MUSH Survival Guide: MUSH Basics
Chapter 1: Bare Bones Minimum- wherein MUSHing is talked about in comparison to other mediums, and clients are listed.
Chapter 2: How Do I Shot MUSH?- You're here!
Chapter 3: Can I Haz Character Nao?- Wherein you find how to be a good guest, survive the horrors(?) of the application process, and how to construct a well-rounded character for MUSHing purposes.
Chapter 4: Everyone was Kung-Fu Fighting with Lovebeams???- Getting your character ready for our combat system (aka 'csys'), combat RP advice, and other goodies.
Chapter 5: Wait, What's This Thing You Call 'Roleplay'?- Where we discuss the ins and outs of obtaining roleplay and the tricks behind scene-planning.
Chapter 2: How Do I Shot MUSH?
Welcome to Chapter 2. If you're looking at /this/, you should be in the following situation.
1: You should have a telnet client running, and know what that even means.
2: You should have an open connection to Battle Fantasia MUSH running.
3: You should have just typed 'connect guest guest', and a bunch of text should have just scrolled at you.
If this doesn't describe your situation, please go back to Chapter 1 now, or nothing after this will make sense. If you already know what you're doing and would like to skip ahead to that character application business, head over to Chapter 3.
What just happened
Alright, what you just saw was a metric boatload of text. Let's run down what we just saw:
- You'll see, at the very top, the message that you can use the command +g to chat on the Guest Channel.
- You'll probably see things like the OOC lounge coming up twice and you suddenly being ported to another room to the tune of 'There's no place like home...' This is just you being automatically ported into the OOC Lounge, in case the person who used the guest bit before you went into another room.
- Next will be "<Guests> Guest01 (or whatever number you are) has connected." That's you automatically being added to the guest channel.
- Then, finally, you'll see the welcome to Battle Fantasia screen. It will contain a link to the wiki (which you are on now).
The OOC Lounge
Let's look at a sample of what the 'OOC Lounge' looks like.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* OOC Lounge - The Great Cake +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* There is a place visited only in dreams, and forgotten upon awakening. With its glistening, smooth white surface, it looks at first like a vast disk of virgin snow, dropping off into an abyss punctured by twinkling stars. But here there is a strawberry the size of a car, sugar-glazed and standing on its head like a fruit tower. There, a spattering of rainbow sprinkles the size of sausages. The edge of the disk is lined with rampant puffs of cloudlike frosting. This is not a snowy field, but the surface of a most colossal cake. *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Players +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Usagi Tsukino (U|8th) <Sailor Moon> *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Things +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Announcements -- Please 'l announcements'! .*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+--+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*. | Plot Door <P> Plot Rooms | | Quiet Door <Q> Quiet Room - Parfait of Silence | | Meeting Door <M> Meeting Room - Diet of Cookies | '*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+--+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*'
This is a list of the people currently in the room, plus something that falls under 'Things'. For now, let's examine the person in the room...
Usagi Tsukino (U|8th) <Usagi Tsukino>
What does this tell you? First, Usagi Tsukino is this lovely maiden's name. U means she's unaffiliated with any Organization, 8th means she's an 8th grader in school, and the <Usagi Tsukino> in brackets means she's currently in her Base Mode, untransformed, just regular schoolgirl Usagi. If she were transformed into Sailor Moon, it would say <Sailor Moon>! If you could see her color (bright blue), you would know that she's a student at Juuban Public School.
The Plot Door, Quite Door and Meeting Door are examples of exits through which you can 'move' to their destinations (listed on the right), by typing 'p', 'q', or 'm'. You can also type plot, quiet, or meeting, if you enjoy writing words.
Can I do things now?
Now, let's teach you how to hit buttons and influence people! Basic Commands and Other Commands comprise entire lists of this information, as well.
One of the things you should have seen looks sorta like this, right?
<Guests> Guest has connected.
<Guests> is a 'channel'. To you WoW players, it is similar to General, or Trade. To you IRC users, consider it a global IRC room people can choose to listen in on. Depending on when you connected, people may be frantically greeting you or some such enthusiasm. To reply, consider one of the following:
+g Hello!
+g :waves hello!
+g ;'s connection is being a drag!
The difference between these two is pretty slight, and hinges entirely on the presence of that colon. Without the colon, the top line looks like this:
<Guests> Guest says, "Hello!"
And with the colon, the second line looks like this:
<Guests> Guest waves hello!
With the semicolon, the third line will look like this:
<Guests> Guest's connection is being a drag.
The difference between a colon (:) and a semicolon (;) is that a colon inserts a space before what you type, while the semicolon doesn't.
Along the same lines, people in the room will likely be interested in interacting with you as well, and doing so is a fairly simple process as well! Consider one of the following:
"Hello!
:waves hello!
;'s connection is being a drag!
This does precisely the same thing as the previous commands, but only displays it to people in the same 'room' as you. That being, in this case, the OOC lounge. (If you're interested, type 'who' to see who is connected to the MUSH as a whole.)
By the way, I typed 'help' for help, and...
You may have typed in an incorrect command somewhere along the line, and received a message that says:
Huh? (Type "help" for help.)
This message means the MUSH did not understand what you just typed in. As a complete MUSH newbie, I would highly recommend you not attempt to navigate the default help menus. They are coded primarily to teach the PennMUSH coding language, and are a little arcane and obtuse for the first time user.
Instead, for a useful list of notes, type +help. This will give you a menu of commands you can look at. If there's not a +help file for it, you can try help <command>, as, sometimes, it can give you something useful. If everything else fails, just ask. Many who have MUSHed for years sometimes have to ask things constantly, like the person writing this specific part.
We'll be explaining enough here as well to get you going, fear not!
Advanced Communication Techniques
Paging
During the course of your guesthood, you may find that 'say' and 'pose' just don't have the functionality you want and desire. For instance; private communication between two or more people. Try the following command, with our completely randomly picked brave, heroic friend, Makoto Kino:
page Makoto=Hello! or page Makoto=:waves hello!
Just like say, pose, and the channel commands, this will alternate between:
You page Makoto Kino with 'Hello!
Long distance to Makoto Kino: Guest waves hello!
This can only be seen by the intended target of the page. If you are solely paging one person at a time, you only need to indicate their name once. For instance:
page Makoto=Hey!
page Hey, are you listening to me?
page :prods until you awaken.
This will continue to send to Makoto Kino until you specify another person. A word of advice, though; The MUSH recalls who you last paged on a character-basis. This means that if you disconnect, and reconnect, it is highly suggested you specify a target on your first page, or you might accidentally be talking to the wrong person!
Now, when you get incoming pages, for instance:
Makoto Kino (Makoto) pages: What's up?
You'll notice the word (Makoto) in brackets. This is an 'alias', which effectively just means you can type 'page Makoto' instead of 'page "Makoto Kino"' which is just a pain in the neck. Most people on the MUSH--including you, incidentally, right now--have aliases set for easier paging.
Global Bulletin Board
---------------- Unread Postings on the Global Bulletin Board ---------------- Public (#1): 13 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) Announcements (#2): 26 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26) Character Announcements (#3): 2 unread (1, 2) Scene Announcements (#4): 11 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) Vacations (#6): 13 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) Suggestions (#7): 6 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) Code Updates (#8): 2 unread (1, 2) Daily Spotlight (#9): 8 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) IC News (#10): 15 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) IC Rumors (#11): 35 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35) Cutscenes (#12): 5 unread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) --------------------------- BBS at 13.3\% capacity ---------------------------
Now, what the heck did any of that mean?
What you just saw there is an example of what the Global Bulletin Board, or 'bboard' of the MUSH, might look like when you connect. As a guest, the MUSH assumes you haven't read a single post, so will show you every post on the board. Let's read a post now. Try the following, in order!
+bbread 1
Might give you something like...
==============================================================================
**** Public ****
Message Posted By
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/1 T Madoka PSP SQQ Save Sat Oct 24 Miyu Greer
1/2 U Regarding Myself Sat Oct 24 Yukino Kikukawa
1/3 U Re:scene Mon Oct 26 Tomoyo Daidoji
1/4 U Re: Demon Artist Thu Oct 29 Touga Kiryuu
1/5 U Endorsing Laziness Thu Oct 29 Mamoru Chiba
1/6 U Plotting the Downfall of the MUSH Fri Oct 30 Ikuto Tsukiyomi
1/7 U To Our New MUSHers Sat Oct 31 Michiru Kaioh
1/8 U MUSH Newbie Questions Part 1 Sun Nov 01 Pink Moon Stick
1/9 U MUSH Newbie Questions Part 2 Sun Nov 01 Pink Moon Stick
1/10 U MUSH Newbie Questions Part 3 Sun Nov 01 Pink Moon Stick
==============================================================================
+bbread 1/1
Will get you the first post of the first forum, which in this case is...
=================================== Public =================================== Message: 1/1 Posted Author Madoka PSP SQQ Save Sat Oct 24 Miyu Greer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If anybody wants a save with a level 28 main with the 500k moneys and the ect. basically required to do a thanatos run for the snow queen quest, send me a calls. You'll have to use the 0003 number to get it to work in the folder you put it in. ==============================================================================
Similarly, you can use +bbread 2/1 to read the first post of the second forum, or +bbread 2/2 to read the second post of the second forum, or any combination of boards. Of course, the exact posts you see will probably differ when you use the command; Posts are automatically trimmed fairly quickly on the bboards of MUSHes.
Of course, you may now ask yourself, "Do I need to manually type the board number each time just to go to the next message?!" Fear not, fair visitor to the Great Cake. +bbnext is here to save the day. Just keep hitting that in, and it will automatically go to the next message in all the boards you have access to. Read each one before you type the next one, since if you +bbnext too quickly, you might get a repeat since the game hasn't had time to mark it as read. (Don't be alarmed if that happens, just wait one second, then keep +bbnexting until you get what you want.)
However, your next question may be "But... will I have to do that when I get a character just to get that wad of text to go away?!" For this, you have +bbcatchup all. This will get rid of all the message notifications.
So, why deal with the message board at all? The message board is an important resource for tip-offs that a future scene will occur, what time it will occur, and what might be going on there. It also has IC (In Character) news, IC rumors, OOC observations, OOC links to weird youtube links of babies doing the cancan- ER. Yes. It's a valuable resource. Thus, when you get your character, read it. Love it. Make use of it.
Anyway, to move on to this weird thing called character application process, proceed to Chapter 3!
Special thanks to Alice and Trish of Persona MUSH for this guide!
