Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.


Interacting With Other Players

There are several commands available to allow you to communicate with your fellow players. Other commands are available to affect the way communication occurs. The following list shows the commands used for these functions:

say
- talking to the other connected players in the room
whisper
- talking privately to someone in the same room
page
- yelling to someone anywhere in the MOO
emote
- non-verbal communication with others in the same room
@gag, @listgag, @ungag
- screening out noise generated by certain other players
news
- reading the wizards' most recent set of general announcements
@gripe
- sending complaints to the wizards
@typo @bug @idea @suggest
- sending complaints/ideas to the owner of the current room
whereis
- locating other players
@who
- finding out who is currently logged in
mail
- the MOO email system
@paranoid, @check, @sweep
- the facilities for detecting forged messages and eavesdropping.

Communicating With Other Players

Several commands are available for communicating with other players in the way you might do in real life.

Command: say anything ...
Command: "anything ...
Says anything out loud, so that everyone in the same room hears it. This is so commonly used that there's a special abbreviation for it: any command-line beginning with a double-quote (`"') is treated as a `say' command. For example, suppose that blip types the following command:
"This is a great MOO!

He would see this printed on his terminal screen:

You say, "This is a great MOO!"

Others in the same room see this:

blip says, "This is a great MOO!"

Command: whisper "text" to player
This command sends the message "yourname whispers, "text" to you " to player, if they are in the room. This is used to send a private message to a another player in the room. The message is passed to player only. No-one else can hear or detect the message. For example, the command
whisper "Hello there" to blip

sends the following message to blip:

Ezeke whispers, "hello there" to blip.

Command: page player [[with] text]
This verb is a player command used to send messages between players who are not physically located in the same room in the virtual world. You can imagine a page to be a worldwide form of shouting. Without an argument, a message like
You sense that blip is looking for you in The Venue Hallway.

is sent to the recipient of the page. If an argument is given, it is treated as a message to send to the other player. This results in the recipient getting a message like

You sense that blip is looking for you in The Hallway
He pages, "Hello - are you busy ?"

Paging is used primarily to attract the attention of a player, or to pass short messages between players in different locations. It is not intended to be used for conversation.

The following commands can be used to set messages referred to by `@page':
Command: @page_origin message
The page origin message determines how the recipient is told of your location. The default value of this message is `You sense that %n is looking for you in %l.'
Command: @page_echo message
The page echo message determines the response received by anyone who pages you. The default value of this message is `Your message has been sent.'
Command: @page_absent message
This message determines the response received by anyone who tries to page you when you aren't connected. The default value of this message is `%n is not currently logged in.'
All of these undergo the usual pronoun substitutions except that in both cases the direct object `%d' refers to the recipent of the page and the indirect object `%i' refers to the sender.
Command: emote anything ...
Command: :anything ...
Announces anything to everyone in the same room, prepending your name. This is commonly used to express various non-verbal forms of communication. In fact, it is so commonly used that there's a special abbreviation for it: any command-line beginning with `:' is treated as an `emote' command. For example, if blip types the following:
:wishes he were much taller...

Everyone in the same room would see the following message:

blip wishes he were much taller...

Gagging - How to Ignore Other Players and Objects

Occasionally, you may run into a situation in which you'd rather not hear from certain other players. It might be that they're being annoying, or just that whatever they're doing makes a lot of noise. Gagging a player will stop you from hearing the results of any task initiated by that player. You can also gag a specific object, if you want to hear what the owner of that object says, but not the output from their noisy robot. The commands to use gagging are described below:

Command: @gag player or object [player or object...]
Add the given players to your gag list. You will no longer see any messages that result from actions initiated by these players. In particular, you will not hear them if they try to speak, emote, or whisper to you. For example, if blip types in the following command:
@gag geezer

and no longer hears anything that geezer says. (1) If you specify an object, then any text originating from that object will not be printed. For example, suppose Noisy Robot prints `Hi there' every 15 seconds. In order to avoid seeing that, blip types the following command:

@gag Noisy

and no longer hears that robot! Note that blip must be in the same room as Noisy Robot for this to work, or know its object number.

Command: @ungag player or object
Command: @ungag everyone
Remove the given player or object (or, in the second form, everyone) from your `gag list'. You will once again see any messages that result from actions initiated by the ungagged player(s) or objects. In particular, you will once again be able to hear them if they speak, emote, or whisper to you. For example, suppose that blip types the following:
@ungag geezer

and is once again able to hear geezer's witty remarks. (2)

Command: @listgag
Shows you a list of the players and objects currently on your gag list. You don't see any messages that result from actions initiated by the players or objects on this list. In particular, you will not hear them if they try to speak, emote, or whisper to you.

Communicating With The Game Administrators

Several commands are provided for communicating with the people that run the game. The news command is used by the wizards to let players know of anything that is globally interesting. Players can use `@grip' to complain to the wizards, and commands like `@typo' to report defects to builders and programmers. The following section describes these commands in detail.

Command: news
Read the latest edition of the LambdaMOO server news, which carries articles concerning recent changes to the MOO server or to the main public classes, or whatever else is important for players to know.
Command: @gripe anything ...
Puts you into the MOO mail system to register a complaint (or, conceivably, a compliment) with the wizards. The rest of the command line (the anything ... part) is used as the subject line for the message. More information on using the MOO mail system is given once you're in it. You may hear back from the wizards eventually. For example:
>@gripe The Fruitbat
>"How come I can't ever see the fruitbat in the Venue Clock?
>"        -- A frustrated player

sends it, and, somewhat later, the wizards reply with a note about being sure to look while the Clock is chiming.

Command: @typo [text]
Command: @suggest [text]
Command: @bug [text]
Command: @idea [text]
If text is given, a one-line message is sent to the owner of the room, presumably about something that you've noticed. If text is not given, we assume you have more to say than can fit comfortably on a single line; the usual mail editor is invoked. The convention is that @typo is for typographical errors on the room or objects found therein, @bug is for anomalous or nonintuitive behaviour of some sort, and @idea/@suggest for anything else. The usual mail editor is only invoked for this command when in rooms that allow free entry, i.e., rooms that are likely to allow you back after you are done editing your message. Otherwise these commands will require text and only let you do one-line messages. Most adventuring scenario rooms fall into this latter category.

Locating Other Players in the Virtual World

Two commands are available for finding out where other players are hiding in the virtual world, as follows:

Command: whereis player [player...]
Command: @whereis player [player...]
Returns the current location of each of the specified players. whereis refers to each player's `@whereis_location' message to determine what should be printed. This message defaults to
"%N (%#) is in %l (%[#l])." 

and the usual pronoun substitutions are done. For example the default message could expand to

"blip (#42) is in The Venue Manager's Office (#47)

Command: @who
Command: @who player [player ...]
The first form lists all of the currently-connected players, along with the amount of time they've been connected, the amount of time they've been idle, and their present location in the MOO. The second form, in which a list of player names is given, shows information for just those players. For any listed players that are not connected, we show the last login time instead of the connect/idle times. `@who' refers to the `@who_location' on each of the players to be listed in order to determine what should be printed in the location column. Pronoun substitutions are done on this string in the usual manner. The default value is "%l" (i.e., player.location).

Checking the Security of Your Communication

There are several commands available that allow you to check that your communications with other players are secure. The following commands are available:

Command: @sweep
Used when you wish to have a private conversation, and are concerned someone may be listening in. @sweep tries to list the avenues by which information may be leaving the room. In a manner analogous to @check, it assumes that you don't want to hear about your own verbs, or those belonging to wizards, who presumably wouldn't stoop to bugging.
Command: @paranoid
Command: @paranoid off
Command: @paranoid immediate
Command: @paranoid number
In immediate mode, the monitor prepends everything you hear with the name of the character it considers responsible for the message. Otherwise, it keeps records of the last number (defaults to 20) lines you have heard. These records can be accessed by the @check command.
Command: @check options
Used when you are suspicious about the origin of some of the messages your character has just heard. Various options can be specified:

Output from @check is in columns that contain, in order, the monitor's best guess as to:

`@check' operates by examining the list of verbs that were involved in delivering the message, and assigning responsibility to the first owner it sees who is not trusted. By default, it trusts you and all the wizards. It uses the records maintained by `@paranoid', so you must have used that command before you received the message.


Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.