2012 Newbie Guide

Welcome to the 2012 Newbie Guide. Here follows some guidance for new HellMOO players.

This is a rework of Nanie's 2010 guide, so credit to them as well. Even though this guide is over six years old now, rest assured, it's still accurate. Nothing major in here has changed over the years, just a few minor things - and those have all been noted.

Welcome to HellMOO!

You just made your character, and have spawned into the Orphanage. Whoop! There's a flyer in your inventory and a toybox in the same room as you. Open the toybox and start ripping open animals for cheap junk if you want. Right now, you are an orphan, which means nothing you do is permanent. If you follow flyer, you'll get to the Museum, where you can progress into a real character. The game will prompt you to set a @desc and @gender before you leave the spawn room; just follow the instructions on-screen, they're very straightforward.

While you're toddling around, you should think about what build you'd like. Read the guides if you'd like, but if you aren't sure what to do, you can always take clubs. It's almost impossible to screw clubs up.

Just outside the hole you start in, you'll find a furnace two squares north. If you make the classic mistake of mindlessly wandering into it and dying, don't fret - you are fulfilling an important HellMOO tradition! If you remembered to set the thermostat to the south to 50 first, well done. Aside from the furnace and other orphans, don't worry about danger; you are quite safe here. HellMOO has a reputation as a harsh open PvP environment, but this is a very outdated vision. Players are completely unable to attack you in the orphanage unless you challenge someone by doing something aggressive. In yellow zones (you'll see the difference in the area name's color), you are vulnerable, but even then you'll be quite beneath most people's notice.

Help, I'm lost!

Simmer down, Columbus. HellMOO is easy to navigate, it just takes a little practice to get used to the system.

Try lm and gm to bring up overhead maps of your position, and remember you can follow your flyer to get to the Museum when you're ready. If you lose your flyer, there's a box full of them at the front of the Orphanage.

This Ernest fellow won't let me through the Museum basement!

Ernest is an asshole NPC. You should either kill him or try to please him orally. The commands are kill ernest and suck ernest. Once you're past him, you should check out the Character Creation page before going further! Basically all builds break down to picking a weapon skill and building around it. Good luck!

Towards the end of chargen, the game will prompt you to choose from two options: PVP or PEACEFUL. If you go PEACEFUL, you will become Carebear, and will be barred from all PvP. If you choose PVP, you won't.

Oh god I am dying!

Find Sister Agnes on the upper floor of the Orphanage (her office is to the west) and ask her to heal you. This will also cure any sickness you've picked up. If you do die, you'll reclone at Clone Arrangers. If you're having a more general problem with dying (like "omfg everything is too strong fuck this game's garbage early-game balance") try combing the player-written guides for advice.

Hunger and Thirst

You need to eat and drink to reduce thirst and hunger. If you don't, your stats will be heavily debuffed, and you'll eventually die. Check st to see your status. You can find water in the Orphanage's sink (drink from it). You can get food by dragging a corpse to the RDCD unit, which is just across from the orphanage. drag corpse to direction until you're there, and then process corpse with rdcd, which will turn your corpse into soylent. This will make you nauseous later in the game (find other food, like Wang's at the northeast corner of the city), but for now it's enough. It'll also get you some money for completing a job.

Making some Easy Money

Joining a corp is a very good idea. Other players can give you pointers on money making, jobs, and how to generally progress in the game rather than just walking around and looking confused. Being in a corp also lets you use contracts, which are one of the game's main money sources. If you can't find a corp or your requests for a hire, don't fret - talk to MServo in the Museum, he'll set you up in ENEMA. You can't do this if you are carebear.

If that's all a little too scary, you can pick up random crap on the Orphanage floor and sell it to Avram at SU, south of the Orphanage. Here's a good workflow: get all, put all artifact in bag, then sell bag to Avram. Avram will buy all the items he wants from the bag and then give it back to you. He'll also return anything he doesn't want. You can also try looting the drawer in the orphanage kitchen, and rummaging through the donation bin in the basement for clothes. These items can be sold at various shops to the east of the Orphanage for small change.

Highly Suggested Equipment

There's a shop marked EO southeast of the orphanage. It holds items that are very useful for new players. Good purchases include a gas mask and a bag, and later a towel. Gas masks protect you from getting sick in the oprhanage, while the bag is good for holding stuff. The towel can be used to clean infectious zombie bile off of your body if you happen to get splattered with some. A canteen is another good purchase. You can fill canteen from sink to save you running back to the sink all the time.

To buy stuff, list to see the inventory, then buy <item>!

How to log off Safely!

So, you wanna close HellMOO out and return to your daily life. Sweet. But if you just logoff whereever, your character will stand around like a jackass, ready to die to the next stiff wind. Instead, go to CL on the map, just north of the Orphanage. Log off in here (with @quit), and you'll be completely safe. @sethome beforehand for an added bonus; if your friends see you logged off out in the world, they can pinch you to send you stumbling back to safety.