Talk:MUD client

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Contents 1 History 2 Fatest Client 3 Freeware is not Free Software or Open Source 4 "Fastest Client" 5 Mud Client Support Table 6 Most Popular Clients?

[edit] History

"wintin isn't really notable enough, the other clients noted in History are/were either first of their kinds, or very widely used. Feel free to prove me wrong" -well missing two points 1. It is notable that there are free/open source MUD clients for Windows. 2. The fact the zMud is the last entry makes the whole thing sound like an advert for zMUD. Maybe the whole thing should be re-done on features rather than programs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.36.234.10 (talk • contribs).

1 is taken care of by the large listing at the bottom of the article.

2 is due to the fact that that is the "History" section and there hasn't really been any overly notable client releases since. Perhaps Portal, but even that is very debateable.

At any rate, WinTin is a nice enough client, but it's not all that notable. The link you have in the listing section is more than enough in my eyes.

--Phorteetoo 04:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fatest Client

Zmud the fastest client? That has yet to be proved. I'm going to remove that. See this link: http://www.gammon.com.au/mushclient/benchmarks.htm

[edit] Freeware is not Free Software or Open Source

It's not, and this is why.

All the clients in the Freeware list are released under the GNU General Public License so I'm changing the title of that section to Free Software.

[edit] "Fastest Client"

e? What exactly? I keep seeing that term being used. It's vague. What exactly does that mean? Fastest response time to and from the server? Dispalys text the fastest? Logs on fastest? Program is the fastest locally on the users machine because it doesn't have bloated cod 24.125.75.83 01:05, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

There were many tests such as raw speed, colours, colours in a proportional font, Non-matching triggers, and more. [1] --Zeno McDohl 04:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Those tests are bogus, say very little about performance under real conditions, are hard to reproduce, and are 3 years old. These tests were also conducted by the authors of the clients themselves and not by a third party. Another issue is that mushclient doesn't support the full VT100 protocol which would give it a speed advantage compared to Zmud, which does.

For fun I tried to reproduce the test with TinTin++ running in an rxvt terminal on Cygwin. It was completing test 4 (parsing high.txt with matching triggers) in 0.42 seconds using a 1700 mghz cpu running windows xp. So much for these clients being fast.

Besides, speed is of almost zero importance when data is generally send and parsed every 0.25 seconds with a max data size of 5KB. It's great for advertising a commercial program of course. --217.19.28.128 11:31, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

On Cygwin? That's a linux emulator, what does it have to do with the fastest Windows client? Anyways, if I think about it, do we really need to claim what is the fastest client on Wikipedia? We aren't trying to advertise the clients. I'm going to remove the "fastest Windows client" statement I made. --Zeno McDohl 16:21, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mud Client Support Table

I added some initial tables, one for the OS, second one for server/client protocols, and maybe someone feels like adding a 3rd table with scripting capabilities. I'd suggest listing clients in alphabetic order and leaving a field blank if you have no idea.

While in theory every client can be run on every platform, it's probably best to only list the platforms the client developer provides working binaries/installers/builds for. --Scandum 13:56, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Most Popular Clients?

'Two of the most popular clients for Microsoft Windows are zMUD and Portal, both of which are commercial programs.'

zMUD is undoubtably the most popular MU* client, but Portal? I spend a lot of time on MUDs, and Portal is one of those fringe clients I occasionally run across. I'd nominate MUSHclient (but, being an avid MC user, I am probably biased), or Ashvar's Legacy (AL) for the runner up spot, but since zMUD is so dominant is a second mention justified? If there's no response to this within the next week or so, I'll go ahead and change it to 'The most popular client for Microsoft Windows is zMUD, which is a commercial program.'

Yes, zMUD should be up there in the most popular. I've never even heard of AL. I agree with Portal not being that popular. What about GMud? For it's free use, simple program, and small size, I think it's pretty popular. And yeah, I'm also a MC user, but I can't say it's the most popular. --Zeno McDohl 03:30, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of GMud, I see the link in the article is pointing to a somewhat unknown server and not to the client the vast majority of mudders know as GMud... but I'm honestly unsure of where to point it other than a direct download link. Anyone know if there is even an official page? -Phorteetoo 19:56, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

GMud hasn't had an offical page for years, if at all. If you need a download link, I'm sure I could find one. --Zeno McDohl 22:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm a little confused about the GMud naming. I know of two different clients that can be referred to as GMud: *GMud, a low end Windows client, and *gMUDix, a Gnome/Windows client. Not sure about features on that one, as I've never used it. As for its popularity, I wouldn't say that it (Windows-only GMud, that is) is popular, but that could be because the MUD I play requires either obscene reflexes or a powerful client - having both does help though :).

Err, no, G-MUD is not the Gmud was talking about. This is what I am talking about. [2] --Zeno McDohl

And a few months later I remember this discussion. Oops. Anyways, dug up the readme from GMud and it lists [3] as the official place to get it. It has a few others, but GMud is there... but due to it being an FTP repository, I suppose it'd need to be a direct download link to the client (gmd3219b.zip). I think GMud should be represented on the list, as it is fairly popular, but am unsure about the wiki-etiquette for direct download FTP links. Any thoughts? -Phorteetoo 09:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. --Zeno McDohl 13:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

It's also just occured to me that we should probably list the most popular Mac clients, and the most popular *nix clients as well. I believe Rapscallion to be the most commonly used client on the Mac, but what about *nix? I know a lot of people using Tinyfugue, a few people using Xpertmud, one or two using MC with Wine, but does Tintin++ still have a big enough following to take this spot?

In fact why even bother to list popular clients? A full list of all clients should be fine. We don't need to bother with finding out which ones are popular. --Zeno McDohl 16:21, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

TinTin++ has the most derivatives with Zmud still using chunks of tintin code, conceptual it's the most popular client like diku is the most popular server. While tintin was once the most used *nix client it took quite a fall when development stalled and the website went down for half a decade. Regarding Zmud, I'd rather see something about Zmud's history than a mention it's the most popular client. --Scandum 11:01, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me - a paragraph about zMUD, mentioning its Tintin Windows port heritage and mentioning somewhere about the usage is perfectly encyclopaedic and relevant.

So, how does this sound? NB: I hate this wiki markup.

Following on from Tintin's success, Mike Potter (also known as Zugg) was keen to produce a Windows port of the client. In 1995, zMUD reaced v1.0 and began to be distributed. Initially, it was licensed as freeware, but Zugg realised that he could make a profit from sales of the client, and thus Zugg Software was formed, selling zMUD v4.0 as shareware. After this commercial release, zMUD quickly escalated into the most commonly used commercial MUD client, and occupies this position today.

Sam Pointon 10:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)