  Also
   avoid punctuation.

 5) Room descriptions should be formatted properly so they are easy to
   read.  This means carriage returns after 75 characters, but before
   80 characters, so they will word-wrap properly.  Also include proper
   spacing, i.e. two spaces after the end of a sentence.

   Indenting paragraphs is optional.

   Avoid putting in the room description objects or mobs that are not 
   going to be in that room 100% of the time.  If you do not wish to
   load an object in the room that is mentioned in the room description
   you are greatly encouraged to add an Extra-Description to the room 
   to describe the item.

 6) Exits / Doors
   If you specify a door in the room description you should make sure that
   the door has the keywords used to describe the door.  For example, if
   the room description says there's a "wooden door to the north" make
   sure the exit contains both keywords "door" and "wooden".  Also be
   consistent in that if you put in the room description that there's
   "a doubledoor" to the west, make sure the door has the keyword 
   "doubledoor", NOT just "doubledoors" or "double door".

   Unless you specifically intend for an exit to be "one way", be sure
   to check that your exits are created two-way so that players can
   properly walk back into the room they just came from.

   Renaming doors is sometimes a good idea to create 'secret' doors.  For 
   example, having a doorway behind a tapestry on a wall if you want to 
   have a concealed passageway.  This can often be used together with 
   extra direction descriptions.  Since the mud defaults to looking in a 
   direction before looking at an extra description, you can set up an 
   exit to 'nowhere' by using -1 as the destination room number, and then 
   use the description section of the door to describe what can be seen 
   when looking that way.

   You are not limited to the four cardinal directions, and up and down
   when linking rooms.  AddictMUD contains "diagonal" directions that you
   can use as well (northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest).

[[CATEGORY:OLC]]