The #1 MOST important thing to do before starting your own mud is work as a staff member on AT LEAST one other mud for at least 1 year.

You will learn alot from working on another mud. You will see first hand either good or bad staff management (seeing either one is helpful). You will see how people deal with preventing (or failing to prevent) abuse either by players or by staff. You will see how people deal with game and class balance. These are invaluable lessons that cannot be well learned on your own.

By watching what works and doesn't work, you will obtain a greater understanding of what you are doing.

Furthermore, by being a staff member, you will have some understanding of what it is like to be in that position.

Square by square. If you're not willing to map out the game world, don't expect any builder or coder worth hiring to waste their time helping you out.

You can use MS Excel, or any of the dozens of map-creation programs available.

How can you even think to ask someone to help you build, when you can't even tell them exactly what you want to see, and where? I know as a builder if the admin said "create a zone, make it around 50 rooms, and put it northwest somewhere," I'd laugh and walk away. You couldn't even -pay- me to work with someone who doesn't care more about their own mud than I do.

When it comes to owning and running a MUD, there's no such thing as "can't I JUST." Toss that word the heck out of your vocabulary, friend. If you're not willing to put in 110% effort on your own project, don't expect anyone else to either.

Yes i know, and i get the idea, Put in 110% get back 110%, Makes sense

I spent three days searching 4 differant search engines (Yahoo All the web Google somethign named website finder or something) and probly 50 key words in the searches so thats why i signed up for this forum waited another three days trying a few more searches still finding nothing and started this thread okay? and i'm not making everyone work for me i'm asking for help in something i know veary little of but now know a heck of alot more thanks to these nice people

I went to Yahoo and typed this question... "how do i start a mud" and the first result page showed 3 or 4 great resources. What search term did you use in Yahoo?

I didnt ask a question i did stuff like
Mud creater
Mud maker
Make a mud
Mud
Muding
Create a mud
stuff like that

It's creator, not creater.
It's MUD, not mud or Mud. It is case sensitive, because "mud" is just dirt mixed with water. MUD is an acronym that stands for Multi-User Dungeon.
It's MUDding, with 2 "d"s.
Creating a mud involves mixing water with dirt, as above.

In most cases, I don't bother trying to correct someone's spelling because it is rude to do so. But in your case - dood - if you don't even know how to spell what you're looking for, you probably shouldn't be trying to utilize the results.

If you had tried any of the following you'd have found tons of stuff, as I did:

MUD
MUD creation
coding MUDs
MUD codes
text games creation
text games codes

and made it case sensitive in the search options. I'm not a coder, nor do I own a MUD, nor have I ever had any interest in either. I'm also fairly new to the MUD world, having been secluded in a pay-to-play for 6 years before venturing out and learning that other types of text games existed. And yet, I had no trouble at all figuring this stuff out.

Now you know for next time though, but honestly for someone who claims to spend most of their life in front of the TV or on computers, your computer skills seem lacking. I would bone up on basic understanding of search engines before even thinking about creating a mud.

Trying to remember the phrases I used:

"i want to make" mud "help me"
"make a mud" tutorial
"i want to" mud help
"how to" "make a mud"

All of these brought up some great resources in Google.  The first one alone brought back 3,140 responses, and like I said the first 2 pages have at least 10 great sites.

Just something I have learned from my experience: when I have come here or mudconnector.com, or other places and asked a question that CAME ACROSS like help me, I don't know what to do without any extra info in it - people don't seem to be too helpful.  But when I've asked the same question like: I have a problem, this is what it is, and this is what I've done to try and fix it but it's not working - what am I doing wrong, people seem to help me more.  They know what I've already done, and know what NOT to repeat when helping me.

Hope that helps some.

Re: I want to make a mud, Can anyone help me with tips
 

I dont even know whether to get involved in a mud seriously at this time or just play one :D , I have done a fair amount of coding and I know from this that muds are harder than what they may first seem. Thats seems like a good tip about getting involved as a member of staff in a mud though since one will see first hand the complexities of a succesful MUD I imagine? I am going to check out those links provided as well.

Thanks all!

Re: I want to make a mud, Can anyone help me with tips
 

As a quick note, you're replying to a post that is four years old, so it might be worth creating a new thread on the appropriate forum to get more current resources. Some advice is timeless, but there are a number of websites that exist now that didn't exist in 2004.

Re: I want to make a mud, Can anyone help me with tips
 

There's also a number of websites that existed in 2004, but don't now...

Tips on Making a MUD
 

I think the advice by Jazuela and Threshold is the best of this thread (quoted below). Follow what they say and you will not be caught by many surprises.

Here is some advice that I always tell people that are debating about playing a MUD or making a MUD: PLAY A MUD!

Having run a successful MUD for over four years now (and enjoying the headaches somewhat), if I had any tiny inkling of the difficulty in maintaining and running a MUD when I put together NW, I would have run from that project like a forest fire. :) It is the main reason I said above to read what Jazuela and Threshold say. This advice will go a long way.

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Re: I want to make a mud, Can anyone help me with tips
 

I also suggest when starting a new mud up to download several different codebases, try doing similar things in all of them to find which one seems to be the best suited for what you want to do with it. I see too many people that use what their used to instead of looking into other options before they get started. I understand the concept of wanting to use what you always have, but I also know that the time it would take to learn a new system is often far less than the amount of time you can save by using said new system if it is better designed than the other system you were previously familiar with.