Original document written by Thoric of Realms of Despair.
Updated at various intervals by Samson.

Last Modified by Samson, 11/25/04

=== Purpose of this file

The purpose of this file is to allow builders to create areas offline 
if preferred, or to allow them an aid for converting areas from other 
mud formats. Refer to any documentation from other muds to assist in 
converting your areas to our format.

=== Overview of Areas

An area is one piece of the world. Each area is defined in a separate 
file. All of our area files have the extension '.are', but you can call 
your area files anything you want.

Because each area is defined in one file, it is easy to incorporate 
new areas into SMAUG, or to send SMAUG areas to others for use.

=== Sections of an Area

An area file contains the following sections:

    #AREA
    #VERSION
    #AUTHOR
    #VNUMS
    #RANGES
    #RESETMSG
    #RESETFREQUENCY
    #FLAGS
    #CONTINENT
    #COORDS
    #CLIMATE
    #TREASURE
    #NEIGHBOR
    #MOBILES
    #OBJECTS
    #ROOMS
    #RESETS
    #SHOPS
    #REPAIRS
    #SPECIALS
    #$

A complete area file contains each of these sections, in the order shown.
The #CLIMATE, #TREASURE, and #NEIGHBOR sections are not required in order for the area
file to load.

Each of the sections contains its own format. For #MOBILES, #OBJECTS, 
#ROOMS, and #RESETS, this format is upward compatible with the original 
Diku formats for tinyworld.mob, tinyworld.obj, tinyworld.wld, and 
tinyworld.zon, respectively. The #SHOPS, #REPAIRS and #SPECIALS 
sections have new formats. 

Mobiles, objects, and rooms are identified by vnum (virtual number).  
The range of vnum's is 1 to somewhere around 2 billion. Vnum's must be 
unique (for that particular kind of vnum). Vnums do not have to be in 
increasing order.

An area uses the same range of vnum's for mobile vnum's, object vnum's,
and room vnum's, starting with a multiple of 100. This facilitates 
adding the area into an existing set of areas.

To get a range of vnums set aside for you, consult your KL.

Each of the sections above is covered in a seperate file.

Header.txt covers the #AREA, #VERSION, #AUTHOR, #VNUMS, #RANGES, #RESETMSG,
#RESETFREQUENCY, #FLAGS, #CONTINENT, #COORDS, #CLIMATE, #TREASURE, and #NEIGHBOR sections.

Mobiles.txt covers the #MOBILES section.

Objects.txt covers the #OBJECTS section.

Rooms.txt covers the #ROOMS section.

Resets.txt covers the #RESETS, #SHOPS, #REPAIRS, #SPECIALS,
and the #$ sections.

Values.txt covers various tables of numerical values needed for some
of the sections.
