Area

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Not to be confused with Area of effect, Area damage, or Map.

Area serves as generic term to describe any separately loaded zone in the game. Areas have various attributes and rule sets attributed them depending on the type of the area.

Mechanics

Area instances

All areas are in the game are instanced and usually up to 6 different players (with the exception of town areas, which hold more players) can join a single instance.

Instances are automatically created by the game when a player tries to join an area (which also may occur after character selection) with the region based on the player's realm choice. If there is an existing instance created by the player or any party members that area will be joined instead.

Instances exist for a limited period of time once no more players are inside the instance. After the time period is exceeded, the instance is destroyed which results in the subsequential loss of anything inside the instance, as such items not picked up or monsters not slain will no longer be accessible. Within acts, the time limit is about 8-15 minutes, however instances created through the map device or in hideouts last much longer.

When entering an area through the overland map, holding CTRL gives the player an option to view other instances as well as creating new instances. This can be used to "reset" areas and start them again.

Every new instance will have anything contained within generated again. As a result the area has different layout, monsters, items, etc.

Area attributes

Areas have a number of attributes associated with them, though certain subsets of areas may have the same attributes and not all of these are explicitly visible in the game:

• Name - The name of the area it self. Multiple areas may share the same name.
• Difficulty - the associated difficulty of the area
• Act - the associated act of the area; note that all areas have an act associated, even if they can not directly be accessed through that act.
• Connections - other areas the area is connected to. Generally this means that they have a direct option to progress to another from the given area; most commonly this can be seen on the "layout" of in game area map where areas are connected to each other.
• Area level - the level of the area, this is used for entity generation purposes, so for example a level 60 area will produce level 60 monsters, level 60 chest, level 60 strongboxes, have randomly generated modifiers that require at least level 60, etc
• Player level restrictions - used to restrict entry to players that exceed the maximum or are below the minimum. For example, the Sarn Arena has a maximum level of 40 and 60 in normal and cruel difficulty respectively
• Modifiers - areas can have modifiers applied. Some areas may have inherent (implicit) modifiers, while others may receive randomly generated modifiers or receive them from other sources like leagues and Zana's map device, map items, etc.
• Unique Monsters - areas may contain a list of unique monsters
• Flags - Areas have have special flags set to distinguish them from each other, in particular
  • town - the area is a town, meaning that you can't use skills or flasks
  • hideout - the area is a hideout; players can use skills and flasks inside them
  • doodad - the area can have decorations placed by the player
  • waypoint - the area contains a waypoint
  • map - the area is a map (which enables certain special rule sets)
• Tags - a hidden mechanism used in determining which monsters or certain modifiers can spawn
• topologies and environments - which dictate things like the area's background music
• parent area - determines in which area you spawn in if you die; for example, dying in Merciless Twilight Strand has Cruel Highgate as respawn area defined.

Overview of areas

Friendly:

• Towns – Lioneye's Watch, The Forest Encampment, The Sarn Encampment, Highgate
• Hideouts

Hostile:

• Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4
• The Labyrinth
• Corrupted areas
• Maps
• Mission areas