April 1, 2000

The Art of Aliases - By: Endorick

The first thing a bunch of you people will be asking is, what the heck is an Alias? Put simply, an alias is a shortcut or hotkey used to issue more then one command in the press of a button or two.

Many people get frustrated when they need to continually type in commands, like when you need to drink some water or throw a weapon in a vicious battle or PK, then find out that those items are in your pack. There are millions of situations. You have to type g skin pack, drink skin. This can all be fixed by creating an alias.

Aliases are easy to use and easy to create. Simply type alias, then the word which will execute the commands, and finally the combo of commands, separated by a ; for each action. For example, if you wanted to get a waterskin from a pack, then drink it. you could make an alias called dw (drink water). So you would type: alias dw g skin pack;drink skin. It's that simple.

Another feature is that you can set is the object of which you do your action to. For instance, if you wanted to get a green potion from your jar and give it to (player), you would make this alias: alias GGG get green jar;give green %0. Then when you type GGG Vryce, it would get a green from your jar and give it to Vryce. Once again, it's easy as pie. Just follow the rather comprehensive instructions in HELP ALIAS.

So why, with all these wonderful Mud clients out there with their nifty trigger options, would you want to use socials? There are times when you don' t want a trigger to activate and you want to be in full control of your actions. Some that spring to mind include when in PK and hiding - you do not need an eating trigger activating when someone you are hiding from comes into the same room as you, dead giveaway. Also, the spell Phantasmal Images can stop you for a few seconds when what you need is speed to run to a safe area. Other times it can be positively lethal to go into the Catacombs and, when without protection, have a trigger activated when you are in a Cave Coral room, or anywhere with Thought Slugs. Aliases mean you keep in control of your character.

Now lets get indepth into the alias command. Here are a list of more wacky ideas that you could use (just remember you are limited to using 20 aliases):

1. Sometimes you need to eat and drink. You could make this one: alias feed get food pack;get skin pack;eat food;chug skin. Then al you have to do when you are hungry is type feed.
2. Doing all of your things after dying and praying (you know, wear all, put all pack ect.. ect..) is annoying. This will fix it: alias dead q misty;eat food;chug skin;wear all;put all pack;stand.
3. Some times there is a lot of preparing to do before you kill something tough. You could make an alias for this easy. I will use thief as an example. alias g throw pack;g throw pack;(do this till you have as many throwing weapons as you can)rest;meditate;stand.
4. Each class of Medievians needs to type in many commands to survive in a fight. Here is an example of commands that you could use in aliases: .
   • Mage :-
     • SR Shield Room
     • MI Mass Invisibility
     • ACI Acid Blast
     • SH Shockwave (player or mob)
   • Cleric :-
     • TT Tremor
     • HM Heal Me
     • HT Heal (player or mob)
     • HH Hammer of Faith (player or mob)
     • BB Bloodbath
   • Thief :-
     • TT Trip (player or mob)
     • GT Getthrow
     • SS Sneak
     • HH Remove light;Hide
   • Warrior :-
     • BB Bash (player or mob)
     • KK Kick (player or mob)
     • RM Rest;Meditate
   • General :-
     • GG get green;quaff green
     • FF flee

   Note - never use single letters for aliases as they can often mean different things to the code. EG "c" is considered to be an abbreviation for "cast" (as in casting a spell). A double letter means it is a conscious decision to do that action. Be wary, for some double letters mean something as well - try them out before fixing them into the alias.

5. Then when you are finished killing your victim, you could make a simple command to get all the goodies from the corpse (no, it isn't funny to get goodies from a corpse, you sick people out there! :P ). You could make this: alias loot get all corpse;tap corpse. Or alias loot2 get misty jar;q misty; get all cor;tap cor (This is to make sure you don't sac a dragon crystal or something)
6. Sometimes people like to create their own emote commands. This is very simple and fun to do. For example, if you would like to make an social for, uhmmmm, frisbee? You would type in alias frisbee emote pulls a frisbee out of thin air and chucks it at you. Or even one for the Room commands (only for levels 15+). Use your imagination.
7. Some other people go over the edge when creating their own socials (like me :P). I have a pet parrot named Bob whom I created. I make aliases for moving north, west, ect... while at the same time, Bob follows me. I simply use the number pad on my keyboard to act as directions. I typed alias (number that represents a direction) north;room Bob, Endorick's pet parrot chases after him. Now Bob chases me everywhere I go (after you make aliases for each direction).
8. Bob even has his own socials, if you see me in the game, and he bites you, don't be suprised. I have several room commands that I have created. For instance, if I want Bob to bite you, I would make this alias: alias Bob1 room Bob, Endorick's pet parrot bites your ear painfully. Here's a few more I have made: alias Bob2 room Bob, Endorick's pet parrot grabs a cookie from Endorick' s pocket and chows down. alias Bob3 room Bob, Endorick's pet parrot squawks angrily at you for no reason at all.

So now, if you didn't know what an alias is, you can make your Medievian life much quicker and easier. There are also many mud clients you can use that mimic this feature and the 20 alias limit can be ignored. But for now, try these out and surprise your friends by being ready after dying with a record 1.6 seconds! Use those aliases!