What's the Deal with MUDs/MUSHs/MUXs?

[Chaldfont]

So every once in a while I see reference to a MUD/MUSH/MUX. At a very high-level, I know what they are: text based, multiplayer, roleplaying environments, but I've never actually played one. There seem to be zillions of clients and servers out there.

Can someone who is really into these things tell me how they work, how you play them? What's fun about them?

They look interesting, it might be fun to host one...

 

[devoblue]

I used to run an LPmud in the early to mid 1990s. Its a lot of work to make it a fun game, and a lot of what attracts people to them has since been replaced by irc and instant messages for the communication part, and everquest etc for the game part.

If you want to run an mud these days, learn how to code, find a heap of friends to help you, and find a heap of players who want to play a text based adventure game to make all you efforts worthwhile. Unless you are doing this as a business, then they are very hard things to achieve.

As a hobby, I still hack around on one, but I dont expect any players to actually log on to it and use it.

 

[Malar]

I've been a mudder for years (since 1997?) and only last year I stopped playing and started coding on my favourite mud instead. There's a broad playerbase of about 200-400 players online at a time, and 10-20 coders that produce new material.

MUDs are generally hack-and-slash games with little roleplaying, but it is so much easier to implement nifty features into a text-based game than into a graphic game that MUDs are generally packed with nice descriptions of things and interactive objects. The main purpose of most MUDs is of course to make experience points and advance in levels, in parties or soloing. Since there are so many players online (at least where I code) it is not hard to find a party of equal-level blasters, fighters and healers and go explore the Zonni swamps or Temple of Sarku. Go try http://www.bat.org/ for more information.

 

[Malar]

Ah, and don't even dream about hosting one before you have seen what it's like. I've coded some 10,000 lines of code and I haven't done even a minuscule fraction of the stuff in the game..

 

[pensiv]

I've played in more roleplay heavy MUDs than hack & slash ones, so it's probably a matter of who's involved in the MUD, rather than a limitation of the technology.

 

[Chaldfont]

From what I've seen (it's not a lot, though), most of these games have a preset world with all of their rules coded. So a player pretty much just wanders around and experiences the world, much like the modern MMORPGs.

But in looking into TinyMUSH, I see that there is a pretty powerful, albeit user-undfriendly, scripting language you can use to build things. I guess the ability to build things using the scripting language is turned off for most players in most of these games. It seems to me it would be really cool to have a MUSH that starts out blank. Every player can create his own rooms and objects and such. The focus would then be on creating new interesting things with which to impress your friends. Over time, the thing would grow to contain the best off all the players' creations.

Are there any out there like that?

 

[James Heard]

From what I've seen (it's not a lot, though), most of these games have a preset world with all of their rules coded. So a player pretty much just wanders around and experiences the world, much like the modern MMORPGs.

But in looking into TinyMUSH, I see that there is a pretty powerful, albeit user-undfriendly, scripting language you can use to build things. I guess the ability to build things using the scripting language is turned off for most players in most of these games. It seems to me it would be really cool to have a MUSH that starts out blank. Every player can create his own rooms and objects and such. The focus would then be on creating new interesting things with which to impress your friends. Over time, the thing would grow to contain the best off all the players' creations.

Are there any out there like that?

Judging from my expectations and experiences regarding human behavior and mudding I'm pretty sure that would be a recipe for disaster at least on an open (non-invite only) game. I've watched people pump hundreds of hours of building on DIKU-based muds, with several hundred rooms and thousands of objects, just to slip in explicitly game-breaking or disallowed objects in under the radar. Once you start being able to create objects in a more or less free environment you've got to have some sort of major, labor intensive governance going on by the mud's creators. Basically a mud has all the benefits and drawbacks of an IRC channel or chatroom combined with EQ except that you can participate freely on a low end machine from 1996 without much trouble on dialup. I think the idea of muds still has a lot of merit, and I'm still interested to see if someone's going to ever pop out a seriously engaging web-based variety of the animal that has the same sort of raw addiction factor that they had. I'm afraid there's not much money in them though, so anyone who could be developing the things might be lured away by the prospect of feeding themselves and being able to afford light bulbs.

 

[Weirmonken]

MUSHes and MUXes - the essential difference

Hey.

Long-time MUSH and MUX player (and staff member) here. Honestly, I find MUDs to be pretty dull, for the most part. If you're looking for a video-game atmosphere with a little RP in it, like most MMOs, well, that's probably your forte. MUSHes and MUXes, however, are almost universally RP-based, with a much smaller degree of hard-coded die rolling. Many of these have some of the most astounding RP I've ever encountered, although it's easy to get hooked, much like MMOs but many people also develop a severe emotional investment in their characters as well. Still, the strength and variety of RP you can encounter in these places is often-times worth the valuable hours of your life you waste on them. I'd highly suggest giving them a shot (and there's a number of them that are D&D/D20 based, too) as a player before trying to run one. That way you'll be able to determine:

A. If this is your style of gaming in the first place, and
B. You'll be able to recognize the all-too common pitfalls of many staff, judges, wizes, etc. and
C. Recognize a niche that you'll be able to fill, since these places are often cut-throat and competitive since the player-base has slowly started to dwindle in many MU*s over the last few years.

If you'll got any further questions, I'll be happy to help how I can.

Weir