Hyperborea.net

Welcome! Chances are that you just became a wizard on Hyperborea. Congratulations. Being a wizard on Hyperborea means that you are not longer an active part of the game play that is going on. Wizards are the persons that maintain and expand the game. They do this by making new monsters, quests or areas. As a wizard, you need to know a number of things. This page tries to tell you most of them.

First, read the wiz help. 'help wizrules' on the mud!

Setting yourself up
Wizards are people who want to get some work done. That is why each wizard usually has a few private rooms. Every wizard should have a workroom. That is the room where you end up when you log in to the game and where others will not disturb you. Having a workroom also allows you to create new monsters or items (called objects) and test them until they are good enough to be evaluated by the archwizards.

For now, copy the default workroom to your directory to get started.

1. Give the command 'cp /players/otto/public/workroom.c .' (NOTE the single period at the end!)
   
2. Give the command 'home'
   

'cp' is a new command that you gained when you became a wizard, and it used to copy files. In this case, it copies the file workroom.c, which can be found in the directory /std, to the current working directory, which is called '.'. Wizards who have any UNIX experience will feel immediately at home. Windows users will need to get used to the following commands:

ls <argument>

Lists the contents of a directory. If the argument is omitted, the content of the current working directory is printed. 'ls /obj' is a valid command.

cp <from> <to>

Copies a file from one directory to another. Both arguments are required.

mv <from> <to>

Moves a file from one directory to another. Both arguments are required.

cat <filename>

Shows the first part of a file. The argument is required.

tail <filename>

Shows the last part of a file. The argument is
required.

more <filename>

Shows a file page by page. The argument is required.

ed <filename>

Edit a file. If you leave out the argument, the first file from your report file (/log/wizardname) will be used. Leave the editor by giving the command 'q'. You can get a list of other command by typing 'h' and the editors prompt.

Programming
Creating new objects on an LP Mud means that you have to program the objects. Fortunately, we have already done a lot of work that you can re-use. Before you can get started, you will need to learn the programming language that is used on MUDs. The language is called LPC, which means LP-Mud C language. Those familiar with any programming language that resembles the language C and the concepts of object orientation will not have too much problems learning to code. An excellent tutorial on the language has been written by Betard, who is not only a wizard on Hyperborea, but also one of the leading archwizards of Nannymud. The tutorial can be found here. Another tutorial can be found here.

Creating new areas and objects
There are some procedures for creating your own areas on Hyperborea. They are listed in the wizard documentation, but a small summary is included here.

• You are not allowed to release ANYTHING to players unless you got the explicit go-ahead from one of the archwizards.

• When you start coding your area, make sure you have it planned out. If you fail to make a plan, your area will reflect that.

• When you think your plan is ready, ask one of the arches or higher wizards to look at it. Areas that are out of theme (medieval fantasy) will not be approved to the game.

• Start coding slowly. Try to make some effort to write clear code (with comments
  and properly indented). Don't try to create very fancy objects. Simple is good for your first area!

• Test your code. You must be able to look at everything you mention, monsters should have genders, there should be no typos, etc.

• When you submit your area for review, the reviewers will look at three main areas:
  
  
  • Balance: weak monsters should not have powerful weapons or give a lot of experience. Strong monsters should be killable by players and players should get some reward for doing so. No death traps. No inifite mazes. You get the idea. Most of these guidelines are not black-white. Of course it can be so that an NPC is practically unbeatable, as long as it has a function!

  • Typo: There should be no typing errors. Hyperborea used American English. So, color instead of colour, program instead of programme, etc. It must be possible to look at everything you mention, etc.

  • Tech: Tech review will concentrate on code efficiency, security and undesirable side effects. If you start coding complex objects, ask an experienced wizard to look at your code before you continue with it. If you can't find a wizard, ask Imgar to help you.
    

• While your area is in review, you can ask a high level player to test it. Make sure he understands the risks though: if he dies, he dies. No refunds. Experience that is earned can be kept, as well as money. All equipment must be handed in before he leaves the area, since the objects have not been approved yet!

• After your area has been approved, it will be opened for players. A location for the area will be chosen in cooperation with the coder.
  

Although all these rules might seem to be overkill, each of them was created after they turned out to be necessary. If you have good arguments, you can always deviate from them, but you need to get permission beforehand!

Balance
One of the first things that new wizards tend to do is created huge mazes that cannot be mapped (ie. have random exits) or code monsters that can only be beaten by the highest level players. Do not bother, we will not approve such areas for the game, so you do not need to waste any effort on it.

Once you have worked your way through Betard's tutorial and looked at our own wizard documentation and code examples, you can start working on an area of yourself. Try not to make your first area too large, 25 rooms with monsters (also known as NPCs, or Non-Playing Characters) is already a good deal of work.

Hyperborea strives to be a game with few typos and bugs. Before you submit your area for review, you should test it yourself. Make sure you can look at everything that you mention. Make sure monsters have genders, etc. Have eye for detail.