A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ?

l

1. verb⁰¹ Abbreviation for the 'look' command. Rarely extended into normal conversation.

2. prefix An abbreviation for 'long' placed in front of some commands to give them a different functionality. Normally, this means more detail, but at the expense of adding verbosity. For example, 'lw' is short for 'longwho', but gives little more useful information than even 'qw'. Usually, s (2) is used as a prefix (2) in preference to l. See also q.

lagged off

verb⁰ To have been cut off automatically from the host by the intervening comms network because of excessive delays between the transmission and receipt of data. Lagging is a common problem over packet- switched systems, where it is not uncommon for a character (2) to take several seconds to echo after its having been typed. The term lagged off (the past participle is almost always used) derives from 'logged off', ie. the process of severing a connection between user and computer.

The Land

noun The name of MUD's scenario. A collection of discrete rooms that are built conceptually into areas which in turn are grouped into sections (1). Originally, The Land was just the MUD1 rooms, but it was subsequently expanded to incorporate Valley and Simon's rooms as they were glued on. Nothing whatsoever to do with Donaldson's "the Land" from the Thomas Covenant series of Fantasy books, which was named independently.

land shark

noun In MUD1, a 'shark' mobile that has been removed from the sea and left to wander The Land to devastating effect. This is usually the result of an accident, whereby a wiz picks it up then later quits, forgetting all about it...

lazybones

noun A skelly which is proving reluctant to move. "I'll be there soon, just waiting for lazybones to get out of the way". See zombied, <something> trouble.

legal

adjective Not illegal. Rarely used. By default, everything in MUD is legal unless specifically noted as illegal.

legend

1. noun The highest level in MUD1 below wiz. Terms which in MUD2 refer to mages, in MUD1 apply to legends. "Look! legend meat!"

2. noun In MUD2, the fighter equivalent of 'warlock' level.

3. noun A legend is an oft-repeated rumour which wizzes encourage mortals to believe, but which is actually (almost?) entirely false. BL wizzes spend a lot of time propagating and embellishing legends. It's fun (for the wizzes concerned, but not necessarily for the mortals!). myths are roughly the same as legends, but the term tends to be reserved for the more long- standing, mature and complicated among them. See B-29, magic train, ballroom, troll, tin, armour, seventh tomb, throne, A. A. Milne, stegosaurus, wizmort, bogroll, moose (this last one is given in full as a complete example of the genre).

level

1. noun In a MUA, personae normally advance by acquiring points. When a persona's accumulated total exceeds some threshhold, the persona is granted new abilities, stats and prestige. The bands of equal status are known as levels. Levels all have names, depending on which stream a persona is in, and whether or not it is a PP. Personae are described in terms of their current level, eg. "Exel the warlock". See arch-wiz, champ, necro, novice, sorc, super, swordy, wiz, yeo, build up, make <level>, postfix, prefix, work up, legend (1).

2. noun Distance from the computer in programming terms. See high level (3), low level (3).

limbo

1. noun The room where wizzes place personae until the players controlling them cool off. You can't 'quit' from limbo, or communicate with mortals from it.

2. verb¹ To be placed in limbo. "Kes was limboed last night for swearing".

line-noise

noun Corruption by the communications medium of either your input or your output as it is passed between your computer and the host. Normally, new characters (2) are added in a vaguely random fashion, which renders input unparsable and output unreadable. In spectacular cases, you may find that the line-noise is meaningful to the parser or to your monitor: in the former case, this will mean your persona does things it wasn't instructed to do (or things it was instructed to do, but several times more than it was so instructed); in the latter, your screen will start printing polychrome graphics interspersed with ASCII characters you didn't even know existed. Naturally, the likelihood of line-noise occurring is directly proportional to the importance that it doesn't. Really severe line-noise can cause carrier loss. See BT (not that they'll do anything to help...).

line-noise name

noun A name consisting of a large number of difficult-to-read, hard-to-type characters (2) that reputedly look like line-noise. The idea is that if you have difficulty using the name, you won't be able to do things very effectively to the owner. "k Sxcqr^Hfzkkl^H^Hlk". Pronouns and syns make this more of a tiresome tactic than a lethal one.

The List

noun Where suggestions for changes to The Land are recorded. At the time of writing, there are approximately 300 entries on The List. There will undoubtedly be more by the time you read this!

lobby

noun What some BLers call the Tearoom. This comes from another CompuServe game, 'You Guessed It!', which has a lobby conference area where players wait around waiting for a game to begin.

LOFR

verb⁰ Abbreviation for 'laughs on the floor, rolling'. It derives from ROFL, which at one time BL's wizzes used in virtually every message (yes, that was before they discovered smiley faces). LOFR was added to the command set because it makes about as much sense as ROFL. See also act.

log

1. noun The intermediate object between a tree and a brand. True addicts rate a certain log-related silly as one of the best in MUD2.

2. noun A record of your game in every detail, as if it was snooped to disc. Logs are taken of the games of most highlife, people tend to be the one that: (a) play the most; (b) perform commands that lead to Strange Things happening; (c) get attacked in a manner most unfair resulting in a whinge.

3. noun A record of the internal goings-on of the game's interpreter. These are produced mainly to deal with whinges when they arise, and are sometimes called game logs. See RNG.

4. verb⁰ To make a log (2) or (3). "Watch it, you're being logged".

5. verb¹ To cause a log (2) to be created for a persona. "That's enough! I'm logging you!".

looby loo

verb⁰¹ Deliberately to do all the work with one persona, then collect the rewards with another. This is patently unfair. The phrase is almost always used as a verb, eg. "He was FODded for looby looing", and rarely capitalised, but it derives from the 'Looby Loo' character in the 1960's children's TV programme, 'Andy Pandy': she was a doll who was never alive whenever anyone was around, and so in MUD1 a persona who was similarly never to be seen was dubbed a looby loo. Variations include looby-loo, loobying and, in BL, lobby looing (some Americans unfamiliar with 'Andy Pandy' think it comes from people hanging around in the lobby, ie. Tearoom, instead of playing). Looby looing, when it occurs, often does so in conjunction with multi-lining. It is illegal, except in certain prescribed circumstances, for example when it's impossible for you to swamp some T you'd stashed earlier because you've since been badly hacked in a fight. Some people labour under the misapprehension that looby looing is one-way, using a low-level persona to do the work for a higher level one, but that is not the case: many celebrated cases of looby looing were high-to-low, to build up a persona to a level where it could adequately function as a killer. See points, multi-line, Tearoom warlock.

loose T

noun TREASURE that is lying around unclaimed and unguarded, but normally on its own and off the beaten track. See surface T, scoop up (2).

low level

1. adjective In absolute terms, descriptive of a persona which has few points. Anything from hero down is definitely low level, supers probably are, champs and sorcs possibly are, necros probably aren't.

2. adjective In relative terms, closer to 0 points than the rest of the group under discussion. In a reset full of mages, a necro is low level. In this context, the term is often used in comparative or superlative form, ie. lower/lowest level.

3. adjective In programming terms, close to the machine. Assembler is the archetypal low-level language.

For all the above, the term may be hyphenated (but usually only when followed by a noun or adjective). See level, and the equivalent entries under high level.

lowlife

noun Personae nowhere near making wiz; non- highlife. Occasionally the term may be used more specifically to mean personae that are low level, but normally it refers to the vast majority of players who have aspirations of making wiz but do not yet possess the experience. Its original usage was as a formal collective noun, 'a lowlife of mortals', but increasingly it became used as if it was a class (1) eg. "There's always a lot of lowlife around late in a reset." This allowed individuals to be attributed membership of the group: "Don't bug me, you're just a lowlife", and thereafter the plural form of lowlifes (or occasionally lowlives) arose. Any of these variations may be hyphenated, but normally only by people learning the term; otherwise, doing so may serve as a means of emphasis: "You haven't played for a year! You're low-life now!" implies they've been away so long they're probably at the same stage as people just starting up. See highlife, which has much the same variety of use.

LS

noun The abbreviation for the longsword, MUD's deadliest weapon. It is particularly good for fighters, as opposed to musers - one of the few advantages that the former have over the latter. There are four LSs at the start of a reset, but only one is usable - the rest are dummies that disappear when you try and pick them up. This stops people from racing to get them. The term appears in either upper or lower case, but is normally upper when pluralised. See BS, SS.