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!