There are many ways to chat...

MUDs (Multiple User Dungeons, Multiple User Dimension or Multiple User Dialogue) are RPGs (Role-Playing Games) similar to Dungeons and Dragons, but participants can play over the Internet. These games are played inside of virtual environments where players can interact each other in real time by assuming a character (Avatar, a Sanskrit word meaning incarnation). They can walk around, chat with other characters, explore rooms, kill monsters, solve puzzles, find treasures and so on. However there are several kind of MUDs where people just chat, and there are also some professional-oriented MUDs where people discuss about specific subjects. Rooms are usually text-based environments. It's estimated that 10% of Internet bandwidth is MUD-related.

MUDs were born inside of academic environments like universities. The first MUD in fact, was written by R. Trubshaw, a student at Essex University, in BCPL on a DEC-10 in Spring 1979. Then the Essex University was linked to Arpanet in the USA, and first few external players played on-line. The host computer acting as Dungeon Master, handle a database where all game objects (like rooms for example) are stored. Students on the European academic networks the game, so AberMUD and other variants reached the USA around 1988. Then came out TinyMUDs and then LPMUDs (a combat-orientated kind of MUD). In 1990 P. Curtis in California, developed a new kind of MUD called MOO (MUD Object Oriented) . Now there are many families of MUDs...

There are 3 main types of MUDs: Combat-Orientated MUDs, Social-Orientated MUDs and Miscellaneous MUDS.

Combat-Orientated MUDs

1. AberMUDs
2. DikuMUDs 'wizards' can change the database but there isn't a programming language as in LP family
3. JavaMUDs similar to AberMUDs and DikuMUDs, but users can change environments by means of Java language
4. LPMUDs similar to JavaMUDs, but here 'wizards' can change the database by means of another language called LPC (the names derives from its author L. Pensj)
5. BSXMUDs are LPMUDs with simple graphics
6. KMUDs similar to LPMUDs, but only runs on PCs
7. 1001 similar to DikuMUDs, but only runs on PCs

Social-Orientated MUDs

1. TinyMUDs here players chat, meet friends, can explore and build by using commands
2. TinyMuCKs
3. TinyMUSHes
4. TinyMUSEs
5. TinyMAGEs

Miscellaneous MUDs

1. MOOs
2. LambdaMOOs
3. TeenyMUDs
4. SMUGs
5. UberMUDs
6. UnterMUDs

To connect to these MUDs, you have to use the Telnet protocol. You could use a Telnet client (a program used to connect to a server) but MUDs clients are better, in fact, if someone says something while you are typing a line, it will make a mess out of your line: MUDs clients can filter/separate input and output. Once you connect you have to get a character: some MUDs allow you to create your own, but others require you to send off for one via e-mail. Then you have to pick a password: never use the same password as the one of your Internet account! Never use the same password on different MUDs! Once entered you can type 'help' and 'news' commands. There are commands to interacting with other players, like 'say' and commands like 'look', 'go' and so on. Commands prefixed by a @ usually allow you to change the database!

Clients   Servers   Jargon   How to find them   Documents  List

To know more you can get the most recent versions of MUDs FAQs on ftp.math.ikstate.edu in pub/muds/misc/mud-faq and on rtfm.mit.edu ind the news.answers archives.

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