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Jamus
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour
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 Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:35 am Post subject: AR itself |
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| Who started AR, and when? Why did they make this game? What was their 'inspiration'? How do they have so much free time to make it, if they do it for free? What is this "AR"? |
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theobserver
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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Jamus is free to ask as many questions as he wishes.
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| Abandoned Realms is one of the world's longest running ROM 2.4 derivatives. It provides an arena for its players to roleplay and to player-kill, free of charge. AR was founded in late 1996 by a group of seven experienced MUD players that wanted a fair and balanced environment for the benefit of the MUD community - an immersive game free of gameplay-destroying bugs and overpowered skills, and a community free of competition-destroying cheaters. |
That is from our main page and is the best answer I can give without dipping heavily into the rumor mill. |
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Davairus
Implementor
Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10358
Location: 0x0000
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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Oh lets dip into the rumour mill. I'v heard lots of different stories, I'm just going to give some of the stuff I've heard from several other people. I think we have some of this information on the webpage.
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| Who started AR, and when? |
First ever boot of AR was a stock rom 2.4 on Virgil's very own computer, though the founding of AR is attributed to a group of people, not just one. That's Denadlyr, Rakhashe, Sarich, and Virgil. Some folks also say Stryth's a founder because he joined a bit later, but the MUD was effectively his operation since he was the one doing all the work. Certainly there'd be no AR now without Stryth. Kallomar was also an imp here at some point, he got deleted and erased for cheating so they don't list him anymore, he didnt have much scruples I'm told. I'm pretty sure he's a founder but they dont think he deserves to be on the founder list for the damage he did to the muds reputation.
I've often been told when I deleted some hilariously buggy code that it was Kallomar's doing, and I've been told he didnt do anything too. I think the bottom line is the initial founders had lots of great ideas but coded them in an "if it works, its fine" manner, which got a lot done fast but leaves me a bullshit amount of work to do (I've probably undone a founders amount of work just to get new stuff working by now).
Check out the "AREAS" command and you can see that founders Denadlyr and Rakhashe (Rodyn) did some hometowns and other areas. Sarich also did a couple areas. The coders were Stryth and Virgil. Virgil and Sarich were the nub imps at the time, as you can see from the descs in Shadar Logoth. Zafrin joined the imp team a little later, he didn't join fast enough to be considered a founder though. Zafrin probably replaced Virgil as a main coder.
Some of the class credits I've heard:
-berserkers, Kallomar
-dark-knights, Kallomar
-monks, Virgil and Stryth both claim the credit (I'd say Stryth did it)
-bards, Stryth
-rangers, Zafrin
-vampires, Zafrin & Stryth
-psionicists, Denadlyr (Virgil coded)
Of course everything is a joint effort but understand that the imps were working on many different things at the same time, without nobody calling the shots to co-ordinate everything like we have now. It was very dependent on good player testing for its balanced.
Cabals of the first age/early 2nd age
-knight, Sarich (code done by Stryth)
-justice, Stryth
-mystic, Denadlyr (code by Denadlyr)
-warlords, Rakhashe & later Diocleatian (no idea who coded, I'd guess Stryth)
-legion, probably Kallomar since everything just says "the Dark Lord" now
-assassin, Burzuk (code by Stryth)
Its a group of people from California and NYC, couple of them knew each other out of game, others didnt.
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| Why did they make this game? |
Some non-imms told me its because they got banned for cheating from their old MUD. I've spoken to several founders independently and I've been told that they had to leave their other MUD because the imms were cheating to screw over our imps mortals on it. (The AR founders owned about 89-95% of the rares of that playerbase combined.) They started up this place just because they love to MUD so much, but there was no other game like the one they were forced off.
No imp has told me that they quit their other MUD because it was retardedly imbalanced and completely cabal-focused, but thats a peeve they had with it that they all said they cared about when I got them talking about the makings of AR.
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| What was their 'inspiration'? |
Um, their old MUD, this mud is pretty much in the same format. A lot of MUDs have started because the players decided to leave due to a cheating staff. Its kinda sad, but at least in AR's case a better game was made. AR is the MUD that AR's implementors want to play, and due to its origins, the game is very sensitive about people cheating. I dont think you could easily find a mud like this as strict as us on the game rules,
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| How do they have so much free time to make it, if they do it for free? |
AR wasnt made for free, it was made for fun. |
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Louis
Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 823
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 1:47 am Post subject: |
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and anything in the name of fun is forgiven.
remember that. |
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Jamus
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 3:09 am Post subject: |
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| theObserver wrote: |
| Jamus is free to ask as many questions as he wishes. |
Where'd that come from?
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| AR wasn't made for free. It was made for fun. |
I was saying that the people who made it didn't get paid, and I was wondering how the heck you were all still alive (unless you don't sleep at all. Job, eat, work on ar, rinse, repeat). |
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marsd
Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 832
Location: Magewares
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 10:18 am Post subject: |
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well besides spending 10 hours in school/work, taking 1 hour each to travel to work/school/home, and 2 hours doing assignments, that leaves you 9 hours more.
Take 7 hours to sleep, and you still have 2 hours to play AR/do whatever in your interest to..  |
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Jamus
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| I was talking about the people who make/work on the game (IMPs, right?). |
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HomelessCleric
Joined: 01 Aug 2005
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 2:45 am Post subject: |
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| On a related note, were the creators (and Davarius) Computer Science majors or just freelance geeks? AR is impressive anyway you look at it. I hope one day I can do code this good in my free time. |
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