How do I make my first MUD, MUSH, MOO etc.

Hi

I have been looking at this forum and have seen you answer questions quite well so heres my question: How do I make my first mud. I keep playing them and have got the feel for it and how they should work and I've been looking at stuff like Rom and SMAUG and others but don't know how to use them, Which one to get or any of this jargon people keep telling me. I am very confused. I know its going to be hard work and are going to be commited so please HELP ME OUT!!!!!!

Someone asked the same thing recently.
http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=7604

When someone asks me something like this, I usually respond by asking why they want to make a new mud and what sorts of features they're looking for.. for bonus points: and why they feel qualified to make a new mud since it sounds like you've got no experience at the staff level for a mud and may not have any programming background.

Keep in mind, I'm asking to help you, not to belittle you. A mud is a lot of work and requires learning or knowing how to do programming (a lot of it). On the other hand, there are roughly 2000 muds out there (and that doesn't count the ones that are in development and aren't advertised anywhere which makes one wonder what you intend to do to make it a better or unique enough mud to merit all that effort and time (and money if you're not self-hosting, well, maybe even if you are).

If you are thinking of writing your own, read this page:

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/bbshowpost.php?bbsubject_id=5959

I raise heaps of issues here - questions you should be able to answer, and they are general questions mainly, not programming ones.

However it seems to me that the original poster is really thinking of running an existing code base (since he mentions MUSH, MOO), so perhaps a good first step is to download one, and try running it on his local PC.

SmaugFUSS should install pretty cleanly out of the box, using Cygwin, and I believe PennMUSH is also pretty easy to get going these days.

If you start with SMAUG you may well feel overwhelmed initially (although the same would apply with most code bases). Try looking here for some commands you might type:

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?wiki=index