Event Programs

Event programs (event progs) are scripts attached to game-wide events that manage PvP tournaments, seasonal content, world bosses, invasions, and collection challenges. They let builders create fully automated, multi-stage events that start on schedule, track progress across the player base, and shut down cleanly when finished.

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What Are Event Programs?

An event program is a block of scripting code attached to an event definition. The event itself is a game-wide construct — it has a type, a scope, a schedule, stages, and a roster of participants — and the scripts drive its behavior at runtime. When a trigger fires (a tick, a reset, a reckoning, or a moon phase change), the event program executes commands as the event entity.

Every command in an event prog is prefixed with event — for example, event echoat, event mload, event startevent. This tells the engine that the event is performing the action.

Events differ from other scriptable entities in one critical way: they are not tied to a single room, mob, or object. An event can span the entire game world, a single area, or a defined region. Its scripts can affect any player who has joined the event, load mobs and objects anywhere within its scope, and track progress toward a shared goal.

When to Use Event Programs

Event programs are ideal for:

  • PvP tournaments — War events (free-for-all, genocide, jihad) that pit players against each other with kill tracking, brackets, and winners
  • World boss spawns — Boss events that spawn a powerful mob, announce its arrival, and reward participants
  • Invasions — Waves of hostile NPCs that appear across an area with escalating difficulty
  • Collection challenges — Seasonal events where players gather items toward a shared or per-bracket goal
  • Seasonal content — Holiday events that run on a schedule with custom announcements and rewards
  • World-state changes — Events that alter the game world (weather, terrain, NPC behavior) for their duration
  • Reckoning events — Large-scale world events that progress through phases with global effects

Event programs are preferred over area or room programs when the behavior needs to:

  • Track progress across multiple players simultaneously
  • Run on a fixed schedule or interval
  • Manage participant rosters and brackets
  • Award rewards based on contribution or ranking

How Event Programs Work

Every event prog has three parts:

  1. The script — A block of code stored in the area file (identified by vnum, type EventProg)
  2. A trigger — The condition that causes the script to run (e.g., tick, reset, reckoning)
  3. An attachment — The link between the script, the trigger, and the event definition

When the trigger fires, the engine runs the script with context about the event state — who is participating, what stage the event is in, how much progress has been made.

Entity References in Event Programs

In an event prog, $self and $this refer to the event entity itself. Since events are not located in a specific room, $here is not meaningful in the same way as for room or mob programs.

Variable Description
$self / $this The event entity
$enactor / $n Character who triggered the event (if applicable)
$phrase The matched phrase or argument
$register1–$register5 Numeric registers for passing data

Event Types

Events are categorized by type, which determines their core behavior:

Type Description
collection Players gather items toward a shared goal
invasion Waves of hostile NPCs spawn across the event scope
boss A powerful mob spawns and must be defeated
war-ffa Free-for-all PvP — every player for themselves
war-genocide Faction-based PvP — races or groups fight to eliminate each other
war-jihad Religion-based PvP — churches wage war
worldstate Alters game-world conditions for the event duration
custom Fully script-driven — behavior defined entirely by event programs

Event Scopes

The scope determines where the event takes effect:

Scope Description
global Affects the entire game world
area Restricted to a single area (requires anchor)
region Spans a group of related areas (requires anchor)
zones Covers specific zone designations (requires anchor)
battlefield Confined to a dedicated PvP battlefield (requires anchor)

Scopes other than global require an anchor area — the area that the event is centered on. The scopefloating option allows the anchor to be dynamically assigned at start time.

Event Flags

Flag Description
winner_only Only the top contributor receives rewards
all_parts All participants receive rewards regardless of ranking
top3 Top three contributors receive rewards
noannounce Suppress automatic start/end announcements
joinlate Allow players to join after the event has started
exclusive_player A player can only participate in one event of this type at a time
unique_global Only one instance of this event can be active at a time
scaling Event difficulty scales with participant count
repeatable Event can run again after completing (respects cooldown)
passive Event runs in the background without requiring player sign-up
autoadd Players are automatically added when they enter the event scope

Creating an Event with evtedit

The evtedit editor creates and configures event definitions. Here is a typical workflow:

Step 1: Create the Event 

evtedit create

This creates a new event and opens the editor. You will see tabs for Identity, Schedule, Stages, Messages, Meta, and Scripting.

Step 2: Set Basic Properties 

name Harvest Moon Collection
description Players gather moonberries during the harvest moon.
type collection
scope area

Step 3: Configure Schedule and Timing 

schedule recurring
interval 720
duration 60
cooldown 120
variance 30
  • interval — Minutes between event starts
  • duration — How long the event runs (minutes)
  • cooldown — Minimum minutes before the event can run again
  • variance — Random variance added to the interval

Step 4: Set Player Requirements 

minlevel 10
maxlevel 0
minplayers 3
maxplayers 50

Setting maxlevel to 0 means no upper limit. Setting minplayers to 3 means the event won’t start unless at least 3 eligible players are online.

Step 5: Configure Messages 

announce {WThe Harvest Moon rises! Moonberries are appearing across the Silverwood.{x
endmsg {WThe Harvest Moon sets. The harvest is complete!{x
joinmsg {CYou join the Harvest Moon collection event!{x

Step 6: Set Goal and Stages 

goal 100
stages 3

The goal is the target progress value. Stages define phase transitions — each stage can trigger a phaseevent or stageevent in your scripts.

Step 7: Configure Rewards 

rewardsuccess 5000 gold
rewardfail 500 gold

Step 8: Set Flags 

flags joinlate repeatable scaling

Step 9: Attach Event Programs 

addeprog <script vnum> <trigger> <phrase>

For example:

addeprog 500 tick 100
addeprog 501 reset 100

Step 10: Save 

save

Writing Event Program Scripts

Event program scripts are created with the epedit editor (Event Program Editor):

epedit create

Write the script using the code command. All commands use the event prefix:

** Spawn collection items on each tick
event oload 5001
event gecho {YA shimmer of moonlight reveals new moonberries in the Silverwood!{x

Use epstat to inspect attached programs on an event, and epdump <vnum> to view a script’s source code. Use eplist to list all event programs in an area.

Script Comments

Use ** at the start of a line to write a comment. Comments are ignored when the script runs:

** Check if we've reached the goal
if eventprogress $self >= 100
  event gecho {GThe Harvest Moon event is complete! Rewards are being distributed!{x
  event stopevent
endif

Quick Reference

Topic Link
All event triggers (6) Triggers
All event commands (44) Commands
Practical examples Examples
Shared commands reference Shared Commands
Variables and quick codes Variables and Tokens
If-checks and conditions If-Checks Reference
Scripting basics Scripting Basics

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