This is an archive of the network protocols that The Last Outpost DikuMUD and other MU*'s typically make use of when a client connects to the game. If you are writing your own game client for use with LO, or if you are trying to add a feature to your own MUD or MU* game server and want to see the standards that games typically use, these documents should be of use to you!
The RFC Series documents are available at https://www.rfc-editor.org/, and are a great resource for learning about Internetworking protocols.
The Mudhalla source documents are located at https://tintin.mudhalla.net/protocols/.
These protocols are used by The Last Outpost MUD and the LociTerm MUD client.
Telnet is the base protocol used by all MU* type games and MU* clients. Many feel that Telnet is what separates the MU*'s from other text games! Telnet and its sub-protocols are described in IETF RFC Documents. RFC's can sometimes be a challenge to read and interpret correctly today, due in part due to their age. The first Telnet RFC's were written in the early 1980's, when the computing and networking world was very different from how it is today. There is good summary of the protocol, written in a more up to date late 1990's context, to be found in Chapter 3 of "Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia".
For an in-depth explanation of current ECHO/SGA practices, see:
Generic Mud Communication Protocol is a Telnet extension used to send out-of-band JSON formatted data to custom MUD client implementations. It is implemented as a Telnet option, and defines a standard way to indicate support and version information for different GMCP modules.
GMCP has a small number built-in modules that are considered part of the core GMCP functionality and are well documented. Other modules are considered game specific extensions, and are documented by the module authors (if at all.) As such, there is no canonical standard documentation for most GMCP modules. The information is divided up among many sources, some of which are listed here.
Game Scry Game Protocol is a standardized JSON structure which you can make available for GameScry or other sites to ping for real-time data about a game. It can be used for sharing leaderboard data.
These protocols aren't used by LO, but are archived here for completeness.
ANSI Terminal escape sequences are the most common way to set text attributes like color in terminals and MUD clients. They were standardized by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), a United Nations Specialized Agency in the field of telecommunications.
