MUD stands for Multi User Dimension, Multi User Dungeon, or Multi-User Domain. A MUD is a type of game that is played online with many other people that can easily interact and socialize with (Multi User). MUDs are based in their own Dimension, a unique place with many areas to explore and quests to complete. Many MUDs take place in a fantasy world that is based somewhat on Dungeons and Dragons.
For the most part, MUDs are text based and command oriented; this means that rather than using your mouse to move a character around in a graphical world, you use commands to move the character around in a text based world. To know what is going on, you read the text that is displayed as a result of events in the game or a command you entered. It takes a little time to learn the commands, and some imagination to turn the words into a wonderful adventure; but once you play for a little, you become addicted to the endless possibilities and become friends with other players.
Once you learn how to play a MUD the possibilities become endless. Depending on the MUD you can explore, fight monsters, and collect treasure, either alone or in the company of other players that are logged on. In more advanced MUDs players change the environment in which they live, making for endless possibilities. In these MUDs players might form a formal group and then build a citadel or castle that their friends can visit. In some MUDs players might even found their own cities and fight with opposing cities for some kind of reward. Or in other MUDs, once a player reaches a certain level, they create the areas that others explore. There is no limit to what you can do in a MUD, because of it's simple text based operation MUD administrators can easily add powerful additions that noone had ever thought of before.
MUDs have been around since the beginning of the Internet; the first MUD was written by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University in 1979 on a DECsystem-10. Students in the European academic networks quickly improved upon the idea, developing many MUDs of their own. In 1988 AberMUD and variations of it entered America and soon became very popular. Since that time, almost 2000 MUDs are known to be running with more complexity than ever; and with some MUDs boasting hundreds of players on at any given time, it is easy to see the MUDs are no minor matter. For more information about the history of MUDs, take a look at The MUDdex, created by Lauren P. Burka.
I personally recommend Aeon of Darkness as the mud of choice (so what if I made it); it has many unique features and boasts 20 unique classes and over 30 unique races. But if you don't like that idea, almost every mud can be found at The Mud Connector. Once you find a MUD you like, you can either use a telnet client to connect, or just use good ol' telnet itself. Make sure you get the domain and port number of the MUD you want. Once you have that information, if you want to connect with telnet, go to Start -> Run, then type in telnet://DOMAIN:PORT, where DOMAIN is the domain of the MUD and PORT is the port number.
Written by: Nathaniel Tucker