Volume Five Issue Five
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............./ / THE LEGENDARY TIMES
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..../ /_/..\______/./_____/./__/.../__/./_______/ MUD
.../________________/ running on mud.aus.sig.net 9999
199.1.78.16 9999
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http://mud.aus.sig.net/ ftp://mud.aus.sig.net/pub
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VOLUME FIVE, ISSUE FIVE September 21, 1997
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Editor's Note.
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Petal's wrap up of the fortnight that was.
Departmental News and Updates.
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A report which aims to keep YOU up to date on the work done in the
various departments.
News and Reports.
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Part two of Kinch's tips and tricks for zmud. This week he
looks at the basics of autohunt.
Keep up to date on the latest trivia results.
Legendites.
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A wonderful summary of the history of the Knights Templar
Drax explains the trouble he is having with his
love life.
From the Warzone: Information on the PK front
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Nihil explins the Mercenary way of life.
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/__| EDITORS NOTE |__\
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This fortnight we had a little bit of downtime to upgrade the mud machine.
The good news is that all went smoothly, and we are currently running a
Pentium 150 with 64 mg ram, and 2 gig of harddrive space. All the Imms
would like to thank you all for your patience over the weekend and are
pleased to bring you a resumption of normal mud services. The Legendary
Times still really needs your articles, observations and stories. I
remind you that if you get an article published in the LT you not only
gain the admiration of your peers, but you also get a token to be used in
the funky prize machine. So get writing, and send those submissions to
[email protected]
Have a good couple of weeks mudding, and we'll speak again real soon!
-Petal
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/__| DEPARTMENTAL NEWS AND UPDATES |__\
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ADMINISTRATION
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Kept their collective eyes and ears well tuned to the channels and the
boards in their ever-vigilant role as mud administrators.
In addition to this they started work on help files and posted a list of
profanity that is unacceptable on public channels
PLAYER RELATIONS
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This week we all did the usual online work including helping newbies,
restrings/strings, registers and clanning.
Croaker ran a discussion forum on various topics.
Harkon was put on the list to get voted on for the HOL.
Flagg ran a version of Fionn's 'complete the sentence' the other week
at a player's request. He is thinking about adapting it into something
else like Updike's complete the story or something similar.
ParticleMan ran another wedding.
CODING
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Basically the Coding department did more work on the fight system.
Ea! fixed a bug in snipe, and implemented the new # of attacks thing.
As well as working on the new fight system, Rufus also added the capacity
for 32 more object flags!
BUILDING
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LadyAce Made some cosmetic changes to Paris Opera House and Kheldar added
30+ rooms to Sinbad as well as adding a timer to the cup at the well of
trust. Deanna fixed some quests and typos in her Dreamtime area, playtesting
continues. Leila did a Little Princess quest for London as well as adding
weather. Croaker finished Sparta and added some rooms for Sea Maze. Flagg
planned the next level of the Inferno and Alhazred finished rooms and
roomacts for Mongol Invasion
As far as fixes go...
Information to combat helpfiles such as Aim, Kick, Choke, etc., as well as a
few spell helpfiles were added. Romainia has had a few typos fixed, and the
top hat in Carnival has also been fixed. Charity installed the Egypt update
and also edited the building documents for public release.
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/__| NEWS AND REPORTS |__\
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Autohunt - The Basics
Tips and Tricks for ZMud Users
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The previous article discussed some of the advantages/disadvantages of
customising zMud to make your on-line time more efficient and effective.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all those players and imms who
gave me feedback and suggestions.
As promised this week's article will be shorter, and will show you the bare
basics for setting up an 'autohunt' facility in zMud as a way of
introducing the concept of triggers. If it looks a bit primitive, that's
because it is - the next article will flesh out the concept
further however, first things first. (If you can follow the instructions
in this article, and think you can nut out your own refinements, by all
means experiment on your own).
But first, the 'hunt' skill itself.
'Hunt' is a skill that you can learn if you have the right stats. (From
memory, it first appeared in my allskills at about level 5, but that was a
long time ago, so don't quote me on that). Once you've learned it, you can
type "hunt ", and the mud will either tell you 'You could not
find a trail' or 'The trail to your prey leads . It is '
As you become more proficient at the skill, you will find that you can hunt
something halfway across the world (in the same time zone). You can hunt
generic mobs (eg 'hunt rat'), specific mobs (eg 'hunt Fith-fath') and even
other players (eg 'hunt Kinch'). As you get closer to your prey, the mud
will go from reporting that 'The trail to your prey leads east. It is
cold' to 'The trail to your prey leads east. It is fresh' to 'You have
found your prey!' (With a few steps in between). If someone gets to your
prey before you do and kills it (presume that they were sitting on the
mob's doorstep, or are using an autohunt facility already, and/or are less
lagged than you are), then the trail will simply disappear without warning.
Such is life.
SOME WORDS OF WARNING
1. The hunt skill can actually lead you through a DT (death-trap). I've
seen it happen. If you are in an area that you are unfamiliar with, hunt
manually, and check your exits. It might also drag you straight into the
clutches of an aggressive mob. You have been warned. If using autohunt
gets you killed, don't sue me, I'm not real :P
2. Hunt works much better for specific rather than generic mobs. By this
I mean that there's only one Fith-fath, but if you're in Tara and type
'hunt fisherman' in the hope that you'll find the fisherman in Orkney that
you were looking for, there's every chance that you'll plough straight
through Ancient Britain and end up talking to a startled Scandinavian
fisherman in the North Sea. Another instance where you should consider
hunting manually rather than using autohunt.
3. If you set up zMud to automatically help you log on to Legend, be
careful of which trigger you're editing in the trigger window editing the
wrong trigger, especially if you don't realise it, can provide you with
hours of pleasure trying to fix things again.
'So how does it work?' I hear you ask. If you look at the response you
get from the mud, you'll notice the message you receive is essentially the
same with each room you go through. The only things that change are the
direction to move next, and the indication of how obvious the trail is/how
close you are.
The concept behind autohunt, then, is to _trigger_ a response from zMud in
reaction to this message from the mud, and get it to send that direction
back to the mud as the next command. That's why they're called triggers
*ponder*.
The easiest way to set this up is to 'hunt something'.
1. Once you see the message on your screen 'The trail to your prey leads
. It is .', highlight it with the mouse (Left click
with the mouse at the start of the text, and drag the mouse across the
screen). In my trigger, I've highlighted up to and including the 'It is'
bit, then left off the 'fresh' 'cold' or whatever. You could try just
highlighting the first sentence, but for safety's sake leave in the first
full stop.
2. From the menu at the top of the zMud screen, select the Actions menu,
then select Make Trigger. This will open up the screen which lets you
configure and keep track of your triggers. (After you've created your
trigger, you can access this screen by simply clicking on the button marked
'Triggers').
3. You'll notice that the text you highlighted has appeared in the
'Pattern' box. It's not quite ready to rock and roll yet, however for
instance, if the mud text was:
The trail to your prey leads east. It is
You'd only be able to use this trigger whenever your next direction
happened to be 'east'. Either you'd have to create a separate trigger for
each possible direction, or you've got a pretty useless autohunt that only
works 1/6 of the time.
You need to replace the direction with a wildcard. Change the text in
the Pattern box so that it reads:
The trail to your prey leads (%w). It is
The (%w) acts as a stand-in for any word so that the trigger will now
respond to east, west, north, south, up, down, and snuffleupagus.
4. Towards the bottom of the trigger screen you'll see a box with the
prompt 'Enter text to test trigger'. By now the box should already contain
the text 'The trail to your prey leads abc. It is'. If you click on the
button marked with a question mark and 'test trigger', you should get the
message (in green) 'PATTERN MATCHES! Matching portion of test pattern is
highlighted above.' If you've got it all right so far, you'll also see a
new box appear directly underneath that says '%1 abc'.
5. What this is telling you is that %1 will hold the direction the mud is
currently directing you to go in. Type %1 into the box marked 'Command'.
You've done it!! That's all there is to it!
All we need to do now is tidy up a bit.
1. In the box marked 'Class', give your new trigger a name such as
Autohunt. This will allow us later to bundle other triggers together into
the one group.
2. In the triggers screen, you also see a box marked 'When loaded:
Enable' which currently has a tick (check) in it. Deselect it, so that
your trigger doesn't automatically start up when you log in.
For the time being, you can turn your new autohunt on and off by typing in
the normal zMud window
#T+ Autohunt
to turn it on, and
#T- Autohunt
to turn it off
Once it's turned on, you can type 'hunt rabbit' (or whatever) and you're up
and running!
(Note: when you exit zMud at the end of your session, you'll see a box
prompting you to save changes to your settings. Click 'yes' to save your
new trigger.)
A really useful feature of this autohunt is that you can continue to send
other commands to the mud (eg talk to people, change equipment) while
you're on the go which is something you can't do if you're speedwalking.
Good luck with your zMud customisation next week I'll show you how to add
an automatic door-opener to your autohunt, and we'll add a button to your
screen that lets you turn your new trigger on and off with a simple
mouse-click.
If you've got any questions, queries or suggestions, feel free to stop and
talk, or send me a mud mail.
*bow*
Kinch
The Trivia Report
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The trivia results for Friday 9/19
Blaze first with 7 correct
Anacrusis second with 6 correct
Jen-Creature Aginor Zelda and Siegfried tie for third with 5 correct
After 8 weeks (with 4 weeks remaining) cumulative score leaders:
Jen-Creature 49
Zelda 47
Siegfried 34
Beam 28
Aginor 26
Buffalmacco 25
The top 6 qualify for big trivia blow-out with prizes and whois strings
to be given out after 4 more weeks of trivia !
Sample questions this week:
1) This comic strip features a socially challenged engineer and his
sarcastic dog who plans to take over the world.
2) Showtime has begun a weekly series based on this 1995 movie.
3) The Japanese town of Mikame recently held its annual summer rodeo
where contestants ride these animals
4) The 2 most common motifs for decorative design in Imperial palaces in
ancient Chinese arhitecture were these two mythical creatures.
(answers appear at the bottom of the Legendary Times)
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o O | Wonder what folks are |
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/__| LEGENDITES: Information Regarding the People of Our World |__\
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THE POOR KNIGHTS OF CHRIST
OF THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON OF JERUSALEM
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Some of you have asked what the Knights Templar are all about, historically
- some in order to gain a deeper understanding of what it is you are part
of, most of you - however sad that may be - in order to find things to
accuse us of! Well, here goes, a hopefully short enough summary of the
activities of the historic Templars.
The Knights Templar historically constituted a group of European noblemen
sworn to service to the church, and pilgrims to the Holy Land. Founded
in the late 12th century by the Frenchman Hugh de Payens and his eight
fellows, the Templars-to-be presented themselves to the Frankish King of
Jerusalem asking for his patronage which was granted them. Eventually, the
Order came under the Church's jurisdiction, gaining its own constitution
based upon that of the Augustinians.
The Knights Templar's chief purpose was 'to protect the pilgrims to
the Holy Land'. They fought against the Infidel and came to hold numerous
castles and regions in Palestine. They earned a fiersome reputation as
fighters because Templars were not allowed to flee from battle unless
outnumbered more than three to one, and the brethren's military discipline
rivalled that of the Roman Legions. All this in an era where secular armies
often broke up or lost their battles because this or that knight decided
he'd rather attack another castle than the foe his general had in mind.
Immensely succesful, the Templars set a precedence soon followed by
other groups of knights. At the same time that the Templars received formal
legislation from the Pope, the Knights of St John - a.k.a. the Knights
Hospitallers - had formed in similar fashion around the Hospital of St Mary
Latina in Jerusalem. Soon were established the Knights of St Lazarus,
and various other lesser known chivalric orders, some of which were
ecclesiastical in nature, some of which were not.
The Knights Templar were the first of the Orders to realise the
need for steady supply lines from Europe to the Holy Land. Setting up a
chain of trade partners and commanderies overseeing their commerce, they
effectively invented capitalism as we know the term. At the same time they
(and the other Orders as well) were granted huge amounts of wealth and
land in Europe from grateful pilgrims, royal patrons, and others who
sought to buy goodwill from the higher powers in the medieval fashion. The
Orders of the Temple and of St John respectively grew particularly wealthy
yet both always adhered to the ecclesiastical rule that the individual
brother could not own anything but the clothes he bore and the weapons
he wielded.
During the late 13th century the Muslim armies of Nureddin, Saladin, and
later Baybars threathened the Christian hold of the Holy Land. Jerusalem
itself had been lost, and the Christian forces were scattered and their
supply lines often threathened. Rivalry broke out numerous times between
the Templars and the Hospitallers, once even leading to a brief, but very
real war between the Orders in the fortress town of Acre.
In 1291 Acre, the last Christian foothold in Palestine, fell to the Infidel
and the Latin Kingdom was no more. The battle of Acre remains one of the most
glorious in Templar history, for although they were defeated eventually,
they held the castle against overwhelming odds for weeks, sending only
their wounded brothers out when the last ships left, filling the ships with
civilians instead. One who was sent out was Jacques de Molay who would
later be the last Grand Master of the Order. When Acre itself fell, the
surviving Templars fortified themselves in the city's small harbor tower,
where they withstood siege a good while longer. When they did fall,
it was because of treason on the Muslim commander's behalf - and when the
tower was stormed, as if to underline the glory with which they had fought,
the entire tower collapsed upon them, crushing Christians and Turks alike.
The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller both transferred their
headquarters to Cyprus after the fall of Acre. Gathering their strength
again, and trying to get their bearings now their chief purpose
had been forfeited, the Templars contemplated establishing a Templar state
in France (from which most of their members hailed) and where they were
strongest (the Hospitallers remained on Cyprus until eventually moving to
Rhodes, and when defeated there, to Malta in 1530). Europe grumbled: for
many, it seemed easiest to blame the loss of the Holy Land upon the
military Orders, its chief defenders.
In 1304, without any forewarning at all, every Knight Templar in France
was arrested on the order of King Philip IV 'le Bel' and the Pope.
Facing charges of witchcraft, devil worship, and conspiracy against the
state, the Order was shaken to its very foundation. Grand Master Jacques
de Molay, friend of King Philip and godfather of his son the crown prince,
was subjected to torture along with other high dignitaries of the Order, as
were hundreds of other Knights. The Dominicans who led the Inquisition were
skilled at what they did, and had they no evidence they were more than
willing to invent it - transcripts of the Templar trials show to the modern
reader that this trial was not one of proving or disproving the Templars'
guilt, but one of convincing the Pope of the need to disband them. Sacrilege
and devil worship were the chief accusations, closely followed by unnatural
sexual practices and heretical philosophy and rite.
Shortly before the unexpected arrest of the Knights Templar, King Philip
had proposed the idea of uniting the Knights Templar and the Knights
of St John into one order of which he would be Grand Master and that title
should be inheritable, i.e. passed from father to son in the French royal
dynasty. Both Orders protested violently. Given that at the time, King Philip
owed the Knights Templar considerable sums, it has often been speculated
that his maneuvering to control (and when that failed destroy) the Order of
the Temple, was founded in financial trouble.
In 1307, by Papal decree, the Knights Templar were formally disbanded.
Low ranking Knights were generally allowed a pension, though many died
as beggars. A few were accepted into other ecclesiastical orders.
All over Europe, Templars were arrested and deprived of their property,
commanderies and land were appropriated, and the Order ceased to exist for
good. In Scotland, where King Robert the Bruce was a friend of the
Order, the Knights Templar somehow managed to blend in and vanish, and
nothing more really came of that. In Portugal, the Order was disbanded by
royal decree, and a new Order - the Knights of Christ - was promptly formed
under royal control, accepting the former Knights Templar as its brothers.
A curious footnote to history is that Prince Henry the Navigator of
Portugal as well as Christopher Colombus were Knights of Christ - the red
crosses on the sails of the Nina, the Pinto and the Santa Maria were the
Templars' coat-of-arms which the new Order retained.
The last Grand Master of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, and his second in
command, were burned over a slow fire in Paris, and with that,
the formal history of the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple
of Jerusalem came to an end. In the centuries since, there has been much
speculation as to whether the Templars continued to exist as a secret
society, and some of their riddles will most likely never be solved. The
Templars possessed Europe's most powerful fleet at the time of their
arrest - yet, when the King's troops arrived at the port of La
Rochelles, not a trace of it was found, nor ever since. The Templars
were often called Guardians of the Holy Grail, yet no such item was ever
found in the appropriated commanderies. The Peasant Rebellion in England in
the next century, by some claimed to be masterminded by the descendants of
vengeful Templars*
And into our own era the mysteries of the Knights templar continue:
* At Rennes-la-Chateau where a find was made which enabled a poor parish
priest to decipher ancient Templar documents (possibly) and make a fortune
* The Prieure de Sion, mother organisation of the Knights Templar of which
Hugh de Payens himself may once have been Grand Master, which today claims
a secret purpose
* The Scottish Rites of the Freemasons, may or may not be remnants of Templar
doctrine and rite - and much, much more.
-Tancred
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Dear citizens of this planet we call Legend,
A short time ago it can to my attention that while I was away working
hard to better myself as a person, my wife-to-be found someone she liked
better. Is this the way of true love? How could she say that she loved me
so much, and then turn her back to me when I returned? I think that she
never loved me at all. For most of my life I have loved her, and she led
me along on a string. Lies were told by her, while I worshipped the
ground she walked on. How could I be so blind? I believe that it was her
clan who put her up to this evil deception. And for that I will never forget
those cruel members of clan Angesley. For those members a message:
I vow that I will have my revenge on your souls. For the other she loves:
You will wish that you were never concieved. And for her....
Mice beware, Angesley beware...
Drax - A Celt with a mission.
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/__| FROM THE WAR ZONE: Information From the PK Front |__\
'----------------------------------------------------------------------'
Ok, perhaps many people have thought that mercs don't rp. But
indeed, we seek to contribute to the blend of rp/pkill that makes
Legend what it is. This article is intended to explain to the
general Legend population what makes up what the mercs are.
1. Organization
The mercenaries are organized, rather than a regular clan, into
a gang structure. The leader has absolute power, however, if the
gang loses faith in the leader, the leader may be forced to step
down. The mercenary clan also functions to back it's other
members when they're confronted with trouble. In this, their rp
as a gang is preserved, as they look after their own.
Initiation into the mercenary clan goes often as other gangs
would have it. When a new member is allowed into the clan,
whatever mercs are on at the time remove weapons and beat the
living hell out of the new member. This goes as a form of
bonding between the old and new members, and is a symbol of the
new member's dedication.
2. Gang Signs and Graffiti
The Merc Gangsign is the middle three fingers of either hand,
pointed in a various direction. For eastside members, you
point the aforementioned fingers to your right side, for
westside, to your left side, etc. Each 'side' is determined
by location. Southside mercs often live in the Southern
areas such as Texas, westside would live in places such as
California, and so on.
Merc graffiti is merely the word "MERC" spray painted
wherever graffiti is located. Blunt, simple, to the point,
the basis of the tags left around.
3. Language
Many people may think the mercs speak a foreign language
sometimes when they talk, however, they merely speak in a
dialect of the English language known as "Ebonics".
Ebonics was originally named for the language used by
several African-Americans, and is a fairly simple language.
Below is a dictionary of some of the more commonly used
terms in the Ebonics language:
9 - A 9mm gun of any sort
Blast - To shoot somebody
Dope - 1. Drugs
2. Cool, awesome
Driveby - Shooting somebody from a moving car
Execution Double 9 Style - 1. Shooting someone with two 9mm guns
2. Shooting someone while a friend shoots him as
well
Gaffle - 1. To steal
2. To cause great physical injury upon
Gank - Same as gaffle
Gat - A gun
Pimp - 1. One who sells women
2. A cool person
3. Cool, awesome
Signs - Shortened word meaning "gang signs"
Tag - To paint graffiti somewhere
Word - Expression of agreement
There's some of the words used most often, usually you can
pick out a few more.
Anyway, that's a brief definition of the merc rp, hope
you understand us better now ;)
-Nihil
Answers to Croaker's Sample Questions.
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1) Dilbert
2) Stargate
3) Pigs
4) Dragon and phoenix
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Legendary Times is published by the gods of LegendMUD. Please send all
replies/additions to our address at [email protected] for inclusion in the
next edition. We, however, reserve the right to moderate this discussion, and
may object to some submissions.
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