You are invited to join us for an evening of nostalgia, affection and cruel putdowns from about 3:00 on Sunday 11th February 2001 ... until dawn, probably...
Just read on to find out what you need to be connected. It might be an idea to try getting access before the Sunday just in case you have any problems. If so, please email me and I'll give any help I can.
So what is the Wentworth Talker?
It's a cross between a chat room and an old-style text adventure, but with other people wandering around the corridors of an imaginary Wentworth Detention Centre.
It can be hard to get the hang of at the beginning, but it's well worth while persevering with it. This is a "print out and keep handy" guide to some of the things I found hard to get to grips with myself.
http://wentworth.amber.org.uk/terminal322/index.html
The original version is at
http://www.amber.org.uk/~pcbh/Telnet/wentworth.html
After the page had downloaded you can start to register. It's best to ignore all of the stuff at the top of the page and just pull both the inner and outer scroll bars right down to the bottom of the page, which is where the new text appears.
The white square is the cursor. If you type and nothing appears, point to the white square with the mouse pointer and click.
The first line of the login procedure asks you to sign in:
You can now give an alias for your session, below type: <account>
<alias>
The name you choose for <account> the first time will set this as
your account name. You need to remember this and use it again: if you use
a different one on a subsequent visit, you will start another account.
It's probably better to put something that people might know you by (from
the Digest, or email or whatever).
You don't have to put an alias at all to begin with: you can always set it later.
Login Name: YourName
You are then asked to choose a password (choose something you can remember!).
Then type your email address. This does have to be valid.
then finally a description of yourself. You don't have to put anything here, but to get on to the next stage you need to type at least one letter on the first line, then a full stop on a line on its own. You can always chaneg the description later.
Then press the Enter key to gain access.
The first time you register you will get an email giving a code for
you to "validate" your email address with the talker. You can ignore this
- it seems to work fine without.
Anything you type will appear as <Your alias> says: blah blah blah unless you start it with a full stop, which makes the first word a command. If you just type text, the other people in the room will see what you type after you press Enter or Return. The interwriting of your message and the ones from other people makes it hard to correct typing errors. Type fast and don't worry about spelling mistakes!
Some useful commands to start with:-
type .who to see the other people logged
on and which rooms they are in.
type .people to see their account names
- this might help you work out who's behind the nicknames.
type .ex or .ustat
followed by a username to find out more about individual people
type .look to see the description of the
the room again.
type .review to see the last few messages
for that room.
type .map to see a map of Wentworth with
the layout of the rooms or .rooms to see a list of their names (including
which ones are private)
When you know the name of the room, type .go laundry
to go to the laundry or
.go rec room, .go
maternity and so on.
Some rooms are out of bounds if your rank is too low.
.tell followed by a user name/nickname followed by text will send a private message just to that person. They don't have to be in the same room.
.emote followed by text will display a sentence
with your user name at the start. So .emote shrugs in
a nonchalant fashion displays "YourUserName shrugs in a nonchalant
fashion"
.pmote followed by a user name then text
sends the same thing to the user you specify.
:) or :( or ;) will put your name before a suitable phrase: "YourUserName smiles: :)"
If you type ~FG immediately before your name (i.e. .setname ~FGYourUserName it will appear in green. Type .help colour for a list of the other colour codes.
.set displays a menu to allow you to change other things like the phrase that is tacked on after your name when you leave or enter a room, or your age and gender (or at least the information about it that others can see!). Type q to leave the menu and return to the talker.
.desc lets you change the brief description that appears after your name when people use the .who command.
.dirtymag (on its own or with a user name afterwards)