h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi!, I've just been and checked out the diskworld MUD posted on your site. It sounds great but I haven't a clue where you start - I don't even know what a MUD is Help!

Hey pablo!

Sorry for the delay in getting back at you. It was simply an oversight on my part... My humble apologies.

Diskworld IS great fun, but I can see where you could easily get lost. The first time I tried it the sheer scale of the place, as well as all the commands I had to learn, overwhelmed me a bit. With some perseverance, though, you soon start to enjoy yourself, and typing commands becomes an effortless means to interact with the world.

Right. The first thing you need is a telnet client (one that comes with Windows will do fine, but if you have a favourite that will do too). Click on Start, then Run, then type "telnet discworld.imaginary.com" without the quotation marks (forgive me if I sound patronizing. I'm not sure of your technical expertise)

When the discworld welcome screen pops up, you need to create yourself a character. This involves a few questions, if you follow the onscreen instructions you'll be fine.

After that it's a question of joining a guild. Which one do you want? Each has it's own strengths and weaknesses, and each will teach you different commands.

There is quite a bit involved in joining a guild, beginnig with where to find the damn place! The discworld maps in the Atlas section of the website are very useful. I'm not sure if they have been updated recently (I haven't been on in ages), but I know some things have changed. As you can imagine, the place is groing the whole time, so maps can be quite short lived.

I'm not going to explain how to join all the guilds, for the simple reason thatI'm not sure. I know only the guilds my characters have joined, and those are the Thieves' Guild and the Assassins. But with a little bit of paying attention, you'll figure it out very soon. Also, there is a newbie help channel, which is very useful in your early days.

some common commands are:
n - north
s - south etc.
u - up
d - down
l - look (you can also type the full word, but this is quicker)
say [message] - says something
tell [person] [message] - tell a specific person something. They don't have to be in the same room as you.

I'll be back soon for more, but I have to get back to work now

Good luck in your quest!
Gothy

Thanks Gothy,
You where right to presume my lack of technical expertise though, as I've never heard of 'Telnet' either!
It's also probably helpfull If I point out i'm on a Mac...

Thanks again for your help

Doh! I never even considered the possiblity that you would be using anything other than a w**dows machine... Sorry. Weird, considering how much I dislike any version of said operating system. What I'll do is try to find out how to connect to DW using a Mac, and I 'll get back to you with whatever I can earn, OK?

Nice one Astrogoth, cheers mate!

OK, unusually, the ppl at DW weren't very helpful (cries of "Get a proper PC" were heard...). But I'm pretty sure that you're web browser (I'm assuming Netscape) is Java enabled. So if you logonto that website, and then follow the link to Start Playing Discworld, and select the Java Client, it should work. Then just follow the steps above, and have fun! If you have any problems, please contact me and I'll do my best to solve them for you. In relation to computers, that is I don't want to know about your personal life

Unless you really need someone to talk to....

Gthy

Ta very muchly, I'll try this out.


P.S personall life O.k so far, perhaps will suffer If I find too many more things to do on the internet!! Sheesh.

Glad to hear it... I know how much RL can suffer once you get too hooked on the internet. Just so long as it doesn't interfere with work (you'll get fired) and family (don't even go there...) you'll be ok!

Have fun!