This document was originally a 32 page 8.5 X 5.5 booklet sent to new users when they subscribed to KOTC. It has been recreated here in html format. Although it is formatted differently, the text and graphics are complete. It is divided between 2 web pages, of which this is the first.
CAT 101
Cat Basics in King of the Cats
© 1993-99 QCOM, Seattle, WA. All Rights Reserved. "RIPterm" and "RIPscrip" are products of Telegrafix Communications, Inc.
CONTENTS
Welcome
Cat Stats
Dangers
Ethyl's Story
King of the Cats
The F.I.S.H. System
Conversation Areas
Scent Areas
Products
Leo Liner Train Schedule
Free Time
Level Advancement
Melioration
A Catechism for the Puss
Catechism Glossary
Cat 101 Glossary
Adult Access Form
Places To Check Out
Thank you for subscribing to King of the Cats. Your subscription helps keep King of the Cats available to cats from all over the country.
CAT101 has general information. Highlights include details on your Cat Stats, Dangers, Ethyl's Story, how to use the Chat areas, and how to use Emew services. The Catechism is much more specialized; through the Q&A you will learn what is necessary to successfully complete the Melioration ceremony, which will increase your level, strength, or agility. It is a challenge! CAT 101 now contains the complete "Catechism for the Puss," which used to be distributed seperately.
Descriptions of the King of the Cats products are here, too. Order them online with a credit card, or get complete mail-in information. The products are unique game play enhancements that many cats enjoy.
There is quite a bit to do on King of the Cats, and exploration of the entire kingdom will offer you hours of pleasureable challenge and intrigue. Sometimes not having everything spelled out for you can be a little daunting - just remember that cats are curious - click where you'd like to go and don't worry about making mistakes. As long as you keep your Health score up, you'll be OK! If you ever need help, leave a message on the Hints scent area - the purebred cats out there are eager to offer clues to kittens. You can also send Emew to me, especially if you are having any kind of account difficulties or questions.
Thanks for joining us! Have fun!
TURK
Your Cat Statistics play an important role in your quality of life. Pay attention to these scores to survive!
We'll start our look at Cat Stats with the LIVES score. This starts at nine for all new kittens. If you die, this score will drop to eight, then to seven, and so on. If you hit zero, your cat is retired forever. Hey - if you get nine lives, you have to draw the line somewhere, right? Here’s the first big, important thing to know about playing in King of the Cats: if your cat loses all nine lives, your cat dies. Forever. That account is closed. You will have to open a new account with a new cat, and no transfer of remaining time or points is allowed. This whole process is at best a gigantic pain, so it’s best to just work your hardest at keeping your cat alive!
Next comes your HEALTH score. This is a value from 1 to 100, with 100 being the best. You ran raise this score by doing good, wholesome, common-sense cat things, like napping or eating. Points are lost off this score when you do rough-and-tumble cat things like jump but fall, get in fights, or bite through electrical cords. Makes purrfect sense, right? If this score ever reaches zero, you will lose a life, and this score will be re-set to somewhere near 50. It is very easy to keep this score up - you should only loose a life if you make a terrible mistake, like entering into a deadly situation without preparing by gaining lots of health points. In almost all situations (I can’t think of a single exception) it is best to run away from a situation rather than let your score drop to zero. You can gain your health points back, but you can’t gain back a lost life!
Probably the most important score for some breeds will be their APPEARANCE score. This is a value from 1 to 100, much like the health score. This value indicates how good you look - the higher the score, the cleaner and shinier your coat appears. This value can come into play when you meet with other cats; felines with a low appearance score may find themselves looking "mangy" or "grungy." You can improve your appearance by grooming. Cats who groom regularly will soon find their appearance "attractive" or "fetching!"
Your STRENGTH score simply indicates how strong you are. It is a value between 1 and 100, the higher the better. This score comes into play at various points in King of the Cats, but it most regularly applies when you are fighting and you select to bite an opponent. The success of the bite will depend largely upon your strength score. Your AGILITY score works much the same way, and it impacts your ability to claw while fighting. Your agility score also indicates how well you can jump - and it may influence how well you can manuever through a tricky area.
Your strength and agility scores are never lowered (permanently.) They can only be raised if you choose to "exchange" some of your experience points for additional strength or agility.
EXPERIENCE POINTS are awarded to you as you have cat "successes" throughout King of the Cats. They are awarded for sucessfully defeating an enemy, or solving a puzzle, or meeting an challenge. Small achievements, such as playing with the toilet paper in the bathroom, will see small experience point awards, while more challenging activities like swatting the cuckoo bird in the cuckoo clock will receive larger amounts.
You can eventually exchange experience points you have accumulated for a higher LEVEL, or for additional STRENGTH or AGILITY. We’ll discuss how this is done later...it is called the "Melioration Ceremony."
That covers the important scores associated with your cat. These scores are shown to you everytime to log in to King of the Cats, and you can see them again while online by selecting "CAT STATS" from the King Shield. LIVESHow many lives your cat has left before this account is closed.90Never goes up.When your Health score reaches zero you lose one life.HEALTHThe general healthiness of your cat.100 (Very Healthy)0 (Dead)Eat good food, nap, take advantage of certain opportunities.Fighting, falling, or otherwise receiving some "damage."APPEARANCEHow good you look.100 (Immaculate)0 (Disgusting)GroomingFighting, crawling through dirty or tight places, getting wet, etc.STRENGTHHow strong you are; how well you bite.100 (Very Strong0 (Very Weak)Melioration (ceremony)Never permanently lowered.AGILITYHow agile you are; how well you claw, and how well you jump or perform tricky legwork. 100 (Very Agile)0 (Very ClumbsyMeliorationNever permanently lowered.
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CAT STATS |
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| STAT | INDICATES | MAXIMUM | MINIMUM | HOW RAISED | HOW LOWERED |
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Given that losing all your health points will cause you to lose a life, as we've just discovered, it makes sense that the biggest dangers to watch out for are those things which cause you to lose health points. With this in mind, let's take a look at some of the ways you can lose those points. In Ethyl's House most activities are rather inoxious, meaning you can't get hurt too badly; consequently, you can't earn as many experience points. While in Ethyl's house the most common ways to lose health include: fighting the rats in the walls, falling while jumping, ingesting bad substances, and getting knocked around by Ethyl because you woke her up. Keep in mind that it's OK to lose health points...you can always earn them back by napping or eating, etc. The important thing is to monitor your score and don't let it get too low. It's always better to leave a dangerous situation if your health score is too low, and return later when your score is improved. It's NEVER a good idea to lose a life! Fighting is always dangerous. Everytime you lose health points while fighting you are shown your current health score. It is a good idea to run away from a fight if you are about to lose a life. You can always return to fight another day! You cannot get a life back. Some of the more dangerous areas are: the Mortuary, Elliott's Butcher Shop garbage bin, the side paths in the Cemetery after the sun goes down, and the Bad Gypsies. There are others! |
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Since a new cat will
find themselves navigating the Ethyl
household, it might be interesting to know
a little
about the woman running the show.
Ethyl's history: collection. She used to collect rats in her house, until one day when Mayor Boyland was visiting Marge Atwood (Ethyl's next door neighbor) and noticed several large vermin crawling in and out of the dryer duct in the basement. The rats were emerging from the side of Ethyl's house, racing across the street to Elliott's butcher shop, raiding his garbage bin, and racing back to Ethyl's. He promptly called the city health department, and they raided Ethyl's house early the next morning, slapping Ethyl with a hefty fine and an order to clean out the rodents. Ethyl was furious. She had voted against the mayor many times, and had even worked on an opponent's campaign team in years past. She felt Boyland was singling her out, and decided that if she couldn't fill up her house with her beloved RATS, she'd fill it up with the opposite: CATS. Her plan worked, of course. The first day she introduced several kittens to her home, the rats disappeared (no one knows where.) Ethyl didn't care for cats the same way she loved rats, but she nonetheless wanted a full house of them, so she installed one-way cat doors and made it difficult for felines to get out. Ethyl has rather a rather predictable schedule. She gets up in the morning and goes to the kitchen. She has a bottle of booze that keeps her company most of the day. Sometimes she remembers to pour out crunchies...sometimes you have to coax her. Coaxing Ethyl can sometimes be a disgusting activity, given her leg condition. Some days are better than others. Ethyl streadfastly refuses to let cats play in the garbage or under the sink. Ethyl goes to bed at night, upstairs in her bedroom. While she is upstairs, the kitchen is free for exploration, but a little low on food. Ethyl's bedroom window is a good way to get in and out of the house, if you can find it open. However, Ethyl does not take well to being woken up at night - in fact, she has a nasty habit of kicking noisy cats down the stairs! |
Every subscribing cat is eligible to become King of the Cats. The King isn't the cat with the most experience points, or the highest level. The King of the Cats is the first cat who completed the "requirements for the throne," as presented by the NYD Committee.
The NYD Committee is a group of cats who meet occasionally to set the new requirements for the throne. As these requirements are decided upon, CNN issues reports. The first cat who completes the requirements in the proper manner, as set by the Committee, becomes the new King of the Cats, and rules the Kingdom for a period of time.
The cat who succeeds at these requirements usually invests a great deal of effort, because there are many cats attempting to achieve this lofty position everytime the Committe announces a new run for the throne. You do not have to engage in this race if you don't want to; it's entirely up to you.
Regardless, you should always be polite when speaking with The King, and show proper respect and courtesty!
F. I. S. H. stands for Feline Interface System Hub. It's merely a way for your cat to get to a terminal and check his or her Email (or, as we call it around here, "EMew.") You can locate a system hub by looking for the F.I.S.H. icon, a small square icon similar to the King Shield.
To send some Emew to another cat, simply click on SEND, enter the cat's name, and when prompted for a subject you must enter a brief title for your message. If you want to send the same message to a number of different cats, enter the other cat names when prompted with cc: . When you've entered all of the names you want, press ENTER at the cc: prompt, and you can begin to enter your message. Click on the HELP button on this screen for further information, such as what to type to get different colors. Click on OK when finished.
Your Emew box will also send and receive Internet Email. Your Internet Email address is your cat name, followed by @KOTC.COM (please note that if you have a space in your cat name you'll need to replace it with a period (.) since spaces are not allowed in Internet Email addresses.) For example, if your cat name is FREAK, then your Internet Email address is FREAK@KOTC.COM. If your name is FREAKY CAT, your Internet Email address is FREAKY.CAT@KOTC.COM. If you have friends and associates who use the Internet or have access to Internet Email, you can give them your address here on KOTC, and mail they send to you through the Internet will reach you in your Emew box. To send mail to them, you only need to address the mail properly at the TO: prompt. The Internet isn't particularly tolerant of incorrectly addressed mail, so take the time to get the address right. Also, don't use "color codes" or formatting codes when you send Internet Email; the codes won't change the color of the recipient's mail, they'll just appear as the commands you typed! Color and format codes are OK if you're sending messages to another cat on KOTC.
Internet Email is refreshed regularly on King of the Cats throughout the day.
Some of the best fun in King of the Cats is meeting up with other felines and sitting down together to have a dinner or a drink. There are several areas in the kingdom where you can converse. They are:
• The Kit Kat Klub
An all ages diner with a wonderful menu. "Pool Room" in the back for open conversation. Location: Atwood's garage, on Strand.
•The Puss Puss Cafe
An adults only cocktail club with private rooms for over-17 only conversation. Adult access in King of the Cats requires that you download a form, fill it out, and send it to us with a photocopy of your ID. The file can be downloaded from Ethyl's Living Room King Shield - or use the copy on page 29 of this book. Location: next to the Kit Kat, in the same complex.
• Scoop Beach
After beachcombing, sit around the beach blanket and chat!
• Telegraph Point
This area allows three cats to chat while enjoying the scenery, or a campfire, depending upon the time of day. It works a little differently than the Kit Kat or the Puss Puss; you'll see the simple instructions when you get there. It's a left turn at the top of the hill past the pond.
Conversing is easy when in these areas. There's a menu of all of the things you can do on the right side of the screen. Click on LIST to see who's there with you. When you receive a message from another cat you are always given the option to respond by clicking on RESPOND or OK. Be sure to send ONE LINE messages - messages longer than one line are truncated. If you want to continue your thought on more than one line, you can suppress the "Respond?" prompt that the receiver of the message will see by adding "///" (three slashes) to the end of your message. Their reply prompt will be suppressed, and you will be given another prompt (>) to enter another line to the same cat. This saves you having to click on a cat, select CHAT, and enter their name every time you want to send them a line. You can send any number of lines this way, as long as you add /// every time. When you finish with your last line, omit the three slashes, and the receiver of the message will finally receive the "Do you want to respond?" prompt, which allows them to reply to you without having to enter your name.
Some chat areas are called "open areas," which merely means that you aren't having private conversation one-on-one with another cat. In these areas, everything you type can be seen by every other cat in that area. The important thing to remember here is that you need to press ENTER to bring up a prompt (>) at which point you can enter your message and press enter to send it to everyone. Remember to enter a ONE LINE message. While you have the prompt (>) you will not receive messages from other cats - the system is waiting for you to finish your input. Also, the three slashes feature (///) is disabled in open areas, because the benefits it affords are quite useless in open areas. If you want to indicate to another cat that you have more to say, try using the standard conventional three dots (...)
If you are new to online chatting with other cats, you might want to take note of some of the widely-accepted conventions. These include use of common acronyms (BTW means "by the way," etc.) and the regular use of lower case letters when speaking normally. Using all upper case letters LIKE THIS is considered "SHOUTING" and isn't polite, unless you have something to shout about. Make sure you have your Caps Lock off, otherwise you're likely to have your new-found cat friends running away, holding their ears!
You're always free to speak about whatever you'd like with other cats. Keep in mind that the Kit Kat, Scoop Beach and Telegraph Point are considered "all ages" areas and since kids might be around it's best to use all-ages language. Save adult stuff for the Puss Puss Cafe.
All chatting in King of the Cats is subject to the One Big Rule, which is: NO ABUSIVE LANGUAGE. If you feel you have been subjected to abusive language while chatting, please EMew the sysop with details. Cats who engage in abusive chatting will find themselves locked out of King of the Cats.
Cats like to leave messages for others cats via "scent areas." You can't see where these areas are; you have to sniff them out. They're usually at nose level. Once you find one, you can read the messages that have been left by other cats, or you can add one of your own. There are two major scent areas in Ethyl's Living Room; one is called Hints and another is called The Kingdom Yowl. Try clicking on the stair posts.
These scent areas are very different than Emew. These are public messages. If you wish to send someone a private message, you should use the F.I.S.H. system to do so.
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One of the things that cats like to discuss with each
other is "hints" about the kingdom. Since all of these messages are there for
you to browse through, you will find a wealth of information from other cats about most
any topic on KOTC. You can narrow down which messages might be of interest to you by
selecting "Search for Text" and entering a word - the system will search through
the message headers (the "subject" line at the top) or the entire texts of
messages to find matches. You can reply to messages that you read. There are several ways to do this. Clicking on the REPLY button will post another public message, and will "thread" it to the original. Because the messages in the scent area are stored in the order they were left (chronologically) these threads make it easier to read replies to a specific message without wading through all of the messages in-between. To read the threaded messages, select the THREAD button, and specify if you want to read messages that are "previous" or "next" on the thread. You can also send a private reply via Emew by clicking on the MAIL button. This message will not be part of a thread, and will be read only by the recipient cat, as part of their Emew. If you would like to post a brand new message, not part of a thread, select POST A MESSAGE from the first menu. There is also a SCAN FOR NEW MESSAGES button - this will display messages that you have not yet read. Obviously a new cat will be presented with ALL messages - just use the GOTO button to jump to a later message. |
One of the fun things about King of the Cats is that we have products you can order to make playing more than just a virtual experience. Sometimes it's fun to have a physical object in your hand other than a mouse! Some products are hint based, others offer translation tables and keys. Our products are inexpensive and are kind of fun to have. You can order them all online by clicking on the $ icon in Ethyl's Living Room...or you can order them through the mail. Indicate the products you want, be sure to mention your cat name, and enclose payment by check or money order to:
United We Squawk: Ross Parot on Small Object Management (audio tape, $5.00) This is a great multi-media way to learn some of the simple secrets of King of the Cats. And it's fun! You use this cassette tape while online to hear the audio portion of Ross Parot's class on small objects, which he teaches in the Hepworth School. Ross is an expert on spiders and small objects such as eyes and dog toys. His hints will make good 'ol common sense! A great way to obtain useful hints, and a great introduction to some of the elements in King of the Cats.
How to Speak Dog and Use the Whimpernet in 3 Easy Weeks (booklet, $5.00) Learn how to decipher the barks and ruffs that dogs use to communicate. Their primary topic of conversation: the King of the Cats! Very useful if you seek the throne. They keep their facts on a network, called The Whimpernet, which you can connect to and attempt to access...it's a difficult interface, but this book shows you how. Access their Howlgroups...listen in on their messages...access useful files! Dog hacking at it's finest!
City Sewer Blueprints (plans and tables, $5.00) These plans, stolen from City Hall by the rats, give you a headstart on the sewer layout and how to maneuver quickly through the underground tunnels. Along with the plans is a rat calendar, a rat symbol decoder, and a rat day reminder - essential for sewer orienteering. It all comes rolled in a tube. If you'd like to learn how to quickly manuever under the city streets, these plans and tables are for you!
Smith, Butler & Winky Investment Guide (booklet and account, $5.00) Now you can invest in the chattel markets! This guide will help you understand the companies behind the chattel, the sectors, the ratings, and how to invest sucessfully. The guide also allows you to have an account with SB&W, with attractive commission rates. The offices of SB&W are in the Leishman Tower on Byron.
