MOO Guide Part Two

Chapter 1: Silent Voice - How to connect and log on to Super Robot Taisen MOO.

Chapter 2: Voices - Wherein basic mechanics of communication are described. You are here!

Chapter 3: Unyielding Wish - How to be a good guest, what to expect for the application process, and how to construct a well-rounded character.

Chapter 4: Tomorrow - Where we discuss the ins and outs of roleplay, obtaining roleplay, and the tricks behind scene-planning.

Chapter 5: Lullaby of Iron - Navigating the Kantaisen system, combat RP advice, and other goodies.

Chapter 2: Voices

Welcome to Chapter 2! If you're looking at this, you should be in the following situation:

1: You should have a client running and connected to Super Robot Taisen MOO.

2: You should have just typed 'connect guest guest', and a bunch of text should have just scrolled at you.

If this doesn't describe your situation, please go back to Chapter 1: Silent Voice now, or nothing after this will make sense. If you already know what you're doing and would like to skip ahead to that character application business, head over to MOO Guide Part Three when it's finished.

What Just Happened

Alright, what you just saw was a metric boatload of text. Let's run down what we just saw:

• You'll see, at the very top, the message that you can use the command +g to chat on the Guest Channel.

• Next will be "<Guests> Guest01 (or whatever number you are) has connected." That's you automatically being added to the guest channel.

• You'll see an expansive list of messages on the Global Bulletin Board.

• Then, finally, you'll see the welcome screen. It will contain a link to the wiki (which you are on now).

The OOC Lounge

Welcome to the OOC lounge area! Here, it's called 'Inexplicable Vending Machine Corner.' No actual IC (In Character) content will be featured in here- it's just a place for people to hang out and chat.

Let's look at a sample of what the 'OOC Lounge' looks like.

+-------------------< Inexplicable Vending Machine Corner >--------------------+
A positively massive wall of vending machines of every shape, color, size, and type. All manner of shipboard goods can be gotten here -- any creature comfort a pilot could want and several they probably could not.

Except chicken sandwiches. Those are sold out in perpetuity.

This is the MOO's OOC lounge! Feel free to hang out here between scenes and chat with one another.
+---------------------------------< Players >----------------------------------+
Tem Ray Circuit                       BeamCoat                              
B-System                                                                     
+---------------------------------< Objects >----------------------------------+
New Channel System Feature (B-System)
Generic New Channel Object (B-System)
Combat System (B-System)
SRT CSYS Player Class (B-System)
+----------------------------------< Exits >-----------------------------------+
<q> quiet to The Cool Zone
<ws> work to B-System Workshop
Arena to Test Arena
work2 to Robbie's Workshop
dock to DryDock
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

This is a list of the people currently in the room, plus an item. If you type look BeamCoat, you'll see the player's description. Same goes for objects! For example, look Generic will show you the description of the Generic New Channel Object.

The letters next to rooms are shortcuts you can type to go to those rooms. For example, typing q will take you to The Cool Zone, the game's quiet room, which is a nice place to go to if there's too much spam in the OOC Lounge.

Can I do things now?

Now, let's teach you how to hit buttons and influence people!

First, remember that description of the room earlier? That's the room you're in, as well as the players that are in it. MUSHes and similar formats use rooms to separate spaces, as well as provide a backdrop for scenes. Right now, as a guest, you are in a room that is a OOC (out of character) hangout. No roleplay will occur here, aside from jokes and the like. Think of it as the backstage to a theater.

Next, one of the things you should have seen looks sorta like this, right?

<Guests> Guest has connected.

<Guests> is a 'channel'. Channels are used to communicate over the MUSH, no matter where you are. You, being the guest, have automatically been added to the guest channel. Depending on when you connected, people may be greeting you or keeping quiet. To reply, consider one of the following:

+g Hello!
=g waves hello!

The difference between a plus and an equals sign is that a plus causes you to "say" the text you put in, while an equals sign causes you to "pose" it, showing it as an action performed by your bit.

<Guests> Guest> Hello!

And with the colon, the second line looks like this:

<Guests> * Guest waves hello!

Along the same lines, people in the room you are in (that is, the OOC lounge) will likely be interested in interacting with you as well, and thankfully, doing so is even easier! Consider one of the following:

"Hello!
:waves hello
::'s connection is acting up...

This does precisely the same thing as the previous commands, but only displays it to people in the same 'room' as you. That being, in this case, the OOC lounge. The third input, double-colon, allows you to start the pose directly after your name, which lets you use possessives and other similar constructions.

By the way, if you're interested, type 'who' to see who is connected to the MUSH as a whole.

By the way, I typed 'help' for help, and...

You may have typed in an incorrect command somewhere along the line, and received a message that says:

I don't understand that.

This message means the MOO did not understand what you just typed in. As a complete MOO newbie, I would highly recommend you not attempt to navigate the default help menus. They are coded primarily to teach the PennMUSH coding language, so they're not really there to help someone new to MOOing.

We'll be explaining enough here as well to get you going, fear not!

Paging

During the course of your guesthood, you may want privately message someone. For this, try the following command with our completely randomly picked person, Maya Ibuki:

page maya_ibuki=Hello! or page maya_ibuki=:waves hello!

Just like say, pose, and the channel commands, this will alternate between:

You paged Maya Ibuki 'Hello!'

From afar, Guest waves hello!

This can only be seen by the intended target of the page. If you are solely paging one person at a time, you only need to indicate their name once. For instance:

page Maya_Ibuki=Hey!

page Hey, are you listening to me?

page :prods until you awaken.

This will continue to send to Maya until you specify another person. A word of advice, though: the MUSH recalls who you last paged on a character-basis. This means that if you disconnect, and reconnect, it is highly suggested you specify a target on your first page, or you might accidentally be talking to the wrong person!

Now, when you get incoming pages, for instance:

  Maya Ibuki pages: Hey! 

Global Bulletin Board - AS YET NOT ACCURATE

---------------- Unread Postings on the Global Bulletin Board ----------------
  Public (#1): 1 unread (13) 
  --------------------------- BBS at 13.3% capacity ---------------------------

Now, what the heck did any of that mean?

What you just saw there is an example of what the Global Bulletin Board, or 'bboard' of the MUSH, might look like when you connect. As a guest, the MUSH assumes you haven't read a single post, so will show you every post on the board. Let's read a post now.

Typing +bbread 1 will give you something like...

==============================================================================
                                **** Public ****                               
          Message                            Posted        By
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1/1   T Please Be My Friend             Sat Oct 24      Chu-Chu
  ==============================================================================

Typing +bbread 1/1 will get you the first post of the first forum, which in this case is...

=================================== Public ===================================
  Message: 1/1                       Posted        Author
  Please Be My Friend              Sat Oct 24      Chu-Chu
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Please be my friend. It's lonely here on Bart's ship. I'll even let you pat my head. 
  If anyone is interested, please let me know. :)
  ==============================================================================

Similarly, you can use +bbread 2/1 to read the first post of the second forum, or +bbread 2/2 to read the second post of the second forum, or any combination of boards.

Now, you may now ask yourself, "Do I need to manually type the board number each time just to go to the next message?!" Fear not, fair visitor. +bbnext is here to save the day. Just keep hitting that in, and it will automatically go to the next unread message in all the boards you have access to.

However, your next question may be "But... will I have to do that when I get a character just to get that wad of text to go away?!" For this, you have +bbcatchup all. This will get rid of all the message notifications.

So, why deal with the message board at all? The message board is an important resource for tip-offs that a future scene will occur, what time it will occur, and so on. It also has IC (In Character) news, IC rumors, OOC observations, and tons of wonderful hijinks. Yes. It's a valuable resource. So, when you get your character, read it. Make use of it. Love it.

Guest Behavior - MAKE SURE THIS IS ALL CORRECT BY FINAL

While we're all pretty easy-going here, we want to make sure guests feel the same way. Many of these suggestions come from past experience. Feel free to add any tips you may have here!

• Again, you can use the guest channel for all guest-related things. Just type +guest or +g to speak on the channel. The OOC lounge gets loaded with spam, so it's easy to lose questions. The guest channel has a handy color to it, making it easier for people who are on it to see your question. Don't worry about bothering people on it since that channel is there for you to use!

• Even if the +guest channel is quiet when you log in, it doesn't mean no one's on it. Feel free to let people know if you need help!

• If the OOC lounge spam is too much, type 'q' to go to the Quiet Room. The room is rigged up so that no one (including you) can speak there, so it's a useful tool if you need to concentrate, but want to be open to pages from other people or chatter on channels.

• No matter how silly or small you think it is, ask questions! This is a good idea no matter who you're applying for, or even if you have your character.

• If you're applying for an FC (Feature Character), staff can see if anyone from your cast, or if anyone was familiar with previous takes on the FC. If you're applying for an OC (Original Character) but need help figuring out certain details, use the guest channel if people can help you get a sense of what's going on.

• If you do something wrong and someone corrects you, it's okay! Some things you won't know about unless you're told and we all make mistakes, no matter how long we've been roleplaying.

• If you have an app sent in, and it hasn't been processed yet, a good rule of thumb is to ask after a week.

• Feel free to hang out in the OOC lounge! Catch up on board posts so you'll be partly caught up on anything available to guests. Just use +bbcatchup <board numbers you've read> when you get your character. Observe the zoo that is the OOC lounge. It's all good.

Anyway, to move on to this weird thing called character application process, proceed to Chapter 3!