links

Useful MUD Links

The domain tierceron.com started out life as a home for Covenant MUD's website. Although I have gradually added content related to a more diverse range of personal projects, part of me still considers the MUD to be the primary raison d'être for this site. MUDs have been around for a long time, and show no signs of dying off; there are still a number of useful MUD sites around the web, some of which are listed below.

Covenant MUD's GitHub Repository
Because Covenant MUD is derived from SmaugFUSS, which is itself an open source project, we have kept our repository open to the public. Anyone who wants to can look at all of our code changes, but all of our proprietary data (maps, player files) is kept private.
The MUD Connector
In addition to hosting the most comprehensive MUD listings out there, The MUD Connector links to a number of useful resources, a discussion forum, and a MUD FAQ.
Covenant MUD's MUD Connector Listing
Our listing on The MUD Connector. I know the MUD is down indefinitely, but why not?
SmaugMuds
Covenant MUD is built on SmaugFUSS, which is a "fixed up" Smaug MUD. SmaugMuds.org is a good resource for reading up on the current state of Smaug MUDs. From their own meta tags: "SmaugMuds.org is a community center where Smaug MUD admins can come to discuss issues relating to Smaug, SWR, AFKMud, and the ongoing project to find and eliminate as many bugs in the stock Smaug and SWR codebases as possible."
The MUD Coders Guild Digest /
There's a lot going on the world of MUD development. The MUD Coders Guild newsletter is a worthwhile read, and a good introduction to the state of the MUD community in a world that no longer has a rec.games.mud newsfroup around which to congregate.
MUD-Dev Archive
The MUD-Dev mailing list ran for almost 15 years, so there are a lot of discussions archived here. You will find invaluable material on design, builiding, and administration. Be prepared to lose several hours browsing the archives.
Richard A. Bartle's Players Who Suit MUDs
Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit MUDs by Richard A. Bartle is a seminal article about different play styles and how to design for them.
Nick Gammon's MUD Pages
An older site with useful information about a variety of MUD codebases and clients. The discussion forum explores a number of topics related to MUD administration.
PuTTY
PuTTY is the gold standard for Windows terminal programs. I still consider raw telnet to be the most authentic way to connect to a MUD, and PuTTY will give you a stable connection and reasonable configuration options for fonts and ANSI colours.
WinTin++ MUD Client
If you don't have access to a Linux shell or terminal program, you'll need a client in order to connect to the MUD. I've tested WinTin++ as recently as the beginning of 2019, and while the command syntax can be a little arcane, this client software is perfectly usable.