SciffyMUD: Creating Rooms

The name of the room should be short - 80 characters at the absolute most; I recommend around 5-15 characters for this.

It should be enough to uniquely identify the general nature of the room, as you see this every time you hit the return button.

The short description is also given every time you press return. It is there to give the player an impression of the room is actually like, without having to bother them with the details.

Rooms should be background for the most part, so this should give only the information which players need to feel that they know where they are.

Short Descriptions should be up to three lines (one line is eighty characters).

The long description is only given when the player expressly asks for more information (by the look command).

If you want to hide any information in the décor of the room, then hint at it here. Only the most observant of characters may then find it.

The long description should try and capture the atmosphere of the room, describe any important details, and generally give the user the impression that they are really there. A word can speak a thousand and one pictures. Use them wisely.

There are twenty-five lines on the standard telnet screen. Up to ten of these can be used for other things, so you have fifteen lines to play with. Don't use them all unless you have to, though; I'd try to keep the long descriptions to ten, jam-packed lines.