Everybody's Free to Carry Firestones

Players of 99: carry a firestone.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, a firestone would be it. The long term benefits of carrying firestones has been proven by numerous highlife players, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own, mage-level experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the excitement and mystery of your lowlife days. But never mind, you will never understand the excitement and mystery of your lowlife days until you make warlock. But trust me, in two years time, you will look back at logs of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now, how much possibility lay before you and how clueless you really were. You are not as skilled as you imagine.

Don't worry about making wiz or worry knowing that trying to is just as effective as trying to solve a mausoleum solution by bashing Joey. The real troubles in your MUD life are apt to be things that have not crossed your worried mind. The kind that summons you at 9:30 PM on some idle Thursday. Do one task every day that scares you.

Map.

Don't be reckless with other peoples' personae, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Do the crown.

Don't waste your time on player killing. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults, especially from the wizzes in both cases... If you succeed in doing this, mail me. Keep your old game logs, throw away your old printed obiturary lists.

DUEL.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know how to do the keep. The most interesting players I have known didn't know how to do the keep at necromancer; some of the most interesting mages still don't. Carry plenty of wafers. Be kind to your keys on your keyboard, you'll miss them when the letters rub off.

Maybe you'll make wiz, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll turn killer, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll give up at necro, maybe you'll dance the 'Funky Chicken' after you get your arch-wiz privs.
Whatever you do, don't CONGRATULATE yourself - you won't score anything. Your survival is half chance. So is every other mortal's.

Enjoy your kit. Use it everywhere you can. Don't be afraid of it or what killers could do with it. It's the greatest collection of magical, fantasy artifacts you'll ever own.

DANCE WI PLAYER. Even if you have nowhere to do it but the tearoom.

Keep good directions even if you don't follow them.

Do not read the wiz list, it will only make you feel stupid.

Get to know the wizzes. You never know when they'll start FODding you for kicks.

Be nice to your fellow players. They are your best link to your past and the people most likely to attack you next week.

Understand that friends come and go. But for a precious few, you should hold on to your t when they're around.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in knowledge and skill, for the higher you get, the more you need the tricks you explored when you were young.

Live in MDK once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in AOF once, but leave before it makes you soft. N.E.S.W.EAT TREE.

Accept certain inalienable truths: t values will fall, PKs will attack you, you too will lose a mage and when you do, you’ll fanatisise that when you were young, t values were reasonable, PKs were noble and players respected the wizzes. Respect YOUR wizzes...

Don't expect anyone to support you. Maybe you'll have a 12p connection, maybe you'll have a highlife informant but you'll never know when either one might get disconnected.

Don't mess too much with your prefix or by the time you're forty, you'll look like Cat.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with the players who supply it. Advice is a form of treasure. DEPOSITing it is a way of SUMMONing the past from resets gone by, rubbing it clean, painting over the trinkets and recycling it for more than its VAL.

But trust me - about the firestone.