Command Basics
Whenever you see a command specified, you may see quotes around it, like this: '+help'. When that happens, do not type the quotation marks. Only type what's inside them.
When a piece of information must be supplied by you, it's called an 'argument'. Arguments are usually set off by <>-signs. What's inside the <>-signs tells you what information you need to put there. For example: '+look <thing>' tells you that you need to replace <thing> by the name of what you want to look at. For example, 'look sign'.
Finally, items contained in square brackets are considered optional. For example: 'look [<item>]' tells you that you may choose to specify <item> or not specify it, depending on what you want to do.
The MUSH supports ANSI color, which will make it much easier to read command formats and just about everything. Type '+ansi on' to turn on ANSI color. If it creates problems for you, type '+ansi off' to turn it back off.
Objects
What is an object? On a MUSH, everything. Players are objects. Guns are objects. Rooms are objects. Exits (which move you between rooms) are objects. Even the core, fundamental code of the game is held on objects.
There are four 'types' of objects: players, room, exits, and things. Players are people logged into the game. Rooms are locations you can stand in and interact. Exits are gateways between rooms, and enable you to move from place to place. Things are everything else.
Each object in the game has two ways of referring to it: its dbref and its name. A dbref is a pound-sign (#) followed by a number (#169), and is a sure-fire way to refer to something if you know the dbref. In most cases, though, you don't, so you have to use the name.
When you specify a name, you can type the whole name, or just enough of one to make it 'unique'. That is, you have to specify enough of the name that the game knows, for sure, which object you're referring to. It checks things you're carrying and things around you. When you're dealing with 'players', it checks the entire game.
Looking At Things
Examining the world around you is an important part of the game. The basic command to see something's text description is 'look'. There are two forms of this command:
look
look <object>
The first form shows the description of the room you are in — or the thing. It shows, in other words, what 'where you are' looks like. It'll also show a list of 'Contents' and 'Obvious exits'. Contents are other objects in the same room. Obvious exits are portals to other rooms. If there are no contents, then that section won't be displayed. Likewise, if there are no exits, then none will be displayed.
The second form lets you look at a specific object or exit. If you see something called, "Sign" then you can type 'look sign' to see its description (which should tell you what the sign says).
Moving Around: Exits
A exit is a portal from one room to another. The way you go through an exit is to type either its name, or the 'shortcut' which will be shown in <>-signs. For example, if you see
Obvious exits:
Bar <B> Out <O>
when you enter a room, then you can type 'Out' or 'o' to go 'out', or 'bar' or 'b' to enter the bar. Pretty simple.
Some exits may be visible, but may not permit you to go through them (i.e. they may be locked). If that's the case, they should show a reason why you can't when you try to. Also note that just because an exit is not locked, does not necessarily mean you could, in character, pass through it. Some level of judgement is required.
Substitutions (Advanced Feature)
Since MUSH is based so heavily on the notion that one line equals one command, action, or pose, it also provides the notion of 'substitutions' that you can insert into text in order to cause line breaks, tabs, spaces, or other nifty effects. Further information can be found in 'help substitutions'. All substitutions begin with a percent-sign, or is enclosed in square brackets. For 'two' instances, simply put them together (e.g. %r%r).
Substitution Description
%r Inserts a line-break.
%t Inserts a tab or indent.
%b Inserts a space (more than one normal space usually is
compressed to a single space).
%N Replaced with your name.
%% Replaced with a 'real' percent sign.
[space(<x>)] Replaced with <x> number of spaces.
Certain characters ( \,([{}]) ) may be interpreted oddly by the game. In order to display them properly you may need a percent sign put before them.
When in doubt, think.
If you're not sure you have the formatting right, you can type 'think' in front of your command; this will echo back what you've typed as interpreted by the MUSH. It's an excellent way to catch command sequence errors.
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