MUDs and MOOs

How MUDs Work

MUDs are primarily accessed through Telnet, a program that enables people to connect to and enter commands on remote computers on the Internet. However, most MUD participants, or “mudders,” use “client programs,” which create easier-to-read and more user-friendly interfaces to the MUD. Most client programs also enable mudders to connect to more than one MUD at a time. Because MUDs generally appear as a window of text on a user's computer screen, the user might play an adventure game on one MUD, for instance, while simultaneously engaging in conversation on a different MUD. Many mudders pride themselves on being good at engaging in other activities, computer-related or not, while mudding.

Once connected to the MUD, participants must log on as a “character” on that MUD. Each character has a unique name (or names), and most MUDs require a password to reserve that name and character for a particular participant. Characters also include a text description (which can be viewed by other participants using a “look” command) and a range of other information, depending on the MUD. At a minimum, most characters include a gender designation, although these are rarely limited to male and female; many MOOs, for instance, have up to 13 different gender designations. Some MUDs allow users to create characters on the spot, or to use a generic “guest” character, while others require users to contact the person who runs the MUD program (usually through email) to acquire a character.

Each MUD consists of different virtual “rooms.” A large MUD may have as many as 200 or more characters logged on at once, but these characters are scattered throughout a variety of different rooms, with perhaps no more than 20 in any given room. Users move their characters through the different rooms by typing simple commands such as “up,” “down,” “north,” “south,” and so on. For the sake of speed and ease of typing, most of these commands can also be abbreviated by typing only the first letter of the word. MUD commands also allow people to determine who is connected to the MUD, and who is in the same room. Participants can easily communicate with all people located in the same room. In addition, MUDs include commands that allow users to “page” people in other rooms, or to “whisper” to only one other person in the room with them.

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