When you get the latest version of MOO, it’s in source code format. You need to compile the source code so that it will run on your computer. If you are using a Unix computer, it should be easy: type make and press return. If it runs into some errors, you’ll have to talk to a programmer about fixing them.
You’re not going to be able to do everything yourself. You may not even personally know much about programming. That’s what you’ll need wizards for. Wizards are MOO players to whom you delegate authority. Wizards can modify any part of the MOO, and can edit and create verbs that affect everyone. Obviously, you should only choose wizards who you can trust, and who you know are reasonably competent.
On Valhalla, there’s a property called #0.admins that lists which players are administrators. You can edit this list with @notedit. When your administrators write verbs that only administrators should be able to use, they need to have their verbs check against this list.
You will almost certainly want to personalize what potential members of your MOO see when they first connect. The $login object contains everything that can be seen or done while in the ‘waiting area’ before logging in to your MOO.
Your welcome message explains what the purpose of your MOO or the thme of your MOO, or both. You can also add a little help into the welcome message, for new members who may not remember exactly how to get inside. The welcome message property is $login.welcome_message. You or one of your wizards can use @notedit $login.welcome_message to edit and change the message text.
When players are created by you or one of your wizards, and an electronic mail address is specified for the player, Valhalla sends the player a message over electronic mail, telling them that the player is ready, and how to get to it. The subject of the message is in $wiz_utils.new_player_subject, and the text of the message is in $wiz_utils.new_player_message. You can @notedit these properties if you need to modify them.[9] Type help $wiz_utils:new_player_message for more information.
This mail message is only sent if an external electronic mail address (outside of the MOO) is given, and (because no e-mail address is specified) is not sent to people who create their own players at the Valhalla’s entrance.
The MOO has it’s own set of discussion groups. They operate through the MOO’s mail functions. You can create and maintain groups for any topic you desire. The basic discussion groups in Valhalla are Life, the Universe, and Everything.
You’ll want to read the help, by typing help $mail_recipient. You need to create a child of $mail_recipient, describe the child, set the readers property to 1 (so that anyone can read it), and then move the child to $mail_agent:
@create $mail_recipient named Life-in-Asgard
@describe Life-in-Asgard as "A discussion group specifically for discussing the trials and tribulations of living in the city of Asgard.
@set Life-in-Asgard.readers to 1
@move Life-in-Asgard to $mail_agent
If you want to make the discussion group available only to a certain group of players, follow the help for $mail_recipient.
On Valhalla, there are five Valhalla classes that ‘intercept’ the standard generic classes. These are:
ValhallaRoomClass Intercepts $room
ValhallaThingClass Intercepts $thing
ValhallaExitClass Intercepts $exit
ValhallaPlayerClass Intercepts $player
ValhallaRootClass Intercepts the root class.
If you want to make changes to an entire class of objects (such as all players, for example), you can ask one of your wizards to change the corresponding Valhalla class.
Each time you upgrade to a newer version of MOO, the standard generics are replaced with newer versions. By making your changes to a separate class that has been inserted into the class hierarchy, it will be easier for you to make upgrades.
If you want Internet access in your MOO, it has to be enabled twice: first, whoever compiles the MOO code on your machine has to enable it, and second, you need to set $network.enabled to 1.
The current standard for gopher access in MOOs is the Generic Gopher Slate. The MOO code for it is available at the LambdaMOO ftp site, in /pub/MOO/contrib. Gopher is, of course, pretty much dead. Support for this may be disappearing from Valhalla.
[9]LambdaMOO 1.7.7 requires a special ‘patch’ in order to do this. Valhalla has this patch installed. It was posted to the MOO-Cows mailing list, and is available on the Cerebus MOO Object gopher/ftp site.