Intro to MU*ing Event
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Hello! I’m new here, nice to meet you. I finally made a profile because I have an event coming up, and I was hoping for some insight and advice from the broader MU* community.
https://torontogamesweek.com/index.html
Every year, there’s a series of talks, book/game launches, art displays, interactive events, etc., called Toronto Game Week. Next year, June 2026, I’ve been given the opportunity to put on a talk about our hobby, from its earliest 80s MUD days to the current state of field today, exploring it as a hobby, as a videogame, as a piece of computer history, as a community, as a form of art.
I’m still fleshing out what exactly it’s going to look like, so even that brief characterization I just gave might change. That’s what I need your help with!
I’ve been MUSHing on and off for a couple decades, but it’s been strictly WoD games, so my experience is somewhat parochial. I’d like to know more if I’m talking about MU*s in general, so my questions for you are
- Do you know of any resources you could point me at on either the history of MU*s or the general state of the hobby?
- What would you in particular like to see included in such an event? What might you be worried I might miss (especially only being a WoD guy), and what would you want to make sure an audience of non-MU*ers would take away from such a talk? How do you want your corner of the hobby to be represented?
- How the heck do you pronounce “MU*s”, anyway? “Moos”? “Myoo-stars”?
I love MUSHing, and I’m excited to show it off to new people, but I need help if I’m going to really represent the hobby as a whole rather than my own narrow experience of it. So if you have any thoughts at all you’d like to contribute… thanks!
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@Jihgfed said in Intro to MU*ing Event:
How the heck do you pronounce “MU*s”, anyway? “Moos”? “Myoo-stars”?
“MOO” was/possibly still is also a server family, standing for “MUD, Object-Oriented.” So I wouldn’t go with that one, just to minimize the possibility of confusion.
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@Autumn said in Intro to MU*ing Event:
@Jihgfed said in Intro to MU*ing Event:
How the heck do you pronounce “MU*s”, anyway? “Moos”? “Myoo-stars”?
“MOO” was/possibly still is also a server family, standing for “MUD, Object-Oriented.” So I wouldn’t go with that one, just to minimize the possibility of confusion.
Despite the potential ambiguity, “Moos” is still how everyone I know says it out loud, so it’s the correct pronunciation for me.
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@Jihgfed said in Intro to MU*ing Event:
I’ve been given the opportunity to put on a talk about our hobby, from its earliest 80s MUD days to the current state of field today, exploring it as a hobby, as a videogame, as a piece of computer history, as a community, as a form of art.
You might check out these three essays from 50 Years of Text Games, if you aren’t already familiar:
https://if50.substack.com/p/1980-mud
https://if50.substack.com/p/1990-lambdamoo
https://if50.substack.com/p/1997-achaeaHow the heck do you pronounce “MU*s”, anyway? “Moos”?
Yes.
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@Jihgfed That sounds neat. Here’s something I wrote to intro MUSHing to my grad school writing class: MUSH 101. Might give you some ideas.
The main thing I struggled with while writing that was that MUs vary so much. Even among MUSHes, there’s so much variety that it’s hard to describe anything in generalities. When you include MUDs/RPIs, it’s even worse. It may be easier to do a case study example of the specific kind of MU you’re familiar with (like WoD).
The wikipedia MUD article has a good breakdown of the history of the hobby as a whole.
Yes, I also pronounce it “Moo”.
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I think it’s always worth mentioning that there are thriving non-english-speaking MU communities out there as well, operating in languages like Chinese, Spanish, German etc. and some of these are pretty busy even compared to the English-language ones.
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I tried to get “em-you” going as a pronunciation, but these days it’s like a cow’s opinion. It’s a moo point.
As for things to see included, I would probably want to see something describing the… egalitarian nature of the hobby. Sure we have work to do, as all sectors of humanity do, but it’s a fairly accessible hobby to people of basically any slice of humanity you’d care to identify. LGBTQIA++? Absolutely. Disabled folks? Definitely. Culturally and linguistically diverse communities? Absolutely, though most MUs do require an elementary level of English literacy. Basically every slice of humanity can find a place here without too much of an issue.
