New Chat Interface: Tutorial

[Starshadow]

We have set up a new chat medium, and I would like everyone to give it a try. There is no question about it, it is harder to learn and get used to. But after a night or two of playing, I am confident that this new format will prove far superior to anything we have used since the death of Be Seen.

It is not java, so everyone should be able to use it. It uses less than 3 and a half MB of memory, downloads in an instant and installs in under a minute.

It gives us the ability to transcript, cut and paste, send private messages without the need for ICQ or AOL, has some role playing text options (like colorizing emotions and whispers that players notice but don't hear), has no ads, is quick, private and gives the players each the capability of having theuir own rooms for their own purposes.

The first thing you must do is download the SimpleMU client, which can be found here:

simplemu.onlineroleplay.com

After you download it, install it. At the end you will have the option for a shortcut to be placed on your desktop, and it will ask if you want to open it. I did that.

Next go to the FILE pull down menu and select NEW CONNECTION WIZARD. Move along following the setup directions and insert the following at the prompts:

Site address: dune.net
Port: 4560
Type: Talker
Name: Shadowcorp

Then hit the FINISH button

See. Wasn't that easy?

Next comes the account setup phase, and you may have some trouble here. Nancy has agreed to answer questions in this thread, so if you have trouble, post them here. She is also a moderator of the Mother Site (for lack of a better word at the moment) and if she is on, will be able to see you and help you on site.

You must choose a name and password, and while ideally you should have one for every character, for starters, let's just pick one until we are sure about the workings of it all and until we have decided that this is definitely the way of our future on line RP.

You will see a bunch of type forming the large words SHADOWCORP, the way we used to do it in typing class (for those of you who are old enough to remember manual typewriters). You will have to hit enter until it asks for your name, a password, gender and stuff like that. At the end of this process you will have an account.

To get to my room, you will need to type:
Visit Starshadow

Then you will be in my room. The only two things you MUST know right away, are the two main ways to post.

The first way is to say what you want to say outright. To do this, you must type either say or "

For example:

I can type in

say Have you found the key yet?

or

" Have you found the key yet?

and it will reveal onscreen as:

Starshadow asks "Have you found the key yet?"

If you end the sentence with a period, then it will show that you say something, and if you end with a !, it will actually state that you exclaim it. I found that rather cool from a role play and literary aspect.

The other way to present type is to emote, in which case you will preface the sentence with either a colon or the word emote.

For example:

I type...

emote wishes you were here

OR

: wishes you were here

and it will display:

Starshadow wishes you were here

This is cool for those who like to post that they are thinking something, or other similar circumstances.


There is a LOT more that can be done here, and other ways to post, such as Shouting and whispering and such, but I won't gop into the intermediate commands yet, and I have yet to learn the advanced stuff. There is likely far more availiable to us than we will ever need.

Please do this. I am thinking I would like to have our first game in this new format be with newbie characters for a one night "Inn adventure", so the confusion doesn't cause harm to current campaigns...but until those who have yet to do this are willing to do so, we may have to bite the bullet and test it with an established party.

Oh and one other thing...please don't wait to try this out until the last minute.

Since we are not playing this Friday (as previously announced), you all may wish to get together to play test together.

Good luck and have fun.

[Lyssandra]

Yes, that pretty much covers it.

Characters are permanent once they've been set up, so once you are, all you need do is point to the place and log in with name and password as you did with parachat.

The major difference is that what you assign to room and yourself description wise stays as long as the character exists. So there's no repeat typing of your description or your room. Once done it's done though you can make changes to them.

I'll be around off and on today, Monday, and also Friday evening to help you set something up and take a look around.

[otherlleft]

If the rooms and characters are permanent, it would be a shame to waste all that server space on a character who's dead. So are we in agreement that if we make the the plunge we must all accept the burden of immortality, at least for our characters? [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Lyssandra]

Not necessarily. Characters who're dead or no longer played can be deleted from the database. It's just that each character you log in...Einkil and Lir will be on the database with their own room. They don't just vanish when you log off.

[Tarracat]

Heeheehee, I think Einkil was joking, I kind of figured dead or no longer used characters would be deletable by whomever is in charge of the mush [img]smile.gif[/img] I have to say it's VERY easy to download and use folks. I did in while in another fit of insomnia last night at around 1am. Half asleep I STILL could download it all, log in, get it up and running and say....OOOOOOooo!

Download time must have taken less than a full minute. VERY nice. Just wish someone had been on so I could have play tested it. This should work, the system requirements are sooo teeny that there should be no problem with room on anyone's computer!

Good luck all! I'm looking forward to someone being on so I can talk to someone other than myself in there [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img]

[Lyssandra]

For those who cannot or don't want to download simplemu, you can connect the same way through Windows built in telnet client.

It's harder to use on the user side, but things will work the same on the game side.

[rahnewhitebriar]

I'm going to go through the process and install, etc., sometime this weekend.

However, I won't be able to play next Friday night. It's Springfest-Eve, and I'm on Set Up Committee. Sorry, folks.

[Lyssandra]

I will be on the site tonight and then off and on during the weekend to aid in finalizing chargen and answering questions related to using the talker.

Look for Serenity/Belinda there.

[Starshadow]

Friday Night, 6/10/5, 8 PM EST

At the aforementioned site from this thread, the following characters shall debut:

Clementine, Female Human Ranger
Lyra, Female Half-Elf Fighter
Delnarith, Male Elf Paladin
Finley, Male Dwarf Cleric

The remaining two players are unable to play due to other committments (and the fact that they don't have new characters).

While this will be a genuine Caer Falken adventure, it marks the beginning of our third chat room, and therefore starts a new era, as we go back to the future by using an interface that long predates those we have come accustomed to. It is also a test run, allowing the players to get a feel for the room, so we can look for alternatives in case there are any issues. I do not, however, foresee any such problems.

See you all tomorrow.

[Lyssandra]

Let's hope we don't encounter any traps. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I will be on Shadowcorp before the scheduled game time tomorrow night to help with last minute set up, and to help players describe their characters, and other questions.