Using Cyberportals: ------------------- There are two types of cyberportals -- Unter and non-Unter. Pre-Unter, a cyberportal was simply an exit which had a special string as the success, and that string was interpreted by the player's client to reconnect to another mud. The character itself was actually not moved; the player just logged into a new character on a new mud. In UnterMUD, cyberportals are much more real. They are actual exits to another room on another Unter. When a player walks through one, their character and everything they are carrying is actually transfered to the remote mud. In order to tell the client what's going on, the same special string is displayed, which tells the client to reconnect to a different mud. Depending on the client, the user may or may not have to manually relog in to their character. (There is a version of tf out, called tf-unter1.01 that handles cyberportals beautifully.) If a user is not using a smart enough client, or is using straight telnet, they will probably see the reconnection message, but their client will not do anything with it. When this happens, they will have to manually QUIT, and then connect to the remote mud and to their character there. Characters sent to another mud are actually not deleted from the database. Instead, they are 'ghosted' -- their location field is removed, and they float in nowhere. If a user logs into a character that has no location, they will be told to "go away", and then a cyberportal reconnection string will be displayed, pointing their client to the proper mud where their alive character should be. It is possible for a wizard to revive a ghosted character, but this introduces a database inconsistency, and should be avoided at all cost. The cyberportal reconnection string (which is recognized by most clients out there -- tinytalk, tinywar, tf, and tinymud.el, for instance) is: #### Please reconnect to MudName@1.2.3.4 (host.name.if.known) port 6565 #### Also, some clients have the ability to gag all lines up to a certain line upon logging in. In clients that can do this (such as tf and tinytalk, with the /quiet on option), it has been suggested that their source be changed to look for the "### end of messages ###" line, which most Unters are now using. If you're using a nice and robust client that will auto-reconnect you, and can gag login messages, it will be possible to walk right through a cyberportal onto another mud without you even noticing. Making a Cyberportal: --------------------- The first thing that must occur is that the wizards of two unters must get together and exchange password information, so their unters know and recognize each other. Assuming this has been done, any player can then make a link to the remote unter. The player must first walk onto the remote unter and find (or build) a linkok room. The syntax for making a link is identical to building an ordinary exit, only the destination room number should be fully qualified (the mudname of the remote unter added on). For example: build exit "n;north;zoomud" 43@Zoo will build an exit named "n;north;zoomud", with the destination being room 43 on Zoo. The exit works normally, except that anyone using it will wind up on another unter. ('drop' and 'odrop' messages do not work over cyberportal links, however.)