The Easy Book of Building
Welcome to the Easy Book of Building, which is by no means
a full explanation of all the commands it uses but should be sufficient
to give anyone a head start in creating a basic apartment, some doors,
and some furniture. You can view pages on the following processes:
We'll start with a "floating" room, one that's not connected to the actual
surface of the MUCK in any way. (This isn't bad, it's just not as easy for
others to find your stuff! We'll talk about getting you linked in a moment.)
Stand anywhere on the MUCK you like, and type the following:
@dig <roomname> (creates a room named [roomname];
costs 10 pennies)
> > This will return '<roomname> created with number #(a db#)'.
Remember the #!
You can name your room anything you like, and may use spaces in the name. The
room you have created is floating in space; there's no 'door' out here to get
to it. Now you have to *make* a door, for yourself, that only you can use,
that will "follow" you everywhere so you can enter your room no matter where
you are. To make this door, type:
@act <exitname>=me (creates an exit *attached* to you, called <exitname>)
@link <exitname>=#(db# of your room) (links the door to that room)
For example: You start out by typing:
@dig Bedroom
The MUCK returns: Bedroom created with room number #2176
You then type:
@act gobedroom=me
@link gobedroom=#2176
Now you have a bedroom, and a link to it!
We'll assume at this point you have one room, and a way to get to it. We'll
also assume, for good measure, that you're standing in your room--your bedroom,
to continue the example from the last page. You would like to make a closet
to put all your future possessions in, and we're going to make that now by
creating a second room, to be the closet, and exits in and out of the closet
so that you can get into it and get your stuff. Here goes:
Standing in your bedroom, type: @dig Closet (creates a room called
Closet).
The MUCK will, again, return a database # as it makes your room: keep it!
Then we're going to use the program @backlink to make both the in and the out
exits from the closet at once, by typing:
@backlink (C)loset;c;closet;w;west=#1234,(O)ut;o;out;bedroom;b;e;east
(This is in the form '@backlink <"in" exit>=#<db# of other
room>=<"out" exit> Note: on some MU*, @open works the same way
as @backlink.)
Now you have two rooms. Standing in the bedroom, you can type 'c', 'closet',
'w', or 'west'--any of the "in" exit's names--to get into the closet, and from
the closet, you can type 'out', 'o', 'b', or 'bedroom' to escape. (That
'(C)loset' name is special, for use with Obvious Exits.) See The Book of Exits for more help on what exits
can do.
Of course, now you have two empty rooms, with 'nothing special' in them.
This is no fun, especially at parties, and you need to @describe them, so other
players can see what they look like! There are several ways to do this.
- Simply typing '@desc here=A big room with a bed in it and a door to
the closet to the west.' will describe the room with whatever text you
put after the = sign. This kind of desc can be only a certain length
(about ten screen lines long, if your screen is 80 characters wide).
- You can type '@desc here=@$desc .....' and then a number of
different things. Type '@view $desc' to see what you can do here.
- You can use the lseditor to write long descriptions for your rooms,
and have the list-descriptions appear with '@desc
here={list:<listname>}'. To get help on the lseditor, type 'lsedit
here=desc' while standing in your room, and then type .h and hit return.
The syntax for lsediting a list on one of your rooms is 'lsedit
here=<listname>'. <listname> can be any string you like.
'Here' can be replaced with any object name or
number, and "me" if you want to edit a list on yourself.
- You can type 'editroom' while standing in your room. It is the
second easiest way to describe a room, and it allows you to edit other
properties as well. You can only 'editroom' a room that you own.
Now we have two described rooms, and exits that take you between them; but
the exits don't say anything fun when you move between the rooms. It's almost
as if you get teleported from closet to bedroom and back by magic, and you'd
rather people thought you were opening the door. So let's edit that "in" exit
to the closet, shall we? and make people think we're opening a door.
(Remember that the "in" exit was called (C)loset;c;closet;w;west)
Standing in your bedroom, type:
@succ c=You open the door to the closet and walk in.
@osucc c=opens the door to the closet and walks in.
@odrop c=comes into the closet from the bedroom, closing the door behind %o.
To explain: The 'c' is part of the name of the exit whose properties you
are modifying. You could have easily typed '@succ w=<text>', or
'@succ west=<text>', etc. The @succ message is what you see
when you go into the closet. The @osucc message is what other people in
the bedroom see when you go into the closet. The @odrop message is what
people in the closet see when you come in from the bedroom.
The '%o' in the @odrop message will stand for 'him, her, or it', depending on
the 'sex' property of the user (male or female). You can use these "%subs"
in any exit @message (@succ, @osucc, @drop, @odrop, @fail,
@ofail).
For the translations of *all* the %subs, type 'help substitutions'.
Yes, furniture, the fruit of the gods...or at least the leather lounge chairs
of the gods. You have a bedroom and a closet, and nothing to sit down on or
sleep on! Well, here's a crash course in creating objects. You want a huge
leather hot dog bun for a couch? Type:
@create Leather hot dog bun couch
@lock hot dog bun=me
@link hot dog bun=here
This creates a couch, locks it so that only you can take it or pick it up, and
links it to the room so that it will always end up here if it gets swept. (The
last two steps are important. Do not leave them out.)
Names of objects can be several lines long; they can have spaces, and
punctuation; and the describing of objects is the same as for rooms (and
exits! and players, too!)--see @Descriptions,
@Descriptions, @Descriptions, and please note that there is
now an editobject program, which will allow you to edit object
descriptions, @messages, and other properties.
Remember to type 'drop hot dog bun' so you're not carrying your couch around
with you, and so people can see it! To customise your bun, see the next
page.
To give your hot dog bun couch (or your bed, or your candlestick, or your
Led Zepplin CD, or any other object) some personality, you can give it some
extra properties to make it seem more real.
Examples for our leather hot dog bun:
@succ hot dog bun=You slowly lift the enormous hot dog bun.
@osucc hot dog bun=slowly lifts the enormous hot dog bun.
@drop hot dog bun=You drop the leather hot dog bun on your foot. OUCH!
@odrop hot dog bun=drops the leather hot dog bun on %p foot. OUCH!
@fail hot dog bun=You utterly fail to lift the leather hot dog bun!
@ofail hot dog bun=utterly fails to lift the leather hot dog bun!
The @fail and @ofail messages are what you and others see, respectively, when
you try, and fail, to pick up the leather hot dog bun. @succ, @osucc, @drop,
and @odrop are explained in the Customising those dratted
exits! page, or you can type 'help strings', 'help
<@message>', 'help success' or 'help failure'.
Another note: To make someone fail to lift the hot dog bun, you
must @lock the hot dog bun against being picked up by that person. You
did that when you made the bun, when you typed '@lock hot dog bun=me':
only you can lift your hot dog bun. To find out how to change the lock,
type 'help @lock'.
You have many options available to correct those tiny errors in building you
might make. If you accidentally gave an object--any type of object--the wrong
name when you created it, you can rename it as many times as you like,
with:
@name <old name of object> = <new name of object>
If you linked an exit to the wrong room, simply type:
@relink <name of exit> = #<the database number of the
new destination room>
If you gave an object the wrong description, or want to change the description
you put on the object, you can simply describe over the old description with
the @desc command ('help @desc').
If you have TinyFugue (a client program which cleans up the information your
computer receives from raw Telnet), you can use the 'edit' command to change
properties on anything you own quickly and easily. Type 'edit' to see how
to set TinyFugue up to do this.
If you've done something so bad you don't want to mess with it anymore, or
if you created something you really don't need, see the
next page on how to @recycle unwanted possessions.
When people create a lot of objects, the MUCK has to work harder to remember
them all. This creates lag, which nobody likes. If you have objects that you
don't use anymore or don't want, you should @recycle them, so that the MUCK
will run faster and you won't fill out your @quota as fast. You can
@recycle anything that you own, except yourself.
- To recycle an OBJECT (The hot dog bun couch): pick the object up,
and then type: @recycle <objectname>
- To recycle an EXIT ((C)loset;c;closet): stand in the room where the
exit is, and type: @recycle <exitname>
- To recycle a ROOM (Bedroom): make sure everything you're holding is
@linked to you (type '@link <object>=me' to be sure). Stand in the
room you want to @recycle, and type: @recycle here You will
be swept to your home as the room is destroyed--everything you're
carrying will be sent to its home, unless it is @linked to you.
- Recycling programs is the same as recycling objects. The recycling
of a player is called '@toading', and it removes the player and
everything he or she created from the database permanently. @recycling
is also permanent, and once you @recycle something you can never get it back.
There are a lot of little tricks involved with building that you either have
to learn by yourself or just guess at. To help you along, I've listed some of
them here and on the following pages; if you have one to add, please send
email to muck@soappuppy.com.
- You must use underscores _ in place of spaces in a player's name,
but rooms, objects, and exits may have any number of words in their names.
Programs are named like DOS files: DriveTo.muf con-announce.muf Window.muf
- Exits are the only type of object which can be referred to by
more than one name. The names of an exit are separated by semicolons ;
and the exit can be triggered by any one of them.
- No names on a MUCK are case-sensitive. That is, if you have
something called MEAT, you can call it Meat, meAT, mEat, or meat, as
well. This works for all types of object: players, exits, objects,
programs, and rooms. (Type 'help types'.)
- Just as names are not case-sensitive, you do not need to type the
entire name, either, for your command to work. You just need to
type enough of it to be specific. For example, if you've named an object
'The Thirty Foot Walrus of the Ridiculously Large Cathedral Thingy', you
need only refer to it as 'thirty foot walrus', or even 'the thirty', in
general, for the MUCK to recognise what you're after.
- There are often help files hidden at the beginnings of programs. Try
typing '@list #<program db number>=1-12' to see if there's one there.
- The commands 'tidbits', 'commands', 'globals', 'programs', and
'plib' on FurToonia are there to help you find database numbers of
useful programs, the exact way to create a zombie or good flags to set
on yourself if you're just starting out.
- NEVER, EVER, EVER, *EVER* leave ANYTHING set with the C (chown_ok)
flag unless you NEVER WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN. People will wander by and
take things that are left set c, @chown the objects to themselves and
destroy them. It has happened before--and it will happen again.