L

LAF, n. [Comp. of Laugh.]

Also laff.

Indicates mild amusement. Often used by younger mudders .

Same as LAF .

Lag, n. [v. lagged]

State of slowed activity. LAG is most often measured by how long ittakes a MUD to respond to commands issued by a user. There are severalcauses of lag, including: Net lag, host lag, and game lag. Net lagoccurs when the network lines conducting communication between theuser and game are too saturated. It can be detected by measuring thedifference in speed between users calling from the host that thegame operates on vs. users calling from remote sites . Host lag is whenthe machine which the game operates from is under powered (trying todo too many things at once).Finally Game lag originates from the MUDitself. This can be caused by many internal thingslike an excessive number of lockouts .

See: lockout , user .

Legal, n.,adj.

(1) Most often a MUD run in accordance with its license .

(2) Player actions that are allowed by the rules of play.

See: illegal .

Level, n., interj.

Mostly limited to combat oriented games.

(1) (n). Ranking. Ideally proportional to one'sEXP (experience points) playing acombat game and are unique to thecharacter one plays. Note: game builders and administratorsmay have outrageously high level rankings. Relatively speakingthat is...

(2) (interj). Declares the achivement of a higher level .Example: Joe shouts, "level!" after having just attained a newlevel.

Level Based, n.

MUD that supports levels .

See: Skill Based .

Level Less, adj.

MUD without levels . Normally such games areskill based .

Library, n.

(1) Place where all files unique to a particular game world reside.Esp. data files.

(2) Room with the theme of a real world library or placeof records where players may access information.

See: mudlib , database .

License, n.

Permission to use a MUD and the rules regulating that usage. MostMUDs have a license that the game owner must agree to before legallyoperating the server .

Life, n.

Instance of continued existance uninterrupted by death .

See: living , death .

Light, n.

MUD builders often use the term to refer to the visible state of aroom or object. A number known as "light" may be given to a room orother object. If the number is positive the room is illuminated(brighter with higher numbers.) If the number is zero or a negativenumber it is dark (darker the lower the number.) Generally speakinga room with a light value of 0 is the equivalent of a pitch black (orcompletely dark) room in the real world.

See: room , dark .

Link, n.

(1) Connection between a user and a game. Most often thelink between a user and a PC . Example: "Dave has lost hislink." -- The player/user Dave's connection to the game has beeninterrupted. Also can be a similar link between a user and any object.

(2) Method of using pointers to join the members ofa queue togetherinstead of a numerical index .

See: linkdead , reconnect .

Linkdead, n.

State in which PCs are said to be after all communicationbetween the user and the game is blocked. This condition is'linkless'.

See: link , quit .

List, n.

Also queue .

Items arranged such that one follows another.

Living, adj.

(1) To be a character or other object currently underhuman control or an object that is, within the virtual environment, considered to be alive (like an NPC ).

(2) (LPC) Any object so identified by the builder .

See: death , heartbeat , interactive .

Lo, interj. [Abrev. of Hello.]

Greetings, Hello again.

Location, n.

Distinct place. Often the same as room but may alsobe a sublocation or an abstract idea about therelation between someobject like your character andother places in the game.

Lock, v.

(1) To seal with a key . Objects that can be modifiedwith the close and open commands may also belockable. Once locked the item can only be open with theproper key.

(2) Temporary change of file access permission such that access ismore limited.

See: close , open , unlock ,

Lockout, n.

Also command lockout, wait.

Period of time, after execution of some command ,during which no further input is processed.Sometimes provided as a method to reduce the occurence ofgame lag by limiting how many commands a player may usein a given period of time like one second. Also used toeven the odds in combat and other contest as it removes some of theadvantage players with faster net connections or specialclient programs would otherwise have.Example: Kicking in combat causes 3 rounds of lockout.Sometimes miscalled "lag".

See: lag .

Log, n., v.

(1) Record of activity. Most games keep log files on certain gameactivities. This varies widely from one MUD to the next. In generalautomatic logs are kept about when and who may have broken the highestrules of the game.

(2) To record something like a conversation.

See: snoop .

Logon, n., v.

To enter a game. Those events unique to the act of entering the game.Example: Entering your player name and password .

See: logout .

Logout, n.,v.

To leave the game by an orderly processiniated by the Usually involves acommand like quit or one with identical resultsnamed "logout".

See: logon .

Long, n.

What MUD builders call the body of descriptive text concerning anobject. This is what a player sees below the title of a room or whenlooking at an object.

See: description , short .

L8TR, interj., n. [Abbrev. of Later.]

Fairwell, good-bye.