ZMO

Zone Master Object (ZMO)

A ZMO is an item which lets you specify a zone, and who has access to it. The following is a handy dandy guide to them and how they can be useful in your daily online life.

Zones

First, though, a brief explanation of zones. A "zone" is a way of sharing ownership of objects. There can only be one Owner of any object on the game, but if you are part of the same zone, you can affect the objects in that zone as if you were the owner.

For example, if you and your group of friends all own a business together, but only one of you really likes describing things, you could create a ZMO, which would let Larry Loquacious desc any room in the build, even if he didn't own it himself.

Commands set on the ZMO will be local to that zone, so if you want other players to, say, be able to read the menu of your restaurant from anywhere in your build, you could create a 'menu' command on the ZMO rather than placing it on every room individually.

Creating a ZMO

All characters are created with 5 quota. This means that you can @create up to 5 objects.

(As a quick refresher, @quota will tell you your total quota, and how much of that total you have used. If you already have a building, you will see a number much larger than 5. Each room and each side of an exit costs 1 quotum.)

For purposes of our example, let's say Joey, Larry and Ethan want to make a ZMO together. First step is creating the object. Joey is the owner of the business, so he decides he'll make it.

@create BuildName ZMO 

Now that the object is created, he gives it a description. The desc doesn't have to have anything in it, but it may be helpful to explain what you are using it for.

@desc BuildName ZMO=This is a description of your ZMO with helpful information on it.

Next, Joey specifies who will have access to the zone. This is called an EnterLock. He uses pipes (the | symbol, typically right above your Return/Enter key) to tell the lock that Joey OR Larry OR Ethan can access it.

The * before the name tells the game that it should look for a player by that name. If you don't have the * before the name, and the player is NOT standing in the same room as you are, the lock will complain at you and fail.

@elock BuildName ZMO=*Joey|*Larry|*Ethan

That done, Joey changes the zone of the object to itself. Once that is done, even though Joey is the owner of the object, Larry and Ethan could both examine it as if they were the owner, because they are on the EnterLock.

@chzone BuildName ZMO=BuildName ZMO

Then, in each room of the build, Joey has the owner of the room @chzone the room to the ZMO. This adds the room to the list of things Joey, Larry and Ethan can all affect. Anyone on the EnterLock can look at the ZMO and see its dbref after its name.

@chzone here=<dbref of ZMO>

Staff recommends setting your ZMO dark and putting it in one of your zone's rooms, so it is readily accessible to any member who might want to add something to it. To set an object dark, simply @set myobject=dark. You can drop the object with 'drop objectname' to leave it in a room. You can 'take' the object to pick it up again. The 'inv' command will show you your inventory, including any objects you are carrying, and if the object is NOT set dark, other players can 'look' at you and see that you are carrying it.