Starting Guide
by Arden Sutherland

 

If you are new to Haelrahv, this is the place to start.

1. Table of Contents
2. Receiving Help
3. Commands
4. Cash & Storage
5. Buying & Selling
6. Skill & Stat Training
7. Making Money
8. Health & Death
9. Further Information
10. Flags & Settings


Receiving Help

Everyone starts out with a basic communicator. This should be your first try if you have a simple question. First you will need to TURN your communicator to switch it on (the same goes for switching it off). Next, TRANSMIT <message>. Starter communicators have three channels -- 0, 1, and 2. You can specify a channel by typing TRANSMIT # <message>, # being the channel. To send a private comm message to someone, TRANSMIT TO <name> followed by your message.

Please note that comms are an IN CHARACTER form of communication. Please do not speak OOC* unless it is through whispers or private comm transmissions. Also, emoticons** are prohibited on the comm channels. Communicators are AUDIO devices. Therefore, you cannot smile or poke yourself in the belly over a comm. Such things as laughing, crying, and singing about icecream are okay.

*OOC: To be "Out Of Character" is to speak about things your character would not know about. This includes levels, skills, stats, the superbowl, and your favorite "real-life" band.

**Emoticons: These are little symbols such as :) or :'( that are used to express emotions.

We also offer the ADVICE command for OOC questions to other players. To use this, just type ADVICE followed by your message.

If you are unable to find the answers you are looking for, our ASSIST system will add your name to a queue, and an on-duty staff member will respond.


Commands

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BASICS:
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SAY, ' or " : Typing either of those three before anything will cause you to speak it out loud.

You type: 'Hello, my name is Arden.
You will see: You say, "Hi, my name is Arden."
Others will see: Arden Sutherland says, "Hi, my name is Arden."

WHISPER: This can be used to speak privately with someone. WHISPER <name> <message>. You can also WHISPER GROUP <message> to whisper to everyone in your group.

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MOVEMENT:
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In the very last line of a room description, you will see any obvious exits. To move in a direction, you can type N, S, E, W, NW, SW, NE, SE, UP or DOWN.

Other exits, such as doors or paths can be entered by typing ENTER <name>, or GO <name>. These exits are not always plainly visible, and could be mentioned in room descriptions.

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OTHERS:
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To see a full list of social, combat, movement and language commands, simply type COMMANDS. There are a few important commands you should keep in mind:

BUG: This can be used to report errors in the game. If you notice a typo, or think that something isn't working right PLEASE bug it so that we may fix it as soon as possible.

SUGGEST: All suggestions that are made with the suggest command are kept in a log for future reference. This is the most effective way for us to put your ideas to use.


REPORT: This command should only be used when asked by a Counselor to respond to a message they have sent you. It can also be used if you have an emergency that requires immediate attention, such as being stuck in a room. For non-emergencies, please use ASSIST.

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Cash & Storage

If you type CASH, you will notice that you start out with 75 in your credit account, and 75 on hand. When you locate a bank, you can use the following commands:

BALANCE: This will tell you how much money you have deposited in the bank.
DEPOSIT <amount>: Used to deposit on-hand cash into the bank.
WITHDRAW <amount>: Used to take cash from your bank account.

Located in most banks, you also find storage vaults. These vaults are currently free to use, and you can access your stuff from any vault in Llanfair. To acquire a vault, simply step into the vault room and you will be walked through the process.

Vault books are also available in most banks. They keep a list of what belongings you have stored.

Buying & Selling

The inventory in shops can be displayed in three different ways. Shops often use more than one method, sometimes all three.

Menus: These can be viewed by typing MENU, which will return a list of items and prices. To purchase an item from the menu, type ORDER #.

Catalogues: These allow for some customization of your purchase. You can READ the catalogue to view the pages, and READ PAGE # to see the choices on that specific page. You can then ORDER what you want, and it will then give you the price before you confirm your purchase.

Displays: Sometimes inventory is displayed on or inside things. To determine the cost of an item, you can LOOK at it. Be sure you are purchasing the correct item by TAPPING it. If you find what you want, you can then BUY the item.

You can also SELL or PAWN items that you have in your hands. There are many different places to accomplish this, some of them specializing in a certain items. Commodities such as plants and minerals lose value after a large number of them has been sold at one time.


Training Skills & Stats

In order to use the skill and stat points you start off with, you will need to find the areas or people that can help you train. This will require some exploration, but here are a few helpful commands:

TRAINERS: When typed, this command will give you a list of any skills and stats that are trainable in that room.

TRAIN <skill/stat>: This is used to raise a skill or stat when you decide to increase it.

SKILLS: A list of skills and the number of points you have in them.

INFO: A list of your stats and some other general information.

EXPERIENCE: This will tell you your current experience, experience needed for the next level, the time of your last image, and the number of skill and stat points remaining.

For a more detailed explanation of the above, see HELP ADVANCEMENT.


Making Money

There are a few ways to make money at low levels. Here are the two of the easiest and most popular:

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Foraging
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Foraging can be done just about anywhere. The terrain depends on what you will find and where you find it. Uses for foraged items range from alchemical components, to pawning them for cash.

SURVEY: This will help you determine the current conditions in your location.

FORAGE: How often you find things and the value of what you find depends on how skilled you are at foraging. You do not need any special tools to do this.

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Mining
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Mining can only be done in certain caverns. You will also need a mining shovel or pick. Like foraging, your frequency and value of your finds depend on your skills. Mined jewels and stones can be used in alchemy or sold for money. The command to do this is MINE.

help start 8
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Health & Death

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HEALING
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When hunting, you will sometimes be hurt severely enough to bleed. You can find some of the basic medical supplies outside of the hospital. When you need emergency medical help, a visit to a healer or the emergency room may be a good idea. To receive treatment, just enter the room and lie down. The cost will be automatically deducted from your account. The most serious wounds are treated first, so if you do not want your small injuries healed, you may stand up and exit at any time.

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IMAGING
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After level four, you will begin to lose any experience or knowledge you have gained as a result of restoring upon death. A way to prevent this is to visit the imaging center on a regular basis. They will store an image of your DNA, and create a clone of your body when you die. It will become vital that you do this often!

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DEATH
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Unless a medic can revive you, the only way to escape death is to RESTORE. Before level four, nothing will be lost from doing this. However, afterwards, the last image of your DNA will be cloned into a new body. Anything that was gained since that last image will be lost (excluding belongings). After restoring, you will need to return to your place of death to retrieve the grave's contents. If you fail to return to your grave in one hour, the items will be transported to the back room of the pawn shop where they can be bought back.


Further Information

Type HELP to see a list of topics that currently offer help files.

Type NEWS for the latest updates and additions. If there is a new news article, it will inform you automatically upon login.

To view Haelrahv discussions and polls, go to [http://www.haelrahv.com/messageboards]


By typing SET, you will see a list of flags. Flags allow you to turn on and turn off certain game features.

[StatusPrompt] A prompt is the > symbol that appears after every line of text. There are three settings for this flag. VERBOSE, BRIEF, and NONE. The verbose setting will show your current status before every >. This can be very handy as a quick reference.

Here is a key of the symbols and their meanings:

!> Bleeding.
s> Sitting.
k> Kneeling.
p> Prone, or lying down.
g> In a group.
R> Roundtime.
S> Stunned.
H> Hidden.
I> Invisible.
D> Dead.

These will combine if you have more than one of the above statuses.

!pgR> You are bleeding, prone, in a group, and have roundtime.

[Profession] Leave this set ON if you like other players to view your profession, and set it OFF if you would like to keep it hidden.

[LogoutConfirm] If turned OFF, the game will not confirm when you type QUIT.

[WizardColor] If turned ON, this will display colors for Wizard users.

[Ranking] Whether this is ON or OFF determines if you will appear on the TOPSCORE list.

[NewbieHelp] There is a help bell that new players can ring to request help from other players. If you do not wish to hear the bell, turn this OFF.

[DeathMessages] If you do not wish to see the messages when another player dies, turn this OFF.

[Autoshare] If set to ON, this will cause you to automatically share money gained from hunting with the members in your group.

[AutoBundle] When ON, this flag will automatically bundle like items, such as things you have foraged or mined.

[WizardMode] Depending on which version of Wizard you are using, you will need to set this flag to either DR, GS, HX, or MO. If you are not using the wizard client, set it to HR.

Use SET <SETTING> TO <OPTION> to change your settings.
Example: SET STATUSPROMPT TO BRIEF