University of Kwazulu-Natal

The Muck Manual Administering A Muck

Bonisiwe Shabane
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the muck manual administering a muck

Putting a MUCK online, creating a world that will attract players, and dealing with the minor and major crises that will inevitably crop up over time is an inherently demanding and time-consuming task. For most, though, it is a labor of love, and the burdens can be shared among staff members. Administering a MUCK involves both technical and non-technical issues. Both can be quite insistent and pressing during a MUCK's early, formative stages: there are innumerable technical details to attend to, and the small population creates an artificially incestuous atmosphere in which non-technical issues... As the world develops and attracts players, things stabilize, but both issues will remain. On the technical side, problems of dbase management and backward compatibility will replace the tasks of getting everything working right.

On the non-technical side, player relations and changing levels of commitment from staff members will come to the fore. Both sets of issues are discussed in this section of the Manual. MUCK Manual Version 1.0 Written for TinyMuck version 2.2 fb5.64 & fb6.0 by Jessy @ FurryMUCK Mink currently hosts two online manuals: Additional, off-site manuals are accessible via the References section of the Mink Links page. Perhaps one of the most vital elements of the game is to first get to grips with the controls, becoming familiar with these is a great way to prepare yourself for movement during later...

This section covers some very basic tips to start off a player's adventure. As soon as the player has early-game items. The player will need to start gathering better materials to become stronger. Upgrading is an essential part to overcome future Bossfights. Although the player won't meet every enemy straight away, they will encounter more monsters as they progress and the nights quickly wear on. These creatures will also become more dangerous overtime as they gain more health and deal more damage.

It's good to know their general gimmicks so that you are prepared for the next threat. Once the 6th / 5th / 3rd day is reached, or the player interacts with a Boss Totem or the wheel on the Shipwreck, a Boss will spawn. To ensure the player is well prepared, the player may opt to follow the following guide. UNIX gurus and C buffs should have little difficulty compiling a MUCK. For the rest of us, it is a potentially frustrating experience. This section of the manual is addressed to the rest of us: sysadmins and C developers, you can use this time to go toggle in a new kernal from the front panel of a...

MUCK is not a shrink-wrapped, plug-and-play product. It is, rather, a large freeware application developed over a number of years by skilled coders who are willing to devote innumerable hours to making something for other people to use and enjoy. It is assumed that you — the site administrator — have reasonable facility with the UNIX operating system and a basic understanding of how to configure the program by editing C source code configuration... In other words, like UNIX itself, MUCK is quite user-friendly, but rather choosy about who its friends are. The following overview may help you get on speaking terms with your new server. It is of course madness to try to set up a MUCK without knowing UNIX.

Nonetheless, people often try, and often succeed. A good book on UNIX will be a worthwhile investment if you are going to be the MUCK's site administrator. If the set up goes smoothly — that is, if your system has everything where MUCK expects it to be — this information should be all you need. If you encounter compilation errors, you'll need to enlist help. Those sysadmins and C developers will be through toggling in their microkernals by the time you've gotten that far, and will no doubt be MUCK'ing somewhere. Go to a large MUCK, and try a public shout, or paging helpstaffers and wizards, asking if someone can lend a hand compiling a MUCK.

Getting your server up and running involves the following steps: The MUCK Manual comprises five sections. Section 1 is an introduction for new players, covering basic commands and setting up your character. Section 2 deals with server commands and the commands included in the standard start-up database. Section 3 covers programming. Tutorials are presented in Section 4.

Section 5 discusses technical and nontechnical issues of administering a MUCK. New players should read Section 1; others may safely begin with later sections. The Overview sections provide relatively thorough discussion of relevant concepts, but are not comprehensive. The Reference sections are comprehensive (or at least attempt to be), but are written in a terse style that assumes the reader has some familiarity with the topic or has read the Overview. The remaining sections discuss aspects of the section topic meriting special attention. ==================================== Examples in the manual are set off by half-lines of equal signs, like this.

==================================== Text enclosed in [square brackets] is optional. Text enclosed in <angle brackets> should be edited as appropriate for you and your character. For example, where the manual says `type <your name>', type your name, rather than typing this literally. Within examples, lines beginning with a > greater than sign indicate material you should enter at your keyboard; the remaining lines are sample output from the MUCK. (In some longer programming entries, the > sign has been omitted so that you may cut and paste text from the web page to a MUCK.)

The MUCK Manual attempts to provide a single, relatively comprehensive reference for MUCK, as Lydia Leong's MUSH Manual does for MUSH. The organization of The MUCK Manual is in part based on her manual, and any indebtedness is gratefully acknowledged. (Note: It is not necessary to get a home immediately, and sometimes the simplest approach is the best one: page a staff member and ask her to set you up with a home or... `Home' has both a technical and non-technical meaning on MUCKs. In the technical sense, all players and things have a `home', a place to which they are `linked', and to which they will return if the MUCK doesn't know where to put them or... A player's home must be a room.

A thing's home may be a room or player. In the non-technical sense, your `home' is, naturally enough, where you live. Your `non-technical home' (the place where you hang out, keep your belongings, sleep, etc.) does not necessarily have to be your `technical home', but it is more convenient for both to be the same. Getting a home on the MUCK involves both technical and non-technical issues. Read this section completely before typing any of the commands. On the non-technical side, you will need to find a place where you can put a home.

There may be places where the builder has installed a command that lets you put in a home: read `news' and any materials in the place where you start off, or ask people online... This section provides tutorials on how to use the commands and programs discussed throughout The MUCK Manual to perform common tasks and projects. Note: in many cases, there is more than one way to accomplish the goal. MUF — a dialect of FORTH — is one of two programming languages implemented on all MUCKs, the other being MPI. The speed and efficiency of MUF make MUCKs readily user-extensible: powerful new commands and programs can be soft-coded into the database. Although the only place you'll be able to use it is on MUCKs, MUF is a real programming language: once you've learned it, you can truthfully say you know how to program computers, and...

MUF is an extensible, structured, stack-based, compiled language. In order to program in MUF, you'll need a Mucker bit, a flag that lets you use the MUF editor. A wiz will need to set this, so page one and ask. There are three levels of mucker bits, M1 (apprentice), M2 (journeyman), and M3 (master) (wizards are considered M4). As a new Mucker, you'll get an M1 bit. M1's have access to most of the functions, but not all; output from an M1 program to anyone other than the owner of the program is prefaced by the user's name; and the program...

An M1 bit is essentially MUF with training wheels. Once you've written a couple M1 programs that work, you can show them to a wiz and ask for an M2 bit. M2's can't use all the functions, but you can make truly useful programs at the M2 level: bulletin board or book programs, specialized exits and locks, morphing programs, etc. M3 bits are dandy to have, but they are hard to come by on large mucks, and for good reason. An M3 bit gives its owner considerable power over the data base, approaching that of a wizard: an inept or malintentioned M3 coder could cause serious problems. In fact, M3's are in some ways more of a security risk than Wizard bits: wiz bits are more powerful, but all commands issued by a wizard are logged; this is not necessarily true...

To get an M3 bit on a well established MUCK, you will need to write some very good programs and have shown yourself to be a trustworthy player over time. In general, it's easier to get an M3 on newer, smaller MUCKs. The commands for handling things are quite straightforward: get <object> causes you to pick up something; drop <object> causes you to drop it. When you go somewhere, objects you are carrying will go with you. In order to get something, you must be in the same room, and it must not be locked against you. You can hand things to other players, syntax hand <object> to <player>.

Being able to hand or be handed to isn't automatic: type hand #ok to enable handing. The inventory command, abbreviated i or inv, shows a list of everything you are carrying, and a line showing how many pennies you have.

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