Commands. The whole concept of the MUD revolves around them, so the prospect of learning a plethora of unimaginably complex phrases is slightly daunting. The thing is, the essential commands aren't complex at all. They're actually quite simple...so let's get started.

Most...in fact, all of the commands on the Disc DO NOT USE PREPOSITIONS. What I mean is, in English class, you would obviously write "Jane looks at the cow" (and thinks how alike they both look), because your teacher would not have it any other way. In the MUD, however, the creators have thankfully decided to dispense of prepositions and make the command a much simpler "look cow". It's the same for everything - all the unnecessary words are omitted. If you read on, we'll look at a few of the most basic and most important commands.

SYNTAX

In my opinion, this is the most important command, because it applies to every single command in the MUD. Syntax basically checks how you would use a command, which is especially useful for those who aren't sure of their basic commands just yet.

Admittedly, sometimes syntaxes can cause even more confusion, and can elicit frustration in even the most experienced players; however, having said this, if you follow the syntax exactly, you shouldn't have a problem with it. For an example of how annoying syntaxes can be, have a look at this case, where I was trying to pour some milk from a bucket into a barrel...words in bold are what I typed, and words in normal font are what the MUD responded with. I must concede that all this was perhaps my fault - I was quite an old player when this happened and I figured I was above checking syntaxes, which was quite presumptuous of me, really...

MOVING AROUND

Another incredibly important part of Disc Knowledge. Without it, you will be stagnating in the Newbie foyer for a very long time. It's simple, really. Typing "look" will give you the obvious exits in green, and all you have to do is type those exits and press enter. No worries. Don't ever bother about typing the whole word - "north", "northeast" etc - you will hurt yourself out of frustration after about 20 minutes. Just take "n" for north, "nw" for northwest, etc. In the newbie area, the exits are the names of the rooms - align, commerce etc - but in the 'real' Disc, you won't be so lucky :) (Something you should also know - don't use upper case on the MUD. It's not required, and commands typed in uppercase are ignored and not understood)

Sometimes, however, there are exits that are not obvious, and can only be found with prior knowledge or by searching the area. Sometimes you come across an exit marked as "enter door" - these are portals opened by our esteemed Disc Wizards, and unless you know where they go, they should generally be avoided. If, however, you don't mind ending up in some unknown realm of the Disc, go right ahead and type "enter door" to enter it. *ponders* Hmm it just occurred to me...I've never tried this, but maybe "look enter door" would show you what's through the door....I'll have to remember to try it...

There are other ways to travel around too. Portals, I've mentioned, are applicable only to wizards, and are probably their most distinguishing characteristic. Passaging (by earth or air) is done by priests, and is usually a lot less reliable than portals due to many of the Gods on the Disc ignoring their followers half the time; however, I don't know much about wizadry, so maybe their portals are just as unreliable. From what I've seen, though, portals seem to be a lot better than passaging. Witches have access to broomsticks (naturally), which can fly to any location or person, as long as the person is not inside. I've heard a few stories about people having difficulty refuelling their broomstick...any witchy help would be appreciated here :) Just mail me or something. These are the only three guilds which have access to their own modes of transport. Warriors, Thieves and Assassins have to hike it on foot. Or...

Carriages. Infamous for their tardiness, and are often the source of many players' misery on the disc, due to their long LONG waiting time periods - they arrive at Ankh "every hour on the half hour". The annoying thing is that most people do need carriages to travel out of Ankh Morpork, because walking on foot to places like Lancre, Ramtops, and even Ohulan Cutash just asks for trouble from wolves and evil trolls. There are also carriages within Ankh itself, but those are for the lazy :) The carriage to other towns stops at the crossroads between Street of Small Gods and Turnwise(?) Broadway. Could be Widdershins, actually. I don't know, street names mean less than nothing to me.

At first, you will probably need a map handy to find your way around. A good site for this is, of course, the Discworld page itself, or www.paul-thomas.co.uk, which is equally good. What I did when I was a newbie, and I still do this now with places I'm unfamiliar with, like KLK, was keep one browser window open for my map, and one for my MUD client, that way you can flick between them without having to mess around with going back to the page. Sounds obvious, right? You wouldn't believe how many people I've had to tell this to. After a while, though, it becomes pretty much lodged in your head, and you'll be able to do without your map :)

COMMUNICATION

Another basic essential. This one is especially important because it allows you to talk to other players or on the Newbie channel and get help. Which is always useful, if you're less than two days old. Here are the basic communication commands - take note of the "newbie" command, which allows you to talk on the newbie channel, a channel especially for newbies (hence, newbie channel...i think i'm going around in circles...) :(

DOING THINGS

This section is about affecting your surroundings - picking things up, opening doors etc. It's only a general guide to the most basic commands, and from there you'll be able to understand more about using commands on the Disc.

The most important command is the inventory command, or "i" for short, which lets you see what you're carrying/wearing at the moment. You can only carry a certain amount of things, I think it's twenty. The MUD makes no distinction between a feather and an iron safe - both count as one item and the only difference it makes is adding to how burdened you are. A common way to get around this 20-item limit is to get a backpack. That way, it only counts as one item in your inventory, and you can put most of your stuff into it. 'Inventory' will become one of your most regularly used commands.

For a newbie, one of the more important commands is search, which enables you to (duh) search the room you're in. Just typing "search" will get you through, however, when doing certain quests, you may be required to specify the area you're searching, for example, "search reeds" or "search corner" or "search shelves". The search command is also pretty useful for disturbing rats and cockroaches out from their hiding places (when you're a newbie, all you're going to be able to kill is rats and cockroaches, and it gets quite irritating when there are never any around). Most of the time when I deign to search around a bit, I usually end up making myself richer by One Whole Penny. Yep, just two trillion more of those pennies and I'll be a millionnaire. My point is, most of the time you'll end up picking pennies from the ground, and if you search around too often, you'll discover rubbish, which will make you reek for about ten minutes. However, having said that, I've found a katana in excellent condition lying around on the ground before, and even a Grflx scale once, although it was in atrocious condition. I guess it depends on your luck :) When you're a newbie, basically all you can do is search around and hope to find something expensive to sell for money. I suggest when you're moving around from place to place, just stop by to search around a bit. But if you're still doing this and you're not less than one day old, GET A GRIP!

To hold something, type hold [something]. No one has to be a genius to figure that out; however, I've had many many people ask me how to put down things, and the command for this is slightly less obvious - unhold [something] - not obvious because it's not really proper english...:) You can only hold two things, because you only have two hands. Duh.

On your wanderings throughout the Disc, you will regularly notice things lying around on the ground. Some, you will find, are utterly useless, such as "an incredibly stupid-looking jester costume", to name one of the examples that leap very quickly to mind. Others can sell for a bit of cash, depending on what it is and what condition it's in. To pick it up, type get [item]. And if you find out, after picking it up and looking at it, that it's utterly useless, drop it by typing drop [item].

Inevitably, you will see a room description which asks you to read a sign. Any signs/posters that are mentioned in the room description are usually instructions or help of sort, so you should take note of them by typing read sign.

Is that it? I think I've covered the basics...however, if you find something missing that you think a newbie needs, mail me.

FIGHTING

The only way to kill things on the Disc. And before any of you experienced MUDders say anything, YES magic and faith offensive rituals DO count as fighting. And so does inhuming. Anyway. The syntax for fighting is straightforward - attack [person] or kill [person]. It doesn't necessarily have to be a person, though. You can kill pretty much anyone on the Disc, but I'll go through the exceptions in some other section, probably under Stuff if you're that interested. The other command that always, or should always go hand in hand with fighting is consider [person] or con [person] - this tells you whether you're good enough to fight them. As a general rule, people who are "much weaker", "easy targets" or "weaker" than you are safe to attack; people who are "slightly weaker", "slightly tougher" or "equal to you" are a little less safe but still all right if you're careful and have a lot of health points, and people who do not fall into those categories should not be attacked unless you have a death wish.

The range of fighting ability I've seen on the Disc is quite amazing. For example, I've seen a few deadly characters walking around delivering one or two blows of their weapon and killing people who I would be "utterly insane to attack". And I've seen a few *ahem* less deadly characters hacking away for 45 minutes at a rat. It all depends, and as a newbie, don't expect to be a brilliant fighter at once. Life doesn't work that way, and neither does virtual life. Some things just aren't meant to be...

I think that's pretty much it. Most of the nitty details will be discovered later, but as long as you have these basics, Disc life will become a lot more survivable :)