How Nass and crew came to WoTMUD Decon Joined: Aug 09, 2000 From: The Military Industrial Complex Posted: 2003-02-12 14:33 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't really know the full story...hoping this topic will convince them to give us a detailed story of MUME and their decision. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wander Joined: Apr 25, 2001 Posted: 2003-02-12 14:42 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nass put his career here up once. Something bout him being the only mort on or something. And asking Sayuja out on a date or something like that... Maybe it was Eileen? Well which ever, we all know Nass is the playa out of all the Imms [ This Mail was edited by: Wander on 2003-02-12 14:43 ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaiz Joined: Dec 21, 2000 From: Cleveland, Ohio Posted: 2003-02-12 14:46 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the beginning there was nothingness. And those that had existed forever, from previous ages, from ages yet to come... Those we know as immortals..... were bored. The decided to build a world, a world of myth and fantasy, a world neither belonging in the past or future, a world completely parallel to their own. So they bought a server, and coded one up.. It went something like that... with a few minor details omitted. But you get the gist of it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sartoc Joined: Jul 24, 2001 Posted: 2003-02-12 15:11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interview with the Administrators 1. Describe the backgrounds of the WoT administration. What muds did you play before starting WoT, what led you to start your own mud? WoT MUD has four implementors: Flash, Mournblade, Ingtar, and Zun. Flash and Mournblade: In 1993 The Wheel of Time MUD's two initial founders, Mournblade and Flash, were both undergraduate students at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Flash (Bill) was a computer science major, Mournblade (Erik) was a political science major. We actually met on the JHU tennis team where we were doubles partners. Erik introduced me to MUDding sometime in my third year. I found it fascinating, as it was a competitive expansion of the original Adventure and Zork/Infocom games I and sooooo very many others had played many years ago. The excitement of playing games like these was one of the major reasons I became a CS major. Erik had played a few different MUDs but eventually came to play one more than any other. That location became my first (and only) MUD home as well. This MUD is still open and is called MUME. MUME had a great theme, great world, and great features. We both probably did far too much MUDding and far too little studying once we became very involved. After quite some time with that as our home we decided to move on and create our own work of art. Although we liked the theme of our old MUD home, we definitely wanted to find an \"original\" theme if at all possible. While considering our options, an immortal of the MUD we currently played pointed me to The Wheel of Time books which I instantly found very appealing. I referred Mournblade to the books. Since he liked them as well we immediately began work on a new MUD of our own!. Ingtar: Interestingly enough the name of that immortal who pointed us to the series was \"Ingtar\", a name I didn't attach any significance to until I actually read the books myself! Ingtar at one point planned to do major work on the MUD and had even begun working on it, but for various reasons his time became less and less available due to school, real job, etc. He is still an Implementor, although the title is pretty much honorary at this point. Zun: Zun was also a player we knew from that same MUD who, during our dark (homeless/hostless) times allowed us to run on his server \"foop\". As it turned out he was also an extremely qualified programmer with an interest in both bug fixing and improving our MUD. He's been with us almost from the beginning and has been an invaluable member of the team. The MUD would definitely be a completely different and less mature place than it is now without his participation. Kilvarnan and Mandarb (Pseudo-Imps): Although we've had quite a number of builders, immortals, and players in our time, few (if any) have put in the sheer number of hours, quality of work, or exhibited the dedication of these two individuals. With us from soon after our opening, they came up through the ranks and impressed the heck out of us. We have given them the highest possible compliment by appointing them to where they are now. They have full authority to speak for the \"management of the game\" and we have such great trust in what they say and how they say it that we fully support them speaking in our place. For avid MUDders, you all know what level of trust the owners of the game must have to feel comfortable doing that Definitely deserving honorable mention are Nassau, Sayuja, Doyn, Elajh, Baledon, and the long, long, long lost Chris and Fade. 2. The WoT website is beautifully done, not only pleasant to look at but with excellent navigability and tons of info available. How has your website helped new players with WoT? Have you noticed a speedier learning curve because of the info available on your website? Our web content was written by multiple people, but overall the current website (and definitely much of the content) must be credited to one individual, an immortal named Nassau. Gifted with the determination to learn and write HTML, he set out on the task of completely revamping our old pages into the form you see today. We've gotten a lot of compliments and positive feedback on both the presentation and amount of useful information that can be found on the site. Knowledgeable players definitely enjoy reading the pages, but the biggest beneficiary has surely been the newbies to our MUD, and moreover, the newbies to MUDding in general. People who have never had a taste of MUDding or any good old fashioned Infocom text adventure can really obtain a good understanding of what goes on in these virutal worlds. We know this because the pages generate a LOT of emails from people who clearly have never done anything on the Internet except type URLs into web browsers, or play Doom with their friends. They've never heard of IRC let alone MUDs! The only Internet world they're familiar with is AOL chat rooms! Another benefit of the website is that when new players ask a FAQ type or newbie question, the player base as a whole knows to refer the person to the web pages, and they don't have to explain it time after time. The new player can help themselves and learn a lot about how the game works before they even create a character. 3. Describe the roleplaying atmosphere of WoT. Is roleplaying required of your players? How was the mud designed to aid in roleplaying? Like Hack-And-Slash and PK, RP is available but is not required of anyone. There are certain advantages of RP, such as a trolloc player showing enough skills to the powers of the Shadow that he is rewarded by being remade into a powerful myrddraal, or someone becoming a clan master and becoming entitled to special armor, weapons, etc. The RP system is now dealt with through what we refer to as 'autoquests', as well as player and immortal guidance. Using a new technique developed by Zun, an implementor here, called MOBOL (MOB Operating Language), players can go up to their mob leaders (a MOB is designated for each clan) and ask them to 'issue quest'. The mob will respond with a list of available quests, which we try to update frequently. Best of all this new system allows instant rewards! When you turn in the items or solve the puzzles of your quests, the mob leader is programmed to reward you with quest points (qp) which can be used to purchase special clan equipment or raise your clan level. If you work hard enough, you may become a clan 'master', someone who has reached clan level 7 or above. Such players receive special bonuses such as their own 'Master weapon' or armor, and are allowed to lead clan mobiles on their adventures! The RP system is overseen by the god clan, Watchers, which currently consists of Mournblade, Doyn, Elajh, and myself. We are often available to control your mob leaders and interact with you one on one in a 'live RP' session should you have a special situation. This is only the tip of the iceberg as far as RP as concerned (as we also currently have 2 HUGE worldwide quests going on), but you're going to have to log on and play to find out the rest, won't you? 4. Does the mud stick closely to the world created by Robert Jordan? Where does the mud tend to stray? We try very hard to stay as true to the books as possible, but we will definitely sacrifice book or real life \"realism\" for sake of playability. Sometimes it is not so clear where to draw the line, or how to implement something from the books in a computer game. In fact quite often it may not even be fair to do so. We constantly tweak some of the game equations and mechanics based on how our last is doing over a period of time, and on how both the Light and Dark sides of the MUD feel. Not surprisingly, the MUD tends to stray in some areas. It's quite difficult to be follow any book or movie to the letter without making some sacrifices. Mobile handled justice is not quite where it needs to be for instance. Both the mobile forces of the Light and Dark are not yet smart enough to act the way they need to. It is a bit too easy for the forces of the Dark to invade Caemlyn or the forces of the Light to walk through the blight. The only real driving force of which side will win is the PCs involved. As we strive to improve our MOBOL system (online interpreted command language for programming the mobs) hopefully this will be taken care of. We would also like to use this system to replace the hard C code used for the smarts of some of the other puzzles, quests, and super mobs throughout the game. When you have many online imms coding MOBOL, it will invariably be more creative than what a few implementors can do when they're not busy coding more critical game functions... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What the players are saying Sayuja: I began playing The Wheel of Time MUD almost two years ago as a novice to the world of mudding. I chose WoT because the fantasy series by Robert Jordan is my favorite in the genre. I was immediately drawn into the virtual world, made so much like the books I enjoy. After trying several other muds since, I appreciate even more the attention to detail that was put into the creation of WoT. While many muds are basically cut from the same cloth, WoT is completely unique and custom designed and coded. The cities, people and perils that the major characters in the books encounter all exist in WoT mud; from Bran al'Vere in Emonds field to Shadar Haran in Thakan'dar. As a player, you can role play and explore, or partake in the never-ending battle of the Light vs. the Dark. Human and Trolloc encounters are frequent and make for some very exciting game play. And of course, as in the books, there are the political and agenda conflicts among the various clans - Whitecloaks, Aes Sedai, Borderguard and Dragonsworn to name just a few. Automated quests and role play also add to the enjoyment of playing while allowing players advance in level within their chosen clan. I began contributing to the Wheel of Time Mud as a builder almost a year ago, my first assignment was to create a stedding almost completely swallowed by the surrounding blight. I enjoy being a part of the behind-the-scene work that makes the game enjoyable. As an immortal, I continue to help expand the world and keep it new and exciting for the players. But, I still like to play on the mud, basically because it's FUN Baledon: One of the things most of the players, and I myself, find most intriguing about WoTMUD is the wide character diversity allowed and encourged by the staff and the code. Although only 4 character classes (warrior, ranger, thief, channeler) seems quite limiting, the way practices are set up lets the player have 100 different characters and each one quite different. If you want, you can be a warrior trained in many art forms, a ranger learned in the way of the forests, able to sneak and camouflague yourself, a thief bred for murder with a powerful backstab. But if you are looking for diversity, the code lets you become a ranger who can use backstab as well as any thief, or a warrior more at home in the forests than in any battleground. But one of the main things which allows such diversity is the balance between RP (roleplaying) and PK (playerkilling). Both are allowed here at WoTMUD, and are set up so both might benefit from each other. The PK aspect allows you to breed a warrior who can use 3 or 4 weapon classes and has all the classic warrior skills needed to be successful in PK. PK is completly volunarty, and you do not have to participate if you do not wish to (you can always just go away from where the fights are), but if you are itchin' for some killing and destruction, it is readily available, and in fact, the entire Trolloc race is pure bred for PK! But if you are more of the social type who doesn't take pleasure in the death of others, no worry, the RP system is up and running and better than ever! Currently, WoTMUD has 27 human and trolloc clans open and ready for new members. RP, much like PK, is completly voluntary, and you are in no way obligated to participate. But we ask that if you do choose to RP, you must follow certain guidelines and act In Character (IC) as much as possible. And just like the practice system allows for unending diversity, so does the clan system. If you wish to RP, humans is the way to go, as they have the most clans and the most diversity. If you are the law abiding type, you can try to find a place in the Lion Wardens and defend the city of Caemlyn! Family killed by Trollocs? No problem! Get back at them by joining the Borderguard and defend Tarwin's Gap from Shadowspawned invasions. If you are a bit on the darker side, there's a place for you too. Like to steal and pilage? Be a bandit and join the Iron Fist, a clan for manly men who like to drink, gamble, carouse, and plunder. Are you a thief who thinks you got what it takes to be a master assassin? Join the exclusive and elusive Black Talon, a clan where the best and strongest thieves band together to strut thier stuff. You just find out you have the ability to channel and your family kicked you out? Join the White Tower and start on your journey to being a full fledged Aes Sedai! If you are a trolloc, we do have some clans available to you too. You can be a Ko'bal, Dha'vol, or Dhai'mon. Be warned though, trollocs are for experienced players and 95% focused on PK, so there is not a great deal of RP assosciated with them, but it adds an extra spice. Farran/Elajh: I started playing Wheel of Time MUD a little more than a year and a half ago. I had never before played on a MUD or any other MU*. I found it by the direction of a post on rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan. It was mostly out of curiosity about what being part of the WoT world would be like. I guess the closest thing to a MUD I had ever experienced was playing Zork and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The interface was vaguely familiar from those games, and with the use of helpfiles and advice from players I dove right in. I still play the first character I began then, though I have a number of others whom I have developed since. I think the thing that I like most about WoT MUD is how it provides a world that is remarkably true to the books written by Robert Jordan. I am addicted to the books, and WoT MUD gives me a pretty good fix while I await the next installment in the series. The zones in WoT MUD are written with great attention to the world of Robert Jordan. The Randland we all know and love comes alive on WoT MUD. Aside from the wonderful world that has been created on WoT MUD, it is also a great game. I have appreciated the hack and slash, the player killing, the exploring, the socializing, the role-playing. WoT MUD offers a little of something for everyone, and for me personally, it offers quite a lot. Additions are constantly being made in order to expand and improve the playing atmosphere. The management strives to make a place that will be enjoyed by all, and they succeed remarkably well. It is hard to satisfy everyone, but they do their best to make as many people as possible happy. Considering the increases in the player base recently, I'd say that a lot of folks agree with me. Doyn: In the past, I have tested and checked many muds. However Wheel of Time MUD is the only mud that I have stuck with and play it almost exclusively now. I first came to the mud as a player in September 1998. Having been an avid fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time book series, I was immediately caught up by the fantasic world that so closely resembled that of the books. That is probably the main reason I have stuck with WOT MUD, for they do not attempt to cross-over into other book series or authors. I worked my way through the levels and the clanning system, learning the quirks and guidelines of the game and found that I could not compare it to other systems. From that point on I have gone through multiple characters and clans, seeing the mud from all sides. Since the mud encourages all forms of players to compete, from the role player to the player killer, I felt that I could contribute my knowledge and skills to the staff that runs WOT MUD. At that point I was privledged to be appointed to the RP staff of the mud. I must say that RP has come a long way from where it once was. Vast improvements in the clanning system and clanning guidelines, now allow the player to choose their poison. This choice of clans is what makes the game fun. Character development can go a long way here, and that is what I hope to achieve in old and new characters. I try my best to make the mud fun for all who play, despite their playing style. I guess that is why I enjoy my position as a RP immortal, because be able to challenge the players is enjoyable as well as a challenge for me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goliath Joined: Jun 14, 1997 Posted: 2003-02-12 15:59 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it bad when your character is older then everyone but the IMPs? Goliath - bets he has less days played then you -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Langois Joined: Jan 11, 2002 From: Peterborough Ontario Posted: 2003-02-12 16:59 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- nass posted his story. _______________ Me, on me. Nass Staff Joined: Nov 22, 1998 From: uk Posted: 2002-01-23 18:13 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well it's 10.30 pm where I am, which is a small village called Holmbury St.Mary, about an hour south of London, England, and I'm sitting staring at the blank formbox which I'm supposed to fill in about myself. It is raining like hell, and I have a hangover of apocalyptic proportions following my wife's birthday party that I threw last night. Next to me is a laptop, connected to the computer that I'm typing this into: I'm transferring all the wotmud www stuff onto there to give me something to do during the exceedingly dreary and unproductive hourly commute into and out of London, where I work. It all started for me back in 1994, the year that I was just finishing off my Masters Degree from St Andrews University, Scotland (the place Price Harry AND believe it or not, 'Braak' both attend). I remember a guy called 'Ben' hunched over a Unix terminal utterly absorbed in what he was doing. I was curious, myself and a guy called 'Andy' had a shot at it (who is, I believe, still an immortal over at MUME now), and I promptly died to the MUME equivalent of a little deer. Well after that we were both pretty hooked, by day I'd be finishing off my 'International Relations' thesis and by night I'd be killing boars. In case you're unfamiliar with what 'International Relations' is, it's the study of international politics: strategic matters and the ilk. My speciality was terrorism under Paul Wilkinson, hence afterwards I went to work at Jane's Information Group editing their books for them. I did both a degree and a masters in this after coming back to the UK from the USA, where I had a 'work scholarship' in photography at a place called the Academy of Art College, San Francisco. Yes, I'm a bit of a mixture So anyway, during this time at MUME (a most excellent middle-earth based mud) I hear of a guy called Flash who is setting up a mud here. I can't remember who it was, but I remember back then I was a real nutcase type player who did all sorts of silly things like run around the misties as a level 15, pk at the ford, 'take on' the notorious pkillers like Barsk, so I guess I met the right people and one of them told me to log on here. So I did, and I was promptly made an immortal on the spot. Skipping a year, I get www access again at work after losing it in the post-graduation period, look up mume on the web, and, I don't know how, but somehow manage to log onto a place called the 'Wheel of Time', or foop as it may have been known then. Although my immortal had, by that time been deleted, amazed at this discovery I talk to a few of the people online, and incredibly, I see some familiar names there like Mournblade, Kilvarnan and so on. At this point, Flash took the mud offline for a while. I think that he wasn't at all sure about putting it back up, mainly because we had so few people playing. Yes folks, 10 was a huge day back then . Now I remember pestering and pestering Flash for an immortal again, and when the mud finally came back up and he gave me one I was thrilled. Since that day I've really been involved with just about every department here. One of the most useful things that I've done for the mud was to basically take PR out of MB's hands - he wasn't really into it, it wasn't really happening so I thought I'd give it a shot. Well I started by doing the usenet thing, clashing with some guy from 'Moment in Tyme' who just couldn't stomach the fact that actually, this mud *was* the oldest wotmud around. This spurred me on, and being the type of guy that I am, I decided that the web was the future so I'd better teach myself html as a website would get some people here. I did, we got mentioned on Yahoo as a 'new site', and really the rollercoaster started there. It's been incredibly satisfying watching the mud grow as it has. We've had great fortune in being recognised by some very prominent places and I like to kid myself that I played a decent part in this In my time, I've also built a few zones (yes, we all started building zones first), including the Stone of Tear, the Braem Wood, Aringill and so on. I actually absolutely love writing although I'm the first to admit that my grammar is a disaster. That said, one day I'd very much like to write a book! I attribute my poor spelling and grammar to the fact that I'm not a native English speaker - I didn't learn to until I was 8. I'm Dutch - from the Netherlands (ja, echt waar). That's a very small flat north European country for all you people that have no clue where I'm talking about. I also ran all the darkie roleplay for about a year back in 1998(?), when I was first made a 104. I enjoyed it, but found that as most of the players tended to be online when it was the middle of the night for me, so it just didn't work as well as I wanted. So I handed it over to Nokraenom who handed it over to Draken (I think?). However, I do like the odd spot of roleplay here and there, so you never know..... Nowadays I really concern myself primarily with the website/PR, which is itself a massive task, with Tarmon Gaidon, which is going to start taking up a tremendous amount of my time in the near future, and with other things that I kinda feel like doing. So, for example, the Gambler, Polly, Belal etc, these were just things I felt like adding and somewhat more interesting because they involve something called 'MOBOL' - for lack of a better explanation that's very basic mud programming. Likewise the website, it is more the programming that holds interest for me than html and images, though that is just a reflection of the development of my own personal, skills in this area. In terms of now, I'm prettymuch enjoying most of what I do, although there are a few things that are annoying. Currently topping the bill are the various 'hacking' claims (never one actual proven case), people that insist on using repeatedly hugely bad names and then get incredibly argumentative when you do something about it, and people with 'issues' always complain and always have to have the last word. That's about it. I live an insanely busy life: I have a baby son of 3 called Laurence who I totally adore so I try to spend as much time with him as possible, I work hard at my job (up at 6.30, back home at 7-8 pm) and then, if there's time, I might log on and do some stuff for the mud! So if there are times when I'm unresponsive or crankier than usual, it's probably because I've only got so much time available and would rather do other things than whatever someone is asking me about/mailing me about. Sorry! In terms of what's keeping me going after all this time, I suppose it's an ideal, wanting to create something really unique, special, wanting to be part of a successful venture, and seeing people appreciate what I do. Believe me it's great to see people using your stuff, it gives you a real kick. Guess I'm 'service-orientated' in that way. In terms of what I hope for the future, really, roll on a better and better mud. Zun is setting in place new features for the mud that I find tremendously interesting, and I don't really want to give anything away but I'm pretty sure that you will too. One day I'd love to see the mud reach 250 online (only because MB said it couldn't be done 5 years ago ;p) but that's a bit of a personal goal.... and I guess that's about it. Anyway that's enough about me. I could bore you for ages and ages, but this hangover is killing me and I'm falling asleep. I hope that you have a slightly better idea of who I am, what drives me and what I bring to the party . Nass, (Johan J Ingles-le Nobel) Juanuary 2002. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nass Staff Joined: Nov 22, 1998 From: uk Posted: 2002-12-26 09:30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dumb comments Thought I'd just update this with a little note about a couple of comments that I've heard on global channels by a few players that I find a bit annoying. They're not a huge deal, and they've always been here, and I'm sure it won't make a blindest bit of difference my writing anything, but still... Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "rp is dead on this mud" "pk is dead on this mud" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The reason that they're annoying is because they're both untrue. To my mind at least, are signs of people that are pretty one-dimensional in their approach to other people and the game in general; whiners rather than leaders. Taking the former, this seems to be uttered by the type of players who who bore us all to death with endless four line flowery emotes describing almost every excruciating irrellevant nuance of their characters, and who expect everyone to do the same. In their competetive zeal to describe the uninteresting and irrellevant in ever more painful detail, these characters expect everyone to stop what they are doing to come and be captivated and amazed by this oh-so amazing roleplay. Now, this type of roleplay doesn't float my boat, I personally prefer doers to talkers. But equally, it's your choice, if that's what you want to do then cool, have fun with it - just don't tell me I have to love it and do it myself 24/7 or else be doomed as an inferior person. To them, I'd like to point out a simple fact; namely that if none of 100+ people online find this sufficiently appealing, then perhaps they need to change their act and be a little bit more interesting themselves rather than pretending everyone else is "inadequate" in some way. Judging by the amount of qps given away for roleplay, there is plenty of it on the mud, and if you can't find it then you could either try initiating some, try looking in another place or try going about it in a more interesting manner =). Taking the latter, this seems to be uttered by the type of players who either live in Fal Dara or roam the border area, armed to the teeth in the latest weapon craze, almost entirely oblivious to the larger goings-on in the mud, whose sole motivation appears to be to throw themselves headfirst into a guaranteed 24hr scrap, who think fleeing is unmanly, who want pk, rushes in there expecting to be the invincible solo gloryboy then whine if 2 midbies get frightened of him and group up against him. Apparently, this is "unfair", whereas expecting a level 25 midbie with average equipment to take them on, a level 51 with topend equipment, is perfectly fine. The only stuff you ever hear out of them is "2N NOW" or "this is bs" and they have a mistaken belief that this game is really just quake with words. What I find extraordinary about them is that when they log on and fail to find what they're looking for within 2 minutes, then their immediate reaction is to whine about it rather than doing anything about it. If you really wanted, how easy is it to go walk to your enemy and taunt them. Yeesh. Now the point of all this, if there is any point, is that I think in both cases they're symptoms of people behaving like spoiled little brats who expect everything laid out on a plate for them in exactly the way they think it should - slightly weak and immature. In all honesty, if that's the type of player you are don't expect any sympathy from this imm =). __________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sharan Joined: Apr 20, 2002 From: Rotterdam, the Netherlands Posted: 2003-02-12 17:10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm curious which zones were first created? And when trollocs were imped? Were they imped from the start or was it just Lightside pk at first? Sharan the historian