Sound & Music with MSP

How MUDBasher plays server-triggered sounds and music, and what to check when it doesn't.

MSP — the MUD Sound Protocol — lets a MUD tell your client to play a sound effect or a piece of music: a sword clash when combat starts, ambient music when you enter a zone. MUDBasher supports MSP on both direct and proxy connections, with per-world settings, automatic downloading, and on-device caching.

Turning MSP On

MSP is a per-world setting. Edit a world and find the MSP (MUD Sound Protocol) section:

• Enable MSP — the master switch for that world. New worlds have it on by default.
• Sound Effects volume and Music volume — independent sliders from 0 to 100%, both starting at 100%.
• Clear Sound Cache — deletes every sound this world has downloaded; the button shows how much space the cache is using.

Saving the form applies your changes to a connected session as well — MUDBasher renegotiates MSP with the server on the spot. If sounds still don't start after enabling it mid-session, disconnect and reconnect once so the negotiation happens fresh.

What Automatic Negotiation Looks Like

When MSP is enabled, MUDBasher does two things over the telnet connection: it advertises that the client can play sounds, and it asks the server to start sending them. Servers that support MSP typically switch it on automatically as soon as they see a capable client — you don't have to type anything.

From then on, the server embeds sound instructions in its output. You never see them: MUDBasher strips the !!SOUND(...) and !!MUSIC(...) tags out of the text before it reaches your terminal (and before VoiceOver reads it), and plays the audio instead. This works the same on a direct connection and on a proxy connection.

Download, Cache & Playback

The first time a sound is triggered, the server's tag tells MUDBasher where to fetch the file. It is downloaded, checked to make sure it is actually playable audio, and stored in a per-world cache on your device — so the first play of a new sound can lag by a moment, and every play after that is instant and uses no data.

• Up to eight sound effects can play at the same time, layered over one another.
• Music plays as its own stream, and switching tracks crossfades rather than cutting hard.
• Sound effects and music follow their own volume sliders, so you can keep combat sounds loud and background music quiet.
• Files that fail the audio check are not cached, and the download is retried the next time the sound is triggered.

Alter Aeon

Alter Aeon is the MUD our users play with MSP the most, and it enables MSP automatically when it detects a capable client. With Enable MSP switched on for your Alter Aeon world, sounds should simply start after you connect — no server-side commands needed.

Troubleshooting

• You see raw !!SOUND(...) text in the output. The server is sending MSP but the app isn't consuming it. Check that Enable MSP is on for this world, then reconnect. If it persists, make sure you are on MUDBasher 3.1 or later.
• No sounds at all. Check the world's Sound Effects and Music sliders aren't at 0%, and check your device volume. Then reconnect so negotiation runs fresh.
• Sounds worked, then stopped. Try Clear Sound Cache in the world's MSP settings — a bad cached file is re-downloaded on the next trigger — then reconnect.
• A specific sound never plays. The server must supply a downloadable location for each sound file. If a sound's file is missing on the server side or isn't valid audio, MUDBasher skips it silently rather than interrupting your session.
• Sounds on one world but not another. MSP is per-world: the switch, the volumes, and the cache are all separate for each world in your list.

Still stuck? Get in touch via the support page and tell us which MUD you're connecting to and whether you use a direct or proxy connection.