Strider's Guide for the Young Adventurer by Strider, the Elven Cleric Strider's Guide for the Young Adventurer (Second Edition), being a reissuance and compilation of the advice given by that cleric of old to the new traveller in Arda; edited by Artheniel the Scribe; and with other helpful documents by Task, Thurin the Dwarf, and other legends concerned for the well-being of the young and inexperienced. Chapter 1 - How and Where to Get Experience. Chapter 2 - Basic Techniques Chapter 3 - Frequently Asked Questions Chapter 4 - Link Loss, Reboots, Crashes, and Lag Chapter 5 - Some Useful Commands (by Task) Chapter 1 - How and Where to Get Experience. ============================================ Chapter 1. How and Where to Gain Experience The days of the Istari have slowed down as we enter the 3rd millenium, and with it comes a hoard of newbies who are agitated that there is no one around to give them free levels. Now, first of all, the excuse 'I can't kill anything' doesn't hold - there is something even for the weakest of Mages. Here is a suggested order of mobs that you try to kill - if you cant beat one lower on the list, don't try to beat higher ones until you have conquored it: Trout, carp, rabbits, dear, stag, bats, fox, cows, bull. then try black wolves (not large black wolves - just the generic large wolf), then try some of the other types of wolves - the grey wolf, and move onto wargs. Do NOT try to take on the brown bear, black fungus, or mewlip which all preside near Bree. A newbie's introduction to Bree: [At one time new adventurers, regardless of race, were advised to pray to Bree. Now, hobbits begin life in the Shire; humans, in Fornost; dwarves, in the Blue Mountains; and elves, in the Grey Havens. Still, Bree is a central location and this introduction to the area around Bree is not useless. - Artheniel] Since most newbies pray bree and want to go hunting, the question that is most often asked is 'where?'. West of Bree: You will find that the Old east Road leads to the shire - a nice place where you can find easy mobs to kill. You can also head up the lane about 7 North and fight grasshoppers and rabbits to the west. Beware of: The old forest: ONCE YOU ARE IN THERE, YOU WILL NOT GET OUT. Beware of: Deathtrap in the Brown bear cave area (watch out for the brown bear for that matter) [The deathtrap was a waterfall on the underground river; but subterranean collapses have eliminated it since - Artheniel] North of Bree: You will find the road to fornost, a nice city to visit and relatively safe from orc raids. There are rabid wolves and vines (steer clear of these until you are level 7...8...9..10?) [There is also a band of very weak ruffians. A level 4, or a capable and reasonably well-equipped level 3, should manage if he doesn't allow them to gang up on him all at once. - Artheniel] East of Bree: DON'T GO THERE. The marshes are dangerous even for a couple of mid-level characters, as there are many, many mobs that can be quite difficult when they are all together. Mewlips kill fast. Bill Ferny also roams this general area - you don't want to run into him. If you DO avoid the marshes, you will most likely run into orcs on the way, or run into the area with the spiny bushes and you will die within one hit. [The Midgewater marshes are not as dangerous now as they were in the old times, as far as the mewlips are concerned; and the Ferny gang does not roam around as they used to do. Nevertheless, east is still the dangerous direction. Evil *human* sorcerers often infest the Midgewater, and there are rumors that some very unpleasant orcs patrol the area around Weathertop - Artheniel] South of Bree: fairly harmless - watch out for brigands (they can steal your money and can easily make newbie soup). All in all, southwards is fairly safe. An adventurous newbie can once again find rabbits and cows to slaughter here. [Once one gets on the actual Road to Tharbad, the hazards increase. Also some of the bandits and supernatural beings who live in caves and catacombs can be rather daunting, as one would expect - Artheniel.] A newbie does NOT have to go with an istar to earn experience - all that one needs is a little patience and a little common sense - try the shire, kill some grasshoppers, and for your first long voyage, at level 6 or so, take a trip to Grey Havens where you'll find a very beautiful city. [With regard to the Blue Mountains and the Grey Havens, the rule is: the closer to the city gates, the easier things are. In the Havens themselves are carp, seagulls, crab, and some other small animals; outside the gate are cow pastures and - further east - some wolves and boar. There is quite a bit of easily killed wildlife south and west of the Dwarven gates also. Of course if one goes probing around in sunken ships, caves and/or abandoned mines, things get more interesting. For humans, the situation is a bit more difficult at the present; the area around Fornost is rather dangerous. The ruins west of Fornost are quite dangerous, and one should be prepared to flee fast from anything that looks supernatural. East and south of the city are ruffians, werewolves, and a quite unpleasant witch all of whom are well beyond the unaided capacity of the average newbie. Furthermore, the road between Fornost and Bree is a favorite hunting ground for Numenorean sorcerers. Humans might do well to actually relocate to the peaceful Shire for the first few levels - Artheniel] Chapter 2 - Basic Techniques ============================ Chapter 2 - Basic Techniques I have been playing on MUME for approximately 3 months now, and have quickly learnt a lot and advanced fast. However, there are a lot of mistakes that I have made which are easily avoidable that could save any new player a lot of time and effort. This multi-part guide has been made to help in the long run. It will not give you experience or travel points, and it won't level you, but hopefully you won't die as often as you would otherwise. Hunting as a Group ------------------ Group hunting is used the most on MUME. You can have 8 or 9 people in your group if you WANT, but this is often a waste of your time. The effort to organise and to keep such a large group together is almost impossible. The experience you gain is also very, very small. the most productive group I have found is a group of 2 (cleric-warrior, mage-warrior, cleric-thief, mage-thief working very well together). The experience is respectable, parry bonuses of the mobs you are fighting are cut, and the spell caster is usually able to cast at will during the battle. Solo hunting (hunting alone) can give you more experience, but if you die, who is there to retrieve your equipment? Practicing ---------- During your first levels on MUME, you will want to start practicing some basic abilities. Refer to the map of your home town and find your native guild. [Hobbits and dwarves who have gone in for the magical or clerical arts will have to go elsewhere to practice, with the Grey Havens being the best bet to start - Artheniel.] Here are a few notes on practices. [This is the most dated part of Strider's manuscript. - Artheniel] First, you must decide what you want your general weapon type to be. Practice ONLY this type at the warrior guild. Practicing multiple weapons is a waste of practices. As you increase in levels, you will find that obtaining the weapon of your choice is relatively easy. [Some authorities recommend putting off selecting a weapon type until one is old enough to know one's final distribution of abilities (Level 5). In that case, one should practice fighting skills like parry and dodge immediately - Artheniel] Warrior guild: The weapons: -Slashing : The main slashing weapons are the swords - longsword, and falchion. [Today, broadswords, battle axes, and scimitars are commonly used.] They are very good for good to high strength players. -Piercing : The main piercing weapons are the rapier, horn, and thorn. [Today the eket, a two-edged dagger, is the most prized of ordinary weapons, similar to the thorn; the shortsword is a good second choice.] They are good for low strength, high dex players. (most clerics, mages, and thieves seem to choose this one) They usually do relatively low damage, but with backstab and multiple attacks possible, they can become quite lethal. [Piercing is now taught in the thief guilds. This makes it less attractive to warriors, because it costs more practices to master the skill now, but some still try it. On the other hand it makes piercing more attractive to mages, who are better at thief skills than at warrior skills.] Concussion : I have never used this weapon type before - it is heavily based on strength. ex. mace/club. [Two-handed : Good for players with very high strength and good constitution. Weapons are quite variable, ranging from the two-handed sword to large clubs and axes.] [Stabbing: Spears and pikes. This weapon type is new, and experience is limited.] I suggest that ALL players get their knowledge of weaponry high, and that parry is one of the first things you practice (you'll die a lot less often.) Dodge also improves your chances of surviving, so if you're a thief practice it. [All classes could use some of it. - Artheniel] Clerics: Practice the weapon type of your choice, parry, and then ride, create food. As you get more practices, slooooowly practice dodge. (takes a LOT of practices but worth it in the long run). The most important spells I have found are: Armour, Create food, Create water, Blindness, Dispel Evil, Heal. Transfer and sanc have a minimum mana of 50 (without a wand) so are quite inpractical after most battles. Learn Blindness and Dispel Evil to very high %'s - I suggest 95%+ - you will be casting these A LOT. At low levels, shield is the only practical mage spell to learn. [This advice may be dated. Check more recent sources. Since Strider's time, other spells have been invented, such as 'Breath of Briskness'. Other mage spells are also thought to be useful, such as 'detect invisibility' and 'sense life'. - Artheniel] Warriors: Learn the weapon of your choice (slashing is the norm), parry, and then ride. Then you will probably want to learn dodge. After that, kick and the cleric armour spell should be on your agenda. Bash is also very useful, but apparantly it does allow mobs to flee (bug?) Thieves: The usual - weapons/dodge/parry/ride. Hide can be very useful in escaping from orcs, and sneak can be useful too. Steal is rather useless as it is only successful at high levels. Shield and armour spells should be a goal at some point in time too. [Strider omits discussing backstab, which is now a very basic and important thief skill. Here again, check more recent sources. - Artheniel] Mages: weapons/dodge/parry/ride/shield/armour/create food/invisibility/ enchant/fireball (could someone please post more on mages - i have never been a succesful mage :)). Fireball will be your main spell, so NEVER EVER practice the useless ventriloquate or magic missile, or even burning hands for that matter. Until you get to a high enough level, you WILL be quite a weak player. Mages at high levels are to be feared however. [For details see a high level character of your class - these suggestions are only that - suggestions] Stats ----- When you reach level 5, you will be able to see your base statistics. Stats for characters ARE quite important, but if at level 5 you have average stats, throwing your character away is to laugh at role-playing. Good stats: str: 18 int: 16 wis: 14 dex: 18 con: 16 Average Stats: str: 12 int: 17 wis: 17 dex: 14 con: 12 Poor Stats: str: 10 int: 12 wis: 9 dex: 14 con: 8 To play a character with the latter stats will be quite miserable, so I DO suggest that you start over in this case (I think that there should be something to make sure that really lousy stats aren't generated - but that's for another message). [Nowadays, neither the 'good stat' distribution nor the 'poor stat' distribution given above by Strider can possibly be rolled. - Artheniel] You will most likely have a character with average stats, and to keep role-playing alive, play that character - see what you can do with it. When You Die ------------ You shall die quite a bit in your Arda adventures. However, take note of the following: - Unless you are pretty sure that you are in a good enough condition to retrieve your equipment, do NOT go out by yourself to get your equipment back. It rather useless to go back to the mob that just killed you and let it kill you a second time. (this has happened to me many times before). - Remember that in general, experience is harder to get than basic equipment. - If orcs are raiding Bree, do not 'pray bree' (yeah, i've done that too :)) - Ask a higher level player, or a companion of yours to retrieve your equipment. Explain your situation nicely and you might get somewhere. Offer a reward if you come upon a particularly stubborn player. - Don't narrate stuff like 'I died! I'm never coming back again! This $$%$$%& Mud! #$$%', because people really don't appreciate that. - A dead newbie often has trouble getting basic equipment - in fact it is quite easy. [Please see Petrel's posting - How to get money without killing Hobbits] Chapter 3 - Frequently Asked Questions ====================================== Chapter 3. Frequently Asked Questions [Questions marked by a single * are in Strider's original manuscript. Those marked by ** have been added by myself - Artheniel] ** When the innkeeper says 'You have enough rent for two months,' does he mean MUME months or Real Life months? He means Real Life months. ** The innkeeper says 'The rent is five silver a day - you have enough for twenty days.' Can't he do arithmetic? Shouldn't that be four days? Is this a bug? It's not a bug. The rent is not linear - the cost per day declines as you rent for a longer time. This means, by the way, that if you log on every day for ten days, even if you just look at the boards and rent, you will pay a lot more in rent than if you stayed rented the whole ten days. * What player characters can I kill? MUME discourages player killing, and there are very few player characters. If you do decide to player kill at a low level, you are doomed for the rest of your stay on Arda. A level 6 character has no chance against 30+ other characters online. Player killers are not respected and without help from other players, you will not advance. The only advantage I see to player killing is lots of equipment, but why destroy all of your morals to get a couple of swords and a bear skin? [Bear in mind that in MUME, killing in the War, i.e., elves killing orcs, Numenoreans killing ordinary humans, etc., is not covered under the above discussion of 'player killing'. Strider is referring to members of the good races killing each other. - Artheniel] * How do travel points work? Ok, here is how I understand it. Every room in Arda, at a certain time has a certain number of travel points attached to it. For the mostpart, the number of travel points is zero. When you visit a room with >0 travel points marked on it, you gain the travel points yourself, and that amount of points are distributed (almost) randomly to another room on MUME. This explains why you get almost no travel points riding up and down the lane. Areas that aren't travelled much often contain a lot of travel points. * Ok, so where can i find them? Since high level characters often hunt for larger mobs, there are certain mobless areas that are ignored. Find these yourself and remember them. The shire i fairly safe for any adventurous newbie. Any body of water just before winter is also a good source of travel points. * Why do I keep getting diseased? All races except elves can get sick from sleeping during cold weather. Type 'weather local' to see what the weather is, and if it's cold, do not sleep. Elves may still sleep at any time. If you do get diseased, find your local cleric and ask for a heal (yes, 1 heal heals a disease contrary to the help file). * I'm blind! What do I do? Blindness only last for two hours, so if there isn't a cleric around, simply find a place with no mobs to sit and wait it out. It's not permanant. * I practice dodge, but by dodge % only goes up 2%!! why? Dodge is a bonus that does go up very, very slowly. You will find that equipment is the key to having a high dodge bonus. Light equipment, and items such as cloaks, iron rings, etc will lower you bonus. I believe that your dodge bonus can only increase 20% with 100% dodge practiced. * Why is this Eagle talking? If you are talking to a Mighty Horse, or a White Eagle, you are talking to another player - a high level metamorph. In order to gain experience they must be in this morphed form during battle. * Why do people buy wimpy dogs to follow them around? Dogs, cats, and falcons are very useful to take hunting with you when you go alone. They help you break the opponents parry bonus, making it easier for you to hit them. They die quite easily though. * I don't see an uizunghabugl spell or a nosalari spell anywhere! When a person of another class casts a spell, you see a translation if it i.e. uizingubughl (something like that)= invisibility After a while you'll get to know them. * How do I read mail? Go to the mailbox in Bree (mayors office) or in any other town, and look mailbox. Then 'read #' of message that you want to read. ** I try to read the board, but nothing happens! Unfortunately, when a board has a lot of messages on it that you haven't read, it is very hard to read. You have to do this: (a) Type 'catchup'. This will set all the messages on the board to 'read'. (b) Type 'look whole board'. This will give you a LONG list of the messages. Save the list somewhere... (c) Read the messages one at a time, using the numbers in the list. This is more work than it should be, and maybe the gods will improve things someday. Also, at step b, you could type 'look threads', which will give you a shorter list of threads, and then type 'read thread 1 next' until that thread runs out, then 'read thread 2 next' and so on. Unfortunately, this method will not let you read the messages that are not in threads, that is, that nobody replied to. * There's a warg on the Old East Road! What do I do? Wait about 10 seconds. Someone will come along and slaughter it really fast. * I'm trapped in the old forest! Help! Try typing 'tell tom help'. There are some areas of the old forest that Tom does not respond to, so you'll have to start panicing. Head west - try to find an exit out of the forest that way. There are other exits, but all are quite hard to find. The best advice is to keep out of the old forest at all costs. * I am helplessly lost in the middle of nowhere - dying, no food, water. Well, you're in trouble. First type 'where' to see if anyone is near you, and if so, ask them for aid. If that fails, try asking your local cleric or mage to transfer you out of there. You will find that most are willing to help if the mana is available. If you KNOW that you will die (i.e. a thousand mobs between you and safety, and no one can transfer you), hide your valuable equipment (to be picked up later) and make a run for it. [If you are lost, type 'map'. This will at least let you know where you are in the world - the 'X' on the map will be your position, while the other letters represent the major towns. Each character on the map is a zone which is ten rooms square. That way, you can narrate 'I am lost four zones east of Bree', which is a lot better than narrating 'help trans me' - Artheniel] * Ah! No movement points and orcs are coming! Immediately hide valuable equipment. You will probably die, but at least the orcs won't take your equipment (orcs usually don't take normal swords, shields, and clothing - you'll find that it is usually other people who will wander in and take your stuff). * Where do I get a horse? At low levels, you will want to find the areas that regenerate with horses. There are a few of them very close to Bree. Later you may want to buy your own horse, but you'll find that you'll never keep it for long (either it'll be left somewhere, stolen, summoned, etc..) [A good thing to do is to find horses and ponies, take them to the stable, and type 'rent horse', whereupon you are given a ticket which you can use later on - at ANY stable - to get a fresh horse, at a cost of six to ten silver or so. At a later time, if you need a horse in a hurry, this will be a lot cheaper than buying a whole new horse at a Pet Shop - Artheniel] * I can't see the description of the room, so how do i get out? Type 'exit' for a list of available exits. * As a slasher, should I use a long sword or a falchion? Well a falchion does more damage, but a long sword hits more often - so it is up to you. Quite often, a warrior will carry both, and when fighting alone, will use a long sword. When with a group, the higher damage falchion is more useful. * Where do I get a thorn? The only mobs that have thorns are the rather difficult spiny bushes east of Bree down the old east road. Two or three mid to high level characters are needed to kill this mob. If you are < level 7 or so, there is no use getting a thorn, because you will die and probably lose the thorn. Ask around to some high level friends/acquaintances - you never know who might have a spare thorn. * The fang keeps zapping me - why? If you are good aligned and you try to use an evil aligned weapon, you will be zapped by the weapon and will drop it. It is no use to you unless you are of its alignment. Dark shields/swords, and many other weapons are like this too. [However, the fang is no longer evil aligned, I believe. But this discussion applies also to some articles of clothing, or other wearable items. Also, if a weapon has been enchanted by a good or evil mage, it acquires the alignment of the mage. - Artheniel] * Can you starve to death? Nope - but when hungry your hit points and movement poitns regenerate very slowly, almost to a point where it will take you days to get back to full points. Always carry extra food and water. * Where do I get a water skin? This barrel is too heavy. Head west on the old East Road, onto the Road to Grey Havens and from the town of Greenholm, head south, then up. You will find a nice travellers inn ready to sellyou a skin. (There might be a closer place to Bree, but this is where I usually stop.) [They are now sold in Fornost also - Artheniel] * My movement points are dropping VERY fast - why? Weather conditions, such as snow can contribute to high movement costs. So do terrain types, your constitution (I think?), and the amount of weight you are carrying. Try to travel light. [More recently, "snowshoes" have been invented which make it much easier to travel in snow - Artheniel] * How do you use a stone? Hold the stone, wield the weapon you want to mend, and 'whet'. Mend weapons in SAFE rooms.. There's nothing as bad as mending your weapon just as the white worm regenerates :) * How do I get stuff from that second corpse there? Use the convention itemnumber.itemname. If there were 3 corpses, to get stuff from the second, use get (whatever you want) 2.corpse. * It says that I'm burning! Why am I on fire?!?! Nonononono.. that is your mana level. Your status line at the bottom shows you how your hitpoints/mana/movement points are going. Here is a list of the order of them (from memory - so there might be a mistake..) Hitpoints: Healthy, Fine, Hurt, Wounded, Bad, Awful, Dead(not good) Mana: Burning, Hot, Warm, Cold, Icy, Frozen Movement: Tired, Slow, Weak, Fainting, Exhausted * Why can't I get into Grey Havens? Unless you are good aligned, the magical gate will not open for you. * How do I get into Tharbad? If you're a newbie, forget it. The guards will instantly toast you. * What type of armour should I use? There are two strategies that I have seen: go for high dodge, low absorption, or high absorption, low dodge. It's all up to you. There are arguments for both. Most low- average strength players choose dodge simply because the armour is too heavy. * Where is the town of the shire? The shire isn't a town - it is the area between Road to Grey Havens and the Brandywine bridge. There are a number of very small towns that you might find some stores in. * How do I get citizenship in the shire? Either be a hobbit, get born there, or kill a wanted criminal. ** Who is *A Human*, and why did he just kill me? Characters seen as *A Human* are not standard humans, but evil Numenorean sorcerers. They function much as player orcs do - that is, they do not hear the narrates of the good races, will not see you by name, and can attack people without penalty. * Did a player orc or mob orc just attack me? Player orcs are seen as *an orc*, the *'s showing a player character. The orcs see you as *an elf* or whatever you are. If you see *'s, run. [There are some especially notorious and dangerous minions of Sauron Whom even the most inexperienced person will know. They will be seen as *Dreadnaught the Orc*, *Myspysen the Black Numenorean*, etc. If you see any such thing, leave the scene IMMEDIATELY - Artheniel] * What's a lauren? lauren=gold, celeb=silver, busc=copper in Elvish. * What does a white skull do? It is a cursed item. Get rid of it... I suggest hiding it (help hide) so that some other newbie doesn't walk along and get toasted. Chapter 4 - Link Loss, Reboots, Crashes, and Lag ================================================ Chapter 4 - Link Loss, Reboots, Crashes and Lag [This section was written before there were servers. It has been heavily expanded and revised - Artheniel] [Link Loss Suppose you lose your link, or break it deliberately. After a little while, the game realizes that it is not getting any acknowledgement from you, so it treats you as linkless. When this happens: - It automatically changes your autoflee to your hp maximum - that is, you will flee from anything that attacks you. - If you have not been in a fight (you do not have NOQUIT), nothing can hurt you until you are connected again. HOWEVER, remember that it takes 'a little while' for the game to realize that you are linkless! So if you are in a dangerous forest and disconnect your link, even if you do not have noquit, this is NOT a guarantee that you will be ok, because something might attack you before the game realizes that you are linkless. - If you have noquit, then you can be hurt or killed, although you will still try to flee from everything. - If you are following someone/something, you will keep on following her/him/it for a couple of ticks. If you are on a mount, you will stay on the mount for a couple of ticks. And if you reconnect after a short time, nothing much will have changed, EXCEPT that your autoflee level is at max (remember to fix it!) - AFTER a couple of ticks, however, the game gives up trying to pretend things are normal, and you 'disappear into the void'. The people you are following may go on without you; you are no longer riding your mount. Nothing can hurt you in the void. But when you come back, you will return to the place where you were when you voided. Note that this may not be the last place you remember! If beasts have been attacking you, you may have fled somewhere else before you voided. Or your leader may have led you down the road, you voided, and the leader went on. Now you come back and find yourself unmounted, and possibly alone. Also, you may be in the dark (your lantern keeps using up fuel in the void). Don't forget to mount up again, figure out where you are, narrate to see if you can find the other people in your party, and use your best judgment in resuming your ordinary life again. If you are linkless for more than half an hour, you start paying 'linkless rent'. This is MANY TIMES as much as if you were rented at the inn. - Artheniel] Reboots If the gods have to reboot the game, they usually announce it up to an hour ahead of time. This gives you time to rent. If you aren't rented, the game will treat you as linkless. Some people will not bother to rent, but will just try to find a safe place, wait there during reboot, and try to reconnect afterwards. This is very risky though! The gods like to add new features or make changes during reboots. Suppose one of them crashes the MUD, and they can't get it working right away? People are always asking, 'Will this be a short reboot?' But this is silly - it will probably be a short reboot unless there is a bug, but how do they know if there is a bug or not? If some problem arises, you may find yourself disconnected and paying linkless rent until you are able to get back on. Crashes MUME sometimes crashes, and when it does crash, there are certain things that you should be aware of. [In the first place, there are three separate things that can happen which people call crashes, but which are actually rather different: (a) The actual game crashes and has to reboot. In this case, the server will give you a message that says 'Connection lost' etc. (b) The internet gets lagged between your server and the MUME machine. In this case, the server will give you the SAME message as in case (a). The server doesn't know whether the game has crashed or whether there is just a lot of net lag - it only knows that MUME hasn't sent it any messages lately! You won't find out whether the server was lagged out, or whether the game actually crashed, until you log in again. So in case of a crash OR or bad lag, you will get a message from the server. If the game is still really up, then you may be lucky enough to find a less lagged server. If NO servers are working, it may be that the game actually did crash. (c) The server -itself- starts sending you garbage, or kicks you off. In this case, the game is almost certainly still up, so try and find another server. The game is treating you as a linkless player. So eventually you get back on. Where are you? Well, it depends on whether the game actually crashed (case a) or whether it stayed up (cases b and c). If the game crashed, AND you were linked when it crashed, you will come back in the Halls of Mandos. You will come back online with maximum mana/hitpoints/movement points, and with the same equipment and gold that you had at the time of your last autosave. Anything you acquired after the last autosave - including money, experience, items - you no longer have - Artheniel] Here are some of the effects of crashes. I hope that the Imps someday fix some of these: - All horses and pets disappear. If you were riding a pony before the crash, you aren't now. - All mobs regenerate -> if you killed a huge wolf before the crash, be prepared to fight it again. - All doors/unlocked exits are now closed and locked. If you were in a strange exit room, you are most likely in a lot of trouble. - Travel points will be quite predictable right after a crash - get to learn the areas where they pop-up when MUME comes back online. If the game did NOT crash - if the problem was just with the server or with network lag - then when you come back, the game has treated you just as if you were linkless; see the discussion of that above. The worst thing that can happen to you is if the game crashes or reboots WHILE you are linkless. In that case, as stated above, you come back to the last place you were. But the mobs will have regenerated, the doors will have locked, the traps will have reset, and so on.] There will be times when you come back on and find yourself in a locked room, all spells down, with a sanc spirit and nowhere to flee. You are toast. You will most likely die. If you do die DIRECTLY because of the crash (as in the crash CAUSED your death), speak to a god and you MIGHT get some compensation. If you have a place to flee and try to fight a wolf to the death, don't expect compensation. [Strider was writing at a time when crashes did not send people to Mandos. Today they do, and you will not find yourself in 'the terrible situation' unless there was some problem with your link. This means that reimbursement is MUCH LESS likely than even Strider says.] [On this general topic, see "The Dunedain Guide to Crashes", which is in the Fornost library at least - Artheniel.] System Lag ---------- Often when the Imps are compiling, or the network is a little messy, you will come upon times of extreme 'lag', where your commands take a long time to register. If you are in a safe area, cha mood wimpy (just in case) and wait it out. If you are in a very dangerous area, cha mood wimpy and watch very carefully. If you suddenly find yourself in battle, cha wimpy 999 and hope that you flee. If, for some reason you can't get that command in, I suggest dropping link. [If the GAME is lagged because the Imps are compiling, then all mobs, characters, and time itself slow down; so at least nothing will happen to you. If you find that your commands are not going through, even though you hear lots of narrates, wolves and *orcs* are running in and attacking you, etc., then it is probably net lag somewhere between you and your server or between your server and MUME. In that case, anything can happen to you :( - Artheniel] Chapter 5 - Some Useful Commands (by Task) ========================================== I have wondered a while why there is no summary of all the somewhat obscure commands used in Mume available anywhere. I have therefore prepared a list. Some of the words are in the MUME helpfile already: [Commands marked ** have been added by me - Artheniel] *Mend (at grocers. Mend very short and item mended can be worn) *Enter portal (when someone has cast a 'portal' spell) You can sometimes enter other things, like the coach to Tharbad. *Fill lantern (when lantern is held and you have a flask in inventory) *Lead horse (when you have dismounted a horse and when not invisible) *Wield1 *Wield2 (for bastardsword) *Bribe x gold (outside gates of tharbad, i havent tested only saw in helpfile) *Call (outside gates at night, or when the gatekeeper is on the other side of the gate. You cannot be invised and must have lightsource) *say open (inside gates at night, or when gate otherwise is closed.) *Sleep *Wake *Fish (when held rod) *Whet (when held stone) *Throw die (when held die) *Trade (at stables. You must be holding a horse ticket) **Camp builds a campfire. Useful for scaring away wolves, boar, etc. Also good if you want to mend your sword at night. **Map shows where you are **Weather local tells what the weather is where you are **Weather global Gives a weather map of the world **Weather fog Gives a fog map of the world **Listen tales Turns narrates on and off **Brief Turns 'brief mode' on and off. In brief mode you do not see room descriptions when you move around. **Spam Turns 'nospam mode' on and off. If you are in 'nospam', you will not see your group members enter and leave rooms, or see fight messages unless someone gets hurt **Examine Shows you the room description and everyone in the room. Handy if you are in brief/nospam mode and don't remember where you are or who is with you. **Compact Turns off the extra blank lines that otherwise make the screen scroll real fast. Also, a declaration on objects: You can pinpoint a specific object out of many that has the same description, by using the #.object syntax: At the sign of the prancing pony. A horse is here this is 1.horse A horse is here this is 2.horse A horse is here and this is, of course, 3.horse etc. Likewise: You are carrying: a shortsword this is 1.sword a longsword this is 2.sword or 1.longsword a longsword and 3.sword or 2.longsword If you hold something, it becomes 1.stuff and the things in inventory follow in order. The same goes for inventories and other lists, that the last thing to enter the list is 1.object or person, i.e the one on top. So if you have a metal shield in your inventory and is wearing a wooden shield, when you remove the wooden shield it will say: You are carrying: a wooden shield a metal shield Well, these are a few of the things i had to learn by experience and i hope they quick things up for you. There are certainly more commands that ought to be added to this list, but you have to start somewhere:) Task.