About Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs)

A MUD (Multiple User Dimension, Multiple User Dungeon, or Multiple User Dialogue) is a computer program which users can log into and explore. Each user takes control of a computerized persona/avatar/incarnation/character. You can walk around, chat with other characters, explore dangerous monster-infested areas, solve puzzles, and even create your very own rooms, descriptions and items. You can also get lost or confused if you jump right in, so be sure to read this document before starting.

For a nice anecdote about the origin of the name, I quote Richard Bartle, co-author of the first MUD:

[...] I am WELL aware what "MUD" stands for, and maybe once every 2 months have to tell someone. The "D" does stand for "Dungeon", but not because the original MUD (which I co-wrote) had a dungeon in it; rather it was because there was a hacked-up version of Zork doing the rounds at the time, which bore the name "Dungeon". We thought that this program would act as the archetype for single-player adventure games, so we called our game "Multi-User Dungeon" in an effort to convey some feeling of what the program did. As it happened, the genre was promptly called "Adventure games" after the Colossal Caves game "Adventure", so we were wrong in that respect. By then, though, we had our acronym.

Most MUDS have a core of commands which players use to move around and interact with each other. For instance, there are commands for interacting with other players, like say (or sometimes "), and other commands like look, go, etc. In TinyMUD, there are commands like home (which always places you in your home -- remember that), : (pose -- try it), etc., which allow you to do stuff inside the database. Commands prefixed by a @ (generally) allow you to change the database! Commands like @describe, @create, @name, @dig and @link allow you to expand the universe, change it, or even, perhaps, @destroy it, under certain conditions. In LPMUDs, none of those apply; in order to edit the universe, you have to attain Wizardhood or be the God of the MUD.

Whatever the case, these building commands are beyond the scope of this little sheet -- find the documentation for whatever MUD you're playing with and consume it avidly. Most MUDs have documentation on-line, although better documentation can be gotten via ftp from other sites. Ask around, or try looking on ftp.tcp.com.

Telnet is a rather ugly way to connect to most muds, since it doesn't do any fancy text wrapping, and if someone says something while you're typing out a line, it will make a mess out of your line, making it hard to see what you're typing and hard to keep track of what's going on in the mud. A client program is simply another program you use instead of telnet to connect to a mud. Clients also provide useful things such as macros and the ability to gag or highlight certain mud output. Clients are available for anonymous ftp from several sites.

Clients are programs, usually written in C, that connect up to servers. Telnet is one such client program. Many clients written for MUDs have special added bonus features through which they filter the output; most, for instance, separate your input line from the output lines and wraps words after 80 columns. Some also have a macro- writing capability which allows the user to execute several commands with just a few keypresses. Some allow you to highlight output coming from certain players or suppress it altogether. Still other clients make the sometimes tedious task of building new areas a breeze.

Check out www.zuggsoft.com for Zmud, one of the most popular clients for Windows.

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