Room
A room is one unit of game area. Multiple rooms make up an area, and multiple areas make up a realm. There is no standard "size" of a room in terms of the imaginary space it takes up. A room can be a hole in the ground just large enough for one person, a closet, a bedroom, a ballroom, a section of forest, a block of town, or a vast outdoor space reflecting miles to travel through. It can be anyplace a character can go, and in a magical world, it can go beyond the simple terrestrial concept.
In the GemStone IV game environment, a standard room looks like this:
| [Room Name] | |
| Room Description, usually one to three sentences. | |
| Obvious exits: directions or none | |
Rooms in GemStone can be indoors or outdoors. An easy way to tell is to look at the end of the room, indoor rooms will say "Obvious exits" and outdoors rooms will say "Obvious paths." There is a high level hunting area where all rooms might shift their indoor/outdoor status. Rooms with "none" as an obvious exit/path will usually have some sort of portal indicated in the room description. Look for paths, trails, ladders, doors, bridges, etc. If nothing is obvious, try SEARCHing. When searching does not work, LOOK at, on, under, and behind every prop (anything you can interact with, usually underlined in StormFront), and also try interacting with the props (PULL, PUSH, etc.). Sometimes SEARCH {item} works. When all of the above fail, there is probably a more elaborate puzzle involved.
All rooms have a level of light ranging from dark to very light that can affect such things as lockpicking and hiding. Outdoor rooms and indoor caves will have assigned climates, which determine what will grow in the room. This is important for foraging.
Rooms may be set to block magic, pets from entering, teleporting in and out, among other things, and may also be set as permanent sanctuaries.
Sometimes messaging will repeatedly occur in a room; that is called ambient messaging. A room might have multiple ambient messages that appear in random order on a timer. Items in the room like candles or incense might also add their own ambient messaging. On Teras Isle, the entire area has its own ambient messaging in addition to messaging for any specific room.
Rooms might also have descriptions that change based on the time of day. These are usually outdoor rooms, but it also can occur in indoor rooms where a window is specified. Use TIME to see what the time is. GemStone IV runs on U.S. eastern time and does adjust for daylight savings. The sun always goes down at 6 pm and always rises at 6 am. All outdoor rooms will have messaging when the sun rises and sets, and at noon. LOOKing up will also indicate if it is day or night, and show the constellations and any weather conditions.