MUs and You.

How to MU like a Pro in 10 minutes or less.

So, first things first. This guide assumes a few things. You have a program to connect to the MU and know how to do that. If you haven’t gotten that far, your first step is to read this page.

Basic Character Setup

First thing we need to do is set up your character. Basic stuff includes your gender, your species, and what people see when they look at you. This is done by typing some basic commands into the interface.

Please note that anything in <pointy brackets> is required and anything in (parenthesis) is optional.

To set your gender, type:

@set me=sex:<gender>

To break down what that does by each piece of the command:

• @set – allows you to tell the server you want to give a particular person, place, or object some kind of value.
• me – what is the target we are setting this property on? “me” is short hand for your player character.
• sex – This is the name of the property we’re setting. In this case, we’re setting your gender property. The format of a property is: <name>:<value>, so you would be setting sex:Female, or sex:Male, or whatever. You are welcome to pick any gender you want, or even make up a new one.

Here’s an example of the command altogether:

@set me=sex:female

Then we set your species. This is a similar process, except instead of setting the “sex” property, we are setting the “species” property:

@set me=species:<something>

This command looks pretty familiar right? That <something> can be anything you want, from simple species like "cheetah" to something more complex, like a hybrid: “lionwolf”. Please note that on this MUCK, we do not have “mythical” or magical creatures. However, feel free to be a reptile that thinks he or she is a dragon. Here’s an example:

@set me=species:Rainbow Unicorn

Next, we gotta let people know what they see when they look at you. For this, we need to set up a description. There are two ways to do this; the easy way that sets a “one line” description, and then the slightly harder way that lets you put in a complex multi-line description.

To do it the easy way just to get started, simply type:

@desc me=<your description>

Now the <description> bit can be whatever you like, and include whatever you think is important, but using that command you are limited to 1 paragraph, about 12 lines long. When you're ready for more complex descriptions with multiple paragraphs and stuff, we can do a more complex command.

Where are you?

So, now you look like something, and are something with a gender.. but how do you get around?

You can see where you are, at any time, by typing the word:

look

If you do that in the square, you’d see

Town Square
The central crossroads of Little Sands is here, the Town Square. In spite of the name, it’s actually octagonal in shape. Here, the Town Dock links up with the two main roads of the town, the north-south oriented Shore Lane, which runs roughly parallel to the shoreline, and Pier Street that continues to the east further inland. Roads in Little Sands, owing to the fact that there are no motorized vehicles, are essentially just wide footpaths lined with flat stones, and in this case the aforementioned roads form a cross through the central square. At the center where they meet is a large covered area, a raised gazebo with benches oriented around its edge facing inwards, something of a central gathering spot.

Aside from the roads, the square also has a stone path around its perimeter and connections to the beach to the northwest, the Town Hall to the southwest, and a couple commercial establishments to the northeast and southeast. The remainder of the square is patchy grass struggling to grow through the sandy soil, and there are a few large trees here and there as well.

A signpost provides directions, and you can also look in each direction:

[N] North Shore Lane [NE] Square Apartments
[E] Pier Street [SE] Izzy’s Saloon & Hotel
[S] South Shore Lane [SW] Town Hall
[W] Town Dock [NW] Little Sands Beach

This gives you a description of your immediate surroundings, any obvious exits (usually) and who's in the same place as you. Exits can look something like this:

[N] North Shore Lane

The text or numbers inside the [brackets] is a short hand you can type to move in that direction. Though sometimes people use <these brackets> instead.

You can also look at the people standing or sitting or kickboxing around in the same place. Just type:

look <their name>.

Capital letters don't matter, by the way. To look at our sheriff for example you would type:

look sheridan

When you do that you'd see:

++++Sheridan saw you looking.

This means Sheridan has set up some code that alerts him you've looked at him. This is optional. We will come to that later. And then you’d see the rest of his description:

Well if it isn’t old man Sheridan himself, the founder and Mayor of Little Sands. He’s not just the Mayor, he’s also the Sheriff, Judge, and whatever other job title or official duty the town requires. He’s an African Wild Dog by species, sometimes called a Painted Dog, and he’s a sizable one that that, standing broad-shouldered at a few inches past six feet. He looks to be middle-age or so, not as fast as he once was but still solid and tough. Every movement is slow and purposeful. While physically imposing, there’s a warmth and welcoming nature to him, and he seems outwardly very personable and approachable.

His face is mostly black with splotches of white and tan here and there. His forehead is a large tan splotch and his thickly-furred throat has some white in it. There are scars visible in the shorter fur of his face, one above his right eye and another along the left side of his muzzle. His eyes are a warm but intense shade of green. Having styled himself as something of an old-west cowboy, he’s wearing a wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat atop his black hair, with two simple cut-outs in the sides of the hat for his ears to poke through. Those ears are big and round, though a piece appears to be missing from the left one, and the right shows subtle scarring.

Below, covering that solid frame, is the rest of his western-themed outfit. He wears a long, loose fitting coat, or duster, made of dull leather and dark brown in hue. Big hands with white fur but black fingers emerge from the long sleeves of the duster. It continues down past his waist where it hangs loose along both of his legs. There’s hints of a plaid undershirt under the duster, and on one side of his chest is a prominent gold badge that displays his name and primary title – Mayor of Little Sands. While it’s not always immediately visible, depending on his he moves or how he’s standing or sitting, you may catch a glimpse of his sidearm, a shiny chrome Six Shooter holstered at his right hip.

Down below the belt he’s wearing some faded and well worn jeans, originally a much darker blue than they are now. Despite their age, these are workman style jeans that are made extra tough, so they’ve held up quite well. The pant-legs are tucked into a pair of tall, heavy boots, worn and dusty and probably a little caked in the sand that makes up much of the soil here.
Carrying:
Lawgiver

Note that, at the end, it says “Carrying:” and shows an additional name. That’s an object that this character is carrying. Sometimes you can see them with the following command:

lookat <name>'s <object>

For instance:

lookat sheridan's lawgiver

You can also look at Exits such as the example above, though not all exits have a description set. To look at that exit you would type:

look n

When you do that you'd see:

Looking north, you see Shore Lane continue off in the distance, with the beach to the left and some commercial lots to the right.

Talking and Doing

So, there's a few ways you can communicate with people. The simplest is to just talk to them. To talk to the people in the same place as you, you type:

say <what you say>

or you can use the shortcut:

"<what you say>

If you typed:

"Hey there

You'd see:

You say, "Hey there"

The other people would see:

<YourName> says, "Hey there"

Which would look, for example, like:

Sheridan says, "Hey there"

You can also "do stuff". This is called “posing” in MUCK terms, and you can do it the long way and the short way as well:

:<stuff you do>

or:

pose <stuff>

Your name is automatically put in the front of what you pose, so you do not need to include your own name. For example:

:dances around

would show:

<yourname> dances around

Which would look like this, for instance, if Sheridan felt like dancing:

Sheridan dances around

You can also combine the two, and talk in an emote:

:mutters, and shrugs "I don't know. I'm new here"

which would show:

<yourname> mutters, and shrugs "I don't know. I’m new here"

Cool huh?

But maybe'd you have a secret, or something you only want one person to hear. You can whisper then, but only with people in the same place as you.

To do that, type the command for whisper which is 'whisper' (or you can be lazy and type wh), then the person's name, an = sign, and whatever your message is. For instance:

wh sheridan=Hey, I love your belt.

Would show up to you as:

You whisper, "Hey, I love your belt." to Sheridan.

You can whisper to multiple people if you want, just list their names with a space between them before the =. For instance:

wh Sheridan Garrett=You guys are splotch dogs.

Both of the African Wild Dogs would get that message, assuming they’re both in the same room as you. You can also emote your whispers by adding a : before your text:

wh sheridan=:clicks his tongue at you "Nice belt, dude!"

Would result in:

You whisper, "<yourname> clicks his tongue at you "Nice belt, dude!"" to Sheridan

If you want to whisper back to whoever whispered you last you can also add a #reply (or #r) before the =, instead of their name, to send them a message back. #r will whisper back to just the person who whispered to you; #R, capitalized, will whisper to everyone in the group if there’s more than one being whispered to.

So, Sheridan can type:

wh #R =:grins "Thanks!"

Which results in:

Sheridan whispers, "Sheridan grins "Thanks!"" to you.

Now what happens if they are not near you, but you gotta tell someone something? You can instead page them. It is example the same page (or p), then their name (or #r/#R) then an = (and a : if you want to emote), then your message.

p sheridan=Hey, I'm lost. Where is the diner?

Results in:

You page, "Hey, I'm lost. Where is the diner?" to Sheridan.

Neat thing about the Page command is you can just type p <theirname> to let someone know you're looking for them.

p sheridan

You will see:

You sent your summons to Sheridan.

They will see:

You sense that <yourname> is looking for you in <where you are>.

Keeping up the Conversation

To message the last person you messaged you can skip adding their name, with whispers or pages:

w =still me!

Results in:

You whisper, "still me!" to Sheridan

Out of Character

Sometimes you need to tell the people in the same space as you something out of character. For that you can just type:

ooc <your message>

or emote with:

ooc :<your emote>

For example:

ooc I love this place!

Results in:

<OOC> You say, "I love this place!"

Other Actors

Sometimes, for RP purposes, you need to let other people know something is happening, other than something that your character is doing. It could be an NPC, or the weather, or whatever! For this, you can 'spoof':

spoof The wind rustles through the leaves

would result in:

( The wind rustles through the leaves )

Spoof messages are always in parenthesis, basically for “security reasons”. This way, you can’t fake system messages or other people’s pose messages.

So those are the basics; what’s next?

A More Advanced You

People have more than 1 sense. <sight> and in a world of mostly animals.. smell is a pretty vital sense.

So not only can you LOOK like something, you can smell like something too. You can even taste like something if you really want to.

You smell people or places by typing smell (see how logical this is) and either <persons name> or here. “here” is another MU alias like “me”, and always indicates the room you are currently in.

If you:

smell here

It will tell you what the place you are in smells like, and the smells of everyone in that place.

If you smell someone specific, such as:

smell sheridan

You will get their specific scent message. To set your own smell you can simply type:

smell #set <what you smell like>

For instance:

smell #set Is it stinky?  Just how you like it!

Taste works a similar way, just replace “smell” with “taste” for the above commands.

Dress for Success

Now, remember that more advanced description we talked about earlier?

Let’s talk. In the real world, people don't just have one outfit. They have at least a few. And they can mix and match, or change between them.

This is where 'morphs' come in. This is like a wardrobe, that allows you to store multiple outfits that you can swap between.

You can use them by typing:

editlook

Let’s assume you don't have one yet, we can make one right now. To add a new 'outfit' to your collection type:

editlook #add

This will prompt you to enter a name. Pick something short but reasonably easy to remember, for instance:

casual

Then you’re going to see a crazy screen, don't panic

*************Entering lsedit. Type your new description here. ***********
***********The description can modified with the #edit command***********

< Welcome to the list editor. You can get help by entering ‘.h’ >
< ‘.end’ will exit and save the list. ‘.abort’ will abort any changes. >
< To save changes to the list, and continue editing, use ‘.save’ >
< Insert at line 1 >

This cool thing has a bunch of awesome features. Including .h which will help you learn how to use it. There's a lot of things here but let’s keep it simple.

The best thing about this lseditor is that you can do multi line descriptions, IF you want to. Just type away. Every time you hit enter, it will create a new line, but there is no space between the paragraphs usually.

Here’s a handy tip. To make a space, type a space and hit enter, before you type a new paragraph, this will give you that gap between them:

<paragraph1>
<space>
<paragraph2>

when you're done type:

.end

You will get 3 more prompts. The first two allow you to change species/gender when you change outfits. You should put “no” for these two unless you have an IC reason to say “yes”.

>> Do you want to reset your species prop when changing to this desc?

no

>> Do you want to reset your sex prop when changing to this desc?

no

The third question doesn’t make a lot of sense, so let’s take a look.

>> Do you want to run an MPI string when changing to this desc?

What this prompt is asking is – do you want the game to 'announce' to other people in the same place that you are changing outfits. Personally, I tend to pose if that is happening, so I just answer no (n).

If you want it to type something, you can answer yes (y) and tell it what you want it to say. For instance:

<yourname> pulls on a hoodie, and some jeans.

That’s it! Now, to swap to that morph, all you have to do is type:

editlook casual

replacing “casual” with whatever name you picked before, and tada!

If you ever forget, you can also type

editlook #list

and it will spit out a list of what your morphs are, at the time.

Lets get Meta

So, there's a few commands that allow you to tell other players information about your character that they might otherwise not know about them. This is super optional, but there's 2 basic commands you can use to set this information, or check out other people's information.

The first is wixxx which stands for WhatIsZ adult.

wixxx (wi) allows you to see what other people's sexual preferences, gender and species. You can also set your own. To see a specific person's wixxx, type:

wi <their name>

For instance:

wi sheridan

Would show:

— WhatIsz 1.3c : Show Character ———————————————
Sheridan Male African Wild Dog
——————————————————————————

Leave off the name if you want to see a listing of everyone in the room. To set your own, you can type wi #help to get the basic command options.

wi #flags

to see all the possible sexual preferences you might want to include and then:

wi #add <those flags>

will add them.

By default, the wi message reads [unset], if you want to hide that just type wi #add and it will remove that notice.

Additionally, you can also provide player information (pinfo) that includes a variety of information you may want to share with other players. This command lets you set Character, EMail, F-List, Image, Player, Preference, Residence, Roleplay, and Notify fields.

To get more info type:

 pinfo #help

Notice this #help business comes up a lot. A lot of commands have a #help to give you more information if you have any questions at any point in time.

To check another player's pinfo just type:

pinfo <theirname>

For instance:

pinfo sheridan

Shows:

–[ Player Info For Sheridan ]———————————————–
Player:Sheridan is the in-character wizard account. He does most of the building around the town. There is also an OOC administrative account named ‘HopeIsland’. For all wizard-related matters, please contact the Sheridan account.
Residence:The Mayor’s residence, obviously.
——————————————————————————

What's happening!

So, you know how to check people's player and character info, how to look, how to walk around. What about knowing where the hot RP is happening?!

There's a few ways you can check that out:

ws

This command shows people in the current room, and their gender and species. And then:

wa

shows people in the immediate or connected areas, with location info (room). You can think of these kind of like “zones”. Then, to see a list of zones:

wz

shows the 'entire zone', the various 'locations' within the zone, the people in those areas, how many are awake, and how many you are 'following'. There’s also directions to get to each place (the text in parenthesis). Note that you can type:

square

to teleport to the town square at any point. To see who is online, type:

wd

And then, to keep a watch out for your friends and get notified when they connect, you can use “wf” or WatchFor.

wf

by itself will list anyone you’re watching, for instance:

Players online for whom you are watching:
Sheridan
Done.

To follow someone type:

wf <their name>

to unfollow them:

wf !<theirname>

and of course:

wf #help

for more info.