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Before you use MUD Mage, you should first understand MUDs.
What is a MUD?Some people have defined MUDs as
MUDs tend to have very complex interactions. Other players communicate with you, adventure with you, seek you out for assassination, trade goods with you, and do almost anything imaginable within the limits of their role-play. The better MUDs have a loose storyline in which the players role-play, but many MUDs are simple hack-and-slash variety. Every MUD is different in terms of its feel and how players may interact. What are some common MUD commands?
Generally, a player may enter the command "help command" (replacing command with the command in question) to learn its use. Movement Movement commands are simple: enter the direction of movement. Exits displays the visible directions the player may move. Recall sends the player back to the temple of his hometown. Groups Group commands allow greater levels of interaction through the formation of groups that travel as one around the land. A single leader is chosen, and other group members must follow him to be part of the group. Groups fight together, share experiences, and share money. Objects Objects in a MUD may be manipulated in a variety of ways, including consuming, unlocking, brandishing, and selling. Not all objects may be carried around. Many times an object's true power can only be unleashed if the right event occurs (like chanting a magic word to the room). One nice feature is the "compare" command, for determining which of a pair of similar items is stronger. Communication Communication is the most important aspect of a MUD. A player may direct conversation to his group, to a room, to an entire area, or privately. If you sit in a major town long enough, you may hear someone seeking bids for his items in an auction. Combat Many people play MUDs so they can kill other characters and NPCs. Most commands in a MUD are dedicated to the skills and spells used in combat. The basic commands are "kill" and "murder", but a character's class will always substantially increase the number of ways to do damage to others. Warriors generally bash, dirt kick, and trip. Thieves hide, sneak, and backstab. Mages cast deadly spells, zap wands, and brandish magical staves. Why use MUD Mage?Commands Those who prevail in MUD playing, particularly in player killing, are those who can type swiftly. Some MUDs offer a limited number (about five) of "aliases" to replace long commands. MUD Mage allows players to make use of triggers, hotkeys, and aliases to reduce the time it would normally take to send enough commands. Hotkeys One very useful but shady technique is spamming attacks. It is most effectively performed with initiation commands such as "murder" or "backstab". Since combat commands cause a certain amount of lag, it is best to spam commands that will not cause lag during the spamming and in the middle of combat. This is very effectively performed with MUD Mage's hotkeys. Aliases MUD Mage's aliases allow useful shortcuts. Especially useful is renaming odd characters. For example, if you are hunting someone who cleverly named himself Hzhgrachliyhn, you could defeat his name evasion attempt with an alias as simple as "h" and send a command like "bash h". Triggers Triggers are the most dangerous form of shortcut. They execute commands without the player having any control over them except careful design. The only triggers I use on a regular basis are
View MUD Mage's interface is easy: the MUD is displayed in the large central area of the client and is sandwiched by a simple menu bar at the top and the command line at the bottom. Command Line Command lines that are separated from a MUD's text are easier to read and follow; regular telnet sessions split commands as events occur, causing the player confusion. MUD Mage's command line keeps track of recent unique commands, and it allows only one line to be sent a time. I have heard the suggestion that multiple lines of text should be allowed in a command; this actually causes problems such as data overflow and bad word wrapping. A standard terminal screen is 80 characters wide, but MUD Mage offers a command length of 255 characters. Numeric Keypad The numeric keypad is automatically set up to accept directional movement. North, south, east, west, up, and down movement requires a single, easy, intuitive press of a number key in that direction. The keys may be redefined like regular hotkeys to include commands like "where pk" and "hide". Multiple Sessions Some MUD clients offer multiple windows for playing more than one MUD at a time. Players who split their concentration like this tend to find that their characters die easily in a combat situation. MUD Mage concentrates its power on a single MUD. It will, however, allow multiple copies of itself to be run at the same time for people who insist upon playing multiple MUDs. Information Systems MUD Mage does more than improve command speed and look good.
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