This is a little guide to building on Shambala MUSH. Note that some of this information will be useful for any MUSH you visit, though some of the information will be specific to Shambala.

Building an Apartment

If all you want on Shambala is a little apartment to call your home, then we've made that very easy for you. All you need to do is go to the Friendly Apartments (use the +map command if you need help finding it), and go up to a floor that has available apartments. If you get to the first floor you might see:

Eighth Floor -- Friendly Apartments This is a long corridor lined with various apartments. The lights are always on for safety, and potted plants are along the walls. Currently there are 6 apartments available on this floor. =>To get an apartment here, type: give landlord = 300 =>To knock on a door, type: knock <apartment number> Obvious Exits:    Owner: 801 shadow 802 Thomas 803 Kathy 804 Cricket Elevator <E>

You're going to need two things to get your apartment here. One is quota. Quota determines how many total number of objects you can own. You use the @quota command to see how much quota you have. So type:

@quota

What you'll see is a little confusing, but it will be explained. You might see:

Name  Quot - Lim  Room - Lim  Exit - Lim  Thin - Lim  Play - Lim John     1 -  25     0 -  25     0 -  25     0 -  25     0 -  25

The only column in which you're interested is the first- the "Quot - Lim" part. The first number, under "Quot", is how many quota you've used, and the second number, under "Lim", is how many total quota you have. So if you have used 1 quota and have a limit of 20, that means you can own 19 more things- plenty of quota to get an apartment.

So what do all the other numbers mean? In Shambala, nothing. The MUSH software can be configured to keep different quotas for each different type of object. In Shambala, you have one quota, and you can use your quota on any type of object.

You need to have three quota left to get your apartment. That is because your apartment will consist of three objects- there is the actual room, and then there are two exits. Since an exit only goes one way, you need two- one to get in to the apartment, and one to get out of the apartment. You can think of each exit in a pair as one side of a door.

The next thing you want to check is how many MUSH dollars you have. You can do this with the inv command. If you type:

inv

And then see:

You aren't carrying anything. You have 600 dollars.

Then you're in good shape. Now all you have to do to get a room on the first floor of the Friendly Apartments is to give 300 dollars to the landlord:

give landlord = 300

And you might see:

You now own apartment 805.

It's time to go into your new apartment. Just move through the exit to apartment 805. Once inside, you might see:

Apartment 805 -- Friendly Apartments (#1192) This is an empty, bare room that does not have a description yet. => To describe this room, type: @desc here = <text> where <text> is the description you want people to see when they enter and look at your room. => For help, type: help @desc => To set this room at your home, type: @link me = here Obvious exits: Out <O>

All the work that you have to do is give your room a description. Do this with the @desc command. For example:

@desc here = This is an average-looking apartment. It has average-looking furniture. It has some average-sized windows.

Then take a look at it:

look

And you would see:

Apartment 805 -- Friendly Apartments This is an average-looking apartment. It has average-looking furniture. It has some average-sized windows. Obvious exits: Out <O>

Is this the place where you want to go when you use the home command? Then set this as your home with the @link command:

@link me = here

Now you have your own apartment. It's as simple as that. Not a whole lot of work, huh?

Some people aren't happy with just a little work, though. They will want to spend more time customizing their home, adding new features, and building on to it. Go to the next page for some more building topics.