Fishroom: FAQ

Source

Q1) What is this place?

A1) FISHROOM is an interactive discussion area for folks that maintain aquariums. It is built using a mud driver. Muds are usually game environments, but they have a certain feel to them that make them appropriate for other things as well - such as this implementation.
When you first login this system, you are placed in the Enterance Hall. From here you will find rooms dedicated to freshwater, marine, marketplace, and technical topics. From each of those rooms, more forcused rooms may exist, such a freshwater cichlids and marine reef rooms.

Q2) How do I visit the various rooms?

A2) When you enter a room (or when you issue the "look" command), you will be given the description of the room you are in. That description will include phrases like "To your left is the freshwater room". To enter that room, simply type "left" (without the quotes).

Q3) Are there any behavioral restrictions here?

A3) Basic Internet rules apply:
• Don't be annoying.
  
  
• Don't be easily annoyed.
  

  If you treat other visitors the way you would in real life, you should
  be fine. This implies that sexual harassment and excessive foul
  language are not acceptable.
  

Q4) Stuff keeps streaming off my screen, how do I get it to stop every 24 lines or so?

A4) We suggest you use a front-end program such as TinyFugue rather than regular Telnet to interface to FISHROOM.

Q5) What can I do if I can't find my way out of a room, or have some other difficulty trying to determine what to do in a room?

A5) Issue the 'syntax' command. That will tell you all commands defined specifically for use in the room you are in.

Q7) Things just got REAL slow! Whats going on?

A7) Every mud suffers from "lag". Lag is those unexpected times when you think something should be happening, but nothing does. Typically, you will enter a command, like one to move to another room, and instead of the room description, you are greeted with a long pause. Lag can be caused by at least four things:
• The machine hosting the mud is busy doing something else of higher
  priority, or is somehow else slowing the mud process down.
  
  
• The host machines connection to the Internet is saturated. Using
  "brief" mode (and not re-displaying the long description of every
  room you enter) helps this. So does mud design decisions like
  not displaying misses in combat.
  
  
• Your connection to the Internet is saturated, or somewhere between
  your connection and the mud's host machines connection is saturated.
  Not much you can do about this one. Its life on the Internet.
  
  
• The mud is misbehaving and requesting an abnormal amount of computer
  resources from the host machine. This could happen if a Wizard
  decided to have a hundred mud characters battle each other at the
  same time, for example, or if the mud program has a serious bug.
  The Ancients that run this mud obviously frown on the first, and
  do their best to prevent the second.
  

Q8) Every time I 'say' or 'tell' anything, it echos back what I said. Can I get the system to stop doing that?

A8) Yes, and the administers of the system encourage you to do so. Simply type in the command 'echo' - which will toggle this feature off and on. Echo is on by default, which most new people feel good about, but it does consume more network bandwidth, and can get annoying after awhile.

Q9) How can I help? Can I add new rooms to Fishroom?

A9) Yes you can. Via anonymous FTP here at kplace.monrou.com, you can fetch a copy of the Reef Room and use it as a pattern to create your own room, or enhance on of the 'plan' rooms. Once you have your file created, e-mail it to cas...@kplace.monrou.com. If he likes what he sees, he will add it to Fishroom.

Q10) How can I get my name and e-mail address to show up on 'who' output?

A10) Use the 'prefix' command. You can specify any text you wish to prefix your name by using this command. Note that this is strickly a voluntary thing, you are NOT required to give out your e-mail address.

Cassey - 07/23/95