Lich - I'm not so sure it helps!

[Luxelle]

All right, I got set up with Lich my first week in GemStone. So far, it's more confusing than all the confusing things in GSIV.

I can't keep track of which are actual game thoughts and which are chatter from lich. If you send me something via the lichnet chatter, I do see it, but haven't any clue really how to reply.

I gather people move FTL because they're using Lich. Yeah, not helpful to the little girl lost.

I've managed to make a couple simple wrist-saving scripts and save them. I think they're storm front scripts, but I'm not really sure of the difference. Or if I reinvented the wheel doing so.

All this to say I just don't understand what lich does, I guess. Or how it is supposed to work. And when I read the help about ____ fill in the blank for lich, it is about as helpful as reading an engineering patent. In Greek. (...and I never studied Greek)

Is there a source of no-nonsense, no-gibberish help for lich? Because there's a real need for it when seasoned players advise you to get it to solve all your dilemnas...

~L.

[Tgo01]

I can't keep track of which are actual game thoughts and which are chatter from lich.

Game thoughts look like this:

You hear the faint thoughts of You echo in your mind:
[Local] "Hello."

Lich chat looks like this:

You hear the faint thoughts of [PrivateTo]-GSIV:* echo in your mind:
"Hello."

[Private]-GSIV:*: "Hello."

You hear the faint thoughts of [LNet]-You echo in your mind:
"Hello"

So anything with "private" or "Lnet" is lichnet chatter. I haven't used Stormfront in a while but it seemed easier to tell the difference there than on Wizard. The two do look awfully similar in Wizard.


If you send me something via the lichnet chatter, I do see it, but haven't any clue really how to reply.

Like a private message?

It's:

;chat to name hi



I gather people move FTL because they're using Lich. Yeah, not helpful to the little girl lost.

Yeah, ;go2 has spoiled us for sure.


Is there a source of no-nonsense, no-gibberish help for lich? Because there's a real need for it when seasoned players advise you to get it to solve all your dilemnas...

Lich does so much, it's hard to explain all that it does. If you're specifically talking about writing scripts for lich then that's something you'll need to learn by checking out other scripts and reading up on Ruby; it's much too complicated to try and explain everything that is involved in Ruby scripting. The basics perhaps :p

A few things Lich does:

;go2 bank

Would take you to the nearest bank. You can also do things like ;go2 voln or ;go2 node.

You can locate someone who is sharing their location with ;locate name

You can type ;magic to see all spells on your character and their remaining durations.

Stuff like that.

[Tgo01]

The best thing about lich is downloading scripts to use with it.

waggle is a good one

Just type ;waggle and it will automatically cast all defensive spells on you...well once you set it up properly. Or type ;waggle name to cast spells on someone else.

[Fallen]

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?81229-What-Lich-Scripts-Do-You-Regularly-Use

This may be useful to you in finding good scripts.

[Fallen]

There are some basic tutorials within Lich that are important to read. Some lich scripts are passive. They function in the background to affect various changes. Container sorters are a good example. If you add one of these passive scripts to your ;fav list, it will start whenever you log into the game. Other scripts are activated, perform their function, then (are supposed to) close.

There are some core scripts you need to master to get the most out of Lich. I'd try to explain more but I better leave it to those who have the game up and running. ;go2, ;waggle, ;voodoo, ;uberbar all fall into this category.

[Lady Sylvan]

I've played a few MMO's before coming to Gemstone 4. I was always taught to learn how to play the game first before you start messing it up. (Don't fix what isn't broken.) After 16 months of playing I'm still learning how to play.

Lich is a nice tool to make the game easier. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I will figure out how to get it to work for Windows 8 after I am lvl 90. For now I'm a great typist and I've learned most of the paper maps I printed out.

[Gelston]

I've played a few MMO's before coming to Gemstone 4. I was always taught to learn how to play the game first before you start messing it up. (Don't fix what isn't broken.) After 16 months of playing I'm still learning how to play.

Lich is a nice tool to make the game easier. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I will figure out how to get it to work for Windows 8 after I am lvl 90. For now I'm a great typist and I've learned most of the paper maps I printed out.

I think the majority of people playing played a bit of time before Lich, and did all that stuff. I agree that is probably the best way. There is a lot of tedium in the game though, and eventually, when you are tired of it all... Lich.

[Fallen]

I held off on PSInet (an earlier 3rd party program) for a long time too. These programs don't make/break your experience, they simply optimize it to a varying extent. You shouldn't feel pressured to use them. However, if you start to find certain aspects of the game tedious, Lich can help.

[Jace Solo]

If there were no Lich, I wouldn't play. Simply for Go2 and minor scripts that keep Sigils, Signs or Waggle...I think that's the feeling of a lot of people as well.

[Soulance]

Lich was definitely crazy for me in the beginning and a lot to understand. But once I started figuring it out it's become much easier. I've helped others get started with it as well and have also run into many that have returned from many years off (like myself) and were just starting up. Over time they've become quite adept at it. Don't be afraid to ask questions (and know you're going to be subject to smart-ass answers). People are definitely willing to help. But, easiest thing for me is always trial and error. And if your character dies trying...well, that's good business for me!

;alias has been a neat feature to learn as well. I didn't start into that one until about a year or so after I started playing. But it's definitely nice to just type in "tc" and have ;go2 off and running to Town Center in Mule.

[DaCapn]

If you're not writing any scripts, using lich is just like learning anything else in the game. You're typing commands into a command line and it's doing things.

"How do I use INVENTORY?"
>INVENTORY HELP

"How do I use lnet?"
>;lnet help

Even if you stick solely to scripts Tillmen has written, they'll all be very well documented, incredibly widely used, very well understood, and easy to use. Better than most of GS overall, really.

Use a thoughts window to get thoughts out of your main game window.

[Soulance]

If you're not writing any scripts, using lich is just like learning anything else in the game. You're typing commands into a command line and it's doing things.

"How do I use lnet?"
>;lnet help

Use a thoughts window to get thoughts out of your main game window.
It seems that most scripts you can either use:

;<scriptname HELP

-or-

;<scriptname SETUP

to get things started. Of course, ;trust <scriptname> before anything else in order to allow it to run though there's always a bit of caution running any script unless it's a known good script.

[Taernath]

Specifically for ;go2, there's an echo command or checkbox somewhere that lets you see what room number you're in, which is useful for using it to go to a hunting area or asking for help in chat.

[Soulance]

I like ;rnum but I'll have to check out that one as well.

;rnum puts the room number at the top of the page next to the room heading.

[kutter]

;rnum is awesome for when you are running from place to place and you run through a room with a deader in it, but you have to have the verbiage for a dead body highlighted to make it stand out. That way you can scroll back, find what room they were in and run back to help out. It is probably not as helpful as it once would have been since both thoughtnet and lichnet now cover the entire world.

[Soulance]

I've found many a lost runestaff thanks to ;rnum. If there's a deader and they allow you access to their location...

;locate <person> is nice
;go2name <person> is even better if you are wanting to run to them automatically. Just be careful as to what might be lurking in the room with them.

Thanks "shart repper"! You're the best!!

"your butt runs sharts automatically"
"Checking the lich manual, I see that attempting to open lich while wearing pants that have been sharted in more than 323 times will cause it to time out. Change pants."
"your butt stinks"

[Methais]

As long as you keep it to 323 sharts or less, Lich will run fine.

[subzero]

Use a thoughts window to get thoughts out of your main game window.

Another way to help filter chats is with highlights. I don't recall the exact syntax offhand, but I do something like highlight the entire line yellow if it contains, "[LNet]-". I also took it a little further and highlighted the game instances as well since there will be chat from Prime, Shattered, Platinum, and sometimes DR. I think I used gray from Prime, orange for Shattered. For example, a chat on LNet from someone in Shattered would be all yellow with the GSF: part in orange. Makes for quick and easy identification.

[Mobius1]

Though Lich can be a valuable tool, it's truly up to you, how you use it.

My best advice, is to not ALWAYS just speed through everything with it (Especially go2.). Take the occasional moments to stop and explore, read room descriptions, and figure things out. Use Lich as a handy tool, but don't let it break your immersion. Elanthia is a very cool world that is decades in the making, so it is rich with lots of cool things to see and do, if you take the time to explore them.

And actually, Lich can be valuable in actually making immersion better. Thanks to Narost, for example, you may be able to find places you otherwise never would have found or known about.

Granted, you can't beat those moments where you get lost, and find some cool new place on your own. Or those times you curiously explore and find that neat little spot.