Mushz help

'Note: This page maybe out of date, incomplete or inaccurate. For the latest refer to the change log and ask questions on the mush-z channel

Mush-Z has been especially designed with blind users in mind and can be used with Jaws for Windows, NVDA, Window Eyes and Hal. Some the features of this client are:

• Hotkeys to quickly check your hit points, mana, movement, experience and more.
• Sounds for most important events, including auctions, fighting, skills, spells, notifications and channels.
• It uses variables so you don't have to remake your aliases all the time, useful in groups.
• Automatic string shortening to speed up reading.
• Heavy duty filtering of repetitive strings, such as spellcasting and skills that already

have associated sounds. Use the 'filter' command for a list. These are in addition to the spam filters built into Alter Aeon.

• Ability to deposit/withdraw, or give someone all your gold at once.
• Ability to memorize directions to areas. It can even intelligently remove backtracks.
• Sounds for every health condition, for both you and your enemies.
• Prompt monitoring using audio progress bars or text alerts.
• Configurable ability to recast spells when they fall, either for yourself or for group members.
• High quality music and sounds to enhance game play.
• Base client supports heavy-duty scripting as well as triggers, aliases, hotkeys, com-objects

Getting started

Mush-Z is easy to use, but before using it, there are a couple of things you'll need to do to get the client working properly with your screenreader. After you've done those things, you'll be ready to connect to Alter Aeon.

Once you have installed Mush-Z on your computer, run Mush-Z. There should be an icon on your desktop. If there isn't, open your My Computer window and navigate to the directory where Mush-Z is installed. Look for the file called Muschclient.exe and press enter to run it.

Once you have Mush-Z running, you might need to help the client load the right plugin to start speech. Mush-Z automatically tries to detect which screen reader you are running, but if this doesn't work, you'll need to manually add MushReader.xml to your plugins. To do this, press the 'alt' key, then 'f' for the file menu, and arrow down to the global preferences menu item. Press enter to open the dialog box. This dialog box has multiple tabs across the top, as do many Windows programs. You can use control+tab to get to the tab you want to modify. In this case, we're looking for the tab called "plugins." You can get there by pressing control+tab nine times or by using your screenreader's review cursor and left clicking on the plugins tab. Do whatever works best for you. Once you've reached the plugins tab, use your tab key to get to the "add" button. Press enter on it and then press shift+tab to get to the list of plugins. Add MushReader.xml. Once you've added your plugin, tab over to the ok button and press enter. That is all you need to do to hear text from the mud.

Newbie tips

when you start mushZ for the first time, you will periodically get useful tidbits of information about common and less-common features of the client. Reading these tips is a good idea, but if you do not want to see them automatically, type config showtips to disable them. You can access the tips in your worlds folder, under ctips.txt.

Connecting to the Mud

Connecting to the mud is easy. In most cases, starting MushClient will automatically connect you to the game. If it doesn't connect automatically, open MushClient, and press control+o. Open the Alter Aeon folder in your Mush-Z directory, then press enter on alter_aeon.mcl. If you want Alter Aeon to start automatically from now on, you can open up global preferences from the file menu, and under the worlds tab, choose the add current world button, then choose OK.

Once that is open, you should hear your screenreader say MushReader initialized". Then, press ctrl+k to connect to the mud, and type commands as you would in any other client. If you've never played on Alter Aeon, you'll be asked if you want to create a character. Press the letter "y" and press enter to start the character creation process. Follow the prompts to create your new character.

Coming back from other clients

here are some tips:

• If you have the spam filter for fighting enabled so you don't see the dodge/parry/miss

messages, feel free to turn it off now. There are sounds for these actions and your reader won't say them.

• I recommend turning on the zt channel since it's where all of our chat about Mush-Z goes

on. Type %connect zt". This is where you can ask for help, exchange ideas with other users, and connect to other blind people on the game.

Hotkeys

Mush-Z has many hotkeys that will help you during game play. The function keys in particular are mapped to many different features; the ones that don't control Mush-Z can be used with server-side aliases to let you easily program them. For a complete list of all hotkeys, you can use the 'hotkeys' command.

Information hotkeys

• Alt-h shows your current and total hitpoints.
• alt-m shows your current and total mana.
• alt-v shows your current and total movement.
• Alt-x shows how much experience you currently have.
• Alt-t shows you the previous mob you were fighting and what percent of its hp it had left.

These numbers will only update if you get into melee combat with a mob.

Sound and configuration hotkeys

• ctrl+l: redo/reload. If the game is acting weird, you might be able to use this instead

of restarting the client.

• shift+escape: abort any mud commands.
• ctrl+f12: turn off sounds. belongs to lua_audio
• ctrl+shift+f12: turn off speech. belongs to the MushReader plugin
• alt+f10: lower currently selected volume.
• alt+f11: raise currently selected volume.
• alt+f12: switch between selected volumes.
• alt+s is the same as typing config speedwalk. If you have speech enabled, it will stop

speaking about half a second after you enter a room,and will speak the exits. this is good if you are walking fast through well-known areas but you don't know exactly where to turn. The reason it stops about half a second after you walk to a room is so you can hear the room name partially.

• Ctrl-alt-enter: toggles whether speech will be interrupted when you press enter.
• Ctrl-enter: toggles auto retyping. This feature allows you to repeat the last command

you typed by pressing the enter key without typing anything into the command window.

Action hotkeys

• f3 will get all items from a corpse and will sac it for you
• Alt+p: enter portal
• alt+e: stand
• alt+d. sleep
• ctrl+alt+l: goldlog. logs gold changes to a notepad window
• ctrl+alt+o: toggle output capturing on and off

The movement pad

The movement pad is not what you think. It's not the number pad. It's a revolutionary system for moving around the mud. Here are the keys for use with the movement pad: all the keys use the alt key modifier.

• alt+i - north
• alt+k - south
• alt+l - east
• alt+j - west
• alt+u - northwest
• alt+o - northeast
• alt+, (comma) - southeast
• alt+n - southwest
• alt+r - up
• alt+f - down

Mapping

Mapping uses Mush-Z's notepad feature. The notepad is a window external to the game that is used to put text on. Every time you move or follow someone in a group, the directions you take will be written down in a notepad separated by semicolons. You can copy these lists of directions out of the notepad and paste them into the game to speedwalk to locations, create speedwalk aliases, or just save them in a text file so you can remember how to get to different places.

The notepad also remembers when you cast refresh and 'climb direction', so that speedwalk aliases won't fail due to lack of movement.

To enable or disable this mapping feature, press alt+shift+m. If you want to see the current map that Mush-Z has collected, press ctrl+tab and look at the text. You can save (ctrl+s), copy to the clipboard (ctrl+c), or do whatever you want with that text.

Stealth mode

If you have the 'stealthy movement' skill, you can move while hidden by using the 'sneak' command. Stealth mode automatically sets up the movement pad so that it automatically uses the sneak commands, instead of regular movement commands.

To enable or disable stealth mode, press alt+shift+s.

Volume controls

The volume control in Mush-Z is very customizable. There are four kinds of sounds that Mush-Z plays: sound effects, area music (the music that is played for each area that you visit), ambience (the noise for the terrain that you are currently in (ocean, river, forest, etc), and battle music.

Mush-Z can play these four kinds of sounds at different volumes. To configure this, use the Alt+f12 hotkey to switch between sound effects, area music, ambience and battle music. Once you are in the option you wish to configure, use alt+f11 to raise the volume and alt+f10 to lower it. This is best shown with an example:

Imagine you are playing the game and the area music is too loud. Press alt+f12 to get to the area music volume control, and press alt+f10 to lower it. Then, you can press alt+f12 until you return to the sound effects volume control.

It's possible to raise the volume of the area music and ambience so that it's louder than your sound effects. This isn't recommended, because the music can prevent you from hearing important warning sounds.

Aliases

There are a lot of defined aliases that might prove useful on your journeys. What's an alias? It's a keyword that represents a series of commands. It can be a shortcut for casting a spell with a really long name, or it can be a word that runs several commands. Aliases can save you a lot of time and can prevent typos during a critical fight. The following section explains some of Mush-Z's preconfigured aliases here. You can also set your own, either in Mush-Z or using the in-game 'alias' command.

Variable controlled aliases

Mush-Z works in conjunction with variables on Alter Aeon. Variables are like containers. They hold a piece of information, just like a bowl can contain soup, cereal, or ice cream. If you want to use a piece of information over and over again, put it into a variable. A variable can act as a sort of placeholder so you don't have to keep typing the information repeatedly.

Alter Aeon's built in variables are useful. By setting a variable, you don't need to create new rescue/heal aliases constantly when your group members change. Variables even work for casting offensive spells, stabbing a mob, or when fighting in the pk arena.

To use a variable alias in Mush-Z, you have to set up the variables first. Variables on Alter Aeon are remembered between logins, just like aliases.

The variables used by Mush-Z aliases are:

• v: As in victim, used for rescue and heal aliases for hitters, etc.
• k: Killer - used as your target to cast offensive spells, even in pk arenas.
• t: Tank
• v1,v2,v3: More victims

To create a variable, type "var v name" like this: "var v John". That variable sets a player named 'John' as the person you will heal or rescue in a fight. For example, the "rev" alias will rescue $v, which in this case is John, which is the variable you set. If John leaves the group, and Charles takes his place, you can just type "var v Charles" to start rescuing Charles instead when you type rev.

Variable aliases

• hev, he2, he3, het: uses healing touch on the victim or tank that just got hit and is in trouble
• cnv, cn2, cn3, cnt, cnk: checks health of tank, victim or attacker. Very useful when healing in groups.
• ret: rescues tank
• rev: rescues victim
• re2, re3: rescues victim 2 or victim 3
• cbk: cast ball lightning killer
• cck: cast cone of cold killer
• ch2, ch3, cht, chv: heals victims 1 2 3 or tank
• cmk: cast magic missile killer
• csk: cast crystal spear killer
• hark: cast harm killer
• conk: consider killer
• curt: cure crit tank
• curv: cure crit victim
• dik: (spelled in D I K) cast dispel killer
• bok: c icebolt killer
• ffk: cast frost bite on killer, then flee
• faek: casts faerie fire on killer
• fok: follow killer
• frok: frost bite killer

Normal aliases (no variables)

These aliases can be used without setting a variable and sometimes require extra arguments. Note that '*' (an asterisk character) represents whatever you type after the alias, also referred to as any following arguments.

• bw: moves you backwards in the game - the opposite direction you last went to. Useful for

when you flee, and want to go back to a mob.

• bad *: bank deposit, * represents the gold you want to deposit
• baw *: withdraws the specified amount of gold from the bank
• bada: bank deposit all deposits all your gold
• bawa: bank withdraw all withdraws all gold from bank
• bsc: bloodsac corpse
• cn: plays a sound indicating your health condition
• ds *: drops and sacs *
• fa *: adds a friend to your list.
• fame *: checks fame of specified player. This uses the who list, so only players who are logged in will work.
• fif: casts firefield
• ga: get all
• ga *: get all *
• gac: get all corpse
• ggc: get gold corpse
• gns: group purpose noshow
• lic: look in corpse
• mn: show mana
• mv: show movement
• nlist: shows all the skills/spells that you haven't learned yet. You need to be at a trainer for this to work.
• of *: order followers (charmed mobs) to do *
• opd: open door
• opd *: open door direction
• opg, opgs: open gate(s)
• ot: scan
• ph: pray here
• po *: pickpocket *
• rank *: tells you how well you know a spell or skill
• rp: replays the last page of chan events
• qt *: displays quests from a given area that need to be completed
• sacc: sacrifice corpse
• sbs *: casts sickening touch, shocking grasp and burning hands on a given person
• sk: displays a rundown of all your skills and how well you know them
• sl: sleep
• ssf *: soulforge two souls of the given type from your configured container
• st: stand
• systime: tells you current mud time.
• taf *: targets and follows a given opponent
• tarn: target noone
• tnl: displays a percentage saying how far you are to getting your next levels in all your classes
• uo *: unlock %1 open %1
• usage *: tells you usage, current and total, of a channel. This is the number of messages

sent on it. When a channel's current usage falls to 0 the chan is deleted.

• v *: short for the 'variable' command to set or change a variable
• lag: checks your current connection lag

Configuration

Mush-Z provides an easy way to configure its features. By using the "config" command, you will access the configuration screen. This screen consists of a combo box with options in it which are mostly self explanatory. (Some of the less obvious ones will be explained later.)

When you want to exit the config screen, hit the escape key or cancel. All changes are saved once you make them, so canceling has no effect on the configuration. Your configuration is also saved between logins and restarts, unless the power goes out or Mush-Z is closed abnormally. You can save your configuration manually by doing ctrl+s.

Music and Sounds

Mush-Z adds richness and depth to game play by providing high quality area music, combat, spellcasting, and ambience sounds for the various terrains found on Alter Aeon. There is also music for battles which changes as you or your enemy get hurt. You can configure these options in the config screen by using the following options:

• Area Music - background music for areas
• Area Ambience - background ambience soundtrack for each area
• Random Ambience - louder ambience sounds that play randomly
• Battle Music - enables or disables battle music
• Battle Music Mode - whether battle music tracks your health, or the health of enemies

The battle music mode controls whether you want the different music to play depending on your health or your enemy's health. If you are a new player, your health's music is recommended. However, once you are used to the heartbeat scheme, you may want to switch to mob health so that you can get a quick approximation on how hurt it is.

Condition alert sounds

In addition to the battle music, Mush-Z has some sounds to alert you of your own health. When you use the 'condition' command or the 'cn' alias, the mud sends a string of text related to your current health. This string will also be sent as you are hurt in a fight.

For instance, if you type 'cn' you should hear either a heartbeat sound or spoken feedback. Which one you hear will depend on your health condition scheme. Type 'config scheme' to change it.

The heartbeat scheme works like this: The slowest, normal heartbeat indicates you are in excellent condition. As you get hurt, the heartbeat begins to speed up. When you are at big nasty wounds, you will also hear beeping with the heartbeat when the string is displayed, and faster when you're pretty hurt. At awful condition you will hear a different alarm indicating danger, when you are mortally wounded you will hear an agonized voice, and if you die you'll hear an ending musical epitaph.

The default scheme is the spoken one, and you'll hear different voices saying your health condition instead of heartbeats and sounds.

The scheme you use can be configured on the config screen under the option 'health condition scheme'. You can choose between spoken and heartbeat modes.

The number truncator

The number truncator is enabled by default and it truncates some large numbers to make them shorter. For example, if you have 7838473 experience, instead of reading out all 7 digits, the truncator will report the number as '7.8mill'.

To turn this option on and off, use the config screen to change the 'number truncator' setting.

Death quote voiceovers

With this option, you'll hear a random voiceover when you kill a monster. Some of these voiceovers can have offensive language. They're off by default, so you'll need to turn on the 'play death quote voiceovers' config option.

Pick up random/unique items automatically

When you kill something, Mush-Z automatically tries to see if the corpse contains unique items. If a unique item is found, it's picked up automatically and stored in the container configured in the option called 'container used for item keeping'.

To disable this feature, use the 'pick up random unique items automatically' config option.

The audio prompt

The audio prompt tries to replace the text prompt that would normally be read with sound cues instead. Because the sound cues are much shorter, you can much more easily keep track of your resources when in combat. The sounds used are:

• Your mana, indicated by an energy wheel type sound.
• Your movement, indicated by a stony clonk.
• Your experience, indicated by a quiet chime.
• Your enemy's health, indicated by a beeping sound during fights.

By default, the sounds raise and lower in pitch depending on their status. For your enemy's health, movement and mana, the higher the pitch, the better. For your own sounds, when it goes lower in pitch, it indicates that it is worse. For example, if you are walking around the mud you will hear the movement's clonk sound going down. Eventually you'll be too exhausted and you will have to rest or refresh yourself. On the other hand, the higher pitch the experience chime is, the closer you are to leveling.

If you don't like the sounds to change their pitch to show their level, you can set them to use stereo panning instead. In this mode, if the sounds are to the right, the value is higher than if they are to the left. For experience, the more to the right it is, the better.

The last option is text: If you want to know the exact values and you don't want to hear prompt sounds, you can choose the text option. You will see things like 58% mana, 87% move, xp 35%, etc. While this does give more information, it can take quite a bit longer to read out the information.

The recast configuration

Note: Alter Aeon now includes a built-in recast option. It holds several advantages over the one Mush-Z offers:

• There is no risk of it causing the game to think you are botting.
• It allows for the configuration of a mana floor, so spells only cast if you have a certain amount of mana.
• You can go AFK and properly show as idle while continuing to recast.

However, Mush-Z's recast feature is still available if you wish to use it.

The recast feature allows you to define different sets of spells that Mush-Z will always try to keep active on your character. You can define an unlimited number of these sets, and you can switch between them easily with the "zrecast switch" command. If you have not used recast before and you type 'zrecast', a new set will be created for you. This set has all spells enabled for recasting except bone armor and bone shield.

Don't worry about not knowing a spell listed for recast, as Mush-Z knows which spells you know and which you don't, and will not try to cast a spell you don't know.

To configure which spells you want to recast, use the zrecast command by itself. It will bring up a window with a combo box full of spells which you can enable or disable by hitting enter on them, just like in the configuration screen. Once you are playing, and if a spell listed for recast falls off your character, the spell will be recast until it's back on.

You can create a recast set using the "zrecast create <name>" command. When you create a set, you can use the zrecast command to configure which spells you want to recast in this set. If you want to create a set that already has the configurations of another set, use the from keyword, for example: "zrecast create fire from elemental". To switch between sets, use the "zrecast switch <name>" command. You can remove a set by using the "zrecast remove <name>" command. Possible zrecast commands are:

• zrecast on,off - toggle recasting on and off
• zrecast list - show the list of sets
• zrecast create <name> - create a new recast set
• zrecast create <name> from <name> - create a new recast set using the spells from another set
• zrecast switch <name> - switch to another set
• zrecast remove <name> - remove a set entirely. Note that you can never remove the default set.

The zrecast command typed by itself shows a list of spells in the current active set that you can enable or disable by clicking ok on a spell. when you hit cancel, your changes are saved.

Short ID

Showing stats of equipment you have is traditionally hard to do, as you cannot copy and paste each line of text without a lot of editing. Short ID combats the problem by condensing all the item requirements and effects into a single line. In the config screen, you can choose to have short ID appear in your history buffer under the short ID category, or for it to also appear instead of the normal identify display. The default option is output, as some players are more familiar with the server-side display, but still want to be able to quickly distribute equipment information. The short ID all setting configures whether short ID displays to the all history buffer as well as to output. ShortIDComma separates various item effects with commas, allowing the screen reader to pause between the item's effects so that they are easier to understand.

Fighting sounds

You will hear sounds as you fight on Alter Aeon. There are sounds for most skills, including failed disarm/trip attempts, kick, leap, bash, parry, dodge, miss, etc. There are sounds for casting offensive spells as well.

There are a lot of sounds, and it may take you a while to recognize which sounds are which. If you'd like to browse through the soundpack to hunt down a specific sound, you can go to the /worlds/alter_aeon/sounds/ directory in the MushClient install and play them out to see which ones are used for what action.

About channel sounds

Channels can be public or private on Alter Aeon. A channel lets people with a shared interest talk on the game without disturbing the entire community of players. Channel sounds are a very good way to know when someone has just said something in a channel that you are connected to. Mush-Z has sounds for most channels, including say, group tell/gt, clan tell, tells and replies, my zt channel, xp, gossip, newbie, arena events and auction.

For channels without a special sound, a default will be played instead.

The recall command (ctrl+u)

The recall command is a Mush-Z keystroke that is very useful. If you press ctrl+u and type some text, Mush-Z will display a notepad containing all lines with this word or phrase. It is useful in certain situations, such as when someone gets something from a corpse, when you have died and want to know which skill you lost, etc.

The filter command

To reduce the amount of text you get from the game, Mush-Z has a number of filters you can enable or disable. There are filters for spells, skills, combat, minions, and a handful of other things. Most of these are turned off by default so you can read along as you hear the sounds, but as you get familiar with the game and sounds, you might want to turn some of these filters on so your reader says less things.

You can use the 'filter' command to display and change the filter settings.

Storage preview and storage capture

Storage capture is a nice way to get certain items out of your storage locker. For example, you can tell the storage capture alias to get every wearable aging item in your locker and put it in your container. Here's how it works:

Go to your recall. You'll need to be at a recall site to access your storage locker.

Do a test preview to see if the capture is suitable. For example:

storage preview -wearable +mana 20

The preview will display with something like:

Testing capture of -wearable +mana 20 Preview found 26 items, with a weight of 142 pounds.

That sounds reasonable, at only 26 items and 142 pounds. Now you could type:

storage capture -wearable +mana 20

That'd grab every single one of these items and put it in the container configured in the config screen, container used for item keeping. Here are a few more useful examples:

storage capture -spellcomp +level 25 -level 30

This will capture any spell components between level 25 and 30 and put them in your container.

storage preview -wearable +size 2

This might help you find equipment to increase the size of your character.

storage capture +manaregen 4

Will capture any pieces with 4 mana regen or more (this is actually 2.0 mana regen or more.).

Eqlist Feature

See eqlist