General Q&A About Stick in the MUD

What is a MUD? The acronym MUD stands for "multi-user dungeon". Stick in the MUD is one of many MUDs on the Internet. A MUD is many things to many different people, but at its core it is a text game in which you run around and kill monsters. The more monsters you kill, the more points you get. The more points you get, the more powerful you become. Behind this simple premise lies a challenging game controlled by countless factors, all waiting to be uncovered as you explore the land we call Thera.

How do I play? It depends on what kind of computer you use and how it's set up, but for many people, getting started is as simple as clicking here, giving your character a name and password, selecting the type of character you want, and starting your journey through Mud School. If clicking the link doesn't appear to work, check out the MUD Software page. When you connect, you should be greeted by a screen that looks like this.

Any tips on getting started? Sure. Some commands you'll want to type shortly after logging in are help and rules. If you've never played on a MUD before, the key thing to remember is that it's text-based, and therefore, you should read the text that appears. =) Stay in MUD School for a few levels until you get the hang of things, and don't get discouraged if you get splattered by a nasty monster. In Thera, death is but a minor setback. You don't need to start all over.

Who runs Stick in the MUD? Stick in the MUD is run by Stick and Paruda, two graduates of the engineering program at the University of Toronto.

How old is Stick in the MUD? Stick in the MUD went live on February 21st, 1994.

Does it cost anything to play? No. Stick in the MUD predates the commercialization of the Internet. Stick and Paruda cover the costs of operating Stick in the MUD, which include the space on a server with net connectivity, domain fees, and any other software/hardware/media/services required.

Technical Questions

Where is your server? Stick in the MUD runs on an 800 MHz Pentium III machine with 768 MB of RAM, running Red Hat Linux 7.1. Physically, it is located in St. Louis, Missouri. Our provider is BetterBox.Net. Stick in the MUD originally ran on a Sun SPARCstation with a 40 MHz SPARC processor and 32 MB of RAM, located at the the University of Toronto.

What tools do you use to develop Stick in the MUD? Since September 2000, all Stick in the MUD development has been done on Mac OS X. Stick in the MUD is programmed in C, on the order of 50,000 lines worth. Binaries are now being produced on Mac OS X as well, using Red Hat Linux under Connectix Virtual PC.

How did you build Stick in the MUD in the first place? We didn't build it from scratch. Stick in the MUD is based on the source code of Rivers of MUD, version 2.3. Much of its geography came from that release, and some has been contributed by our players over the years.