chapter 4 "Quests"
Some muds don't have quests, and the fun people have is
through role-playing and social activities with other players.
Other muds prefer to concentrate on killing lots and lots
of monsters, a lot, over and over.
Quests give you a chance to problems-solve by performing some
series of actions that satisfies a pre-determined requirement.
For example, Dead Souls's sample town contains a quest called
Orcslayer. Leo the archwizard lives in the basement of the old
abandoned church, and he has lost a powerful magic sword called
"Orcslayer". If you return it to him, he will reward you with
experience points, quest points, and a new title you can use. To
complete the quest, you need to defeat the warrior orcs, penetrate
deep into their lair, defeat the orc shaman, and take Orcslayer from
his corpse, then go to the church basement and give the sword to Leo.
In this case, if you're a level 1 newbie, the orcs will massacre you
before you get anywhere near the shaman. So either team up with
friends to tackle the orcs together, or raise your level to the
point where you're tough enough to take them on.
To raise your level, wander around in the newbie mansion, which
is south of the village church.
There's lots of loot there you can sell at Otik's shop, and with the
cash you can then get some proper weaponry and armor.
Silver is heavy, so don't try to carry all your money around
all the time. Request an account from Zoe the banker and keep your
money there until you really need it.
There is a quest in the newbie mansion, and solving it by
finding the secret room will give you experience and quest points too.
(hint, there might be more than one secret room)
Once you have enough experience and/or points, go to
Dirk in the adventurers hall and "%^GREEN%^ask dirk to advance%^RESET%^".
Make sure you learn some spells from Herkimer, because if you
go up against a bunch of orcs in their lair, you'll want spells to
shield you from attacks, and spells to recover your strength after
combat. As a non-mage, your spell abilities will be limited at
lower levels, but as you gain levels you'll get better. Also, spells
will rarely work after you first learn them. Keep casting them,
even if you screw them up, so that your magic skills increase.
Also, save your money. Drinking and sleeping help you heal,
but not fast enough. By the time those natural processes finish
and you're ready for combat again, the orcs may have gotten reinforcements.
So if you can afford it, buy healing slips and use them at Clepius's
healers guild. His treatment is expensive, but you will heal much
more quickly.
In the tragic event of the loss of a limb, Clepius can also magically
regenerate a new limb...but obviously at some great cost.
There. I've just spoiled the Orcslayer quest for you. Normally,
all you'd know about a quest is a cryptic clue, like the one in the
scroll in the adventurers guild. Instead I've just spoiled the quest
for you by telling you all about it. They're more fun when you have to
figure them out on your own, like puzzles.
Normally, spoiling quests like this is a bannable offense on
a mud, so if you solve a quest, keep it to yourself unless you know
the admins on your mud don't mind.
