From: gardner@cs.monash.edu.au ()
Subject: Internet MUD Nomic: Info for New Players
Keywords: nomic
Organization: Computer Science, Monash University, Australia
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 03:24:14 GMT

I have seen numerous posts here by people curious about Nomic in general,
and our Internet MUD game, Nomic World, in particular. Here, then, is
some information for the curious, and some tips for beginners.

Nomic World is MUD implemented game of Nomic. It opened a few months ago,
around the middle of September. The current game began on Oct 9. At
present there are 35 players. As far as I know, this is the largest Nomic
game that has ever been played. The game has been altered to accomodate
a more parliamentary/congressional model of legislation. There are no
turns as such, rather, all players are free to propose legislation and
have it voted on during a one week period. In the current game, our 58th
proposal has (this morning) just been tallied. That works out at around
9 or 10 proposals a week.

If you wish to log into Nomic World

"telnet 130.194.67.16 5000" or
"telnet dec16.cs.monash.edu.au 5000"

will get you there if your host machine runs Unix. If it is running VMS,
you will need to determine how your local machine sets its port to 5000.

Once you are logged in, you may look around the Nomic World, which
consists of an entrance hall, discussion room, proposal room, voting room,
post office, pub, shrine, and other rooms. The scoreboard is in the pub; 
the bulletin board where notes and proposals are posted is in the proposal 
room; the list of proposals currently being voted upon is in the voting 
room, as is the clock which tells you when the next proposal is being tallied.

You can examine the rules using the "show" and "rule" commands. "show"
gives you a list of headings in a particular category: immutable,
mutable, proposal, failed, obsolete. Thus, "show mutable" gives headings
for all the current mutable rules, including their proposal numbers.
"rule <no>" gives the text of a particular proposal. "look book" gives
help for using the rules book. Every person (player or not) has their
own copy of the rules book.

Once you have looked around a bit and familiarized yourself with the
environment and the current rules, you may wish to register as a player.
You may do this by typing "register" in the entrance hall. Registration
entitles you to vote on proposals, be selected as a judge, etc. However,
do not be alarmed if typing "register" does not endow with these
capabilities immediately. Your registration application must be processed
manually by a wizard. This can happen almost immediately, or it can take
a few days. So be patient.

Do not register unless you are serious about playing. This does not mean
that you must take the game particularly seriously once you are playing!
It means that in order to keep up with the latest rule changes, debates,
judgements, suggestions, etc, you will probably need to log in at least
once a week. If this seems too much of a commitment, probably better not
to register.

Finally, for those unfamiliar with MUD environments, "help" gives
help on most topics. Perhaps we'll see you in Nomic World,

          ._._._._._                +===================================+
         __________ \              //                                 // 
                    \\            //  "If you have the solution,     //
        ____         \\          //      we have the problem."      // 
       //    \\       ))        //                                 //
______//     //      //        //  Steve Gardner,                 //
____    ____//      //        //  Founder, Problematics, inc.    //
   //  //          //        //  gardner@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au // 
  ''  ''          //        //                                 //
 //  //     ------+        +===================================+
//  //__  ___  ___  __   ______   _____________________________
/  //   \/   \/   \/ /  /  __/ | /  / __  /__  __/_/ ____/ ____)
  //    (     )   / /  /  __/  |/  / /_/ /  / / __  /   / /__
 //     /\   /    \/__/__/_  /| /|/ __  /  / / / / /___(___  \
//__/\__\ \_/_____/_____/_/_/ |/ /_/ /_/  /_/ /_/_____/______/