Telnet was the original machine to machine connection on the internet.
It's as basic a text connection as you can get. If you have the utility
bundle (or something similar) installed for windows, you have a telnet
client. It used to be included by default in just every operating
system in existence, (perhaps with the exception of dos), but even
there, there were/are options.
Basically, what you're saying about text games is exactly right.
Kill zombie, search corpse, get coins, north, kill worm, and son and so
on are exactly the kinds of things you type while playing muds. That's
why they're so accessible, because they're plain text, even in today's
world.
As mentioned, there are mud clients that give you more control over your
environment, aliases, so you don't have to type so much, (though most
muds have that capability anyhow), short keys to perform common or often
repeated actions, and so on. A mud client isn't necessary to play a
mud, but most folks use one, because it helps make playing the game
easier, what with triggers to act on commands automatically, and thing
slike that.
When I said you can't break anything, I meant on the mud itself. Worst
case, your character winds up dead, and you need to start over, though
most muds aren't that bad. Generally, dying just means you loose some
experience, (sometimes, a sizeable amount, depending on your level), and
maybe you'll loose things you were carrying, or perhaps some stat
points, but death isn't permanent, you can always go out and pound on
that critter that killed you again and again until it's dead. That of
course assumes you have enough power to actually do damage to it.
As I said, I'm not the person to ask for mud client suggestions, because
generally I use tintin plus plus, muddle, or my own custom written one,
depending on where I'm connecting, and what I'm doing.
None of those options are going to suit a new mud player with next to no
experience, so your mud client suggestions will have to come from
elsewhere, but don't worry about messing things up on the mud, if you do
something folks don't like, they'll complain. As long as you didn't
actually do anything against the rules of the mud, you can basically
ignore people like that. Every mud has them, and it's truly best to
just ignore them.
Nobody's going to hassle you for being a newbie, because they all
started there at some point. (well, some will, but again, ignore them).
Besides, there's so many muds out there, if you get frustrated with one,
or you don't like the attitude of the players, feel free to move to
another one. No harm done.
I've played hundreds of muds over the years, and generally, (especially
these days), folks are pretty friendly to new players, and are (usually)
willing to answer questions. You'll help yourself out a lot though if
you familiarize yourself with the rules of the mud before getting in
arguments with folks about what is and isn't allowed.
Most muds have a help command, how elaborate it is varies, but
generally, help newbie will get you enough information to get you started.
Obviously some muds are more newbie friendly than others, but either
way, if you find one you like, don't hesitate to stick with it, even if
it isn't popular with others you know, everyone is different, so there's
no contest when it comes to mud decisions.
I do suggest starting on alteraeon or 3k though, because both have very
friendly newbie helpers, and alteraeon has lots of visually impaired
users, so there's always help if you're having trouble, and nobody is
going to tell you they don't know what you're talking about if you
mention a screen reader.
Anyway, hope this helps. I'm sure you'll get along just fine once you
get started.
On 1/23/2023 1:32 PM, Day Garwood wrote:
Hi Travis,
You say simple, but I've never even heard of a telnet client lol.
Text based games? I'm reminded of geeky command line stuff, but I
can't imagine that working for games. Like, kill enemy. The enemy is
dead...
Clearly there's more to it than that, they wouldn't make thousands of
games if they had no challenge. So yeah, now you've really lit my fire.
The only downside is I think the novelty would wear off pretty soon,
since it wouldn't be very realistic. But hey, who knows. If they're as
big as they sound they might be like books where I just can't put them
down even though I haven't got all the sound effects going on.
Can you clarify when you say you can't break anything? As I say I got
tons and tons of errors last time, so I'm guessing I did something
wrong. I can't imagine a client with that many errors making it out
the door. And I hadn't heard of anyone else getting errors at the time
either.
Also when you're finally connected if users are waiting for you to do
something and you don't know what you're doing I can easily see harsh
words flying back and forwards.
I can see why people might think it's just a case of put a mud (I.E. a
game) online and people show up. After all, if I run a TopSpeed or
Crazy Party server, that's literally all it is. And if you don't know
about muds then that could be a common misconception. I would probably
have got caught in that trap myself if you hadn't have informed me
otherwise. Also there's the fact that some people just don't know the
difference between a host and an admin - that's not me, although
again, I have been there once.
Cheers.
On 23/01/2023 17:52, Travis Siegel wrote:
Muds are simply games that are hosted online. There's thousands of
them, in every genre, so your first problem is choosing one that fits
the kind of game you want to play.
They are text based, so a simple telnet client is all you need to
play them.
There are mud clients that make interacting with the muds easier, but
they are by no means essential to play.
Sincce you're new though, you should probably give it a try with a
mud that does have features for visually impaired users, such as 3k,
or alteraeon, since both of those muds have features to cut down on
the amount of spam you receive while logged into the game, and that
can make a huge difference even for veteran players.
Basically though, head on over to the mud connector
http://www.mudconnect.com, look for a mud that looks interesting, and
have at it.
When you first log into a mud, you can (generally) use any name you
like, since it's a game, the point is to have fun, so nobody needs
(or in most cases wants) to know you real name, so just pick
something that sounds good to you, and run with it.
As you get more and more experience with muds, you'll gravitate to
particular kinds of muds or particular mud drivers/systems. Some
folks love the diku style muds (circle, rom, tartarus, envy, and so
on), others prefer a more custom esperience, LPC muds (btw, 3k and
lostsouls are both lpc muds), Alteraeon is a custom written driver
that kind of resembles both circle and lpc, but it's agood
combination that works.
If you're looking for a mud that has lots of other blind players so
you can get assistance, alteraeon might be where you want to start,
but if you're interested in just trying things out, 3k may be where
you want to start, because they have areas for science, fantasy, and
chaos (thus the 3 kingdoms monicre), but they do have a bit of a
newbie friendly zone to get started in, though it's nowhere near as
guided as you might find on circle based muds, what with their newbie
school that practically walks you through the first few levels,
telling you what to type, how to type it, and when to do different
things. I was never a fan of that myself, but I do see the appeal.
So, anyway, either take a listing from the mailing list that looks
good to you, or check mudconnector and find something for yourself
you think might work, then dive in, you can't break it.
There's tons of mud clients, aand to be perfectly honest, I've never
in my life used anything other than a mainstream mud client. I've
never even tried those put out specifically for visually impaired
users, because I personally can't stand the hand holding most mud
clients try to do (even for sighted folks), which is why I've stuck
to things like muddle and tintin over the years, because those both
have scripting languages, but it's more or less up to the user to do
their own scripting to make it do what they want, and that's more my
style. I never did like preconfigured clients that only allow me to
do cer5tain things, because someone thought it was a good idea to
protect me from commands I might accidentally type.
(why? You can't break anything, so why bother?)
The first mud ZI ever played on was called dark wind, and I believe
that mud is gone now, although it still existed a few years ago.
That was also the first mud I became a wizard on, and built areas for
other players to use.
I've also run my own muds from time to time, (rom, LPMud, mordor,
empire, and others, but running a mud is a *lot* of work, and I just
don't have the patience for it.
I did host muds for several years in the late 90s, but I eventually
got out of that too, dealing with customer requests got out of hand,
even with terms clearly outlined I was still being asked to compile a
mud, fix a bug, and so on and so on. You run the mud, it's up to you
to maintain the thing. Too many folks thought running a mud was a s
simple as putting up a server, and the players show up. <sigh>
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
The take away from this message is that there's thousands of muds out
there, find one that works for you, and you'll be happy.
On 1/23/2023 11:32 AM, Day Garwood wrote:
Hi,
I've seen a lot of messages here about muds. I'm getting the
impression that, given that not many audiogames are made any more,
seems like muds are the way forward if I want to try anything new.
I don't know a lot about them, in fact I thought "mud" was a game,
but based on messages that I'm seeing I'm getting the impression
they're merely a type of game.
The only think I really know is that you need a "mud client",
suggesting that they're online based. That makes me think of things
like QuentinC and RS, but even that doesn't quite sound right somehow.
Years ago, I tried to use VIPMud but got nowhere, then was told that
it wasn't supported so I should go use this other thing (which was
apparently better anyway). My teacher then Enthusiastically got me
to press loads of buttons, only to discover that I got a whole
screenload of errors, and then they didn't know what to do with
themselves and clicked off. So bang went that idea.
That was the last I heard about muds for a while, up to now.
So I'd be interested to know how they work, how I might go about
trying one without embarrassing myself, which client I should try,
which game I should try, etc etc.
Even better, if someone has any free time and would be willing to
actually sit and go through it with me step by step privately on a
call or something, that would be amazing. Especially since the one
lesson I learned from my disaster of a session is that it's not a
case of download, launch, play, like most audiogames are.
It'll probably turn out to be one of those things that sounds overly
complicated now, but in a year I'll be a whiz at it. Hopefully.
Cheers.
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