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Text File | 1994-07-02 | 32KB | 745 lines

AmigaMUD, Copyright 1994 by Chris Gray Playing in the Standard Scenario This document provides information on how to get the most from the standard scenario. It doesn't give away any clues on how to solve the quests in the scenario, however. Also, another document provides information on using the building facility in the scenario. The information provided here is by no means complete - figuring out what to do is often part of solving quests. This document covers: - basic commands - communication - basic navigation - the special places around the mall - the mail system and bulletin board - quests - usenet mail and news - combat Basic Commands There are many commands available in the standard scenario. Some are only operational in certain locations, and many are only applicable to certain situations. For reference, the complete list of standard commands (but not how to use them or what they do) can be obtained from the game using the "words" command. Many commands have several alternative forms, often including abbreviations and optional parts. For example, all of the following do the same thing: n north go north walk to north Jump to the north. The parser in AmigaMUD takes care of things like capitalization, some punctuation, words like "the" and "a", etc. so they are usually not specific to any commands. Most verbs, especially common ones which deal with objects, can work with several objects at once. E.g. entering: look at the vase, the lamp and the table is the same as entering: look at the vase. look at the lamp. look at the table Always keep in mind that the AmigaMUD scenario does not "understand" the commands you type - it is just responding to them in a way that has been chosen. So, you do not have to worry about getting the grammar right all the time, but you do have to spell things correctly, or at least spell them the same way as is done in the scenario! In some situations there may be more than one object with the same name in the room, in an inventory or in a container. When you try to refer to any of them, the scenario may complain that your reference is ambiguous. In such situations you must specify by number which of the similar items you mean. For example, if you have purchased a couple of sacks in the proving grounds, and the second one contains two apples, then you can use take apple #1 from sack #2 to take one of the apples from the sack. This numbering system can also be used to disambiguate among items which are similar but not identical. For example, if you have both a short sword and a long sword, you can refer to them as "sword #1" and "sword #2". In all cases, the order is that which appears when the inventory, contents list, or whatever is printed. Beware that items added to a list always go to the end of the list, so that item numbers do not stay fixed. Most of the information in this section will be trival to people who have played other MUDs or computer adventure games, but it is included for completeness. Some of the basic commands available in the standard scenario are: - movement commands: n, north s, south e, east w, west ne, northeast, north-east nw, northwest, north-west se, southeast, south-east sw, southwest, south-west u, up d, down enter, in, into, inside, take entrance exit, out, outside, leave, take exit - information commands: look around - show the current room and its obvious contents. If you are using the AmigaMUD client program, you can use the '5' key on the numeric keypad to do a "look around". look all - look at all obvious objects in the room look at <object> - look at the object look <direction> - look in the given direction look in <container> - show what is in something examine and l are synonyms for look exits - show the obvious exits in this room inventory, inv, i, take inventory - show what you are carrying shop - show what is for sale in a store - manipulation commands: get <object>, take <object>, pick up <object>, pick <object> up - pick up something from this room - it is added to your inventory get all - try to take all obvious objects in the room drop <object>, put down <object>, put <object> down - remove something from your inventory, and leave it in the room drop all - try to drop everything you are carrying give <object> to <character> - give something to someone else give <n> blutos to <character> - transfer money put <object> in <container> insert <object> into <container> take <object> from <container> fill <container> from <object>, fill <container> with <object> unlock <object> with <object> buy <object>, purchase <object> - buy something in a store play, erase, eat, use, activate, deactivate, light, extinguish, wear, read, touch, smell, listen, open, close, push, pull, turn, lift, lower - player environment commands: quit, bye, off - leave the game time, date - show the time at the server verbose, terse, brief, superterse, superbrief - control the level of detail produced when descriptions are given when you enter a room echo - control whether or not you will explicitly see things you say, whisper or pose ats - control whether or not "unsafe" output has '@'s put in front of it. "Unsafe" output is output produced by apprentices, rather than by full-fledged wizards. wizard, hide, who - miscellaneous password - change your password prompt - change your default prompt name - change your character name width <n> - set your output display width in characters height <n> - set your output display height in characters [these are automatic if you are using the AmigaMUD client] volume {sound | voice} <n> - control default volume brightgold, normalgold, dimgold, brightgrey, normalgrey, dimgrey, bluegrey, reversegrey, textcolours - set colours of the AmigaMUD client text window cursor <colour> - set the colour of your cursor icon <colour> - set the colour of icons that you see aliases - list command aliases alias <word> - delete a command alias alias <word> <words> - define a command alias - some special commands: register, r - trigger any special action for this room hint - ask for a hint in this room info - ask for information in this room with <object> do <command> - available for wizards Communication To many MUD players, communication is the most important part of the game. A MUD can be a social environment, where people get together to play out roles, share ideas and opinions, etc. Thus, many MUDs have very extensive communication facilities. The standard AmigaMUD scenario doesn't have as many as some MUDs, but it does have most of the basic facilities. The most important communication ability in a MUD is speech. Anything that a character (or non-player character) says out loud can be "heard" by everyone in the same room. The basic command for speaking is the "say" (or "tell") command. Everything on the command line after the "say" is spoken out loud. Other players in the same room will see it, prefixed by "XXX says: ", where 'XXX' is the name of the speaking character. As a shortcut, any line which starts with a double-quote (") is a speech request. E.g. if character Fred types: "Hi folks! then other characters in the same room would all see: Fred says: Hi folks! One special case is recognized here. The form "tell XXX to YYY" results in: Fred says: XXX YYY i.e., the 'to' is removed. This allows a more natural form for commands which attempt to get someone or something to do something. When you are in a conversation with others, it can be easy to forget to type the '"'. Also, it is handy to have short-hand forms for things that you often say. To support this, the standard scenario has a "chat mode". You go into this mode by typing "chat". In this mode, anything you type is taken as speech - no special prefix is needed. To get out of chat mode, simply enter a line containing only a period (.). While in chat mode, a regular command can be entered by prefixing it with an exclamation point (!). In chat mode you can define "chat aliases" which are short-hand forms which are automatically expanded. You can see your current set of chat aliases by just typing "alias". You can remove a chat alias by typing "alias word", where 'word' is the word whose alias you wish to remove. You can define an alias by typing "alias word other-words", which will make 'word' an alias for 'other- words'. If an input line in chat mode does not start with 'alias', then the first word is checked for being an alias word. If it is, then the 'other-words' of that alias are spoken instead of the alias word. "chat" can be abbreviated as just "c". You can give a chat input line on the the end of a "chat" command, and it will be processed as if it had been entered in chat mode. Here is an example chat session (what other people see is prefixed by ==>) for character "Fred": input> chat chat> alias You have no chat aliases. chat> hi there world ==> Fred says: hi there world chat> alias h1 Chat alias 'h1' does not exist. chat> alias h1 Hi folks! Chat alias 'h1' added. chat> alias h2 Greetings everyone. Chat alias 'h2' added. chat> alias Chat aliases: h1 => Hi folks! h2 => Greetings everyone. chat> h1 ==> Fred says: Hi folks! chat> alias h1 Chat alias 'h1' removed. chat> h1 ==> Fred says: h1 chat> !wave ==> Fred waves. chat> . input> c h2 ==> Fred says: Greetings everyone. input> Sometimes, you want to say something to one person without others in the room from overhearing it. This can be done using the "whisper" command, as in: whisper to Sam Help me fool Joe! or just: wh Sam Help me fool Joe! Note that in the standard scenario, every other character in the room has a 10% chance of overhearing any whisper. Part of communication is what you look like and what you are doing. When other characters look at you, they see your description. You can change your description by using "register" in the Beauty Shop. Doing things for appearance is often called "posing". In the standard scenario there are two kinds of poses. One kind is an action that can be seen, the other is something that can be heard. If the room is dark, only the audible poses will work. The supplied action poses are: blink, blush, bow, cower, cringe, curtsey, dance, drool, gesticulate/gest, glare, grovel, grimace, grin, frown, hop, nod, pout, shudder, shiver, shrug, smile, smirk, sneer, spit, tremble, twitch, wave, wince, wink, yawn The supplied audible poses are: applaud, burp, cackle, cheer, chuckle, clap, cough, croak, cry, fart, gasp, giggle, groan, growl, grumble, grunt, hiccup, hiccough, hum, laugh, moan, mutter, purr, scream, sigh, snarl, sneeze, snicker, snore, sob, whine, whistle Both types of poses can be given alone or with a following adverb. The available adverbs (and their abbreviations) can be seen by using any of the pose words, followed by an invalid adverb like "?". You can do arbitrary actions using the "pose" or "emote" command. To prevent trickery, however, the output generated by "pose" is distinguishable by the other characters. Pose can be abbreviated as a colon. E.g. pose waves vigourously ==> Fred => waves vigourously :grins idiotically ==> Fred => grins idiotically :gives Joe 1000 blutos ==> Fred => gives Joe 1000 blutos The "echo" command can be used to turn on or off the echoing of poses to you. Some players prefer to be seen strategically placed or just lounging around. This can be done using objects which are furniture, and the commands: sit on <object>, lie on <object>, stand on <object>, sit in <object>, lie in <object>, stand in <object>, standup, stand up, get up The building commands allow builders to create such furniture. Scenarios will always have bugs, and some players are annoyed by spelling mistakes, bad grammar, etc. The commands "typo", "bug", "gripe", "complain" and "bitch" can be used to send in complaints about things. The remainder of the command line will be logged to the AmigaMUD log file on the server, along with the type of complaint, the location it is given in and the owner of that location. The System Administrator can then forward the complaints to the appropriate person. If you know who is responsible for a problem, you can also send MUD mail or usenet mail to that person. Basic Navigation The movement commands were listed above. If you are using the AmigaMUD client program, you can also use either the numeric keypad or the mouse to move around. The numeric keypad is arranged like this: 7 | 8 | 9 --------- 4 | 5 | 6 --------- 1 | 2 | 3 If you think of the '5' key as where you are standing, then the remaining keys will move you in the direction that the key is in relative to the '5' key. I.e. the '7' key moves you northwest, the '8' key north, the '9' key northeast, etc. The '5' key, as mentioned previously, will do a "look around". On keypads which have '+' and '-' keys, they will move you up and down respectively. A variant of the keypad is normally depicted in the right half of the graphics window. The buttons there are labelled with the directions in which they will move you when clicked using the left mouse button. Also present are 'I' and 'O' buttons for moving in and out. The center button is labelled 'L' for "look". The set of buttons looks something like this: +--+ +-+ +--+ |NW| |N| |NE| +-+ +--+ +-+ +--+ +-+ |I| |U| +-+ +-+ +-+ +-+ +-+ |W| |L| |E| +-+ +-+ +-+ +-+ +-+ |O| |D| +-+ +--+ +-+ +--+ +-+ |SW| |S| |SE| +--+ +-+ +--+ The left-hand side of the graphics display usually shows an overhead view of the area you are in. A small "cursor" in the middle of the area represents where you are. Sometimes the cursor can move around in a fixed view (such as on the town streets). You can move around by clicking within the overhead view area. If you click to the left of the cursor, then you will move west; if you click above and to the right of the cursor, then you will move north-east; etc. When either the numeric keypad or a mouse click is used to move around, the corresponding typed movement command will be echoed in the text window. You should explore the minimall and the town streets carefully. Not all doors outside are used, however. Outside, you will find a bulletin board, Questor's Office, the Builder's Guild, the Telegram Office and the NewsRoom. The offices in the Builder's Guild will not let you in unless you are an official builder. Official builder status can only be granted by SysAdmin, the special character normally run by the administrator/owner of the computer running the AmigaMUD server. The Special Places Around the Mall When you initially enter the game, you are in the "Arrivals Room", which is one of seven rooms around the "minimall". The rooms here provide a variety of services. The Arrivals Room is the northeast room. The north room is the Mail Room, where you can register for the MUD mail system and pick up any MUD mail addressed to you. MUD mail is described in more detail later. The northwest room is the Garbage Room, where you can drop stuff that you have caused to be created (by buying it for example) and have it totally destroyed. To the west is the Lost and Found Room, where stuff dropped around town often ends up (the Caretaker likes things tidy). To the southwest is the Beauty Shop. You can change your character's description if you "register" here. Keep in mind that whatever description you type in here, either directly or in an editor, is always prefixed by your name. (This prevents some forms of trickery.) If you are using the AmigaMUD client program, then you will see three additional buttons on your graphics screen, labelled "Icon", "Cursor" and "Desc". Clicking on the third is just another way to edit your description. Clicking on the first will put you into another mode where you can edit your "icon", which is the 16 pixel by 16 pixel representation of you that shows up on the AmigaMUD client graphics windows of other players in the same room as you. In icon edit mode, you can click on one of the square places in the large, bordered rectangle to toggle (on -> off, off -> on) that pixel in your icon. The three new buttons will be replaced by buttons labelled "Done", "Cancel" and "Clear". Clicking on "Done" will exit from icon editing and make the currently displayed icon be your real icon, sending the updated form to anyone in the room with you. Clicking on "Cancel" will exit icon edit mode, leaving your icon as it was when you entered the mode. Clicking on "Clear" will clear all pixels in the edited display. If, in the normal Beauty Shop display, you click on the "Cursor" button, you will go into icon edit mode, but editing your smaller cursor instead of your icon. This cursor is the small figure that you see on your screen to represent your position in the current area. To the south in the mall area is a small store, in which you can buy several useful items. Then pen and pad in particular are useful, since they are needed in order to write MUD letters to other players, or to write bulletins to post on the bulletin board out on the street. To the southeast in the mall is a bank. Here you can use commands: balance - determine your current bank balance here deposit <n> - deposit <n> blutos to your account withdraw <n> - withdraw <n> blutos from your account Builders can build other banks (and stores) elsewhere. Note that each bank is independent - you cannot withdraw funds from a different bank from which you deposited them. The main use for bank deposits is that money in a bank is safe, unlike money being carried around, which is lost when you are killed in the combat area. The Mail System and Bulletin Board The scenario has an in-MUD mail system. In order to use it, you must "register" in the Mail Room. This will allow you to "get mail" there to pick up any letters sent to you. To send letters to other players, you must first buy a pen and a pad from the store in the mall. With them, you can then do something like: write letter to Joe to write a letter. If you are using the AmigaMUD client program, then it will put you into an editor to compose the letter. Otherwise, you will be prompted to enter the letter line by line. When done, you can read the letter, and if you don't like it, just drop it in the Garbage Room. To actually send the letter off, you must "post letter" somewhere where there is a mailbox. Sometime later the Postman will pick up the letter on his rounds, and take it to the Mail Room, where it will be available for pickup. The bulletin board, located on the north side of the west street in the town, works similarly. You write a bulletin (they look a bit different than letters, since they aren't "to" anyone in particular) using something like: write bulletin Then, go to the bulletin board and: post bulletin or put bulletin on board You can remove your own bulletins from the board using: take bulletin #<n> from board where <n> is the number of the bulletin to remove. Find out what bulletins are on the board using: read board or read notices and read an individual bulletin using: read bulletin <n> or just read <n> The bulletin board only has room for 20 notices. If you post another one when it is already full, then the earliest one will be discarded. Quests Adventure games are meant to be played by only one player (perhaps with human helpers), but MUDs are meant to be played by several players, often at the same time. This means that puzzles or challenges presented by a MUD are usually of a different nature than those in an adventure game. Most such challenges, or "quests" can be solved by any number of different people, often with people working independently on them at the same time, without conflict. In the AmigaMUD scenario, there is a character called "Questor" who is the awarder of completed quests. Five of the six quests in the scenario are solved by telling him something or giving him something. He is located on the south side of the west street in the town. A notice board outside his office lists the quests. Cryptic clues are available here as well as elsewhere on occasion. The "dagger", "egg" and "heart" quests involve the Proving Grounds area (to the north and west of the town). This means that to solve them, you will need to enter the combat area and survive to solve the quests. The other three quests ("pear", "squirrel" and "whatzit") can be solved without going into the Proving Grounds area. The "heart" quest is by far the most difficult. Note that Questor's office, like a couple of the quest areas, will only admit one player at a time. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is the pear quest. The other is that this prevents other players from overhearing any solution words that are spoken to Questor. Usenet Mail and News On the east side of the north street, the standard scenario has the Telegram Office and the News Room. These rooms allow you to read and post usenet mail and news, respectively. Note that if the Amiga running the server does not have usenet mail and news running, there will be nothing there even if the locations are present. (It is suggested that the areas not be included at all if that is the case.) In both of these rooms, the standard set of commands is augmented by additional commands relating to mail or news. The services can be useful even if the host Amiga is not connected to the "net", since they can be used for purely local mail and offline discussions. With the default setup, players can initially only read mail and news; they cannot originate it. This is to prevent abuses of the network by players on an AmigaMUD whose administrator may not be aware of the consequences of such abuse. The system administrator can grant individual access to players by assigning a "real name" to the character. This real name appears on all usenet mail or news that the character sends. Alternatively (e.g. for a non-connected site), SysAdmin can set a flag which allows all characters to set their own real name and thus originate mail and news. In the Telegram Office, the following additional commands are available: read - this will let you read all of your electronic mail. Each letter will be shown to you separately. If a letter is longer than your current display length, then it will be paginated. For each letter, you are given the options 'r' (reply to the letter's sender), 'n' (read the next letter) or 'q' (quit reading mail). If you reply to a letter, the subject and recipient of your reply letter are automatically set. delete - this will delete all of your electronic mail. There is no way to selectively delete letters. mail - this allows you to send email to others. The email address of the recipient must be given on the 'mail' command line. You can follow that by an optional subject string. Note that most email addresses contain either periods or exclamation marks, which are both treated special by the AmigaMUD natural language parser. Thus, if you are sending email to someone not at the same site, you will need to put the address in quotes. E.g. mail "mud-player@jailhouse.rock.com" How's it hanging? mail "local-uni!other-uni!system!person" alias - this email command operates very similar to the 'alias' command in chat mode. Here, the aliases are for email addresses of people you want to send letters to. 'alias' by itself will list all of your current email aliases. If a word is given after 'alias', then any alias of that word will be deleted. If a string is also given after the alias word, then the alias is set to that string. E.g. telegram office> alias You currently have no email aliases set up. telegram office> alias fred "F_Smith@frodbox.fredco.com" Alias "fred" added. telegram office> alias Current aliases: fred => F_Smith@frodbox.fredco.com telegram office> mail fred Send me mail! [will send a letter to 'F_Smith@frodbox.frodco.com'] telegram office> alias fred "F_Smith@fredbox.fredco.com" Alias "fred" updated. telegram office> alias sally "uunet.uu.net!squiqqly!sal" Alias "sally" added. telegram office> alias Current aliases: fred => F_Smith@fredbox.fredco.com sally => uunet.uu.net!squiqqly!sal telegram office> name/realname - this command is used to set your real name, which will appear on all email or news articles that you send from this character. It will not appear anywhere within the MUD, unless you send email or post news that is read by another player on the MUD. Note that you will likely not be able to set your own real name, but will have to ask SysAdmin (e.g. using MUD mail, with pen, paper and a mailbox) to do so. In the News Room, the following additional commands are available: groups/newsgroups - this will list the set of newsgroups available on the server system. Note that the existance of a newsgroups does not mean that there is currently any news in it - most news is deleted after a few days. subscribe/sub - if given alone, this command will list the newsgroups that you are subscribed to. If a quoted newsgroup name is given, then that group will be added to the set you are subscribed to. Note that since most newsgroup names have periods in them, you should quote the newsgroup name. unsubscribe - this news command will unsubscribe you from the newsgroup you name. catchup - this command will tell the computer to think you have read all of the articles in the named newsgroup, whether you actually have or not. There is a LOT of news out there, and it is easy to plan on reading more news than you actually have time to read. So, "catching up" in groups that aren't all that important to you is often useful. read - start reading news. The news is presented to you in the order of the groups in your list of subscribed-to groups. For each group which has any new news articles, you can choose to read the group or skip it for now. Within a group, you will be shown the header portion of each article, and can choose to read the article or go on to the next one. Long articles are paginated, as with long email letters. The computer keeps track of which articles you have read on an article-by-article basis. When reading an article, you can use 's' to go on to the next article, and the computer will then show you the article again when you next read that group (assuming the article hasn't been deleted in the meantime). Note that there are no 'reply' or 'followup' options. post - this command allows you to post articles to the newsgroup that you name. You can also given an optional article subject after the newsgroup name. Note that, as with email, you cannot post articles unless you have a realname set up. name/realname - this command is used to set your "real name", as in the Telegram Office. The same restrictions hold. Combat Combat is often a part of MUDs. Some MUDs seem to exist only to allow combat. Others are more concerned with social interaction or with puzzle solving. The standard AmigaMUD scenario offers a bit of all aspects of mudding. Combat can only occur in specific areas - in particular only in the "Proving Grounds" area. If you never enter that area, then you will never have to deal with combat. Combat is usually just your character hacking away at various monsters controlled by the scenario, but combat between players (sometimes called "player killing" or just "PK") is also possible. The combat in the standard scenario is pretty straightforward. Dedicated SysAdmins and wizards are free to make it more realistic, add magical combat, add attributes, add more varied monsters, add bigger monsters, change the way experience works, etc. Currently, each character (whether player or non-player) has the following combat attributes: Current Hitpoints - this is the amount of "life" you have left. If this number reaches 0, then you "die" (which isn't permanent in this scenario, but can be a significant punishment). Hitpoints are regained in a number of ways, including just wandering around waiting to heal naturally. Maximum Hitpoints - this is the maximum amount of "life" that you can currently have. As you gain more experience, this maximum will increase. Experience - this is a measure of how much game experience you have gained by defeating other characters in combat. The bigger the defeated opponent, the more experience is gained. Level - this measure is rather artificial, and is really just a more coarse measure of experience. In some other MUD systems, certain capabilities only come into play when you reach certain levels. This value does affect how likely you are to hit a target. Strength - this is a measure of your character's physical strength. The stronger you are, the harder you hit and the more resistant to damage you are. The amount of damage you do is also affected by what weapon you are using. A two-handed sword does much more damage than your bare hands. Speed - this is an indication of how dextrous you are. It affects how likely you are to hit a target, and your speed in relation to a monster affects which of you will hit first. Protection - this value indicates how resistant to damage you are. Lower values are better here. This value can be improved by wearing armour and using a shield. The "status" command gives you a summary of your current combat readiness. For example: input> status Fred: Hit: 9/10 Exp: 2 Lvl: 0 Str: 5 Spd: 5 AC: +7 Bl: 25 Weapon: short sword Armour: leather armour This shows that character "Fred" currently has 9 hit points out of a maximum of 10, has 2 experience points, is of level 0, has strength and speed 5, has an "armour class" (protection level) of +7, and has 25 blutos (money). The current weapon, armour and shield of the player are shown if there are any. Wizards can apply "status" to others. For mostly historical reasons, a character must be initialized for combat. This is normally done by walking into the Proving Grounds. The "status" command does nothing until this has been done. The most commonly used combat command is of course the "hit" command, with its synonyms "fight", "attack" and "kill". Also useful is the "wield" command to select a weapon to use. The commands "wear" and "use" can be used to don armour and ready shields, respectively. The commands "fightterse/fightbrief", "fightsuperterse"/ "fightsuperbrief" and "fightverbose" affect the output resulting from combat. The default mode is "fightverbose", which shows all of your attempts to attack others, and all of their attempts to attack you. In "fightterse" mode, the "status" command does not show the current weapon, shield and armour (unless "status full" is used), and messages about misses in combat are not shown. "fightsuperterse" mode also leaves out messages about attacks which hit, but do no damage. The terse modes can be useful when fighting a large group of opponents, since they make it easier to keep track of the damage you are taking. Whenever you are hit in combat, the message includes your current and maximum hit point values. Three of the six quests in the standard AmigaMUD scenario are in the Proving Grounds, and hence require combat to complete. The Proving Grounds area is by far the largest in the scenario.