Wheel of Time MUD

Somehow, possibly because I code for a client that mentions it as a predefined existing MUD entry, I got this message about Midkemia-Online which is, not surprisingly, based on a different and extensive series of novels by (the still alive!) Raymond E. Feist:

Matt Mihály, I.R.E. wrote:Hi folks,

If you're subscribed to the Midkemia list, you already got the news that we are shutting down MKO on September 9th. Otherwise, now you know. Unfortunately, the fact that Midkemia isn't our intellectual property and that we have an annual license fee to pay to its author forced our hand. MKO is just too small to afford that fee going forward.

Our other MUDs don't have this problem, because the only costs that really matter are staff compensation, which can be scaled up or down. With MKO, we have this fairly big payment due around the beginning of September every year, and this year MKO has gotten to the point that we can't justify making the payment.

So, you don't need to worry about our other MUDs going anywhere. They're there for the long haul.

On another note, you're going to be seeing some MKO refugees use their retirement credits and join your games. Please, please make them feel welcome. They've just lost their online home, and it can be really intimidating to join a community as intense as ours are. Help them out!

Best,

Matt Mihály
CEO, Iron Realms Entertainment.

So if you see any characters behaving if they are in the wrong World, who have been disgruntled from having their MUD pulled from under their feet, you might like to help them get established in RandLand™...

... and possibly you may wish to give thanks to the Creator, that we were known to, and permitted to thrive by, the Author of our World.

Iron Realms Entertainment is "The Big Boy" of mid-level MUD development. They host five MUDs, all interconnected. It would be like if Anet shut down Guild Wars and then told Guild Wars 2 players to expect more people, or Blizzard shut down World of Warcraft and offered to import everyone over to Overwatch, etc. They just no longer wanted to play the annual franchise fee that Feist charges for them to be able to continue the game. I suspect that in the next year they will actually scrape the existing world, replace book-related names with made up lore, change a few things around, and re-release it as a new game.

That said, it is sad to see a game world that people put their heart into shut down. It reminds me of when Disney closed down VMK. That was supposed to only run for a year as a promotion for the parks, it lasted a little over three years and when it closed down players were devastated.

More than likely, IRE is offering credits, etc. for people to port their characters to their four other MUDs. But if we see someone running around with a lost "What just happened here?" attitude, I hope we'll all be supportive and welcoming.

Realistically people who have played on one IRE Mud will just go to another. The Rapture Engine is so different to CircleMUD that I don't think people would make the transition well.

I had a brief chat with Matt about this on Reddit - and its unlikely they will be doing anything with the 'corpse' of MidkemiaMUD as the majority of new development in IRE at the moment is focused on Starmourn.

MUME is based on the famous series by J.R.R.