Bugs and Suggestions for Thor's Area Writer go here

[Kylor]

enjoy
I still can't edit my exit.... and no boromir sorry that won't work. I want the exit to go east from vnum 119 into vnum 120 but once you are in vnum 120 the way back west is now LOCKED and the only way out is to kill the mob in the room to get the key and unlock it. So I want it to shut behind you and lock when you enter similar to the room in the demon realm "Vil's chamber".

[boromir]

Hi Kylor,

I usually edit each exit and set them up seperately.

I created an extra room in my area and was able to make it work.

vnum 199 door was open no key standard door (exit south to vnum 200)
vnum 200 door was closed and locked key on mob standard door (exit north to vnum 199)

I will state the obvious

create the door in both rooms and set the attributes for each side of the door ... north and south

[Kylor]

ok so if that's the correct way to do it then what it the spec_door_shut for and what is the door type trap for? also I can't save my area untill that bug I posted is fixxed so it's on hold.

[Thor]

As far as I know, all bugs listed up to this point have now been fixed.

[Tokugawa]

In the next version could you remove water-breathing from the object creation page?

Thanks for the new version!

[Tokugawa]

ok so if that's the correct way to do it then what it the spec_door_shut for and what is the door type trap for? also I can't save my area untill that bug I posted is fixxed so it's on hold.

The door specified in the allow trigger for spec_shut_door would close when the character moves into the room.
Where are you seeing a door type of trap? I do not see that in the documentation.

[Thor]

In the next version could you remove water-breathing from the object creation page?

Done.

[Tokugawa]

Done.

Thanks!

[Kylor]

ok I may have found a bit of a problem here and not specifically with the area writer but also with the demon realm on the live version. I believe that the demon realm is setup in the same fashion
as what boromir is suggesting but there is a problem with the way it functions mechanically. If you enter any of the demon's chambers in the demon realm you become locked in a norecall room and
the only key is on the mob. No big deal so far so good. here's the problem. If you leave the room, close the door behind you, then lock it from the outside, it will remain closed and locked forever or untill the next reboot. You actually cannot even get back into that room period. This could potentially be a serious issue. Let's say for example I go to each room, attain the key, leave the rooms, lock them all from the outside,
then sac all the keys. Well now nobody will be able to get into those rooms untill a reboot happens. This may be better posted in the bugs section but at this time I'm more interested in this issue from a
writers point of veiw because I would like to avoid writing my room the same way and ending up with the same problem. Now I really would like to know how those rooms are coded....

[Tokugawa]

I would have to check Demon Realm, but the key should pop outside the room that is lockable. If the key is sacrified like you suggested, the mob can be killed and then the key will repop again.

[Tokugawa]

It appears the room description field is too wide. It should be 80 wide and it's 87 wide.
The room direction description is 45 and it should be 80 as well.

[Kylor]

Did you fix the problem with the place resets? I saw that my writer updated to a new version and all I have left to do before testing is the place resets.

[Tynian]

You're making frequent backups, right??

[Kylor]

yes I have like 13 backups all dated

[Belsambar]

Working with the writer here....

And I'm wondering...is it possible to have the exits go to an entry field? That way people who actually have their stuff meticulously vnum'd out on paper can write it 1 room at a time and point it to the one they are about to write without going back and forth to set all the directions? This has always been my greatest annoyance, because the back and forthing drives me batty and eventually I just get irritated and set it aside, never to be worked on again. If I'm presently writing room 10002, and the south goes to 10001, the north goes to 10003, and the west to 10005, and I know this and already have it planned out ahead of time, in my head or on paper, why do I have to write 10003, 10004, and 10005, to go back to 10002 to set vnums to my exits? Seems very disjointing and it makes it really hard to add the descriptions for looking the directions without constant backtracking. I think that is partially what is leading to 'there is nothing special there' which takes out a LOT of the flavor of an otherwise well written zone...you tell me there's a castle to the north and when I 'l north' there's nothing special there, not even a descrip about the road leading to it? Wow. How blase...

I have no idea how hard this actually would be, it just seems like it would greatly increase the flow of writing an area if you can take your time 1 room at a time and actually have it done, without backtracking, and saving that time on backtracking is extra time for flavor text and otherwise being creative in the zone.

[Kylor]

I'd love to help you get comfortable with the writer as it is bels but I'm afraid I don't understand your question. I had no such troubles with this "back and forth" as you described it and you most certainly ARE able to complete one entire room at a time without back and forthing at all. What I did was first create a map of the zone on a spread sheet similar to the one shown in the area writers guide as a demonstration. Then assign
all yuor vnums to each room as you create the map on the spread sheet. Once you have this you can select one specific room to work on (if you wish) and can create each exit simply by alt-tabing over to the map then alt-tabing back to the writer and clicking on each exit and setting their connections and look descriptions. I actually wrote my zone in the way you are describing, by completely one room at a time in its entirety.

[Tokugawa]

I think that before you can link the room exits, the other rooms had to have at least been created.

[Kylor]

I don't know enough about how the area's are co-ordinated but my first thought would be to compile a list of zones and room vnums of all connecting zones that connect to the glacier and frozen drift. then write a new zone with all the appropriate branches reaching out to mate up to the same connections. then simply remove the icy areas and implement the new zone and connect the surrounding zones to the new one. of course you would then have to reconnect the glacier and frozen drift somewhere else or perhaps even rewrite them. this would also be a good oppurtunity to move jill to somewhere that the noobs can reach cause man that makes no damn sense at all having her way the heck in the middle of nowhere especially considering the TMC has the potential of providing us with some actual noobs. How about this. I'm going to compile a detailed list of how I propose to fix this "geographical mishap" and submit it as an official area proposal as soon as my current project is finished. I actually know what could fill the space between the northern cities (glashorns/aran/skull top) and the southern cities (lineoth/kuroth/warlooves) with a perfect feel.

[Tokugawa]

Your first thought on what? I have no idea where your idea came from Kylor, but that's not really something we want to do at this time.

[Tokugawa]

This is getting off topic. This thread was for bugs and ideas for the area editor. I'm going to remove posts from the thread that do not relate to a bug or idea for the editor. Please post area ideas or questions in "Area Q & A" section as its own post.

Thanks