Introduction

Who should read this book?

This book was designed to be read by anyone who is thinking of writing areas for a VME server. If you have written for other mud servers you will still need to at least skim every chapter because the VME is like no other mud engine and has some very interesting differences. If you have never written a zone then be certain to try out the suggested exercises here and there. You will find it is easy and fun to do.

What does this book cover?

The topics covered in this book are everything to do with writing an area for the VME server. While we do cover using DIL functions to make your monsters, rooms, and objects better and smarter we do not cover how to write the DIL functions covered in the DIL manual. The following are topics covered by this book:

• Compiling and Debugging
• Zone Structure and Building Blocks
• Writing Rooms
• Writing NPCs
• Writing Objects
• Doing the Resets
• Color and Formatting Codes

Credits

The basic zone writing manual you are reading now, didn’t just come flying out of this author’s head. In fact it is a conglomeration of several old texts no longer used. I had first thought about quoting and giving credit to each person who had ever modified or created portions of the first documentation but because of the nature of the way they were built it was impossible to know who did what. I therefore have decided to create a list here of everyone who has ever worked on or had a hand in the development of the basic zone writing documentation and references.

Original DIKU Coding Team

These are not only the original DIKU mud developers but a few of them designed and developed the VME server. They authored the original documentation texts (abilities.txt, guild.txt, monster.txt, objects.txt, rooms.txt, vmc.txt) that were incorporated into this book.

Contributors