Objects and Verbs

Everything in the moo is an object. Take a look at the room that you're in:

look
Homi's Apartment
A studio that is generously described as cozy on the rental market.  On the
 second floor of an English Tudor-style house, it has all the charm and
 inconveniences of an old house that has been converted into apartments.  The
 kitchen takes up one wall in the apartment, and the 'bedroom' takes up the
 rest of the apartment.
You see bed, orange crack, erg, 711, petunias, Evil_Spy, Grad_student, Oxford
 English Dictionary, Espresso Maker, and bag o generics here.
Jiffany and Christi are here.
Obvious exits:
Out

The list of things you see are objects in the room. The room itself is an object, as are the players. All of the objects in the moo are decended from a generic object called $thing. Every $thing has a description (which you see when you look at it) and every $thing has an object number.

A $player is a type of $thing. And your charecter is a $player. This is called inheritance. You can make objects that have all the properties of all the objects that they inherit from. So everything that is descended from $thing has all the properties of $thing, like descriptions, names, aliases and object numbers. There is another object, called $room, that comes from $thing. When someone creates a room on the moo, they create an object with all the properties of $room, which include entrances, exists, and the ability to hold players.

Clear as mud, right? Don't give up, I'm getting to the interesting part.

You interact with objects by way of their verbs. look is a verb. There exists a tool to tell you what verbs that an object has. @examine [name of object].

@examine erg
erg (#254) is owned by Jiffany (#96).
Aliases:  erg
A torture device of the worst kind, the erg looms before you as an
 unconquerable monster, larger than life, everything you always feared!!!!!
Well...maybe you fear your coach more....
Obvious Verbs:
  use erg
  g*et/t*ake erg
  d*rop/th*row erg
  gi*ve/ha*nd erg to <anything>

Examining Jiffany's erg reveals that it is owned by Jiffany, it's name and aliases, it's description and finally it's verbs. Let's try them.

use erg
You approach the erg, your knees trembling and your heart pounding.  Could it
 really be as bad as everyone says?  Closer, and closer, and closer, the
 machine begins to look like some kind of modern-day torture device.  But,
 under your coaches stern look, you hop on and strap your feet in, and start
 pulling.
The pain!  Will there ever be an end to this agony?  Will you live to finish
 this erg piece?  Your coach's voice encourages you to keep going, but you can
 hear the undertone of a threat.
The horror....  The horror....
Just when you think your end is near, you'd rather die than finish this, you
 see your meters left hit 0.  Your hear your coach saying 'Next time, take 15
 seconds off that time!' before you lose consciousness completely....

Yikes! We won't try getting or taking the erg, since it doesn't belong to us, and anyway, i'm not sure i want it. You should not pick up items that don't belong to you.

@examine espresso maker
Espresso Maker (aka #762, Espresso Maker, espresso, maker, and expresso)
Owned by Jiffany.
(No description set.)
Obvious verbs:
  make <anything> with espresso maker
  @gen*der espresso maker is <anything>

The espresso maker has some other aliases. You can use any of the aliases in place of it's name. It also has some different syntax for the verb:

make "soy latte" with espresso maker
You prepare all the necessary ingredients and make a soy latte.

<anything> really does mean anything. You can use the name of a real object or player, or you can try using any word or phrase. It there are spaces in a phrase that you are using, you need to use double quotes. That's why there are quotes around "soy latte"

Ok, have fun

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