codebase
PennMUSH
The most widely deployed MUSH server. Softcode, a long release history, and one of only two codebases in our survey that answer both MSSP and a pre-login WHO.
Games running it
34 listed · 0 archived · measured, not declared
Counted from the catalogue on this request, over the same filter the link above carries — so this number and that listing are one query and cannot drift apart.
offered in their handshakes: CHARSET, MSSP, UTF-8, MXP
PennMUSH descends from TinyMUSH by way of a 1991 fork, and it is the server most long-running roleplay MUSHes run. Its defining feature is softcode: a functional expression language, edited from inside the game by anyone with the right bit set, in which a large fraction of any given MUSH's behaviour is written. A PennMUSH game is not so much configured as programmed by its players.
Versions read as 1.8.8p0 — a major, a minor and a patchlevel — and the patchlevel moves often.
Games frequently run a version several patchlevels behind, which is unremarkable.
What it looks like from outside
PennMUSH is one of only two codebases in our own 38-server survey that answered both routes we
probe. It offers MSSP when asked, and it answers a WHO typed at the login screen, and on the game
we measured the two agreed — which is rarer than it sounds, and made PennMUSH the control we tested
other servers against.
The pre-login WHO matters beyond convenience: it is how the MUSH family publishes a player count
at all, since most of the rest of the family offers no MSSP whatsoever. See
MSSP for why that split is the reason this site probes four layers
rather than one.
CHARSET negotiation is normal on modern PennMUSH, which is why accented names survive the trip.
Related servers
PennMUSH, TinyMUX, RhostMUSH and CobraMUSH are four servers with a common ancestor and a shared vocabulary — a builder who knows one can read another's softcode with effort. They are not compatible: a database does not move between them without a conversion, and function libraries differ in ways that matter.
SharpMUSH
A .NET reimplementation aiming at PennMUSH compatibility is in development, by the same author as this site. Nothing on this page is measured from it, and it has no games in the catalogue.
See also
- TinyMUX The other big MUSH server. Softcode close enough to PennMUSH's to argue about, no MSSP at all, and a pre-login WHO that works.
- RhostMUSH A MUSH server known for a deep permissions model and a large built-in function set. No MSSP; answers a pre-login WHO.
- CobraMUSH A PennMUSH fork with its own division and power model. Small deployment, still answering.
- MUSH, MUD, MUCK, MOO — what the words mean Four words for four traditions, none of which is a genre. What they actually tell you.
- MSSP The Mud Server Status Protocol — how a game tells a crawler about itself. Everything it reports is declared, not measured, and this site keeps the two apart.