Posted by
michael
on from the back-in-my-day-we-used-telnet-and-we-liked-it dept.
br00tus writes "With the advent of MMORPG's like EverQuest, old-fashioned text-based, free MUD's may seem kind of antiquated. Nevertheless, I've been looking around for a good, free (e.g. not ZMud etc.) MUD client that I can use on Windows and/or UNIX. Any ideas?" Uh, TinyFugue?
Five different moderators thought you were being funny. And maybe you were, but you make a serious point: why does anybody need a fancy client to play a text-mode game?
Well, the biggest need is separation of entry and response.
You have toGrue slashes you for 10 points of damage! nYou attempt to bash Grue, but miss!ote that JohnMary tells you: "woot, ding 14!"trying to type amid the output of a MU* is an exercise in frustration.
Also, frankly, TinyFugue totally rocks. It manages multiple connections gracefully, it handles all sorts of input and output, it rocks for searching. It just works really well. It has all the features anyone could want from a MU* program, and it's free, built for Unix, and works very well.
-- --=:: Wings and tail and snout and scales of blackest night::=-
A dragon stands be
And there are other telnet clients besides Microsoft's. You can even use an X terminal window if you want to go to the trouble of installing Cygwin. Still, Drey has a point about those other MUD client features.
This is also my client of choice - it stays out of your way (looks like telnet to the onlooker) and provides good scripting facilities. There is also a port to Windows (which thankfully looks NOTHING like Windows Telnet;), Wintin.
-- * Several monkeys are here, playing banjos and wearing small hats.
And if you have trouble at first: It uses Emacs keybindings -- that means Ctrl-P to go to the last line typed, Ctrl-U to clear the current line, etc.
I don't know of any ...
by
dzym
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I don't know of any really good free win32 clients. Zmud is the best, in my opinion, and I bought a license for it back in the 4.xx days. I don't even use 5.x or 6.x even though my license is fully upgradable because I detest eLicense.
I really liked mcl on *nix, by Erwin Andreasen, but he stopped maintaining it a while ago and I'm not even able to access his homepage right now. A cursory whois on the domain seems to suggest that he has abandoned his former "life".:(
tintin(++) is the old standby, of course.
Re:I don't know of any ...
by
ekidder
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Re:I don't know of any ...
by
Erwin-42
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Err, I'm not dead yet.
Anyway, prompted by mention of this topic on Slashdot I finally got around in releasing a maintenane release of mcl, 0.53.00. It basically fixes all the ancient C++ code that only compiled with 2.95, and also makes the code work with Perl 5.8.0 etc.
I started out using TF under OS/2, and later under Linux. I tried others, but always went back. No GUI crap for me!
I used it for...far too many years. Try your best to avoid the black hole that is MUD addiction. It just about drummed me out of college. I still fight the urge to go back (I was a long-time player on Duris, as well as some GodWars muds), as the primary MUD I played on is still alive and kicking...as far as I know, at least. Fortunately I haven't checked in on it in almost a year.
Not sure about Multi-User
by
dupper
·
· Score: 3, Informative
But for non-graphical RPGs, just stick to the rogue-likes, and you'll be happy.
Re:Not sure about Multi-User
by
mercx
·
· Score: 3, Informative
> But for non-graphical RPGs, just stick to the rogue [nethack.org]-likes [adom.de], and you'll be happy.
Er... rogue-a-likes and MUDs are very different styles of games, with MUDs being closer to chatrooms set in a fantasy world....as such, they have very different ways of making you "happy", and one might not substitute for the other;)
At a MOO system I run with some friends, we use tkMOO-light, http://www.awns.com/tkMOO-light/, with considerable success. Since it is written in Tcl/Tk, it runs on any system which has Tcl/Tk ported; they have prepackaged versions including the Tcl/Tk runtime for Win and Mac for download.
E_elven wrote: Only if you're too much of a pansy for telnet.
I've never understood this "Real men use crappy tools" philosophy. It is perfectly possible to MUD with telnet --- I recommend turning "scroll to bottom on TTY output" OFF in your xterm --- but anyone with two brain cells to rub together should be able to realise that MUD clients are better. Even if you just use TinyFugue out of the box, you still get basically the same interface as with telnet, but with a couple of lines separated off for text entry and better scrollback support.
(I get these same emotions whenever I see someone proudly claiming that they make their web pages in notepad... I want to go up to them and beat them with a stick until they realise that notepad is complete crap. Just because Microsoft doesn't give you a good text editor doesn't mean you can't go and find one yourself! Use gvim or emacs or ultraedit or just about _anything_ else...
Ahem.
Sorry.</rant>
)
--
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Re:MUD clients
by
scrytch
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Seriously, I think most people who claim to have edited their web page in notepad really meant that they edited it with a basic text editor like emacs, metapad, vim, UE, PFE, whatever. Still, I long ago ceased to be impressed by people who consider it a measure of... anything, really. If I had to work with someone so insecure they had to put me down for using Dreamweaver, I'd really consider either foisting off the webmonkey work on them or doing it myself without consulting just so I wouldn't have to get into such inane pissing contests.
When you can speak corba with netcat, i'll be impressed, but HTML was never a terribly hard problem, and it doesn't really ring my bell to try to make it one.
-- I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Damn it man! Just pay for zMUD, it's a great client. In fact, zMUD's built in scripting language is how I learned to script and got me interested in CS (waaaaay back when). Plus, Zugg, the developer is a great and deserves the money.
Re:Pay for zMUD
by
polaughlin
·
· Score: 2, Informative
zMUD is a mere $25 and it is the best Windows client you will find.
-- pat o.
Re:Pay for zMUD
by
pdbogen
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I have to agree with the parent. zMUD has some awesome features, for MUDding. However, if you want to do anything else (MUSH, MUX) zMud is crap (No offense at all! It's just geared towards MUDding, and that's what it's good at.) For MUSHs and MUXs, TinyFugue far and away. Nobody has mentioned this yet, but there are Win32 builds of it!
gMud
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I haven't mudded for a while, but I always used gMud on windows. It has decent scripting/trigger/aliasing capabilities. It is freely avaliable for download. Do a google search.
Exaurdon!
ask google, not slashdot?
by
bn557
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I mean, by the time the poster will have succesfully sorted through all tho flames and useless jokes, they could have just as easily used google, tried 9 or 10 things, and based the solution on their own preferences. No need for this.
P
-- Humans are slow, innaccurate, and brilliant;
computers are fast, acurrate, and dumb;
together they are unbeatable
Re:ask google, not slashdot?
by
TLouden
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Sorting through? Just set score filter to 3. Anyways, some people here might have some good comments or know of a client that's good but hard to find.
-- -Tim Louden
Re:ask google, not slashdot?
by
TLouden
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If you don't like the humor, or how much it gets modded, then set the bonus for funny to -2 or -3.
-- -Tim Louden
Trebucket TK
by
strredwolf
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Requires Tcl/TK, but has ANSI color, supports MPI, and is well supported. Also has web update.
Because it allows people like me, who haven't ever experienced anything MUD related, to get a glimpse of the fun that could be had. For many like me, a large appeal of slashdot is being introduced to a variety of activities/news/interests/sites. I'm willing to wager that most of the people that saw the story and are now going to check out a MUD would not have initiated the search by themselves.
Why? Because I did check Google and Freshmeat (do people still use Tucows?). For one thing, as I said in the article, MUDs are somewhat obsolete in the face of MMORPGs like Everquest. I know ZMud is a decent client, but it is not free as in beer or speech, after a 30-day trial it conks out. As far as Google, it recently discontinued archival of the
rec.games.mud groups, so that answers that question for one.
Theoretically, I could have downloaded 30 MUD clients, many wanting me to download PERL for Windows, or TCL/TK for Windows, or GNOME for Windows, or whatever, just to look at it, but I figured I would ask here. Have people here rallied around a Windows MUD client that is free as in beer and as in speech, that doesn't need a normal user to download Cygwin, TCL/TK, PERL and so forth for Windows, compile it and so forth, that is still actively updated? If so, I haven't seen it. That confirms my suspicion - that there is no good, free (as in beer and speech) MUD client for Windows, or at least one that you can download that doesn't require you to transmogrify your Windows box into a UNIX - I'm better off just using a UNIX then anyway.
You're assuming that anyone using Google or Freshmeat will find what they're looking for. I didn't. So now I'm asking as a last resort, before I possibly even begin writing one (that is beer and speech free) myself, if I have the spare time to do such a thing.
The only client I'll use
by
Kindgott
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I've been on MUDs since around 1997 and experimented with a few different Windows and *nix clients, and the only thing I use anymore is tintin++ on *nix or wintin95 on any wintendo boxes I may be using at the time. They're very low on the "bells and whistles", as the windows port is basically the terminal version with a simple interface added, and the *nix version is meant for use in terminal windows. They're not low on features, as you can easily add triggers, variables, aliases, and such.
More complete answer? It varies. As someone above pointed out, they range from Role-Play Only (I.e., no code.. glorified (if even that) chat room) to Hack-N'-Slash (Everquest without pretty pictures). Also, a lot of times the word "MUD" includes MUSHs (Multi-User-Shared-Hallucination/-Simulated-Hell), MUXs (Multi-User-eXperience, IIRC), MUSEs (Multi-User-Simulated-Environment), and MAREs (Of which there is precisely one, but I don't remember what it stands for). There are only a handful of MUSEs still around, and I am fairly certain they are all social and/or educational, and sparsely popualted. Of MUSHs there are two predominant varities, Tiny- and PennMUSH. Tiny is more geared towards pen-and-paper-type RPGs converted to electronic form, whereas Penn happens to be slightly more suitable for space-based sci-fi games. Much like the Republican and Democratic parties, there is really very little difference to the two. For TinyMUX, the only one worth using is Brazil's MUX 2.0, and it only stands out if you're using it to play a World of Darkness game (Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, etc.). MUDs vary, and I am not very educated on them. Generally they're a lot more like videogames than their four-letter counterparts. There's also MOOs, which are sort of like the bastard child of a MUD and a MUSH. I don't know much about this last type, either.
Yeah, for about a minute
by
geekoid
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Went from 300 to 1200, I remember it like it was yesterday: Look at this new 1200 baud modem we got. Cool. ~hooks it up~
Wow its fast yep ~1 minute later~ I can't wait for one that goes faster. Me too.
-- The Kruger Dunning explains most post on/. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Do you really want geeks showing up on your doorstep in full chainmail, a sword, and the amulet of Yendor? I think you should very much encourage them to keep their fantasies stored as harmless electronic and magnetic charges far, far away from this "Real Life". I mean, have you ever actually been to a LARP (Live-Action Role Playing)? It's definately not pretty. I know a guy who ended up getting stitches in a hospital. I guess he thought he had more hit points than he actually did. That's ok, he eventually did end up back at town center, and all his digits were intact and functional after seeing the healer. I think he gave up adventuring though, and he now works answering other adventurers' questions about these magical devices that help in the creation of scrolls at Lexmark.
Now, do you really want us role playing geeks to invade real life? You know these people that role play are usually the ones that right your software. Next time you check your X11 log for the last error to see if it's complaining about the mouse or display modes and all you see is runes, you'll learn to appreciate the fact there is a time and place for these fantasies. I personally don't want to have to describe my problem on the mailing lists using Quenya.
-- Karma Clown
Re:Try Real Life.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4, Funny
I like Real Life, but some script kiddie named "Neo" keeps fucking with the server.
And the last LAN party I went to, half the systems were infected with Agent Smith virus.
Real Life 1.0 was actually pretty good, but some of the noobs couldn't handle it, so the Architect nerfed it.
I'm not giving up, though. I heard that the server is going to get upgraded any day now with bitching new features, maybe even tonight or tomorrow!
To all those recommending google, since when does google have a good-ometer? It gives you hints, and might even come up with a list of all MUD clients available, but usually it is the product/project pages and not reviews.
As for freshmeat and version tracker, yes they have ratings, and for that they are good place to start. But when you get to niche software like this, the best place is to ask the community surrounding the niche.
While slashdot readers do overlap, you best answers will be from more focused mailing list (or, in this case, those you meet in the MUDs). The same could be said of most Ask Slashdot questions. But, then again, if we did that, we'd never ask slashdot dot.
If you're going to reply "ask google" to every "ask slashdot", then please just edit your slashdot profile to ignore the section. We don't need your comments or your moderations.
Anm
MUD is NOT MSN-Chat (tm)!
by
newr00tic
·
· Score: 3, Informative
rogue-a-likes and MUDs are very different styles of games, with MUDs being closer to chatrooms set in a fantasy world.
Man.. Don't even dare to similate MUD with chatrooms. To the parent poster (and anyone else, ocourse), I'd rather explain that MUDs are very similar to the Zork/Infocom games.
Yes, I know, it's still not quite the same, but closer than a chatroom..
Note; I had no intent to flame your post, but this is how I see it..
-- A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Yeah, but what is the best MUD
by
peripatetic_bum
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
this isn't as simple to google and I would like to hear your reponses.
Thanks!
--
Sigs are dangerous coy things
TinyFugue, PowWow, PowTTY...
by
skaya
·
· Score: 4, Informative
If you use only UNIX, TinyFugue rocks. It has a very powerful scripting language (but very complicated too - complicated enough for me to start my own Python client, but that's another matter).
If you use only Windows, Zmud is (1) not free (2) quite slow compared to other alternatives. You might then go for JMC (which is lightning fast, has built-in simple scripting, and can use VBscript and other nasty things with plugins).
If you want to MUD from UNIX and Windows, you could try PowWow when using UNIX and PowTTY when using Windows (PowTTY is really the PowWow engine combined with PuTTY, the famous SSH client).
Finally, I noticed that the most important things in a client are (from my point of view) :
multi-command aliases (possibility to send a bunch of commands to the MUD with just one line of input), bindings (possibility to send one or many lines of commands pressing a single key)
variables (possibility to use things like $target in your aliases, and setting $target with a single keypress, for instance)
highlights or marking (possibility to make any line containing the word "critical" in bold red ; or marking in bold a given list of names - which could be the names of your online friends, for instance)
Any decent client should support this (IMHO).
I also ask a few more things from my client (and here is why I wrote mine) : be able to handle random socket connections (to connect to an IRC server or to a group communication server), be able to load images and pan them (to view and scroll the maps from the client, with single keypresses - note that you can also be clever and use Eterm backgrounds for that : Eterm has support for escape sequences to load/scroll backgrounds!), and powerful scripting (I use Python).
Last thing : I don't know what people call "powerful scripting", but for me, it's the possibility to do basically anything and without much hassle;-) for instance looking up name of people you meet in a SQL database, or storing the list of your equipment in internal variables and popup windows, or analyzing your XP rate or the average amount of damage you do with each different weapon versus each different monster, etc.
Here it is
by
guacamolefoo
·
· Score: 2, Informative
http://www.zuggsoft.com/zmud16f.zip
It's free. You can't lose by trying it out. If you hate it, try something else.
I use SimpleMU, which is superior to all other Windows MUD clients I've tried for one reason -- spawn windows. Based on a regex, you can send incoming lines of text to subwindows, which is handy for keeping chat channels straight. It's also very quick and versatile. It's not free in either sense, but neither are many of the clients mentioned in replies.
Mud Clients: A Synopsis of the 2 best plus more.
by
lordmage
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Running a successful Mud for a bit I have come into plenty of clients.
MCL - Mud Client from Erwin Andreasen. Those in the ROM field know Erwins great work on signals, copyover etc. MCL is just incredible. Link: http://www.andreasen.org/mcl/
Zmud - www.zuggsoft.com - Free clients are decent but still not as overwhelmingly powerful for Windows as Zmud.
Zmud is by far the most used, followed by Gmud and the Java Telnet clients we have on our website.
Just go to google or freshmeat and search. Its more fun checking around than just taking our word for it.
Well.. may as well plug the mud as well www.mageslair.net - Welcome to the Addiction.
-- I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
Re:Pay for zMUD - Mud Admin's Perspective
by
meersan
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I personally mud in ZMud 5.55. I abhor 6.66 (er, 6.62) like the devil. I used 4.62 for years until it crashed enough to drive me to upgrade. 4.62 may be "free", but your odds of getting the automapper to work without crashing are roughly 50/50. That's one of the troubles with ZMud--the hit-and-miss nature of upgrading.
The mud I code for/play on (riftsmud.net 4000) has MSP support (Mud Sound Protocol). At least from what I've seen, MSP requires the player to separately download the sound files (.wav usually). Then the MUD sends a line of text telling ZMud when to play the sound. This felt sufficiently kludgy to me that I haven't personally bothered to turn it on.
One of our immortals is salivating over the prospect of adding MXP/MCCP support. So far the rest of us have little motivation in trying to figure out how it works in order to add it. MXP appears to be a means of htmlizing mud output--you can specify font style and color, add hyperlinks etc. Display little bitmap pictures and so on.
Very, very problematic to me is the prospect of adding client-specific extensions to what is basically a source-available application (CircleMud/Diku license, *cough*). I want everyone to be able to play our mud with roughly the same experience, regardless of what client they are using. Any other mud admins out there agree?
-- We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce.
-- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
Telnet and TinyFugue
by
fm6
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Your search -- someone who cares what I think -- does not match any documents.
No one was found who cares what you think.
Suggestions:
-Post to discussions that are about something you're actually interested in.
-Don't read articles that you think are stupid, or don't belong.
-Make more `Soviet Russia' references, everybody loves that.
Slashdot Mirror
~~~
And you FAIL IT!!!
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Back in my day we used telnet on 1200 baud modems, and we liked it.
The real point of Ask Slashdot is making fun of the questioner anyway. This just gets that process farther along.
All my friends seem to like it.
check it out.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Tinyfugue.
And if you have trouble at first: It uses Emacs keybindings -- that means Ctrl-P to go to the last line typed, Ctrl-U to clear the current line, etc.
I really liked mcl on *nix, by Erwin Andreasen, but he stopped maintaining it a while ago and I'm not even able to access his homepage right now. A cursory whois on the domain seems to suggest that he has abandoned his former "life". :(
tintin(++) is the old standby, of course.
Bah, who needs clients? This one was designed to be completely playable with raw telnet:
:)
Blood Dusk MUD
'course it's mine, so I might be a little biased.
MudMaster and it's GUI-oriented counterpart MudMaster 2000 are good MUD clients for Windows.
As for *nix, TinTin++ and TinyFugue are excellent, though the sites for those two escape me at the moment.
I started out using TF under OS/2, and later under Linux. I tried others, but always went back. No GUI crap for me!
I used it for...far too many years. Try your best to avoid the black hole that is MUD addiction. It just about drummed me out of college. I still fight the urge to go back (I was a long-time player on Duris, as well as some GodWars muds), as the primary MUD I played on is still alive and kicking...as far as I know, at least. Fortunately I haven't checked in on it in almost a year.
But for non-graphical RPGs, just stick to the rogue-likes, and you'll be happy.
At a MOO system I run with some friends, we use tkMOO-light, http://www.awns.com/tkMOO-light/, with considerable success. Since it is written in Tcl/Tk, it runs on any system which has Tcl/Tk ported; they have prepackaged versions including the Tcl/Tk runtime for Win and Mac for download.
Win: MUSHClient.
-- The only relevant client. XML storage,
full scripting in multiple languages,
triggers, macros, aliases.
www.gammon.com.au
Lin: TinTin++.
-- Only if you're too much of a pansy for
telnet.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
Damn it man! Just pay for zMUD, it's a great client. In fact, zMUD's built in scripting language is how I learned to script and got me interested in CS (waaaaay back when). Plus, Zugg, the developer is a great and deserves the money.
I haven't mudded for a while, but I always used gMud on windows. It has decent scripting/trigger/aliasing capabilities. It is freely avaliable for download. Do a google search.
Exaurdon!
I mean, by the time the poster will have succesfully sorted through all tho flames and useless jokes, they could have just as easily used google, tried 9 or 10 things, and based the solution on their own preferences. No need for this.
P
Humans are slow, innaccurate, and brilliant; computers are fast, acurrate, and dumb; together they are unbeatable
Requires Tcl/TK, but has ANSI color, supports MPI, and is well supported. Also has web update.
Main page here.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
TinyFuge. If you are using Linux (or MacOS X) it is the best of the breed.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Why is this even on the front page? Why not try Google, Freshmeat, Tucows or Versiontracker?
I've been on MUDs since around 1997 and experimented with a few different Windows and *nix clients, and the only thing I use anymore is tintin++ on *nix or wintin95 on any wintendo boxes I may be using at the time. They're very low on the "bells and whistles", as the windows port is basically the terminal version with a simple interface added, and the *nix version is meant for use in terminal windows.
They're not low on features, as you can easily add triggers, variables, aliases, and such.
Here's a link for each client:
tintin++
Wintin95
Hope you find them to your liking.
If there's anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot immediately.
Technically? Multi-User-Dungeon.. Text-based Everquest. (Don't flame me)
, MUXs (Multi-User-eXperience, IIRC), MUSEs (Multi-User-Simulated-Environment), and MAREs (Of which there is precisely one, but I don't remember what it stands for). There are only a handful of MUSEs still around, and I am fairly certain they are all social and/or educational, and sparsely popualted. Of MUSHs there are two predominant varities, Tiny- and PennMUSH. Tiny is more geared towards pen-and-paper-type RPGs converted to electronic form, whereas Penn happens to be slightly more suitable for space-based sci-fi games. Much like the Republican and Democratic parties, there is really very little difference to the two. For TinyMUX, the only one worth using is Brazil's MUX 2.0, and it only stands out if you're using it to play a World of Darkness game (Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, etc.). MUDs vary, and I am not very educated on them. Generally they're a lot more like videogames than their four-letter counterparts. There's also MOOs, which are sort of like the bastard child of a MUD and a MUSH. I don't know much about this last type, either.
More complete answer? It varies. As someone above pointed out, they range from Role-Play Only (I.e., no code.. glorified (if even that) chat room) to Hack-N'-Slash (Everquest without pretty pictures). Also, a lot of times the word "MUD" includes MUSHs (Multi-User-Shared-Hallucination/-Simulated-Hell)
Went from 300 to 1200, I remember it like it was yesterday:
Look at this new 1200 baud modem we got.
Cool.
~hooks it up~
Wow its fast
yep
~1 minute later~
I can't wait for one that goes faster.
Me too.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Check out gnome_mud for Linux/Unix. It's very similar to gMud.
You insensitive clod!
paintball
Emacs !!
Comes in 3D with integrated surround sound and both voice and tactile command recognition.
paintball
To all those recommending google, since when does google have a good-ometer? It gives you hints, and might even come up with a list of all MUD clients available, but usually it is the product/project pages and not reviews.
As for freshmeat and version tracker, yes they have ratings, and for that they are good place to start. But when you get to niche software like this, the best place is to ask the community surrounding the niche.
While slashdot readers do overlap, you best answers will be from more focused mailing list (or, in this case, those you meet in the MUDs). The same could be said of most Ask Slashdot questions. But, then again, if we did that, we'd never ask slashdot dot.
If you're going to reply "ask google" to every "ask slashdot", then please just edit your slashdot profile to ignore the section. We don't need your comments or your moderations.
Anm
rogue-a-likes and MUDs are very different styles of games, with MUDs being closer to chatrooms set in a fantasy world.
Man.. Don't even dare to similate MUD with chatrooms. To the parent poster (and anyone else, ocourse), I'd rather explain that MUDs are very similar to the Zork/Infocom games.
Yes, I know, it's still not quite the same, but closer than a chatroom..
Note; I had no intent to flame your post, but this is how I see it..
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Thanks!
Sigs are dangerous coy things
If you use only Windows, Zmud is (1) not free (2) quite slow compared to other alternatives. You might then go for JMC (which is lightning fast, has built-in simple scripting, and can use VBscript and other nasty things with plugins).
If you want to MUD from UNIX and Windows, you could try PowWow when using UNIX and PowTTY when using Windows (PowTTY is really the PowWow engine combined with PuTTY, the famous SSH client).
Finally, I noticed that the most important things in a client are (from my point of view) :
- multi-command aliases (possibility to send a bunch of commands to the MUD with just one line of input), bindings (possibility to send one or many lines of commands pressing a single key)
- variables (possibility to use things like $target in your aliases, and setting $target with a single keypress, for instance)
- highlights or marking (possibility to make any line containing the word "critical" in bold red ; or marking in bold a given list of names - which could be the names of your online friends, for instance)
Any decent client should support this (IMHO).I also ask a few more things from my client (and here is why I wrote mine) : be able to handle random socket connections (to connect to an IRC server or to a group communication server), be able to load images and pan them (to view and scroll the maps from the client, with single keypresses - note that you can also be clever and use Eterm backgrounds for that : Eterm has support for escape sequences to load/scroll backgrounds!), and powerful scripting (I use Python).
Last thing : I don't know what people call "powerful scripting", but for me, it's the possibility to do basically anything and without much hassle ;-) for instance looking up name of people you meet in a SQL database, or storing the list of your equipment in internal variables and popup windows, or analyzing your XP rate or the average amount of damage you do with each different weapon versus each different monster, etc.
http://www.zuggsoft.com/zmud16f.zip
It's free. You can't lose by trying it out. If you hate it, try something else.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
I use SimpleMU, which is superior to all other Windows MUD clients I've tried for one reason -- spawn windows. Based on a regex, you can send incoming lines of text to subwindows, which is handy for keeping chat channels straight. It's also very quick and versatile. It's not free in either sense, but neither are many of the clients mentioned in replies.
Zmud is an awful hacky mess.
Why not look at our MUD Client reviews page?
Pick one that has lots of YESs in its line, like Crystal for example.
Clio.
Can't believe noone mentioned that yet.
Running a successful Mud for a bit I have come into plenty of clients.
MCL - Mud Client from Erwin Andreasen. Those in the ROM field know Erwins great work on signals, copyover etc. MCL is just incredible. Link: http://www.andreasen.org/mcl/
Zmud - www.zuggsoft.com - Free clients are decent but still not as overwhelmingly powerful for Windows as Zmud.
Zmud is by far the most used, followed by Gmud and the Java Telnet clients we have on our website.
Just go to google or freshmeat and search. Its more fun checking around than just taking our word for it.
Well.. may as well plug the mud as well
www.mageslair.net - Welcome to the Addiction.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
I personally mud in ZMud 5.55. I abhor 6.66 (er, 6.62) like the devil. I used 4.62 for years until it crashed enough to drive me to upgrade. 4.62 may be "free", but your odds of getting the automapper to work without crashing are roughly 50/50. That's one of the troubles with ZMud--the hit-and-miss nature of upgrading.
The mud I code for/play on (riftsmud.net 4000) has MSP support (Mud Sound Protocol). At least from what I've seen, MSP requires the player to separately download the sound files (.wav usually). Then the MUD sends a line of text telling ZMud when to play the sound. This felt sufficiently kludgy to me that I haven't personally bothered to turn it on.
One of our immortals is salivating over the prospect of adding MXP/MCCP support. So far the rest of us have little motivation in trying to figure out how it works in order to add it. MXP appears to be a means of htmlizing mud output--you can specify font style and color, add hyperlinks etc. Display little bitmap pictures and so on.
Very, very problematic to me is the prospect of adding client-specific extensions to what is basically a source-available application (CircleMud/Diku license, *cough*). I want everyone to be able to play our mud with roughly the same experience, regardless of what client they are using. Any other mud admins out there agree?
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
And (to bring us back ontopic), TinyFugue runs under Windows using Cygwin.
Your search -- someone who cares what I think -- does not match any documents.
No one was found who cares what you think.
Suggestions:
philcrissman.com.