FDC Muck Newbie Help Sheet [perm], version 1.03, by Steve Pagano / "Zazu"

INTRODUCTION.
By now, you already know an awful lot about the FDC Muck. This sheet is designed to help you in your first few days as a permanent character on our beloved Muck. Please print this out and have it with you on your first few days on the FDC Muck. Some of what follows is strictly optional, but we strongly recommend doing everything up through and including the section on creating your mail object.

DIG YOUR HOME ROOM.
The first thing you'll want to do is get yourself a quiet place to work, and what better place to do that than your very own room? :)
* Type '@dig <room name>'. This creates you a room with the specified name. You'll get a message telling you the room's number. (This costs you 10 pennies, but you should do it.)
* 'jump <room name>' to get to your home room.
* '@desc here = <description>'. This sets the description that everyone sees when they look at your room. You can skip this for now if you want.
* '@link me = here'. This sets the room you're in as your home room, and it's here that you'll return to when you type 'zap me' or 'gohome'.

SET YOURSELF UP.
* Type '@password <old> = <new>' to set yourself a new password. THIS IS REQUIRED OF NEW PERMANENT CHARACTERS.
* '@lock me = me'. This prevents people from robbing you. Remember this if you go to other mucks.
* '@desc me = <description>'. This sets your character's description. You should set this as soon as possible.
* '@doing <message>'. Type 'who' to see what a @doing is.
* Type 'pinfo -all' and follow the prompts. This sets up your personal info; type 'pinfo -help' for more.

CREATE A MAIL OBJECT.
* '@create <objectname>' to create an object with the specified name. This object's purpose in life will be to store your mail and CB messages. Making the object costs 10 pennies, but it's an absolute necessity!
* '@link <objectname> = me' and then '@lock <objectname> = me'. This first sets the object home to you, and the second makes it so that no-one but you can pick it up.
* Now type 'mail -f'. This puts you into the mail program. Choose option C, and when the program asks, give it the name of the object you just created. Your mail object is now set up! Type Q to quit the mail program.
* If you want a separate object to store CB properties, go ahead and create and link and lock another object for them. Then type ';-property <objectname>' to set the object of your choice as the CB property object.
* The mail program is pretty intuitive, while the CB program, while simple to use, takes a bit of explaining, and a Host or player can help you out.

SHORT CUTS AND CUSTOMIZING.
There are a number of alternate programs you can use for a lot of the familiar commands you use. You can use '@tele' or '@teleport' instead of 'jump'; you can use 'where', 'find', 'who', 'who4', 'uwho', and possibly others to find people.
A number of other commands can be abbreviated. " for say, : for pose, w for whisper, p for page.
A number of programs and globals are customizable! Type 'globals' for a list of global commands. You can also type '<command> -help' for some extra options. Try typing 'flash -help' and 'uwho -help' to see some of the possibilities.

BULLETIN BOARDS.
Type 'flash'. This is a bulletin board of announcements and the like specific to FDC Muck. It's customizable - to see the options, type 'flash -help'. There are other global boards, including 'comment' for more serious Out-of-Character discussions, 'tip' for programming and building questions, 'trip' for planning Muckmeets and the like, and 'suggestion' ('sugg' for short) is the suggestion box board.

PRIVACY.
There may come a time when you want privacy on FDC, and while a Muck is essentially a not-very-secure structure, you can give yourself a good deal of privacy in a number of ways, but the following three are the most important.
* The J (JUMP_OK) flag. You can only jump to a person or room if their J flag is 'set' (more about flags in the help files, or from Hosts or players). To set your J flag upon yourself, type '@set me=j'; to unset the flag, so people can't jump to you, type '@set me=!j'. You can set similar flags in rooms that you own by typing '@set here=j' or '@set here=!j' when in the room in question.
* The _nojump property. Bypassing the J flag isn't a difficult thing for many people, and if you're in a room that you want private, but even one person in that room has their J flag set, then anyone can jump into that room by jumping to that character. However, if you type 'shut' in a room, then the _nojump property is set to "yes", and all J flags in the room you're in will be ignored, and no-one can jump into that room. Type 'shut' again to remove the property.
* The H (HAVEN) flag. Set and unset just like the J flag, the H flag prevents all incoming pages and CB messages. (Make sure you set up page so that you'll store all messages that people page to you while you're set Haven, or else they'll all be lost.) Now you have peace and quiet with which to do that building or to hold that private conversation. Be sure to unset the flag, and undo the changes to your page set-up, when you're done!

OTHER STUFF.
There are many other things to play with on the Muck. In the help files are tutorials and guidelines for building rooms to be connected to the rest of the Muck. There are various and sundry smaller programs that do all sorts of things, and you'll find out about these as you go along. Try 'think -help' to find out about the think channels; there are also some private channels that you can learn about. There were also a lot of commands beginning with the @ symbol (a list of them is in the help files) that you can use, now that you're a permanent player. Some good ones to start with include @stats, @owned, @sweep, sweep (no @ symbol version - they're very different!), @last, and zap. Learn them at your leisure. :)

Now, get out there and have fun!


© 1996 RecArts Communications and Steve Pagano