Back in the fall of 1995, I became involved in a project spearheaded by two students at Augustana where I went to university. One Warren Lam was doing a special project which involved setting up a Linux based server on the university network. Apparently, he had set up a mud based on CircleMUD 3.0. Then Neil Sather got involved in the mud project. Eventually, Neil brought be in on the project at the administrative level. This was in November.
Now I had been playing a MUD called TheVoid for some time at this juncture. I had also tried out several other muds and generally had a preference for Circle based MUDs. In particular, I had a great liking for the way things had been modified on TheVoid. In fact, I had been playing on TheVoid for about a year at this point.
It turned out that Warren very quickly dropped out of the picture as far as the mud went. However, Neil and I continued with it through December and later into January. It had become clear to me in January of 1996 that the CircleMUD 3.0 codebase was not working out; it was still in beta at that time and was missing a lot of core features. So at this point, I decided to bring everything in on a CircleMUD 2.2 codebase but with some significant modifications. To this end, I spent many hours working on code on the server, either over a 2400 baud modem connection from my computer in my dorm room or in the computer lab.
Then, on February 1, 1996, I swapped in the new modified Circle 2.2 codebase in. This was the beginning of AugMUD as it exists today, with its 100 mortal levels and 5 classes. Then, as time went on, many folks played on AugMUD as it had come to be known but there was a problem.
The player base was severely limited by the fact that the university’s connection to the internet was terribly slow. As a result, outside players simply couldn’t connect efficiently. This dearth of players meant that most university students would spend most of their time playing their pet muds rather than AugMUD. Neil, who was calling himself Toktorill on the mud, and I, calling myself Lost, made a number of efforts to change this but very little ever happened. Also, by this time, Warren had bowed out of the project entirely since his special project was finished.
Through the summer of 1996, the player base remained small. We had a couple of remote people playing on occasion but not much actually happened. I was working in the computer department of Augustana that summer so I was able to keep an eye on the operation. There was a small upsurge in the player population when classes resumed in September but things continued along pretty much unchanged.
Eventually, Dragonlady, Shadowspawn, and a number of others became involved and got promoted to immortality. We now had a bigger problem than no players; we had a very large percentage of players also being immortals with the associated powers. Basically, playing the game became a lot less fun than it might have been. Oh we did have our fun, including the “poof wars” where the immortals would terrorize each other (and the mortals) by creating ridiculous messages for when they appeared and disappeared in rooms.
During the winter term of 1997 (January through April), the first real attempt was made to get the game organized. By coincidence, this was also when a decent speed internet connection arrived on the scene. As things moved along, however, all our grand plans derailed due to lack of time or committment from those involved. Then later, all work stopped short as final examinations and graduation loomed for many of us. So the status quo basically persisted through the spring of 1997 even though several new areas were added and code was added to the game.
Then, as if by magic, in June of 1997 players started to arrive. The following months saw the arrival of Cotu, Greizl, Rawther, Quinn, and a number of players. It also marked the beginning of a fued between myself and Dragonlady whom I had ousted when the game became popular. Basically, Shadowspawn and I were the ones running the show at this point. I made a couple of bad choices at this point, the most notable being that I raised Quinn to immortality. He quickly abused this position and I ended up site banning him.
I was also unemployed at this point and under increasing pressure to find a job. But I was living in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere so this was a difficult process. As a result, I spent a great deal of time working on AugMUD. The most notable thing I did was add a publication system to the game. I never did bring it completely up to the vision I had had for it but I got it working.
Eventually, I procured a job at the beginning of August in 1997 and moved to Calgary. Greizl began working on some major updates to the code at the same time and we had trouble with Rawther going power mad. I also undertook a major rewrite of much of the code to improve the overall backend of the game. By January of 1998, Greizl and I had worked out a schedule during which I would bring my computer online during certain hours and he would log in remotely and do a lot of work bringing my code rewrite into line witih what he had added to the live version of the game.
Then, at the end of April (I believe it was, anyway) of 1998, the new code was brought online. This was the second wholesale update to the code and the only player wipe to actually affect players. This was also the last player wipe to ever affect the game.
The following years were the high time for AugMUD. I worked on code. Greizl worked on code. We had up to ten people logged in at any given time. Greizl had become Game Master and we began creating positions such as Chronicler and so on.
Eventually, the old guard as we came to be known began to tire of running things. Greizl bowed out in 2000 and we had a lot of politics for a while. We also created a sort of constitution and did all that jazz. It even worked for a while.
Then, the server we were running on was hacked. This was inconvenient. However, the administrators at Augustana handled it very badly. They rufused to tell anyone what happened. They even refused to acknowledge that anyone asked them about what happened. This occurred around the end of January in 2001. Fortunately I had been making regular backups and snagged the latest one and brought AugMUD back up on my server. This bit of bad luck proved to be one more nail in the coffin of the playerbase.
Oh, we continued for a time. But as time went on, it became clear that players were not finding us again or refused to put even 5 minutes into a search at mudconnector and so on. Eventually, I moved the mud to potnoodle once I brought it online and this provided stable connectivity to the whole operation. But the player base continued to dwindle. Even worse, the immortals that were running things began to feel time crunches and so on and the immortal population dwindled.
This dwindling happened rapidly. Eventually, there were so few of us left that we had to put our rules of operation on hold and fall back on the old ad hoc method. Then, I began to really feel the burnout of running things and bowed out in December of 2001.
My successor proved to have tireless energy for a time then simply dropped off the face of the planet. As of now, it’s been nearly a year since she logged into the game itself. And many others have simply dropped out of the running too. Yet I find it is sad that a once very proud game simply ceased to be fun. Our playerbase is back at the levels it had before the June 1997 boom; we’re now relegated to being an old hangout for the old timers of the game.
I have been feeling this sorrow about the state of AugMUD for a while now and finally decided to act on it. I have now unretired from the game and have effectively taken up the reigns again simply due to the fact that nobody else is. As when the player boom hit in 1997 and I was the only administrative type active, I again have full control of AugMUD. This is not a power thing so much as the facts of things. So lookout AugMUD, Lost is back!
One of these days I think I’ll take the time to look through all my logged material and do a detailed history of AugMUD. However, that’s not for this forum. One more note, though. The feud between myself and DragonLady ended long since when I realized how childish the thing was. Hey, children don’t have a monopoly on childishness.
Also, anyone out there who used to be associated with AugMUD and who wants to contribute, send me your anecdotes and memories of AugMUD so I can write a history of the game.