How to play

New to Acropolis Ascendant, or to muds? Here is the way from your first login to your first fights, then the game screen step by step.

Your first steps

1. Create your character

   Click New character. Choose a name, a password, a race, a class and an alignment. Not sure? Read the races and classes help, or keep the default skills: you can learn more later.

2. Your preferences

   Auto loot, auto gold and wimpy 5 are already on: the corpses you leave give you what they carry, and you flee by yourself when your hit points run low. The Settings square (or auto) shows every automatic option.

3. Train and practise

   You begin with 3 trains and 5 practices: the Train and Prac squares show how many are left. Find the trainer (the squares light up green near one) and train, wisdom first: it gives you more trains and practices each level. Then practise your skills, starting with your weapon. The Spells and Skills pages tell everything your class will ever learn.

4. Get equipment

   You start with a few objects for your level: the Gear square's Wear all puts them on. More lies in the donation pit of the temple of Midgaard (Recall brings you there): click the pit to look in it and take what you need. The Equipment page shows every piece of the realm, its stats and where to find it.

5. Fight in the Mud School

   Stay in the Mud School until about level 4 or 5: its monsters are made for beginners. Click a monster and Attack, Flee when a fight goes badly, and Sleep to recover.

6. Explore the realm

   Then the world is yours. The Lands square lists every land by level, with the way there and a Go button that walks you to it; the Map square unrolls the maps you have bought. When you are stronger, try a quest, the Mob Arena or a war.

7. Ask!

   Players and immortals are glad to help: ask on the channels. Read the rules, and type help with any word in the game.

Create a character

The game screen

Everything happens on one screen: you walk, look, fight and talk without changing page. You can play with the mouse alone, with the keyboard alone, or both. Telnet players keep their usual commands: everything on the screen is the game's own command.

1. Enter the game

On the site, Play, then your name and password. A short tour shows the screen the first time; Settings shows it again. As you arrive, a notice tells who is in the realm, then fades away. A new character starts with auto loot, auto gold and wimpy 5 already on (Settings changes them), and hunger and thirst cost nothing before level 15: Hunger and thirst. To leave, the Quit button at the top asks first.

2. The screen

• In the middle, the picture of the room you stand in, its name and land, its description below it, and under them your hotbar: your shortcut squares and the buttons of the moment.
• On the left, you: hit points, mana and moves, who stands here, your potions, your group, your quest and the spells upon you.
• On the right, the feed: everything that happens, in order. Its filters show only the fight, the game's answers or the chat. The command line is at its foot.
• On the far right, the menu's squares: your gear, spells, skills, the map, the shops and trainers (lit green where there is one), quests, arenas, your group, settings, help, and Every command. A number on Train and Prac tells the trains and practices you still have to spend. Each square opens as a large window over the screen: ⤡ reduces it into the right column (remembered), × or Escape closes it.
• At the top, Game, Classic Telnet and Hunting, and Quit.

3. Walk

The exits are the letters on the picture (N, E, S, W, U, D): click one, or use the arrows and the numeric keypad. A letter with a padlock is a closed door: click it to open, unlock or pick it. In the Hall under the Temple Square, the waystones take you far away (Waystones); Recall brings you back to the temple. The Lands square lists every land, the ones for your level first: its Go walks you there step by step (travel <land>, after a recall when there is no way from where you stand). A fight, a step of your own or travel stop ends the walk.

4. Look and act

Click anyone or anything on the picture, or in the "who stands here" list on the left: a window or a menu offers what you can do (look, attack, follow, get, sacrifice, drink…). A monster's coloured dot tells how a fight would go, from an easy kill (green) to certain death (red): Game screen. Looking opens a card with the description. Click a shopkeeper, a trainer or a healer and its window, wider, offers what it serves right there: its shop with Buy, training, practice, healing or the bank.

5. Fight

Attack from a monster's window (or when it attacks you). The picture takes a red border, your opponents show over it with their hit points: click one to strike it, or Tab for the next. Use your shortcut squares (AltGr+1 to 0) for your skills and spells, the Potion button to drink, and the large Flee (key F) if it goes badly. The rounds appear in the feed, with what you dealt and took. The screen's edge pulses red when your hit points fall to a quarter; Wimpy (in Settings) makes you flee by yourself.

6. The hunting screen

At the first blow, the hunting screen opens over the game (or with its Hunting button at the top, or AltGr+H): nothing but the fight and the chase, in three columns.

• On the left, the room, large, with its name and land, your hit points, mana, moves and experience to the next level (TNL), and who stands here, one line each with portrait, name and hit points (click one to look at it, attack it or use what it serves). Flee is under them; once a foe has fled, it stays shown with the way it went. The fight runs round by round on the right of the picture, with the answers of your spells and commands (its cross hides it until the next fight). The ways out (N, E, S, W, Up, Down) stay above it all; Sleep or Stand and Recall at the bottom, the command line under the picture.
• In the middle, your shortcut squares two by two, the potions you carry (click one to quaff it) and the scan of the rooms around (players marked PC; click a direction to go).
• On the right, the messages.

Keep walking: fight, flee, come back, strike again. Escape or its cross closes it.

Double experience: five times a day, at random hours, every kill gives twice the experience for ten minutes. The realm is told when it begins; a golden 2× XP badge at the top of the screen counts the minutes left, and the experience bar of the hunting screen turns gold. In the game: help double xp.

7. After the fight

The corpse lies on the picture: with auto loot on, what it carries comes to you by itself; otherwise Loot (key L) takes everything, or open its menu to sacrifice it. Rest or Sleep brings your hit points, mana and moves back faster; Stand to go on. A new level brings a golden notice: spend your trains and practices with a trainer. If you die, you keep all your gear: Death.

8. Your shortcut squares

Ten squares under the picture, twenty in all (the ⇄ button or Shift for the second ten). The ⚙ fills them with your spells, skills, aliases or any command; every spell and skill has its painted icon. A spell aimed at someone goes to the one you selected, or to your opponent; with nobody selected out of a fight, an attack or an offensive spell asks whom, showing those who stand here with their portraits, and the one you click becomes your target. Click a companion in your group and your healing spells go to them. Your squares follow your character on any computer. What each spell and skill does, and when your class learns it: Spells and Skills.

9. Your objects

The Gear square shows your character with every equipment slot and your inventory. Drag an object onto a slot to wear it, Wear all to put on everything that fits, or click an object for all it can do: wear, quaff, eat, recite, put in a bag, give, sell, cast a spell on it… Stars tell how good an object is for its level, an arrow whether it beats what you wear.

10. Talk

The feed's Chat filter is the chat window: every channel in its tab, a tab for each player you exchange tells with, the ☺ button for the socials, AFK and AFW. Its line speaks on the channel you choose.

11. Everything else

Every command (Ctrl+K) holds all the game's commands as squares, by theme, and asks for what each one needs: Commands palette. And the command line is always there for those who like to type.

The keyboard

Arrows, numeric keypad

walk north, south, west, east (8, 2, 4, 6 on the keypad)

PageUp / PageDown

climb up, go down (9 and 3 on the keypad)

AltGr+1 to 0

your shortcut squares; AltGr+Shift+1 to 0 for the next ten (Alt works too, even while typing)

AltGr+F

flee (in a fight)

AltGr+L

loot the corpse lying here

AltGr+H

open the hunting screen (it opens by itself at the first blow); Escape or its cross closes it

Tab

strike the next opponent (in a fight)

Any other key

goes to the command line: just type

Enter

open the command line; Enter on an empty line or Escape gives the keys back

Ctrl+K

every command, as squares

Escape

close a panel, a card or the Gear window

Classic Telnet and phones

The Classic Telnet button, at the top, turns the screen into the full text of the old days, as with a telnet client; the same button brings the picture back. On a phone, three tabs at the bottom: Room (the picture, the fight, who stands here), Feed and Menu.