Introduction

Welcome new player! The goal of this tutorial is to demonstrate how to play your character successfully to level 2.

Mudding Basics

If you are new to mudding, let's cover a few basics. A Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) is a game of interactive fiction, where the game world and all the experiences within are written as text.

The MUD operates off of a command line, receiving actions from you and interacting with your environment. Igor uses a ">" prompt by default, and you can send commands like cardinal directions (ie: north), actions made up of a command verb and a target noun (ie: search leaves), and much more. Each example will show the prompt and command run before the output for clarity.

Environment & Movement

At the beginning, the simplest command you can use is look, also abbreviated l. Most commands have abbreviations, and you can create your own with the alias command we cover later.

The look command displays your surroundings or immediate environment, also called a room. Here's where you start the game.

You are in the local village church.
There is a huge pit in the centre and a door in the west
wall.  Ghosts and people whose heartbeats have stopped can
come to the church and pray to be reincarnated or revived.
A black sundial stands by the wall, throwing blue sparks.
There is an exit south to the village green.
A newbie area is north of here.
A ladder leads up through the roof, to a newbie school.
      Obvious exits: south, up, west and north.

Most rooms have a long description which explains the environment to you. Often times nouns in the room description can be examined for further detail. Sometimes quests and secrets are found by thorough examination of a room. To examine something, use the examine command. This can also be abbreviated as exa, and is frequently aliased to simply x, so that examine door, exa door, and x door are all equivalent.

Here is a sample from the church, examining the door:

> exa door
A double door set into the west wall.  There is a button next to it.
The door is closed.

At the end of the description is a list of obvious exits, linking you to other rooms. There can be hidden exits, but you'll have to look around to find them. You can use the exits as commands (ie: north to go north). Most of Igor supports a 10 direction compass including all four cardinal directions, their diagonals, and up/down. Most can be abbreviated, like north is abbreviated n, and southeast is se.

Below the exits are any other players, monsters, or NPCs in the room with you, as well as any objects on the ground.

Now you can examine your surroundings, and move!

Communicating With Others

Igor is an interactive and social game! There are always other players on, and you can talk to them in a variety of ways.

Say

When you say something, everyone present in the room with you sees what you say. ie:=say hi=

Tell

Tells are a private message to a specific person. ie: tell bob hello!

Shout

Shout a message the whole mud can hear, but it costs spell points.

Users

Show the users list with users.

More information is available using help.

Usability Improvements

Below is a list of commands you can copy and paste into Igor to improve the usability immediately. They may not make sense to you now, but you can always go back and look them up in the help documentation.

ansi
colourset armour:worn green
colourset chatline bryellow
colourset damage brred
colourset exit cyan
colourset say white
colourset tell white
colourset weapon:wielded red
colourset shout white
colourset mortline bryellow
colourset teamchat white
prompt [{R}\(hp)/\(max-hp){x}] [{C}\(sp)/\(max-sp){x}]>
alias t tell
alias M mort
alias z score
alias x exa
alias gac get all from corpse
alias g get all
alias wa wear all
alias cc cookmeal corpse

Important Places

Church

This is where you login upon entering the game. The church is neutral ground and where you can "pray" after dying to come back to life. Newbieland is north of the Church, to the south you enter Larstown.

Shop

The shop is one pace south and three paces east of the Church along the main road south of the Church. Here you can buy and sell items and equipment.

Adventurer's Guild

A couple paces south from the shop is the Adventurer's Guild. Here you can advance your stats, your level, and check on quest status. The Guild is also a free healing point. Stand in the room and you will be healed relatively quickly. Often times other players will donate items or cast spells in the Guild to enhance the healing abilities of the guildroom!

South of Shop

Also known as "SOS", the road between the shop and the Adventurer's Guild is a common hangout for players and the point of origin for most any directions given out in the game.

Newbieland

A variety of starting areas a few paces north of the Church. Only low level players are allowed into Newbieland.

Starting a Character

See ConnectToIgor, and enter a character name. If it is available, you'll be prompted for a few details (password, email, etc).

You start out in the Larstown Church on the west side of Larstown.

Joining Lala

Lala is Igor's newbie club. It has a tutorial and some perks for new players!

First step after logging into the church is to go up, and enter the clubhouse.

Do the tutorial quest, following the instructions.

• Hint: When the combat tutorial starts, you'll have to get the knife and wield it to kill the trial monster. Watch your HP and use heal as often as needed.

Once you're done, you get Lala abilities and 5000 coins!

Inside the clubhouse, north of where you finish the quest is the Lala newbie equipment machine. This is important because when you pull lever it gives you free gear to get started with.

• pull lever
• i for inventory
• wear all or wear item
• wield sword

Now you're ready to return south to the clubhouse, and enter the church with church.

Earning experience

To get to level 2 you must gain sufficient experience. On Igor the most common way to earn XP is through combat.

As an easy area to start in, from the Church go north and down into the basement. If you then open diary, you can explore the Adventurer's Diary area and kill wisps.

With the newbie gear, you should be able to easily handle killing wisps.

When your hit points get low, leave the area by returning to the center and "close diary". You can go up, and south to return to the church.

Free healing is available at the Adventurer's Guild which you can easily find from the Church using the directions above.

Return to the wisp area and kill as many wisps as you can!

Another way to heal is using the Lala cookmeal ability, so cookmeal corpse. This gives you a broth, eat broth and heal a few HP.

Be sure to get any equipment the wisps drop, and wear as much of it as you can! Each piece protects you just a bit more. Anything you don't need you can sell at the shop when you go heal. This is a surefire way to earn money, which you'll need later in the game!

Advancement

Now that you're earning XP, you'll want to spend it.

Resist the temptation to immediately goto level 2! The mantra is: always get all your stats before you level (ie: advancing Strength, Consistution, etc.

Once your score shows you have 200 xp, go back to the Adventurer's Guild. Type cost to find out how much XP you can spend, and how much each stat will cost.

The goal is to have:

• 11 Constitution
  • Con is one of the most important stats, you get 8 HP for every point of Con!
• 5 Dexterity
  • This reflects how skilled you are in combat. It'll give you a small edge in the beginning.
• 2 Strength
  • You can carry more the stronger you are.

Each time you increase a stat, the cost for the next point increases. To get 11 con will require over a thousand XP. You can do it!

Advanced Kills

After you have increased your con several times and have plenty of armour, you're going to be ready for larger kills! Make sure you have at least 90 HP before you start the kills listed here.

The next area is Boys Island, specifically the Newbie Tree. To get there, from South of Shop, head due east! You'll fall in the ocean along the way, and keep an eye out for Tigger! When you reach the cliffs, go all the way up, and one step east. Here you'll find Rabbit, and you can climb tree to get into the newbie tree. Don't go east past the cliffs, there are hungry sharks in those waters! You've been warned.

Here, you'll want to kill these easy monsters:

• Mouse
• Lemming
• Flea
• Rat
• Maggot

Start using the judgefoe ability to judge whether or not you can handle a kill. Nadia is overprotective, and may warn you away. If you try again, Nadia will let you attack... Look for monsters "fair to kill".

These monsters are harder, but worth more XP. You may have to make many runs to the Adv Guild to heal while killing them.

• Soup
• Cat
• Sparrow
• Bonzo
• Goggle (really hard!)

More Advancement

You'll want to have advanced 15 stats before level 2:

• Con 10+ (ideally 12!)
• Dex 4 or 5
• Str 2 or 3

Keep advancing stats until cost tells you that you can't until you gain a level.

Then, advance level and congrats, you're now level 2 and are set to continue on your adventure!

Continue putting XP into Con, and at this point you'll want to start looking at guilds. Each guild has bonuses, new combat abilities, and relies on different stats. Do your research in the help, and ask around.

Good luck!

-- DemosThenes - 2011/08/23