Beginners

From Wiki

MU* For Absolute Beginners

I'm sure there are tons of questions, particularly from those who don't know what a MUX is, or how to play on one, and such minor things. Thus this page will go into detail about everything you need to know to get set up and role-playing in no time.

A MU* (which generally stands for Multi-User, pronounced 'moo') is the general term for an online text-based roleplaying game that people log into with a program called a "telnet client". MUX and MUSH, for example, are roleplaying games based on the MUX and MUSH servers, while MUDs are more stat-oriented hack-and-slash games (Multi User Dungeons).

MU*'s are, sadly, not nearly as popular as they once were, since text-based gaming has largely started going out of style with such graphical games as World of Warcraft or Everquest. However, more mature gamers find MU*'s to be an excellent place to find quality online roleplaying in a fun, stable community environment that can be enjoyed on any operating system for absolutely free. Except your internet fees, of course.

There are still, however, hundreds, if not thousands of active MU*'s with tens of thousands of users worldwide. The ease of connecting and playing as well as the fact that it's completely free (in fact, most MU* codebases REQUIRE games based on it to be free, even including soliciting donations) make MU*'s, even 15-some years after their conception, a popular source of entertainment.

But enough background information! How can you get involved in the wonderful world of online text gaming? The easiest way is with a program called a 'telnet client'. Telnet itself is a method used to transfer text from computer to computer over the internet (much like an Internet Client is used to read and browse websites), and with a telnet client you can connect your computer to whoever is running the MU* in question on their computer (the "host" or "server"). Does this all sound like gibberish to you? That's okay, you don't need to understand it. But what you do need to do is get a telnet client.

They are very easy to get and use, thankfully. The two most popular telnet clients for MUX/MUSHing seem to be 'SimpleMU' and 'MUSHclient', though you can even use plain old yucky telnet.exe (found in the c:\windows\ folder on Windows PCs) if you want or are somewhere like at work or school.

You can download SimpleMU here: http://simplemu.onlineroleplay.com/download.html
You can download MUSHclient here: http://www.gammon.com.au/files/mushclient/mushclient373.exe