AFK
AFK stands for "Away from Keyboard". Also common is IAW, or "In Another Window".
Area
An area is a collection of mobiles, objects and rooms. It may be self
contained, a dungeon or castle with only one entrance/exit, or it may
connect to many other areas. Areas are also known as zones.
Bug
A bug is an unintentional and undesirable feature of a mud. Bugs can
cause crashes and should be reported to the implementors. Some bugs have
"desirable" effects in that they allow players to get benefits that
they were not intended to get. Making use of such bugs is often grounds
for punishment of your character for cheating.
Character
A character is any player on a MUD, be they immortal or mortal. All
characters are saved in individual files, known as pfiles. Usually, only
an implementor will have access to pfiles. They are also known as Player
Characters or or PCs.
Clan/Guild
A clan or guild is a group of players, typically with a common goal or code of
ethics. It often involves roleplay. Usually there are restrictions on
who may join a given clan, and usually there must be a minimum number of
interested players to cause the creation of a new one.
Common clan ethics: Honor, Knowledge, Justice, Chaos, Vengeance
Age of Legends allows players to organize into clans; however, the current policy is not to build rooms or items specifically for any one group. We also encourage participation in Dragonlance organizations (or clans) such as the Knights of Solamnia, the Conclave, and the Holy Order of the Stars.
Client
A client (or mud client) is a piece of software built specifically for
connecting to a MUD. They include various features that make it
easier to play.
Corpse
When you die, your equipment and your money remains in your
corpse. Your corpse is created at the spot where you died. Sometimes it
will be necessary to request the help of other mortals to regain your
corpse if whatever killed you is aggressive. To recover all of the
contents of your corpse, type 'get all corpse' in the room with your
body.
Crash
Crashes happen because of bugs in the hardware or software that a MUD is
using. These crashes will cause all players connected to be disconnected and
all areas to be reset. Everything non-permanent in the mud is erased.
This will mean that if you had recently died, and not yet recovered your
corpse you will require the assistance of an immortal to reimburse you.
EXP
Experience. For every mobile you kill, your character receives a
certain amount of experience. Once a player has reached the maximum
level allowable, there is no longer a benefit from gaining more
experience.
IAW
IAW stands for "In Another Window". Also common is AFK, or "Away from Keyboard".
Immortal or IMM
An immortal is a player that has been given a
degree of power over the game. Immortals are to be treated with respect; they donate their personal time and energy toward making the MUD a fun place
to be.
IC
IC, or "In-character", refers to those things which are done as part of role-play.
Lag
There are two circumstances under which lag can occur. The most common
type of lag comes from hardware malfunction or bandwidth saturation on
the Internet. That kind of lag results in your reactions to the mud
being slowed, which can have lethal results. It does no good to complain
about it, and excessive griping about lag may cause you to be punished.
The second kind of lag occurs when the machine the mud is operating on becomes slowed. This kind of lag is annoying, but it will not harm your character as much, because the mud has slowed down as much as you have.
Mobile/Mob
Mobiles are non-player characters (also referred to as NPCs) that exist
in the MUD world. They may be anything from shopkeepers and guildmasters
to small dogs with poisonous bites.
MOTD
Message Of The Day. This is displayed when a user first connects to the MUD.
MUD
Originally known as a Multi-User Dungeon, a MUD is a text-based virtual
environment in which users' "characters" interact in real time.
Characters can navigate rooms described by text; type to other
characters; create shared objects; and engage in games, puzzles, or
combat. Most MUDs involve some level of role-playing, where characters
adopt personas from books or medieval times, for example. A MUD can be
accessed via Telnet or using a special MUD client.
Age of Legends: Tales of the Lance is a role-playing MUD based in a pre-cataclysm Dragonlance setting.
Multi-playing
Multi-playing involves either having
more than one character logged on at the same time, or alternating
between characters in a manner to benefit one or more of them. You are
permitted to have five characters -- but you can't have
interaction between them. The penalties can range from a warning, all the way up to deletion of all of your characters.
Multiplaying is illegal on Age of Legends.
Newbie
Newbie is the name of the help file that all newly created characters
see when they log in.
A newbie is also a novice: to mudding, to coding, to area building, etc. If you are a newbie, please read the literature available -- documentation, books, FAQs, before asking questions. Often your question has already been answered in detail.
Objects
Objects are usually inanimate entities that can be utilized in some
manner. Swords, armor, couches, fountains, rings, wands, staves and
loaves of bread are all different types of objects.
OOC
Out of Character. From time to time it is necessary to make a comment
that is OOC. For example, if you need to leave your computer for a
period of time. Use the 'ooc' command for any comments that are not IC
or in-character.
PK
Player killer. PK is allowed on Age of Legends, however there must be
legitimate RP reasons for the actions. 'My character doesn't like
anyone' is not a legitimate reason to kill all the other characters.
Remember that the MUD is a community; we do not all have to get along
IC, but alienating the whole playerbase won't be much fun.
Under legitimate circumstances, players are allotted three role-played PK deaths before being asked to delete; some PKs, however, do not have to be considered an IC death.
If you would simply like to "beat" a character to teach them a lesson, the same rules for PK apply, but you can use the "subdue" command in order to halt combat automatically when the opponent has been reduced to one hit point. This does not work on mobiles.
Player
A player is anyone who plays MUDs. It refers to the person sitting at the keyboard running the character as opposed to the actual mortal or PC.
Quest
A quest is a duty that a player, usually a mortal or group of mortals,
is asked to carry out in exchange for a reward. They are assigned and run by immortals. Some immortals enjoy giving quests, some don't.
Mortals that follow a particular deity at Age of Legends are generally
able to quest for a holy symbol when their God or Goddess deems them
worthy. There are also game-wide quests run from time to time.
Reboot
A reboot saves all players, then removes them from the MUD. It then
restarts the MUD. Reboots typically don't take more than a couple of
minutes, often less. However, if something goes wrong, and the MUD can't
restart, it can take longer. Generally a reboot is announced in
advance, giving all characters a chance to rent.
Reimburse
If the MUD crashes and players lose substantial amounts of equipment,
immortals will often do reimbursements of some sort. This consists of
creating copies of the equipment that the player has lost. We do not
reimburse lost XP, only equipment.
Players can create a back-up copy of their current set of equipment by typing "backup" while logged in.
Rent
At Age of Legends you must pay a certain amount of money, based on the
power of an item, if you want it to save when you log out. If you don't
rent, you will lose your items. Players that use the 'quitnow' command
rather than renting will not be reimbursed for lost equipment.
Repop
Short for "repopulate". Areas deplete as players kill the mobiles in them. As time passes, those mobiles regenerate, or repopulate the zone.
Room
A room is a virtual point within the game that can contain players,
objects and mobiles. Think of it as a box of more or less infinite size.
It may be described as part of a street, a closet, or even the inside
of a top hat, but if you're in it, it's most easily described as a
room.
RP
Role-play. Age of Legends is an RP-enforced MUD. Meaning that you must
develop a persona for your character and act as that persona at all
times. Remember that you should take into consideration the class, race,
and alignment of your character as they fit into the Dragonlance world.
To make the most of the world and your character, remember that your character and friends do not exist in a vacuum. You will find it is most fun to react to the world and people around you.
Spam
The term 'spam' derives from a Monty Python sketch in which the word
'spam' is repeated dozens of times. On the internet, it usually means
repeating any message a large number of times. Some people construe
'spam' to be anything that they did not wish to see.
Try to be polite and considerate of others. Do not move a large amount of items from one container to another, use a string of repeated triggered commands, or the like in rooms with other people.
Tick
A tick is a game-driven pulse during which certain events happen. A tick
on Age of Legends is equivalent to an hour of game time. Repops happen
on after a specified number of ticks; as do regeneration of hit points and movement, as well
as memorization of spells.
XP
Experience. Once a player has reached the maximum level allowable,
there is no longer a benefit from gaining more experience.