Once you are connected, follow the directions in the Getting Started... section.
Do you need a MUD client? Telnet will work if there are only two people chatting. But with multiple people's text scrolling by, it's hard to type your response. A MUD client will keep the text you are typing, separate from the text that other's have typed. That's all it really does. It's works similar to all the other Instant Messages clients.
One of the best MS Window MUD clients is: zMUD (Zugg'sMUD). It's easy to install and has good documentation.
If you are a Linux or Unix user (congratulations!), look for TinyFugue or the mud-telnet package for emacs. If you can't find these, feel free to e-mail me and I'll point you to some sources.
connect guest
You will be assigned a guest player name. If you didn't notice what your name is, type:
look me or l me
If you are using a plain telnet window, then you will want to type the following commands. This will prevent long text from scrolling by faster than you can read. This isn't need with a MUD client program, because it is easy for you to scroll back in the program's window. (Replace 24 with the number of lines in your telnet window, i.e. if you have increased the telnet window's height):
@pagelength 24 @more
If I'm signed-in, you can contact me from anywhere in the MOO by paging me:
page brian618 Hi thereYou can type anything else besides 'Hi there'. You'll see if I am logged in and how active I am. If you see that I'm logged in, but not responding right away, then STAY LOGGED IN, and wait a few minutes. I may not be at my computer when your page comes through or I may be busy with something else, like writing :-). Just move the window aside and surf the web and check back occasionally.
If you want to talk more easily, you need to move to the same room as me. (Typing 'page brian618' before every message sent can get tiresome.) The easy way of doing this is to join me:
@join brian618
This will move you to the room that I'm currently in. Once you are moved there, you can talk to me by just typing a double quote (") before the text you type. for example:
"Hi Brian. Are you there?Note: If you do join me, be sure to 'page' me at least once, because that will pop my LambdaMOO window to the top, so I'll see that someone wants my attention (yup, it's just like an instant message, however MUDs have had this feature before AOL even existed).
Only people in the same room can see text that is typed after the ". To see who is in the same room with you, and to see other things in the room, type:
look here or l here or just l
You should see a description of the room and the people and things in the room. If you don't see 'Brian618', then I can't see the text you typed after the ". You will need to page me or @join me.
If you want to see more about something, then look at it. For example, to look at my player:
look brian or l brian or to look at players from any room: l ~brian618
Maybe you see something named 'Basic Commands' that says it's a note, when you look at it. How do you find the command to read it? Examine the note:
examine Basic Commands or exam basicand you'll see that 'read basic' is one of the things you can do to a note thing. You can also 'get basic' to pick up the note and take it with you. That's one example of why this virtual world is better than a plain web-chat (well I like it anyway).
That's probably more than enough to get you going. If you really want to explore this virtual world, start by typing 'help', then type 'help', followed by one of the topics suggested. For example, if you want your own player, then type 'help @request'. Also a number of people will be glad to help you.
Want more detailed getting started help? See: How to log on to LambdaMOO
Last updated: 2003/05/26