I was wondering, if you have a good enough computer, can you host a MUD right off of it? Would it cost you any money. somehow? And if its possible, and free, then how would you do that? Thank you.

Yes you can and its free ... well i guess i should say yes till i say a few more things. You must have a decent internet connection (dsl, cable) if your expecting to have playes on it just a 56k modem will work if its just you but i don't suggest it. If you want to run it you have to be willing to either drop windows and install linux or try to get your mud to run in cygwin which is a linux emulation for windows. make sure you get the gcc package when downloading. Good Luck

Yes, you can host a mud on your own computer.
There are some things to consider, though:
1. to supply a stable environment for your mud, the computer should be set up so it's never (or very rarely) rebooted/turned off.
2. The software running on the machine needs to be able to handle long periods of not rebooting (win 95/98 are known for their instability).
3. To access the mud from the internet, you need to have a constant internet connection, either through modem, cable modem, or direct connection (dsl/T1/T3).
4. You'd probably need some kind of hostname redirection if connecting through modem.

Whether you run a mud from windows, linux or mac is not very important, if the above points are all adressed.

Of course, for testing purposes, you can start up the server on any machine you can compile it on, but if you want to have players (and have players coming back), the above is a good place to start.

I'd say $7.95 sounds like a good price to get a starter account at a mud hoster, who garantees you that the server fulfills these demands (try for instance dune.net or the previous posters' suggestions).

Welcor

Thanks, helps a bit. I only have a dial-up connection, will probably be getting cable in the near future, but for now, this is just for me to play around with. I can't really spend any money right now on other hosting. Ive tried to get free hosting, but havent gotten any feedback yet. I have download cygwin awhile back, but not really sure what it is for. It was in a coding book I had. Well anyways, I just want it up and running for a bit so I can get in there and build, and set up races and things like that. Can you, or anyone tell me how to setup a hostname for it on my own computer or use cygwin, etc? Ill keep looking on the internet for more information. Thank you.