Advice

Newbie Article - Absolute beginners

This article is intended for those who are starting playing Discworld MUD for the first time ever. My own experience was that other players were very helpful to new players. Hopefully you will find this to be true for you too. I look at this way, you never know how powerful a newbie may become so it is wise to be nice to them while you still have the chance.

Creating a Character

The main Discworld site explains how to start playing, so I'll assume you've made it to the main menu. Press "N" and then enter to create a new character. It doesn't matter if it is upper or lower case. Now you are asked to enter a name. Either enter one yourself or type "G" to go to the name generator menu where you can pick a style and choose a name. Once you have a name, you must choose a password so that nobody else can log on and pretend that they are you. It must be at least six characters long. You will need to type it twice to be sure you did not make a typing mistake. Keep the password safely noted somewhere. Next you get to choose where the capitals appear in your name and finally you decide your gender. Following this the rules appear. Read them and type yes (and press enter) to agree to them. At this point a few advice messages pop up followed by a room description of a cavernous room and some exit descriptions. Congratulations! You now have a character to play the game with. You are in the newbie area and can now earn the right to enter Discworld by completing this area.

Welcome to the Newbie Area

The newbie area consists of about 18 rooms in total (the last time I looked). You are currently standing in the foyer area. This is the hub of the whole place. Most of the other rooms can be reached from here. Only the "Guilds" and "Combat" rooms lead to additional rooms. So, you are never more than two rooms away from the foyer.

To complete the Newbie area you must solve the quest. Unfortunately game rules forbid me from giving out quest information, but that is a good thing. My advice is to ignore the quest at first. Just explore the newbie area and take your time. There are many cool things here. Spend enough time here and you won't enter Discworld itself looking like a total idiot. What do I mean by that? Well, let's try some commands and you'll see how silly you look right now.

Some Commands to get you Started

Type inventory and press enter (note - you can just type i instead if you like, later on you will use a hotkey to get to inventory information and won't need enter at all). This is a list of what you are carrying and wearing. It probably looks like this:

You are unburdened by: Wearing : a sash. Carrying: an information booklet, a voucher, a lightable torch and an ice bucket. Your purse contains 8 Pumpkin dollars and 100 Pumpkin pence.

See any mention of trousers? Pants? Shirt? No. All you are wearing is a sash! Take a look at the sash with look sash. Something written on it, eh? Now try read sash. It is a pleasant message but wandering the Disc wearing only a sash with that written on it is sure to mark you out as a newbie. Don't worry though. As long as you spend your time wisely in the newbie area you can rectify this situation.

Here are some more commands to try while checking out your equipment.

look booklet
read booklet
turn page of booklet (follow this with another read booklet and repeat)
look voucher
read voucher (the word "exchange" is in quotes as it is the command you will need later)
look torch (don't need to light it yet)
hold torch
unhold torch (note - although it says "You put down" it does not mean that you have dropped it)
look bucket
read bucket
get bottle from bucket
look bottle
read bottle
drink bottle (warning - this will make you slightly drunk for a while and probably reduces the sale value of the bottle)
put all in bucket (with the bottle removed, the booklet and voucher will fit. The torch won't fit but there is still room in the bucket for other small items)
get booklet from bucket (this is how to retrieve things from bucket once they have been put in it)

You get the idea I hope. Now try looking at the sign on the wall and reading it. Fair enough. Time to move on to other rooms. First though, use the term mxp command do add a dash more colour to things (or term ansi if you are connected through the "Play now" option from the Discworld MUD site rather than using dedicated client software). Don't worry about how or why it works for now, just trust me on this one.

Exploring the Newbie Area

Here's where people get stuck. Although in most places in the game you can use commands like "north" or "west" they won't work here. The "exits list" at the bottom of the room description (use look to see it again) does not include any exits called "North". You must type the name of an exit to use it. There's one called "align" so type align and you'll go there. From the align room type foyer to return to the familiarity of the foyer.

Here's a guide to the rooms:

foyer - a central hub that connects the rooms of the newbie area
helpme - ignore the books, the signs are the main information points here. Read them for information (for example - read general will read the "general" sign.
communication - posters this time. They explain the various ways to communicate
hints - the whispering voices tell you all sorts of stuff. You can also read the notices. What's that in the room description about something in the corner? Find out for yourself.
guilds - a garden. This leads to a gazebo for each guild. Take the time to enter a few and decide which guild you plan to join.
commerce - a really important one. The room description explains the commands, but basically this is a shop. You can sell your wine bottle and booklet if you wish. The sash has no value and can't be sold. Spend your money wisely here. Browse items before buying them to make sure you get what you want. When you try list to see the shop's stock you will probably need to press enter a few times to scroll through the long list of items. Clothing, weapons and armour can be bought here. Get yourself kitted out and why not remove sash then drop sash and finally bury sash while you are at it. Definitely buy a weapon if nothing else. It is worth noting that if you try to carry too many items you will drop something. Putting small items in the bucket may help. Be sure to wear any clothing or armour that you buy. Also, be sure to hold any weapons bought as they are then ready to use and not cluttering up the general carried items list. If both your hands are empty when you choose to hold something then your character will automatically choose their preferred hand. In this way you can find out if you are left or right handed.
align - pull the lever of your choice to set your alignment to a starting value. You can be good, neutral or evil. This is where you start to develop your character by choosing a personality. Your alignment will change later based on actions. This room is the only place for a "quick fix" alignment change.
advancement - try read notice and you will get a list of the subject covered here. More information. The creature and the ball of yarn are neither important nor dangerous nor useful as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm wrong, check them out.
combat - another really important room. You will need a weapon before coming here. On entering, the fellow in charge will ask if you'd like to try out your skills, say yes and you will be led to one of the training rooms (they are all the same, there are three so that more than one person can train at once). Once inside kill dummy to begin training. If you did the term ansi command earlier then any TM messages will appear in yellow. These are improvements made through practice (the Task Master system - hence TM). Typing skills after training probably won't show up any improvement. This is because you can only see the general skill groups at the moment. Once good enough, you can see the sub-skills (of fighting for example). Rest assured that you are improving these sub-skills through your training. You will see the results later but unless you spend ages here you won't be able to tell for now. The training rooms can be used repeatedly until you are happy with your progress. They are safe too, so it is worth spending some time here.
out - the way out. If you've completed the quest already then go here. If you haven't then try going here anyway and it will hint at what the quest is.

Choosing a Nationality and Entering Discworld

Once you feel ready and have completed the quest you can leave the newbie area. Hopefully you are now armed, clothed, experienced in combat and have chosen a starting alignment. You are also hopefully better informed about the commands and concepts of the game. Once you have chosen the "out" exit you will be on a floating platform above the disc. Nice view.

Read the sign (may need to press enter to scroll it) and consider where you would like to be born. Use the info command to check out your options. You can then narrow down the choice, info agatea gives a description of the country and a list of places within Agatea that you could be from (for example). Investigate these further with info agatea hunghung (again, this is only an example). Once you are sure, replace the info command with choose. To follow the previous example, if I did want to be from Hunghung in Agatea I would choose agatea hunghung. I recommend the city of Ankh Morpork. It has everything.

Congratulations!

You are now (finally) on the Disc itself. Enjoy yourself. If you want any more advice then why not check out some of my other advice articles.

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