Ordinary Day

forgive my technological ignorance, but what exactly is a MUSH? I've heard of MUDs, so imagine that a MUSH is a Multiple User thingumabobbie.... //^_^\\

just sign me,
Confused in Cumberland

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Multi-User Shared H{olodeck, abitat, ack}. MUDs were pretty much exclusively gameplay; MUSHes tend to be more social. The distinguishing feature under the hood is that any player can add to the environment, using "softcode". I used to hang out on a MUSH a fair bit, but that whole relationship thingummy went kaboom and I resigned the account...

It can be a heck of a timesink. OTOH, it can also be a resource, depending on the class of brain on the other end of all that ASCII..

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Wow, that actually sounds like an appropriate social use of network technology -- beyond my resources, I should imagine, as I lack a server or the means to reliably host such a thing.

Hanging out with high-class brains, hmm? Seems to your ever'umble observer that we have just that just right here. //^_^\\

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*nods* it does need a reliable connection to the Internet, but the beauty of Linux is one machine can be *both* desktop and serve multiple server functions, if it can be up 24x7. Even a laptop can run server software in a pinch; heck, Slashdot did it for a bit when one of their boxen went kaputt in the early days.

Hanging out here with high-class brains, yes, but there's something to be said for real-time interaction (at least line-by-line, like IM only in a group)... and the other thing is, in a MUSH, you can throw somebody in the hot tub if the puns get too bad. Bin There, Dun That. :)

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Yahh, I can see the attraction of that; would probably indeed be a substantial sink of time as y'note, and that for me would be a show-stopper unless the quality of the minds involved were very high indeed. You'd guess by now perhaps that I am picky about near-real-time conversational opportunities. One must always balance it against other restorative activities such as sleep.

I sing the praises of a freshly-laundered flannel nightie (Yule gift from the belovedest Siestabear), which still holds its warmth from the spin-drying machine. There is no better treat on a cold night in which the sleet splatters against the windows.

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Yes there is.....warm socks, too. Because Charlie Brown had it right. Happiness is a drawer full of warm socks.

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Nah, I think warm socks in the drawer are superseded by warm socks on your feet. And, warm clothes to wear right out of the dryer? Bliss.

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True... but a warm nightie *and* warm socks trumps a warm nightie any day. And, yeah... I remember as a young lad, I would wash clothes at night, and dry them first thing in the morning *just so* I could dress straight out of the dryer... mmmm :)

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Having spent a good thirteen years or so of my life on various MUSHes, I can assure you, yes, that they are huge timesinks. At least, the roleplay ones are, where if you're not logged in chances are good that you'll miss something important to your character. ;) Not nearly so much of an issue if your MUSH is purely social, though.

And mmm, freshly dried clothing! It is one of the great comforts of life.

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And we even have a hot tub on the Murk, though it's not in the main room. Main room, we have a fountain! With an aircraft carrier in it.

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technoshaman beat me to answering the question, but I shall simply say that yeah, a MUSH is pretty much a cousin of a MUD, the main real difference being that a MUSH runs a different type of server.

And while MUDs have historically been more directly focused on hardcore gameplay, MUSHes have by contrast been either social (such as mine) or RP-oriented (such as the various MUSHes I have RPed on over the years), based on a given fandom or sometimes original themes.

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Mmm, interesting, shall have to explore this further some day. I imagine a MUSH as a collection of interlinked houses in the forest, redolent of the scent of pines perhaps, with folks conversing against an ever-changing backdrop of birdsong.

Are these things computationally demanding on local terminals as well as the server, or is it all pushed out by the server?

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No, the client is just pushing bits... and really it doesn't take up that much load on the server, either, though if you've got an extensive MUSH it may take a fair amount of memory... Right,

annathepiper?

(And there are Windows clients too, though now that you have Ubuntu set up I recommend using something like TinyFugue (look for the "tf" package).)

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Eh, as I understand it, the size of the MUSH is more of an impact on your disk space really... whereas if you have a whole bunch of players connecting at once, that might be more of a hit on the CPU and available memory. But my MUSH is fairly teeny, and the one other MUSH I've had wiz-level access on was not one I myself was running. I'd have to get MUSH-hosting friends to confirm. :)

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