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<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><big><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Dead Souls Creator FAQ, v3.2</span></big><br><br>Written by Cratylus @ Frontiers, March 2006<br>Updated July 2006.<br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><br></span>Note: commands are displayed in boldface, like this: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ls -a</span><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><br><br>What's this FAQ about?</span><br><br> There are common issues and questions that crop<br>up for most new creators. This document is intended to<br>ease or at least shorten what can be a steep learning<br>curve.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Section 1: Getting Started</span><br><br><a
href="ds-creator-faq.html#1.1">1.1 My question isn't on here. Where can I get an answer?</a><br><br><a
href="#1.2">1.2 The ds channel is too spammy. It's distracting me.</a><br><br><a
href="#1.3">1.3 All I did was change one thing in a file, and now it won't update. Help!</a><br><br><a
href="#1.4">1.4 The mud editor is confusing the heck out of me. It's too hard to use.</a><br><br><a
href="#1.5">1.5 When I log in, everything is screwed up, and I can't do anything!</a><br><br><a
href="#1.6">1.6 Ok, I'm a creator now. What am I supposed to do?</a><br><br><a
href="#1.7">1.7 This is weird...where is the online builder? How does new stuff get compiled?</a><br><br><a
href="#1.8">1.8 I explored around in /domains/Ylsrim and <XYZ> is broken</a><br><br><a
href="#1.9">1.9 I explored around in /domains/town and <XYZ> is broken</a><br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Section 2: Code</span><br><br><a href="#2.1">2.1 What's the QCS?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.2">2.2 SetUnique doesn't work.</a><br><br><a href="#2.3">2.3 I made a magic wand that disappears after 10 minutes. </a><br><a
href="#2.3">But if a player logs out and log back in, they have another 10 minutes! </a><br><a
href="#2.3">How do I fix this?</a><br><br><a href="#2.4">2.4 Where is it saved?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.5">2.5 How do I add or remove emotes?</a><br><a href="#2.6"><br>2.6 How can I tell what files something inherits?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.7">2.7 How can I find the filename of something?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.9">2.8 What's the largest integer usable by the mud?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.9">2.9 How can I find out what functions exist in something?<br></a><br><a
href="#2.10">2.10 object::init() is broken!</a><br><br><a href="#2.11">2.11 if(ob->GetFoo()) seems to break, but I don't know why</a><br><br><a
href="#2.12">2.12 How do I add color to my descriptions?<br></a><br><a
href="#2.13">2.13 How do I turn the integer 42 into the string "forty-two"?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.14">2.14 Can I use !=NULL as a test?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.15">2.15 I want to create and test a new command for the mud, </a><br><a
href="#2.15">but I'm not admin so I can't put anything in the normal command paths. </a><br><a
href="#2.15">What can I do?</a><br><br><a href="#2.16">2.16 How do skills work?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.17">2.17 How do classes work?</a><br><br><a href="#2.18">2.18 How do virtual rooms work?<br></a><br><a
href="#2.19">2.19 How are files organized in Dead Souls?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.20">2.20 What are lfuns, sefuns and efuns?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.21">2.21 Why are there more sefun doc files than sefun files?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.22">2.22 I edited a file but now the reload command is complaining.</a><br><br><a
href="#2.23">2.23 this_player()->GetName() returns "A shadow" when the player is invis.<br></a><br><a
href="#2.24">2.24 Is there a sefun for making a whole string uppercase?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.25">2.25 What is the difference between filter() and foreach()? How do I use them?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.26">2.26 member_array() is returning exactly the wrong thing</a><br><br><a
href="#2.27">2.27 I'm trying to add two mappings together and the results are bizarre</a><br><br><a
href="#2.28">2.28 When str = "abc", str[1] is 98, not "b". What gives?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.29">2.29 How do I make an array1 that is the same as array2 but without an element</a>?<br><br><a
href="#2.30">2.30 How do I pass arguments to a pointer in a functional?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.31">2.31 What does the tc() sefun do?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.32">2.32 How can I find out how many items are in an array quickly?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.33">2.33 My SetRead isn't working</a><br><br><a href="#2.34">2.34 My SetEnters/SetSmells/SetListens isn't working<br></a><br><a
href="#2.35">2.35 Can I nest loops?</a><br><br><a href="#2.36">2.36 What should I do or not do in my code?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.37">2.37 How much different or heavily modified is Dead Souls than stock LPC?</a><br><br><a
href="ds-creator-faq.html#2.38">2.38 Is there a way to change the "default exit" room messages?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.39">2.39 This dummy item is not at all behaving like I expected.</a><br><br><a
href="#2.40">2.40 Clan objects do nothing but screw things up.</a><br><br><a
href="#2.41">2.41 My NPC's stats are all hosed up.</a><br><br><a
href="#2.42">2.42 This squirrel is taking *forever* to kill.</a><br><br><a
href="#2.43">2.43 My room should not be entered/exited by just anyone. How<br>do I control this?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.44">2.44 I zapped a monster, but instead of being dead, now it's undead!</a><br><br><a
href="#2.45">2.45 How does the format for race files work?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.46">2.46 How does the format for class files work?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.47">2.47 What do Properties do?</a><br><br><a href="#2.48">2.48 How do I add a prehensile limb to a player or NPC?</a><br></big><big><br><a
href="#2.49">2.49 How do I make a room occasionally display messages?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.50">2.50 My functional isn't working!</a><br><br><a
href="#2.51">2.51 I've read the Creator's Manual but I still don't understand mappings and arrays.</a><br><br><a
href="#2.52">2.52 Why are call_outs so bad?</a><br><br><a href="#2.53">2.53 Fine. How am I supposed to create timed events, then?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.54">2.54 I need a list of all the functions available.</a><br><br><a
href="#2.55">2.55 How do I make an object you can [ jump on | climb | etc ] ?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.56">2.56 Where is the list of available skills? How do I add skills?</a><br><a
href="#2.57"><br>2.57 Where is the list of available classes? How do I add a class?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.58">2.58 Where is the list of available races? </a><br><br><a
href="#2.59">2.59 How do languages work? Is there a list of them?</a><br><br><a
href="#2.60">2.60 When I try to call test->SetLanguage("Bozo", 50), it sets it to 100%</a><br><br><a
href="#2.61">2.61 How do I update an .h file?</a><br><br><br></big><big><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Section 3: Intermud and channel stuff</span><br><br><a
href="#3.1">3.1 How do I know what other muds are online on intermud?</a><br><br><a
href="#3.2">3.2 Hey, LeetFooMud is online! How can I tell if Biff is logged on?</a><br><br><a
href="#3.3">3.3 That's weird...mudlist says LeetFooMud is there but I'm not getting anything back.</a><br><br><a
href="#3.4">3.4 I heard there are intermud channels that talk between other muds, </a><br><a
href="#3.4">not just Dead Souls muds. How can I use them?<br></a><br><a
href="#3.5">3.5 How do I emote on a channel?</a><br><br><a href="#3.6">3.6 How do I see what I missed on a channel?</a><br><br><a
href="#3.7">3.7 I am sick and tired of the intermud network going down. Please fix it.</a><br><br><a
href="#3.8">3.8 I just wanna chat. Is there a dschat channel?</a><br><br><a
href="#3.9">3.9 I'll spam if I want to. You're not the boss of me.<br></a><br><a
href="#3.10">3.10 This guy keeps hassling me on an intermud channel</a><a
href="#3.11"><br></a><br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Section 4: Miscellanea</span><br><br><a
href="#4.1">4.1 I'm fighting the beggar with my staff and he's kicking my ass</a><br><br><a
href="#4.2">4.2 Someone amputated all my limbs and I can't do anything!</a><br><br><a
href="#4.3">4.3 How do I change my class?</a><br><br><a href="#4.4">4.4 People are talking to me in gibberish, even though it says they're speaking English.</a><br><br><a
href="#4.5">4.5 What's this about Biff "unknowingly" telling me something?<br></a><br><a
href="#4.6">4.6 How do I find the location of a verb or command?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.7">4.7 Where is the "exa" command? Where is the "n" command?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.8">4.8 How do I get something to happen to a random person in a room?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.9">4.9 My wandering monster escaped from my workroom! How can I find him?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.10">4.10 I ran findobj on something but it says no environment. Where is it?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.11">4.11 How do I update everything in a directory?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.12">4.12 I don't like getting colors on my screen. How do I stop it?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.13">4.13 Um...I want colors back now please</a><br><br><a
href="#4.14">4.14 I can type 'n' and move north, but 'north' doesn't work.</a><br><br><a
href="#4.15">4.15 Why is there a bunch of stuff in ROOMS_FURNACE?</a><br><a
href="#4.16"><br></a><a href="#4.16">4.16 How do I change my screen and terminal settings?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.16">4.17 ZOMG this is the best mudlib evar how can I evar thank you?</a><br><br><a
href="#4.17">4.18 Dude this mudlib sux0rz @ss. What a waste of my time.</a><br><br></big><big><a
href="#4.19">4.19 I'm seeing a filename but I can't read it.</a><br><br></big><a
href="#4.20"><big>4.20 Is there a command to go back to your previous directory<br>without having to type it all out again?</big></a><br><big><br><br></big><big><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Section 5: Building</span><br><br><a
href="#5.1">5.1 QCS is putting stuff where I don't want it.</a><br><br><a
href="#5.2">5.2 How do I make a blank room, instead of copying the current one?</a><br><br><a
href="#5.3">5.3 How do I build an area?</a><br><br><a href="#5.4">5.4 How do I make a quest?</a><br><br><a
href="#5.5">5.5 Where's Leo?</a><br><br></big><big><a href="#5.6">5.6 Where are the vehicles and mounts?</a><br><br><a
href="#5.7">5.7 I'm having trouble adding meals to my barkeep with QCS.</a><br><br><a
href="#5.8">5.8 I heard DS has stargates. Where's an example?</a></big><br><big><br><a
href="#5.9">5.9 I created a vendor, but he isn't responding to the "list" command.</a><br><br></big><span
style="font-family: monospace;"><a href="#5.10">5.10 I gave room with a default smell but I cannot get any other smells in there, <br><br>such as 'smell object' for example</a><br><br></span></pre>
<hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px; font-family: monospace;">
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><big><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Section 1: Getting Started</span></big><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="1.1"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">1.1 My question isn't on here. Where can I get an answer?</span><br><br>There are four main ways to get specific answers:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">1)</span> Ask your mud's administrator, or other creators on<br>your mud by using the cre channel, like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">cre does the flux capacitor use verbs or add_actions?</span><br><br>To know what local channels are available on your<br>mud, type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">lines</span><br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">2)</span> Your mud is probably on the intermud3 network. If<br>your administrator has not restricted intermud channels,<br>you should be able to ask questions on the Dead Souls<br>intermud channel, with a command like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">ds hi! can someone tell me what room Leo lives in?</span><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">3)</span> If intermud is down, or nobody is answering, or<br>you have a bug to report, you can also try emailing<br>me, the author of this doc, at: <my name here>@comcast.net<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">4)</span> If intermud is down, you can also log into the<br>Dead Souls demo mud at <a
href="telnet://rugose.com:6666">rugose.com 6666</a><br> This mud automatically promotes users to<br>creator status, allowing guests to get a feel for<br>what developing on Dead Souls is like.<br> You can try to log into that mud and see if anyone<br>is available to answer your question. Intermud is disabled<br>there, though, so you won't be able to use the ds line<br>to ask questions.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Important note about asking on <<span
style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">ds</span>>:</span><br><br> Part of the reason this FAQ was written is that<br>people who ask questions on the ds channel often do not<br>realize that same question has been asked many times<br>before. If you ask something like "how do I read the<br>channel messages I missed?" without first bothering to<br>read this doc and others, you just might get a response<br>that's less friendly than you might have expected.<br> People on the channel really want to help you,<br>but if it seems like you're not willing to put in the<br>time to try to help yourself, they might choose to <br>ignore you until you gather some clues on your own.<br><br> Something else to remember is that we are not<br>on your mud and we don't see what you see. "Why won't<br>my workroom update?" lacks enough information to let<br>anyone try to help, but "when i try to update my<br>workroom I get <error message>" might.<br><br> Similarly, some things don't have an answer<br>that is suited to ds. "could someone help me <br>understand the score.c file?" or "how do quests work?"<br>have answers that are long and complex, or are<br>already covered in the documentation available<br>to you.<br><br> Some stuff just doesn't have an answer <br>that can be explained to you unless you already<br>have the experience you'd need to know the answer.<br>for example:<br><br>- <span
style="font-style: italic;">How do I make a stargate that has a dial for</span><br
style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> going to different places?</span><br><br>- <span
style="font-style: italic;">How do I make it so a player can be on different</span><br
style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">planes of existence, and what they see when they</span><br
style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">look around depends on what plane they're on?</span><br><br>- <span
style="font-style: italic;">How do I add limbs so people can wear stuff</span><br
style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">like kneepads on the knee only?</span><br><br>These three questions illustrate things that are<br>totally doable, but whose explanation is so<br>complex and full of judgment calls that there <br>is no way of satisfying the question without<br>making you magically understand intermediate-level<br>LPC coding. <br> That doesn't mean they're bad ideas, or<br>even that hard to implement. It's just that<br>the questions can't be answered until you read<br>and understand the Creator's Manual, and by that<br>time, you'll know the answer on your own.<br><br> Make sure you've read the docs, then ask<br>the question in a way that makes it clear you aren't<br>just a lazy person who wants other people to do her<br>work, but rather a hardworking builder who has<br>tried to fix something and needs a specific answer<br>to a specific question that isn't already in the<br>FAQ's or the docs.<br><br> Critiques are welcome, but they should<br>be constructive. "This combat system is slow and<br>stupid" is unhelpful and might be taken as a<br>hostile statement. Instead you could phrase it <br>in a way such as: "Combat is slower than I <br>expected. Why? I used to play on LeetFooMud and it<br>took less than a minute to kill Tiamat." It's still<br>a bit clueless, but it's a fair question that can<br>be answered on its own terms without starting<br>a flamestorm.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="1.2"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">The ds channel is too spammy. It's distracting me.</span><br><br>Enable or disable a channel by typing just its name. Like:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">ds</span><br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="1.3"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">All I did was change one thing in a file, and now it won't update. Help!</span><br><br> You should make it a habit to make backup copies of files<br>before editing them. That way, if you screw up the code, you can<br>just copy the backup to the original filename.<br><br> A convenient way to do this is the <span
style="font-weight: bold;">bk</span> command. See<br>the <a
href="http://dead-souls.net/debugging.html#5">debugging page</a> for an example of its use.<br><br> If your file is in the /tmp directory, it won't update.<br>The lib uses /tmp for temporary system files, and as<br>a result, it is a security feature that files in /tmp can't<br>be loaded into memory.<br><br> If you are using Windows, you need to be aware of the<br>linefeed problem. unix text files and DOS text files have different<br>formatting. If you edit files in Notepad, then try to update them,<br>you may find that the file no longer updates, no matter what<br>you do. The difference is usually invisible to you, so you can't<br>tell why a file that looks exactly the same as before now won't<br>work.<br><br> Dead Souls expects unix-formatted text, and if you feed it<br>something else, the results aren't likely to be to your<br>satisfaction. Make sure you use an editor that respects unix<br>text. In Windows 2000, WordPad seems to do a reasonable job of not<br>completely screwing things. It does, however, add carriage<br>returns to your lines, so when you look at them in ed, you'll<br>see a bunch of "<span
style="font-weight: bold;">^M</span>"'s all over the place.<br><br> Take a look at the <a
href="http://dead-souls.net/downloads.html#1">third party downloads page</a> for<br>some suggestions as to what to use instead of the default<br>Windows editors.<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br> If you still have trouble, take a look at the <a
href="http://dead-souls.net/debugging.html">debugging page</a>.<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="1.4"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">The mud editor is confusing the heck out of me. It's too hard to use.</span><br><br>Check out the <a
href="http://dead-souls.net/editor.html">MUD Editor tutor</a><a
href="http://dead-souls.net/editor.html">ial</a>. It should ease the pain a little.<br><br><br><a
name="1.5"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">When I log in, everything is screwed up, and I can't do anything!</span><br><br>This happens sometimes when you log out while carrying an object<br>with broken code. If for example, you are wearing a vest, and then you<br>edit the code for it, but it doesn't work anymore, then you log out,<br>what happens is the next time you log in the mud will try to restore an<br>item in your inventory that throws an error, and your login<br>gets stuck halfway.<br><br>If you find that when you log in things are all screwed up for<br>you, use the rescue login feature. For me, this means I would<br>login as <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cratylus_rescue</span> instead of <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cratylus</span>. My inventory<br>will get wiped before my playerfile is loaded, and I'll<br>be able to log in with no problems.<br><br>If this doesn't work, there's a good chance that the room<br>you're spawning in has a problem. Try quitting and logging<br>in again. If that works ok, then it's very likely the<br>room was at fault. See if there are any messages in<br>/log/runtime pointing to it.<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="1.6"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Ok, I'm a creator now. What am I supposed to do?</span><br><br>Ask your admin.<br><br> If you're like most other creators, you have<br>a creative vision you want to implement and share with others.<br>you want to create dragons, or spaceships, perhaps dragons<br><span
style="font-style: italic;">in</span> spaceships. This makes you a "builder".<br><br> As a builder, your job is to learn how your mud<br>works so you can get your neat ideas turned into a<br>virtual reality. As you might have guessed, nobody is<br>going to jack into your brain and upload coding ability<br>into you. You need to learn how to move around, how<br>the creation system works, and yes, you'll need at least<br>some passing acquaintance with the stuff your mud is<br>made of: files written in the LPC language format.<br><br> The good news is that it's nowhere near as hard<br>to learn as C++. LPC is very powerful, but it doesn't<br>require you to be a master to get simple things done.<br><br>Your first steps as a new creator probably should<br>go something like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">1)</span> Talk to your admin. Understand what is expected of<br>you, and what the rules of your mud are. <br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2)</span> Go to your workroom by typing: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">home</span>. Read the helpful <br>notes that are posted there for you.<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">3)</span> Read the Player's Handbook, cover to cover. It isn't<br>long, and you will need every bit of information in there.<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">This is not a suggestion. You need to read the handbook.</span><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">4)</span> Open the chest in your workroom, and play around <br>with the tools and toys in there. Having read the<br>handbook will help you deal with any issues you have<br>handling these items.<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">5)</span> Type <span
style="font-weight: bold;">wiz</span> to go to the Creator's Hall, and if there<br>are any posts on the board, read them. To read the<br>first post: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">read 1</span>. To read the second, <span
style="font-weight: bold;">read 2</span>, and so on.<br> If you decide to write on the board,<br>remember that to exit "writing" or "input" mode,<br>you need to enter a dot on a line all by itself,<br>like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">6)</span> Once you get a feel for how to move around, <br>what playing here is like, and how to do stuff, you<br>can start exploring your creator powers. To get<br>a grasp of the very basics of navigating through<br>files and directories, type:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">more /doc/BASICS</span><br><br> Yes, you must include capital letters. Dead<br>Souls distinguishes between upper and lower case<br>letters in filenames.<br><br>To get a feel for what Dead Souls LPC code looks like,<br>wander about town and use the about command to read<br>code that compose the objects there. For example:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">goto /domains/town/room/road<br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">about here</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;">about beggar</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;"></span> Or move around in your own home<br>directory and check out the defaults and templates<br>there:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd /realms/<yourname>/area/npc</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;">more fighter.c</span><br><br> To bring a copy of that fighter to life:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">clone fighter</span><br><br> To make him dance:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">force fighter to dance</span><br><br> To kill him:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">zap fighter</span><br><br> To get rid of his corpse:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">dest corpse</span><br> <br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">7)</span> Once you're done having fun with your godlike<br>powers, it's time to start learning how to make<br>fun stuff of your own.<br><br> For a quick start in building, you<br>can start reading the Creator's Manual at<br>chapter 31, which is where the QCS section begins:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">read chapter 31 in manual</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;">read chapter 32 in manual</span><br><br> and so on.<br><br> That's fine to start with, but eventually<br>you'll need to read the whole Creator's Manual.<br>If you don't, 90% of the questions you ask about<br>code could be fairly answered with: "read the manual."<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="1.7"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">This is weird...where is the online builder? How does</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">new stuff get compiled?</span><br><br> Dead Souls can be very strange to people used <br>to non-LPC muds. This is because many other kinds of<br>muds use a system where the mud is written in C++,<br>and to make changes, you need to add C++ code to the<br>source, recompile it, then reboot the mud.<br> In that kind of system, building is done with<br>tools where you fill in blanks and code is generated<br>for you. I presume that some C++ expertise is <br>required for doing anything unusual or fancy.<br><br> If you come from this kind of environment,<br>you may be in for a little disorientation. On a Dead<br>Souls mud, there is no need for compiling code. You<br>don't need to reboot the mud for new stuff to<br>be available.<br><br> You can add your new Orc God of War to the<br>game (after you code him, of course) with two <br>simple commands:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">update /realms/<you>/area/npc/grimmash.c</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;">clone /realms/<you>/area/npc/grimmash.c</span><br><br> You're now face to face with him. This makes<br>Dead Souls, like most LPC muds, very flexible in<br>what can be done, and very stable in terms of<br>needing few reboots. Reboots typically are<br>necessary only when someone breaks important<br>code, or to implement major mud-wide changes.<br><br> So, just write your code, and update it.<br>It's that simple. There are two main ways to do<br>this. The easiest way is with the QCS, or quick<br>creation system. With the QCS, you don't even need<br>to look at code. You just issue a few commands,<br>and your new whatever is there. <a
href="example.html">Check out an example<br>of the QCS here.</a><br> <br> To learn the QCS, read the Creator's <br>Manual starting on chapter 31.<br><br> The other way to create on-line is<br>with the ed command. The ed editor is a powerful<br>and flexible way of editing files. Some people<br>find it difficult at first, and you might even<br>be able to avoid it for a while if you mostly<br>just use QCS. However, you'll eventually need to<br>know a little about ed. <a
href="editor.html">For a tutorial, go here</a>.<br><br> For more detailed documentation, <br>type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">help ed</span><br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="1.8"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I explored around in /domains/Ylsrim and <XYZ> is broken</span><br><br>Ylsrim is kept in the distribution as a kind of<br>sentimental artifact. It's the demo area that the<br>original Dead Souls shipped with, and although<br>it's mostly been fixed up to work with Dead Souls 2,<br>things can behave unexpectedly. There will be<br>no new fixes to Ylsrim. Please consider it a museum<br>exhibit that stands as-is.<br><br><br><a
name="1.9"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I explored around in /domains/town and <XYZ> is broken</span><br><br>Please send me an email and let me know, so I <br>can fix it. Also let me know if something in the default,<br>campus, or examples domain is hosed up.<br><big
style="font-weight: bold;"><br></big></big></pre>
<hr
style="width: 100%; height: 2px; font-weight: bold; font-family: monospace;">
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><big
style="font-weight: bold;">Section 2: Code</big><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.1"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What's the QCS?</span><br><br>Please see the <a
href="example.html">QCS example page</a> for an explanation of this<br>important Dead Souls system.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.2"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">SetUnique doesn't work.</span><br><br> SetUnique() is probably doing something you<br>don't expect. When an item is loaded into memory, and<br>it has an inventory, it first checks each of those items<br>for whether it's supposed to be unique.<br> If it is supposed to be unique, then we look<br>through the list of loaded objects to see if there is<br>one of these items already cloned. If there is, then<br>we don't clone a new one.<br> What this means is that if I kidnap Leo the<br>archwizard and hold him in my workroom, another one will<br>not appear in the basement until my Leo is dested.<br><br> Note, however, that this does NOT mean that the<br>mud will never have two Leos. I can clone however many<br>Leos I want. But as long as one or more cloned Leos<br>exist, the basement will not make another. That's<br>what SetUnique means.<br><br> Now, if the behavior you're seeing is different<br>from what I described, maybe SetUnique <span
style="font-style: italic;">is</span> broken,<br>and you should email me with what you're seeing.<br><br><br
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"></span><a
name="2.3"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">I made a magic wand that disappears after 10 minutes.</span><br
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">But if a player logs out and log back in, they have</span><br
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">another 10 minutes! How do I fix this?</span><br><br>What's happening is that you are keeping<br>track of how old the wand is, perhaps with a<br>variable named Age. But if the player quits and<br>logs back in, then the wand gets cloned again, resetting<br>all its values, including Age, to the original.<br><br> The way to make the Age variable survive<br>logouts is with AddSave. If you give your variable to<br>AddSave as an argument, that variable gets saved when<br>the user quits, and when they log back in, it is restored,<br>preventing cheating.<br><br> See /obj/wed_ring.c for an example.<br><br><br
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"></span><a
name="2.4"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Where is it saved?</span><br
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><br>In the player's playerfile, along with the values of all<br>the objects they were carrying when they quit. The file is<br>in /secure/save/[ players | creators ]/<first initial>/<name>.o<br> <br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.5"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I add or remove emotes?</span><br><br>That is an admin job. You admin would use the<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">addemote</span> or <span
style="font-weight: bold;">removeemote</span> commands.<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.6"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How can I tell what files something inherits?</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><br>Use the showtree command. To know what files<br>are inherited by your robe, for example:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">showtree /domains/default/armor/robe<br><br></span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.7"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How can I find the filename of something?</span><br><br>If it's in your environment: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">scan here</span><br>If it's in your possession: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">scan me</span><br><br>The number sign (#) and numbers at the end are that <br>object's unique identifier.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.8"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What's the largest integer usable by the mud?</span><br><br>2147483647<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.9"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How can I find out what functions exist in something?</span><br><br>Get its filename and use the functions efun. For example:<br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">eval return functions(load_object("/domains/town/obj/sign"))</span><br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.10"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">object::init() is broken!</span><br><br>It isn't really. Unless you're coding a lib<br>item, you should not be inheriting LIB_OBJECT for<br>"tangible things" anyway. You should inherit LIB_ITEM.<br><br>The reason object::init() fails is that LIB_OBJECT<br>doesn't have an init() function to call.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.11"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">if(ob->GetFoo()) seems to break, but I don't know why</span><br><br>This function will error if ob does not exist. Unless<br>you are 100% positive ob will exist (and really, even if so),<br>it should look like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">if(ob && ob->GetFoo())<br><br></span> Which means "if ob exists, and it has a foo".<br>This way, if there is no ob, the check stops right there<br>without getting hosed up on the next step.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.12"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I add color to my descriptions?</span><br><br>There are various markup tokens you can use for this. They look like this:<br><br>write("%^BOLD%^GREEN%^ <span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">This text would be in bold green letters</span> %^RESET%^ and this would not.");<br><br>To make text blink, use this tag: %^FLASH%^<br><br>The %^RESET% is important. Without it, unpredictable things can happen.<br><br>To know what colors are available, type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">colors</span><br><br>You should probably avoid color unless there is a compelling <br>reason for its use. Many mud admins discourage it because it can <br>distract from the game and cause uniformity issues: most mud <br>admins feel their mud text should look more or less<br>the same everywhere.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.13"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I turn the integer 42 into the string "forty-two"?</span><br><br>cardinal(42)<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.14"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Can I use !=NULL as a test?</span><br><br>In theory, I guess so, but I doubt it'll work by default, and I'd<br>discourage you from doing anything so non-LPC-standard. <br>Instead try something like one of the following:<br><br>if(variable)<br>if(sizeof(variable))<br>if(variable != "")<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.15"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I want to create and test a new command for the mud,</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">but I'm not admin so I can't put anything in the</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">normal command paths. What can I do?</span><br><br>Put your new command in your homedir's cmd/<br>subdirectory. A sample command is there already<br>to serve as a template. When you add a command, type:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">update /daemon/command</span><br><br>for it to show up in your path.<br><br><br><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"></span><a
name="2.16"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">How do skills work?</span><br><br>Skills are generally class-based, meaning that they are <br>specified in the class files found in /secure/cfg/classes.<br>Skills are only meaningful in terms of library objects that<br>understand them.<br><br>For example, a fighter's blade attack is useful because<br>player.c and combat.c make use of this skill as a<br>modifier.<br><br>But adding a basketweaving skill to a class is not<br>helpful unless there are library objects (looms, perhaps,<br>or straw) and verbs (weaving, maybe?) that make<br>use of that skill.<br><br>There are also race-based skills, such<br>as poison bite or breath attack. These skills are<br>specified in /secure/cfg/races.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.17"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do classes work?</span><br><br>Basically, having a class gives you special skills.<br>That's it. See the above section, "How do skills work?"<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.18"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do virtual rooms work?</span><br><br>Virtual rooms are rooms generated on the fly by a<br>virtual room server. You program that server with<br>the room descriptions, the number of them, <br>etc, and the virtual server can make available<br>a grid of rooms with your descriptions.<br><br> This allows you to create, for example,<br>a vast desert, or a large jungle, comprised of<br>dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of rooms<br>without having to manually code each and every<br>single room.<br><br> For an example, take a look at<br><br>/domains/town/virtual/<br><br><br><a
name="2.19"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How are files organized in Dead Souls?</span><br><br> <br>See the <a
href="ds-admin-faq.html">admin FAQ</a>.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.20"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What are lfuns, sefuns and efuns?</span><br><br> <br>Sefuns and efuns are functions available to all objects on the<br>mud. Any object may need to know what time() it is, so rather<br>than have a time() function in every file that needs it, which<br>could be many, there is a time() function built into the<br>game that any object can use. An efun is built into the<br>driver, so there is no LPC code to look at. A sefun is a<br>simulated efun, coded in LPC. Sefuns are kept in /secure/sefun.<br><br>Lfuns are functions specific to library objects. A shirt,<br>for example, has functions that a sword may not need, so<br>the LIB_ARMOR and LIB_WEAPON files contain their own functions,<br>not shared by other files (it's more complicated than this,<br>but that's the idea). These functions are library<br>functions, or lfuns. Typically they are found in the objects<br>defined by the files in /lib.<br><br>For a lot more detail on efuns and sefuns, see the <a
href="ds-admin-faq.html">admin FAQ</a>.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.21"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why are there more sefun doc files than sefun files?</span><br><br>Sefun files, like /secure/sefun/strings.c, often contain<br>more than just one sefun. Therefore, there will be more<br>files documenting individual functions than there are<br>files containing sefuns.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.22"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I edited a file but now the reload command is complaining.</span><br><br>There are two commonly used commands for loading<br>objects: update and reload.<br><br>When you want to load a file into memory, you use<br>update, for example: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">update /domains/default/room/road</span><br><br>When you want to replace a cloned object with a<br>version that uses the latest code in a file, you<br>use reload, for example: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">reload my first red sword</span><br><br>reload doesn't work on files.<br><br>update doesn't work on cloned objects.<br><br>The reason there are two commands, instead of one all-purpose<br>one, is both historical and functional. The reason "reload"<br>exists is that I got sick of having to dest a thing, update<br>its file, then clone the thing every time I wanted to<br>test changes in its code. This was annoyingly tedious, so I<br>coded the reload() sefun and reload command.<br><br> However, update works just fine, and I wasn't about<br>to try to fix something that wasn't broken. It works, and<br>LPC old timers are used to it.<br><br> Further, it has a function sufficiently separate from <br>reload that it stands as a command on its own merits.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.23"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">this_player()->GetName() returns "A shadow" when the player is invis.</span><br><br>Use this_player()->GetKeyName() instead.<br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.24"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Is there a sefun for making a whole string uppercase?</span><br><br>upper_case("omgwtfroflmao")<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.25"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is the difference between filter() and foreach()? How do I use them?</span><br><br>Both of these efuns can act on the individual members of an array. <br><br>For example, if you wanted to have an array named mystuff which<br>contains the filenames of all objects in your inventory that<br>inherit LIB_ARMOR:<br><br>using filter:<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">object *stuff = filter(deep_inventory(this_player()), (: inherits(LIB_ARMOR,$1) :) );</span><br
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">string *mystuff = filter(stuff, (: base_name($1)+".c" :) );</span><br><br>using foreach:<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">string *mystuff = ({});</span><br
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">foreach( object ob in deep_inventory(this_player())){</span><br
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">if( inherits(LIB_ARMOR, ob) ) mystuff += ({ base_name(ob)+".c" });</span><br
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">}</span><br><br>There are arguments favoring the use of either. I won't get into <br>it. As far as I can tell, it's really a question of preference. <br> You can structure these functions more elegantly<br>than shown here, to best suit you. But this is the idea.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.26"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">member_array() is returning exactly the wrong thing</span><br><br>It probably isn't. member_array() seems somewhat counterintuitive<br>at first, because it often returns a 0 as a "hit".<br><br>What this function is doing is checking to see whether the<br>first argument is a member of the array specified in the second<br>argument, and then tells you *which* element it is. for example:<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">member_array( "bar", ({ "foo", "bar", "baz" }) ) <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">returns: 1</span></span><br
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">member_array( "foo", ({ "foo", "bar", "baz" }) ) <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">returns: 0</span></span><br><br>Why does it return 0? Because "foo" is element 0 of the<br>array. If this_array == ({ "foo", "bar", "baz" }), then<br>this_array[0] is "foo". So member_array("foo", this_array)<br>would return 0.<br><br>If the first argument is not a member of the array, member<br>array returns -1. So that:<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">member_array( "shiz", ({ "foo", "bar", "baz" }) )</span> returns: -1<br><br><br>Example:<br><br>Does this player know how to polka? Return 1 for yes:<br><br>RIGHT: <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">if(member_array("polka dancing", this_player()->GetSkills()) != -1) return 1;</span><br><br>WRONG: <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">if(member_array("polka dancing", this_player()->GetSkills()) ) return 1;</span><br> <br>The first way says "If 'polka dancing' has an element number that isn't -1,<br>then it is a member, so let's return 1"<br><br>The second way says "If 'polka dancing' has an element number that isn't 0,<br>then it is a member, so let's return 1"<br><br>The problem with the second way is that it is possible for "polka dancing"<br>to be element 0 in that array, and if it is, your code will incorrectly<br>tell you that you can't polka dance. But worse than this is that if<br>you actually can't polka dance, this second way will incorrectly tell<br>you that you can. Given random input, the second way would be wrong more than<br>half the time.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.27"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I'm trying to add two mappings together and the results are bizarre</span><br><br>Adding mappings together has to be done just so in order for<br>it to work the way one might expect. What can happen in <br>mapping arithmetic is that in the process of trying to<br>add the values of one mapping to another, you can change the<br>values of a mapping you didn't intend to. The deal is a<br>conflict between passing data by reference or by value. To<br>be sure that you don't accidentally modify an innocent<br>bystander, use the add_maps() sefun. For example:<br><br>MyMap = add_maps(HisMap, HerMap);<br><br>or<br><br>MyMap = add_maps(MyMap, HerMap);<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.28"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">When str = "abc", str[1] is 98, not "b". What gives?</span><br><br>What you're getting here is the ASCII code of element 1.<br>If you have to have that element as a string, use the<br>convert_ascii() sefun, like this:<br><br>convert_ascii(str[1])<br><br>You can instead use ranges, so that:<br><br>str[0..0] == "a"<br>str[1..1] == "b"<br>str[1..2] == "bc"<br><br>If you use ranges, do not use the convert_ascii() sefun.<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.29"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I make an array1 that is the same as array2 but without an element?</span><br><br>Two ways:<br><br>1) array1 = array2 - ({ element });<br><br>2) array1 = filter(array2, (: $1 != element :) );<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.30"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I pass arguments to a pointer in a functional?</span><br><br>With commas, like this:<br><br>(: eventKill, player :)<br><br>Your arguments will likely need to be constants, tokens, and/or global variables.<br><br><br
style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span
style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.31"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What does the tc() sefun do?</span><br><br>It's something I coded for myself long ago, basically<br>a personalized debug(). However, people have been <br>asking for that functionality for themselves, so<br>the debug() sefun now carries this functionality. For<br>more information, type:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">man debug</span><br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.32"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How can I find out how many items are in an array quickly?</span><br><br>sizeof(array)<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.33"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">My SetRead isn't working<br><br></span>You may need an item for each read. For example,<br>SetRead( ([ ({"alpha", "bravo", "charlie"}) : "Delta.", ]) )<br><br>May need something like this <span
style="font-weight: bold;">*above*</span> it:<br><br>SetItems( ([ ({"alpha", "bravo", "charlie"}) : "A thing you can read.", ]) )<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.34"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">My SetEnters/SetSmells/SetListens isn't working</span><br><br>See above.<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.35"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Can I nest loops?</span><br><br>Can you? Probably. Should you? Almost certainly not.<br>For loops and while loops are legal LPC, and you may even<br>see them here or there in older lib code. But they<br>should be avoided because they generate much more<br>lag than the more efficient foreach() and filter() efuns.<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.36"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What should I do or not do in my code?</span><br><br>1) Avoid using call_out() as much as humanly possible.<br>Use heart_beat() to time things instead.<br><br>2) Don't code stuff that replicates itself. <br><br>3) Don't code stuff that circumvents security. For<br>example, knowing that an admin is logged on but<br>invisible isn't much help to you if he bans you<br>for coding a tool to find him.<br><br>4) foreach() and filter() are faster than for() loops,<br>and harder to screw up.<br><br>5) switch() is faster and more economical than if()<br>for multiple evaluations.<br><br>6) Don't use callouts.<br><br>7) Don't use add_action for something that already<br>has a verb. There is no point in making an add_action<br>for "throw", for example. It's just going to confuse<br>players when your "throw" doesn't behave the way<br>"throw" does everywhere else on the mud.<br><br>8) Callouts are bad, mkay?<br><br>9) Don't code delays by using loops. This affects the<br>whole mud. If an action is to be delayed, use heart_beat().<br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="2.37"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How much different or heavily modified is Dead Souls than stock LPC?</span><br><br>This is a difficult question to answer on its own terms. It's<br>roughly equivalent to: <br><br>Is Fedora different from stock UNIX, or will my Solaris programs work on it?<br><br>This DVD movie is in NTSC format, so my TV can handle it, right?<br><br> The terms used roughly correspond to the same<br>general thing, but the assumption here is that there is a<br>"stock" LPC, and you can transplant code from one LP mud to <br>another. <br> Sometimes these transplants can be done. Oftentimes not.<br>This is because LPC has been interpreted and implemented in<br>many slightly different ways by many slightly different versions<br>of many different drivers. The end product of the DVD is a movie<br>playing on your TV, but how it gets there is very different from<br>how a videocassette does it, even if it's the same movie and its<br>signal is encoded in NTSC in both cases.<br><br> If you have two LPmuds that use different drivers, it<br>can be much like the difference between a DVD and a videotape.<br>Sometimes, if the drivers are related, the difference is smaller,<br>like VHS versus Betamax, but you'll still be embarking on a<br>major project getting the movies from one to play on the other.<br><br> The result is that a coder from Discworld and a coder<br>from Nightmare can roughly speak the same language, and discuss<br>solutions to their problems that make sense. And each coder<br>could probably visit the other mud and work with a very<br>small learning curve.<br> But the code itself would probably require substantial<br>retooling to be interchanged.<br><br><br><a
name="2.38"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Is there a way to change the "default exit" room messages?</span><br><br>Yes, but it involves some understanding of LPC. See<br>if Brodbane@Eve is listening on the ds channel. He<br>may have some tips.<br><br><br><a
name="2.39"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">This dummy item is weird.</span><br><br> Dummy items *are* weird. They exist because the<br>parsing system requires objects to act on. When you "<span
style="font-weight: bold;">look</span><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;">at painting</span>", the parser doesn't take "painting" as a<br>string to match. Through a magical mystical process<br>deep in the MudOS driver, the parser turns "painting" into<br>an object to act on.<br> It tries to find object in the area that match<br>this keyword, and if it finds one, it sends that object<br>a query about whether it can be looked at. Depending <br>on the response, the parser continues on to determine<br>what the verb (the command you issued) thinks should<br>happen to objects that can be looked at, and tries to <br>evaluate that event with the object as its target. The<br>process continues in a complex dance of "may I?<br>how so?" etc, until finally the painting, the verb, the<br>parser, and you come to an agreement as to what the<br>result of this looking should be.<br> Crucial to this process is that the painting<br>actually *exist* as an object, so it can be queried <br>for various functions. Without a "painting object" in<br>the room, there's no parsing that's going to <br>happen with it.<br> But what if this painting is just part of the<br>room description? You don't want to add a painting<br>to the inventory of a room just so people can look<br>at it. You want people to be able to "look at painting",<br>or "look at wall", or "look at ceiling" without<br>having to have all of these items be part of the<br>room's inventory. What a chore that would be!<br> This is where dummy items come in. They are<br>invisible objects that are set to respond to the names<br>they are assigned, such as "ceiling", "wall", etc, <br>handling the job of providing a description when<br>a person looks at the ceiling, wall, etc. These kinds<br>of dummy items are automatically created when a room<br>is loaded, based on what the SetItems directive of<br>the room contains.<br> You'll also find dummy items for special<br>tasks, like a dummy button to push in the town church.<br><br> Because of this specialized role, dummy<br>items are not intended to be picked up or manipulated<br>the way regular items are. If you clone a dummy <br>item, it's not going to behave the way you want<br>it to. A dummy item should only ever be brought into<br>existence by your code, not by the clone command.<br><br> <br><a
name="2.40"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Clan objects do nothing but screw things up.</span><br><br> Quite right! If you don't code a clan object<br>properly, it's extremely likely to have little effect<br>aside from screwing up a player's savefile so badly<br>that it needs to be destroyed.<br> Why is this? Clan object code is basically<br>legacy guild code from Dead Souls 1.x. In the old <br>versions of Dead Souls, guilds were player-run <br>institutions, operating basically as clubs, with<br>guild objects as a kind of membership token.<br> The version of LIB_GUILD that came with<br>Dead Souls 1.x was fatally buggy in various ways.<br>The most important way is that even if you got it<br>to work right, it did nothing useful. There was<br>no interaction with a guild or player daemon,<br>so if the guild leader quit, they lost their<br>guild leader status. Aside from holding an object<br>which designated them as a member of a particular<br>guild, LIB_GUILD provided no advantage.<br> I renamed it to LIB_CLAN, because as a<br>social-club object, that's a bit closer to its<br>role than "guild", which tended to cause much<br>confusion.<br> Eventually there will be a CLAN_D, and more<br>sophisticated error handling to prevent character<br>file corruption. For now (version 2.0 of Dead Souls),<br>just avoid using it.<br><br><br><a
name="2.41"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">My NPC's stats are all hosed up.</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><br>Make sure you have SetLevel() *after* SetRace() and SetClass().<br>Also make sure there's a working ::create() in your create<br>function. Some examples are:<br><br>::create();<br>npc::create();<br>vendor::create();<br><br>And make sure your init() function has an:<br><br>::init();<br><br><br><a
name="2.42"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">This squirrel is taking *forever* to kill.</span><br><br>The mud is calculating its health points based on level and<br>race. If your squirrel has 340hp, it'll seem unreasonably<br>tough. Use SetMaxHealthPoints() to cap its vitality to<br>something like, say, 5.<br><br><br><a
name="2.43"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">My room should not be entered/exited by just anyone. How</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">do I control this?</span><br><br>There are a couple of ways of controlling entry to a room.<br>Take a look at the "AddExit" method in:<br>/domains/town/room/valley.c<br><br>And also review the "CanReceive" style in:<br>/domains/town/room/wiz_hall.c<br><br>To prevent a room being exited unless certain conditions<br>are met, use CanRelease().<br><br>These strategies are not discussed in detail in the Creators Manual,<br>but the examples above should provide ample information as<br>to how to structure them.<br><br>Note that in general, objects with a CanReceive() override <br>should return ::CanReceive() unless there is a<br>good reason otherwise. It would look like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">int CanReceive(object ob){<br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><if blah return 1></span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><if bleh return 0></span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><etc and so on></span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;">return ::CanReceive();</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">}</span><br><br>Obviously the stuff between the <> symbols is pseudocode and<br>not LPC.<br><br><br><a
name="2.44"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I zapped a monster, but instead of being dead, now it's undead!</span><br><br> Take a look at the code for this NPC. It probably has<br>eventDie() overridden in a way that does not return 1. This is<br>not necessarily wrong. You may *want* a monster that doesn't<br>die like normal monsters do. But if this behavior is unintended,<br>that is probably the cause.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="2.45"></a>How does the format for race files work?</span><br><br>Here's a template with parameters in parentheses for clarity:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">RACE</span> (race name here)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">SENSITIVITY</span> (low light threshold):(bright light threshold)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">LANGUAGE</span> (self-explanatory)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">RESISTANCE</span> (damage type):(how resistant we are to the damage)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">STATS</span> (name of the stat):(the average):(how important. 1 is high)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">LIMB</span> (limb name):(where it attaches):(how important. 1 is high):(armor types)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">SKILL</span> (skill name):(unused):(how important. 1 is high):(unused):(unused)<br><br>The unused fields in the skill section are reserved for<br>future implementation.<br><br>If the third field in the LIMB line is 1, losing that<br>limb will cause immediate death.<br><br>Special keywords can be appended for particular functionality.<br>These are:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">FLYINGRACE</span> (enables flying)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">LIMBLESSRACE</span> (enables limbless travel)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">LIMBLESSCOMBATRACE</span> (enables limbless combat)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">NONBITINGRACE</span> (some races can't or won't bite)<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">PLAYER_RACE 1</span> (enables the selection of this race for players)<br><br>Please note that while the LIB_BODY object does<br>specify a number of fingers, they aren't items that<br>can be severed, and their purpose mostly is determining<br>what kind of gloves you can wear.<br><br><br><a
name="2.46"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How does the format for class files work?</span><br><br> Class files have only two types of<br>entry lines that Dead Souls currently supports.<br>The first is the name of the class.<br><br> Every line after that is presumed to be<br>a skill specification line, in the following<br>format:<br><br>skill name:starting level:importance to the class<br><br><br></big><big><a
name="2.47"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What do Properties do?</span><br><br> Properties are a way to provide flexibility in<br>the lib. Objects usually work by having variables<br>that are modified by functions. This allows a player<br>to have, for example, a SpellBook variable which<br>contains the spells she knows, and this variable in<br>turn is affected by "spell learning" functions, etc.<br><br> Suppose, however, that I want to set a<br>variable in a player, but that variable does not<br>exist. This is tricky indeed, because it would<br>involve a modification to one or more library objects,<br>and reloading them...possibly requiring re-logins<br>or (very rarely) even rebooting the mud.<br><br> Instead you can use properties as a quick<br>and dirty way to get that functionality without<br>rewriting lib objects. For example, if you do<br>something like this:<br><br>present("lamp",this_player())->SetProperty("blessed", 1);<br><br> Then that lamp is blessed, and maybe now<br>a monster has a function like this:<br><br>if(present("lamp",this_player())->GetProperty("blessed")) RunAway();<br><br> SetProperty() and SetProperties() are just<br>convenient ways to create and modify custom variables in<br>objects and players on the fly. Strictly speaking this<br>is not good coding practice. Anything useful enough to<br>make into a Property is useful enough to do in another way.<br> However, it is available to you as another implement<br>in your coders' toolbox.<br><br><br></big><big><a
name="2.48"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I add a prehensile limb to a player or NPC?</span><br><br>victim->AddLimb("tail", "torso", 2, ({A_WEAPON }))<br><br>See the Creator's Manual for details on adding, desting,<br>and removing limbs.<br><br><br></big><big><a
name="2.49"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I make a room occasionally display messages?</span><br></big><br><big> Use SetAction. There is a well-commented example<br>of this in /domains/town/room/shore.c . <br><br><br><a
name="2.50"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">My functional isn't working!</span><br><br> Functionals are a kind of reference to a function. They<br>won't work everywhere. For the most part they serve as a pointer,<br>and are used the way a variable would be used. If the place you<br>put the functional wouldn't make sense for a variable, it wouldn't<br>make sense for the functional either. For example,<br><br> SetLong( (: ShowLong :) );<br><br> makes sense, because what's happening is that instead of<br>a string, your argument is a function <span
style="font-style: italic;">that returns a string</span>.<br><br> However, something like this wouldn't work,<br><br> if( Cabbages == Kings ) (: eventTalk :);<br><br> because you're treating a functional as if it were a function.<br>It isn't. In a case like this, your line should look like this:<br><br></big><big> if( Cabbages == Kings ) eventTalk();</big><big><br> <br><br></big><big><a
name="2.51"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I've read the Creator's Manual but I still don't understand mappings and arrays.</span><br><br> Yeah, they can be tricky to get a handle on. Let's suppose you're<br>going to set up a nautical commerce system, where you have to keep track<br>of ships and their data. You store ship data in a daemon, which is<br>an object that stays loaded in memory to manage information, but doesn't<br>actually exist as a cloned item in the game. We'll call it SHIPPING_D.<br><br> So, SHIPPING_D needs to keep track of how many ships there are.<br>I would do this with an array, not a mapping, because it is a simple<br>list, like this:<br><br>string *ship_list = ({ "Caine", "Bounty" });<br><br> That way, when SHIPPING_D gets queried for a list of all known<br>ships, it can just return that simple list. If you needed to add a<br>ship, you'd have the daemon perform this operation:<br><br>ship_list += ({ "Pequod" });<br><br> To remove a ship:<br><br>ship_list -= ({ "Caine" });<br><br> Suppose, however, that not only do you need to keep track of<br>ship names, but also their captains, crew complement, etc. You could try<br>to use an array for this, but it would be very unwieldy. This is because<br>to pick out specific elements, you need to use a number. For example,<br>if the ship_list array is ({ "Caine", "Bounty", "Pequod" }) then<br>ship_list[0] is "Caine" and ship_list[2] is "Pequod".<br> If you were to try having an array for each ship that<br>contained complex information, you'd have stuff like this:<br><br>ship_list += ({ "Caine", "Queeg", 117, "military", "destroyer minesweeper", 0 })<br><br> There are a couple of problems with this. First, the ship_list<br>array is going to be a bit of a mess. Second, you'll have to address the<br>ship's data elements by their array index number. For example, to know<br>the Caine's crew complement, you'll need to do something like this:<br><br>foreach(string *ship_data in ship_list){<br>if(ship_data[0] == "Caine") return ship_data[2];<br>}<br><br> The first step is to check each element in ship_list to<br>know if its first element is "Caine", then return its third element,<br>which is 117. Not only is this inelegant and overcomplicated, <br>it is not guaranteed to work. Careless manipulation of your subarrays<br>can result in elements being out of order, with potentially<br>disastrous results on your code. It's just not a wise way to <br>go about this. This is where mappings come in. Rather than the mess<br>above, we'd do it like this:<br><br>mapping AllShips = ([]);<br><br>AllShips["Caine"] = ([ "captain" : "Queeg", "complement" : 117, "type" : "military",<br> "class" : "destroyer minesweeper", "cargo" : 0 ]);<br><br> It looks more complicated, but in fact it's a major simplification<br>of your data and its access. Now you have a sure-fire way to query<br>a specific ship and its specific data elements without a shadow of doubt<br>as to what you'll get back.<br><br> Now if you want to know the name of the Caine's captain,<br>it looks like this:<br><br>return AllShips["Caine"]["captain"];<br><br> Basically this is a mapping inside a mapping. The mapping called<br>Caine contains the element "captain". Because the mapping Caine is an<br>element in the mapping AllShips, you access an element in it in the way<br>shown above. <br><br> In a less complicated example, mappings might be used, for<br>example to store information about, say, fish:<br><br>mapping FishTypes = ([ "carp" : "freshwater", "tuna" : "saltwater" ]);<br><br> So that FishTypes["carp"] is "freshwater".<br><br> To remove a mapping element, use the map_delete efun:<br><br>map_delete( FishTypes, "carp" );<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="2.52"></a>Why are call_outs so bad?</span><br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> I'm wondering.. Why are call_outs so bad?</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> ya good question<br><br>Cratylus <ds> in themselves they arent. One call_out more or less wont make the angels cry<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> From what I can tell, they shouldn't be too bad if not implemented poorly</span>.<br><br>Cratylus <ds> the problem is that if your creators get the idea call_outs are ok, you'll be swamped with them<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> Right. You want 10s of them, not 100s.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> and they, for reasons i cant explain to you because it's driver related, are expensive to run<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> Can't explain because you're not familiar with the driver?</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> right<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> Right. Fair 'nuff.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> but i can vouch for the truth of the proposition<br><br>Cratylus <ds> limbs used to decompose, each with a call_out of its own<br><br>Cratylus <ds> if you released the rage virus into the menagerie, your mud would eventually crawl to a stop<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><ds> Garfield@M*U*D hehs.</span><br
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> What amount of call_outs are we talking here? Hundreds? Thousands?</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> fewer than 200 as i recall<br><br>Cratylus <ds> but the memory is hazy<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> Hrm. Ick.</span><br
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> I might peek at how they work.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> it also redlined the processor<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Garfield@M*U*D <ds> Right.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> lucky for me i have a 4-way box<br><br><br></big><big><a
name="2.53"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Fine. How am I supposed to create timed events, then?</span><br><br> There is a built in timing system that uses the heart_beat()<br>efun. To enable it, use set_heart_beat() on the object that is<br>to have a timed effect. set_heart_beat(1) gives the object about one<br>heart_beat per second. set_heart_beat(60) gives it a heart_beat<br>about once a minute.<br><br> Whenever the object has a heart_beat happen, the function<br>heart_beat() is called in it. So, for example, an NPC might have<br>a heart_beat function like this:<br><br>void heart_beat(){<br> this_object()->eventForce("say hi!");<br>}<br><br> If the NPC's create() function contains a set_heart_beat(10)<br>then it will say "Hi!" every ten seconds. <br><br> Another way to control it would be to have a counter.<br>You would define a global integer variable by putting in in the body<br>of the NPC's file before any functions are defined. For example:<br><br>int counter = 0;<br><br> somewhere before the create() function. Then your heart_beat<br>function might look like this:<br><br>void heart_beat(){<br> counter++;<br> if(counter > 10) { <br></big><big> this_object()->eventForce("say hi!");<br> counter = 0;<br> }<br>}<br><br> If the NPC's heart_beat is set to 1, then the NPC will make<br>his greeting about every ten seconds. If its heart_beat is set to<br>ten, then it'll take a minute and forty seconds per greeting. Note<br>that at the end of the if() check, the counter is reset to 0 if<br>the action is triggered.<br><br><br></big><big><a
name="2.54"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I need a list of all the functions available.</span><br><br> If you read the section on efuns and sefuns, you have an<br>idea of what they are. They are documented in /doc/sefun and<br>/doc/efun , and doing a list of the dirs and subdirs there<br>will give you a "list" of them. The documentation on individual<br>sefuns and efuns is generally available through the man command,<br>for example: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">man sscanf<br><br> </span>If you're looking for lists of library functions,<br>such as SetClass in LIB_WEAPON, your best bet is the help<br>command, like this:<br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">help library objects weapon</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span
style="font-weight: bold;">help library objects creator</span><br><br> That will list the functions in the library object<br>you specify. As of this writing, the documentation on lfuns<br>is not yet as thorough as the documentation on efuns and sefuns,<br>but this documentation is an ongoing project whose output<br>should eventually improve.<br><br> A contributor to the mud community has made<br>available a wikified cross-reference of Dead Souls funs, <br>which you can find here:<br><br><a
href="http://lpuni.org/components/com_mambowiki/index.php/DeadSouls_Reference">http://lpuni.org/components/com_mambowiki/index.php/DeadSouls_Reference</a><br><br><br><a
name="2.55"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I make an object you can [ jump on | climb | etc ] ?</span><br><br> Look for an example, and copy it. Take a look at the<br>code in the newbie mansion ladder for climb code. Take a look<br>at /domains/Ylsrim/room/bank_roof.c for an example of something<br>you can jump from. Other actions will have similar examples. The<br>sample domains are there for you to explore and find examples<br>of what you want to do.<br><br><br><a
name="2.56"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where is the list of available skills? How do I add skills?</span><br><br> Please read the Administrator's Guidebook chapter<br>entitled "Understanding the Lib", and skip to section named <br>"</big>Section IV: Skills".<br><br><br><big><a
name="2.57"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where is the list of available classes? How do I add a class?</span><br><br> Type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ls /secure/cfg/classes</span><br><br> To add a class, copy one of those files and call it<br>whatever the class should be. For example:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd /secure/cfg/classes</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">cp thief farmer</span><br><br> The modify the new file to suit you. When<br>you're done, use <span
style="font-weight: bold;">admintool</span> to add the class to the class<br>daemon. Type <span
style="font-weight: bold;">help admintool</span> for information on that command.<br> <br> Obviously, you'll need to be an admin or assistant<br>admin for this to work.<br><br><br><a
name="2.58"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where is the list of available races?</span> <br><br> Type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ls /secure/cfg/races</span><br><br> For details on adding races, see the <a
href="ds-admin-faq.html">admin FAQ</a>.<br><br></big><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="2.59"></a>How do languages work? Is there a list of them?</span><br><br> There is no list of languages. It doesn't work that way.<br>There is no centralized language database, daemon, or anything<br>like that. Languages are basically like a skill: only useful to<br>the extent that lib objects make use of them.<br><br> A player might be able to understand Tamarian, but if<br>nobody else in the lib does, it isn't much use. If no written material<br>is in Tamarian besides, then the player's language ability is a waste.<br><br> On the other hand, if a player wants to be able to<br>understand orcs, all she has to do is find a language teacher<br>that can instruct her in that tongue. After enough lessons,<br>she will be at 100% fluency, and if she encounters written or<br>spoken information in Tangetto, she'll be able to understand<br>all of it.<br><br> To know what languages you understand, and to what<br>extent, use the command:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">language</span><br><br> To make yourself fluent in English, type:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">anglicize me</span><br><br> To make yourself fluent in all languages, type:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">polyglottize me</span><br><br> Obviously these commands are available only to creators.<br><br><br><a
name="2.60"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">When I try to call Bozo->SetLanguage("Clownish", 50), it sets it to 100%</span><br><br> Bozo is probably a newbie. If Bozo's player level is at or below<br>what is defined as newbie in /secure/include/config.h, then he understands<br>all languages at 100%. Raise his level above that, and you should see<br>his proficiency in that language drop to what you specified.<br><br><br><a
name="2.61"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I update an .h file?</span><br><br> You don't, really. That's a header file, which contains code to<br>be included by a .c file. Only a .c file gets loaded into memory, so<br>to "update" an .h file, you update the .c file that includes it. In<br>the case of a global include, like daemons.h, you would update the<br>master object (also called the master daemon) thusly:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">update /secure/daemon/master</span><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><br><br></pre>
<hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px; font-family: monospace;">
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><big
style="font-weight: bold;">Section 3: Intermud and channel stuff</big><br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="3.1"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I know what other muds are online on intermud?</span><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">mudlist<br><br></span>To see online Dead Souls muds type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">mudlist -m dead<br></span><span
style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br></span><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"></span><a
name="3.2"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Hey, LeetFooMud is online! How can I tell if Biff is logged on?</span><span
style="font-weight: bold;"><br></span><br>To see who's logged on: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">rwho leetfoomud</span><br>To tell Biff hello: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">tell</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">biff@leetfoomud hello</span><br>To see if Biff is listening to <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><ds></span>: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">list ds@leetfoomud</span><br>To check out Biff's personal info: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">finger biff@leetfoomud<br><br></span><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="3.3"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">That's weird...mudlist says LeetFooMud is there but I'm not getting anything back.</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><br>The mudlist command reports on data retrieved the last time <br>the intermud daemon received an update. This means that if<br>LeetFooMud dropped off, say, 10 minutes ago, or if your own<br>intermud connection is down, your intermud commands are falling <br>into the void.<br><br>To see if your intermud connection is up, type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">wiz</span><br>This takes you to the Creator's Hall, where a sign indicates<br>your mud's intermud connection status. <span
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">This sign may be up</span><br
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><span
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">to 15 minutes out of date.</span><br><br>You can also test your mud's intermud connection with<br>the ping command, like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">ping dead souls</span><br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">ping frontiers</span><br><br><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="3.4"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I heard there are intermud channels that talk between other muds,</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">not just Dead Souls muds. How can I use them?</span><br><br>Ask your admin. Those channels may not be open for<br>use on your mud. <br><br>If you talk on <span
style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);"><intercre></span>, be polite, and use the same rules<br>of common sense and intelligent questioning that you need<br>to follow for <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><ds></span>. <span
style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);"><intercre></span> is for code and technical<br>questions <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ONLY</span>. Do not ever spam it or use it for chatting.<br><br>I strongly discourage you from talking on <span
style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"><intergossip></span>. I<br>assure you nothing good will come of it. This warning only<br>applies to the old intermud.org router, known as *gjs. The<br>intermud channel on the new *yatmim router is much<br>friendlier to newbies.<br><br><a
name="3.5"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">How do I emote on a channel?</span><br><br>Add the word<br>"emote" to the channel command. For example:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">creemote compels your silence.</span><br><br>gets seen on the channel as:<br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><cre> </span>Cratylus compels your silence.<br><br>You can also add a colon to the message, like this:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">cre :compels your silence.</span><br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="3.6"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I see what I missed on a channel?</span><br><br>To see the recent messages, use hist. For example:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">hist ds</span><br><br>To see older stuff, look in /log/chan<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span></span><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="3.7"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I am sick and tired of the *gjs intermud network going down. Please fix it.</span><br><br>See the <a
href="router.html">Dead Souls Intermud Router page</a>.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="3.8"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I just wanna chat. Is there a dschat channel?</span><br><br> If you really want just to chat, then use <span
style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"><intergossip></span>,<br>since that's what it's there for. Ask your admin for how to<br>do this. I'd rather you expose <span
style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"><intergossip></span> to your boredom <br>than <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><ds></span>. Note that <span
style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"><intergossip></span> on *gjs is usually hostile to<br>newbies. <br> Alternately, there's a <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><ds_test></span> channel which is<br>intended specifically for spammy channel tests and such.<br><br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span><a
name="3.9"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I'll spam if I want to. You're not the boss of me.</span><br><br>It's true, I can't do much if you're determined to be a<br>jerk. If you consistently abuse channels, your admin may<br>be asked to limit your channel access. In extreme cases,<br>your mud may find itself banned from the channel in <br>question.<br> I can only appeal to your sense of fair play.<br>Spamming hurts people who have nothing to do with whatever<br>you're pissed off about. Please don't make whatever your<br>problem is with someone a headache for everyone.<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span><span
style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></span><a name="3.10"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">This guy keeps hassling me on an intermud channel</span></span><br><br>Sometimes people just can't leave well enough alone,<br>and they spam. Some people just don't have anything<br>to say that you want to hear. For such situation,<br>use the earmuff command. For example:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">earmuff tatianna</span><br><br>And you will not receive channel messages from <br>that person. The reverse command is <span
style="font-weight: bold;">unmuff</span>.<br> Earmuffing is also good when someone from<br>a non-European-language mud sends well-meaning<br>but garbled, escape-code filled gibberish. If<br>she doesn't understand your English language<br>requests to stop spamming, you can just earmuff her.<br><br></big></pre>
<hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px; font-family: monospace;"><big
style="font-family: monospace;"><big style="font-weight: bold;">Section
4: Miscellanea</big><br>
<br>
</big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.1"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I'm fighting the beggar with my staff and he's kicking my ass</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
For one thing, you're a creator. Quit goofing around. If<br>
you want to
fight monsters and stuff, create a test<br>
player
character.<br>
<br>
Next, you're probably still a Level 1 character. This<br>
makes you a
wimp. Raise your level with this command:<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">call
me->SetLevel(20)</span><br>
<br>
Now get the medical tricorder from your workroom's<br>
chest and
raise your stats. Give yourself 100 strength.<br>
Why not?<br>
<br>
If you're carrying a chest, table, chair, and
everything<br>
else you've come across, you will be unable to do much <br>
during combat. Try to wield a weapon, hold a couple of<br>
shopping bags and boxes, and see how well you do against<br>
a pissed off real-life enemy. You won't last long. So either<br>
drop all the crap you're lugging around, or put it in <br>
a backpack and wear the pack.<br>
<br>
Put the staff in your robe and quit using it as<br>
a weapon.
It's a creating tool. Not only is it a<br>
poor weapon,
by default you lack double-handed<br>
weapon
skills, making you really crappy at using<br>
a really
crappy weapon. No wonder the orcs were <br>
beating you
like an animal. Get a carving knife<br>
from the
mansion. Or an orcslayer. Or hell, just<br>
use the zap
command and stop wasting time. You<br>
should have
characters for this.<br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.2"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Someone amputated all my limbs and I can't do anything!</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
If your body
gets damaged you can restore yourself to your<br>
normal
physical status by typing:<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">heal
me<br>
<br>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.3"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">How do I change my class?</span></big><br></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>
</span>Again
with the pretending to be a
player. Seriously,<br>
you need a
test player char so that if you screw something<br>
up, you don't
screw *yourself* up.<br>
<br>
But, if
you're determined:<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>
<br>
call me->ChangeClass("thief")<br>
<br>
</span>Your
stats and levels will probably be all weird and<br>
hosed up.
Just raise your player level, that will probably<br>
fix it.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>
</span><br>
<br style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.4"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">People are talking to me in gibberish, even though it <br>says they're</span><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"> speaking English.</span></big><br></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
If your race
is not human, your default language is not English,
therefore<br>
someone
speaking in English would not be understood by you. As a<br>
creator, you
can avoid players' tedious language learning process<br>
and simply
type:<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">call
me->SetLanguage("English",100)</span><br>
<br>
Obviously this will work for other languages too.<br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.5"></a></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What's
this about Biff "unknowingly" telling me something?</span><br>
<br>
If you are
invis and a player or someone on another mud tells<br>
to you, they
get an error message about you not being around. So,<br>
they told to
you, but do not know you actually got the message,<br>
since you
don't seem logged on.<br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.6"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I find the location of a verb or command?</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
Use the which
command. For example:<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">which
zap</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">which
update</span><br>
<br>
If 'which'
doesn't find it, the command is probably built into<br>
some object
you inherit, like the command shell or the<br>
hooks for the
chat daemon. Or it may be an add_action bound to a<br>
nearby
object. To see what commands objects or inherited<br>
files might
be providing you, type:<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">localcmds<br>
<br>
<br>
</span><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.7"></a> <span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where are the "exa" and "n" commands?</span><br><br> When you type some commands, like <span
style="font-weight: bold;">exa</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">n</span>, or <span
style="font-weight: bold;">i</span>,<br>what happens is that your command shell recognizes<br>them as aliases, and turns the alias into the appropriate<br>command.<br> An alias is like a nickname, or shorter word,<br>for a command or series of commands. To see the aliases<br>you currently have, type:<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">alias</span><br><br> To make a new alias:<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">alias ml mudlist</span><br><br> To make an alias that replaces a specific command<br>while permitting you to supply arguments to it:<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">alias ig intergossip $*</span><br><br> To remove an alias:<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">alias ig<br><br> </span>After modifying aliases, make sure to type:<br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">save</span><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"></span> <br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;">
<br>
</big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.8"></a> <span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I get something to happen to a random person in a room?</span></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span>You can
pick a
random winner (or victim) for your action by using the
get_random_living()<br>
sefun. For
details on its usage:<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">man
get_random_living</span><br>
<br>
You may also
find the get_livings() sefun useful.<br>
<br>
<br>
</big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.9"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">My wandering monster escaped from my workroom! How can</span><br
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">I find him?</span><br><br>If its name is jabberwock, try:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">findobj jabberwock</span><br><br>You can also probably just:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">goto jabberwock</span></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.10"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I ran findobj on something but it says no environment. Where is it?</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
Right where
it says. Some objects create a "master copy" of themselves<br>
when they are
cloned. This copy remains loaded in memory even if<br>
that cloned
object goes away. You can distinguish between cloned<br>
objects and
master copies by the number sign and number at the end<br>
of cloned
objects. The master copy has no instance number. It is <br>
simply loaded
code, and does not "exist" in a way accessible to your player<br>
object on the
mud.<br>
<br>
Sometimes a
cloned object will lose its environment. This is usually <br>
caused by an
error and is not a good thing. Dead Souls runs a<br>
"reaper"
daemon that periodically searches memory for cloned<br>
objects that
lack an environment, and they are destroyed.<br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.11"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I update everything in a directory?</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
You really
shouldn't. There are very few cases I can think<br>
of where
updating an entire directory is something an average<br>
creator needs
to do. How often do you edit multiple<br>
files at once
without individually updating them? Good<br>
coding
practice is to update the one file you just worked on to know<br>
if it works
at all.<br>
<br>
I also
discourage it because when you do this, you lag the mud <br>
considerably.
I/O is the most resource intensive kind of operation, <br>
and updating
is on its own quite resource intensive. Updating a <br>
directory
with dozens of files in it will cause a noticeable hiccup <br>
in the rest
of the mud.<br>
<br>
If you are
determined to do this, though, the
command is :<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">update
/path/to/dir/*</span><br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.12"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I don't like getting colors on my screen. How do I stop it?</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
Type: <span style="font-weight: bold;">terminal
unknown</span><br>
<br>
then type: <span style="font-weight: bold;">save</span><br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.13"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Um...I want colors back now please</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
Type: <span style="font-weight: bold;">terminal
ansi</span><br>
<br>
then type: <span style="font-weight: bold;">save</span><br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.14"></a> <span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I can type 'n' and move north, but 'north' doesn't work.</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
Technically,
you can't 'n' either. When you type 'n', what<br>
it happening
is that your preset alias turns that 'n'<br>
into the
command line '<span style="font-weight: bold;">go
north</span>'.<br>
Because you do not have an alias 'north' that expands<br>
to '<span style="font-weight: bold;">go
north</span>',
'north' doesn't
take you anywhere. But<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">go
north</span>
will.<br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.15"></a> <span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why is there a bunch of stuff in ROOMS_FURNACE?</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
The QCS is
designed to attempt the graceful handling<br>
of unusual
events. Sloppy code, non-working objects,<br>
etc. Part of
this design is avoiding a situation<br>
where an
object's destruction affects your local <br>
environment
(and this happens a bit more often than <br>
you might
think). <br>
To avoid some types of unpleasantness, QCS doesn't<br>
try to
immediately destruct objects when replacing them.<br>
Instead, they
are moved, along with whatever problems<br>
they might
have, to ROOMS_FURNACE. That is a room<br>
where things
go to be destructed quietly. Every <br>
second or so,
the contents of that room are destroyed,<br>
and their
bits recycled.<br>
A few other items in the lib use the furnace,<br>
notably the
recycling bins and the reload command.<br>
<br>
<br>
<a name="4.16"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How
do I change
my screen and terminal settings?</span><br>
<br style="font-weight: bold;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">help
terminal</span><br style="font-weight: bold;">
<br style="font-weight: bold;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">help
screen</span><br style="font-weight: bold;">
<br style="font-weight: bold;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">screen
79 24</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.17"></a> <span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">ZOMG this is the best mudlib evar how can I evar thank you?</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
No need,
citizen. Merely doing my job. <br>
<br>
Just let me
know what bugs you find, and how I can<br>
make the lib
better.<br>
<br>
</big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="4.18"></a><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Dude this mudlib sux0rz @ss. What a waste of my time.</span><br><br>I'm sure Dead Souls has lots of things that you don't<br>like, but I can't fix them if I don't know what they are.<br>Email me so that I can understand the lameness, and so <br>others can benefit for your suggestions.<br><br><br></big><big><a
name="4.19"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I'm seeing a filename but I can't read it.</span><br><br> If you try command and you get something like:<br><br>/secure/foo/bar: No such reference.<br><br> It means you don't have read access to that<br>file or directory. I've someone make a stink about<br>how a file they can't read shouldn't be visible to them<br>or some such thing. However, I think he was just<br>being difficult. Some files you can't read, even<br>though you have access to the directory they're in.<br>That's the story.<br><br><br></big><big><a
name="4.20"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Is there a command to go back to your previous directory</span><br
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">without having to type it all out again?</span><br><br> The shell has a few handy builtins.<br><br>To go up a directory: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd ..</span><br><br>To go to your home dir: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd ~</span><br><br>To go to your area directory <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd ~/area</span><br><br>To go to the /domains dir: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd ^</span><br><br>To go to /domains/default: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd ^default</span><br><br>To go to the directory you were in before the current one: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">cd ~-</span><br><br></big><br></pre>
<hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px; font-family: monospace;"><big
style="font-family: monospace;"><br>
<big><span style="font-weight: bold;">Section
5: Building</span></big><br>
<br>
</big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="5.1"></a>QCS is putting stuff where I don't want it.</span><br><br> QCS is a way to use simple commands to manipulate<br>complex files. Sometimes the conversion between simple<br>and complex causes unusual compromises and outcomes.<br><br> When you create a new room, what QCS does<br>is look at the room you're currently in. Let's say<br>you're standing in /realms/you/area/room/test1.c. And<br>you issue the command<br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">create room east test2</span><br><br> In this case, "test2" is considered a "relative path",<br>which means that you didn't provide QCS with *exactly* where<br>you want the file to be. You told QCS to figure out where<br>to put that file.<br> When QCS has to guess where a new room goes,<br>it simply assumes that the room goes in the same directory<br>as the current room. So, in this case, you're going to <br>make a file with this path:<br><br>/realms/you/area/room/test2.c<br><br> Suppose that this is not where you want the new<br>room to be. you want it to go into /realms/you/testrooms/.<br>In this case, you need to tell QCS the "full path", like this:<br><br
style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">create room east /realms/you/testrooms/test2</span><br><br> When you create non-room objects, also known as<br>tangible items, QCS guesses in a slightly different way.<br>If you provide a relative name, then QCS looks at your<br>current working directory (cwd). Based on the type of item, <br>QCS looks for a directory with the appropriate name. For<br>example, if your cwd is /realms/you/foo, and the type of<br>object is a weapon, then QCS looks for a directory named<br>"/realms/you/foo/weap/". If it exists, it puts your new<br>file there. Otherwise it tries to put it in "/realms/you/weap/".<br>And if that doesn't work, it'll default to your home area<br>weapon directory, which is "/realms/you/area/weap/".<br><br> If you've been granted domain admin status, and<br>you are using QCS to work on your new domain, it's therefore<br>very important that your cwd be in the right place in the<br>domain directory for it to work. Otherwise, your new stuff may <br>wind up in your default area dir, and you could go nuts<br>trying to find it.<br><br> Of course, you can avoid all ambiguity by simply<br>using a full path, like:<br><br><span
style="font-weight: bold;">create weapon /domains/My_Spiffy_Domain/weap/fruitcake</span><br><br> <br><a
name="5.2"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How do I make a blank room, instead of copying the current one?</span><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;">
You'll always copy the old room, that's just how<br>
QCS works. But you can quickly change it to a blank<br>
room by entering the new room and issuing this command:<br>
<br>
c<span style="font-weight: bold;">opy /obj/room</span><br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><a
name="5.3"></a>How do I create an area?</span><br>
<br>
You have a default area directory in your<br>
homedir. By default, your QCS creations get put in there.<br>
However, if your area is ever going to be put into<br>
play, it could be inconvenient to move it into the<br>
/domains directory, because every file reference will<br>
have to be changed.<br>
If your admins use unix and perl, this is trivial.<br>
If not, it's a real obstacle.<br>
<br>
Therefore, if you're going to work on an area<br>
that will someday be open to the public, it's a <br>
good idea to start in the /domains dir. Your admin<br>
will need to create the appropriate directories.<br>
For example, if the domain is to be FunkyTown, you'll<br>
need /domains/FunkyTown, /domains/FunkyTown/room, and<br>
so on.<br>
<br>
You will also need to have your admin make<br>
you a domain admin of FunkyTown with the <span
style="font-weight: bold;">domainadmin</span><br>
command. This will permit you to use QCS there.<br>
<br>
That's the technical part of getting started<br>
with an area. The hard part is that you need to<br>
know what you're doing, you have to have a creative<br>
vision, and the language skills to make it evocative,<br>
immersive, and worth playing in. That's up<br>
to you...I can't help you with that.<br>
<br>
</big>
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="5.4"></a>How do I make a quest?</span><br> <br> Think of a quest in terms of the result. <br>The result of a quest is a player receiving quest<br>points and a quest title. <br> <br> This means that pretty much anything can <br>be a quest. If you've coded a rock to provide <br>quest points and a quest title when it is<br>picked up, well, there's your Rock Quest. However,<br>you usually want to make things a bit more challenging. <br> <br> A quest can be as boring as "pick up the red rock" <br>or it can be a challenging metaphysical inquiry into the <br>nature of consciousness. If quest points and a quest title are<br>at the end of a series of actions, then that series of actions<br>is a quest. What those actions should be are entirely up <br>to your imagination. Review the orcslayer quest in the <br>Player's Handbook for an example. You <span
style="font-style: italic;">did</span> read the <br>Player's Handbook, right?<br> <br>Take a look at Leo the Archwizard's code for an example of the<br>mechanics of solving a quest.<br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: monospace;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;"><a name="5.5"></a>Where's
Leo?</span><br>
<br>
Read the
Player's Handbook already, please.<br>
</big><br style="font-family: monospace;">
<br style="font-family: monospace;">
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="5.6"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where are the vehicles and mounts?</span><br><br> There are none yet. After 2.1 is released, I'll<br>be able to concentrate on adding new systems like that.<br>For now, it's just bugfixes and vital functionality<br>I'm working on. However, 2.1 should be released<br>Real Soon Now.<br><br><br><a
name="5.7"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I'm having trouble adding meals to my barkeep with QCS.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> ok here's the deal<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><ds> Daelas@Moraelinost scrunches on the edge of his seat.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> menu items can have more than one id<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><ds> Daelas@Moraelinost nods solemnly.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> "ale","first class ale","beer"<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Daelas@Moraelinost <ds> with you so far.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> when you: modify barkeep menuitems<br><br>Cratylus <ds> it asks you for the id's<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Daelas@Moraelinost <ds> I didn't get that.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> when you're done entering id's, you hit a period<br><br><span
style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Daelas@Moraelinost <ds> is it SetMenuItems or menuitmes.</span><br><br>Cratylus <ds> then you enter the filename to the item sold<br><br><br><a
name="5.8"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I heard DS has stargates. Where's an example?</span><br><br> The following rooms have stargates:<br><br>/domains/Ylsrim/room/tower.c<br><br>/domains/default/room/stargate_lab.c<br><br> For info on valid gates, type: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">stargate</span><br></big></pre>
<br style="font-family: monospace;">
<pre style="font-family: monospace;"><big><a name="5.9"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I created a vendor, but he isn't responding to the "list" command.</span><br><br> The list command isn't part of the vendor object. It's<br>part of LIB_SHOP, which is a room that acts as a sort of front-end<br>for the vendor. The commands <span
style="font-weight: bold;">list</span>, <span
style="font-weight: bold;">show</span>, <span
style="font-weight: bold;">price</span>, and <span
style="font-weight: bold;">appraise</span> are<br>not in the vendor, but in the shop. To get the appropriate responses<br>from the vendor, you would use the following syntax:<br><br>list: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ask vendor to browse</span><br>show: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ask vendor to show <item></span><br>price: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ask vendor to price <item></span><br>appraise: <span
style="font-weight: bold;">ask vendor to appraise <item><br><br></span></big></pre>
<a style="font-family: monospace;" name="5.10"></a><span
style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I
gave room with a default smell but I cannot get any other smells in
there, <br>
such as 'smell object' for example</span><br
style="font-family: monospace;">
<br style="font-family: monospace;">
<span style="font-family: monospace;"> SetSmell, like
SetListen, is in the form of a mapping. When using the<br>
QCS, the correct formatting is automatically made for you. If coding<br>
by hand, take a look at /domains/town/room/riverbank.c for what it<br>
looks like. Note that for each Smell or Listen, you need a corresponding<br>
SetItems element.<br style="font-family: monospace;">
</span><br style="font-family: monospace;">
<br style="font-family: monospace;">
<big style="font-family: monospace;">-
Cratylus<br>
<br>
<my name here>@comcast.net<br>
<br>
<a href="index.html">Dead
Souls Homepage</a><br>
</big>
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