MOOCK

MOOCK'S MUDDING GUIDE

In 1993, I tried my first MUD. I had played early text adventure games like ZORK on the Apple II, on the ATARI 130XE, on the C-64, on everything. I had even tried building my own games on different systems in the early eighties. When I discovered MUDs, it was like someone took those adventure games and turned them into real worlds: people from countries on the other side of the earth built the landscapes and buildings, designed the quests, and populated the environment of the MUD with creatures and objects. And as if that wasn't enough, people could actually talk to you, shake your hand, laugh at your jokes, or adventure by your site. Incredible.

Some years after my initial infatuation with MUD games, I encountered MUDs again, but this time the "real world" fantasy that I was so interested in surfaced as simply a "real world"--without the fantasy. Students and teachers in Universities were using MUDs as a classroom aid, and in some cases, as the classroom itself. I undertook the creation and running of a "virtual" University in the form of a MUD which was part of a distance education course in English writing. About two years after I graduated, the MUD I had built (VUW) was shut down.

During my experience with MUDs, whether the MUD was a game or a classroom, I was always amazed at the amount of help other MUDders offered me. When I first started my own MUD, I had volunteers offering to teach, to help build, and to show me where to learn everything I wanted to know. This tradition was so widespread, that my own advice to any new MUDder was always "If I'm not around, just ask anyone...that's the best way to learn."

"Moock's MUDding Guide", then, is my contribution back to the MUD community. Some of the information in the guide is quite old, and serves a historical purpose. Other parts, such as "Places to go" live on as an example of the spirit of the MUD community--the resources are kept up to date by visitors like you.

Thanks for dropping by...let me know if you have any questions or comments.

~Colin Moock