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How to Connect to FurryMUCK

(and elsewhere)

By Puma, Unci, Rhal
(with help from others)

Revised February 20, 2012
Version 5.16

What is a MUCK?

MUCKs were derived from MUDs, "multi-user-dungeons" -- the presentation is similar to the classic adventure games, "colossal cave" or "dungeon" -- you explore a "place" with commands like north, south, up, down, in, out (n, s, u, d, etc).

The difference is that this "place" is also populated with other players, and you can interact with them also. In a MUD, there's an adventure to experience, monsters to fight, puzzles to solve, etc., set up by the game designer; in a MUCK, the players design their own fun. There is no combat unless players explicitly agree on it. You can't win anything in the game sense, but you can win lots of friends, experience and information.

Foxen defines the TinyMUCK 2.2 Fuzzball server software as this:

This server is a UNIX based networked chat program, with multiple rooms, users, and built in expandability via an interpreted internal language. For those of you who know what one is, yes this is a MUD. A social based MUD, and not a hack and slash type MUD. You won't find weapons or orcs in this game, unless you spend the time to MAKE it have those things. This game is primarily designed for those who just want to socialize.

Every player can extend the existing landscape of the MUCK by building rooms, exits and objects, and agreeing with others on how to combine this with the existing landscape.

How do I connect to a MUCK?

To connect to a MUCK, you must open an Internet connection to the MUCK's computer by using a program called telnet.

For UNIX systems:

If you have a dial-in shell account, or are using a computer cluster, try the following from the UNIX command line:
     telnet address port

For example, for FurryMUCK, you would type
     telnet 74.207.243.108 8888
or
     telnet furrymuck.com 8888

In this example, 74.207.243.108 is called an "IP address", furrymuck.com is a "domain address", and 8888 is a "port number". You may connect either by the domain address or the IP number  --  it is possible that only one of these ways works, so try both.

To connect to a MUCK, your service provider must allow you full telnet access. You must be able to make telnet connections to the server (ie. your telnet isn't restricted to local connections), and you must be able to use the port number, otherwise you will get the system's main UNIX login rather than the MUCK's. On some versions of telnet, the syntax is slightly different -- such as
     telnet furrymuck.com /port=8888

For Windows, Macintosh, Linux and other systems:

Your computer must connect directly to the Internet in some way.

Using a direct internet connection, or dialup with SLIP or PPP:

This is how most computers are connected to the Internet these days. You can run a version of telnet on your system directly, or use a Web browser such as Firefox, Safari or Opera.

"Open URL" as:
telnet://furrymuck.com:8888
However, you still have to have the telnet helper application installed, and it must be set up to allow you to use it this way; the Web browser is simply passing the address and running telnet for you, which is a simpler way to connect if you find a web page with telnet links... such as the web version of Part 2 of this FAQ ("Descriptions of Various Furry MU*s"): <URL: http://www.tigerden.com/infopage/muck/index.html> or the Official FurryMUCK Web Pages at <URL:http://www.furry.com>, which also has extensive information about FurryMUCK itself.

Using an online service provider:

Some libraries, Internet cafes, etc. may offer telnet access through a menu system or graphical interface. Look for the Lynx web browser on text-based systems, or Firefox or Opera or a proprietary browser, and try connecting to the Furry MU*s List noted above.

Dial in to a UNIX shell account:

This is the most basic way. Your computer acts as a terminal to the UNIX system, which in turn runs the telnet program. But you'll have to learn enough UNIX to follow the instructions above. If you can run the Lynx web browser, see below.

If none of this works:

You may need to ask a local guru. Unfortunately some systems deliberately disable MUCK access via a "ridge" that suppresses connections to specific ports. In that case you need to look for a different Internet service provider.

Once You Connect:

If you get a login banner that includes the MUCK name and some info on how to connect, you were successful! Skip to "If everything works fine" below.

If you get a bunch of random characters and some text

The login banner is usually the logo of the MUCK in ASCII graphics. If you're using a proportional font, the characters won't line up. Switch to a monospaced font such as Courier or Monaco.

If the incoming text "piles up" on the right side of the screen
(or)
If the lines write over one another and I can't read them

Your telnet or terminal program isn't properly interpreting the newline characters being sent by the MUCK. Most MUCKs run on UNIX servers, which use an ASCII 10 code (linefeed) to indicate a new line. However, Macintoshes use an ASCII 13 (carriage return) and DOS/Windows machines use a carriage return followed by a linefeed. Look for a setting or preference to translate the newline characters for your system. Ask someone who knows about your software for help.

If you get a login: prompt

Whatever you did with the port number did not work. Try something else or ask a local guru.

If you get no response or an error message

• The MU* may be doing a database save, during which it will not accept new connections. Try again in a few minutes.
• The server is temporarily down or unreachable. Check again later.
• You don't have unrestricted telnet access. In that case you need an account with full access. Look for providers in your area.

If everything works fine...

You will be asked to enter your character name and password. On many MUCKs, if you do not yet have a character, you can type:
     connect guest guest
This allows you to use a "guest" character so you can get a chance to explore a bit without getting a permanent character. The MUCK's welcome screen will have specific information about how to connect as a guest, and how to get a permanent character.

To get help about a MUCK, you might try the following commands:

help

(help about basic commands)

globals

(help about additional commands in this MUCK)

news

(info about this specific MUCK)

info

(general server info)

man

(special programming info)

To get a character in a MUCK, there are two basic ways: Many MUCKs ask you to send e-mail to an address specified in the title screen, including your desired character name, a password and possibly some info about yourself. You have to wait until your e-mail has been answered, and then you can login as your character. Some MUCKs allow online character creation: you can ask any of the online wizards to create you a character by paging them your desired name and password. To find out whether a name is already taken, you can trypage name If it reports that no character of that name was found, it is still free.

To leave a MUCK, you can type QUIT. If this doesn't work, there is an emergency exit in telnet: press the telnet-escape key (for example Ctrl-]) and type quit to your telnet program.

There are some problems about telnetting  --  depending on which telnet you use. One might be that, since this is in realtime, what you are typing on the screen may apparently be "interrupted" by incoming data from the MUCK. This can be rather distracting and frustrating. What you will need is a client program such as TinyFugue (for UNIX or Linux), VWMUD (for Windows machines), or Mud Wrestler (for Macintosh). That will give you many more features, such as connecting to several characters or MUCKs at once, saving your sessions to log files, and much more. For more information on how to go about acquiring one, see <URL: http://www.onlineroleplay.com/Text-Based_MUDs/MUD_Clients/ >

Also read the FAQ file of the rec.games.mud.misc newsgroup, where you can also find a lot of information about MU*s in general.

"I connected yesterday, but today it doesn't work!"

Some advice from D.J. Green <nebulosa@shellx.best.com>:

• If you have access to the "ping" utility, make sure you're getting a response back from the machine (furry.com, for FurryMUCK, for example). If you don't, that means that, whether or not the MUCK itself is down, some machine in the net is down. If it is a network problem, as is often the case lately, there's not much that can be done about it from the PoV of the MUCK administrators.
• If the machine does respond to a ping request, wait for a few hours -- preferably even a day or two. If the MUCK does crash, it needs some time to be brought up, and the people who can bring it up aren't necessarily available at all hours, so it may be some time.
• Finally, if you can't log into the MUCK for a significant period of time, but the machine is up, and you post a message [to alt.fan.furry.muck, rec.games.mud.misc or r.g.m.tiny], make sure to say how long the MUCK has been unreachable for you, and when you've been trying; this information will help people tell what the problem was when you asked about it. (Usenet is not instantaneous, as many people seem to believe; it can take hours or even days for a message to propagate, so time-sensitive information should be labeled with the time it refers to.)

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