2) Description : You are in an unfinished room. The description of the room is seen when players type "look," and when they enter. Select 2 to enter the room description while in redit. When you enter the room description for the first time make sure to type /c and hit enter to clear the current contents (You are in an unfinished room.) You edit the room description in what is called the text editor. HELP TEXT-EDITOR. Learn all of the text editor commands, they will be very useful. Do not clone rooms without a specific reason. Saving time or energy is not an excuse. Players who play in zones with multiple copies of a description stop reading the descriptions. The zone becomes monotonous, and hence the MUD does. If the MUD is boring, why play it? Why even build it? Changing a description by one or two words counts as copying as well. Always keep in mind that the game is meant to be fun, so frustration, boredom, and irritation when reading something must be avoided at all costs. There are very few exceptions to this rule, and believe it or not, building a maze is -not- one of them. In the room description itself, you should include the important things in the room. The next thing to consider is all of the long extra descriptions of things you are going to enter. You were going to enter nice long text descriptions of things, right? This is the new millennium and you are the culmination of centuries of evolution/creation and we cannot have zones like the Sewers where half the rooms are: "This is a long, boring tunnel. This is another long, muddy, boring tunnel." Some players are evil, some are good, and many are not even human. When writing descriptions be sure not to assume the nature of the character reading it. For example, do not say "The Barbarian towers above everyone in the room" when the character looking at him might be a giant. Some players may be flying, some may be near death, some may be high level and fearless in your zone, others low level and easily killed. Do not assume fear, thirst, anxiety, etc. Remember mobs can be killed, move, or not load. Objects can be taken or not load, so never include them in the room descriptions. Room descriptions must be at least 3 lines and no more than 13 lines (if you run out of space use extra descriptions). Rooms with less than three lines are almost not worth creating in the first place, and more than 13 lines makes life difficult for the reader, especially when just passing through. If you feel you need a really long road, say the road is really long. A few rooms straight of a road or hallway or what not is pretty long. Do not feel the need to extend it. Always include at least one interesting thing per three or so rooms. For example, have a bench in the garden or a table loaded to the room. These objects do not have to do anything, just break up the sparse rooms. If you are pressured to write bigger descs or make more rooms, relax. The best zones are usually very small and their size should not be measured by how many times someone has to enter w to go down the road, you can say something is any size you feel like making it with words alone. See also:: TEXT-EDITOR