Virtual University Access Commands

by Jeff McLaughlin

As the aim of this MUD is to provide various virtual academic facilities we shall use the acronym M.A.U.D. Multiple Academic-User Domain to refer to our MUD variation.

$ telnet carins.cariboo.bc.ca /port=4000

What follows is a brief summary and overview of the most basic of MUD user commands. Please note, you must enter the commands on your keyboard as they are presented in italics.

Once you are connected, you will see a standard MUD welcome screen. You will be prompted to supply a username (one word, minimum 2 characters), a password (minimum six characters), your gender, your real name, and your email address (the latter will be only available the Administrators of the Domain). Your name can be any thing you wish: your real first name (e.g., "Jeff"), a nickname (e.g. "Kane"), or the name of a fictional character (e.g., "Lasher"). Please note: the MUD only allows one instance of each name, thus if you tried to enter the name "Dee" and there already was a registered user with that name, the computer would assume that you two were the same and would ask for "Dee's" password. Since you would not know her password the computer would inform you that your selection was invalid.

Once 'inside' our MAUD you need to learn how to move and communicate. Please note: The best way to learn about the various commands is to experiment on your own. All MUDs promote self-directed learning by providing ample help files. Simply type help topic where 'topic' is the command that you wish to learn. The 'Wizards' (the name given to those who are actually building the virtual space) gently request that new players try to figure out how to use the MUD commands before asking other users for assistance.

The Basic communication commands.

The most important basic communication commands are 'look', 'say', 'tell', 'emote', 'mail', 'post'. So, using the on-line help files you would type help look if you want information on how to look at your surroundings or the objects in the room.

Looking at the environment

MAUDs are a series of interconnected 'rooms' in virtual reality. Instead of images, you will see lines of text on your screen. Text is considered by some, including this author, to be a more efficient means of adapting to a person's power of imagination since it seems to allow individuals to immerse themselves into the MAUD with greater ease. Think of 'look' as blinking; look refreshes your screen; 'look' (or just 'l' for short) tells the computer that you want to see the room you are in, or what a particular object or person looks like. Thus 'l' is useful to remind yourself where you are!

Let's imagine that you are stumble into one of the virtual rooms. You might see something like this:

_________________________________________________________________
You are in a small room. The ceiling is quite low and the air is heavy and stale. A dusty chair and sofa are placed up against one wall.
Obvious exits: north, south
_________________________________________________________________

If you were to type look you would see the room description again. If you were to type look at chair you would be given more information about the chair:

The red chair is well-worn as is evident by the steel spring that juts out of the seat cushion.

The general command 'look at objectname' will work on any object that has been given a more complete description by the programmer. You may also look at all Non-Playing Characters (NPC), and all other users.

Moving across the MAUD

Although moving is not technically a form of communication it remains the most essential MAUD command.

To move around the MAUD all you have to do is type one of the directions or exits that you are supplied with. In the above example the obvious exits are 'north' and 'south'. Thus if you wanted to go north you would simply type north. (NB. all and only compass directions recognize the first letter as equivalent to entering in the whole word, e.g., 'n'='north', s=south, se=southeast). Other obvious exits include: 'down', 'out', 'hallway', 'stairs', etc. Do not use capital letters when entering in a direction or when entering in any command as the computer will not recognize it.

Why are these exits referred to as being 'obvious'? Well, sometimes the programmer might have a NON-obvious exit in the room that are available to those who explore the room further. For example, you may find yourself in a cave and in the cave you see a rope tied to the ceiling. You might want to try and climb rope. Or you may be at a river's edge and the description says that the water looks inviting to those who wish to swim. Here, you might try typing swim rather than choosing an obvious exit. This leads to the next point, namely that MAUDs contain much more than what simply appears on your screen. Many 'rooms' may be 'searched' to discover hidden objects and exits and many of the room items can be manipulated (e.g., open drawer, read sign). It is advised that you read each room for 'hints' as to what it may contain. Indeed it is even possible to converse with some of the NPC as some code allows for the computer to recognize certain words and phrases. (In this way users could carry on a 'conversation' with a virtual Plato, or a Rip Van Winkle). Because the MAUD is a complex and sophisticated environment those who realize that what is possible in real life is possible on the MAUD will be rewarded by a more intimate and interactive experience. The closer you look, the more you will discover!

Returning to the topic of 'moving on the MAUD', once you enter in the exit command you will be moved to a new room and you will be presented with a new description. If there is anyone in the room that you entered they will receive a message telling them that you have entered the room. Anyone in the room you left will receive a message that you have left that room.

Talking on the MUD

There are a variety of ways to communicate on the MUD: say, tell, yell, shout, whisper, emote. As well there are 'chat lines' which are public lines of communication (more on these in a moment), MAUDmailing systems and public bulletin boards.

'say' sends a message to all and only those people in the same room as the sender. If I wanted to say 'hello' I would type:

say Hello there.

By doing this everyone ELSE in the room would see: Kane says: Hello there.

('Kane' is my username on MUDs)

And I would see:
You say: Hello there.

Thus the general command is 'say message' (N.B. the word 'say' may be replaced by the use of a single quotation mark: e.g. 'hello there.)

'tell' sends a private message to a particular person selected by the sender regardless of either person's location on the MUD. If I wanted to tell Labatt (another Administrator on our MUD) that he wrote a nice character description, I would type:

tell labatt You wrote a nice character description!

He would see this message on his screen:
Kane tells you: You wrote a nice character description!

And I would see:
You tell Labatt: You wrote a nice character description!

Labatt would receive this message no matter where he and I were located. We could both be in the same room (and thus even though there may be other people in the same room they would not 'hear' our private conversation) or he could be in his virtual office and I could be in my office.

Thus the general command is: 'tell playername message'.

If the person is not logged in, you will receive a message to that affect.

'shout' sends a message to EVERYONE on the MUD and thus it is to be used with extreme discretion. If I wanted everyone to know that the Kamloops Blazers will win the Memorial Cup in 1995, I would type:

shout The Blazers will win the Cup in '95!
Everyone would see:

Kane shouts: The Blazers will win the Cup in '95!

And I would see:
You shouted: The Blazers will win the Cup in '95!

Thus the general command is 'shout message'

There are also a variety of 'chat' lines available which are similar to 'shouts' in that everyone who is 'on line' will receive your message and yet they also allow for players to turn the chat line off if it becomes too distracting or annoying. If I wanted to ask people how to get to the lecture theatre, I might use the main chat line to pose my question. I would type:

chat Can anyone tell me how to get to the lecture theatre from the main town square?

Everyone (including yourself) who is on the chatline and who has it turned on would see:
Kane <<cha>> Can anyone tell me how to get to the lecture theatre from the main town square?

By simply typing 'chat' with no message after it, one can turn the line on or off.

'emoting' is the expression of a feeling or an action. See help feelings for a complete list of standard emotes. Emoting is central to MUD communication and is one of the most enjoyable and unique aspects of the virtual environment. Emotes are generally only seen by the individuals who are in the same room as the sender, the exception being the ability to emote on the chatlines. If I wanted to smile, I could type:

smile Everyone in the same room would see:
Kane smiles happily.

And I would see:
You smile happily.

Some emotes permit the user to direct them at specific individuals. For example, if another person, (let's say 'Ariana') entered the room I might wish to shake her hand in greeting. I would type:

shake ariana
Ariana would see:
Kane shakes your hand.

Everyone else in the room (remember there is no limit as to the number of people in the same room as you) would see:
Kane shakes Ariana's hand.

And I would see:
You shake Ariana's hand.

If you wanted to make up your own emote you would simply type a colon followed by your message. For example, if I wanted to inform others that I was bored I could type:

: is bored by all this.

Everyone in the room would see:
Kane is bored by all this.

If I had a personal emote that I used quite often I would want to set up an alias for it. Aliases are commands that allow you to use one term to represent a much longer command or message. Let's say I didn't like the standard way of saying goodbye and preferred to use something a bit more colourful. I could type this:

alias bye : bows to the ground and wishes you a fond farewell.

Then every subsequent time I enter the command everyone in the room would see:

Kane bows to the ground and wishes you a fond farewell.

Two other important MUD features that focus on communicating are posting messages on the bulletin boards and sending mail to other players. Let's deal with the latter. Suppose I wanted to send a mail message to Labatt regarding the cute character he created. I would do the following. (NB MUDMAIL is not E-Mail).

mail labatt --I THEN HIT ENTER
I will then see the message:
To: Labatt
Subj: your bunny rabbit --I THEN HIT ENTER

I will then be prompted to enter in my message and to end the message by typing either a single period . or two asterisks ** on a single line by itself at the end of the message.

So, I write:

Dear Labatt: I saw your bunny rabbit character hopping around the mud and when I looked at it I noticed it was described as being 7 metres tall! haha! --I THEN HIT ENTER and then I type:
.

I will then be told that the mail has been successfully sent to Labatt.

Again please note the use of the single . on a line by itself.

To read your own mail, type mail which will numerically list the contents of your personal mailbag, and then type read number where the number is the number corresponding to the mail message you wish to read, e.g. read 3. After reading the message simply type quit, or if you wish to delete the message you just read you type del and then quit.

You may wish to post a note on a bulletin board for everyone to read. This might be a question, a remark, a joke etc...

Type post subject where the subject gives a brief mention of the topic of your posting. You will then be prompted to write your message and then end it with a single . or two **

E.g.

post A lame joke --I THEN HIT ENTER
Two men walk into a bar...the third man ducked. --AS THIS IS THE END OF MY NOTE I THEN HIT ENTER AND TYPE A SINGLE . (OR **) ON A LINE BY ITSELF: .

I will receive the message that the note is posted.

To look at a bulletin board type look at board. You will then be given a numerical listing of the notes that have been posted along with their subjects. To read a note simply type in 'read' and the corresponding number, e.g. read 15.

WARNING: When you are writing a mail message or posting a note, everything that you type will be recorded down. So don't try to also do a 'say' to someone in the room as they won't receive it, instead, it will go in as part of your message!

NB. In fact there is a way to get around this problem: you can type an exclamation before you execute your say command, or your emote command etc. e.g. If I was in the middle of posting a note and someone walked into the room and I wanted to smile at them I would have to type:

!smile
or if I wanted to say 'hi' I would have to type:
!say hi.

The use of the ! can be tricky so be careful.

These are just a few of the basic commands that you need. As stated at the outset, once on the MAUD simply type help topics for a full listing of the available commands (there are approximately 70 commands available to you the user and a few dozen more for coders). Mastering the above commands, exploring the areas and chatting with other users will allow you the opportunity to become comfortable with this admittedly strange environment.

Just keep these few points in mind: You can do anything on a MUD (or our MAUD) that you do in real life (eat, drink, sleep, read, play, work...), except it is all virtual. You must tell the computer what it is that you wish to do and when you do tell the computer what to do, you must make sure you enter the command exactly right or else it will not know what you want.