MUD

Introduction
A MUD is an online Multiplayer game, kind of a Virtual World (in text), and can be compared to the good old text adventure. MUD is usually played with telnet, or a special MUD client. To access a MUD you also need a connection to the Internet. What's probably the most fun of playing MUD is that it's multiplayer; You can communicate with other players in the MUD while you are playing.

To give you an indication of how MUD works, you can probably best try to compare it with a large building. When you stand in the building's main entrance, in MUD you would get a description of what this main entrance looks like and which exits are in the main entrance, in stead of a picture of the main entrance. You can move around the building (rooms in a MUD), and you get to see the description of every room while you walk around the building.

On this "Introduction to MUD" page, we assume that you are playing/going to play on a MUD that handles a level system where you start at level 1, and when you played the game (that means that you have won the necessary points, and done the necessary quests and followed the rules), you can become a wizard.

First time
When you log into a MUD for the first time you need to create a character. A character is the "person" you play in a MUD. You need to choose a name for your character, a password and maybe some other information. On most MUD's you start at a certain level (most of the time level 1). Now when you have done all the first time procedures, you enter the MUD, and the game begins.

Before you start actually moving around the game, it's very usefull to try and find some sort of help file on the MUD, which explains you the rules, the do's and don't and other important information of that particular MUD. On most MUDS you can access one by typing 'help' or 'info'.

How to move around the game
When you enter a MUD, you will start at a certain room. From there, you can walk to other rooms. This is usually done by entering the first letter of the exits a room has, for example 'S' for South (exit the room South etc.), 'N' for North, 'E' for East, 'W' for West, 'U' for Up, 'D' for Down. This way you can walk/move around the game.

Be careful!
Not every room might have all of these exits, and some rooms also "kill you"/throw you of the game! Those rooms are called "Deathrooms" (if you walked into a deathroom, most of the time you will have to log into the MUD again, and you loose all the stuff you found in the game). Another way you can get "killed" on a MUD is by "Deathtraps" (objects which have the same effect as deathrooms, they can kill you when, for example, you examine them, eat them etc.).

Last but not least are the so called "Mobiles" on a MUD. These are characters that are part of the MUD and move around the MUD. They might attack you, or you might attack them. Before you attack them, read about armor and weapons on this page first ;).

Picking up items
With the 'take' command you can usually pick up things you find in the game. If you find a pile of things, you can try 'take all' to pick everything up. Use 'wear ' when you found something you should be able to wear, and use 'wield ' to wield a weapon if you found one and picked it up.

Examine everything
It's very important that you examine everything inside a room, buttons, signs, things lying around, doors etc. The best way to play MUD is to examine everything. BUT, you have to be careful though, since some things, rooms etc. can be deathrooms and get you killed. Also read the descriptions of rooms VERY carefully, you might find important information in those descriptions.

Weapons and armor
As said before, you can attack mobiles in a game (we assume here that it's not possible or not allowed that you fight other players). Before you attack a mobile (or get attacked by a mobile), make sure you have armor and a very very good weapon. You can find weapons and armor lying around in the MUD. Wear the armor, and wield the weapons. Make sure you try to wield the best weapon you can find on the MUD. Usually you can see if a weapon is good/strong by reading the message you get when wielding the weapon.

Health
When you fight, or in some cases do something else, and you get hit or whatever, your health will go down. Depending (most of the time) on the level you are, you have a certain amount of health, and when your health get's 0 or lower, you will "die".

On most MUD's you can get your health back up by sleeping or sitting. You can also try to find food (which you can also eat during a fight, to keep your health up). Most of the time food will not heal you completely, but can help a bit though.

Wizards/Archwizards
Wizards are the people who finished playing the game by having played the necessary quests (see below), reached the necessary level and won the necessary points. If you need help on the MUD you can try ask wizards for help by using 'TELL <wizardsname> <message or question>' and hope they want to help you. Archwizards are higher rank and are called "powers". The "God" or "Goddess" of a MUD is the one running/owning the MUD.

Quests
When you found your way around in a MUD, you can start playing quests. Quests are parts of the game, which have a certain "target" or maybe it's best to describe it like "A puzzle to solve". On most MUD's you will need to finish a certain amount of Quests before you can become Apprentice Wizard (this is a player that has finished the game and all requirements to become wizard, but (most of the time) still needs to take a test done by powers to see if the person is fit to be a wizard (or witch), and has not cheated while playing the MUD).

Disclaimer
This page might contain information which is not correct, or which does not apply to the MUD you are playing, or are going to play on. We do our best, but to keep it easy we try to use "general" information for MUD's, in stead of going into the specific types of MUD.

Links
Most of the links below contain telnet addresses of MUD's. Look there if you are ready to visit a MUD!

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