Just entered the game and had my first Role playing event where my character interacted with several pilots in the bunkroom. I must say, the whole thing is actually a lot of fun. It is actually a lot like IRC, but instead of conversing as yourself, it is as a character in the WC universe (as a pilot or technicians in the TCSF, crew or command officer in the TCN or even as marine personnel in the TCMC). You end up making a lot of new friends rather quickly as you converse in and out of character with other people.
To give you a better idea, I'll give a brief tutorial of the character creation process and a few tips for your first RP experience. Currently the Majestic is picking up people and supplies, so if you wish to join as a replacement, now is the best time to do it. Hopefully, in a couple of days, I will be able to give everybody a more complete review of the whole experience from interactions with pilots and crew to space combat.
To start off, you must actually connect into the environment, I did this but going to this page
http://www.mudconnect.com/fmud/?host=omen.genesismuds.com&port=2657 and clicking "Connect and Play Now"
At first, it is a little awkward getting a handle on the proper commands, but the
+help is a very useful tool to tell you what commands to type. There are also very helpful and friendly people that will help you get started and give you advice from the outset. One of first things that you do is create your character. The command is given on the first page as shown below.
Next you are greeted with a welcome, the amount of mail your character profile has, and the various board postings that you have yet to read as shown below. To read the posting you have access to, just type
+bbread board#/entry#.
You change you primary screen/login name by typing
@name me=name. You can also set an alias to allow for quicker reference of your character for mails and pages (more on these later) by typing
@alias me=alias.
From here you need to go to Chargen (by typing
CG), where you start setting up your character. Here you are informed that the next few "rooms" will let you personalize you character. Each room gives you instructions on how to go about setting up your character. Note that you cannot enter the game unless your character gets approval, but as long as your character is reasonable, you should not have a problem getting approval by the staff.
Over the next few sections, I will give you some basic details and include some of my own thoughts and suggestions:
Each room allows you to customize your character's demographics, abilities, and background. To move forward to the next room type
N and to go backward type
B. Note that no data is lost by going back to prior rooms. In demographics, you set your character's full name, callsign, age, faction (Confed or Civilian), position (eg marine, technician, scientist, pilot, corpsman, etc.), organization (TCN, TCSF, or TCMC), and rank (note high ranks probably won't get approved). I set up a 26 year old pilot with a rank of 2nd Lt. in the TCSF.
Next you are probably going to want to expand upon your character and come up with a basic backstory before starting on the abilities to give you an idea of what attributes and skills to go for in each of the abilities sections. There are five sections to abilities (four of which require points add and raise skills or attributes, there are total of 80 points that can be applied).
Abilities
attributes (max of 32 points can be applied here)
action (be very careful what you choice as these will have the most impact on your character's performance in-game)
background (not very important, but you do want to place some points here to flesh out your character, usually go for two or three skills)
language (English, Spanish, etc., just apply some points here to whatever is applicable, probably need at least 4 or 5 applied to English).
Just some added tips on the skills in the abilities section:
7 points is the highest you should go with any skill
2 or 3 points is usually considered just basic training/knowledge with limited background in that skill
4-6 is more involved training of probably several years
My character was originally going into Chemistry and spent 4 to 5 years in chemical research, so he has a 7 skill count in Chemistry as well as some points in Physics. After going through the academy for 4 years, he received some skills through basic training (stealth, melee, etc.) along with with heavy training in skills like gunnery and piloting.
Unlike action and background skills, attributes should be spread to reflect your character. Just a few thoughts: all military characters (except maybe scientists and medical personnel) should have at least average athletic attribute, also pilots should probably have decent reactivity and be at least average academically. Again 7 is probably as high as you want to go for any one attribute.
There is also a section on quirks that require no points, but help others get an idea about your character's personality. Mine is a by-the-book and cool-headed pilot who is very guarded emotionally. There is no limit on the number of quirks you can add, but between 4 and 6 quirks is probably best.
Below is a picture of my character's ability sheet.
In the next room, you input your character's background. I typed mine up in wordpad and then pasted in each paragraph under a different section with these commands:
&bg1 me=Iceblade was born...
&bg2 me=He went off to academy in ...
After that, you type
N to go the approval page and type
bg/submit to submit your character and background for approval. You will receive either a mail letting you know you have been approved or a mail giving you comments and suggestions on things to change in your character or you will be paged by Hunter or one of the other staffers informing you of issues in your character that need to be corrected. For additional alterations to your character, just type
bg/unsubmit and type
B to get to the 'room' that needs corrections.
To access your character's mail type
@mail to review your mails and type
@mail #:# to access that particular mail that has #:# out beside it.
Oh and one last thing, you need to add your character's description. This can done even if your character is currently submitted. To add your description, type
@desc me=description. You can look at other people (by typing
look name) to get a basic idea of some of the details included in the description, especially the uniform descriptions (which are all Wing Commander 1 uniforms).
Once you are approved, you are allowed access to the IC (in-character) by typing
+IC and you can then enter the RP rooms, where you can move around the ship going from lift to deck, deck to room, etc. You can type
+where to find out where everybody is and you can page people by typing
page name=message. In addition, you talk to different groups of people by typing the following:
To chat with everybody, type
ooc message
To talk to everybody in the newbie channel, type
+n message
To chat with others in your organization, type
+TCX message where X=N, SF, or MC depending on your character's organization.
Once you get some people together to do some RP, you then enter the IC, go to the room where you want to meet and start interacting. To pose (which means posting/acting or just posing your character), type
:verb and other stuff.. Just to give you a better idea here is a sample pose:
:forcefully responds, "Oh, I'm flying this mission," as he turns around to face the CAG. "The Captain approves. The doctors approve. Why are giving me such a hard time about this?" Blair then walks past the CAG.
Blair forcefully responds, "Oh, I'm flying this mission," as he turns around to face the CAG. "The Captain approves. The doctors approve. Why are giving me such a hard time about this?" Blair then walks past the CAG.
A few additional notes on conversations: when somebody enters a room, you should let them pose before interacting with them; also after you pose, you should allow everybody else in the room to pose before posing again.
I hope this little overview will be helpful in getting people started as well as interested in joining in on the MUSHy fun.
