Shattered Kingdoms

Wow. I can't believe how helpful and friendly you all have been! Thank you so much for making me feel welcome (and not silly!)!

I plan to stay at the school for a long while, so I can become familiar and comfortable before venturing into the big, scary world.

I found SK through the Top MUD site forum. Someone head recommended it previously to a newbie MUDder (MUDite?), so I checked out the SK site and fell in love with the Lore and vast, helpful knowledge that I found.

As for my former MMORPG's...I played EQ for four years, and City of Heroes for two, although I did only RP in CoH. This will be my first time roleplaying in a fantasy setting. I'm a little scared I'll mess up, but I love to RP and love to try new things, and I'm pretty confident I can hold my own.


I'll remember about the mentor command. I did read that I could use it, but was worried about bothering someone while they were playing. Now that I know most wouldn't mind helping, I'll be sure to put those worries aside.

Thank you all again for the help and hints! I'm sure you'll be hearing from me again soon!


~Kalla

Just fyi because I find this helps out a lot of newbies - when you want to do something, try typing in 'do this'. this command format works almost all the time.

Examples:
get sword
wear sword

get bread sack
eat bread

fill waterskin
drink waterskin

kill 'person'
cast 'spell' 'person'

when in serious doubt, typing help 'verb' will usually bring up a list of what that verb does.

Example:

New questions!

I have found the East Wing, and am now battling!

Question One: How do I cast spells on myself? "cast <spell> <my name>"?

Two: How much can I carry in my inventory? I keep picking things up off the floor. You never know when you might need a practice arrow, right?

Three: Where can I put the things I don't want to carry on me? Are there banks?

Four: How do I earn money? I assume by defeating my opponents? (Which I have done once so far, and was rewarded for. Was I given money as the reward?)


Again, thank you all so much for the help!


~Kalla

Well, I'll try to help out.

Question one: spells will automatically cast on you unless otherwise directed. So, if you want to cast say armor you would type c armor. But if you want to cast a spell that has two words in the name, let's say cure light, you will have to type c 'cure light'. The apostrophes tell the mud that both words are in the name of the spell, otherwise the mud only recognizes the first word. But before you can cast spells you have to learn spells. To see what spells you can learn type in spell. It lists your spells and at what levels you can learn them. To learn spells you will need experience and money. To keep track of experience the score command is helpful. Once you have some experience and money (both of which you get from killing NPCs) walk around the newb school and type in train in rooms where there are NPCs. A list will appear if they can train you. Then type in train armor (or whatever) until they can't teach you anymore (or until you run out of experience or money).

Question two: How much you can carry in your inventory depends on you dexterity and strength. You dexterity will determine the amount of items you can carry in your inventory, strength will determine how much weight you can carry. You can find this out by typing in score. For example: Carrying: 2/14 items Load: 49.4/126.0 pounds. Jada is carrying 2 out of 14 possible items, and 49.4 lb out of 126 lb. Now if you have a container you can put stuff in it. For example your lunch sack is a container. You start out with 5 pieces of bread in it. But it only the sack counts against the you inventory slot. So containers will help you carry more stuff. Helpful hint once you get out in the real world: some armor items are containers. Easy way to tell is typing l in whatever. If it's a container it will say nothing, if it's not it will say "so and so is not a container". To put everything in a container type in put all name-of-container. This will put as much of your inventory that will fit into said container. To get stuff from the container: get item container-name.

Question three: There are banks, but they do not take items. As I said containers are the way to go to help you carry more stuff. The banks are helpful though to store coin in.

Question four: Kill NPCs for money and experience.

Hope that was at least a little helpful and not all that confusing.

A bit late, but - welcome to SK!


Beneficial spells will by default cast on yourself if you don't include an argument - armor, detection spells, healing spells, for instance. So you would just type "ca armor" or "ca 'cure light' ". If you decide to cast a harmful spell on yourself, using your name or simply 'self' will work.


If you type 'score' you see a helpful box of information about yourself. Just beneath the Coins you'll see something like: Typing 'att' will show you another box, this one of attributes, and the bottom line shows your maximum items and weight that you can carry.

If you have a container, you can free up your hands by 'put item container', i.e. 'put steak backpack'. It will weigh the same, but you can carry more items that way. Banks exist for your coins, but for items you either carrying them with you or stash them someplace and hope that nobody else finds them, or that the mud doesn't get rebooted or crashed. (Crashes are rare, but it's still a gamble.)

Most of your opponents carry money; you can also sell items to certain shopkeepers - try to sell armor at shops that have armor to sell, likewise with weapons, or find a pawn shop - for coin, try asking in-game. You'll get more specific aid there.

I just thought of something that wasn't listed. When you kill NPCs, you NEED to have on auto gold, and auto junk. That way you can always see what was in the corpse of the NPC you just kiled, and if there was money in it, you'll automatically take it. Otherwise, chances are you'll miss getting those precioussssss coins.

Yet again, I thank you all for the help!

And yet again, I come to you with more questions!

1) If a skill is not listed when I type "skill", does that mean I am unable to learn it? IE: Normal bow, rapier, etc?

2) I've checked the armouries and shops in the school, and cannot find a dagger to buy. Must I keep using my wooden practice dagger? Are there places that sell daggers elsewhere?

3) The warriors in the school that I've been fighting still con "a perfect match", but I defeat them fairly easily now. Should I be looking elsewhere? If so, where?

4) When I try to train in dagger, or my amateur spells, the trainers tell me to get more experience. Does that mean all are maxed for my level? (3rd level, amateur) I can't even train in things I'm still bad, or haven't trained at all yet?


I would also like to say thank you to those of you that let me listen in on your RP tonight when I stumbled upon the inn! I'm still feeling quite timid and shy about joining in, and it helps to be able to watch and listen quietly, even as an outsider.

Thanks again for all the help!

~Kalla

What you are looking at is weapon 'sub-classes'. A rapier is a sword. If you know how to use a sword, then you can use a rapier. (same goes for Bows, longbows, shortbows etc)



Daggers and generally equipment for your level is more than abundant, either ask for one (since you found the inn) or look for weaponsmiths, there is bound to be at least one in every city.



using the command 'train stat' at the so called 'trainers' will give you a list of the available attributes they are willing to help you advnace with.
XXXX says to you: I can help you with STR, DEX, CON, HP, CHA
note that not all trainers will offer the same attribute advancements but all are very easy to find.



I would stay in the safety of the newbie school for as long as I gain experience in a acceptable degree. Of course I am a terrible leveler
still if you chose to find another place to train, I am sure that you will not have to look much.



You simply need to kill more NPCs and get more experience, using the 'worth' command will let you know where you stand. As far as training spells and skills keep in mind that trainers (both PCs and NPCs) will teach you up to a sertain point, there on with practice you will improve on your own, also keep in mind that how well can a trainer teach you a skill may vary (one could teach to good, one to superb).

keep asking questions I am sure everyone here is happy to help.

While all of your learned skills will very gradually improve through repeated use, it's very frustrating to advance one from (poor) to (mastered) all by yourself.

So you can save all of those hard-earned XPs toward your next level advancement, OR you can spend a small amount along the way to train skills with a qualified teacher. This amount varies with the complexity of the skill in question, so you might find it impractical to learn skills that are listed above 'amateur' in your skill list. But the choice is yours.

Simply put, it's not that your skills are maxed out for your level, it's that you no longer have enough XP to learn anything new about the skill in question.

Morovik is right that a rapier counts as a sword, and so on. But you're right that if "skills" doesn't show sword, you can't learn to use them. (You can still wield one, but don't count on hitting anything with it.)

Typing "help skill" for any weapon skill will tell you what weapon types are included in that skill.



It's true you should be able to find daggers in Exile. (Mentors, or even random-passers-by, are great for directions.) But maybe this is a hint that daggers aren't the best possible weapons for you right now? If you're only getting one strike per round, a more substantial weapon should serve you better.

The exception to this is mages. You'll know you're a mage class if your skill listing shows "wands". Then you should be wielding a dagger in one hand, and a wand in the other. The "outfit" command will supply Amateur mages with a new practice wand, if needed.

That said, neither heavier weapons or wands can help you until you learn the corresponding skill.



This is something to ask a mentor about. You'll find monsters outside the practice area -much- more challenging.

It can indeed pay to do this, but it's important to have appropriate equipment and skills. (For example, if you're primarily a weapon user, your weapon skill should be at least <very good>.) Certainly you'll need to progress beyond wooden practice daggers.



Morovik and Thuban have given you the essentials of trading XP for skills. Let me add there is no maximum except <mastered>. However, every trainer has his own limits on what he can teach. You will find Collegium trainers quite limited. Player-character mentors can do better. Some NPC teachers can do better yet - once you find them.

Also, the higher level the skill is compared to yours, the more XP it will cost you. If you think you need to learn a skill that's above your rank, definitely check with a mentor first. Likewise, you probably don't want to learn all those languages until at least level 5.

[Editted to add: Languages? Well, there are certain Amateur skills that everyone can learn, but don't appear in your skill listing until you start training them. That includes over 6 spoken languages, written languages, and swimming.]