Before you fight: the coloured dot
Each monster's square, under the picture of the room, has a small round dot in its corner. Its colour says how a fight with it would go, the way the consider command does, from the difference between its level and yours:
- Blue You can kill it naked and weaponless, or it is no match for you.
- Green An easy kill.
- Yellow The perfect match: a fair fight.
- Orange Do you feel lucky? It is stronger than you.
- Red It laughs at you, or death will thank you for your gift. Run.
Click the square, or the monster in the picture: its menu says the verdict in words, with two warnings when they apply. Far tougher than you: bring friends means it has three times your hit points or more; the dot then moves one colour towards red. Attacks on sight means it will not wait for you to strike first.
No dot means it cannot be attacked: shopkeepers, trainers, healers and anyone in a safe room. Other players have no dot; their menu still offers Consider.
One screen to play
You walk and fight on the same screen. In the middle stands the room's picture: click a letter (N, E, S, W, U, D) to walk, or use the arrows and the numeric keypad (PageUp and PageDown climb up and down). When you fight, it takes a red border, your opponents show over it with their hit points (click one to strike it, or Tab for the next), and a large Flee appears (key F). Below the picture, the room's description, then your shortcut squares (AltGr+1 to 0, Shift for the next ten) and the buttons of the moment: in a fight Flee, a potion and the next opponent; afterwards Loot (key L) when a corpse lies here, Rest or Stand, Recall, the portals.
On the left: your character, who stands here (click to attack or look), your potions, your group (click a companion: your defensive squares go to them), your quest and the spells upon you. On the right, the feed: everything that happens, in order, the game's answers, the rounds of your fights and the chat; its filters show the fight, the game or the chat only (with your tells, AFK and AFW). The command line is at its foot: Enter opens it, Enter on an empty line or Escape gives the keys back to the game. The edge of the screen pulses red when your hit points fall to a quarter. Classic Telnet, at the top, turns it all into the full text of the old days.
Objects, doors and people
In the Gear window, click an object: everything it can do shows, quaff, eat, drink, recite, hold, look, put in a bag, give to someone here, sell or value at a shop, store in a locker, donate, junk. A bag shows what it holds; take an object out of it there. In the room, click an object: get it, look at it, sacrifice it, empty a corpse, drink at a fountain or fill a bottle there, sit or rest on furniture. A closed door shows a padlock on its letter: click it to open, unlock or pick it (right-click an open door to close it). Click a player: follow, group, rescue.
The menu's new squares
Every command, at the top of the menu: all the game's commands as squares, by theme, with a search (the Commands palette page tells it all). A click runs one, or asks first for what it needs (someone here, one of your objects, an exit, a word); the pin puts it in a shortcut square of your hotbar. You hardly need to type anything any more. Looking at someone or something opens a card; the chat's ☺ button lists the socials; each player you exchange tells with gets a tab of the chat; Settings holds your aliases, the sounds and the tour.
Group: your companions' hit points, mana and moves, leave the group, split gold, give orders to your pets. Services (lit where there is one): the bank, the healer's spells, your locker. Settings: auto loot, auto gold, auto sacrifice, auto split, auto assist and the other toggles, wimpy, title, password, save and quit. Help: the help files, who is near, the time, the socials.
In a fight
In a fight: your hit points, mana and moves in large bars (a yellow mark shows your wimpy; the screen's edge pulses red when your hit points fall to a quarter), the spells upon you with the hours left (blinking when they end), every opponent with a bar of hit points, the one you are hitting first, the fight round by round, and beside it the console and the chat, with quick actions beside the squares (loot the corpse, take its gold, sacrifice it, rest, stand, recall, look, scan, surrender). Your potions and pills are listed beside the fight: one click to quaff. Your group shows there too: click a companion, and your defensive squares (heals, armor, sanctuary...) go to them; Rescue takes their place in the fight. Fighting several at once? Click another one to strike it instead (the target command). On the left of your bars, a large Flee; below, twenty shortcut squares (Alt+1 to Alt+0 the first ten, Alt+Shift+1 to Alt+Shift+0 the next ten). After an action, a shade runs off your squares: it shows the moment you can act again. Your squares are kept with your character, on any computer. dismiss sends away your pets and summoned creatures. When you are slain, a screen says what it cost.
Gear: stars and arrows
In the Gear window, stars say how good an object is for its level: one star is weak, two typical, three fine, four exceptional. Next to what you carry, an arrow compares it with what you wear in the same place: ▲ better, ▼ weaker, = as good, + the slot is free. Exact numbers stay hidden: cast identify to read them.
Hunger and thirst
Under your hit points, mana and moves, Hungry or Thirsty appears when it is time to eat or drink, then a red Starving or Dying of thirst that costs you every tick. Hunger and thirst tells it all.
Classic Telnet Interface
Prefer the old way? The Classic Telnet tab (in the menu on phones) turns the game into a full-screen text window, exactly as with telnet: the room, the fights, the channels, everything is written there. A fight never takes you out of it. The Dashboard tab brings the panels back; your choice is remembered.
The room and the chat
The room's name and exits are on its picture (click the letters N, E, S, W, U, D to go), its description above it, and below the description what lies and stands here. What people and monsters say, their gestures and socials, and every channel, are in the chat window, in their own tabs; who arrives in the realm or leaves it, and the announcements of the gods, are in its realm tab, the sun and the weather in its weather tab.