I have been wanting my own MUD for the past two or three
years after I had decided that I would never find a role-playing
MUD that would fit my personal criteria. However, I suffer
from what must be the most common problem and disease
amung newbie MUD-owners, and that is I don't know how to
code, nor do I know much of what I am doing, technically
speaking. I -am- serious about having my own MUD, and I am
also a very patient person, willing to wait on things.


So, I've decided to wait on my cute little MUD-making dreams.


And focus on something a bit more helpful. I need help in
learning how to code, how a MUD works from the inside out,
all the quirks of building...

I suppose I could run to the store and try and read a book on
this stuff. But that's slightly tedious for me, and I like to do
things that I can really see and get some type of dynamic,
intelligent help. (Plus, my parents have very little under-
standing of the internet world, and would wonder if my new
need to buy expensive books with big words in them to be a
sign of some form of insanity in me)

If -anyone- would email me or reply to this post with some
information on how to start at it, referrals to people or sites
that could help, or if you would even like to help me yourself,
it would be -GREATLT- appreciated.

I guess I should say that I am especially looking for help for
MUDs that would be level-less and classless, with a skill-based
system, but I would be -very- grateful for any type of help or
guidance.

- Anassa
--

First I would find out the code base of the mud or muds that are closest to what you are looking for. If you have never programmed before, you probably don't want to start from scratch. I think most code bases are in C or maybe C++ but I don't really know as I've only coded ROM muds. If you are currently in college you may be in luck because there may be an introductory course in the language you need to learn. I haven't looked in awhile, but there may have been a couple of coding links on mudconnector.com.
Once you have some basic understanding of coding I would try to befriend an IMP on a mud that will give you pointers on running your mud. I recommend on running in on your home computer first unless you have access to a *NIX machine where you are allowed to run a mud on since a builder MUD account seems to go for about 10-20 bucks a month. One you have figured out how to run the mud, I would spend a few months making minor changes to get a feel to where different functions are and where the things you probably shouldn't mess with are. I recommend spending the money for a reference book in the language you code in, I program for a living and I still whip out my old C book once in a while.
If it ever becomes too overwhelming, remember that you wouldn't be the first IMP to have someone code for you.

An alternative approach would be to use LPC rather than using one of the standard diku derivatives.

The difference here is that the coder/builder divide hardly exists, so you can spend some time on an existing LPC mud, whether as "builder" or "coder", learning enough about how it works to have a good chance of being able to handle your own later.

Whilst there are many openings on muds, there are very few where an untrained coder can learn how the mud works - generally you need to know how to code before you are allowed to code, and there are few muds that will teach coding, though many will teach building (or at least the mechanics of how to use their editing commands).

If you decide the LPC approach is not for you, then running a suitable codebase on your own PC in order to learn is probably the best solution - assuming you don't have *nix installed, I would recommend installing cygwin, which is a linux emulator that runs on Windows (muds generally run much better on *nix than on Windows).