Essential Newbie Survival Guide

Chapter 1: Config and prompts

The first thing you'll want to do is type "config damage info" unless you enjoy being in the dark when it comes to the amount of damage you deal and receive. Secondly, type "config combat spam" if your practice is being flooded with combat messages from others in the prison, practice grounds, dojo, etc
One other early bit of advice I'd give is to check your "score" often to see whether you have too many or too few commands pending. It's located to the right of Cmd in the right-middle of the score information.
Alternatively you can set up a prompt and combat prompt to give you valuable information on yourself and your opponent. If you don't set up a combat prompt your regular prompt will be used.
Here are a couple of sample prompts, you may want to make your own to suit your specific needs and preferences once you've checked out the variables and color options by typing "display" and "help prompt" for a list of possible variables and "help color" for details on how to set your preferred colors.
Lots of details, colored prompt: $h/$H ($a) ^b$d ^GEnemy ^Y(^r$T, ^C$D^Y) *^w>^W$s^W|^b$S^w< ^W$(^w:^b$<^w:^C$[ ^W$)^w:^b$>^w:^C$] ^W{^g$p^W/^G$P^W, ^g$c/^G$C^W} ^g$t ^W[^R$-^W]

Not so much color, just the important stuff: $h/$H ($a/$A) $f, $d, ($T, $o $D, $O, $t) $*$Q:${$-}

Config colour light dark is important to take into consideration, depending on whether or not you've swapped light and dark colours the following colors may have inverse brightness.

Syntax: colour (on/off)
Syntax: colour (good/okay/bad/awful) (colour)
Syntax: colour (say/chat/tell/gossip/newbie) (colour)
Syntax: colour (name/backstab) (colour)
Syntax: colour (YouSweepThem/YouHitThem/YouCritThem) 
Setting colors can help you immensely to scan important information in the heat of battle. Here is an example color setup for you to use until you find something you like better.

color yousweepthem GREEN 
(When you sweep your enemy off their feet. Bright green by default, dark if you've typed 'config color light dark')

color youhitthem cyan
color youcritthem CYAN

color theysweepyou MAGENTA (Bright magenta by default. when your enemy sweeps you off your feet)

color theyhityou red
color theycrityou RED


With this color setup you'll be able to easily differentiate normal, critical and sweeping strikes from each other as well as your blows from your opponents without necessarily having to read every word.