LegendMUD Newbie Guide Chapter Three: Out in the World

"The city was strange, but I seemed to fit in, despite my odd appearance. Given time, I learned the ways of that strange world, and grew comfortable--nay, even proficient!--in navigating its customs and byways..."

Table of Contents MAPPING/EXPLORING KILLING THINGS FINDING QUESTS BUYING/SELLING THINGS

From Marguerite de Navarre's 'La Coche ou le Debat de l'Amour'

It's much easier to move around the world if you have it mapped or know it well. Getting your bearings after fleeing or returning to your corpse when you die will be much easier if you are familiar with your surroundings. Hometown maps (given to newbies and available for purchase) are the only maps in the game that are provided to players. There is no automapping function. The best advice for mapping LegendMUD is to look at a map of the world. We attempt to lay out our areas in a close approximation to their real world locations. A pencil and graph paper do wonders as well. It's what most of the creators used when building the areas.

A good method for mapping mazes is to drop coins, one at a time, so that they make markers in the rooms. For example: in room #1 you'd DROP 1 COIN; in room #2 you'd DROP 2*1 COIN; in room #3 you'd DROP 3*1 COIN, and so on. This way you have an easy reference to check against your map. If you see gold piled up in this fashion, someone is probably in the process of mapping the area. They would probably prefer you leave the gold there.

Some areas may overlay each other in geography, but are separated by different eras in time. A listing of the areas included in LegendMUD are found by typing AREAS from within the game. This gives the area name, the creator (the one responsible for the area), and a rough idea of what level characters the area is intended for. Note that this does not mean the area is 100% safe for anyone. To access different areas in the same time period, you can walk, sail, or fly between areas. To move between areas that are situated in the same space geographically but in different time periods, a 'trans quest' is required. These are usually small in nature and number of steps, but also require a certain level of familiarity with the area you are trying to leave. Trans quests do not award experience points.

However, you can gain experience by exploring different regions of the world. Some rooms grant experience when you first come across them and aren't following anyone. These rooms are scattered across the whole mud, some are hard to avoid, others take a bit more exploration. You are not notified when you find one of these rooms as we do not wish them to be 'tourism stops,' but rather genuine rewards for exploring the mud. They may change location from time to time. Exploring is dangerous stuff. There are all sorts of things to watch out for, like nasty monsters lying hidden in shadowy caves, narrow ledges with unstable footing, killer reefs. Don't let this possibility prevent you from taking risks -- but choose your risks at a time when you feel you can tolerate the possibility of death or drastic loss.

Deathtraps, or DTs, are rooms with their titles in ALL CAPS and are lit 24 hours a mud day so that they can be seen by typing eXits at any time. They do not subtract experience points from your score. However, your corpse and equipment are not retrievable. One thing to note is not all rooms with ALL CAP titles are DEATHTRAPS but they are probably dangerous. There may be one or two DTs that can be disarmed but that is generally not the norm.

Nasty NPCs that attack you upon entering their lair are not deathtraps, but are known as aggressive mobs. If they kill you, you will lose experience and your corpse will probably only be recoverable by a much higher level character than yourself. Be sure to keep an eye on room descriptions and watch for clues that something may be in the next room. The easiest way to get killed or lost while exploring a new area is to do it with BRIEF on so that room descriptions don't show. Keep you eye out for signs of danger!

CONSIDER
CONSIDER target before you attack ANYTHING you haven't fought before. It will tell you your approximate chance of success, using a level comparison only. For a more detailed comparison, the judge skill, anatomy skill, and judge spells are useful. 'Death will thank you for your gift' means YOUR DEATH.

WIMPY/FLEE
When you attempt to flee from a fight you lose a small percentage of your experience based on your level and that of your opponent. You also lose prestige from fleeing from lower level opponents. You can set the point at which you will automatically attempt to flee by typing WIMPY #.

When you kill your enemy, EXAMINE CORPSE, then GET item corpse for any items you want. If you want everything from the corpse, type GET ALL CORPSE. Your alignment is affected by killing enemies, wearing certain items, doing certain quests. If an enemy has a higher alignment than you, yours will fall. If their alignment is lower than yours, yours will rise. If an enemy's prestige was higher than yours, your prestige will rise.

DEATH

When your character dies, you are reincarnated back at your recall point. Your corpse is left behind in the room where you were killed, together with all of your gold and equipment. You should return to the room where you died as soon as possible to retrieve your equipment from your corpse. Your gold does NOT stay with you, so you should frequent banks, in case of catastrophe. Light sources will remain with you, so if you find yourself alone in the dark you'll still be able to HOLD ALL. If you have a working light source, you'll be able to go retrieve your corpse much easier. If the NPC was nasty and killed you on sight, you should find someone who can kill it before you go back.

You lose 1/2 your total experience for dying in a fight. There is an eventual cap of a 2 million point loss at higher levels. Your chances of gaining back experience lost to death are better if you don't give up on the character even though you may feel the task is impossible. You also lose prestige points for dying.

FOLLOW person starts you following another character so that you automatically move into the next room when they do. To stop following someone else, just FOLLOW yourself. It's always better to ask to group than to just tag along with someone. GROUP character makes someone who is following you a member of your group. Group members share experience points from kills they are present for and may use the GTELL to send private messages to all group members and the SPLIT amount command to distribute gold taken from the corpse. If the character is already a member of the group, then using the GROUP command again will remove the character from the group. Characters can also leave groups by using the FOLLOW self, or someone else command to stop following the leader. GROUP with no argument shows statistics for each character in your group.

The local board in an area (not the Welcome Board) will often have hints to quests in the areas and warnings about dangerous places in the vicinity. The local boards are often not labeled 'Board' but are things like 'Notices' 'Scrolls' 'Walls taken over as message centers' as well. These are also a good place to leave messages to the immortal responsible for the area, or you can use the mud mail system. LOOK BOARD to see what messages are posted on it, and READ BOARD # to read a particular message. To read appends type READ BOARD # #, where the first # is the message number and the second the append number.

Also just observing NPC's interact with each other and even with you when you approach them or mention certain things of interest around them. Some NPC's will send you off chasing red herrings, but often they can point you in the right direction. If an NPC mentions something, it might be important in a quest.

LIST/VALUE/BUY/SELL
LIST lists the objects the shop keeper will sell you. BUY item buys an object from a shop keeper. The appropriate amount of currency is automatically deducted from your score. SELL item sells an object to a shopkeeper. You will be automatically credited with the price that the item commands. VALUE item asks the shopkeeper how much he or she will buy the item for.

The HAGGLE skill provides an alternative way to buy items. Please note that STEALing from a shopkeeper renders him unable to produce more of that item. Also, you are very likely to get caught in the attempt.

If a shopkeeper tells you to 'Come back later.' then you probably caught him either at night or during his teatime, siesta, etc. Some shops post their hours outside the door, and common sense can suggest to you the hours of operation for the others. A few seedy or illicit establishments may only be open at night.

DEALING WITH MULTIPLE ITEMS
If you want to purchase the second dagger on the list and you keep getting the wrong one, try either a more distinctive keyword or BUY 2.DAGGER. If you want to get something from a corpse other than the first one in a room, type GET ALL 2.CORPSE or 3.CORPSE, etc. Any item can be manipulated this way. You can also use all.item as well.

DEALING WITH MULTIPLE SHOPKEEPERS
If more than one shopkeeper is present use the #.name trick to purchase the item from the correct one. For example, if there are two vendors, type BUY APPLE 2.VENDOR if the LIST command doesn't show the apple but LIST 2.VENDOR does. All the buying/selling/value commands work like this.

BANKS
Since gold coins weigh, you will want to frequent banks in order to store your hard earned money in a safe place. Your bank balance remains intact when you die, so it's a good idea to save a bit of money for a rainy day. The commands are: DEPOSIT amount to store gold; WITHDRAW amount to get money (a percentage fee is charged); and STATEMENT to get your account balance.