chapter 7 "Hints and tips"

* The "wimpy" command helps you avoid death due to inattention or
  network lag. If you "wimpy 20", you will automatically try to escape
  combat if your health goes below 20% of your maximum.

* "target" and "ignore" are extremely useful when fighting more than
  one enemy. You should always target the toughest npc first, and
  always ignore any npc who can't get up because their foot or leg
  is severed.
    But if they collapse due to exhaustion, it's a good idea to keep
  beating on them, otherwise they may get back up and get healthy sooner
  than you expect.

* By default, different races speak different languages. If someone
  says something to you and you see no words in the same language as
  the rest of the mud, it means they are speaking a language you do
  not understand. 
    For example, if you are an elf, and you ask Radagast to teach
  magic attack, you might get something like this:

Radagast exclaims in English, "embleer con boltehe oota goota nehi auch"

      Even though in the real world you may speak English fluently, in
  the mud world, you do not speak English fluently. As an elf, your
  native tongue is Edhellen, and you may find human speech incomprehensible.

      If you find a trainer to teach you English, your skills in that
  language will need time to improve. As you get better at a language, 
  you will see fewer gibberish words.
      
      If you are a "newbie", this does not apply to you. A newbie in the
  default Dead Souls distribution is a player at level 4 or below. This
  definition may be changed by your admin.
      Newbies need all the help they can get just to survive, so they 
  are magically granted understanding of all languages, until they outgrow
  their naivete.

      If you are a student of languages in the Real World, you may 
  recognize many of the "gibberish" words used by Dead Souls to represent
  a foreign tongue. Your understanding of these words is not useful in
  the context of the game, however, because they are not intended to
  convey meaning other than "non-comprehensible words".


* Your ability to see is affected by various things:

  - A room's ambient light level
  - Time of day
  - Local light sources (flashlights, torches, etc)
  - Your race's light sensitivity
  - Magical effects
  - Exposure to an excessive-light event

      It's important to remember that a room may be too dark for
you to see everything in it. You might be able to see the description
of a room with no problem, but it may be necessary for you to
light a torch in order to see the treasure chest there.

      In the same way that darkness can impair vision, brightness
can do the same. For elves, an outdoor area in bright sunlight that
contains additional light sources can be just as hostile to
vision as a dark cave with no torch would be for a human.
      Regardless of race, a sufficiently adverse event, such as 
a bright flash or special spell, can render you temporarily blind.

      As with languages, newbies have some exemption to light-level
limitations. 

* Mages can wield knives but are pretty much helpless with any other
vind of edged weapon.
