Now you know who you are and what you can do, but how to let others know about it? Ofcourse, by communicating with them. Interaction with other players is one of the main aspects of mudding that makes it such big fun and DM features a wide variety of ways to communicate with other players. But before you can start telling people enthusiastically about your latest adventures, you got to know which other people are playing. To find this out, DM has 3 commands: WHO, WHOGROUP and AVAILABLE.
By typing WHO you see all the players and immortals that are currently online, except for those who are invisible. If you want to see the invisible players as well, pay Zifnab a visit (ms 2w n) and buy yourself a yellow potion of see invisible. Before a player's name you see his level and his class, and after his name his title. It will occur to you that high level characters sometimes have very strange titles; this is because players are able to set their own title when they reach level 20 by using the TITLE command. You might find yourself in the WHO-list like this:
[1 War] Gobo the Swordpupil.
You will also notice that some players don't have a level in front of their names, but some other prefix. The most common prefix to be found is [HERO]; this indicates that this player has reached level 40 and is a hero. There are also prefixes for lord [LORD] and grandmaster [MASTER], but such players don't exist yet as I'm writing this. Another prefix you might find is [HELPER], which is short for Newbie Helper. Newbie Helpers are experienced hero's willing to spend extra time and effort in helping new players learn the mud (which I prove by writing this manual). They are always willing to give you advise or help you finding some item, if they have the time. You might find me in the WHO-list like this:
[HELPER] Dwura is always there for you (no really) (pluizig aura)
All other prefixes you see belong to the various immortals on DM. Since the immortals change their prefixes faster than I can write them down, I won't try to name them all (see the 'immortal' section for more information on this). Should you get confused by the different prefixes, there is a little something that immortals can do with their title and mortals not. While mortals are required to place their title behind their name, immortals can put their name anywhere in their title. You might find find our infamous Zarniwoop in the WHO-list like this:
[BRAK] The Sign of Nu is here, holding Zarniwoop
The WHO command can be used to get information on specific players as well by adding a keyword to it. Typing WHO MELLYN, for example, could yield the following result:
[HELPER] Mellyn didn't sleep very well
[32 War] Ashurva feels sorry for Mellyn.
Similarly, WHO
There are a few suffixes too which can be seen in the WHO-list. First, some people can have (AFK) behind their name, which means they are Away From Keyboard. If you are AFK too long, you become idle. So if you see Ego in the WHO-list like this
[35 Psi] Ego. (AFK, idle 4 mins)
it is probably useless to try to get his attention. Note that people can put the suffixes (AFK) and (idle) in their title, just to be left alone or in a vain attempt to be funny.
Killing all alone tends to get boring, so therefore the grouping system has been introduced (see below). To see which groups are busy, you can use the WHOGROUP command. By typing WHOGROUP you could, for example, see the following:
Known groups at this time:
A newbie group, led by Aad
Oleanne Kuiper
The Knights of Dawn, led by Crusader
Kian Sihaya someone
'A newbie group' and The 'Knights of Dawn' are the titles of the group. The title 'A newbie group' is the default setting for a grouptitle. When you reach level 10 you are able to change your grouptitle by means of the GROUPTITLE command. Aad and Crusader are the leaders of the group and it is custom that if you want to join a group, you should ask the leader. The someone you see in the group of Crusader is invisible, so if you want to know who it is you have to get that yellow potion at Zifnab's. Note, however, that thieves can hide themselves, which makes them invisible even if you can see invisible persons. It is also possible that there are groups that are not listed in the WHOGROUP list. This happens when the leader of the group is following somebody else. You can find more about groups in the GROUPS section of this manual.
The opposite of WHOGROUP is the AVAILABLE command. By typing AVAILABLE you'll get a listing of all people that are not in a group. Just as with the WHOGROUP command, you don't appear on the AVAILABLE list if you are following somebody.
Beside WHO, WHOGROUP and AVAILABLE there is another command to get
information from players, FINGER. FINGER
Once you know which players are online, you can start communicating with them. The various ways to communicate can be divided in 3 subclasses: global channels, personal channels, and room channels.
When you are talking on global channels, all players on the mud are able to see what
you say. Therefore, you have to be carefull with your words when talking over a global
channel. The most used global channel is GOSSIP; people use this channel to chit-chat
over everything you can imagine. You are advised to use gossip only when you want
to tell something that might interest other people;otherwise, people might start yelling
things at you like 'Do I look like I care', or worse. The syntax of the GOSSIP
command is, just as almost all communication channels, GOSSIP
There are 3 global channels which are very similar to GOSSIP: SHOUT, YELL and DUTCH. SHOUT and YELL are little used channels which can only be heard within a certain area, and DUTCH is a channel where people are allowed to speak dutch, which isn't allowed on other global channels.
Another global channel is AUCTION, which is used by players to trade items.
Furthermore, DM features the NEWBIEHELP channel. If you have a question about the mud, ask this on the NEWBIEHELP channel before using GOSSIP. Helpers always have this channel toggled on and a lot of other nice players as well, so you are very likely to get an answer.
A special global channel is ARENA: people can use this when they are batteling eachother in the arena to offend.., um, ..stimulate eachother. The arena channel is only usable when you are in the arena, but people can see it on the whole mud.
There also is the QUEST channel. QUEST is used when an Immortal organizes a quest to give instructions, ask questions and give answers concerning the quest. People who are not interested in questing are able to toggle it off and go on with their business in this way.
If you want to consult an Immortal about something, use the WISH channel. No mortal will be able to see this and it's far more effective than using GOSSIP, because Immortals often have gossip toggled off.
Furthermore, DM has the GRATZ channel. It is customary to congratulate (or short: gratz) players when they gain a level, but in the past people used the GOSSIP channel for this. Some players, especially the ones with a bad link, don't like it to be spammed by gratz messages, so a gratz channel has been implemented, which gives players an opportunity to get rid of these messages by turning gratz off. Another custom is comforting (short: comf) people when they die. How ironically it may seem, he GRATZ channel should be used for this as well.
Finally, there is a MUSIC channel. There were a lot of people that enjoyed singing their favourite songs over GOSSIP, which bothered other players. Therefore, a special MUSIC channel has been developed for all you Boyzone, Roxette, Heideroosjes, etc. fanatics.
Now suppose you don't want to say something to everybody, but to someone in particular. Of course, you can use a global channel and hope he will hear it. But in general, this isn't considered a proper thing to do because most people don't like it to get spammed with messages not meant for them. So when you start a discussion over the gossip channel with your class-mate from pathobiology about the aspects of some weird disease, you will most likely annoy a lot of people. For this reason, DM features a personal communication channel as well, over which you can address a single person, without anyone else hearing.
First, there is the TELL command (syntax TELL
tell dwura Can you get me a heavy belt?
I (and only I) will receive the following message:
Gobo tells you 'Can you get me a heavy belt?'
A heavy belt is kinda hard to get alone and most probably I won't have any of them in stock, so I type:
tell gobo Sorry, I'm afraid you'll have to wait, I can't get one right now :(
I hit the enter key and wait for the affirmative 'ok' from the mud, but in stead of that I receive the message:
They aren't here.
This message can mean two things: (1) The person I wanted to tell something is not logged in on the mud; or (2) that person is logged in, but invisible for me. While I'm wondering what to do, you become impatient and ask me again. I receive the following message:
someone tells you 'Can you get me a heavy belt?'
Obviously, you are invisible for me. But I can't address you by typing 'tell someone' and since I'm too lazy to walk to Zifnab for a yellow potion, I use the REPLY command and type:
reply Sorry, I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit. I can't get one right now :(
REPLY (syntax: reply
But REPLY has its problems as well. Let's go back to the previous example: I have
typed the whole line (reply blablabal), but just before I hit the enter key to confirm the
command Sihaya tells me something. Now my reply command goes to Sihaya, since
she is the last player that told me something. You understand that this can be quite
annoying, embarrassing, confusing, flabbergasting etc.
But ok, after a while I've explained Sihaya that the message wasn't meant for her and I want to answer you. Since you're still invisible I decide to buy a potion and try again. But in the meanwhile you've nearly survived killing a big boar and you're sleeping to recover some hit points. Sleeping persons can't receive tells, so I get the following message:
He can't here you; he is sleeping.
Now, there is no other way for me to address you than using the BEEP command. BEEP is very similar to the TELL command, except that you can use the BEEP command in any position and the TELL command not when you are sleeping or meditating. You also can receive BEEP's while sleeping, which isn't possible with TELL's. But the main difference between BEEP and TELL is that the person receiving a BEEP also receives a highly irritating beeping sound (which is probably why the command is called 'BEEP'). This can come in quite handy when, for example, your cleric groupmember isn't paying attention while you're getting wasted by some big nas ty mobile, but generally people think getting beeped is very annoying and therefore you are encouraged to use it as little as you can.
Unfortunately, you will find that DM has, just as every other society, a few annoying people who enjoy irritating other players and so you might find yourself getting spammed by pointless BEEP's from one asshole or another. To avoid this problem you can type BEEP without further arguments, which puts you in NOBEEP mode, effectively making you immune for BEEP command. People trying to BEEP you when you are in NOBEEP mode, will receive the following message:
That person doesn't want to be beeped.
Typing BEEP again will toggle NOBEEP off again (or BEEP on, whatever you want). A similar toggle command is BUSY, which will make you immune for all TELL's. A person trying to TELL you something when you have BUSY toggled on, will receive the following message:
That person is BUSY and won't receive any tell's.
Be careful to remind in which mode you are when you ask another player something. An often made mistake is asking somebody something, just before going to sleep with NOBEEP on. In this way, you will make it impossible for the person in question to answer you. He can't TELL you something because you are sleeping and he can't BEEP you because you have NOBEEP on. Very likely, this person will GOSSIP something about you being stupid to have NOBEEP on or won't answer at all.
Now suppose you are standing on, say, market square and you want to say something to all other players there. Using a global communication channel would be a bit superfluous, while adressing everyone personally with a personal communication channel would be extremely inefficient. For this reason there are room communication commands, which you can use to address everybody in the same room as you. The room communication commands comprise of the SAY commands and various forms of emotion commands.
With the SAY command (syntax SAY
say Haaaai everyone
everybody in the same room as you will read the following:
Gobo booms 'Haaaai everyone'
Another feature of the SAY command is that if you end your sentence with a question mark, you will 'ask' something. If you type
say Shall we group?
the other persons in the room receive the following line:
Gobo asks 'Shall we group?'
If you want to express yourself more clearly, you can end your sentence with a !, which will make you exclaim things. So you could have typed
say We will group!
in which case the other people in the room would have received the following sentence:
Gobo exclaims 'We will group!'
I'm not saying that this will get you in a group, but at least people know what you're about.
Apart from using SAY, you can express your feelings by the various emotion
commands. The most simple emotion command is EMOTE (syntax: EMOTE
emote is a mighty warrior.
other people in the same room as you read:
Gobo is a mighty warrior.
A more complex version of EMOTE is PEMOTE (syntax: PEMOTE
pemote dwura thinks Dwura is a nice girl!
everybody except me will see:
Gobo thinks Dwura is a nice girl!
I, on the other hand, will read the following:
Gobo thinks you is a nice girl.
Obviously, this command isn't perfect, but it has more possibilities than EMOTE. But if you have to express every emotion using EMOTE or PEMOTE, you would find yourself spending more time in emoting than in actually doing something. Therefore DM has an extensive list of socials, pre-constructed EMOTES. You can see this list by typing SOCIAL. Some of these socials want you to specify a target, which should be another player in the room. For instance, typing the social KISS without an specified target will yield the following error-message:
Kiss who?
A correct example of the social KISS is listed below.
You type : kiss sihaya You read: You kiss Sihaya Sihaya reads: Gobo kisses you.
Other socials can't have target at all, but most of them function with and without a target. For example, the social FART:
You type: fart
You read: Where are your manners?
Everyone in the same room reads: Gobo lets go a real rip-roarer. Greenish clouds
envelop Gobo.
You type: fart dwura
You read: Where are your manners?
Dwura reads: Gobo farts in your direction. You gasp for air.
Everyone else in the same rooms reads:
There are a whole lot of these socials, but I'm not gonna write down every single one of them; this would take much to long and it is far more fun to discover how they work yourself. Just sit down sometime with a friend and start trying them. It's really fun, I can assure you.
Another room communication command is POSE. By typing POSE you will emote something depending on your class. Every class has a different set of POSE emotes, which will appear randomly when you type POSE. A POSE never has a target. An example of a psionisist emote is given below:
I type: pose I read: Ah, brainwave! Everyone else in the same room reads: Dwura lets her mind wander off, but it doesn't come back.
Apart from global, personal en room communication commands, there is another
communication command used for communicating within GROUPS, the
GROUPTELL (short: GT) command. By typing GT
Well, this is about everything worth mentioning concerning ways to communicate. Therefore, if you've read and understood it completely, you know about everything that's worth knowing about communication (and a hell of a lot more). If you haven't read it all, well, then you are clearly an experienced chat-chatter that won't use gossip to comfort somebody or ask me something and go to sleep with nobeep on. If you haven't read it all and you aren't an experienced chat-chatter that won't use gossip to comfort somebody or ask me something and go to sleep with nobeep on, then I advise you to read it all or just not to use gossip to comfort somebody or to ask me something with nobeep on or make a dozen of other communication related mistakes. (I hope that this scared you so that I can comfort you and tell you that it isn't necessary to read everything and that you are allowed to make mistakes, which we all did. You will learn in time anyway, but I just had to give you a reason for reading this so that I didn't type it for the cat's violin (that's a dutchism)).