Although there are lots of other nice people on the mud and many interesting things to discover elsewhere, you and I know about what the world turns: yourself. DM features a fine selection of commands to figure out things about yourself, of which ATTRIBUTES and SCORE are probably the most usefull. I guess that these two commands are two of the most typed words on the whole mud (ofcourse, after KILL and LICK). Try, for instance, typing SCORE. This should yield something like this:
You are a 17 year old Warrior of the Giant race. You have 42(43) hit, 95(95) mana and 100(109) movement points. You are neutral. Your killratio is 0.0 You have scored 1 experience points and have earned 0 gold coins. You need 999 more experience points to reach your next level. This ranks you as Gobo the Swordpupil (level 1). You are standing.
The first line indicates your age, your class, and your race. Your age doesn't really matter; it goes up while you play, but at a very slow rate. Most likely you will die of old age in real life before you manage to do the same on the mud. The second line shows your HIT, your MANA and your MOVEMENT POINTS. Every number is shown twice;the first number always indicates your current hit/mana/move and the second number (the one between the brackets) indicates your maximum number of hit/mana/move. Let me explain the use of these points:
The fourth and the fifth line of the SCORE commando show you how much EXPERIENCE POINTS and gold coins you have earned already, and how much experience points you need to reach your next level. You can only gain experience points when you kill mobiles. There aren't any other ways to gain experience, and on DM it just isn't possible to kill other players. Some mobiles will have a few gold coins on them, which you can use to buy items in the various shops in the world. When you have gathered a certain amount of experience points, you will raise a LEVEL. Most players use the acronym XP when talking about experience points.
The last line of the score commando shows your name, your level, and your TITLE. Your title is set automatically the first 20 levels, and changes everytime you raise a level. When you reach level 20, you can change your title by using the TITLE command (syntax:TITLE [whatever you want your title to be].) By typing LEVEL you'll get the various titles that you automatically receive, and the amount of xp needed to reach your next level.Then, there is the ATTRIBUTES commando, which might yield something like this:
You are 17 years, 0 months, 0 days and 3 hours old. You are 234 cm tall and weigh 301 kg. You have played for 0 hours, 2 minutes and 6 seconds. You are carrying 0 items with a total weight of 18 kg. You can carry up to a maximum of 31 items with a weight of 700 kg. You have 22 STR, 12 INT, 13 WIS, 16 DEX, 15 CON and 10 CHA. Your saving throws are 18 PARA, 18 ROD, 17 PETRI, 18 BREATH and 18 SPELL. You are wearing clothes. Your wimpy is set to 0 hit points. Damage below 0 will not be sent to you. You are neutral.The first two lines show your age and your physical features a bit more detailed than the score commando does. You see your age in months, days and hours; these aren't the same months, days and hours as in real life. I haven't quite figured out how long they exactly last, but there are for example like 16 months in a year. Just as your age, your weight and height haven't got any influence on the game. For now. In some cases, you might get a very weird weight/height ratio; this is because there is something wrong with the procedure that determines your weight. I've seen people that were 183 cm tall, for example, and weighed like 20 kg. But since weight doesn't do anything yet, no immortal has ever bothered himself to fix this.
Then there is your playing time in the third line. This is real time, so take care your mud- hating girl- or boyfriend doesn't see this.
The fourth and the fifth line show your current and your maximum encumbrance. The maximum number of items you can carry is determined by your DEX, and your maximum weight allowance is determined by your STR. It is possible to carry more weight or more items than your maxima, so you don't have to fear that you drop all your equipment when you remove an item that increases your STR. When you are carrying more than your maximum, however, you can't pick up any more items and you can't pick up items that you've dropped neither.
In the sixth line, you see your stats again. When you examine them closely, you'll see that some of your stats are higher than the stats you rolled while creating your character. This is because you are wearing some equipment that increases some of your stats. I'll tell more about this below.
The seventh line shows your saving throws. Sometimes you get a change to (partially) avoid a spell or another action that is intended to harm you, and your saving throws indicate your chance in succeeding to avoid this. Saving throws are measured on a scale from 1 to 20, with 20 being the worst possible and -1 being the best. They get better (ergo lower) when you raise in level, but there are also items that affect your saving throws. Since the system has been taken straight from the AD&D gaming system, not every saving throw is as usefull and I'm not really sure about what saving throw is used at which actions. In the AD&D system, PARA is used when someone tries to paralyse you, ROD indicates your chance to avoid spells from all kinds of staffs, wands and rods, PETRI is your save against petrification, BREATH saves you from various breath attacks and, last but not least, SPELL is ofcourse your save versus all kinds of spells. As far as I know aren't there any mobiles on the mud that actually use wands or staffs, and there isn't a petrification spell as well, so PETRI and ROD seem pretty useless to me. Then there is PARA; paralyse is a very feared spell of magicians on DM, but I guess that the SPELL saving throw is used when saving against paralyse so PARA isn't that usefull either. There are (alot) mobiles that cast spells, however, and also a considerable amount that use breath attacks, so you should pay attention to your SPELL and BREATH saves. Most players consider saving throws in general of little importance, but I'm not sure if this is really wise.The eighth line gives an indication of your armor class. Your armor class is used to represent the amount and the quality of armor you are wearing. Most players have an armor class between -700 (very good) and 0 (very bad). At level 1, you can't see these numbers yet, but they will be added to your attributes screen later in the game. For now, you only get a vague indication, like
You are wearing clothes, or (when you have found some better equipment)
You are superbly armoured!. When your armor class gets lower, mobiles hit you less often and less hard. Don't focus too much on armor class, however, since the system doesn't work completelly as it should. It is usefull, but the various area coders that DM has had during its existence all used different conventions for armor class on items. There was (and is), for example, a lot of confusion about wether an item that gives 10 armor class points actually raises or lowers your armor class. Because of this, the armor class bonusses and penalties on various items gradually messed up the system a bit. This can be fixed, but it is an awesome lot of boring work and no one is really looking forward to that. The system works more or less as it is, so it hasn't a very high priority on the 'to do' list. (I suddenly realize that now I'm member of the AREA department, some Imm could get the idea of letting me fix this. I'll start thinking about some excuses.) The nineth line shows the current status of your WIMPY. What is your wimpy? Well, imagine that you are fighting and suddenly your link gets really bad. If the mobile you are fighting is too strong, it will kill you because you can't type flee in time. By setting your wimpy to a certain amount of hitpoints (syntax: WIMPY [amount]), you will automatically flee when your hitpoints drop below the specified level. But since you're supposed to be a brave hero, you can't set your wimpy very high. If you try, for example, to set your wimpy to half your maximum amount of hitpoints, you'll get the following message:
Such cowardice ill overcomes you!Your wimpy won't be changed when you get that message. Note that your wimpy might save you, but it can also get you killed in some situations. When you are in an area with a lot of aggresive mobiles, for example, and you flee with very little hitpoints into a room with a very big and aggresive mobile.. So use it with care.
The tenth line,
Damage below 0 will not be reported to you, shows the current status of your GAGHIT. As you will learn, combat tends to spam your screen really bad, and you might find it convenient to decrease this spam a bit by using the GAGHIT commando (syntax: GAGHIT [amount of damage]). When you have done this, you won't see damage strings that do less damage than the specified amount of hitpoints. For a list of damage strings, t ype 'HELP DAMAGE'. I will tell more about damage in the combat section. The default gaghit setting is 0, which means that you see every damage string there is during combat. I usually have gaghit 1, so that I see every damage string except the misses. By typing gaghit 1000, you likely won't see anything of the fight at all.
The eleventh and last line of the attributes screen shows your alignment. As I explained in the character generation section, your alignment is measured on a scale from -1000 to 1000, but you won't see the actual numbers until you raise a few levels. In stead of the numbers you get an indication in words, like, in this case,
You are neutral.. There are a lot of different alignment indications (like satanic, mean, good, angelic), but there are only two points that really matter: the transition from mean to evil (at -350 alignment) and the transition from kind to good (at +350 alignment). At these points, your alignment changes from respectively neutral to evil and neutral to good. These are very critical points, because of the alignment restrictions on some items. When you are wearing items that are ANTI-EVIL, for example, and your alignment drops below -350, you will get 'zapped' by those items. This means that the equipment you can't use anymore will fall from your body onto the floor, and that you'll get the following message:
You are zapped by [equipment]!. You'll also hear a beep id your telnet client supports this. After a zap, you should get your equipment back from the floor and try to change your alignment back to it's original state. Do't forget to pick up your equipment; many players lost valuable items because they got zapped without noticing it.
After you've raised some levels, your attribute screen will show you some more information. First, you'll be able to see how long it takes before you become hungry or thirsy. Secondly, and more important, you will see your HIT and DAMAGE bonusses. A HIT bonus improves your chance to hit a mobile in combat, while your DAMAGE bonus increases the amount of damage you do by the given bonus. These numbers are important, because most players believe that damage is the most important point when it comes to choosing equipment. The higher your damage bonus gets, the harder you hit and it's considered really cool when you hit hard. The only classes that tend to focus on hit rather than on damage are druid, monk and thief, since hitting is important for them. Most characters rather see some cool damage string, however, in stead of an extra attack. And mages and clerics don't care about hit and damage at all and focus on equipment that increases their mana. But even they'd like to hit hard. An often used acronym for hit and damage is HND.
Well, that's about all there is to mention about yourself. I will go on by explaining you about your equipment, and some other things that are directly related to yourself.
It's ofcourse very neat that you know who you are, but there is more to discover. Although it would be great fun if everyone run around naked, there is an enormous amount of equipment and other stuff to be found in DM. You can get equipment by buying it, looting it from monste rs you killed or you might just be lucky and find something. But to make things not too difficult for you in the beginning, DM supplies you with an extensive set of newbie equipment. You can see this equipment by typing EQUIPMENT (don't blame our lack of originality;praise our logic :), which will yield the following screen:
You are using: < used as light> (Glowing) a war banner < worn on body> a sub issue vest < worn on hands> (Glowing) A pair of DM (tm) all purpose newbie gauntlets < worn as shield> a sub issue shield < worn about waist> (Glowing) A DM (tm) all purpose newbie belt < wielded> A DM (tm) all purpose newbie dagger
Now there's some fine equipment, isn't there? Well, ok. It isn't that fine, but at least you don't have to run around naked. You see that you wear pieces of equipment on various parts of your body, but that you don't have all body parts covered yet. To see on which body parts (or rather: wear locations) you can wear something, type EQCHECK:
< used as light> (Glowing) a war banner < worn on finger> Nothing. < worn on finger> Nothing. < worn around neck> Nothing. < worn around neck> Nothing. < worn on body> a sub issue vest < worn on head> Nothing. < worn on legs> Nothing. < worn on feet> Nothing. < worn on hands> (Glowing) A pair of DM (tm) all purpose newbie gauntlets < worn on arms> Nothing. < worn as shield> a sub issue shield < worn about body> Nothing. < worn about waist> (Glowing) A DM (tm) all purpose newbie belt < worn around wrist> Nothing. < worn around wrist> Nothing. < wielded> A DM (tm) all purpose newbie dagger < held> Nothing.
Obviously, you are lacking a lot of equipment, but this doesn't matter really much yet. On
low levels, equipment doesn't give very good bonusses yet, so don't fuss too much about it in
the beginning. Note that you can wear two items on the WRIST, FINGER and the NECK wear location.
You are supposed to have two wrists and a neck that is long enough to hang two items around it.
Ofcourse, DM knows that you have more than 2 fingers, but since not all races have the same amount
of fingers the DM crew decided to give everyone just 2 FINGER slots in order to prevent
discrimination. (No, this isn't the real reason; they were prolly just too lazy to implement
10 finger slots. But then, I tend to mess up my right finger slot with my left one now already,
so I'm just glad there aren't more of them.)
Another thing you might want to know is that the SHIELD and the HOLD location are mutually exclusive.
E.G, if you're wearing a shield, you can't hold something, and vise versa. Ofcourse, you DO have
two hands, but you're supposed to hold a weapon in the other hand. Some classes can learn other
weaponstyles, like fighting with two weapons or fighting with a two-handed weapon. When using
one of these styles, you also can't hold anything or use a shield.
Now there is the matter of spare equipment, and food, and other things you want to carry with you without having to wear them. For this, your character has some sort of a virtual storage room called INVENTORY. You're inventory is supposed to consist of every location where you can store items, like your pockets, the space under your arms, your beard, and whatever. It's a concept that is used often in many role playing games, and just as in these games it's very unrealistic but also pretty handy. I mean, you will be surprised at the incredible amount of items you can carry in this inventory of yours. It is, for example, perfectly possible for a mage to carry 6 swords, 8 pies, a chesterfield sofa, a canoe and a cup of coffee while casting spells and do other things without having to bother about spilling the coffee or cutting himself with the swords. Don't ask how this is possible, just be glad it is possible :). How do you check your inventory? Well, ofcourse, by typing INVENTORY:
You are carrying:
Nothing.
I'll end this paragraph by introducing some other usefull commands concerning your user interface. First, there is ofcourse PROMPT. Your standard prompt is something like this:
< 42hp 95m 100mv>At the moment, it only shows your current hit, mana and movement points. You can alter your prompt by using the PROMPT commando (syntax: PROMPT [whatever you want your prompt to be]). You can change your prompt in anything you want, but it might be usefull to put %h, %m and %v in it, which are respectively you current hit, mana and movement points. Additionaly, you can use the variables %H, %M and %V to show your maximum amount of hit, mana and movement points. An example of a typical prompt is PROMPT
< Dwura: 42/42 95/95 100/100>
Then, there are a few automatic settings which enhance your gameplay. These settings can either
be toggled on or off according to your own desires. You can see these settings by typing AUTO, which
yields the following:
AUTOASSIST: OFF AUTOEXITS: OFF AUTOGOLD: OFF AUTOLOOT: OFF AUTOSAC: OFF AUTOSPLIT: OFF
[Exits: north east south west]
All these commands can be toggled on or of by typing them, e.g. typing AUTOEXITS will toggle AUTOEXITS on, and typing it again will toggle it off again. It is also possible to toggle them all at the same time by typing AUTOALL. After creating a new character, most players start with typing AUTOALL to toggle everything on, and then they type AUTOSAC to toggle AUTOSAC off again.
Last, but not least, there is a toggle command called COMPLETION. With COMPLETION toggled on, you can address items, mobiles and players by typing part of their name in stead of the whole name. For example, by typing KILL g you will attack the first mobile (or player!) in the room with a name that starts with a g. I guess it's clear that you have to be very carefull with this commando, because you easily mess things up. But in general it's very handy indeed.
Now you know who you are, what you're wearing and you have your user interface set up well. It's time to get playing!