October 31, 1999
I highly recommend that you take the time to identify each and every piece of equipment you own. Many players that I know of print out their eq stats and keep the copy laying around nearby while they play. Examine your equipment often, checking for deterioration (HELP DET), wear, and to be sure you are wearing the right things. (Sometimes when you WEAR ALL after you die, it doesn't quite get things back exactly the way you had them).
Make your weapon invisible so mobs can't disarm you. Invis all your weapons, including offhand weapons. You don't need to invis your throwing items, such as knives and axes. A mage can cast invisibility on your weapons, or you can do it yourself if you are a mage. Or find a friendly Avatar to do it for you.
If you are a thief, make sure to have a nice supply of throwing items. (HELP THROW). If you find a hero or avatar who is willing, you can ask them to enchant your throwing weapons. After enchant is cast on your throwers, by a level 124 player, the throwers will have five hitroll and four damroll, so they do more damage when you throw them. Make sure to use the GETTHROW command to get your throwers out of corpses and on the ground nearby, after combat, so you don't lose them.
Devise a system for storing things in your various containers, so you can easily find something. For myself, I carry an egg sack that I call my "Avatar sack." It holds only flutes, wis/con/int gear, and gifts for newbies. I keep my roots in a gryphon pack, my extra equipment in a portable hole, and store potions and junk in an alligator bag. Because my containers all have different names, I don't have to fool around with stuff like "take all.potion 2.bag? take all.misty 3.bag?" Or "Take root bag? take root sack? oh! take root pack!". Decide how you want to keep things, and stick to your system.
Some players also carry their "alternate mode" equipment all in one container, to make it easier to switch from "mana mode" to "hr/dr mode." If you don't know what this is, ask your clanleader or a friendly hero to explain the concept to you.
Equipment storage - Be sure to keep your locker at least three months ahead, just to be on the safe side. Take it from an old and dumb Medievian, it is no fun to come back to the locker room and find that all your stuff has been sold. 150k is not too much to spend for the peace of mind of keeping your locker rented for the next three months.
The gods have developed some very helpful methods for you to protect yourself against accidentally donating, saccing, or dropping equipment and items you did not intend to. (One time, I was trying to get rid of an animal hide, and typed donate hide, not knowing my alligator bag, full of all my equipment, was also called a Hide. Oops. I was not a happy camper).
Use ndon item on every piece of equipment you own (Example: ndon sword). That will prevent you from donating it until you choose to ndon toggle it again.
Use ndrop item (Example: ndrop shield) to prevent yourself from accidentally dropping it. This is especially helpful if you have a valuable bag of holding, and you are frequently dropping empty, non valuable plain old bags.
Use nsac item (Example: nsac sack) to prevent you from sacrificing something if you haven't set ndrop properly, and you dropped it.
Remember though, that you can still accidentally hand someone the wrong item, so be careful! (Anybody besides me ever tried to hand someone eggs, and spammed so fast you handed them your egg sack also?)
Borrowing and loaning equipment from friends and clannies has caused a lot of Medievia relationships to go sour. I highly recommend that you don't give a piece of equipment to someone unless you are ready to lose it forever, or unless you can get it back in extremely detted state without being offended. Don't give away equipment you will be sad to lose, or equipment that you need. Do give away equipment if you don't need it and it will help a clannie.
Some people advocate casting invisibility on every piece of EQ you own. Apparently they feel like if they were to get CPKed, the player who was talented enough to CPK them to death, would be too dumb to have detect invisibility on, and would be unable to see the invisible gear to loot it. This seems really silly to me, and I see a lot of people who forget to cast detect invis or quaff a misty potion after they die, who can't find all their (invisible) equipment. Some people also believe that the one second it takes your looting murderer to cast detect invis on themselves, will slow them down from looting a piece of equipment. That's also not true - they will have plenty of time to get three or four things off of you. And in contemporary Medievia, the chances are you will not be CPKed by just one person, but in fact by a large form, who will take everything you have anyways. Invising your equipment only makes it harder for you to get dressed again after you die and pray.
You can use eggs from the catacombs to help prevent your equipment from deteriorating. (Read HELP EGGS and HELP DET). Egg your equipment only if you it is a good tweak (see HELP TWEAK) and if the time it takes you to get the 200 eggs to do so, is less time than it could take you to just go replace the equipment item with something brand new. If you are unfamiliar with the concepts of det, what items to egg and what not to, and at what time you are finally unable to egg an item, ask your clanleader or a hero you are acquainted with, to explain the concept to you. Don't waste your hard earned eggs on bad eq! The sad truth is, unless you are in a very strong clan that believes in handing down great equipment to their newbies (many clans prefer you to earn your excellent eq) your equipment probably isn't good enough to bother egging, until you are around a triple class. (See HELP MULTICLASS).
Watch auction for items like yours (For example, if you have cloth lava shoes, pay attention when other cloth lava shoes come up on auction). This is extremely informative, as you learn if your item is a bad tweak or could be a better tweak. Replace your low tweak items with better ones as you can afford to. Sometimes you are able to turn around and resell your old item right away to someone who needs it but couldn't afford the better one. Watching auction in general is a good idea to learn ways to improve your equipment, and what it might cost.
And finally, staying out of CPK, if you don't know what you are doing, is the best way to protect your equipment. (read HELP CPK). If you have equipment that you can't personally replace on your own, or equipment that would inconvenience your clan for a week to try to help you replace, don't risk it. If you are determined to risk going into CPK, talk to your clan about their opinions on CPK gear wearing. Some people recommend you don't wear your best gear into CPK in case you lose it; others recommend you DO wear your best stuff, to give you a good equipment advantage over whomever might attack you.
Good luck and see you on the auction channel!