Building Zones
For those that have used zones before they are really neat and nifty andpretty darn handy. For those that haven't used them, they're pretty
mysterious. And for those that aren't used to reading programmer-written
documentation, trying to figure out how to set them up from the MU*
helpfiles is daunting, if not painful.
So here's a crash course.
First, what are they good for? They help organize areas of rooms and
exits into a cohesive group. If a zone master room is set up, code for
the entire zone can be shared (often useful for local help, information or
weather commands). Rooms can be parented to the Zone Master room for
common attributes. But most importantly, it makes managing exits much
easier. (See "help zones3" and "help zones4" for some examples.)
So how do you make one? Follow these simple steps and you'll have a zone:
@create a object to be used for the Zone Master Object. It's possible to
have several zones, so having the name slightly unique helps sort them
out. The part in () is just to give the object a shortcut for commands.
@create Ichabod's Tavern Zone Master Object (ITZMO)
Use the @chzone command to zone yourself to the object.
@chzone me=ITZMO
See? Used the shortcut already. You now have a zone. Any rooms you dig
from now on will have the same zone as you, ie: zoned to that object. Any
exits you open will also belong to the same zone. If you have already
done some building, you can use the @chzone command to add them to the
zone as well.
Warning: Objects you create will also be zoned. Be sure to @chzone obj=
to keep others from possibly modifying it. They're not supposed to be able
to, but no reason to take chances.
If you want someone else to be able to modify a room or exit without
@chowning it to them, you can add them to the ZMO's enter lock, like the
following:
@lock/enter ITZMO=SomeSucker|SomeOtherSucker|CuteGirl|MyCat
Each of those characters will be able to modify any exits or rooms in the
zone, as well as any objects that are zoned as well.
What was that about exits earlier? Anyone that's done much building when
they weren't a wizard has discovered what a pain dropping exits can be.
If players are on the enter lock of a zone, they can drop, link, and open
exits to a zone'd area without any trouble.
Zone Master Rooms are pretty easy to set up as well... Simply chzone rooms
to the room you want as a ZMR as you build them. To make matters even
more confusing, you can also parent rooms to the same room as well... But
that just makes them inherit attributes.
The difference is that if rooms are @chzoned to another room, making it a
Zone Master Room, any objects with code that are plunked into that room
will have the $commands available throughout the zone. Note that the ZMR
should never be publically accessable. Any code on a player that is present
could potentially end up being used in the rest of the Zone. (Not likely,
but why take the chance?)
If there is a need to have rooms parented to a specific parent for any
reason, just parent the Zone Master Room to that parent and the rest of
the zone will inherit.
(Note: The zone files were written at 3AM local time... they should be
accurate. Should be... )
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