Building

Building

Fate's Harvest staff has a fairly open stance on builds. Players can, effectively, have as many separate builds as they can ICly afford.

Have questions about locking your build? There are a lot of helpfiles in game, but staff has written a guide to make life easier right here.

Build Requests

Every build request, be it for a private home, a business or a Hollow (Changeling only), should be sent in via the command: +req/build

In the body of the request, please include:

• Type of build (private, group, business, Hollow)
• The coordinate and name of where it will be on the grid (MT04, Town Square)
• If it is a business, what type of business is it? What is it selling?
• Character's dots in applicable merits (Resources)
• The project's name (A White House, Mandy's Pub & Grill)
• Number of rooms
• Room names (and how they connect to each other!)
• Exit names (if none are given, staff will use linked room's name)
• If you are a public build:

  +dir data:

  • What Resources should people have to buy your products?
  • A brief description of the business, its hours, what it offers, any notable facts.

  (See '+dir riverside' in game and look at the Notes section. That is what you need to write.)

  +hangouts data:

  • Which rooms are public? (i.e. which should show up on the +hangouts list when people are in them.)

  +travel/info data:

  • Brief summary of your business. Check '+travel/info fb04' for some examples of how short this description needs to be.

Sample Request

+req/build My Dream Home=

Build type: private

Coord: FB12

Merits: Resources 4, Luxury

Project name: Slate Mansion

Room #: 7

Rooms: I know we're only supposed to have five, but I really wanted to fit in some gardens and a ballroom. Henry's just come into money, and he wants to make himself look good for the ladies!

Entry Hall - links to FB12, Ballroom, Sitting Room and Dining Hall

Sitting Room - links to Entry Hall

Dining Hall - links to Entry Hall

Sekrit Laboratory - dark exit from the bedroom 'pull lever'

Grand Bedroom - links to Sitting Room

Rose Gardens - links to Sitting Room

Ballroom - links to Entry Hall

I don't really care what the other exit names are. Just use what you want.

Thanks so much, awesome staff people! ;)

Build Limits

Build policy includes the following limitations:

Single-owner builds:

• Try to keep it at/under 5 rooms per build.
  • Staff will only approve 5+ room builds if they fit the theme or are otherwise justified.

(e.g. unless you are going to regularly RP in your bathroom, you do not need a separate room built just to say 'there is a toilet here.' Use Places.)

Multi-owner builds:

• No more than 20 rooms, total. It doesn't matter how many people are involved.
• Rooms are owned by individuals. If you want to make a ZMO so anyone in your group can edit them, please read the instructions or ask staff.

Business builds:

• Businesses follow the same rules as other builds, with greater lenience on room limitations.
• If you are a business, you must be on +dir. Please include this information in your build request.

How do I know if my build is a business?

• If you sell a product, support, or offer a service, you are a business.
• If you are a public place, or offer amenities (parks, playgrounds) you are a business.
• If you offer lodging or rental accommodation, you are a business.

You are not a business if you are a private home. Fairly easy logic there. Even if you do have employees (butlers, servants, drivers) or offer tours of the property to make people drool over your moolah, you are not a public entity.

For players interested in being the owners of apartment complexes, bed & breakfasts, hotels and other associated concepts where players would be adding rooms onto the build, please be aware that all requests to add rooms DO still require your permission. If you choose to freeze your character/do not log in for a month, the building will first be held a month in case you come back, and then become public Gridbuilder-owned property unless you specifically bequeath it to another character.

All other businesses will remain on grid once made unless their owner specifically requests that staff nuke the build when they are freezing their character. If a frozen player does not return, after three months, the business may be scooped up by another player.

Hollow Requests

Trying to build a Hollow? Shoot up a +req/build (not fae) with the same basic details as the example above.

The Hollow merits are applied to your sheet by staff. You cannot purchase them with +xps.

In your Hollow build request, please include any dots in the specific merits (Size/Amenities/Wards etc.) you will be purchasing.

For sanity's sake, please do not include Hedgefruit requests in your build job. Send up a separate job for those according to the standard Goblin Fruit rules.

Build Requirements

Every build on the game is built to the same standard. Here is a list of build requirements, for both staff and player edification.

• Every room on grid must have an Out exit (o;out) which eventually leads back to the public grid of the game.
• Every build will have a +holding set upon creation. By default the build-owner will be the only player with access to the +holding data. Staff will create the +holding once the build has been approved and @mail the build-owner to confirm their new property is linked and ready.
• Every exit requires @desc/@succ/@osucc/@odrop, optionally with @fail/@ofail.

Rule of thumb: if the exit can ICly be locked, it needs @fail/@ofail.

Exit Command Examples

You have an exit named Out <O>. It goes to a really fancy place.

Your exit is naked, however, and can't decently be seen in public without at least the simplest of attire.

That is where the following commands come into play.

@desc - This is just like describing yourself. What does your exit look like?

@succ - This is what YOU see when you walk through the exit.

@osucc - This is what everyone ELSE sees when you walk through the exit.

@drop - This is what YOU see on the other side of the exit, AFTER you are in the other room.

@odrop - This is what everyone ELSE sees on the other side of the exit, AFTER you are in the other room.

@fail - This is what YOU see when you can't get through an exit.

@ofail - This is what everyone ELSE sees when you can't get through an exit.

If this is confusing gibberish, an easy mnemonic is to remember 'O for Other'. If it starts with @o-something, it is what OTHER people see. Not you.

Examples:

@desc o=%tThis is a set of double doors with shiny bronze handles.

@succ o=You walk through the double doors into the room beyond.

@osucc o=walks through the double doors which lead to the fancy place.

@drop o=The room you have walked into smells strongly of lemon.

@odrop o=steps in through the double doors with the shiny bronze handles.

@fail o=You try to open the double doors, but they are locked.

@ofail o=tries to open the double doors, but can't get through. They must be locked.

NOTE: The @desc on exits going FROM the grid INTO a building should include a brief description of the building's exterior. Ex: "A cobblestone walkway leads up to the front door of a white house on the corner of Imaginary St. and Whangdoodle Rd."

@drop is entirely optional. It can be useful if you want something to show up UNDER the room desc when somebody walks in for, say, warnings that the room is being watched by security cameras.

Example:

(You see the @succ on the exit.) You walk through the bank door.

(The description of the bank and any exits/directions spams the above off of your screen.)

(You see the @drop on the exit.) As you step into the room, the glassy eyes of security cameras overhead observe your every move.

(People in the bank see the @odrop instead.) <your name> steps in through the front door.

NOTE: For any real warnings about audible code or voyeurism regarding the activities of people in your property, you are required to post a clear warning in a separate line at the bottom of the ROOM @desc. A note in the @drop is not enough.

Timing

Players have two weeks, total, to complete all descriptions on their build (excepting extenuating circumstances).

If the player has not responded to their build job within one week, staff will comment to the job to remind them that they have one more week before the naked build is nuked.

If the second week passes with no progress and no explanation, the build will be nuked and the player will be informed. Their job will be closed.

Players, please let staff know if you are going on vacation mid-building. It isn't a problem -- IF we are told. We will extend the due date of the job until after you should be home from your holidays.

Room Description Convention

The @descformat on every room (the code stuff that, say, lets staff make notes about +views and Places and +gardens show up at the bottom of the desc) automatically adds %r to the beginning and end of every @desc.

You do not need to.

People consistently do, hehe, but really, unless you WANT to have three lines of empty spaces between the cyan ========= and your text...you don't need to do that.

Otherwise, every paragraph needs to be separated by %r%r%t.

Example:

---

      This is a room description. It is a particularly fancy one. The ceiling is made of shiny fanciness with little fancy things carved in it, and the floors are even shinier and fancier, and particularly nice. The windows have fancy curtains.

      There is a lovely fancy pattern embroidered on the giant rug which covers most of the fancy, particularly nice floors, done up in fancy colours one should certainly never see in a house less fancy than this one.

      The furniture is, of course, quite fancy and comfortable despite the fanciness of its appearance. Sometimes these things lie, but never about how fancy they are. That would rather defeat the purpose. There is a set of equally fancy doors leading out into the hallway on the wall opposite the windows.

---

Room Naming Convention

Names go "Bigger Thing - Smaller Thing" here, so players in different rooms of the same build will show up together on +where.

e.g. The White House - Oval Office

e.g. East Bank - Meadowhame Cottages

The roomparent will automatically apply highlighted white ANSI to all room names.

Exit Naming Convention

Exits, including the <text> of the alias, have to fit within 25 characters; they are a three-column list at the base of any room.

Exit names may be the project name or abbreviations thereof when leading from the grid into a build project. No 'Door' names, please (i.e. the exit to your bar should be "Joey's Bar" rather than "A Wooden Door"). Exceptions to this are, say, private side streets, alleys and similar, where "Filthy Alley" is totally fine as an exit name.

Within a build project, exit names are up to your creative choice!

All "real world" grid exits will share the same ANSI pattern:

Default text, unhighlighted cyan < > and highlighted white alias text.

Example Exit <EX>

All Hedge grid exits will share the same ANSI pattern:

Default text, highlighted green < > and highlighted white alias text.

Example Exit <EX>

All Twilight grid exits will share the same ANSI pattern:

Default text, unhighlighted magenta < > and highlighted white alias text.

Example Exit <EX>

All Shadow grid exits will share the same ANSI pattern:

Default text, highlighted black < > and highlighted white alias text.

Example Exit <EX>

Where gates between reality levels exist, both sides of exits will be marked with two elbow brackets instead of one.

e.g. a gate into or out of the Hedge would look like:

Example Exit <<EX>>

Gates always use their supernatural color, not the default grid cyan. A gate to Twilight or Shadow would use magenta or black, not cyan, even on the side leading back to the mortal world.

Currently no grid for Twilight or Shadow has been built, but plans exist for future storylines.