I want to eventually get into the MUD building/creating/coding thing, but I'm not sure where to start. Like if I should start by become a coder of a less-popular MUD, like ones with only a couple of votes on TopMUDSites.com, and other coders on that MUD teach me the language, or I could start by finding a website with tutorials etc. on it. If that former would be better, does anyone know any good MUD for this, or does anyone know any good websites I could refer to for the latter?

My current coding experience is: adept in HTML, relatively experienced in zMUD, and adept in TADS, the Text Adventure Development System (a language similar to C), and I have a tiny bit of knowledge in CSS, Javascript etc.

So if anyone is able to help me for where I should go, I would be very grateful. Thanks.

(I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the Mechanic's Corner section, but the MC section is Life in Lusternia, so I decided to put it here.)

Learn C, or C++ if you can. Your TADS experience will be handy for basic familiarization with the language, but you'll need to be able to code-wrassle for the purpose of fixing bugs or implementing features of the non-cosmetic variety. There's also a pretty decent LPC manual by Descartes of Borg floating around the Internet, but actual C knowledge will be infinitely more useful in your work.

Also, you'll want to know what codebase/mudlib you want to work with. Diku is much different from GodWars is much different from Nightmare, so on and so forth.

MAKE ONE FROM SCRATCH!!!! *nod me*
Erm, it actually takes a long time, specially if you repeatedly give up, like I have. In fact, if anyone wants to help me with coding a login thingy, tell me...

If you wanna jump onto an existing codebase, or mud, thats usually easier. www.mudconnector.com can help you if you look in the forums.

OK, but what can I do once I learn C? I don't have any money to spend, or at least not in a fews years, so I can't create and host my own MUD (which I would want to do eventually). Like, if I was to become an immortal or something on a MUD, how would I go about that? And how can I learn an actual MUD language, not just C or something?

The website that Dyr mentioned, The Mud Connector, will be your best bet for this. You can run a search for games hiring builders or coders (you can specify one, both, or neither), for example, and some of their fora might have ads for potential code-types. If a MUD doesn't say they're hiring, assume they aren't and move on.

Once you find a place or two that looks like a good place to learn, make a character there. I can't stress this enough; nothing annoyed me during my MUD-staffing days quite like people who filled out applications without spending even an hour in the blasted game! Not only will this give you Street Cred +2, you can see what the game world is like and what they've got their code to do. If the people are idiots and/or the code they're using doesn't tickle your fancy, move on quietly.

You probably are going to put an afternoon's work into researching what kind of game has both a good learning environment (read: you don't hate everyone there and they know what they're doing on occasion) and a codebase or mudlib you like playing with (not the same thing, though sometimes people use the terms interchangably). Previous programming experience will give you much leverage when being considered for a creator position, so get to them textbooks!

Also, as I mentioned offhandedly, Descartes of Borg has written a nice LPC manual that'll be handy if you want to make that kind of MUD. Some Google work ought to help you find documentation for other languages, and the TMC Coders' Forum will be your friend for fixing weirder bugs (but for Pete's, Paul's, and my sake, search the archives first, lest ye be deemed a Lazy Bugger).

I've heard of "training MUDs" dedicated to helping people learn programming languages, but I don't know if there are any of these active right now. Couldn't hurt to look, no?

Thank you very much, that's exactly the type of answer I was looking for .

But do a lot MUDs looking for coders accept inexperienced MUD coders? I would think that they would rather be looking for experience MUD coders, but then again, I suppose there aren't too many of them floating around.

Those "training MUDs" sound good, I'll have a look for some .

Yeah, I'd suggest either a training Mud, or look for one where builders and coders overlap so you can as much or as little as you're able (course, this'd depend on your writing skills). I have seen people go to small or in-development Muds and jump ship once they've properly learnt the code, but it's rather harsh on the owner

There's hundreds of muds out there using circle/LP/ROM/smaug and so on, and I think training muds for pretty much all of the popular shared codebases. It's easy to find one of those that'll accept a trainee coder. What's harder is finding a *good* mud that will.

If anyone knows a training MUD, could they please post the name or address here, thanks .

Most are written in C, and a vast majority are stock code. Only the for profit ones have there own code base, and the best of them have thier own language(read IRE). Just look around, or if you have some coder friends head over to circlemud.org(I think thats the name) and download the source and start playing with it.

yeah, it's www.circlemud.org

Here's my favorite qoute, off Jeremy's page.

So, you want to run your own MUD, huh?
If you're already an old hand at playing MUDs and you've decided you want to start one of your own, here's my advice: take a vailum, lie down, and hide in a dark closet until the desire goes away. Just playing MUDs is masochistic enough, isn't it? Or are you trying to shave that extra point off your GPA, jump down that one last notch on your next job evaluation, or get rid of that pesky Significant Other for good? If you think silly distractions like having friends and seeing daylight are preventing you from realizing your full potential in the MUD world, MUD Administrator is the job for you.

Okay, I'll have a look at circlemud.com. I've played a couple of CircleMUD games, and they look pretty good... and popular.

Just a question: What code(s) would be the most closely related to Rapture, besides Rapture itself?

I found nothing came close to rapture, at all.
Maybe its just me, but that is why I stick to Lusternia .

Some other good quotes off circlemud.com:


Free, free, free!


Automagically?


I downloaded the CircleMUD source code... and it's got 368 files within the WinZip file... Hmm... *shrug*

Would it be possible for me to "play around" a bit with CircleMUD, just using my computer? Like so I could basically make (extremely basic) MUDs and test them out, i.e. play them?

Indeed, but Rapture at its lowest level is based on the C languages, so it helps to know them.

You could host it off of your computer, entirely free.
So, Yes.

Cool, thanks.

OK, I found a C Programming Guide that looks good, but it says something about MacOS, and I have Windows, so I'm not sure how useful it it ... but, yeah... From what I can see, it looks a lot like TADS.

Does anyone know/use any free C compilers? Miscrosoft Visual C++ would be good, but that's made by Microsoft, so I'd doubt it would be free.

If you're going to run a MUD off your (I assume Windows) computer, I'd look into Smaug and Cygwin. I haven't done anything with MUDs except on Linux shells though, so I don't know. Good luck.

Look at Cygwin for the compiling stuff, it may be what you need anyway.

I've got Cygwin, but it's a little confusing . The compiler looks more uncomprehendable than the actual code. The TADS compiler was a lot more easy to understand. Maybe it's just because I don't particularily like the command prompt, I dunno.

Now I'm looking for good C tutorials. I searched Google and found Cprogramming.com, but it's a tutorial for C++, not C. Is C++ an extension of the C language?

Also, I'm not entirely sure if I downloaded the right... thing. Here's a screenshot:

(Doh, I can't put it here; the 'File Attachment' thing doesn't work.)

I know how someone may be able to help...

So, I have this code:


How do I enter/save this code to something through the compiler (CYGWIN), and then run it?