User:Henrey/Newbie Services/Newbie Guide

This is an online version of my newbie guide. If you don't intend to request a newbie pack, then you can think of the inventory section as a suggested shopping list and the explanation of the inventory does provide some good tips.

Notice: Due to having less time available to devote to active gameplay on the Disc, this service has been discontinued for the foreseeable future, but please continue to enjoy the valuable information in this guide.

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The Discworld MUD Newbie's Guide to Earning Money and Experience

Edited by Henrey Moorgan, with special thanks to Jeanie, Quow, Aerralin, and Jaceth for their help and feedback in creating this guide.

(Please type "help book" for instructions on reading this guide. If you find text getting cut off when reading this guide, typing "syntax rows" and "syntax cols" will provide instructions for setting how much text is displayed.)

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Table of Contents

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Welcome to Discworld!

Please enjoy your complementary newbie pack, courtesy of the Ankh-Morpork Council.

This pamphlet will explain the contents of your newbie pack as well as offer some general advice on earning money and experience.

Table of Contents:

Your Newbie Pack Inventory................................... 3

Earning Money & Experience: Hunting & Searching.............. 4

Earning Money & Experience: Jobs & Missions.................. 5

Earning Money & Experience: Quests & Achievements............ 6

Earning Money & Experience: Contests & Events................ 7

Other Helpful Advice: Joining a Guild........................ 8

Other Helpful Advice: Transportation......................... 9

Other Helpful Advice: Dying................................. 10

Other Helpful Advice: General Help.......................... 11

Newbie Pack Inventory

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Your Newbie Pack Inventory:

-A notepad (this pamphlet).

-A large backpack for storing your gear and loot.

-A heavy cloak to keep you warm in cold weather, and a linen cloak to keep you cool in hot weather. Being too hot or too cold can have negative effects. In extreme cases, this can lead to heatstroke or hypothermia, and eventually even death. There will be various warning messages if you're getting too hot or cold, but you can also keep an eye on your temperature from time to time using the "score temp" command. In more extreme temperatures, you will need more warming/cooling clothing than what has been provided here to keep you comfortable and safe.

-A yellow stone ring. This is a light source to help you see in the dark that runs on guild points (GP for short). The ring lights up when you wear it, and drains small amounts of your guild points every so often. The light will go out if you run out of GP. If this happens, remove the ring and wear it again once your guild points have regenerated.

-A bottle of healing tea. This will restore your health (AKA hit points or HP for short) when you're hurt. Don't try to drink the tea while you're in the middle of a fight as there's a good chance you will drop the bottle, causing it to shatter. The tea restores your health over time, so don't drink too much at once or it will go to waste. You can drink 1/100 of the bottle, or "taste" and "sip" the bottle to drink larger amounts.

-Your choice of weapon to fight non-player characters (NPCs for short). It's not always easy to decide right away what sort of weapon you'd like to use long-term when you're first starting out. If you find yourself unhappy with your weapon choice, you may exchange it for another.

-A needle and spool of thread to mend damaged clothing. To mend clothing: Remove the item if worn, hold the needle, pull thread from spool, thread needle with thread, and mend the item. You will also need some skills in crafts.materials.needlework. The worse the condition of the item, the more skill it takes to mend, and you may need to mend an item more than once to bring it to top condition. Make sure to keep an eye on how damaged your items are by looking at them or using the "condition" command ("syntax condition") as they will break after taking too much damage.

-A towel to dry yourself if wet. If the towel is too wet to dry yourself with, you can "wring towel dry". A towel can also be worn for extra warmth.

-A small knife to cut food into smaller pieces and to remove body parts from corpses.

-A quill and chapbook to make your own notes. Type "help write" for instructions on how to write on things.

Hunting & Searching

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Earning Money & Experience - Part 1

Hunting & Searching:

Killing NPCs and selling the loot to general shops is the most common way to earn money and experience (XP for short). If you invest some of your XP in learning the various people.trading.valueing skills, you can earn more of a profit by fencing your loot to certain NPCs in the Thieves' guild. Use the "consider" command before fighting to see how difficult an NPC will be to kill. Try to avoid killing shopkeepers and job/mission giving NPCs. It inconveniences other players and is illegal in Ankh-Morpork. Please be considerate of other players and don't attack things they are fighting unless they ask for help. Please don't take loot from someone else's kill unless it has been abandoned.

In addition to abandoned corpses lying on the ground, they may also be buried. To check for buried corpses and other abandoned items, use the "recover" command. "Recover all" will recover everything that has been buried in that room. This can be useful in busy areas to find abandoned loot to sell. You can also make a bit of money by searching the streets using the "search" command to find things to sell.

It can be difficult to kill even the easiest of targets when first starting out, but you can group with other players to kill things together. Ask on talker channel "One" if anyone would like to group with you. Typing "groups" will show a list of groups already in progress, and you can send a tell to the leader requesting to join.

Jobs & Missions

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Earning Money & Experience - Part 2

Jobs & Missions:

If you don't wish to group with other players, or want to avoid killing altogether, you can also earn your money and experience in other ways. There are various jobs and missions that can be done throughout the Disc as an alternative to hunting. Some of the most common jobs are in Ankh-Morpork. On the west side of God Street, there's a Job Office that offers various assignments for money and XP. Go to the room with Mr. Werks, type list, and apply for the job you want. You will only be able to do low-level jobs at first. Once Mr. Werks is more confident in your abilities, he will allow you to do higher-level jobs for higher pay and XP. If you complete the same job more than once in the space of an hour, the amount of money and experience you receive decreases.

Another common job in Ankh-Morpork is delivering letters. Find Frank in the post office, say "help", and he'll ask you to choose from various difficulties of letter deliveries. There are letters missing from the recipient, so it's up to you to figure out who the letters go to. Some letters are local, and others you will have to travel far away to deliver. Delivering more than one of the same difficulty letter in the space of an hour will decrease the amount of experience earned. Unfortunately, you can't do letter deliveries until after you complete a couple of quests for the post office.

For more information on jobs and missions go to https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Missions.

It is worth noting that depending on your skills and the types of missions performed, the amount of experience and money you earn can be comparable to hunting, both when you're first starting out, and when your skills are more advanced. While very difficult and requiring luck, it is possible to attain the higher-level experience-earning achievements, such as earning 1 million XP/hour, doing nothing but solo missions.

Though not actually part of the jobs/missions system, if you enjoy writing, you can also earn money and experience by becoming a reporter for one of the player-run newspapers. See the following pages for more information:

- https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/AM_Daily

- https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/The_Green_Slab

Quests & Achievements

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Earning Money & Experience - Part 3

Quests & Achievements:

Quests are another way to earn experience, and some of them give money too. Quests are considered secret, and it's against the rules to talk about them on the public talker channels. You can get a list of quests and quest hints in the game. Type "syntax quests" to see a list of commands. Additionally, there's a quests database and hints system on the Disc website, which may be easier to use. You'll just need to log in with your character name and password.

https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/secure/quests.c

If you find you still need help with quests, you can ask people privately in tells. There's also a club called QMA (Quests, Missions, and Achievements), and you can freely discuss quests on the club channel. Type "refer QMA" to see information about the club, and send a tell to a recruiter if you wish to join.

Achievements are somewhat similar to quests. These don't give money, but some grant titles. Achievements aren't secret and can be freely discussed anywhere. As with quests, there is an in-game system for viewing information about achievements. Type "syntax achievements" to see a list of commands, or go to the achievements page on the website.

https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/secure/achievements.c

Contests & Events

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Earning Money & Experience - Part 4

Contests & Events:

"Sights to See" is an ongoing event held every month by Jeanie, and it is a great way to earn money. Every month, four room descriptions are posted, each with varying difficulty to find. There is always one room (place a) that even completely new players can find and safely visit. Once you find the correct room, you need to take a picture with an impstomatic camera (available free from Jeanie), making sure you're visible in the picture. Once you have the pictures, "deposit" them for Jeanie at the parcel counter of the Ankh-Morpork post office. If you took pictures of the correct rooms, Jeanie will mail you your winnings. You can earn up to A$300 a month, with bonuses for participating multiple times. For more information, contact Jeanie or visit the Sights to See website.

http://www.irreducible.org/council/sights/

Look for announcements made on the bulletin boards (explained on page 11) and in the newspapers for other contests and events that are held from time to time. You may even hear them advertised by the town criers.

Additional Ways to Earn Money:

There are far too many ways to earn money on the Disc for this guide to cover them all.

Please see the following page for more ideas on how to make a living on Discworld: https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Making_money.

Joining a Guild

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Other Helpful Advice - Part 1

Joining a Guild:

Everyone starts as an Adventurer on Discworld. Some prefer to stay Adventurers and not tie themselves to any particular guild, but there are advantages to joining a guild. Depending on which guild you join, you may be granted special commands, spells, or rituals. You will also be given a set of primary skills unique to your guild. Once you have the necessary skills, there are various guild-specific ways to earn money not covered in this guide. It costs money to advance skills through your guild, but it costs less XP than teaching yourself or learning from another player. There are also guild-specific talker channels and bulletin boards where you can ask for help and advice or just chat with fellow guild members.

You may have learned a bit about guilds in Pumpkin Town, but as a refresher, the main guilds are Assassins, Priests, Thieves, Warriors, Witches, and Wizards. With the exception of Witches, these guilds are all broken down into various branches. Some guilds require you to choose a branch that you wish to join at the very beginning, and some guilds don't require you to specialise until later on.

If you're not sure which guild you want to join, it's best to read up on the various guilds and ask other players about their experiences. You can read about the various guilds by typing "help" followed by the guild name, or on the following pages: https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/playing/guilds.html and https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Guilds. It's not possible to switch guilds later on, so choose carefully. If you find yourself unhappy in your chosen guild, your only options are to start your character over from scratch, or make a new one.

Transportation

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Other Helpful Advice - Part 2

Transportation:

Quite a few options exist for travelling around the Disc, which this guide will briefly cover.

Mundane Travel:

-Walking: This is mostly self-explanatory, but in the terrain areas outside of the towns and cities, you can either walk normally or "journey" to move multiple steps at once. Type "help journey" for instructions on changing your travel settings.

-Speedwalking: This is a way to help automate walking between two locations. It can be accomplished by setting an alias (something that can be useful for many other purposes), which is a way to condense multiple commands down into a single command. Type "help alias" or "syntax alias" for instructions. A speedwalk alias will only work if you're in a specific location before executing the command. Speedwalking can be simplified using a MUD client that has that capability. (See page 11 regarding MUSHclient and Quow's plugins.)

-Climbing & Swimming: Certain areas of the game require you to climb or swim to move into another room. This can be dangerous if you don't have sufficient climbing or swimming skills, and can cause you to fall to your death or drown. Climbing and swimming can be made more difficult by holding items in your hands, and by how much you're carrying, which is shown in your score as burden. Various items, spells, and rituals can assist with climbing and swimming, but they are no substitute for advancing your skills.

-Carriages & Ferries: These travel specific routes. Some go back and forth between two locations, and some have many stops on their route. Most are free, but some charge a small fee. Simply wait at a stop, enter the carriage/ferry when it arrives, and exit once it reaches the desired stop. The stops on the route may be posted on a note, but you will need to understand the local language to be able to read it.

Arcane Travel:

-Arcane Transport NPCs: Several major towns/cities have an arcane transport NPC that will teleport you to other major towns/cities for a fee, which is lower for newbies. However, you need to speak the local language well enough for the NPC to understand you, so this form of travel might not be practical for newer players.

-Jogloran's Portal of Cheaper Travel & Divine Hand: These are forms of teleporting that involve remembering a location on an item, and then later using that item to teleport back to that specific spot. Jogloran's Portal of Cheaper Travel (AKA portal or JPCT) is a spell that requires magic skills, and Divine Hand (AKA passage or DH) is a ritual that requires faith skills. The location items (blorps or remembers) used in these forms of travel are created with a separate spell/ritual. Both of these methods allow you to transport passengers.

-Taxis: The members of the Taxi club will transport others using JPCT or DH for a small fee. Newbies under 18 hours old ride for free, but you have to specifically ask for this discount. Type "who taxi" to see a list of members logged in. They will usually have a status in their extended title indicating whether they are on-duty or not. Send a polite tell to an on-duty member stating your current location and where you'd like to go. Note that taxis might not be able to take you to the specific place you'd like to go, but they are required to be able to transport you to major towns/cities. If there are no taxis available, you can try asking for a ride on channel "One" or possibly your guild channel.

-Broomsticks: Flying on a broomstick is a form of travel limited to witches. Magic skills are needed both to fuel the broom with guild points, and to fly it. A broom can store 12 locations, but this number will increase with better directional skills. In addition to the stored locations, you can also fly to players or unique NPCs that are outside and not in a no fly zone. This provides an advantage when doing some of the letter delivery missions.

-Godmother: Typing "godmother help" will summon a fairy godmother who will teleport you to your starting location. This is free for younger players, but will cost a life once you reach guild level 50. Type "say yes" or nod to confirm that you want help. Nodding will work if you're underwater or otherwise unable to talk.

Please see https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Travel for more details on the various transportation options and learn about some of the more obscure forms of travel.

Dying

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Other Helpful Advice - Part 3

Dying:

It's very likely that you will die at some point during your time on the Disc. If this happens to you, don't worry. Death is usually a temporary affliction. If you die, there are NPCs that can bring you back to life. However, this isn't ideal since you have to travel to them, leaving your corpse and inventory behind. You will also lose all of your unspent XP and suffer a temporary reduction in your stats.

A much better option is to have another player resurrect you so that you'll receive a portion of your unspent XP back (the amount varies based on the skill of the person resurrecting you). Pishites are the players that normally deal with resurrections. To see if there are any Pishites available to help you, type "who Pishe" and send a polite tell to one of the players listed asking for help. They will need to know where you are, so it's best to include that information in your tell and be as specific about your location as possible. For example: "tell Henrey Hello, are you available to resurrect me? I'm in the Ankh-Morpork post office." (Resurrect is often shortened to "res".)

Please inform the Pishite you ask if there are any dangerous auto-attacking NPCs where you are located. If the Pishite you've asked isn't able to help, they will usually forward your request to the Pishe talker channel. Please don't send help requests to multiple people at once since this can create confusion and frustration. If you've received no reply after several minutes, or if they have an away message up, then feel free to ask someone else for help. If you do obtain help from another priest, it's generally polite to inform the first one that you have someone else coming.

If no Pishites are available to help, there are some non-Pishites that are able to resurrect. The first place to try is the RRU club by typing "who RRU". This club generally helps with resurrections and difficult corpse/inventory rescues. If there's no one in that club available to help, you can try asking a random player that isn't idle if they can ask on channel "One" if there's anyone available to help resurrect you.

If you're still unable to find anyone that can help, it's best to use the NPCs as your corpse will decay after a certain amount of time, making it more likely that you will lose your inventory. If you're in a location where you can't easily get to any NPCs that can bring you back to life, your last resort is to use the Godmother (also mentioned on the previous page) by typing "godmother help". If you confirm that you want help by saying yes, she will transport you and your corpse (if it's in the room with you) to your starting location. Nodding will suffice if you are underwater and can't talk. Beware that this will cost you an additional life once you've reached guild level 50. As long as you have enough lives to spare, this can be preferable to losing your inventory depending on how difficult your gear would be to replace.

Please see the following page for more details regarding dying and coming back to life: https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Death

You can see how many lives you currently have, along with lots of other information, with the "score" command. If you run out of lives, your death will become more or less permanent unless you refresh, which starts your character over from scratch. There is a magic spell that can revive someone after a final death, but it is extremely expensive, and being revived this way does come with penalties, so it's not used often. It's generally best to avoid running out of lives unless you prefer to explore the Disc as a ghost. The following page explains how to purchase more lives: https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Buying_lives.

General Help

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Other Helpful Advice - Part 4

General Help:

There is so much more to Discworld than could ever be covered in a simple pamphlet, so chances are you will be needing additional help at some point. There is an extensive in-game help system. Simply type "help" followed by thing you wish to look up. Alternatively, you can view help files at https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/ under the "Playing" tab. If you're having trouble using commands, type "syntax" followed by the command.

Here are a few player-created sites which can provide additional help:

-The Discworld MUD Wiki: https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Main_Page

-Kland's Maps: https://sites.google.com/site/klandsmaps/

-Kefka's Maps: https://dw.daftjunk.com/

-Kefka's Item Database: https://dw.daftjunk.com/items/

Gameplay can be made easier by installing a client rather than playing through your browser. Many MUD clients are available, both free and paid, for various operating systems. Currently, the most popular free MUD client available is MUSHclient. There are a number of plugins available for this client, created by Quow, that aid in navigation, finding items, and so much more. It can take a while to learn all the ins and outs of Quow's plugins, but for many people, it's more than worth it. Quow provides a version of MUSHclient bundled with all of his plugins linked to at the top of the following page: https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/playing/clients.html.

Don't be afraid to ask other players for help. Until you are 18 hours old, you will have access to the newbie channel, which can be used with the "newbie" command. Once you lose access to the newbie channel, you will need to obtain a talker to access the other public chat channels.

You should have received a voucher for a free talker, which can be redeemed at certain shops, but if you lost it, talkers are very inexpensive. "Syntax talker" will give you a list of commands to use with your talker. Channels "One" and "Igame" are the most common channels used to ask for help, but you can also use your guild-specific channels. If no one is able to answer your questions, you can either try again later on the talker, or you can post a question on the bulletin boards. The bulletin boards are available in-game, but are scattered in different locations, so it might be easier to access them at https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/secure/boards.c. The "Frog" board is used for most general help and discussion, but you can also post questions on your guild-specific board.

As a final tip, the first impression you make on other players probably comes in the form of something you write, and may be helped by trying to use proper spelling and grammar. This is particularly helpful on the public channels and bulletin boards, or when talking to people you don't already know. Don't worry if your spelling and grammar isn't perfect. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but the effort is generally appreciated.

Good luck on your adventures, and have fun!