StendhalManual: Difference between revisions

==What is Stendhal?==

Are you looking for adventure? Want to fight for riches?

Develop yourself and your social standing? Meet new people?

Do you want to be part of a brave new world?

Stendhal is a full fledged multiplayer online adventures game (MMORPG) developed using the Arianne game development system.

Stendhal features a new, rich and expanding world in which you can explore towns, buildings, plains, caves and dungeons.

You will meet NPCs and acquire tasks and quests for valuable experience and cold hard cash.

Your character will develop and grow and with each new level up become stronger and better. With the money you acquire you can buy new items and improve your armour and weapons.

And for the blood thirsty of your; satisfy your killing desires by roaming the world in search of evil monsters!

Stendhal is totally platform independent, written using Java 1.5 and the Java2D environment.

So what are you waiting for?! A whole new world awaits...

==Why play Stendhal?==

# Stendhal is free!

# Stendhal is open source and by playing you help us improve it.

# Stendhal is a small download.

# Stendhal is a big world.

# A nice community.

# Lots of creatures to kill.

==Aims of Stendhal==

Stendhal aims to make you have a fun time.

Stendhal features a world in constant evolution, with tons of interesting quests to accomplish and thousands of friends to meet.

And the best of it is that it is a never ending game :)

==What do I need to play Stendhal?==

Stendhal is a ''Java'' game and works in any platform that is able to run the Sun Java JRE, that includes:

* Windows

* Linux

* MacOS

So you need at least [[http://java.com/ Java 1.5]] to run it.

Right now Stendhal won't work with GCJ, so if you are a developer with experience in GCJ, you may want to help porting Stendhal to SDLjava.

== Creating an account ==

To create an account, just open the game and click on ''Create account''.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/createaccount_001.png

Now fill the fields:

* Choose your Stendhal server. If you are not sure about what to do, simply choose the default one. In case you want to connect to a different server, please enter it's hostname there.

* Port. Usually Stendhal servers runs at port 32160.

* Username. It is the name of your avatar in the Stendhal world.

* Password. Type in your password twice. It will secure your access to Stendhal, so choose a good one.

* Email. Just in case we need to reset the password or contact you.

Your account will be ready immediately.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/createaccount_002.png

== Downloading the game ==

You can run it directly using [http://arianne.sourceforge.net/jws/stendhal.jnlp Java Webstart] (this means you do not need to download anything, just click the webstart link and if Java is installed on your system the game will start) or you can download the compiled java program to your computer at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1111

==Starting the game==

To launch Stendhal use [http://arianne.sourceforge.net/jws/stendhal.jnlp Java webstart] or by running the <b>stendhal-0.XX.jar</b> file that is in the stendhal download package.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/manual_000.jpg

Click on the <b>Login to Stendhal</b> button and enter your account information.<br>

Be sure to choose the server where you created your account (the name will be the same as the site you went to to create the account in the first place. The default option is probably correct) and finally click on Login to Server.<br>

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/manual_001.jpg

A progress bar will appear and soon you will be connected to the world.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/manual_002.jpg

If the server is down (not online) you will get an error message explaining this. In this case either try again later or create a new account on another server.

==Game screen==

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/manual_018.jpg

# Minimap<br>The minimap shows the actual position of the player with a cross. Minimap only shows the actual zone non walkable areas.

# Player's bag<br>This is the bag where you can store up to twelve items. If the bag closes and you want to open it again, click on settings Windows(6) and click on player inventory.

# Chat line<br>You write the text to talk to other players and npcs here. You can also write commands here. There is a basic help writing ''/help''

# Dialogs log<br>Here are all the messages received in the current session stored (game messages and player messages). It is very useful for conversational proposes.

# Player's inventory<br>You can equip items as weapons, armors, legs, helmets and boots to obtain advantages.

# Settings window<br>Contains buttons to reopen the minimap, the player inventory and the player bag.

# Game area<br>All the gameplay happens here.

==Basic controls==

===Move===

Use the <b>keyboard arrows</b> to move around on the Map.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/manual_004.jpg

You must hold down the direction keys to make the character to move. Your character will collide with elements that exists on the world, like other players and walls.

Alternatively you can move by double clicking on an empty place of the game area.

You also collide with map borders. When you reach a map border your screen won't move any further and two things might happen:

* if an area exists next to the area you are in, you will move from your current area to the new area (you will be transfered to the new zone).

* if no area exists nothing will happen and you will simply collide and stop.

===Passing Through Doors===

You can simply pass through the doorway by using the '''keyboard arrows'''. In the case that there is someone standing in front of the doorway and blocking it you still can pass through the door if you can get next to the door diagonally: just '''right click''' on the door and choose '''use'''.

===Moving With An Animal===

If you have an animal following you such as a sheep, to change zones the animal MUST be within visible distance from your charater. To find out where your animal is, type <b>/where <name of animal></b> ... for example <b>/where sheep</b>

===Face===

When attacking someone or talking to someone it is nice to face them. To do this press <b>Ctrl and a directional arrow</b> to face in that direction.

It is just an eye candy action as it has no effect on the game rules.

===Moving Items===

During the game you will find or buy items such as swords and shields. To move these items around the world, use the <b>left click and drag</b> to the place you want them to be. You need to be next to the item. To drop a smaller amount of a stackable item use the /drop command. Say you have 2000 money and want to give 100 money away: <code>/drop 100 money</code>

===Managing Inventory===

You can manage your inventory by dressing items, dropping them to floor or by storing them on your backpack. On all the cases the procedure is the same: click on the item and drop it to the desired position.

Keep in mind that you must be near an item to equip it and that you can't drop it further than 8 positions from you.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/equipitems_000.png

Drag and drop the item in inventory slot you want.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/equipitems_001.png

And you have equipped it.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/equipitems_002.png

You can equip any item in any slot right now, but this will change.

=== Other actions ===

Click the <b>right mouse button</b> over objects to see a contextual menu (which will include actions that can be performed on the object) and use the <b>left mouse button</b> to choose an action from the menu

You can click outside the area of the menu to abort it.

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/manual_006.jpg

===Open Game Dialog log===

In case you have closed the game dialog (the window where all the text and game information appears) you can open it again with <b>Ctrl+L</b> (hold Control Key and L key)

http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/manual_008.jpg

This dialog contains all the important events that happen in game so it is advised to have it visible.

Use <b>Shift+UP arrow</b> or <b>Shift+DOWN arrow</b> (hold ''Shift'' and press arrows) to put in your dialog text bar the last written sentence. Each time you press the ''up'' arrow (while still holding the ''shift'' key) you go further back in the history of your previously written sentences. When you use the ''down arrow'' instead you can go forward. That way you don't have to write again previously used sentences, for example, when you sell items.

===Exit game===

Press <b>ESC</b> to exit. You will be prompted again to either really quit or return to the game. Alternatively you can simply close the window. In any case, your information about your inventory stuff and position in the game is automatically saved before you quit the game.

"http://arianne.sourceforge.net/wiki_images/quitgame_000.png"

==Player communication==

To communicate with other players simply type! Press <b>Enter</b> to send your chat message. A chat bubble will appear under your character and a new line will appear in the Game log dialog. This kind of communication is public and visible to every player in world, although you will only see text for players near you.

Alternatively you can write:

<b>/tell playername <i>chat Content</i></b>

This allows you to write to a single character privately. For example:

<b>/tell miguel This game rules, really. I have rated it 10/10 :)</b>

In order to ease the communication you can write to the lasted player you ''msg''ed using <b>//</b>

<b>// Really man!, go and rate it.</b>

You can also write any of the administrators that are in game to request support by writting /support

<b>/support I keep getting an out of memory exception, so the game crashes, can I avoid this?</b>

=== Finding persons ===

You can discover who is online by using the command /who.

<b>/who</b>

This will show a list of the players that are online now with their levels.

You can find out a players position by querying server using /where <i>player name</i>

<b>/where miguel</b>

=== Getting help ===

You can get help about the previous commands by using the command /help.

<b>/help</b>

This will return a list of the commands that are available to the player with a brief explanation of their usage and parameters.