All MUD players would agree that the first few games are very confusing, and not everyone stays the course. However, many years of experience in showing newcomers the ropes has highlighted certain areas where most players have problems. To help you find your feet more quickly, then, the commonest questions asked by novices are paraphrased in this document, with the appropriate replies. Note that these questions are game-related only - if you have problems accessing the game, or with your communications software, contact MUSE direct (MUSE is the company which runs MUD).

The questions are listed in a vaguely "easiest first" order. Some of the later ones you won't understand until you've played the game and seen things happen you'd like explaining. At the very end, after the questions, is a list of words and phrases commonly used in MUD by the players, the meanings of which aren't always apparent to the beginner.

Other essential information is provided within MUD itself, by the commands HELP, COMMANDS, INFO and HINTS. There may also be a good deal of assistance and advice in the MUD on-line library, depending on whether or not the more experienced players have contributed anything: select option L from the Option prompt you get after you've logged in, and type HELP from there to find out how to work the LIBRARY program (it's easy!). Remember, you can always take time out to search the Internet for interesting player-run sites, too.

Throughout this text, and normally in MUD itself, commands are written in upper case. The reason for this is so you can tell what to type; there is no requirement that you actually type the commands in upper case when you're playing...