I'm looking to start a simple web browser based MUD genre game. I have a highly rudimentary knowledge of coding, however I have never worked on anything for browsers. I was hoping some more knowledgeable members could assist in pointing me in the right direction for any reading materials I should be looking for. Something to give me a foundation on which to start from would be a huge boon. Thank you in advance and thank you for your time.

Programming for the web is similar enough to programming stand-alone applications, with a few twists.

As with anything you're going to want to pick a language, get the fundamentals down and then start with a few *small* projects to get your feet wet.

I'm not much of a web-developer, but html5 would be my choice for a beginner:

step 1)

learn html5

step 2)

know how the web works

step 3)

make games

step 4)

???

step 5)

profit!

Try HTML5 + JavaScript + WebGL

HTML5 as your container (the canvas element in particular), JavaScript as a language, WebGL as an API.

I have been working with this combination for a little while (link for it below). The example below looks 2D but it's technically 3D...just no depth to it right now. You are welcome to look at/tear it apart. It is a proof of concept for drawing quads, manipulating geometry on interval, texture handling, rendering on interval and picking...

https://googledrive.com/host/0B-5oLVOzxNXQS0JqZjkzWHBRMVU/experiment_webdeploy.html

It is kind of a bastard of ideas from these sources...

https://sites.google.com/site/webglbook/

http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?page_id=1217

http://greggman.github.io/webgl-fundamentals/webgl/lessons/webgl-2-textures.html