A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ?

i

1. verb⁰ Abbreviation for the 'inventory' command. It is not the abbreviation for 'in', which is considered quite short enough already.

2. first person singular nominative noun The same as 'I' in English except written in lower case to save messing about with shift keys.

I CAN HEAR!

exclamation The traditional thing to say to someone if they start talking in capitals, eg. they catch the caps lock and don't notice.

iconner

noun The individual who is tackling the golem for the icons. See med.

ie

suffix See hedgie, y.

illegal

adjective An act is illegal if it is something which the game management has decreed is illegal. For mortals, most things that might be considered naturally illegal are stopped by the game itself, eg. giving large numbers of points to other personae by kissing up. For wizzes, the game doesn't usually intervene, and actions are only illegal if the wiz has deliberately flouted the tenets of the GWG. In practice, the number of things which are illegal is usually very low, as stiflingly rigid game managementcan snuff out anyone exhibiting that spark, leading to a game full of plodders. However, most MUAs worth their salt will ban bullying, looby looing, pslamming and perhaps multi-lining.

imbalance

noun The opposite of balance.

impure

adjective The opposite of pure, applied to a real or proposed version of MUD (1) which incorporates changes that run counter to ideals held dear by whoever is making the comment. the game "will never be the same again"/"will be abandoned by all its players"/"will become a laughing stock" if the proposed changes are made. Although some wizzes may point the finger of impureness because they simply don't like the idea that future players might find life easier than they did as a mortal, the real die-hards have an almost doctrinal attitude which they defend with all the logical vigour of a dedicated flat-Earther. Typical examples of things deemed impure at one time or another are the introduction of PPs, the removal of berserkers, the very notion of blanks, and increasing the amount of surface T available. Only unusually do wetter players cry impure to demonstrate their compassion for lesser beings, arguing that changes should not be imposed because they'd make the game too difficult ("No-one will ever make wiz if you raise the points needed from 76,800 to 102,400."...); pureness in MUD is a weapon of conservative forces rather than liberal ones.

IMPCG

noun Abbreviation for 'interactive, multi-player computer game'. What BT call MUAs.

inactive

noun The opposite of active (2).

inbalance

noun The opposite of balance preferred by people who can't spell.

incarnation

noun An instantiation of a MUA on a particular machine or system. Although the programming is the same, the players and game management can be widely different. For example, CompuNet MUD and Essex MUD were both incarnations of MUD version 3A, but they evoked greatly different atmospheres.

incognito

adjective A wiz masquerading as a mortal so as not to be bothered is said to be incognito. The wiz may be debugging, or might just want some relief from the pressure of being a wiz. An incognito persona is usually a small, scratch persona that the wiz doesn't mind if it gets killed. Sometimes, it may be known that an incognito persona is being played by a player who has made wiz on some other persona, but not which such wiz it is; many wiz killers are of this variety. See undercover, EKW.

inconsistent

1. adjective What arises when the game treats differently commands that ought to behave the same way. This can be the result of simple omission ("The man can drink potions but the thief can't"), over-generalisation ("If you attack one snake they all get a vendetta against you") or selective depth ("I can make a model of the Eiffel Tower out of these matchsticks but it won't let me do Notre Dame"). The first two are normally buglets, the third is more of a feature (3).

2. adjective Not the way the real world would do it. "I find it inconsistent that you die when you blow yourself up. You should just lose stamina". The pedant's version of unrealistic.

in-for-me

adjective Said of a player who is attempting to accrue a reputation. Such people will tend to do things with one persona and try and spread their fame using other personae that they think are secret. In case you're too dim to have noticed, the term comes from a miserable pun on 'infamy'. Q: "Jack just told me he's done a Ned - what's that?" A: "Ignore it, it's just in-for-me". Sometimes shortened to informe or (strangely) informy.

in place

adjective An object is in place if it is located in the same room as it normally starts a reset. Q: "Wh boats?" A: "Raft and dinghy in place".

input

1. noun What you type at your FE. It may or may not be parsable into a command. See output (1).

2. verb¹ The act of creating input (1). "You should input your name when it asks you". See output (2).

instrument

noun In grammatical terms, the 'indirect object' of a sentence. In MUAs, the basic form of a sentence is <verb> <noun> <preposition> <noun>, and therefore the second <noun> is the instrument. The first <noun> is the object (5). See command (2).

internal

noun Someone who plays a MUA by connecting directly to the HOST as opposed to using a comms network. This term is now largely obsolete. Compare external.

interpreter

noun The part of the MUD system which executes commands in the context of the current world model (commands are also said to be 'interpreted', which is basically synonymous with 'executed' here). Commands arrive non-deterministically from FEs, and are queued up on arrival. They are taken in turn, processed in full, and the results passed back to the FEs for the attention of the players. The manner in which a (MUD2) command is processed is defined in MUDDLE, but essentially it is first passed through a binder to tie the nouns to objects, then actually executed, and then output streams are examined and text despatched as necessary. NB: this describes the operation of MUD2's interpreter, which is synchronous; MUD1 uses a synchronous approach, fusing the FE and interpreter into a single program and employing a system of signals and waits to guarantee single-user access to critical areas of memory. The use of the word interpreter comes from the fact that the program interprets intermediate code derived from the definition language rather than executing a compiled version directly. However, as it can also be seen to 'interpret' the language of commands, the term can be applied to all such programs whether they interpret the definition language or not. The interpreter is also sometimes known as the driver (1). See c (2).

invis

adjective Synonym of 'invisible'. If someone says "I'm going invis" it means they won't be on the 'qw' list for a while, but they'll still be around. See vis.

inviso

noun BL slang for an invis persona, usually implying a mortal.

It's just a game!

exclamation A fanatical belief held by evangelising heretics which insists that MUD is nothing more than a mere game, and that players should not get over-emotional about what happens in it. There is little controversial about the assertion that MUD is a game (although it's polite not to draw attention to the fact); the really contentious issue is the suggestion that it's 'just' a game. It's far, far more than that! Adherents of the It's just a game! principle have clearly had some awful experience early in their MUDding career, and it has damaged what few brains they had in the first place. See real world.