FAQ1
Q: I don't understand anything that's going on! Help!
A: Now that you have successfully created a character, you may still have a hard time understanding the output on your screen. Here are some possible problems and their solutions.
Q: My screen is scrolling by too quickly. I can't understand anything.
A: You can cut the scroll rate in half by typing "compact" and getting the response, "You are now in compacted mode." This takes out a lot of blank lines.
Q: My screen is still scrolling by too quickly. There are a lot of people doing strange things.
A: If you are in the Halls of Mandos still, this sort of thing usually means that there has just been a crash, and the whole gameful of people is arriving there and going to different places in the world by praying.
If you are in a town, there may be a lot of activity there at the moment, by coincidence - an expedition assembling, or even a battle going on. Find a quieter location, or just wait until things die down.
Tip: If you can type the 'sleep' command, you won't see what is going on around you and can read the help files.
Q: My screen is scrolling because of messages like "A narrates 'something mysterious'", "B narrates 'something silly'" and so on.
A: If these 'narrates' and 'sings' are just too confusing or annoying, you can stop listening to them by typing 'listen tales' (which turns narrates either off or on) or 'listen songs' (same thing for songs).
Q: What are all these people narrating about? They are using abbreviations and sometimes strange languages or even strange mixtures of letters!
A: In the first place, characters of different races know different languages. If you are a new Dwarf, and an Elf begins to narrate in 'Sindarin' (an elven language), you won't understand it well at all. It will look like this: "Thxcib g smnple if af rlf ncrqitmng jl SXmgarlk". Also, if you start narrating in your native Dwarvish tongue, people won't understand you either! Fortunately, there is a language, Westron, which all of the good races know rather well. To speak it, type 'change language westron'. Eventually, depending on your character's Intelligence, you will learn more of these languages.
In the second place, while English is the official language of MUME, and the only language allowed on tales/narrate and in titles/whoises, there are many European players who sometimes communicate in other languages. Perhaps you will eventually learn some Swedish here!
Third, people who have played MUME for a long time often use abbreviations and shortcuts, which have to be learned by experience. They may narrate "bsb forsale" or "free fgc" - these are abbreviations for useful items of equipment. "Trolls at Bend" means that hostile player trolls are at a certain Bend in a certain Road which, experience teaches us, is often a battle site. Abbreviations will list many common abbreviations.
