Merentha - =| Introduction to Mudding |=

CONNECT & PLAY

Introduction: MUD Intro FAQ; Merentha FAQ; Merentha Law and Rules; About Merentha
Players: Who's Online; Player Directory; Player RL Pictures; Character Sketches; Player Web Links; Artwork and Banners; The Creators
Abilities: Fighter/Rogue Skills; Magical and Faith Spells; Songs
Organizations: Races of Merentha; Classes in Merentha; Kingdoms of Cardania; Guilds of the Land
Misc: Maps of the Lands; Quests and Deeds; Special Events; Tales, Stories and Folklore; Announcements; Links and Affiliates
Coding: Descarte's Textbooks; Petrarch's Tutorial; Merentha MUDlib

Introduction to Mudding FAQs

This is an introductory lesson to those new to MUDs and mudding. However, even experienced users may find some tid bits of information within this page.

If you ever have questions do feel free to ask them online. Your class council is there to help and answer any questions you may have. The commands councils will list who is on the council and the command who council will list all council members currently online.

What is Merentha?
Merentha is a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon, named after an adventure game called Dungeon) set in a fantasy genre simular to what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote of. A MUD is a text-only game that allows people to create, control, and build up player characters to compete and/or ally themselves with computer NPCs (non-player characters) as well as other PCs (player characters) controlled by real life humans in real-time. It does allow for PKs (Player Killing), but with regulations and the dreaded PK flag as a consequence (letting others kill you without penalty).
Basic Plot: Kill things, get equipment to fight better with, and learn new skills and locations. And if you're lucky, every once in a while a 'god' will pity us mere mortals and run a little quest for us all to have fun on.
Fun Part: Yeah, you get to kill things, but unlike boring games where all you do is kill, kill, kill, you actually get to go exploring and get to interact with other real life people. You can also group with people so that you can combine your efforts when fighting. There are also many adventerous quests for you to use your skills at.
How do I get to Merentha?
Well, you can use any ol' Telnet application (Win95 comes with a really generic one), and just TELNET to mud.merentha.com:10000 (merentha.com, port 10000) 70.85.172.155:10000 (70.85.172.155 port 10000).
Some people use a MUD client, MUD clients are available to download from the Connect page. You can also use the Java telnet feature available on that page.
What do I do once I'm connected?
You will first have to choose a fantasy name. a password for your charater, a gender and supply us with your email address (optional for down-time email ect).
Then you will be given choices in the creation of your character. Should you be a human, dwarf, troll, giant or 16 other race choices. What race should you be? This all depends on what you would like to pretend to become. Just make sure that if you're a theif you don't choose to be an orc, or be a warrior that is an elf. You could of course do this, but you want your character class to compliment your race, and vice versa, not working against each other.
I've made my character, now what?
Well now you will be sitting in Cabeiri square, with a crappy weapon and armor no better then rags. If you are new to mudding it would be best to familurize yourself with a few commands. The first thing you should type if faq and read the Frequently Asked Questions. There is also an extensive help system online. Just type help and you're off.
After that the first things you will want to choose a class. A class defines your way of life. There are in total 20 subclasses which let you further define yourself and combine skills from some of the other classes.
Once you have decided on a class and subclass you will need to find the class hall. The easiest way of doing this is asking where it is.
After your class and subclass are all set your next job is to roll stats. As a Merentha adventurer you will have the following stats...
- Strength... How much you can carry, how much battle damage you do.
- Constitution... How much damage you can take.
- Dexterity... How well you avoid and hit your opponent in combat.
- Charisma... How unthreating you appear to others.
- Wisdom... How well you defend againt magic and cast magic.
- Intelligence... How much magic you can cast, damage magic does, as well with memory.
After that you are off and it is time to...
- explore
- upgrade armor
- upgrade weapons
- improve yourself
- have fun doing so
Those will always be your main goals. Better weapons and armor can be found west of where you start. You will have to kill creatures for them, in doing so you will most likely get injured. Not to worry though because the fountain in the square will heal all new players when they drink from it.
Other odds and ends
Now you are all set to fight. If you chose a class with a poorer eyesight level, you will need to use a torch by the time you get to level 2. These can be obtained from shops or other locations.
You are in no danager of comming across monsters that will kill you in 1 round while in the town of Cabeiri or area, the only way out of this area is to fly in a balloon as you will soon find is one of the main transportation methods.
Getting Help
The first thing you want to do is become familiar with the Merentha interface itself. You will aventually fall into habit with many things, and most likely never explore its features again, so you need to have a good look-thru the first time.
Always use "help (topic)" before you ask someone else, and don't use Gods to ask questions, use newbie. I'm more apt to help someone who has tried to find things on their own first, then someone who just blirts out the first question that they can't find an answer to in two seconds.
Public Channels
Understanding of the public channels is key. Newbie and your class channels are the only options until level 6. At level 6 you gain the public channel mid. Other channels are:
Newbie Mid HM Elite Legends All Classes All Kingdoms All Guilds
say tell reply shout yell whisper
Often times a person may be talking to someone who they send a Tell to due to invisibily, remort invis, even Notell. But they can use Reply to talk to them once they get the initial Tell. If you send them a Tell, Reply will no longer go to the person they are using it for, and now to you. Nothing annoys me more than a newbie in the same room sending me a tell wrecking my replies.
Dying
Even dying can be an adventure, a quest if you will (hint hint) If you die you will need to retrieve your corpse and all your inventory on it, or have someone else help you with it. You will need to pray at a monestary before you can rejoin the real world.
Aliases
Aliases are fundamental to doing things quickly, no matter how fast you can type. The best typests can become turtles in battle. But all things you do with an alias you should be able to do without one. For example, I often alias score to sc. You begin with many aliases already. To view your alises type alias. To add an alias type alias sc score and to remove it unalias sc.
Player Killing
Player Killing/Thieving. You should check out the arena around level 10 or so and go a few rounds with someone near your level, and also someone a decent amount higher than you. This way you can see what you class/level can really do, and what other classes can use against you. You get no Killer flags in the arena. You also lose no XP (experience points) and gain none either. A complete waste of time in terms of XP, but as far as keeping your EQ (equipment) and staying alive from PK attacks, it's very necessary.
But the main part here is to understand the flag system. If someone attacks another player, and this person dies, they get a Killer flag, and anyone may kill them with no penalty until they either die, spend time in a jail. Dying with a Killer usually costs one level, and another levels worth of XP. Essentially you'll have to earn two levels back.
One problem is if a spell attack fails and hits another player in the room instead of the Mob (mobile, not plural non-player chars) you're both attacking. If this happens, flee, and send them a Tell explaining what happened. If someone's spell fails and hits you, flee as well. It's not their fault, this just happens sometime. Use the truce command to end combat.
To avoid a PK attempt, you need to have a way to escape the attack quickly. flee just isn't going to cut it, because if they want you dead, they'll just use scan to jump right back on top of you. You need to make peace somehow or get help, or just try to talk it thru, or even quit for the day.
The Arena
All this can be tested with a good friend in the Arena. I say a good friend because a thief can still steal in the Arena. Also, if you are beheaded, you head will have all it's gear still on when you come too.
There are several arenas around the realms. Some of them are locked to only two people at a time, others will let you wander in and out freely.
For more information, read the help files, the faqs, and ask questions on the newbie line.


© Copyright 1996 through 2014 Merentha Entertainment All rights reserved. Images by Alkie and Desespoir