ifMUD For Beginners: The Basics

Getting Onto the MUD

How do I visit?

To just get an idea of what ifMUD is like, you can log in as the guest character. Guest characters are even more restricted in terms of what you can do on the MUD than a normal character, but they will help you get used to how to move around and talk on a MUD.

The character name you should use to log in as a guest character is 'guest' and the password is also 'guest'. Then press connect to enter the MUD, and you're in!

If the java client doesn't work for you, there's a less pretty web client you can use to access the MUD.

Here you should type connect guest guest (yes, type "guest" twice) at the prompt, and you'll be in!

If you want to spend much time on the MUD, you really need to get an account of your own. Not only will it let people recognise you, it'll give you access to a lot of conversations that the Guests can't see.

Once you have an account, you'll probably want to tailor it to yourself a little. This isn't necessary to enjoy the MUD, but it'll give everybody else a better idea of who you are. If it really seems too much hassle for you, go ahead and skip it until you get more used to the MUD.

First of all, you can set a gender. Most people like to know with whom they're communicating but, more importantly, many objects on the ifMUD respond with messages appropriate to your gender, assuming you've set it.

If you haven't set your gender, then the ifMUD will refer to you as 'it'. To set your gender, use the command @gender. It has a few uses...

@gender - On its own, @gender will show your current setting.

@gender list - This will list the available genders you can use.

@gender <name of gender> - This will set your gender.

If you look at the @gender list, you'll note that there is also a custom gender setting. If you choose the custom gender, you can customize the output by setting the fields cgender_name, cgender_s, cgender_p, cgender_o, cgender_a, and cgender_r on yourself (type 'help subs-list' for details on the usage of these substitutions - cgender_s defines the %s substitution, etc). Note that these fields are only used when your gender is set to custom.

Next, your appearance. By default, if people look at you on the MUD, they'll be told that they "see nothing special." You can change that with this command:

@describe me = You see a short, friendly-looking man in his mid-thirties. He's wearing blue jeans and a tattered grey sweatshirt.

Finally, you might want to tell us your real name, or at least the name you use elsewhere in the IF community or the internet in general. By default, your real name is set to the same as your login name. To change it, execute this command:

@field me=rname:your name

A MUD client is a program for connecting you to MUDs. Getting one is not essential, but it will speed up your connection and do lots of other things to make your life easier. When you're sick of the webclient, go to this page for advice on finding and setting up a client.

Yay! I've connected. What do I do now?

Like an IF game, the MUD is organised into rooms. Most people on ifMUD hang out in one room, the Adventurer's Lounge (the exact name of the room may change, but it's always in the same place). If you just want to go straight there, typing in the command:

lounge

How do I talk to people? To talk, type say before your statement: say Hello everyone. However, almost everyone will abbreviate 'say' to a double-quote: "Hello everyone. This will be seen by everyone in the same room as you. (Remember that you don't need to add a second double-quote at the end.) You can also direct speech to people, by typing two periods followed by a name: ..inky Hello, inky. Everybody in the same room will see this message, and that it's directed to inky.

MUD ETIQUETTE: SPEECH CONVENTIONS The MUD generally frowns on l33tspeak, text-message abbreviations, and smileys. 'LOL', 'u' for 'you', and anime smileys are particularly loathed. People are quite laissez-faire about capitalisation, and often drop periods, but otherwise good spelling and punctuation are expected. The MUD has its own set of idioms, mostly composed of acronyms: you'll mostly pick them up as you go along, but see the glossary if you're confused.

How do I say something to someone without everyone else seeing it?

If you want to talk to one person without everyone in the room seeing, you can use a command known as 'whisper'. You can whisper to someone using the following command:

w maga = What did you mean by that? maga will see: Guest1 whispers, "What did you mean by that?" Everyone else will see nothing at all. There is an alternate version of this command: .maga What did you mean by that? which does the same thing. The only catch is that it's easy to accidentally type two periods/full-stops and end up saying something out loud.

MUD ETIQUETTE: HERO WORSHIP Some of the ifMUD regulars are well-known figures in the IF community. You may be excited to see them hanging out in the lounge, and that's fine. Still, try not to sound like a complete fangirl - people come here to hang out, not sign autographs. A little praise won't hurt too much, but declarations of everlasting love will scare the regulars.

Is there any way for me to 'pose' or indicate my actions? This is done using the emote command. For example: emote hits himself on the head. will display, for everyone in the room: foobar hits himself on the head. Since this is a very common thing to do, there is also an abbreviation for it, using the colon (:) character. E.g. :looks around the room in shock. will display: foobar looks around the room in shock.

MUD ETIQUETTE: LESS IS MORE Emotes are wonderful things, but you really can have too much of a good thing. That's not to say that you shouldn't use emotes, but we don't need to know your every facial expression and gesture as you chat to us.

Joining Channels

Before you can use a channel, you need to join it. You'll need a registered account to do this; Guest accounts can't use channels. Here's the command:

@joinchannel #newbie

Talking on Channels

If you are on a channel, you will see all conversation on that channel, no matter which room you are in. (You can be on many channels at once.) Each on-channel statement will be prefixed with the channel's name in square brackets, like so:

[newbie] maga says, "so this is the channel for newbies"
[newbie] maga says, "it is not entirely clear what I am doing here"
[newbie] Storme says, "seeking the gift of eternal youth?"

Here's an example of conversation across multiple channels; maga's commands are in bold, and conversation on channels has been coloured to make them easier to distinguish. (A good client will let you do this in normal conversation).

 #newbie (man, it's too early in the morning to fabricate interesting multi-channel conversations)
[newbie] maga says, "(man, it's too early in the morning to fabricate interesting multi-channel conversations)"
[tests] Storme says, "why yes, maga, let's chat across channels"
 #tests what a sterling idea Storme
[tests] maga says, "what a sterling idea Storme"
 "the lounge is also fun to talk in!
You exclaim, "the lounge is also fun to talk in!"
Storme says, "yes you are correct it is"
[newbie] Storme says, "I do not know if it is more fun or less fun than channels"
[newbie] Storme says, "the mud is such a whirlwind of gaiety today!"
 ; it is certainly a great way to annoy everyone
[tests] maga says, "it is certainly a great way to annoy everyone"
[tests] Storme says, "it is making an interestingly stripy pattern in my channel colouring"
[tests] Jon says, "I do enjoy annoying everyone."

Which channels should I join?

The ifMUD has thousands of channels; however, most of them never get used. Don't feel you have to join every channel you might possibly be interested in at once. Here's a few guides to joining channels:

• Guess. Pick a topic that interests you, guess what would be a simple name for it, and type @statc #channelname to see if it's what you were thinking of.
• See which channels have been used most recently. @listc -recent will give you the list of the ten most recently-used channels. @newc will show you recently-created channels.
• Look up the channel directory. To do this, type @listc, and you'll get something that looks like this:


We can't join a category, so let's have a closer look at one of the individual categories:

@listc if



(As a side-note, you don't need to type out the whole category when talking on a channel; every channel has to have a unique name, regardless of where it's categorised. You can speak on #if/games/Galatea just by typing #galatea in front of what you want to say.)

• If you can't find the channel you're looking for, ask on #channels.

What if the conversation on a channel goes off-topic? If nobody objects, keep on going. If somebody says something like this, either in the lounge or a channel: [newbie] Gunther says, "take it to #tads" it's a suggestion for a channel that would be more appropriate. Take it. Soon enough you'll get a feel for the sorts of topics people would prefer to see on channels; #politics and #religion are the most obvious.

MUD ETIQUETTE: TABOO Are there any taboo subjects that you should avoid talking about entirely? Well, not really - but for some things it'd really be a good idea to find the right channel. In particular, game spoilers should be confined to #spoilers or (better still) the game's channel; stuff that might gross people out should be kept on #TMI (too much information) or #WTMI (way too much information). Swearing is quite acceptable anywhere (there are several channels dedicated to nothing else). Insults are not.

Exploration

I want to explore a bit first. How do I do that?

First of all, we can't stress this enough: this is not the core of what the MUD's about. The MUD is really about channels and conversations, not rooms, and exploring the map is totally optional. When you enter a room (or log on), you will see (as in the picture above) the room's description, followed by a list of objects in the room, which is followed by "Visible Exits". Exits from rooms typically take the form of "east, north, west", and so on. You can just type the direction's name ("east", for example) to go in that direction. Most of the time, the creator of that exit has also made an abbreviation possible ("e" for "east", for example). If you're going to spend a lot of time exploring on the MUD, you should be warned that an awful lot of innocent-looking exits (particularly ones inside people's homes) will drop you into the lounge. To get back to where you were, you'll most likely have to hike back the long way. While you're exploring, you'll probably have more fun if you use the examine command, shortened to x. Much like in an IF game, pretty much everything on the MUD has a description. Most are just for flavour, but some of them may be useful. Just to make your life a little easier, DavidW has created some very useful maps of the MUD, starting here.

MUD ETIQUETTE: DON'T BE A PACKRAT The ifMUD looks a bit like an IF game. Lots of connected rooms to explore, lots of objects scattered about... and in an IF game, you're meant to grab everything that isn't nailed down, in case it turns out to be useful later, right? Not on the MUD. Objects have owners, and are usually there for a purpose; picking them up and running away with them will really annoy people. Type 'help @create' to see how you can make your own objects, instead.

Help! I'm Lost!

There's a special command:

xyzzy

I have a specific reason for joining the MUD. How do I...

• I'm learning an IF language, and I could use some help. First of all, join the appropriate channel - most likely this will be #inform, #i7, #tads, #t3, #hugo, or #adrift. Then ask specific questions there. (Make a good effort to solve it on your own first). Depending on the issue, a better place to do this may be the intfiction.org forums; it's easier to talk about code when you can post complete examples. General chat about how your game's going - rather than design or coding questions - should go on #wip (work in progress).
• I've got a game nearly finished, and I'm looking for somebody to test it. Ask on #betatesting. If nobody responds immediately, ask again later, or consider making a polite bulletin board post on that channel.
• I want to discuss [game], or get hints for it. Use either the specific game's channel (e.g. #photopia) or #spoilers. Note: if you are an author of a game in the IF Comp, you may not join that game's channel until the voting period is over.
• I want to discuss general IF theory and design. The channel for this is #craft, although nobody is likely to object if you use the lounge. Be warned, though - on this topic in particular, don't pursue an argument too aggressively. Theory is cheap; the best way to make a controversial point is to write a good game that demonstrates it.
• I'd like to take part in a SpeedIF. Join #speed-if and hang around the MUD for a while. SpeedIFs are open to anyone who wants to play, but they're fairly impromptu. When they do happen it's usually on weekends.
• I'm only here to attend a ceremony. This will probably be the XYZZY Awards, although other ceremonies such as IntroComp and the Erins have also been held here. You want to get to the Massive Auditorium - from the Lounge go east, south, east (although the doors will be shut if you turn up ahead of time). Once there, clap appreciatively and don't throw anything that'll break skin, and keep chatter to the #peanut-gallery channel.
• I'm here to play a game on ClubFloyd. Floyd is a bot used to play IF games (and some non-IF games) on the MUD. ClubFloyd is a semi-regular event at which people play a short IF game collaboratively. Floyd lives in the Toyshop, southwest of the Lounge (or just type toyshop). To play a game on Floyd, speak your commands to Floyd using direct speech; you can abbreviate ..Floyd to just f while in the Toyshop.

  While a ClubFloyd game is in progress, use the #clubfloyd channel to discuss the game; this makes it easier to organise transcripts.

There's a lot more you can do with channels, and many more ways to improve your mudding experience, but this should cover the important stuff for now. First, you should get used to applying the stuff on this page. In doing so you're likely to encounter things which don't seem to make sense; to clear up some of the more common ones, you should move on to the Confusions page.

This FAQ was assembled by Storme Winfield (Storme) and Sam Kabo Ashwell (maga), with help from Jacqueline Lott (Jacqueline), with useful suggestions from various MUDders, notably Peter Berman (mcp). Based in part upon ifMUD Frequently Asked Questions 2.1.3, by Mark J. Musante (markm), with additions by Adam Cadre (Adam) and Admiral Jota (Jota).