[ABER] How seriously can one jackass take himself?

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

Well.. you're about to see.. follow-up posts to this one include
Crimefighter's "AberMUD Announcements", starting with #8, and working
backward through his history of being a consumate and very public
jackass. Read them yourself, and decide what you think.. *chuckle*

Warning: they're all VERY long, mostly pointless, and the grammar is
horrid. However, some of them are good for a good laugh, or make the
point better than I ever could that this guy is in dire need of a
heavy dose of reality.

Enjoy. :)

Legolas Greenleaf aka PFC Bryan S. Slick
Operator, C-5 (M113A2 Armored Personnel Carrier), 1-68 AR BN
Founder/Owner, ElvenMUD, AberMUDding at its finest since 1994
Come visit us at: telnet://elven.mudservices.com:9000
Visit ElvenWEB at: http://elven.mudservices.com
(c) Rivendell Enterprises, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

As promised.. "Abermud Announcements #8".. read on.. and laugh. ;)

February 1999

Aftermath comments...Well, I've gotten quite a number of people here
and there complaining about my editorializing. Sorry folks, but
when something's bugging me I can't keep quiet about it...course you
should have gotten the hint when I invoked a Mike Tyson-ism.
*smirk*

Also Hadron has not left the MUSIC project...he's back after a break.
I should had corrected this error a while back but neglected it.

The winter of 1999 is about over, as the first half did its worse but
seemingly has ended abruptly as temperatures went above freezing
and stayed there...melting off a one-foot snowfall rather quickly and
making the second half of winter look like all of winter
1998--warm and wet. 1998 was also the warmest year on record too. So
much for Weekly World News's usual wild claims that this
was going to be a long, extremely cold, heavy snow winter stretching
way into April. Oh yeah, and they've also predicted the second
great depression hitting the U.S. for the FIFTH time in the last
twelve months that hasn't happened. Clinton has finally been
impeached,
as he well deserves it...any censure and he would have thrown a party
bragging how he beat the justice system and opened the door
for an epidemic of legal challenges by those convicted of any form of
perjury as Clinton trying to use Clinton as the reason why they
must be released. Bill Clinton, ohhhh boy, am I sick of his
supporters extreme die-hard defense of ignore the evidence just tar,
feather,
and fillet their enemies public persona. And for them to say that
throwing Clinton out will "overturn the last two elections" tells me
that
either A. When they voted for Clinton they decided that they did not
want to vote for Gore to take over as president if Clinton could
not serve out his term for ANY reason, B. they flunked civics class
where they think if Clinton is thrown out, Gore is also or that Bob
Dole would be awarded the White House (which is not so). But what's
really motivating them is their extreme personal hatred of all
conservatives to keep them from winning ANY victory whatsoever--that
is what pure partisanship is. And another thing, why the heck
did those Demos demand witnesses in the House Hearings but don't want
them in the Senate Trial? "Hey stop talking about that stupid
politics!" Hey bud, I LOVE talking about politics and this is my
XXXXXXX newsletter so XXXX off (a little bit of Mike Tyson
rubbing off on me). >:)

This edition of AA had to deal with a major change just days before I
was going to get this thing over and done with and up on the
web. We had an interview with the developer of a new mud codebase
which has some roots with the Aber style and code, but our
guest asked for the thing to be pulled due to some things not coming
to pass. But further complicating the problem is that he has also
just bailed out on the project for unknown reasons. I still believed
talking about the codebase was important for its future, so I have
replaced the interview with my own profile of it while still using
relavant parts of the interview that are still valid for information.
So, our
first "official" interview which we were going to print alongside the
other one is with a caveman archwizard from Northern Lights, who
has a rather interesting story to tell about his tenure and his
running on other muds.

Continuing items from last issue...

Last time, I wrote up a piece on dwindling player numbers and how to
get the crowds to come to your mud. Two mud owners have
plans to convert from Abermud to LP?!?!? Upside, LPs are supposedly
more popular than Abermuds...downside, there are over 200
LPs to compete with and you have to learn how to do coding with LPC.
(Side note, a mudding newsletter floated the idea that LPs
were dead. Uhhh...that mean jumping to LP won't do much good?) So soon
we shall have an AberROM, an AberMOO, and an
AberLP along with the present Aberku. On top of that, the author of
pDirt and former owner of the same mud also plans to create
another new mudding codebase called MUDGEN. (Oh boy, the rats are
fleeing the ship...that doesn't bode well for those of us sticking
around.) An untapped source for players may come from the
IRCs...Internet Relay Chatrooms. People seem to flock there, and yet
do
not know what fun they can have chatting on a mud and playing it too.

Also last time, I had written up a piece on "Paranoia Against
Mudding", where you introduce your family to the mud you either run or
play on and they get the notion that it is teaching you bad things.
Now supposedly a 14 year-old was showing a mud to his mother that
he found on the Mud Connector, and she freaked when someone on the mud
acted like a…well, a jack off and sent a letter to the
hosting site blasting them for allowing this particular mud to be run
on it. Yes, like this and every other MUD that exists is responsible
for the malcontents and twits that log in just to do what they
wouldn't dare to in public. So if you wish to read and even post your
own
comments head over to the Mud Connector's General Discussion Board.
But, since I dealt with this problem in AA#7 head-on, let's
look at what's going on in this episode…

Paranoia Against Mudding, or "Cruel Doubt" on the Net--Part II

The fuss all began when someone mailed a letter to a certain
university (the name of the mud or university was withheld). The
letter
begins, "I am writing to you in regards to the fantasy game that is
run on port xxxx of 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.edu'. I am the mother of a 14
year old who up until last week was an avid player of your game.
However, after observing him play one evening it became apparent
that this game is not appropriate for young adults." YOUNG ADULTS? How
old is that? Eighteen? Twenty-one? It continues,
"According to mudconnector.com, (which is where my son found a link to
your game), it is a fantasy based medieval environment. It is
not listed as an 'adult' game. However, some very inappropriate,
demeaning and morally offensive language was being broadcasted
through the public communications there, as well as some racial
insults and sexually explicit conversation. I found this display
highly
offensive and have thus refused to allow my son to continue to play
there. I believe that this 'virtual playground' for the students and
public to be able to access is inappropriate and poorly reflects the
administration of your establishment." So does alcohol consumption
and wild parties, which is what is all too common at many colleges and
universities. But, here's a shocker for you…this letter was NOT
from a mom-type, it in fact came from an ISP of which no one has ever
tried to play this mud from. Which leads to the conclusion that
it must be from someone who's disgruntled player or former admin who
decided that if they can't play here, then no one can. But the
mud has already been shut down pending an inquiry. Some other fallout
that has occurred with this has been the Mud Connector itself
posting on the front page a parental warning sheet informing everyone
to keep their kids "mud-safe". TMC certainly has not gotten a
letter itself accusing them of not listing the certain mud as
"adult-oriented". Lets put it this way, the Internet is a filthy place
to be. There
are thousands of people who may be adults but have the maturity of
three year-olds online--I've run into many of them. If you think the
kids should not be exposed to bad things on the Internet, they
shouldn't be on it at all. Course the kids think, I'm old enough to
deal
with it, all my friends and rivals at school say this stuff too! And
they're right. Kids at school are filled with S, V, & D and want to
teach
it to other students, who are just as willing to learn it--cause they
want to experience what adults do here and now.

News from around the Abermuds...

Promised Land continues to build, and this time around the mobiles
appear a little more like what they're supposed to be with the
addition of NoBody, NoArms, NoLegs, NoHead flags to accompany the
bodypart fighting system. Ghosts, spirits, slimes, and molds
for instance have a formless body; snakes and worms don't have arms or
legs, but maybe some other type of half-snake monster has
arms but no legs; birds don't have usable arms; and animated trees and
the Headless Horseman don't have heads. Vampires now truly
are vulnerable where legend says killing them takes a stake through
the heart--in this case, opening up their chest and sticking your
weapon through it works pretty good. Five classic quests and ten zones
were added in, including a new ZGEN convert zone dubbed
the Northwest Beaches (Beach and Lighthouse) written originally by
Kaan of Dibrova MUD (it's a diku!). This will be the sail-off point
into the very large (300 room) Yllythad Sea zone also by Kaan that
will lead eventually to the long-awaited Bal Harbor zone and
perhaps more places in the future. For those who like tournaments or
even don't like tournaments, the grandstand zone is where to be if
you're on the sidelines. In it you can listen to the sportscaster call
play by play, attacks, injuries, spells, and deaths. If you wish to
bet on
who wins, you can put up your coins to risk.

Asylum has put in their virtual cloning system where you can keep up
to five items for up to seven days, but any catch specials
associated with the original item won't be trigged by using a cloned
item. According to Suede, the growth of the mud's size will be
taken down to a lower priority and making Campaign more developed will
take higher precedent. Asylum has also opened a new
store. They have now expanded into real life with a new line of
merchandise. See info merchandising for more details. You can also
visit their web page to view the actual merchandise and price list. Be
sure to check their website for their newest newsletter!

Phoenix has underwent a major change in running to wizard, as they
have switched from requiring 90-95% of all the quests to a quest
point system. Those who complete all quests are ranked at a higher
level wizard. A new Deathgrip skill is offered to Jacks and
Warriors for keeping their weapon in hand. The Mishakal zone has been
made into a quest--this zone was designed for low level
runners, but high level guys can now go in and solve the quest ONE
time. The Shadelair quest by LexMorgan--Centuries ago The
Phoenix banished the evil Master Wizard Gerak (gee does this remind
you of anyone?) into exile for unspeakable crimes of power
abuse. Gerak spent this time practising his evil arts and has returned
to Phoenix to wreak vengeance upon her. He has captured and
imprisoned the Phoenix's mother and grandmother Vortex and Piglet, and
has cloned the legendary Shade clan into an army of
destruction. Your mission: free the spirits of Piglet and Vortex and
banish Gerak into exile forever. The Jenintog quest by Aso--The
Great Elfmage Adept has caught an illness he is powerless to stop.
Penetrate the lands of Jenintog and go on a scavenger hunt to find
the Adept and restore him to health. An elven tree is a good jumping
off point.

Delusion has finally broken the 7000 room and 70 quest mark with the
addition of the Belsham quest. (By the way, for those who are
decrying their quantity versus quality, would you PLEASE tell me which
particular zones/quests on that mud are truly awful? Cause a
lot of them are also found on NL, Asylum and Phoenix--even MY mud has
some of them.) Six different guildhalls are now open for
players to visit, to learn more about each guild. Those who decide to
join a guild, can have their class changed at the Guildmaster of
that guild. The different classes all have different positive and
negative aspects, ranging from different maxarmor over differences in
spellcasting and fighting to extra abilities like faster healing.

Hysteria has added a number of things to their mud of late, so much
that it's hard to track. One of the more exciting changes made to
the game was the addition of a vampire race. Vampires have the ability
to use vtouch, which drains score from opponents. Their hit
points and mana are pretty good, though they require more points to
level than some other races. There have been a few new added
skills for other races, too. For mages, there is "flash", warriors can
now "kick", and dwarves can use "snap", which are all forms of
attack. Humans and dwarves will be able to use "shield", which is an
armor spell. A new quest has been introduced recently, called
Enlightenment written by Fulk and Sampras. Be sure to check out their
newsletter "Bit of Hysteria" which is printed monthly.

TerraFirmA has been named "Mud of the Month" by the Mud Connector in
January. This is a rather prestigious award to be given to
any mud. Two new quests by the pins of Lister and Lucas, Vampire and
Cave. Nirvana has made it possible for blacksmiths to build
armor and swords. The Turfe Tavern has expanded, allowing some bar
fights and purchase of drinks thanks to Cyn and Firefly. New
spells include Release which counters the Vampire Curse, Hold for
keeping things shut permanently.

Dark Cloud 2 has added two new spells, hover where you hover off the
ground a foot enabling you to pass over water without a boat,
farsight where you basically can look into an adjacent room without
going in there. New quest, KillBeast takes places in the new old
forest zone.

Acheron has added a pair of new zones by Academas. The college zone
where unruly students hang out, and the gauntlet quest where
you must bring back something from the depths of a museum that proves
that Academas was actually a mortal at one point. It starts in
a museum in the village.

Four new quests on Astral Plains, all made by Miki. The KingsRansom
quest travel deep into hell and overcome the demons to
recover your fortune. The Goldenegg quest where you should find the
Golden Goose and return with her produce. The Strike quest
where the Old Seadog has built an extension to the games room--I guess
this is bowling. And finally, the Carany quest, where you
should find the canary and sacrifice it--this requires more than one
runner to do certain things.

DragonMUD II has begun putting out their newsletter Dragonfriends
again now that they got a new editor. Anyone who's a fan of the
articles written up in years past should not be disappointed. Some
major area expansion is planned in the coming weeks in the
north-western part of the world.

Everest, which we interview one of it's powers later, introduces a new
interpretation of your battle against Thor for his hammer, also a
new quest by first-time author Serena called Princess. Your mission:
An evil sorceress has captured the only daughter of a very wealthy
king, and has taken her to her faraway tower. Defeat the sorceress and
save the princess!

New zones submissions finally...we have the Dragonslueth zone by Jojo,
and the Ildharas zone by Kavilir.

In the mudstuff section, Northern Lights' FTP site is back up finally.
Also, and why I didn't do this earlier is beyond me, the SmileMUD
download page was added where you can get the most current (and bug
free) version of the Aberchat Client v4.20.7 which has
combined separate codebase specific code for iDirt and C-Dirt. Also on
there are the conversions to make C-Dirt compile on RedHat
Linux.

A special contribution comes from Mortdred, who portrays himself as a
werewolf. A massive listing of furry ideas (FurryMUCK
perhaps?) listing tons of special elemental spells, rune stone powers,
Alchemy, the unusual food and alcohol recipes, different types of
undead monsters, and finally nasty little poisons…everything about
each is explained and the effect demonstrated. There is no mud that
has implemented a lot of these (I'd agree, too many to do!) but most
likely you can pluck some ideas from this 1.5MB document and
turn them into quests. The document is saved in HTML format inside a
pkzipped file.

The Abermud Webring has been scrapped. The owner believed that the
ring didn't catch fire as she had hoped (15 sites though isn't
that bad considering the size of the Aber community) so the ring had
been discontinued. Anyone who wishes to start a NEW Abermud
webring is perfectly welcome to do so. www.webring.org is taking in
new rings all the time.

And now, a word from our sponsor…

The Talon Gaming Network World
Exchange.

The new MUSIC codebase

As the move to create the perfect MUD moves along, we now have a new
entry in the MUD codebase universe. Cryosphere is the
flagship for the MUSIC MUD, which is an object-oriented C++ type mud.
It has been in development for about a year, and uses part
of various flavors of Abermud. The theme of the mud differs most
heavily with the Abermud, science fiction vs. medieval. I was to
present an interview here with this section but some things happened
over the weekend that have changed all that. The mud itself is
considered to still be in beta form--complete with quests to solve,
monsters to kill and equipment to find. But now it's closed for some
changes. One of the primary developers of MUSIC is Hadron. He is
currently a 2nd year computer science student at Southampton
University in Hampshire, England. Back in late 1997, Hadron met up
with another CS student, MusicMaker who wanted to figure out
how to make his socket code work with the mud he was writing. After
one failed attempt on coding a custom mud, work on the new
MUSIC mud began. After implementing some stuff, MusicMaker went to the
background where he's coding ANOTHER
custom-written mud. MUSIC does use OLC (On-Line Creation), from dirt
build_setin, the guts of the combat engine from iDirt,
Aberchat, and the pDirt trap specials. There is no distinction between
rooms, objects, and mobiles, mobiles being objects with the
mobile flag set and the rooms are objects that people happen to be
inside. Gameplay isn't any different, it is still aberish but uses
some
Diku/LP features like equipment saving and gradual resets. The
scenario is a space-age sci-fi theme like Babylon 5, Star Trek, and
Frontier…you're a member of Starfleet and you must complete missions
to get a higher rank. MUSIC is licensed under the GNU GPL
as it counts as a derivative work of iDirt since it uses the combat
engine from it. The author does not make releases very often but
would send out one if asked. Nine quests a.k.a. missions are ready to
go, all zones self-reset after so long. Right now the sign at the
door says closed for renovation, as to what will happen next is pretty
much up in the air.

Interview with a Caveman

By request, and who wouldn't refuse such a request, I have done
another interview, this time with a self-described caveman. At the
time I did this one, I didn't know where it was gonna go and where it
would come to a good closing--but it my belief that it would be
interesting to read. Anyway, the caveman is named Og, who is an
archwizard on Northern Lights. His real name is Wieland, who
racked up an impressive 98 deaths on his first run to wizard, but ran
a dozen characters to wizard after his first. He currently attends
New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico as a computer science student.

CF: "So tell us how you became a caveman."

Og: "Well...I started this character just as a joke (I already had 7
wizards by then). After I started the character, I didn't use it for
about
a month. The name actually comes from the Bible. :) But anyway, with a
name so fitting a caveman, I took on a caveman accent and
made a post at the Warm Haven with strong caveman opinions, which
stayed on the board for about a year and Vita gave me a special
club for bopping people with. That's about the whole story.

CF: "Who is the 'Og' in the Bible?"

Og: "He is a giant King, who Moses fought against and killed as he was
going into the Promised Land...he was called 'Og King of
Bashan' which I sometimes change to 'Og King of Bashin' for my
purposes. Some people get so into vampires and elves and things like
that, the way they talk about them, youd think they were real! And
they take things so seriously so I thought, a caveman who took
absolutely nothing seriously would be a breath of fresh air for this
mud."

CF: "Heh, like me?"

Og: "I mean people that take their fantasy worlds too seriously--not
that they're bad people, or even that they arent fun sometimes :)"

CF: "So how did you become an archwizard?"

Og: "Well that's not really exciting. Sethbean broke his collarbone,
so he couldnt be one anymore. He couldn't type at all. So Vita and
Kalzar invited me to the NL testmud one day, pretending that they were
gonna discuss my zone (Brownies) that I was working on with
me."

CF: "Or how you got to be one after getting killed 98 times (as
Wieland)."

Og: "That wasnt the worst part :) I think I was about the only person
to ever flunk their first wiztest. I didn't know anything about the
policy. Anyway...Vita asked me if I could take over Sethbean's
spot...but I was supposed to keep it quiet until the day of the
frobbing,
which was NL's jubilee day."

CF: "So tell us some of your adventures as archwizard."

Og: "The most wonderful part of it is the transform command. I can
keep myself occupied for hours turning people into pigs. :) Other
than that...it can be interesting, it can be hard too--having to do
things to people that you like a lot, and then have them hate you for
it."

CF: "Do a lot of runners like to cheat...or they just find something
in the game and think...'wow a neat scoring trick!'"

Og: "Well...the second part doesn't bother me so much. :) Since it's
really rare anyway, what really bothers me is people mailing out
quest solutions, or inviting people to other muds or places to walk
them through quests and then there's people who like to bully other
players and making fun of them...sometimes I go a little overboard
trying to prevent that. :)"

CF: "You can get nailed for giving out a quest solution on another
mud....not this one."

Og: "Well, people that give out quest solutions on this mud sometimes
don't know at any better. But if they take people to other
muds...that means they KNOW its wrong and they're trying to hide it."

CF: "Well, lets talk about adventures on other muds...what have you
found so far....that you like and dislike?"

Og: "Well for the most part the other muds are really nice...they have
some good quests that aren't here yet, and the powers are mostly
pretty good. The problem with some of those muds is they have powers
that are coders, but don't have much experience as
administrators and they try to make the muds to center around the
powers, rather than around the runner. Anytime you run a mud that
is controlled by the feelings of the powers at a certain time rather
than a policy that is set in stone, you can have trouble."

CF: "Is that what happened with a couple of muds you were banned
from?"

Og: "More or less. :) I wouldn't comment on any single mud though.
Like I said though, most muds are really good that I went
to...Elven has great quests, and Hysteria has a neat player-killing
system."

CF: "Tell us your adventures in getting a zone together and up on a
mud."

Og: "Well...my first zone was Brownies...the idea was originally based
on the story of the shoemaker and the elves...but it evolved
WAY away from there. I used the random function a lot to make the zone
really interesting even for people who run the zone more
than once. It's got two different beginnings and two different
endings. You would talk to the mayor, and he'd tell you which part of
the
quest you'd have to do."

CF: "Now I had a heck of a time getting a zone online somewhere....in
fact it was Black Star that was the first to get one of my zones
on...but my first was written 3 years ago and still isn't up anywhere.
How much trouble was it to get your first here?"

Og: "Well Vita said she'd use my zone before I even started writing it
really. I have at least one new zone coming out on Everest."

It was at this point where we ran out of significant things to
discuss. You can check out the Brownies quest on Northern Lights and
Og's new version of the Heaven zone on Everest.

Peace Deals Broken, War Escalates...and more

Just when you think a negotiated peace resolution will bring to an end
a feud between warring parties, one side decides months later
that it isn't good enough and start trashing the other side again with
the "you stole my mud" routine again and uses my own guestbook to
launch it while telling me it's none of my business (refer to AA#4&5).
This has included private mudmails to individual mud owners
asking for a certain mud to be yanked from the mudlist. Some of you
may remember what happened when I took sides in it, the hostile
side resorted to smearing me like Larry Flynt is doing against the
Republicans leading the impeachment proceedings--he's still smearing
me and making direct personal threats. While the hostile party denied
using the alias of the head smearer, they incriminate themselves
on their own mud using that alias again. Even though I've told the
individual not use my guestbook anymore, it's not much help when
banning this party from the Internet entirely won't solve the problem
as they're using more than just the Internet to push it along. Only a
tour of duty, maybe to Iraq or Kosovo would keep the parties far
enough apart where we can live our lives in peace. You may be
good friends with the person in question, and that's fine. Just decide
when the point of which you can't condone it anymore has been
reached. Hmm...maybe I should try chanting the current Democrat
mantra--"The people has spoken! There's no evidence! You're just
out to get someone! Drop it and move on!"

And months after the hack job at the Mud Journal occurred (refer to
AA#6), recovery and taking the site to a high profile, time
constraints have taken its toll when they have their own muds to run
so, the previous owners have decided to pass the torch. The Mud
Journal was sold at the end of December 1998 to J.W. Adams. J.W. Adams
currently does not run a mud, but plays a few. He has
mudded for 7 years now and is probably one of the mudding communities
oldest mudders at the current age of 52. He describes
himself as having too much free time after an early retirement, and as
being a mudding fanatic. "I try out at least 1 new mud per week"
he claims.

That horrible place that I would never like to live in again,
Geocities, has been bought out by Yahoo Inc. in a $4.7 billion merger
deal. I
hope that as a result, Yahoo will force Geocities to clean up its
behavior which has been on the skids since CEO Tom Evans took the
helm last May--including killing off that horrible eyesore known as
the watermark. On the negative side, Yahoo may do nothing to
change Geocities and Yahoo starts putting that watermark on their OWN
websites. Conversely, Xoom will be introducing its
X-Powerbar in the near future. Hopefully it will NOT interfere with
the content of this website like the Geocities Watermark did.

Well, that's about it for this quarter. Next time, an interview with
one of the most recognizable figures in the Abermud scene (maybe),
more news, more controversy (let's hope some closure comes with it),
and lots more new things. AA#8 comes to an end.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

December 1998

Well now...here we are again with another edition of AA. Last issue
was the biggest ever in size, so I've decided to write this one up
now so I don't have as much stuff to report on, and as you can see,
this issue is shorter than the last two. The clock is ticking on the
amount of time that will be spent with this issue, with the goal not
to exceed three weeks in writing. The focus of this issue will be
toward what's been dogging the Aber community this past year, along
with another major obstacle to mudding, your family's viewpoint
of it. And of course, we have the usual happenings on various
Abermuds.

Corrections...Delusion apparently isn't the first to run Intermud,
Darkscapes when it was called Eradicated Worlds ran it four years
ago...but dropped it because all the other muds on it were LPs, and
there was some sediment that Abermuds were "immature" cause
they weren't as advanced as LPs. I also refered to the Graye zone as a
quest on Black Star, which was wrong...it never was flagged as
such.

Falling Player Counts, Advertising Key Remedy

Fall and about winter is here, but the Abermud community has not seen
the usual bump in players. Average attendance of the top three
Abers being Asylum, Phoenix, and Northern Lights have stayed between
10-20. That is down from its peak in 1994-1995 of between
20-30 average and one at 30-40 average. What's going on? Suede of
Asylum MUD recently posted this on his own mud:

"The Asylum Development team is actively looking at ways to popularize
our world and have been examining a number of alternative
MUDs across the Net to see how we can increase our player base. What
we have seen is that DIKU-based MUDs do generally seem
capable of sustaining a larger number of players than ABER bases. For
a long time, we have sought to increase our base by tempting
players from other ABERs - my personal opinion is that the ABER base
cannot maintain higher numbers of players in its present form."

The number of Abermuds that are in operation is about 40, while the
various brands of Dikumuds number 600, and that includes all
Circles, ROMs, Smaugs, Mercs, and Envys. If that's all what people see
and know of then that is what they will play, even though
getting anywhere with better than average arms on those types of muds
is painfully and frustratingly slow--and many are so heavily
dependent on large groups and mud-macro software like TinTin+. As for
my efforts to advertise, I've attempted to get listed on as
many search engines as possible (with some success, but many just
don't add every listing they get), joined multiple webrings, and put
my site with a few of the banner exchanges. Newsgroup advertisements
do work wonders, on my mud we had nearly no one around
before, after the ads people began showing up. There are nearly 30 mud
newsgroups out there to use.

Bottom line is this, whether we have the time or not to deal with it,
the problem of all but three Abermuds having less than 10 or even
less than 5 people online looms large. If there isn't an effort to
attract people from other mud-types to the Aber codebase then it's
practically not worth the programming time spent making the mud better
and paying a mud hosting service for an account. The phrase
"If you build it, they will come" doesn't hold if people don't know
about you. Spend a good half-hour to an hour of your time to write
up a good promotional text about your mud then when you're finished
you can send it out over and over.

This however is what Asylum plans to do about it...

"We have not lost a great many players to other ABERs - we have lost
them to other types of MUD. Asylum cannot continue to add
quests and hope that our player base will increase at the same time. I
feel that Asylum has done a great job in taking the ABER base as
far as it has done and cannot go any further without RADICAL change.
The powers team has been involved in some discussions about
ways to make these changes and some designs are being drawn up for
consideration. These ideas will be circulated to powers and
FRIENDS of Asylum in the first instance for comment. What we are
planning is that Asylum will begin to incorporate some elements of
other bases of MUD so that we can radically increase our online
numbers. Here is some of what we have in store....

* Dynamic Equipment (Marvin) - a system aimed at allowing players to
retain their inventory when they leave the game --no more
running around for equipment. The length of time that your kit will be
kept for you depends on your level--but at the highest level, we
envisage periods of several days for retention of inventory. Some form
of area in core will be used to store your kit with a small price
perhaps...

* Levels and Band (Suede and Shi) - Asylum has never been in favor of
forcing players to join a guild (mage, warrior, thief etc) when
they login. Now a new system is being considered which will allow a
player to swear allegiance to a particular band and retain that
allegiance for a period of time. This will mean that players can
choose to become different types of character (or just maintain their
current character instead) and change when they like - thereby picking
up skills and spells in a number of areas. Five new bands will be
created each with a larger number of levels within them. Quests in
future may also be designed specifically for a distinctive band or
group of players.

* Skill and Spell Proficiency (LiChen) - a system whereby a skill or
spell is not learned and that is the end of it - in this concept your
proficiency in it can be increased in time."

In other words, Asylum will add some more staples of the dikumud code,
while retaining the Abermud feel. We'll see.

Paranoia Against Mudding, or "Cruel Doubt" on the Net

Last time I discussed those computer lab administrators who would be
bent to keep you from using any computer in the college for
anything other than homework. Now here's another part of the equation,
and it could tie in with the overzealous network admin
problem. What does your family think of you mudding? For the most
part, when I tell someone that I help run a MUD, their reaction is
"What the heck is MUD?" If it only goes that far, you should not be
thought of as a loony tune. If it happens to go farther than that,
where you are showing them how to play it, and the webpages you wrote
about it, and some of the people you meet...then it could get
real ugly. To make matters worse, if they aren't computer savvy,
remember and fear situations like "Cruel Doubt" a few years back,
and feel their religious convictions are being threatened by the mud
against their children (that's you and me folks), beware. For those
not familiar with "Cruel Doubt", this was a true story where players
of a "Dungeons & Dragons" role-playing game allowed their
role-playing enter the real world and commit murders of innocent
people, a novel and movie were released about it. However, there
have been claims that the ones convicted were already mentally ill
long before they took up D&D and this allegedly was suppressed.
There have been other films dealing with this subject--best known was
the one that starred Tom Hanks.

Most of you know that I help run Promised Land mud...well, I've been
trying to get members of the family over there to either play or
visit with me instead of using long distance phone calls. My father
just got Internet access during November, and they want me to teach
them...although teaching is a pain, cause they keep getting lost on
ONE mouse click. I had sent them an email on how to get in the
game, they attempt a connect, but fail to log in, and they give up
immediately (I discovered later that junky Microsoft Telnet program
was starting up with nothing but the title bar, useless garbage
program it is)! The next night I am there to "shout" instructions
(they took
offensive to that...shouting instructions...ick) and tell them
step-by-step what to do. My dad reads a couple rooms, then wants to
bail.
After that I show the location of my mud's webpage. After seeing what
I wrote for an introduction, he went ballistic! He said that my
mud was promoting "new age" religious ideology, worshipping false
gods, and attempts to turn people away from God and Jesus
Christ. Furthermore, they thought my mud would suck people who are
already adrift and lost in the head and get them worshipping
phony gods and even into devil worship! The intro paragraph I wrote
did refer to the original "Promised Land" that Moses led the
Israelites toward away from the Pharaoh and slavery. Then I mentioned
another Promised Land in a different reality...the virtual kind.
Arrgh, how many fictional stories have there been written about myths
and fairy tales? Quite a number, but I'm not aware of anyone
actually worshipping Zeus or Odin.

Yes we have a religion system on our mud, and I think the only one in
the Abermud community, but PLEASE...these "gods" are
nothing more than mobiles that power you up when you do enough things
that they want you do you. Our four "gods" aren't for real,
nor do they come from mythology of the Greeks or Norse. We can knock
them off the game any time we want. Yet, we have the
unreasonable concern. And that makes me uncomfortable...I'm not
turning away from Christianity...I'm not at a different level of
involvement in it before the Internet came along. And if this thing
called MUD was so bad for me and anyone else, wouldn't there been
stories about people who went berserk in public before they mudded too
much by now? I would have excepted parents to complain
about someone mudding because it was hazardous to their GPA, not their
mental health. And throw in players who can be considered
by many to be a bad influence--I've met a lot. For the girl whom I
talked about last month in her struggle against an out of control lab
assistant, her problem has now incorporated her mother--who thinks she
spends too much time on the computer and shouldn't be
mudding at all. Arrgh. Well, I'm at my wits end. I'd like to trot to
that college and belittle the intelligence of the network admins, but
it's
too far to drive. Emails aren't much help, cause they'd act against
the person I'm defending before they'd respond to me. That leaves
calling them on the phone, but no phone number on hand to call them.
What about the calling on the Student Government or the Dean
of Students to assist? Too much instilled intimidation to talk to
them...arrgh!

So...what advice to get from others? I raised the issue over on the
Mud Connector's General Discussion forum over the subject and
got a wide range of responses. Some were by other Christians, some
were by people who thought it was a ticket to bash Christianity,
and some were corny jokes. Right now, it's developed into a fight over
Christaphobia and whether separation of church and state was
actually in the Constitution--somehow. From atheists, we get the point
that your parents should not force their beliefs on you, and that
you should get to think for yourself. Disagreement was whether it
should be tolerated even if you were still living under their roof.
Sadly
the forcing of views by family actually MADE people become atheists.
From another Christian father, he thinks many parents are trying
to put blame on someone or something else for their actions...the
object isn't bad in itself, it's the actions done associated with it.
One
scene that was brought up...the woodsmun role:

Create a class, call it the "woodsmun" (yes, mUn, I like it
better than "woods-man/woods-woman") ... give them hunting,
fishing, find water, find food, build fire, build shelter,
axe skill, knife skill, trapping, and so on. Give them woodsmun only
equipment, or make them not be affected by anything
magical/supernatural. Start them out in a zone that is low level,
nature setting with natural creatures. And ask your parent
to play it. Ask them what is wrong with it. Then say, "Now, if
there were to have say, a magic axe, that let them cut wood
faster, would that be bad? Why or why not?" Then take it a
bit further, "If they could use herbs to heal minor wounds,
is that bad?", then a bit further, "If they had a natural gift for
finding water, is that bad?", then, "If they had the natural
gift to mend wounds, is that bad?" Find out what it is they think is
so bad with it.

Here's what's bad with it...they refer to it as progression toward
something...he used the example of Jack Parr of the Tonight Show
was thrown off the air for telling a joke that by today's standards
would not be considered offensive. Now we have people cussing
every four-letter word that exists, doing sex acts, violent acts, etc.
and of course, no one is throwing a fit over it. Desensitizing people
to the point that NOTHING irks you and EVERYTHING deviant is normal.
But now...times change, and not always for the
better...even if I'm desensitized, I would not commit the acts of sex
and violence.

The goofiest response was this: "I would start doing drugs, start
sticking bits of metal through your face (I hear that is quite popular
now), join a cult, buy a gun, if female, get yourself pregnant, if
male, get some poor girl pregnant, hold midnight orgies involving
bloodletting and barnyard animals. If, after that, your parents still
have a problem with you using the computer, send them to a shrink."
Thankfully he wasn't serious...but the point was made...there are
worse things to worry about. Yes there are worse things...getting
someone to worry about those things instead isn't always an easy thing
to do.

To read and maybe join the debate...visit The Mud Connector General
Discussion Board.

General News Items

Mudzine has reopened at a new location, the Mud Connector itself! It
operates as a daily news format, dependent on people sending
them news items via email. Not utilized enough in my view.

Another new mud magazine has started up, called The Mud Center. It
will feature mudding news and reviews like Mud Journal, but
right now it has some distance to go before their first issue is
online.

Another mudlist to consider getting listed upon is
http://www.gamecommandos.com which lists the games, and some reviews.
Over
800 muds are listed with just the addresses, webpages and codebase
type.

Grimm's Talker List is another listing that gears itself toward
"talkers", but they also list muds. Only five abers have been seen on
this
list. Link checks occur hourly.

Talon's Gaming Network has finished their revamp of their site. It
will be a central location to grab anything related to on-line gaming
and muds. From what I've seen so far, the scope is it gathers URLs and
categorizes them like Yahoo, but concentrating on gaming.
Yours truly of course is listed.

Here is a list of the current mudding newsgroups, topics should be
obvious, but some are obscure: rec.games.mud,
rec.games.mud.announce, rec.games.mud.admin, rec.games.mud.diku,
rec.games.mud.lp, rec.games.mud.misc, rec.games.mud.tiny,
alt.mud, alt.mudders, alt.mud.lp, alt.mud.british, alt.mud.german,
alt.mud.chupchups, alt.mud.cyberpunk, alt.mud.cyberworld,
alt.mud.cyberpunk.cyberearth, alt.mud.eos2, alt.mud.tiny,
alt.mud.programming, alt.mud.cellars, alt.mud.majormud, alt.mud.moo,
alt.mud.bsx, alt.mud.island, alt.mud.crystal-shard,
alt.mudders.anonymous, alt.flame.mud. Only rec.games.mud.announce is
moderated.

pDirt is no longer in public distribution, about a month after it was
offered publicly (or at least when *I* discovered it). No official
reason was given for its removal (even after some prodding) or for
what were the Darkscapes WebPages being deleted and a
barebones replacement put in its place.

Nothing new to download this time around, only that existing zone
downloads on my site are being updated as I add those zones to my
own mud--so far Chess, Temple of the Bull, Batcave, New Sparta, and
the Southern Desert have been changed, Graye is scheduled to
be updated.

News from Individual MUDs

Promised Land opens some more new zones and quests, including the
following: "The Great Southern Desert" which will allow us to
expand the world from there in the future, meanwhile while you brave
the desert, beware of the Indians. "Temple of the Bull" featuring a
cult that worships a half-man half-bull like creature...no, not the
Minotaur, but Taurus! The "Graye" zone previously featured on the
former Black Star mud, whereas the adventurer must rescue King Relnor
from the demon horde, but you better get your cliff-climbing
gear ready and don't forget that holiness holds the demons at bay. And
lastly, the "Ildharas" quest that we reported about last issue has
been installed just recently. To recap this quest, it was written in
1991 by Kalivir and has not been seen on an Abermud since 1994.
The prologue story to this quest can be read on her webpage at
http://www.cyberverse.com/~kalivir/Ildharas/ildharas.html. Promised
Land has moved to a new site on mudservices where the address is
pizza.mudservices.com:6715 and our webpage is
http://www.promisedland.mudservices.com.

Since they seem to get more coverage than anyone, here's the other big
item Asylum has added: The Campaign zone takes place of the
weekly tournies where you can play in an every-runner-for-themselves
frenzy or as part of a highly organized head-beating squad. The
possibilities are endless...no more "I'm bored" comments from idle
wizards. The zone is available to all levels. Look at "info Campaign"
for detailed information or just type "defend" at the Temple of
Creation and start wandering. If you're familiar with Doom and Quake
netplay, this looks to be a MUD-style deathmatch arena. Regular
tournaments will occur on a once a month basis...dates and times are
unnamed.

Delusion has been kind of busy too, what they've added lately are: The
Beholder quest, this is an extension to the island zone and was a
staple of the old Aber 4s, not commonly found on most muds. Remember
that some games have a "boss" key, well Delusion has one
now...so when you're mudding from work when you really shouldn't, you
have a quick escape. Delusion has also become the first
Abermud to join the Intermud chatline. Intermud is explained later on,
but it operates like Aberchat. Also, if you hang out in extremely
cold or hot areas or get bitten by something poisonous, eat the wrong
food or something like that, you are most likely to suffer from
disease for a while. It will most likely result in slower healing,
feeling not so well, or even dying if you are not careful. Most of the
diseases will vanish after a certain time, others require to be cured
by a healer for a nice price.

On Hysteria, they have introduced a new immortal level. This level is
only for the elite, the best of the best. It's the ultimate test of
who
is king of Hysteria's mortal realms. To achieve this rank, one must
run several (8) different personas to the level of Wizard or Ceribus.
All 8 must avoid the Way of the Leaf (Tuatha'an). 3 personas must
prove their knowledge by completing all of the quests given to
mortals. All eight must not be killed by another mortal more than
once, and all 8 must prove their worthiness in the battlefield by
slaying
at least 2 other mortals. Once this is accomplished, then one can
claim the rights of Heaven's Warriors. (Ick...run eight guys to wiz
and
not be wiped out by someone else while taking out other runners at
random? Who's got that kind of time?) Beware of the personas
whose names appear under Heaven's Warriors! Another recent addition to
the mud is SCOPE. This command gives a detailed list of
any mobiles or players within two rooms in any direction (this is a
staple of Dikumuds). One noticeable change for runners is the
decrease in points given for kills. You will only receive points for
kills that are worthy of your level. This will increase the challenge
of
running to wizard. Since it's not exactly hard for a level 98 mortal
to kill the Yeti, points (or the lack thereof) are given accordingly.
Also be sure to read their own monthly newsletter...Bit of Hysteria.

Phoenix mud is still building...here's what they have this time:
SPECIAL COLLECTION--Every library in the Land of Phoenix now
carries a copy of our newly published volume Phoenician Rhyme and
Rhapsody Archives. This very special work in progress contains
the original poetry of Phoenicians from all walks of life, and we are
indebted to all who have contributed to it thusfar and all who will in
the future. Particular thanks to our Texan rose Tinker for the
beautiful design and preface. If you have original works you would
like
included in this book, please mudmail your contribution to Sharky. For
new zones, for players level 4 - 6 will find new territory to
explore off the eastern coast, south of the Village Jetty, written by
Armitage, they are the Southsea and Buccaneer zones. Gillybean
created the Coven quest, a delightful adventure in a school for young
witches. This is a large zone, rich in surprises and originality. For
those who are tired of getting killed often, the Mishakal zone has
help. Find her Temple near the Hidden Falls and bring her what she
asks for, the reward is handsome indeed. From the charmed imagination
of our red-nosed Demi-God Rudolph comes this clever little
zone and its generous gift. And finally, mortals can have their own
wizhomes before they wiz. See INFO PLAYERHOUSES and visit
Katri's Properties and Fields in the village for details on how to
purchase your own home. You do have to have run to a certain level to
get one, and have sufficient cash.

And we have news from an Aber 5 mud, we don't hear much about them
these days, but work was undertaken some time ago to
provide sound support for Sleepless Nights. This is accomplished
through the use of triggers that are designed to play .wav files after
the occurrence of certain events. Unfortunately, you will only be able
to take advantage of this sound support if you have a PC and a
soundcard, and are using Zmud. Since the sound is provided through the
use of triggers, it is necessary to use a MUD client that
supports these triggers. Due to the amount of work involved in
programming the sound files to work with the game, only Zmud is
supported. Zmud is available from Zugg Software. Well, now that
Sleepless Nights does sound, and Swords & Sorcery does
graphics...maybe making them both do graphics AND sound together (with
the Windows port of XClient modified to play sounds in
the future?) could attract a lot of new attention to the Aber 5
codebase?

Inferno has changed its level system and wiz requirements to a
multiple tier system. Most odd is required quests are considered
regular,
and unrequired quests are called altquests. (Aside, altquests in my
book is zones with a goal but no quest flag assigned to them.) There
are 15 required, and a couple dozen alternate. For new zones and
quests, they've added the City zone, and rather long and difficult
Vampire quest. Depending on what level wiz you're going for, higher
wiz levels require more altquests being completed.

Ebb of Reality was featured in a local news broadcast the effects of
the Internet on its users. Well, we all know what effect mudding
has on its users...

Northern Lights opens a new zone, the Geyser zone by Shatterstar when
you have to figure out why the famous geyser stopped
blowing its top at its appointed time. And since it's Christmas, the
Holiday zone by Hex makes it's once a year reappearance where
saving Santa Claus from Santa Claws is a must if you want your
presents this year.

Mud heists are rare, but they do happen. In this case, someone wanted
to put a mud out of business and all the other websites on it.
Thieves stole the computer that ran Nalle MUD and Abermud Central
sometime in September. Fortunately for Abermud Central, it
relocated to
http://hem1.passagen.se/mullberg/Mudding/AberCentral/index.html. Nalle
hasn't returned, and it may never return,
considering free site availability is near null.

Hopes were dashed as the long-awaited successor to Virtual Sun called
"Nightshade" has come to an untimely end. It was set to open
up with initially 6000 rooms and some other unnamed goodies, but what
killed the project was supposedly unfixable socket problems.
Despite a sizable programming team working long hours, enough was
enough, they decided that this program's embedded socketing
was so badly hosed that cutting their losses was better than slugging
it out, and that the next semester of school was starting soon. By
the way, do not make bids to fix this program, as they stated they
deleted most of the stuff. Alas, not all versions of UNIX are very
good. Some are better than others, and some should just plain not be
used. In this case, "Slackware Linux" wasn't very good for
coding a mud. The other lesson to be learned...never EVER start a
gigantic mud. Starting out with too much stuff will take you a lot
longer to work out the bugs, and by the time you finish you won't have
any time left to run the darn thing. The reason why Dikus can get
away with starting 50k+ room muds is because they don't have to code
any specials! It's ALL hack'n'slash. If you were one who
contributed zones to this mud...I'd be interested in them...

A warning to those thinking of starting a mud, some versions of UNIX
will not compile stock source code out of the box (well, I think a
lot of you knew this already, but...). FreeBSD for instance won't do
it, neither will Red Hat, who knows what others. For Red Hat,
changes to the makefile are needed, cause the include files are in
other places, some include files are handled by other include files,
and
some include files don't exist at all--requiring that you copy the
missing ones from another version of UNIX over. FreeBSD has a
number of incompatibilities, and only the old Dirt 3.1 code was gotten
to compile after much wrangling.

Intermud

A chatline that's pretty much been forgotten about that's available to
anyone who downloads the code and installs it is something called
"Intermud". This is a chatline that is used primarily by various LP
muds to interact with each other, but Abermuds were always able to
join in at any time. Now finally, one has...Delusion. Since Delusion
joined up, I could now see what Intermud offered. The number of
muds linked up under this service number about 125+, and commands are
the same as Aberchat except each one starts with an "I".
Unlike Aberchat, it features a finger and locate command. Should you
get it? If you want to be able to chat with people on a couple
dozen other muds of all different types (right now, just LP and
variants) and believe there isn't enough activity on Aberchat, this
might
be for you...at least it's more free advertising of your mud. Where to
get it...kove.hollyfeld.org has a copy of the client code on FTP to
use. If and when I add it myself, it may go up on a few other places.

That will have to do it for this issue of AA, and will be the last one
for 1998. Alas to get this issue over and done with, I had to hold off
doing interviews with certain caveman and the owners of Cyrosphere.
Perhaps an interim feature will be written up and posted
separately--like an AA#7-2. Hopefully 1999 will be a better year for
Abermuds, so get the word out and do those advertisements!

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

September 1998

CORRECTIONS LIST:

There was a bit of confusion as to who was guilty of the Mud Journal
hack job, somehow I thought the posts on Mud Connector said
who did the deed, but it turns out to be someone else who has really
gotten under the skin of a bunch of people over there, including
myself. Details below.

Ah, autumn is approaching...and when autumn comes, so do the college
students. The college students have made up a large portion of
our mudding population--yet do not have their own home internet
service provider to use. For many of them, their accounts at school
are their only means of accessing the internet cause either they can't
afford a computer, either have no local ISP or afford its rates, or
afford a phone line. But even then, some colleges do not want the
students to be playing games or even web surf in there, despite when
they have no homework and there are several open machines available. I
shall relate an experience I had the previous school year,
where I attempted to help one such mudder last year against what was
considered a pesky computer lab assistant (I won't name the
runner or where it happened, unless they want me to).

A friend of mine attends a small college in another state. This
particular runner had one of the roughest times running to wizard, but
she
pulled it off after months of trying. It was not too long after that a
certain lab assistant in the evenings began running her out of the
computer lab and cutting her connection. After a while this got to be
annoying when it was found that there wasn't a crowd and not
much homework to be done--if any. At worst, this person was threatened
with forfeiting computer lab privileges for the remainder of
her years attending to get her degree. (Isn't this type of punishment
supposed to be reserved for computer crackers and saboteurs?)
Now, I already read this FAQ about mudding not being a "right", but I
do not necessarily agree with the arguments presented. At this
point I asked for the email address of the lab assistant who was doing
this stuff so I could send that individual an informative letter
about the do's and don'ts on when to ask someone to leave the computer
lab and question why he cares when someone is mudding. At
first, I was led to believe I had gotten the system
administrator...instead I got another lab assistant who doubled as the
webmaster.
After a couple of exchanges the mail ended up with the real system
admin. Finally, the desired effect began to emerge, although it
wasn't clear if that was the case early on. For some of the notions
expressed in the letter, these weren't true with this particular
college...all students had "free" phones, and the monies from tuition
weren't funding the computer lab. Somehow, the sysadmin though I
was her boyfriend (!) even though I've never met this girl in person.
And a month later, when I sent another note to this same pest that
was spam booting her off from another location on campus, the sysadmin
had the notion that I was "continually harassing" the lab
assistants--not true of course. Eventually, things had settled down,
where the mudder was allowed to be online, within reasonable
limits.

Now, for someone to stand up to a computer lab assistant or a system
administrator, it takes a lot of courage--cause their reactions are
very unpredictable. The worse case being that the sysadmin will bar
you from using the computer lab, but if that happens, you should
file a grievance with the Dean of Students, the student government, or
else demand a FULL refund of tuition. Since I was not anywhere
near this college, it wasn't too much of a problem for me to send
someone a list of complaints. The only real concern is getting the
mudder in trouble, so being civil is a requirement. If you're needing
a well formulated argument to tell someone why you shouldn't be
bared from playing a mud...there it is.

It's been a bit of a busy summer for me, and a somewhat of an active
summer for Abermuds in general in terms of coding. It fortunately
has been quiet in terms of ugly incidents...which *I* like (that has
changed in the last few weeks, details below). But there has been
some problems in terms of authorship and permissions--this time
concerning the C-Dirt codebase. Months ago I was asked to take
down the Gold zone, of which I found out that the author never gave
permission to distribute (a buggy, unusable version of) his zone in
the C-Dirt archive. It appears possible that some other zones in it
may not have that permission either. I think it's high time for anyone
who has a zone in C-dirt to come forward and say they didn't give
permission if that is the case. Until then, people like me should not
be expected to take responsibility for the actions of the author of
C-Dirt, and any zone included there is considered fair game. Here is
what's included in C-Dirt, along with all the other codebases.

There have been a number of happenings in the Abermud community (some
maybe passed over from last issue) here is a roundup of
the newer additions over the summer:

Marty of Darkscapes has finally decided to release pDirt to the public
again! Be warned though, Marty intentionally put a couple of
things in the code that are open doors for crackers to break in, this
being to keep "non-coders" from running a mud, or so he says on
his webpage. Nothing a good patch from Abermud Central can't fix. You
can get it from http://strata.ml.org/~marty/pdirt/.

Promised Land, of which yours truly now ranks as a Demigod and does
some of their coding (eek!), offers some new features this
go-around. For zones, we become the first to open the Batcave quest by
Sanyth (this was the winner in that zone-writing contest a few
months back). Your mission here is explore the cave and avoid being
caught in a trap, or eaten up by bats, werewolves and spirits
while trying to free Akasha, the queen of the damned from her husband.
Also we have the Chess quest, featuring a battle with a real
Joker and the pieces on a chessboard. We also will be the first to
reintroduce the Ildharas zone by Kalivar, long since lost when the
Aber IV muds began to fade away. Ildharas was created in 1991, using
the Aber IV format. You can read the prelogue story about
this quest over at
http://www.cyberverse.com/~kalivir/Ildharas/ildharas.html Some more
skills have been added to the learning list,
fightstrength and fightmana which allows you to regenerate your health
and mana during a fight (at a lesser rate), meditate where you
can regain your health at a faster rate temporarily, and robdeath
where you can steal from deathrooms. These are only available when
you have completed some services to your god. A poker game has also
been added, where you the runners attempt to gather five
playing cards scattered about the mud to make their best hand, and
perhaps be rewarded. Some new commands were also added:
SMELL, either stuff or others, ASSIST, which ends the conflict between
reading help files and helping players, and ARREST for
busting the bad guys (like the Criminal, who's stealing everything!)

Northern Lights continues to add new quests, this time the Brownies
quest by the archwizard caveman, Og. In the land of the Brownies
something is terribly wrong... The Mayor of Brownie Town might be able
to tell you what has happened to them. NL is also moving
away from hardcoded magically effected items by using a number of new
object attribute flags. Some mystery rewrite of an old zone is
coming shortly...but they wouldn't reveal what it is.

Phoenix also has been adding new quests. Warlock written by Heathen,
where you find your way up a rocky climb near the Elven
Forest into Firetop Mountain, bring the Warlock to justice and burn
the sign at the entrance. Teardrop written by Aso, where you have
to find a lakeside wayward pine and a book in the village of Omnival,
situated at the foot of Mt. Vorpal in the moors, and save the
village when the ghouls of Fallenthorp escape their volcanic prison.
Players can now resurrect their familiars for a fee, new items and
changes in policy in the shops, and some enhancements to the economic
system. Another type of tournament is offered, Capture the
Flag.

Asylum once again is one of the biggest newsmakers of the issue. The
landscape is getting a revamp on one side, where the base zone
is being called Osterland, which will make it easier to add new zones.
New quests featured are: Earthgod by Lichen, Kjeldor by
Bargalad and Abby, Vortex by Trog and Gandor, Phoenix by Arg. A number
of gameplay changes have been implemented, where the
most important change is that a number of flags and code have been
added to facilitate the operation of our new aMobiles system.

* Microsoft Recommends Asylum MUD *

Asylum is one of the handful of MUDs which have been recommended in
the new Microsoft Bookshelf "Internet Directory 1998" - and
is the only Aber sourced MUD of those mentioned. Turn to page 710 of
the directory to read our review. This inclusion does come to
us as a pleasant surprise, given the fact that no adminsitrative
contact was made at any time with the authors of the book.

* aMobiles System Launched *

Some of you may be aware of an idea put about several months ago
called aMobiles - (Asylum-Mobiles). This idea centers around the
concept that instead of introducing player-killing, mobiles could
actually be programmed to work more like players themselves which
would inevitably enhance general game-play while retaining the same
difficulty rating within the game. Some minor testing has been
carried out on this idea together with many emails between powers and
eventually, Friends. A limited release of aMobiles is now
functioning within Asylum code. So, what do aMobiles actually do? Well
ask yourself, what can players do? They can:

* flee when they feel that they are in grave danger, depending upon
wimpy.
* sleep when low on strength or aura.
* find food, carry it and eat it when needed.
* join in fights with players and fights against mobiles.
* use aura to cast spells and when it is used up, they cannot cast any
more until aura is replenished.
* remember who saved them from death and help that person later
* be healed (for mobiles specifically by wandering healers...)
* Companions respond to two new tells:
Stay - Companion will remain and sleep until it has healed str and
aura.
Follow - Companion will always follow you.
NOTE: Asking a mobile for help will put it into Follow mode (default).

Delusion has edged out the competition again as the largest Abermud of
them all now offering 134 zones, 6997 rooms, 2366 mobiles,
3763 objects, and 66 quests. There are 172 quest points total, with 4
different WizLevels which is determined by your earned quest
points. Recently introduced are multiple races and classes, each with
different skills and spells. A new spell system, with spell
categories and duration spells that are class dependant. A new skill
system, with tons of skills that are also race and class dependant. A
new money system with a trading post for mortals to trade equipment.
Other odds and ends include a fully working clone and alias
code, fully nonblocking socket code, with asynchronous hostname and
ident lookup, subnet identification, route banning and linkdeath
support. Identification of player´s origin (city + state/country),
antispam and antimacro code (test state), and fully integrated
mudmailer
with ability to mail players on other muds round out the new stuff.
New Planned features: 10 new quests (none of which will be by me),
player familiars, and diseases. This MUD is a real darkhorse, better
discover what you're missing today!

MystiqueMUD recently has added the following to its mud: Foremost
among Mystique's impressive features is a brand new,
cutting-edge mailer, written entirely in-house. This mailer, inspired
by other excellent mailers including FreddMail and several UNIX
system mailers, features multiple folders to organize your mail, the
ability to direct messages to multiple recipients, and an advanced and
intuitive interface. Other innovations introduced by Mystique
personnel include a Capture The Flag arena, an advanced ANSI color
management system, a bounty system to reward tracking down and
defeating difficult opponents, a fair player killing system which
protects the innocent, a 'soapbox' system for self-expression, and a
host of improvements to the game engine which the average player
will never see but which nevertheless enhance the overall experience.

Acheron offers a bunch of new zones itself: Avernus that features the
LostBook quest--Journey to a once abandoned castle to retrieve
Academas' lost book and put it back on the table which is belongs
(this is nothing like Mendax's LostBook/NRose zone).
FireMage--Stop the fire raids by killing the FireMage.
Queensryche--Save the Queen of Rycheland from her nasty king, and
receive a
great reward. Also by Academas: PrinceG and Rat.

Anarchy (no web page) has a revamped spell system where each player
has to spend cash earned to improve the seven spell types
they can cast. Of course, the key is killing mobiles and solving
quests. Speaking of which, new quests added are Benefaction,
Cataclysm, and Avalon. The layout of the mud has been redesigned, so
it looks much differently than your standard stock layout we all
know. The mud now self-respawns.

Antropo offers the following new quests: Frankenstein, where you help
the mad doctor finish his latest creation and get rewarded;
Horror, where you save a village and kill the master of horror (like
Doom); Pentadragon, a hard puzzler where you seek the help of a
warrior past to kill a resurrected dragon; Papunica, free a trapped
people from the commander of an army of demons, the toughest
mobiles are found here; Creator (also known as Gialco), which you have
to kill an evil sorceror to avenge the killing of all the cyclops.

ANOTHER player file has been lost. This time Camelot (no web page) has
fallen victim to this plague, caused by a hard drive crash.
Head back over and mail Merlin for a reimbursement of points and
quests.

Darkscapes offers these new quests: Creator previously mentioned in
Antropo, and the Tree quest, where you must save Chanya The
Tree of Wisdom, and rescue an unknown City from certain death!

Infinity (no web page) has done some work over time and offers some
new features: A new talk feature has been implemented where
private conversations can now be color coded, and accessed by a typing
just three characters (uh excuse me, but isn't ERiC's color
parser available everywhere?) This makes it easier to talk to those
with similar names, and to keep multiple conversations straight.
Soon, another new and innovative way to communicate will be
implemented. A modified, improved version of the Jimmy zone with the
ParrotHead quest has been added, which is designed to be a fun run for
all, and an interesting blend of puzzle and combat.

Nalle offers the Lostcards quest--Pelle the card-player has lost 5 of
his cards, find them and return them to him.

Hysteria has implemented some gameplay changes...while you're playing,
you can SCOPE your surroundings and see who's nearby
(just like a diku), and use AFFECT to see what all is affecting you.
You can also see the "ticks" of the clock. Ticks are the MUD's
timers. They control how long spells last, when repops will occur, and
pretty much everything else. Magic has been changed, you may
have to wait before you can do something after completing a spell,
depending on the spell. Watch out, those of you that like to act like
an IDIOT! The powers can flag you as such, and makes you slow down
greatly, plus the embarassment! There are quests for wizards,
which range from hide and seek to scavenger hunts. Two new guilds,
Fallen Angels and Thugs for those are basically such. And finally,
if 25 different people are logged in at any one time, everyone gets a
point or levels reward (ingenius recruiting method!). Don't forgot to
read THEIR newsletter..."Bit of Hysteria".

Smile has figured out a way to use your hands, now you can wield two
weapons and use your shield for blocking. ROGUEs can do
player killing without risk, SAVE won't work until you quit out or get
killed.

TerraFirmA finally put out their way overdue newsletter called
FreeWheeling in late June. Their next issue's release is in question.
As
for enhancements, they've added the following: New Commands--INVOKE,
this command activates stored majick in Enchanted
Items. Look for these objects they lie scattered around the world and
can hold powerful spells! RECHARGE, got your Enchanted
object and used all its power? No problem, find the mage and use this
command to charge its spell casting power. Majick Changes:
This release includes a lot of changes to Majick. Some news spells
have been added plus the already mentioned Enchanted Items. The
Mage can now tell you more about majick related objects. The major
change though this release is the introduction of mobile offensive
majick. Some mobiles will now throw spells at you during combat, so
its essential you have majick protect or majick nullifying spells on
your side! New Quest: This release also sees the introduction of the
Prague Quest. The story of Prague tells of a great Golem who
helps the local townspeople in their everyday work. The Rabbi is a
wise old man whose trust you have to gain in order for him to help
you to create this awesome being. So, you want to solve the new quest
in Prague? But how do you get there? Well, you have to catch
the new Stagecoach which stops in Prague and Beilefeld. There's a
small price to pay, but the journey is safe and smooth... for now ;)
Another big change this release is the revision of small puzzles and
tasks which change every reset. There are now many boards
scattered across the world, and many many more puzzles to complete!
Don't forget you can still hire out Mercenaries to help you in the
game!

Here's the current breakdown on mud stats, take note--Mud Connector
considers any mud with less than 10,000 rooms to be a
SMALL one, so the horse race is on to break the 10,000 barrier (which
just happens to be Abermud's physical limit) while maintaining
quality:

Mud Name
Rooms
Zones
Quests

Objects

Mobiles
Asylum
6000
144
65
6017

2672
Black Star
6625
125
32
3495

2479
Camelot
1139
45
18
508

245
Delusion
6997
134
66
3763

2366
Illusionary Realms II
1616
46
11
835

415
Mystique
4361
100
55
1809

1109
Northern Lights
3668
95
49
4333

1320
Phoenix
3643
100
34
2931

1393
Smile
4332
88
49
2158

1382
XTC
3636
87
14
1758

1239

General news items...

Mudzine didn't last very long, which is unfortunate considering there
wasn't anything similar to it around--what killed it was time
constraints and a lack of news submissions. Now there is another mud
magazine taking its place called the The Mud Journal. It will be
doing what Mudzine did where they report on mud happenings, mud
players, and reviews. In this case however, there will be a
reporting staff and it will come out on a monthly basis. As this issue
was being written up, they were conducting a major poll where they
asked who was the best role-playing mud, best player-kill mud, best
overall mud, favorite codebase, favorite MUD client, and MUD
vs. MUD (beats me what that means). LP and Smaug have been running
away with the voting, and until I came across it, Abermud
hadn't gotten one vote...so after casting my vote, I've put the word
out that we needed to get our vote out and make a showing. This
effort did pay off, as Abermud ranked third with 12% while Northern
Lights finished in sixth place with 6% and Asylum tenth place
with 3% for best overall mud. A new poll will start every month, and
nominations should be submitted by the fifteenth of the month. If
you want to keep your mud in the top ten, you have to submit new votes
every month--and right now, our guys aren't doing too well in
September.

UPDATE on Mud Journal--somebody broke into their site on 9/8/1998 and
deleted everything. The FBI was called in to investigate,
and TMJ had stated that they will press charges against whoever had
done the deed. Unauthorized hacking is classified as a class C
felony in all the NATO countries punishable by up to three years in
prison. There was a bit of confusion as to who was actually the one
who did the deed. The Mud Connector's General Discussion Area had
posts shortly afterward in which someone named James Allison
was the id'ed as the one who did it. Later on however, when the FBI
performed the trace it turned out to be from an Ottawa Canada
socket. The trouble indeed was a vendetta against the owner of Dark &
Shattered Lands MUD, via a guy named Krantzstone who
was banned from it for cheating and admitting only to play there to
cause problems, amist a lot of other reasons. How did anyone
become enabled to get in? He intercepted an ICQ conservation between
TMJ's editors where they were talking about their passwords
at the time. According to one source, snooping on private ICQ
conversations isn't a difficult thing to do. TMJ unfortunately did not
have a backup of the webpages and had to start over. If it is provable
as to who committed the crime, the maximum allowed charges
will be pressed. You can see for yourself the aftermath flamethrowing
over on Mud Connector's General Discussion Area. Aside,
heavy discussion with persons argueing on whether the polls are
rigged--I don't think so, my own work on getting our two Abermuds
ranked was legit campaigning and getting out the vote. Someone else
however, thinks these polls are just for elevating someone's
self-pride, and of course will never be accurate--personally, I
nominate a mud if I think it has a chance and is popular enough.

What's new to download? Several of the zone files are scheduled to be
updated soon (course this newsletter kept me from that...),
since I now have a mud where I can directly test what I write when I
attempt to put those zones in. A couple of zones will be added,
starting with the Enchanter zone recently donated by Jonix (the
specials file has yet to be located). The previously mentioned
Ildharas
zone by Kalivar, which has a bit of a story on how it came about. I of
course in keeping with TCAL being complete periodically use
the major search engines to locate anything new or obscure on the
topic. Well, that day I came across one site where the author talks
about some zones they had written in years past, most of them were
some flavor of Diku, but one of them was for an Abermud. I made
an inquiry about it, we exchanged email about the zone, made
formatting changes, and mechanics, made an offer to convert the
specials, and eventually Kalivar produced a rewritten zone file using
the Dirt format. Along the way, she sent the format for Aber IV
zones, which looked remarkably like Diku formats. Now we should be
thankful to the authors of Dirt, cause without them we might still
be using some Diku-type formatting in our creations. Ildharas should
be available after it is introduced into Promised Land.

We are in need of the specials files for the following zones: Chylon,
Cottage, Enchanter, Eosia, Rome, Town, and Windy. They have
either been lost by the original author or weren't included with the
C-Dirt codebase, I know how to run a couple of them, but it's better
not having to reinvent the wheel recreating stuff that exists
somewhere else. Jar authored Eosia, but lost his copy. Jonix authored
Enchanter, but also lost his copy.

ZGEN has been updated again to v0.31. New this time around is
visibility for objects, as opposed to assigning the "Destroyed" flag
to
it. Visibility hasn't been used too much in zone files, if at all, but
it does exist in all of the Dirt codebases available for objects and
mobiles. I plan to make use of visibility in future zones submitted. A
problem raised recently was that ZGEN won't run in Red Hat
Linux. Even though I have tested it in that environment, it should be
noted that I've created ZGEN using perl v5.004.01 using SCO
UNIX. As a rule of thumb, if ZGEN won't run, check the following: the
version of UNIX/Linux you're running, the version of perl
you're running. ZGEN will work under v5.003, but older versions and
even newer versions of perl remain to be tried.

Some additional download sites were added to the mudstuff section,
including www.winfiles.com where it has a selection of telnet and
MUD clients, www.mudsource.com which is another site to download
source code for a bunch of different kinds of muds.
Abermud386 appears to be a SCO Xenix version of Aber Two, though
looking thru the tar file it doesn't look like the tar file was built
correctly. (Anyone know what the reliably factor with tar files is?
Verification modes while building?) From what I could see in there, it
appears to be a later version of Aber Two, where mobiles are able to
move around and some more of the familiar zones missing from
the older version has shown up here.

Ever wanted to advertise your mud using banner ads but didn't want to
shell out the bucks to do it? About eight muds have used the
free banner space at the top of my mudlist, but the people who see it
are the ones who look at this webpage. Fortunately there's some
other places to put that banner where a much wider audience can see
it.

Talon's Gaming Network, which will feature codebase reviews,
downloads, and information pertaining to online gaming, features a
free
banner exchange in which you can keep up on the stat ratio of showings
and hits. It isn't very large at this point--about four banners
make up the current rotation after I submitted one for my mud and this
website, but with the exposure given here that should change
very quickly.

Mudlinx is another free banner link exchange offering the same
services as TGN, only that this has been around a good while and has
several members.

Of course, whenever you use these services, you have to put their
banner box on your webpage and everyone sees banners from other
sites advertising their mud or webpage. The banners have to conform to
a certain size limit, 10K or so, but they also get resized if
they're bigger or smaller than the specified size.

The Mud Journal for a limited time is offering for free 200x75 sized
ad banners, which will be posted around the site at random.

The Abermud Webring homepage is being moved to another server. The
server where it was housed before is out of commission, so
new submissions to the ring aren't being taken (changes of address are
being taken however). The move hasn't been completed, and is
taking longer than expected.

And now some comments about zone writing. Lately I've come across
several instances of poor zone writing or placement, including
on my own mud. There are several unwritten rules about where you
should place a zone, transitions, warning signs of danger, etc. and
they have been breached a bit too often. So here are some of the big
taboos in zone writing:

Rooms With Cuss Words--we're supposed to be running muds that are for
everyone, including kids. We shouldn't be teaching kids
new four letter words. Secondly, using curse words in a zone shows
poor English writing skills, you shouldn't be using curse words to
describe something. No, don't claim to be writing "Catcher in the Rye"
type zone. I found one zone that used the F-word to describe a
wall, unfortunately it wasn't the real version of the zone and he was
in a bad mood at the time.

Rooms with Poor or No Transition--This problem was on my own mud, and
I've seen it elsewhere. In this case you're standing on a
cliff, overlooking an ocean to the east. You take the east exit, and
you find yourself in the middle of the forest...what the heck? Bad bad
bad. You don't just stick a new zone just ANYWHERE. You have to look
carefully for a spot, and imagine what it looks like if you
were actually there to decide if it makes sense. Well, it was
blanantly obvious that it didn't make sense so I moved the zone to
another
part of the mud where it did make some sense. Just watch what you're
doing next time, discuss it with the other powers if need be.

Deathrooms With No Warning--this is a big annoyance to the runners,
you're walking along, everything looks fine and dandy
and...BOOM you're dead! The typical non-marked deathroom is where the
room describes your exits but doesn't give anything that
would hint at trouble, same goes for the deathroom itself with a
non-threatening title. On my mud we had one of those, the deathroom
was called "Climbing the Mountain" where the room before described two
paths and said there was a mountain in front of you...but no
description of the mountain itself. Several other rooms in the game
were called "Climbing the Mountain", but weren't deathrooms at all.
Avoid this zone-writing taboo.

Mobiles that Block All Flees--What bothers me about this one is the
author creates a room with only one exit, then puts a tough mobile
in there blocking the only exit out, and add to that the mobile can't
be killed by normal weapons. Caught in a fight you cannot win, you
can't flee, automatic loss of half your score. If you had the lone
teleport scroll, you could escape...but most people would not. That
kind of zone exists on Virtual Sun, and I haven't run on that mud
since because of that trap (that particular zone doesn't exist on any
other mud, no big surprise). That is something you should avoid coding
for your zone, cause it doesn't really make the zone better.

Geocities has made their desperate move, and bumped me off for
blocking their eyesore from interfering with my content--this lasted a
total of 72 days, don't remember when I started with blocking the
pop-up ads. As you can see, XOOM doesn't have anything of the
sort (yet, except they block graphics accessed from their site used on
other sites), which explains how their membership doubled in
three months--disgruntled Geocities members by the millions jumped
ship here or other places like it. (Someone claimed XOOM has
only 250K webpages there, supposedly their membership is due to their
chat server and sale items.) Despite the massive campaign
against it, it steadfastly won't buckle to the opposition--and has
been doing its best to destroy it. The management has convinced itself
that somehow this cattle branding will cause someone playing the stock
market to buy its stock...uh yeah, the value of the stock is
currently about the same as it was when it was offered for sale. (The
high teens or low twenties, off a high of $46.)

The FTC recently sued Geocities for violating privacy laws and selling
information about its members, even though Geocities claims the
press got it wrong about what they were doing when they were cited,
but their credibility right now is extremely low. This has actually
damaged the value of their stock, and when their "real" cattle brand
appears, that being a large pop-up box pushed into your face
whenever you hover your mouse over it, will damage their stock even
more. But this has not stopped there, they had introduced a
LARGE delay loop in javascript (1 to 35,000) that detects and freezes
your Netscape 3 browser until it finishes. IE3 users weren't
affected, because it pops a warning to the user alerting you to this
loop. This was taken out days later, after a large uproar prompted a
response saying they were using it to correct some problem with their
advertising banners.

There is another important piece of information though,
www.register.com seems to have had a major role in developing the
floating
logo. This ought to be BAD news for the viewer as other websites may
do what the television industry has done and stick its logo over
what you're reading...ala the Stamp Act of 1769 that helped start the
American Revolution. (I got a copy of this stupid code too,
wonder what a real hacker could do with it?) As my act of revenge
against Geocities, I am posting up a photo of Tom Evans, their
CEO, where the viewer can use him as a punching bag. Incidently, this
guy was the former president of "U.S. Snooze and World
Distort" (okay, U.S. News and World Report, but you get the
point...thanks Rush) who in an interview said the web was not being
fully utilized for advertising and promotion (read: you haven't been
SPAMMED enough.) MY suggestion: write to Netscape,
Microsoft, and Sun begging for java program and javascript filtering.
It should provide the ability to block the execution of certain
scripts deemed troublesome, such as the "open browser window" bomb
that opens new browser windows repeatedly until your
computer runs out of memory, and obviously that cattle brand. By the
way, have you heard about the "Strange Brew" javavirus?

ANOTHER Late news breaker: http://www.junkbuster.com/ offers a piece
of software that DOES block out the stuff you don't want
by filtering it through a proxy. Although I've had trouble with it
early on, which included system freezes and a load of javascript
errors,
this configurable piece of software ought to clean up the junk that's
uploaded to your server when you hop from one place or another,
including those dirty cattle brands and nasty javascripts. What you do
see when something is blocked is a broken-picture symbol or the
Internet Junkbuster hyperlink, which when clicked tells you what was
blocked out. Oh yeah, the software is FREE and comes with
both Windows and Unix systems and can be used as either client-side or
server-side software.

Well, that's it for this edition--any longer and I'm gonna have to
hire an editorial staff. My thanks to Og for encouraging me to write
this
issue even though I should have been doing a lot of other things. The
next one will appear whenever there's too many news items
popping up. Happy running...and condolences to everyone who's been
sucked back into school. Click on NEWS below to read the
previous issue.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

Here is your fifth edition of the Abermud Announcements. Many things
occurred since the last edition, some were good, some were
bad, and some were ugly. There were lessons to be learned as well,
such as going after the person or persons that you know or think
caused your pain may result in greater pain and not a cure. Another
lesson: there is more than one side to a story. And the other lesson:
NEVER, EVER trust someone who shouts "He didn't do nothin', there's
ain't a shred of evidence, he's the greatest president that ever
presidented!" Every time I hear that I want to reach out and clobber
the idiot.

Starting off with the good...

Northern Lights celebrated its 6th anniversary on Saturday June 6th by
opening a new quest called Watertower, which is based on the
Animaniacs cartoon series. A day long party kicked off with a
reflection from Vitastjern, who received a massive WWW greeting card
at http://www.digifriends.com/mud/nl_6th_a.shtml Then some surprise
promotions and retirements were made, and weddings were
performed in wild ceremonies. Also many assorted changes and additions
to commands were put in.

The size game has gotten interesting of late. Right now, the top three
contenders for the largest mud are Asylum (currently down),
Black Star, and now out of nowhere comes Delusion! A point was made by
some wizard saying something like "Size does not make
the mud, the players make the mud." Well, if the players make the mud,
then the number of Abermuds would number about 5 to 10,
which isn't good numbers considering the number of people who play
dikus are far greater. For a mud by mud comparison, here are
the numbers:

Mud Name
Rooms
Zones
Quests

Objects

Mobiles
Asylum
5845
140
64
5482

2521
Black Star
6364
123
32
3403

2352

Camelot
1139
45
18
508

245
Delusion
6674
123
63
3368

2258
Illusionary Realms II
1500
59
9
1164

396
Mystique
4324
100
52
1795

1164
Northern Lights
3594
94
48
4226

1289

Phoenix
3643
100
34
2931

1393
Smile
4332
88
49
2158

1382
XTC
3636
87
14
1758

1239

Analysis: Being the biggest hasn't always translated into popularity.
Asylum started out as a mid-sized mud, but it grew to a large sized
mud, thanks to its sizable staff whom were able to put in new zones at
a consistent pace. Black Star and Delusion started out pretty
large, but do not as yet have a great following. Even though Black
Star and Delusion's zone count is smaller, the number of rooms per
zone is much greater. Camelot is the smallest mud around now, but only
myself and another has run to wizard on that one. Illusionary
Realms is considered the most popular small mud, which is interesting
since does not change or expand much. Northern Lights and
Phoenix certainly are certainly mid-sized and are in the top three for
popularity. It should also be noted, the most popular muds have
been open for four or more years (for Phoenix counting the years
before the split when it was called Piglet and Vortex). Black Star and
Delusion have only been around less than two years. The stats here
include all things that are not accessible by mortals--a.k.a. wizonly
stuff. The quest count on some of these muds could easily be a lot
more, if only the muds counted certain areas as quests as do some
other muds.

Asylum makes big news again, good and bad, the bad being below, but
here's the good: A new kind of tournament will be introduced
to the mud, which is something like a paint-ball war involving two
teams that will be called Campaign, based on the Siege quest. This
tourney area will be open for anyone, anytime. New quests added will
be Gnome, EarthGod, Vortex, and Masquerade. A so-called
AI mobile will be introduced that's practically a hint machine,
certainly the wizards of the mud won't have to worry about being asked
about quests they don't know about. Certain places will face invasions
by seasonal maraders. And finally, last time I talked about
XClient, which provides a graphical view of the mud you're playing,
well Asylum will have such a multi-windowed client for its mud.
Alas, it will not be compatible with any other mud--the source code
won't be released for tinkering methinks. More extensive
information can be read at
http://www2.env.uea.ac.uk/asylum/concepts.html

One Abermud is now a comic book! LexMorgan has created a comic called
Land of Phoenix based on some of the characters and
quests of Phoenix. Land of Phoenix will be distributed under the Marky
Comics title and a public viewing and selling will occur at:

The Canadian Comics Showcase

Radisson East Don Valley

1250 Eglington Ave East, in Toronto, Ontario CANADA

November 6 - 8, 1998

The comic got a review from Paul Dale Roberts of
www.cbcwebzine.home.ml.org Finding the review itself was too tough for
me so
this was sent it by LM himself (prices shown are most likely in
CANADIAN dollars):

Marky Comics Overviews

Name: The Land of Phoenix #1 Price: $1.75

Name: Marky Comics Alternate Lex and Rex #6 Price: $2.00

Name: Jagger No. 1/2 Price: 25 cents

Publisher: Marky Comics

Written and Drawn by: Mark Cardosa

Overviewed by: Paul Dale Roberts

Comments on The Land of Phoenix #1: Mark Cardosa makes this comment:
"Welcome to the first issue of the Land of Phoenix
mini-comic book series based on the mud game entitled Phoenix, which
is established by Taras and Talan. The series revolves around
a young boy named Elric, who quests the Land of Phoenix in search for
the path to immortality. Elric is not a current runner or mobile
on Phoenix, but the other characters and warriors in the book are.
Even though the quests from the book are taken from the Phoenix.
This book is in no way a means to tell you how to do the quests in the
game". In this story, the interactions between the characters are
quite dramatic and the interplaying roles are done well. Like in
horror movies and something scary is about to happen, the same thing
is
here when the Fire Demon makes his appearance. A surprising turn of
events as Lex Morgan from the Marky Comics Universe is part
of the realm of the Phoenix. Lots of twists and turns in the story
with surprises around each corner. Cool map is given of The Lands of
Phoenix in the back of the comic book. Great fantasy fun and you can
actually become part of the story, check it out and see what I'm
talking about.

Comments on Marky Comics Lex and Rex #6: Mature themed story with some
adult language and nudity. The story starts off with a
chaotic situation that is happening in the city and Terry Ann Stone is
reporting it live on the news. The Full-Figured Feminists are
causing all this havoc and they are out for the throats of Lex and
Rex. These women are big, I mean really big! Lex and Cammi have a
fling in this issue..or do they? Very funny issue, that will have you
laughing until you get a nose bleed!

Comments on Jagger # 1/2: An evil character named Mr. X, makes his
terrifying appearance. A girl witnesses Mr. X's men kill a guy
named Mike Capers and Mr. X wants to make sure that she doesn't live
to tell anyone. Mr. X is a full fledged terrorist, that has this
poor girl shaking in her boots! Great story that leaves you wanting
more. All Marky Comics are black and white and are ashcan size.
For more information about Marky Comics, check out their website at:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2991/index.html or email Mark
Cardosa at: Marky...@juno.com

Phoenix has two other webpages dedicated to it aside from the site
owned by the mud, one is by Heathens at:
http://home4.swipnet.se/~w-48250/Mud/index.htm
another is by Rudolph at:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/7981/phoenix.html
and of course the mud's own is: http://www.phoenix.mudservices.com

Lastly on Phoenix a new zone called Malachite was created by Gorehound
where you must wipe out a band of thugs trashing the
neigborhood and murdering everyone in sight. Careful though, just
skimming the text will result in you missing a lot of hidden items.
Some interesting info files were created, one suited for a court
reporter.

TerraFirma has changed its magic system a few months ago (not in time
to make the last issue), so now here's the lowdown on it:

The TerraFirmA Majick System.

The following should give a good insight into the spell casting system
designed exclusively for TerraFirmA. The sections are in logical
order, and deal with finding the spells you are able to cast, casting,
improving your casting ability, spell failures and cancelling active
spells.

There are basically two types of spell available - Permanent and
Timed. Permanent spells leave lasting effects on their targets, but
can
be removed under the following conditions.

If the spell affects a location, a reset or 'dispel' will dismiss it.
If the spell affects a player, only an Untouchable or the reverse
spell can
remove it. The reverse of Curse for example is Purify. The Cure spell
will cure all effects of Blindness, Deafness, Crippled and
Dumbness. If the spell affects an object or a mobile, the spell will
vanish at the next reset.

Timed spells are spells that run for a set duration before ending. The
length of each spell is determined by the caster's level plus the
'base' duration of the spell itself.

All spells cost Strength to cast. Permanent spells do a set amount of
damage to your strength at casting time. Timed spells drain your
strength over the active lifetime of the Majick.

Typing in spellbook (or sb), will give a list of all the castable
spells at your current level. The spells are divided into powers, so
that
Power One spells are the easiest to cast and Power Five spells are the
hardest to cast.

Typing in spellbook 'spellname', will give details about that spell.
Such things as the Strength penalty for casting, the damage if any the
spell will do, area of effect, success rate and duration are given.

Casting

In order to cast a spell there must be a target to aim the spell at.
Targets are Location (that is, the room you are currently in), Person
(a
mobile or a player), Yourself, or an Object. To invoke the spell,
simply type the spellname with the target's name afterwards. For
example, to target a

room, type 'darkness' (the spell knows to target the
room)

person type 'chill person', ie, 'chill sam'

object type 'vanish object',ie, 'vanish boat'

The rules for targetting yourself with a spell vary slightly depending
on the type of spell you are casting. If the spell has an 'affects'
value
of Self, you simply need to type the spellname on its own, e.g.
'Shield'. If the spell 'affects' a player you need to tell it which
person, e.g.
'Cure me'.

To find out which spells you have active at any given moment, use the
'spells' command. This will list the spell name and an
approximation of when the spell will end, and the target the spell is
active upon.

There are many Majickal and powerful artefacts around the game world.
Some of these can enhance your ability to cast spells, while
others will act as protective charms and help resist the Majick of
others. The effects of these items are cumulative, so find and collect
as
many as you can.

As Majick is powerful and chaotic by nature, when things go wrong,
they really do 'go wrong'. The chances of a spell going horribly
wrong depend on the spell you are casting, your level, the number of
spell enhancing objects you have, and the number of protection
objects your target has. The effects of a misfiring can be quite
serious and can lead to a debilitating penalty, or in extreme cases a
nasty,
but colourful, death.

Dismissing a spell is similar in many ways to casting a spell in that:

To dismiss a spell targetted on a room, type 'dismiss spellname', e.g.
'dismiss darkness'. Note you must be in the room where the
Majick is active to cancel that spell. To dismiss a spell targetted on
yourself, type 'Dismiss spellname', e.g. 'dismiss shield'. To dismiss
a
spell targetted on an object type 'Dismiss spellname objectname', e.g.
'dimiss vanish boat'. To dismiss a spell targetted on a player, type
'Dismiss spellname player', e.g. 'dismiss charm sam'. Only spells that
have a duration can be dismissed.

Hints and Tips.

* Watch your strength when casting multiple timed spells. It's easy
to die of

exhaustion.

* Always make sure you have at least two enhancing objects when
casting the

higher power spells.

* If a spell fails it could be dangerous to keep casting that spell
in order

to try to make it work.

* Somethings are immune to spells....

* Use claw and shield while running for starting equipment.

* To rest in an unsafe location, use Bubble, you heal faster than the

spell will drain your energy.

* If you escape a fight using flash, be sure to let your opponent
calm

down before you re-enter the location.

* If a location is a dead end, try to detect any Majickal activity
there.

Some other assorted odds and ends:

There is an online magazine for mudders. It's called Mudzine and can
be read at www.mudzine.com Anyone can submit news about
their mud and new info is posted daily.

If you mud isn't listed on Mudconnector or Doran's Mudlist, you're not
really running a mud...

Cabo Wabo: Land's End has reopened its doors to the public. It's at
pizza.mudservices.com 5150.

Other new zones introduced: Elven has Snowscape (Legolas's version)
and DeadSoul.

"Did I get that name right? [y/n]" -- a chronicle of Zarniwoop's
storied past with Abermuds, read it at
http://www.icce.rug.nl/we/students/remmelt/blood.html

AberMud Central--a source for code patches for your mud, submissions
for Dyrt and C-Dirt are sorely needed. You can get patches
for iDirt at http://nalle.tellus.vallentuna.se/~mullberg/aber_central/

ZED Zone Editor by Rhadmanthus is now available on the Mudstuff
section. Almost lost for good, this zone editor is practically online
zone creation like you use the clone command on iDirts. Requires UNIX.

Check out Digifriends hosted by MadCat by checked on the name toward
the bottom of this letter.

Expect a surprise debut of a certain mud in the coming weeks--no info
is permitted to be given, I just happened to figure out which
mud they were talking about. ;)

Now to the bad stuff....

Keeping a site isn't a sure thing, even if you are providing your own
server. Asylum lost its site recently due to the ISP hosting it going
belly up. Fortunately Asylum has located another site, but now they
will have to cover bandwidth charges. Since the mud is based out
of the United Kingdom, donations in British Pounds will be needed. The
non-profit organization to be formed to handle donations will
be called "Friends of Asylum". The owners of the mud will foot some of
the bill, but to keep the mud going they will need a little
funding. This is their comments on the situation:

Asylum's forthcoming site is hosted by a formidable Internet Service
Provider who are offering us a permanent, secure and fast
connection to the outside world. Bandwidth inevitably costs 'someone'
something. There is no such thing these days as a free
connection and our new connection does unfortunately carry with it an
annual charge for hosting our service.

We seek to raise this money through a number of means. By our very
nature of being a .ORG site, we cannot profit from our service
and any funding we receive is ploughed back into running costs.

The high-powers of Asylum (i.e. those designated with the
responsibility of advancing the game and co-ordinating the efforts of
those
who administer it on a daily basis) have agreed in principle to fund
up to 70 percent of our initial costs. We are looking to powers and
players alike to help us raise the remainder and continue in our
funding. In the next year, we hope to produce some merchandise to
expand our fund raising activities. "Friends of Asylum" has been
created to give players a chance to contribute to the running of the
game. Depending on the level of contribution, we aim to commemorate
this gesture by creating a reminder of that player, within our
Sanctuary village. Think of this as rather like having a brass plaque
on a park bench in your honour! Of course, Asylum is adamant that
we retain the game balance, so therefore we cannot provide any extra
advantage to players within the game.

"Friends of Asylum" are also given a special p-flag which allows them
to communicate on a special "Friends" line, and use the Friends
bulletin board. They are also invited to participate in the testing of
various new concepts and code where appropriate. A new "Friends"
area will be constructed for Friends only to socialise.

There are other such concessions planned for Friends and we look
forward to expanding the concept to meet the needs of those who
want to put something back into the game. Donations are already
pouring in from players who can't wait for the mud to reopen.

A couple other muds were forced to move as well, these being Dark
Cloud 2 and Promised Land plus a bunch of other kinds of mud,
because Dataserv.Net were forced to close shop. No official reason was
given by the company, only that out of the blue we were
given 30 days to download the muds off the server and then a week
later our time was cut down to 5. My guess is that they weren't
making enough money to get by so they chose to get out before getting
too far down the road of financial ruin.

And finally the ugly....

Geocities recently decided that their name wasn't being seen enough,
and many websurfers didn't know they were looking at a
Geocities webpage even though an overwhelming majority of the URLs
contain www.geocities.com in it. If the requirement of the
Geocities icon with "Get your free homepage", the pop-up
advertisments, and the Geoguide weren't enough to promote Geocities,
they
MANDATE, without doing any sort of communication with the homesteaders
to gauge approval, this so-called watermark, or
Geobranding. If you watch television at all in recent years, you
probably see the station's logo in the bottom right corner--that's
there at
all hours of the day and night, except during commericals. So
Geocities (which happens to be the first to ever use such a thing)
created
this transparent graphic, and shoved in onto your webbrowser window,
covering whatever was displayed there, and making the
material harder to read and hijacking any links it was over top of.
Supposedly this graphic was designed to "increase" traffic, but in
reality it just steals readers from your own page and sends them to
another. According to Tom Evans, the CEO of Geocities, claims to
have gotten nothing but positive feedback about the thing...this is of
course before the mandate was made. After this branding began
showing up everywhere in sight, thousands of people quit Geocities in
protest, many thousands more of complaints were sent, protest
webpages were put up, and Geocities staff responded like this: some
used censorship, some used threats, some used intimidation,
some used suspensions, and some deleted people's accounts--that's
pretty low. Excuse me, where the heck does Geocities reside
from? The United States of America? They aren't based out of Cuba,
North Korea, or China the last I checked. The last time a
government treated people like this was when the British ruled what
were the colonies in the 1700s and pre-dating the United States.
We all know what happened shortly thereafter. In 1765 the British led
by King George the III enacted a law called the Stamp Act tax
which was basically stamping the British royal seal on anything made
out of paper, being newspapers, licences, legal documents, even
playing cards. This only lasted a year, but it was one of the factors
that led to the American Revolution. If Geocities continues on this
current track, they could end up like the British and find themselves
with not many homesteaders left--those disgruntled users will be
heading to competitors like Xoom, Fortune City, The Globe, or Tripod.
This in turn results in bad public relations, fewer people
looking at Geocities pages, and fewer products bought by sponsors of
Geocities. Yes, history DOES repeat itself--and the people
repeating it are those who flunk Jay Leno's jaywalking quizzes. I of
course am not moving--it is too much of a hassle to get your site
listed in the major search engines and with some taking several months
before they list you. If they actually pulled the plug on my
webpages, it would be a major act of desperation for them to do so.

Now...how to get rid of that watermark and those pop-up windows? A lot
of people haven't figured out how the thing gets in there...it's
a couple of HTML statements that are appended to the end of the file
starting with a [script language="Javascript"] statement. Adding
ANOTHER statement like this but with something other than Javascript
makes your web browser try to use something that doesn't
exist FIRST. The following script statement will be either ignored or
cause later statement to work improperly, and now when you view
the page, the pop-up windows and the watermarks don't appear anymore.
Problem is, Geocites does not want you to KNOW or
USE this trick, and they're threatening to punish anyone who does so.
Too bad, people didn't come here to see a stupid watermark,
they came to read this newsletter!

The finish the zone writing contest didn't seem to go over well, as
there was just one entry submitted. Supposedly it is harder to finish
someone else's zones than write one from scratch. Nevertheless, Sanyth
from Northern Lights took up the task of finishing the Batcave
zone and now it is up for download on the zonelist section of TCAL.

Should a zone author write a zone for only ONE mud, or should a zone
author write a zone to be used on ANY mud? As it is with a
couple of muds, certain zones and quests can only be found on that one
mud and not anywhere else. One certain aber, Asylum prefers
exclusive zones (custom written for that particular mud too) and does
not want the author to peddle the zones they write to other muds,
some others with high attendance have a similar preference, but will
take a zone from anyone if it's considered to "fit" into their mud.
And there's the others who will take any zone that comes along if it's
decent. The only thing that stops a mud from adding any particular
zone is a lack of time and coding knowledge. So here are the sorted
pros and cons starting with the pros on one zone one mud:

If the zone only exists on your mud, people will come to your mud
just to play that zone.
If the zone only exists on your mud, the mud won't "look" like
all the other muds.

And now the cons for one zone one mud:

If the zone only exists on your mud, if the mud were to shut down
forever, the zone goes with it never to be seen again. This is
because the zone author vanished long before the mud shut down
and the owner of the mud is not likely to distribute their unique
zones to other muds. And even if the original zone author was
still around, somehow someway they lose their own copy of it!
More hack-n-slash type zones on less popular muds or less
variety. When I started running on other muds besides Northern
Lights, the new zones I've tried were not very interactive. All
you did was kill everything, run around, explore, map, but not do
anything special. And yet some of these still ended up being
quests. Now this could tie into the fact that the owners of the other
muds won't have time to make any major zone additions even if the
specials are pre-written for them. You can also tie this into
the fact that zone authors will write for the most popular muds
to get their names in "lights" (like me).
If your zone submission is rejected, well there goes a lot of
time and effort wasted. Doubly worse for you if it uses a special
format for specials like Northern Lights, Phoenix, or Asylum and
you don't know HOW to convert it into C or C++.

Now the pros for one zone many muds:

More fringe benefits. Yes, fringe benefits. Most muds give
incentives for sending your zone in to be included on your mud. These
range from points, levels, emeritis, or even archwizships. It can
also earn you a good reputation.
Gives more people a chance to try your zone. Yes, not everyone
plays the same mud and of course most quests allow just one
person to run the thing at a time. Ironically, the same zone may
be easier to learn and finish on another mud cause you were less
impeded on equipping yourself. Increases the variety of zones
among muds.

And finally the cons:

A little less control on where your zone ends up at, especially
if it becomes a mud codebase stock zone.
The zone which works on one mud because of the specially added
features, won't work on another mud because it misses those
said features.

My personal opinion is spread the thing. Since I tried writing a zone
for one particular mud, it not only got rejected, it ended up in limbo
land for a few years cause no one could convert this particular mud's
catch special format that automatically generates code for them.
The best examples of lost zones comes from some of the muds around
during the early to mid 1990s, each mud closed down and the
authors who wrote the different zones did not pass them around at all,
Purgatory and Aetheria come to mind as where created worlds
vanished.

What is TRUE spam? Is it advertisements of products you don't plan to
buy? Is it the send a dollar to the five addresses show scheme?
Is it call this or that XXX-rated hotline thing? Is it repeating
yourself to someone or group repeatedly? Can it be answering someone
else's spam? Could it even be opening your mouth at ALL??? In this
case, a few have attempted to broaden and stretch the definition
of spamming in new and interesting ways. An individual sent out a note
to several people asking to boycott a certain mud (some of you
know which one it is, for those who don't, I'm not going to say which
or whom the person calling for the boycott is) and that person
said don't reply to it. The boycott in my view was ludicrous, since
the offense alleged was hotly disputed. So I felt it was the right
thing
to do to respond and promote the fact that there was a second side to
the story, since some of the people who got the mailing weren't
active participants in this part of the mudding community. Well what
happened next was truly UGLY. Someone decided I was on some
trip and put up a slam page against me. Some others claimed I created
this mailing list that this other guy started and proceeded to send
me some rather unkind responses including a threat to complain to my
ISP (which to this day I refuse to believe my ISP would have
done ANYTHING against me for what was going on). And I of course fired
the salvos against the wrong targets in retaliation. While
the targeted mud for the boycott didn't suffer, they got more players
as a result. But I ended up burned badly playing with the
flamethrower.

Just as ugly and continuing...the last edition had a paragraph on
disrupting mud harmony. Some of those who have suffered from such
action praised the piece, while others who were guilty of such conduct
were NOT happy. No big surprise there. The muds which were
disrupted have banned all sites some person could possibly connect
from and avoided joining online services that would allow
unwelcome communications into it. And now one person decides to become
a vigilante against that some person by running all the way
to wizard then go zapping everyone in sight...that's right, innocent
bystanders...to send a message and acquire some pride. Pardon me,
but there are many better ways to get AT someone, but zapping everyone
in sight who is not involved isn't gonna win friends and
certainly not gonna win you greater trust or respect among your peers.
And whatever message you're sending gets tainted, valid or not,
the Unibomber didn't enhance his message when he went around killing
people. Powers gained can easily be taken away. There is
some good news, the two muds previous referred to have agreed on a
resolution settling the dispute on both sides achieved by an
unexpected meditator.

That's enough for this edition, hope it was informative and helpful to
you. The next issue may appear in the next couple of months.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

Alas, the initial three issues were apparently sent out in e-mail
spam, and aren't included on the website, although there is a link to
them.. *boggle*.. (said link takes you to fourohfour.xoom.com)
*chuckle*

As you can see if you've actually taken the time to wade through all
that garbage.. some of what Crimefighter puts in his periodic
diatribes is genuinely useful information. Some of it, anyway... the
problem comes in when genius thinks that his "status" as operator of a
site that quite a bit of the Aber community visits makes it necessary
to spout off on anything and everything.. some stuff which doesn't
even involve himself or AberMUDding at all. *ponder*

I have no real problem with Crimefighter *OTHER* than this nonsense,
in fact. The real problems between us came about when he chose to
compose a write-up about me and issues in my life in which he was
totally and completely non-involved. Now, I'm sure that he's going to
respond to this message and claim that the other party involved was a
"friend" of his, and involved him, etc. Let me take care of that
right now.. no, the other person involved is not in the slightest way
connected to Crimefighter, thinks of him pretty much as I do, as an
interfering buffoon, etc.

Anyway, I've ranted enough, myself, for this post. ;)

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sat, 26 Jun 1999 15:57:30 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S.
Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:

Odd.. dunno why this didn't post properly.

The fourth one.. and inexplicably, the last.. as the previous three
were sent via spam.. erm, mass email. There is a link to the previous
three, but it's a 404 link.

Abermud Announcements #4 -- Spring

Read the previous issue. Corrections:

Hysteria did not have a Compserve page, they have instead a forum
under MPGames of which is led by Ehlana.

Also to mention, TerraFirmA has undergone a major change in its magic
system. Head over to that mud, or watch for the April issue of
FreeWheeling on its website.

No you don't have to run ALL 62 quests to wiz on Asylum, just six of
them totaling 25 points. The highest level takes them all, which is
what i meant. Heck, I still have four to go on Smile and can't crack
them yet...

One person referred to on Mud Disruption was furious at me for writing
it, and that I have no business expressing my views on it and
will complain to Geocities. Tough, since I did not name any names,
Geocities isn't going to cite me for mentioning an incident while not
saying something like "Such-n-Such went & raped 10 women then hacked
into BigMUD!". Some of these people and their actions
aren't a real big secret to some of you anyway! I won't ask for
everyone's special permission to speak out against something unless I
feel a need to do so--especially from the guilty.

Here is a new edition of the newsletter...this one won't be
mass-mailed by me like the last one was, due to the fact that several
people
received the last one and shouldn't have, and a couple of those that
shouldn't have mailed me threatening letters where they were going
to sue me for $500 dollars in damages...a big load of crap. If you are
reading this now, you are either reading off the website, or
someone else mailed a copy of this to you. In the latter case, if you
didn't want it, too bad...I have better things to do than read
someone's anti-spam hatemail. The truth about spammers are that they
are the neighbors next door. That's right, your next-door
neighbor could be one of these "evil" spammers who's just trying to
scratch and claw their way up the horrible, oppressive business
ladder that all budding entrepreneurs are doing. The reason is, email
costs less than licking stamps and buying newspaper ads. Great
products would never be marketed. But heads up, new email collection
programs are now equipped with filtering where it will now
chop off tags like .spamkiller and .spam, and replace things like (AT)
with the real @ sign just so they can defeat your attempts to
block them out. You will now have to use tags like "rv53hf7dh" or some
other random letter-number combination because it would be
impossible for someone to gather every possible random set just to
mail bomb you. Now for the real news...

General information:

If you haven't done so already, add a link to your mud's webpage
directly to The COMPLETE Abermud List at
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/5137. All muds mentioned
here are linked there. If you have a new mud that is not
yet open and do not want it on the list, I'd still like to check it
out and watch for it's opening. All muds in that state go on a
'hidden'
mudlist, one that's known to just me for my own convenience where I
can click on and log in with a link. The very bottom of the mudlist
lists the names of muds that will be opening in the future and any
webpages that lists info for their mud. I am still looking for zone
contributors, so far I have about eight zones in which seven were done
by me in whole or in part. Aten, who is the original author of
Chess, Graye, and Temple of the Bull was finally located recently by
me. About chess, he shares this interesting tidbit: "I started writing
that area one day, worked on it here and there--now this part I still
remember: I came back from a party, at which there was some
herbal material being smoked ;) , and I wrote the whole section with
the swan boat etc. - heh, so parts of that particular area might
look kinda funny.. ahh..the 'ol college days."

There are now an estimated 320 million web pages in existence, and the
count is headed way up very fast--current guesses at the size
of the WWW in a few years say it will increase over 1000%. How much of
that 320 million are indexed? No more than 40%. A recent
study reports out of a sample 110,000 pages at random used in the
study, 34% of them were found using Hotbot, 28% by Altavista,
20% by Northern Light (not the mud), 14% by Excite, 10% by InfoSeek,
and 3% by Lycos. Yahoo wasn't considered a true search
engine (!), URLs were being added manually but they report findings
made using Altavista. I've done searches for Abermuds myself,
and am not finding very many. Soooo...if we are going to get more
runners, we need to be featured more in these search engines. A site
that will help us all get our names out is called Shotgun. It is the
site I used to get The COMPLETE Abermud List out in the early days
(strange, places I've submitted before have removed my URL from their
list...curse of Geocities?), and it submits to about 50 different
engines...for FREE. All that's needed is for you to fill out one form,
then you pick which sites to submit to one at a time. Other sites will
send to 100 or more, but for a rather steep fee. The URL is
http://www.peachmedia.com/shotgun/

If you have been looking for a certain webpage and the top five
engines won't find it, there is a site called Beaucoup which lists
links to
over 1000 different search engines of all kinds. Its URL is
http://www.beaucoup.com/engines.html Please click on the Starting
Point
graphic on my webpage, it's another search engine which runs votes on
the which new web sites are "hot".

Disrupting mud harmony. Some recent and well-publicized events have
bugged me to the point (add to that the need to kill time at
work) that I had to start writing a term paper about it. Although now
I've lost a lot of interest in it and don't have a complete accounting
of all the events occurring, I have to comment that some people need
to think about the consequences of bringing their personal lives
into the muds they play. They also more importantly need to be
thinking about the consequences of their actions should they meet
those
people behind the characters they play. The worst things that have
happened so far is that on one mud, a long-time former archwizard
was compelled to leave because of past harassment and fear of being
harassed by the same person now that they got promoted to
archwiz themself. Another incident was the all-too-infamous overthrow
of Vortex brought about by lack of communication and
misunderstandings. Another attempted overthrow occurred on Infinity,
but that fortunately was settled in a club meeting. A currently
ongoing problem exists between two sisters, where personal differences
and money issues have spilled onto the muds, leading up to the
powers having to physically separate them or banish one of them. And
the worst of all, one former mud owner has an out-of-wedlock
child with another player and all hell breaks loose--they publicly
email a bunch of people about it (many who are complete strangers!),
the fights erupt and bounce around from mud to mud, the powers have to
jump in and break it up, and then the powers are asked to
remove stuff they wrote from the game as a result of being punished.
Add to that the same guy accusing everyone of code theft. If you
know who the people I'm talking about are, keep it to yourself. If you
want to know who they are, I'm not going to tell you. Why make
the people involved have to revisit bad experiences? But this serves
as a warning to all, dragging your personal problems onto the mud
is never a good idea. If I ever decide to finish the piece, the names
are certainly changed to ones that aren't possible on Abers due to
length.

Want your webpage to be part of an Abermud WebRing? It's easy, all you
have to do is visit the URL
http://vision.ne.mediaone.net/luthien/abermud/ and fill out a simple
form, then cut and paste a chunk of HTML onto your webpage. The
sites linked up currently number 10, let's get that number up! Those
who join can have a personal webpage or be the official site of
some mud--doesn't matter!

Aberchat has slowly been adding to its ranks, and the client software
has been upgraded. If you've been hesitating to put it in because
of increased activity, there hasn't been too much of it to worry
about. As for troublemakers, you can remotely boot someone off if
you're a mud owner. Get the latest version by visiting the Crossroads
link from my mudstuff section or the URL
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/2649/

I'm still looking for zone contributes to my zonelist. Most recent
submissions are Ghenna & Southern Desert made via ZGEN
conversion, original authors Drip and Freak respectively, also the
Gold zone originally by Thumper with the specials emulated by me
(this zone was taken from the C-Dirt code distribution for fixing up
and polishing, and was not submitted by the original author.) About
every zone that is on the zonelist has undergone bug fixing, if you
haven't gotten an updated version for over a month, you may be stuck
with having to duplicate effort in fixing stuff that I've done for
you. If you're one of those that would rather post their email address
to
take requests instead of sending me the zone file, you are perfectly
welcome to do so. Snubweasel is the first to take advantage of this
option by offering his Saxon zone by email.

News on some muds:

Asylum is still barging ahead with it's drive to be the most massive
mud of all abers, frankly if someone tried running to wiz over there
it
would take them a lot longer than most of the other ones, 62 quests is
a lot to do, especially when several of them run only on asylum
(Ack! Spread the zones around you zone authors, it's not like a lot of
these mud owners have the time to add every zone they get! I
should know! ;). So the latest all-new zones they've gotten are: The
count is now 5738 rooms, 137 zones, 2486 mobiles, 5334
objects, 62 quests. They have their own newsletter at their website,
last edition reported everything that has been introduced into the
game since moving to a new server. Their most recent addition is the
SpiritStone quest. For the time being new zone submissions aren't
being taken until they sort thru a bunch people had mailed them.
Address is www.asylum-mud.org 6715

So who's in serious contention with Asylum for size? Try Black Star,
it has not been around for too long, but the number of rooms are
currently greater than Asylum, due to the fact that several zones in
place have over 100 rooms in them. Several of these zones are also
brand-new, including five of them that I did myself and they are Bal
Harbor and four ZGEN converts called Chess, Graye, Southern
Desert, and Temple of the Bull. Snubweasel is the owner and is
accepting more zones. He has also been invaluable helping me find
those coding mistakes, much easier to find them when they're on a
running mud instead of looking for them in a text file. Quantity over
quality? Nah, the zones I've made in my view ARE QUALITY--but the
runner has to decide if a zone or quest is any good. The count
is right now 6247 rooms, 121 zones, 2330 mobiles, and 3365 objects.
This isn't your average iDirt. The address is
pizza.mudservices.com 6642.

Promised Land of which I'm an archwizard over there, is going to have
a class-based skill and religion system. Depending on what you
are or what your level is, you will get certain skills and spells.
Problem is, you have to find someone to teach them to you or read up
on
them somewhere in the game. Specials are extra things you can learn or
get by joining a religion. Some of them, like "where" require
neither strength nor mana to do, and we call these "Gifts". Some of
them require strength but not mana, and we call these "Skills". Some
of them require mana and maybe also strength, and we call these
"Spells". Gifts, Skills, and Spells are all capabilities that you
either
have or do not have. "Abilities" are capabilities that you can have
any amount of.

The learning system is currently implemented while the religion system
is still under development. You can learn most of the specials by
finding the instruction center for it and paying a fee to the
instructor. You should be sure to find the mana instruction center in
the ice
cave and the strength instruction center in the village as soon as you
can, since the abilities that can be learned there are necessary for
fighting and for using skills and spells. You start with a fairly weak
character, but with enough coins to pay for several lessons in
strength or mana, so that you can set up a character to your liking.
You can check it out at promisedland.dataserv.net 6715.

Hysteria is on the verge of making a major change to its gameplay,
making it a lot closer to dikus--an Aberku. It will now have 100
levels, spaced 5000 pts apart, but the values of stuff and killing
will be worth less and less as they approach wizardship. Losing levels
will only occur if you get killed by a mobile, flees will cost the
points you have earned since leveling last. Hysteria has clans and
races,
which offer a player more hit points, mana, and damage depending on
which they choose. Because these high hit point players are no
match for most mobiles on current stock zones, newer things added to
the mud will give those high level players a run for their money.
Playerkilling is allowed, people will have to contend with some
players who are obviously out for blood. Hysteria also has a new
newsletter called Bit of Hysteria, which can be read at
www.carrollsweb.com/mephie/hysteria. They also happen to have a
Compuserve page. hysteria.mudsrus.com 6715 is the address.

TerraFirmA has its own bi-monthly newsletter as well, most of it being
fun stuff. You can read the most recent April edition, along with
the couple dozen back issues at its website. The landscape of the mud
is very different from all other abers, in which the zone layout
has been rearranged while maintaining the quests you're familiar with.
Try this one if you're sick of the standard zone layout on most
every Aber. Addresses for the URL & mud are
http://www.terrafirma.ohl.dk and terrafirma.ohl.dk 2222

Northern Lights is set to have their six year anniversary on June 6th.
This is most likely when some new zones and features will be
introduced, and the scavenger hunt for the discs will be played. Come
one, come all and lets attempt to get over 100 people online at
once over there! Most recently debuted was the BigBadWolf quest by
Dage. aber.ludd.luth.se 6715 is the address.

News on programming:

pDirt, authored by Marty at Darkscapes (formerly Eradicated Worlds 2)
makes an attempt to change the standard format on how
zones are written. Although his format now makes it sorta easier to
create those hideous specials, the field names have been renamed,
flags now use the equals sign instead of brackets, the percent tags
are gone, and you can now pretty much lob each room with each
mobile and object together. But now the problem is converting zones
from the standard format to pDirt format. They have made a
converter to handle this problem, but the issue here is that will zone
authors write for pDirt (which the number of muds running it total
three) or write for all the other 40-50 abermuds. Marty plans to
distribute the code that will allow you to change your zone format and
read these specials, but who would throw out the standard format and
go to this new one? pDirt is currently not in distribution, and at
last check won't be. You can read about this pDirt format at the
Darkscapes web site. Address is http://strata.ml.org/

XClient. Let's face it. There's only so much you can do with ASCII and
ANSI in terms of graphics. You can describe something as
best you can and make the prettiest ASCII picture of it as possible,
but the end result is still the same--it's still text. You've probably
heard of these new "graphical" muds starting to show up around the
net, but you may not have tried them, cause they require a program
so you can interface with the mud and view the graphics. And they
aren't Abermuds! Well how about this...a client designed for Abers,
yes folks, although not relatively new, but certainly untouted until
today--cause I'm squawking about it (hehe)--has been created that
will add full-color JPEG images to the descriptions in the game.
XClient comes in two versions where one runs in X11 UNIX which is
in X-Windows, and the other a beta Windows 95 version. The demo site
where you can try XClient out is an Aber Five called Swords
& Sorcery, which has been here today, gone for a long while, then back
again, but the mud is expected to remain at its current site for
a few years. Links to the XClient download site, screen shots,
information on implementation for your own mud (which isn't supposed
to be too difficult), and the mud itself are in the mudstuff and
mudlist pages. You should also know that the mud is set to reset
automatically at set intervals, which is not good if you're loaded and
in the middle of a fight. You are able to check how long you have
left before that point, so plan carefully that run to wizard. As
you're playing, you will see some strange looking text as you run
around
the mud, these are the command codes for XClient to do something! As
for XClient, files are supposed to be an exact size and format,
which is a negative in my view since pictures can be stretched or
shrunk to fit quite easily and it ought to at least handle GIF files
which
take less hard drive space and are more common on the web. Download
time for 100k JPEGs can slow you down, but once they're
loaded, there isn't a need to redownload them from the server. Now,
just imagine playing Asylum and seeing all these sights for the first
time! Addresses are http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~creech/xclient/ and
ps.cus.umist.ac.uk 5002

ZGEN, my little tool to convert diku zones into aber format that's
written in perl, has been added onto and changed quite a bit. The
current version is now up to v0.21b, and should be relatively sound
without requiring much changes to the generated zone files. It now
supports a lot more flags and bitvectors than the teen versions, and
handles more of the oddities in the diku zone coding without
abending. For more information about ZGEN and getting it for your own
use, visit The COMPLETE Abermud List and the mudstuff
section.

Abermud Central has opened to serve the needs of mud programmers. It
features service packs and bug fixes for download--thus
every time you start up a mud, you don't have to write your own fix
from scratch. Hurray, hurray! Currently all they have are patches
for iDirt, and are (seriously in need!) looking for stuff on other
brands of aber. If you'd like to contribute your own enhancement or
fix,
visit their site at
http://nalle.tellus.vallentuna.se/~mullberg/aber_central/

News on general events:

Calender of events? I feel there's a need...no one knows about the big
stuff going on one certain mud while they are on another, if you
have an special event you'd like to announce which includes
anniversaries, tournaments, or weekly things, mail me the info.
Weddings
and archwizard promotions won't be posted, due to their frequency.

CONTEST! Ever wanted to write a zone but never could put your ideas to
paper? Or maybe you can put your ideas to paper, but
couldn't come up with any ideas? How about this, a zone writing
contest! I have a few zones called Batcave and Brookmere that are
unfinished, and need someone to complete them so they can get up and
running on a mud. Mostly what is needed is some descriptions
for rooms, but some may need more mobiles on the roster and more
objects to find. All you need to do to enter is download a copy of
the zone, then start editing it. Be creative, fill in the missing
descriptions or add stuff to the zone, put in those interactive
specials if you
want, then mail me a copy of what you wrote. All entries will go
before a panel of judges, and the best ones will be selected--it could
be only one person's entry is picked for everything, or several people
will be picked for different parts of an entry. Everyone from
newbies to mud owners are welcome to enter. The winner or winners will
be credited for having co-authored the zone (the original
authors are unknown) and the will be bestowed all of the perks and
privileges a zone author would get for contributing a zone to any
particular mud. The rewards for contributing a zone vary greatly from
mud to mud. One mud may hire you as an archwizard, another
may just give you an emeriti, another a wad of points, and some other
one may just give you a big pat on the back. I personally have
had limited success so far, but who knows? Something more could come
out of it in a few years. Deadline to enter will be >>>May 18,
1998<<<. The deadline may be extended if too few entries are received,
or no winner is picked from the received entries (that
shouldn't happen, unless the writers all make horrible descriptions.)

Previous contest winner: The previous issue's contest was who could
get the old Abermud Two code running on their machine, to the
point where I could log in and walk around. Someone did, and his name
is Albatross! His prize was a free wizard on Promised Land
mud! As for the mud itself, it was in a stage after Aber One where it
had many fewer rooms than the original, but retained the blizzard,
castle, cave, quarry, tower and valley zones. The points need was only
a partly 140,000 and the runner could do it all fairly quick and
reset the game repeatedly. Oddly enough, mobiles had not learned to
walk yet, and quests weren't heard of either. If you wish to get
your mits on in, Abermud Two is available at my web site for download
in mudstuff.

If you have anything of importance, email me at sml...@geocities.com,
you can also leave a message on my guestbook.

This concludes the fourth edition of Abermud Announcements.

[Aaron Sherman]

Hmmm... how seriously can one jackass take himself indeed. Though, I
think you have the wrong jackass labeled. This is clearly a personal
attack at Crimefighter. The same type of personal attack you said you
wouldn't make.

> Let time prove what words cannot.
I'll reserve judgement and let everyone else decide what both time and
your words have proven.

PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:
>
>
> Well.. you're about to see.. follow-up posts to this one include
> Crimefighter's "AberMUD Announcements", starting with #8, and working
> backward through his history of being a consumate and very public
> jackass. Read them yourself, and decide what you think.. *chuckle*
>
> Warning: they're all VERY long, mostly pointless, and the grammar is
> horrid. However, some of them are good for a good laugh, or make the
> point better than I ever could that this guy is in dire need of a
> heavy dose of reality.
>
> Enjoy. :)
>

[M. Whittington]

On Sat, 26 Jun 1999 16:02:44 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:

>Alas, the initial three issues were apparently sent out in e-mail
>spam, and aren't included on the website, although there is a link to
>them.. *boggle*.. (said link takes you to fourohfour.xoom.com)
>*chuckle*

[judicious snip]

*boggle* ... *ponder* ... *chuckle* ... *plonk*

[Aaron Sherman]

Bullshit.

You are accountable because you presume to hold others to be accountable
for the same types of actions.

I don't think there exists a bigger hypocrite in the mudworld than
yourself.

> *chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have
> meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such
> "bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
> past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.
>
> As for your timeout comment, you're not kidding.. good God.

[Otis Viles]

On Sat, 26 Jun 1999 16:02:44 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:

>diatribes is genuinely useful information. Some of it, anyway... the
>problem comes in when genius thinks that his "status" as operator of a
>site that quite a bit of the Aber community visits makes it necessary
>to spout off on anything and everything.. some stuff which doesn't
>even involve himself or AberMUDding at all. *ponder*

It's his newsletter so he can do whatever he wants in it, Legolas. My
suggestion to you would be to either stop subscribing (or hunting it down
to read it) or write a better one yourself if you think you can.

Ah, one other suggestion, Grasshopper; reflect on the subject line you chose
for this thread and consider for a moment that perhaps you dislike in CF what
you see in yourself.
--
Otis Viles: Hacker, Mudder, RPGer, KMFDM fan, Internet Oracle Priest
cier...@ic.net, http://ic.net/~cierhart
dr...@stormclouds.mudsrus.com, http://stormclouds.mudsrus.com
"I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it." - Anonymous

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 01:23:23 GMT, cier...@ic.net (Otis Viles) wrote:

>On Sat, 26 Jun 1999 16:02:44 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
>and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>diatribes is genuinely useful information. Some of it, anyway... the
>>problem comes in when genius thinks that his "status" as operator of a
>>site that quite a bit of the Aber community visits makes it necessary
>>to spout off on anything and everything.. some stuff which doesn't
>>even involve himself or AberMUDding at all. *ponder*
>
>It's his newsletter so he can do whatever he wants in it, Legolas. My
>suggestion to you would be to either stop subscribing (or hunting it down
>to read it) or write a better one yourself if you think you can.
>
>Ah, one other suggestion, Grasshopper; reflect on the subject line you chose
>for this thread and consider for a moment that perhaps you dislike in CF what
>you see in yourself.
>--

Actually, my main dislike for both Crimefighter and his
"announcements" has to do with his injection of the personal lives of
others into his little diatribes. On more than one occasion, he has
stuck his nose into my private affairs, that had NOTHING to do with
MUDding, Aber or otherwise, and thus, I took great offense, as I
believe is my right.

[Otis Viles]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 02:33:04 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>Actually, my main dislike for both Crimefighter and his
>"announcements" has to do with his injection of the personal lives of
>others into his little diatribes. On more than one occasion, he has
>stuck his nose into my private affairs, that had NOTHING to do with
>MUDding, Aber or otherwise, and thus, I took great offense, as I
>believe is my right.

Um, Legolas, I recall you bringing up the private lives of some individuals
in this newsgroup earlier in order to somehow invalidate their posts so it's
probably not a good idea for you to criticize someone for doing the same
things you've done -- if he did, I didn't read every post of his old letters
looking for that sort of thing.

I think this newsgroup needs to take a *BIG* timeout.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 03:19:56 GMT, cier...@ic.net (Otis Viles) wrote:

>On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 02:33:04 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
>and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>Actually, my main dislike for both Crimefighter and his
>>"announcements" has to do with his injection of the personal lives of
>>others into his little diatribes. On more than one occasion, he has
>>stuck his nose into my private affairs, that had NOTHING to do with
>>MUDding, Aber or otherwise, and thus, I took great offense, as I
>>believe is my right.
>
>Um, Legolas, I recall you bringing up the private lives of some individuals
>in this newsgroup earlier in order to somehow invalidate their posts so it's
>probably not a good idea for you to criticize someone for doing the same
>things you've done -- if he did, I didn't read every post of his old letters
>looking for that sort of thing.
>
>I think this newsgroup needs to take a *BIG* timeout.
>--

*chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have

meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such
"bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.

As for your timeout comment, you're not kidding.. good God.

Legolas Greenleaf aka PFC Bryan S. Slick

[Aristotle]

In article <3775b67a....@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>Um, Legolas, I recall you bringing up the private lives of some individuals
>>in this newsgroup earlier in order to somehow invalidate their posts so it's
>>probably not a good idea for you to criticize someone for doing the same
>>things you've done -- if he did, I didn't read every post of his old letters
>>looking for that sort of thing.
>>
>>I think this newsgroup needs to take a *BIG* timeout.
>

>*chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have
>meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such
>"bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
>past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.

You are always living in denial aren't you? That must make your hypocrisy much
easier to justify.

>As for your timeout comment, you're not kidding.. good God.

We all need a timeout from crooks like yourself.

-Aristotle@Threshold
--
Going to Dragon*Con (http://www.dragoncon.org), the world's 3rd largest Gaming
Convention? If so, drop by, say hello, and check out our booth. Threshold RPG
will be an exhibitor at Dragon*Con '99! Hope to see you there!
==============================================================================
VISIT THRESHOLD ONLINE! High Fantasy Role Playing Game!
http://www.threshold-rpg.com -**- telnet://threshold-rpg.com:23

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sat, 26 Jun 1999 23:36:53 -0700, Aaron Sherman
<ash...@az.rmci.net> wrote:

Bullshit right back at ya, pal.

Accountable? What the Hell are you talking about? I think this is
where the problem lies. I don't seek to punish anyone, even
Crimefighter for their actions, particularly not out in the real
world. That's about the only way I see that any "accountability"
would matter in the slightest. It's this type of nonsense that
Aristotle seems intent on attempting to make happen in the other
threads regarding Foreskin Era. *chuckle* Accountability.. really..
*shaking head*

As for your last comment.. *laugh* It's nice to know that you know me
oh so well, down to my very core, and that you know everyone else on
all the MUDs up in the Universe equally well, so that you can make
such a sweeping statement.

>Bullshit.
>
>You are accountable because you presume to hold others to be accountable
>for the same types of actions.
>
>I don't think there exists a bigger hypocrite in the mudworld than
>yourself.
>

>> *chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have
>> meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such
>> "bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
>> past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.
>>

>> As for your timeout comment, you're not kidding.. good God.
>>

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 10:50:49 GMT, thre...@threshold-rpg.com
(Aristotle) wrote:

>In article <3775b67a....@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>>Um, Legolas, I recall you bringing up the private lives of some individuals
>>>in this newsgroup earlier in order to somehow invalidate their posts so it's
>>>probably not a good idea for you to criticize someone for doing the same
>>>things you've done -- if he did, I didn't read every post of his old letters
>>>looking for that sort of thing.
>>>
>>>I think this newsgroup needs to take a *BIG* timeout.
>>

>>*chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have
>>meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such
>>"bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
>>past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.
>

>You are always living in denial aren't you? That must make your hypocrisy much
>easier to justify.
>

>>As for your timeout comment, you're not kidding.. good God.
>

>We all need a timeout from crooks like yourself.
>
>
>-Aristotle@Threshold

*chuckle* Aristotle, surely you must know by now that the surest way
to weaken the position of any "cell" in a newsgroup discussion is for
you to take up its cause. In short, butt out, jackass.. your opinions
are a) unwanted, b) foolish, and c) pointlessly rude.

I wonder if you are capable of participating in a discussion without
flaming.. I really don't think so. We all know what your opinion of
the FE deal is.. there's no need to keep repeating it, other than to
continue to make yourself look like a consumate jackass.

Hmmm.. where is this convention, anyway?

[Otis Viles]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 05:28:28 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>*chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have
>meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such
>"bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
>past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.

Boy, you just *don't* get it, do you? It really doesn't matter if
you did it once and CF did it a million times, *IT'S STILL WRONG*.
To gripe at anyone else for doing something you've done yourself
is hypocritical, unless you're also making an announcement that
you've turned over a new leaf and are not going back to those bad
old ways. Besides, you went a hell of a lot farther than bringing
up a name. You flat-out said someone (I forget whom now) had a
lesbian tryst some number of years ago as if that had any validity
whatsoever on their posts here. Ah, here it is, in Deja News, message
ID <36f3ab0a...@news.pcisys.net>, available through this URL:
http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=456897329&fmt=text

Well, that looks a hell of a lot like bringing up specific things in full
view of everyone -- that's certainly a lot more than mentioning names that
would have meaning to the intended parties.

[Chad Snyder]

In article <3775b67a....@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net

says...

> On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 03:19:56 GMT, cier...@ic.net (Otis Viles) wrote:
>

> >On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 02:33:04 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick

> >and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:

> >>Actually, my main dislike for both Crimefighter and his
> >>"announcements" has to do with his injection of the personal lives of
> >>others into his little diatribes. On more than one occasion, he has
> >>stuck his nose into my private affairs, that had NOTHING to do with
> >>MUDding, Aber or otherwise, and thus, I took great offense, as I
> >>believe is my right.
> >

> >Um, Legolas, I recall you bringing up the private lives of some individuals
> >in this newsgroup earlier in order to somehow invalidate their posts so it's
> >probably not a good idea for you to criticize someone for doing the same
> >things you've done -- if he did, I didn't read every post of his old letters
> >looking for that sort of thing.
> >
> >I think this newsgroup needs to take a *BIG* timeout.

> >--

>
> *chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have
> meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such

Uhhh...you mentioned more than just a "name or two" in passing.
*chuckle* You even brought up something about slashing tires. I'd say
that would have more meaning than just to the target. Yes, you could
compare what you said to at least some of the things that CF may have
said about you, just as I was able to compare your past behavior to ZD's
present behavior.

--Rachael

P.S. Thanks for bringing that up Otis.

> "bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
> past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.
>

> As for your timeout comment, you're not kidding.. good God.
>

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

>Uhhh...you mentioned more than just a "name or two" in passing.
>*chuckle* You even brought up something about slashing tires. I'd say
>that would have more meaning than just to the target. Yes, you could
>compare what you said to at least some of the things that CF may have
>said about you, just as I was able to compare your past behavior to ZD's
>present behavior.
>
>--Rachael
>

You can stop making that irrelevant point any time now, Terri. Heh.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 16:03:06 GMT, cier...@ic.net (Otis Viles) wrote:

>On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 05:28:28 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
>and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>*chuckle* I mentioned a name or two, in passing, that would have
>>meaning only to the target of the post. You cannot compare such

>>"bringing up" to what Crimefighter has done to me and mine in the
>>past, nor do I see a need to justify myself to you or anyone else.
>

>Boy, you just *don't* get it, do you? It really doesn't matter if
>you did it once and CF did it a million times, *IT'S STILL WRONG*.
>To gripe at anyone else for doing something you've done yourself
>is hypocritical, unless you're also making an announcement that
>you've turned over a new leaf and are not going back to those bad
>old ways. Besides, you went a hell of a lot farther than bringing
>up a name. You flat-out said someone (I forget whom now) had a
>lesbian tryst some number of years ago as if that had any validity
>whatsoever on their posts here. Ah, here it is, in Deja News, message
>ID <36f3ab0a...@news.pcisys.net>, available through this URL:
>http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=456897329&fmt=text
>
>Well, that looks a hell of a lot like bringing up specific things in full
>view of everyone -- that's certainly a lot more than mentioning names that
>would have meaning to the intended parties.
>--
>Otis Viles: Hacker, Mudder, RPGer, KMFDM fan, Internet Oracle Priest
>cier...@ic.net, http://ic.net/~cierhart
>dr...@stormclouds.mudsrus.com, http://stormclouds.mudsrus.com
>"I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it." - Anonymous

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was quite a long time ago, no? And
additionally, I'm fairly certain that I *did* make a post later in
that thread that showed regret for splashing said tryst across Usenet.

*shrug*

[Aaron Sherman]

Don't ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. You
continue to hold yourself to one set of rules while holding the rest of
the world to another. Play by one set.

[Otis Viles]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 17:51:44 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick
and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was quite a long time ago, no? And

If it was, your point would be what? In would appear CF's trespasses against
you were *also* a long time ago. Your implication is that since it was a long
time ago it bears no relevance here and now. By the same logic, whatever CF
may have done also bears no relevance.

>additionally, I'm fairly certain that I *did* make a post later in
>that thread that showed regret for splashing said tryst across Usenet.

If you did (I don't remember it so I'm not going to hunt for it) how does that
change *anything*? You already told it to everyone. You can't take back your
actions, not even with an apology. You've been guilty of the same behavior
that you claim CF has committed which makes you a hypocrite for criticizing
him for it.

Well, it appears I've been wrong about you Legolas -- you *do* belong in my
killfile with Aristotle.

[Aristotle]

In article <37762d7...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>*chuckle* Aristotle, surely you must know by now that the surest way
>to weaken the position of any "cell" in a newsgroup discussion is for
>you to take up its cause. In short, butt out, jackass.. your opinions
>are a) unwanted, b) foolish, and c) pointlessly rude.

Sorry Criminal, but if you wanted people to butt out then you shouldn't have
posted it in rec.games.mud.misc. As soon as you post it here, it is an open
forum for anyone to join in on. If you wanted the issue to only be discussed
by ABER mud folks, then go post it on some board on an ABERmud.

>Hmmm.. where is this convention, anyway?

Atlanta, GA, July 1-4. Threshold is booth #507.

See you there. =)

[Aristotle]

In article <37766430...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>Uhhh...you mentioned more than just a "name or two" in passing.
>>*chuckle* You even brought up something about slashing tires. I'd say
>>that would have more meaning than just to the target. Yes, you could
>>compare what you said to at least some of the things that CF may have
>>said about you, just as I was able to compare your past behavior to ZD's
>>present behavior.
>>
>>--Rachael
>>
>
>You can stop making that irrelevant point any time now, Terri. Heh.

Yeah, I bet you get really tired of people pulling out examples of disgusting
stuff you have done and said in the past. It really ruins your attempts at
riding atop your moral high horse when your own actions knock you right off.

[Steven Lucas]

PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:

> Actually, my main dislike for both Crimefighter and his
> "announcements" has to do with his injection of the personal lives of
> others into his little diatribes. On more than one occasion, he has
> stuck his nose into my private affairs, that had NOTHING to do with
> MUDding, Aber or otherwise, and thus, I took great offense, as I
> believe is my right.

Well, you mass emailed (wrongly) your personal affairs to a load of people some
total strangers...if you're still trying to get your own personal retrobution for
your schemes and efforts on other people being thrawted...you are NEVER going to
get it. Frankly, I'm sick of your bullying friends of mine, which was why I got
in your way in the first place--of course a bully is gonna get pissed off when
someone stands up and defends the one being assulted. Hmmm....maybe I should
donate to the fund to get Legolas off the net forever...

--
Crimefighter Co-Creator, Promised Land MUD
The COMPLETE Abermud List http://promisedland.mudservices.com
http://members.xoom.com/smlucas sml...@geocities.com

[Steven Lucas]

Don't you really have ANYTHING better to do? You are the only one who
seems to care more than anyone about what I write...sheesh, since you
have to quote 300K of text which anyone who wants to can read without you
doing the mass copy...I guess I oughta point to the crap you left on my
guestbook, I won't quote it here cause the newsgroup doesn't need anymore
long posts of this type...
http://www2.bravenet.com/guestbook/show.asp?userid=cl37976 You know,
I've never gone over to your own guestbook and made stupid posts like
that. As for AA# 1, 2 & 3--those are gone...since everything in them has
been repeated later or are moot, no need to keep them.

PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:

[Aaron Sherman]

For someone who thinks it is a "desperate plea for attention" you sure
seem to spend an AWFUL lot of time paying attention to what goes on
there. Once again, your own actions prove what you say is one thing,
and what you do is another. Someone who finds the site little more than
a plea for attention wouldn't visit. Someone who has doesn't care about
what is published there wouldn't spend so much time complaining about
it; they'd ignore it!

Why don't you spend your time doing something positive instead of
whining about the fact that someone else is actually trying? That's
more than anyone will say about you.

> No need to do that to my guestbook, CF, as nowhere on my MUD's website
> will you find such nonsense as on the "COMPLETE" desperate plea for
> attention and recognition, nor do I purport to be the spokesman for
> the Aber universe, as you do. *shrug*

[Steven Lucas]

Hehehe...if I wanted so much attention...I wouldn't be looking for it on
Elven's guestbook.

Aaron Sherman wrote:

> For someone who thinks it is a "desperate plea for attention" you sure
> seem to spend an AWFUL lot of time paying attention to what goes on
> there. Once again, your own actions prove what you say is one thing,
> and what you do is another. Someone who finds the site little more than
> a plea for attention wouldn't visit. Someone who has doesn't care about
> what is published there wouldn't spend so much time complaining about
> it; they'd ignore it!
>
> Why don't you spend your time doing something positive instead of
> whining about the fact that someone else is actually trying? That's
> more than anyone will say about you.
>
> > No need to do that to my guestbook, CF, as nowhere on my MUD's website
> > will you find such nonsense as on the "COMPLETE" desperate plea for
> > attention and recognition, nor do I purport to be the spokesman for
> > the Aber universe, as you do. *shrug*

--

[Steven Lucas]

PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:

> >If it was, your point would be what? In would appear CF's trespasses against
> >you were *also* a long time ago. Your implication is that since it was a long
> >time ago it bears no relevance here and now. By the same logic, whatever CF
> >may have done also bears no relevance.
>

> Hmmm.. I see your point.

Well I'm glad you've been shown the light...

> >>additionally, I'm fairly certain that I *did* make a post later in
> >>that thread that showed regret for splashing said tryst across Usenet.
> >
> >If you did (I don't remember it so I'm not going to hunt for it) how does that
> >change *anything*? You already told it to everyone. You can't take back your
> >actions, not even with an apology. You've been guilty of the same behavior
> >that you claim CF has committed which makes you a hypocrite for criticizing
> >him for it.
>

> Well, as for this all I can say is that while I see your point about
> not being able to undo the action, it remains irritating to me that
> not once has Crimefighter even attempted to apologize for sticking his
> nose into my personal life, up to and including comments regarding the
> custody hearing for my daughter.

I have no apology to make on this matter, I don't regret what I did, except for
making Maoceia upset when I botched informing her of the mass email you did about
her. Turning it around, I saw no apology from you about mass emailing Maoceia's
pregency under the guise of trying to protect yourself from Blackadder.

> It is true, I admit, that when I feel attacked, I respond quite a bit
> stronger than the original attack.. I battle this continually, and
> usually control it. However, attacking my family in any way,
> particularly my daughter or wife, is the surest way to remove any and
> all inhibitions I have towards your total destruction, no matter who
> you are, or how minor the infraction may have been. I make no
> apologies for this, nor will I ever. My family is untouchable, either
> via common decency by those I deal with, or through extreme, no-limit,
> nothing out-of-bounds retribution.

Yeah, and often you make an already bad situation a lot worse. Never once have I
attacked Rosepetal or your daughter, however you consider the attacks you've made
on Maoceia and her family are totally ACCEPTABLE?

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 18:06:04 -0500, Steven Lucas
<sml...@geocities.com> wrote:

>PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:
>

>> Actually, my main dislike for both Crimefighter and his
>> "announcements" has to do with his injection of the personal lives of
>> others into his little diatribes. On more than one occasion, he has
>> stuck his nose into my private affairs, that had NOTHING to do with
>> MUDding, Aber or otherwise, and thus, I took great offense, as I
>> believe is my right.
>
>Well, you mass emailed (wrongly) your personal affairs to a load of people some
>total strangers...if you're still trying to get your own personal retrobution for
>your schemes and efforts on other people being thrawted...you are NEVER going to
>get it. Frankly, I'm sick of your bullying friends of mine, which was why I got
>in your way in the first place--of course a bully is gonna get pissed off when
>someone stands up and defends the one being assulted. Hmmm....maybe I should
>donate to the fund to get Legolas off the net forever...
>

>--
>Crimefighter Co-Creator, Promised Land MUD
>The COMPLETE Abermud List http://promisedland.mudservices.com
>http://members.xoom.com/smlucas sml...@geocities.com
>

Hmmm.

1. Friends? I wasn't aware that you had any of those. Furthermore,
I can virtually guarantee that those you poked your nose in to
"defend" wouldn't call you even an acquaintance, much less a
friend, although they may have actually appreciated your butting
your nose in where it didn't belong.

2. If you really think you got in my wife, CF, you're deluded.

3. Bully? *chuckle*

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 18:27:08 -0500, Steven Lucas
<sml...@geocities.com> wrote:

>Don't you really have ANYTHING better to do? You are the only one who
>seems to care more than anyone about what I write...sheesh, since you
>have to quote 300K of text which anyone who wants to can read without you
>doing the mass copy...I guess I oughta point to the crap you left on my
>guestbook, I won't quote it here cause the newsgroup doesn't need anymore
>long posts of this type...
>http://www2.bravenet.com/guestbook/show.asp?userid=cl37976 You know,
>I've never gone over to your own guestbook and made stupid posts like
>that. As for AA# 1, 2 & 3--those are gone...since everything in them has
>been repeated later or are moot, no need to keep them.
>

>PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:
>

>> Well.. you're about to see.. follow-up posts to this one include
>> Crimefighter's "AberMUD Announcements", starting with #8, and working
>> backward through his history of being a consumate and very public
>> jackass. Read them yourself, and decide what you think.. *chuckle*
>

No need to do that to my guestbook, CF, as nowhere on my MUD's website

will you find such nonsense as on the "COMPLETE" desperate plea for
attention and recognition, nor do I purport to be the spokesman for
the Aber universe, as you do. *shrug*

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 22:28:26 GMT, thre...@threshold-rpg.com
(Aristotle) wrote:

>In article <37766430...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>>Uhhh...you mentioned more than just a "name or two" in passing.
>>>*chuckle* You even brought up something about slashing tires. I'd say
>>>that would have more meaning than just to the target. Yes, you could
>>>compare what you said to at least some of the things that CF may have
>>>said about you, just as I was able to compare your past behavior to ZD's
>>>present behavior.
>>>
>>>--Rachael
>>>
>>
>>You can stop making that irrelevant point any time now, Terri. Heh.
>
>Yeah, I bet you get really tired of people pulling out examples of disgusting
>stuff you have done and said in the past. It really ruins your attempts at
>riding atop your moral high horse when your own actions knock you right off.
>
>
>-Aristotle@Threshold
>--

*laugh* The irrelevant point in question was her ridiculous attempt
at an analogous relationship between myself in the distant past when
her ass was fired from ElvenMUD and Zero's recent past behavior.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 20:25:32 GMT, cier...@ic.net (Otis Viles) wrote:

>On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 17:51:44 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick

>and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:

>>Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was quite a long time ago, no? And
>

>If it was, your point would be what? In would appear CF's trespasses against
>you were *also* a long time ago. Your implication is that since it was a long
>time ago it bears no relevance here and now. By the same logic, whatever CF
>may have done also bears no relevance.
>

Hmmm.. I see your point.

>>additionally, I'm fairly certain that I *did* make a post later in

>>that thread that showed regret for splashing said tryst across Usenet.
>
>If you did (I don't remember it so I'm not going to hunt for it) how does that
>change *anything*? You already told it to everyone. You can't take back your
>actions, not even with an apology. You've been guilty of the same behavior
>that you claim CF has committed which makes you a hypocrite for criticizing
>him for it.

Well, as for this all I can say is that while I see your point about
not being able to undo the action, it remains irritating to me that
not once has Crimefighter even attempted to apologize for sticking his
nose into my personal life, up to and including comments regarding the
custody hearing for my daughter.

It is true, I admit, that when I feel attacked, I respond quite a bit

stronger than the original attack.. I battle this continually, and
usually control it. However, attacking my family in any way,
particularly my daughter or wife, is the surest way to remove any and
all inhibitions I have towards your total destruction, no matter who
you are, or how minor the infraction may have been. I make no
apologies for this, nor will I ever. My family is untouchable, either
via common decency by those I deal with, or through extreme, no-limit,
nothing out-of-bounds retribution.

>Well, it appears I've been wrong about you Legolas -- you *do* belong in my
>killfile with Aristotle.

That's up to you.. I won't attempt to sway you one way or the other.

>Otis Viles: Hacker, Mudder, RPGer, KMFDM fan, Internet Oracle Priest
>cier...@ic.net, http://ic.net/~cierhart
>dr...@stormclouds.mudsrus.com, http://stormclouds.mudsrus.com
>"I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it." - Anonymous

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

>2. If you really think you got in my wife, CF, you're deluded.

*blush* That'll teach me to talk to my wife while typing a post..
that should have read "got in my way". *grin*

[Aristotle]

In article <3776d1bd...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>Well, it appears I've been wrong about you Legolas -- you *do* belong in my
>>killfile with Aristotle.
>
>That's up to you.. I won't attempt to sway you one way or the other.

Don't worry about that Legolas. Otis is a cowardly little twink who would
support real life squelching of people if he could get away with it. He waves
his killfile around like a cock (perhaps he uses his killfile to compensate?)
and seems to think anyone cares.

If he killfiles someone, why does he feel the need to brag about it? Those are
the kinds of people who don't actually killfile anyone, and when you
sufficient provoke them, have some kind of excuse for replying like "my
killfile broke today" or "I saw your message when I was trying another
newsreader."

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 22:27:36 -0500, Steven Lucas
<sml...@geocities.com> wrote:

>PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:
>
>> >If it was, your point would be what? In would appear CF's trespasses against
>> >you were *also* a long time ago. Your implication is that since it was a long
>> >time ago it bears no relevance here and now. By the same logic, whatever CF
>> >may have done also bears no relevance.
>>
>> Hmmm.. I see your point.
>

>Well I'm glad you've been shown the light...
>

>> >>additionally, I'm fairly certain that I *did* make a post later in
>> >>that thread that showed regret for splashing said tryst across Usenet.
>> >
>> >If you did (I don't remember it so I'm not going to hunt for it) how does that
>> >change *anything*? You already told it to everyone. You can't take back your
>> >actions, not even with an apology. You've been guilty of the same behavior
>> >that you claim CF has committed which makes you a hypocrite for criticizing
>> >him for it.
>>
>> Well, as for this all I can say is that while I see your point about
>> not being able to undo the action, it remains irritating to me that
>> not once has Crimefighter even attempted to apologize for sticking his
>> nose into my personal life, up to and including comments regarding the
>> custody hearing for my daughter.
>

>I have no apology to make on this matter, I don't regret what I did, except for
>making Maoceia upset when I botched informing her of the mass email you did about
>her. Turning it around, I saw no apology from you about mass emailing Maoceia's
>pregency under the guise of trying to protect yourself from Blackadder.
>

>> It is true, I admit, that when I feel attacked, I respond quite a bit
>> stronger than the original attack.. I battle this continually, and
>> usually control it. However, attacking my family in any way,
>> particularly my daughter or wife, is the surest way to remove any and
>> all inhibitions I have towards your total destruction, no matter who
>> you are, or how minor the infraction may have been. I make no
>> apologies for this, nor will I ever. My family is untouchable, either
>> via common decency by those I deal with, or through extreme, no-limit,
>> nothing out-of-bounds retribution.
>

>Yeah, and often you make an already bad situation a lot worse. Never once have I
>attacked Rosepetal or your daughter, however you consider the attacks you've made
>on Maoceia and her family are totally ACCEPTABLE?
>
>--

I will make no public reply to this, for the sake of others in the
newsgroup, other than to say that once again, Crimefighter is either
completely misguided, or completely full of shit. (I consider the
latter much more likely.) CF, you don't know what you're talking
about, you weren't involved.. stay out of it.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 18:59:50 -0700, Aaron Sherman
<ash...@az.rmci.net> wrote:

>For someone who thinks it is a "desperate plea for attention" you sure
>seem to spend an AWFUL lot of time paying attention to what goes on
>there. Once again, your own actions prove what you say is one thing,
>and what you do is another. Someone who finds the site little more than
>a plea for attention wouldn't visit. Someone who has doesn't care about
>what is published there wouldn't spend so much time complaining about
>it; they'd ignore it!
>
>Why don't you spend your time doing something positive instead of
>whining about the fact that someone else is actually trying? That's
>more than anyone will say about you.
>

>> No need to do that to my guestbook, CF, as nowhere on my MUD's website
>> will you find such nonsense as on the "COMPLETE" desperate plea for
>> attention and recognition, nor do I purport to be the spokesman for
>> the Aber universe, as you do. *shrug*
>>

*ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL* Aaron.. one suggestion for you, pal.. f*ck
off. ;) I just love reading the opinions of complete imbeciles such
as yourself who consider any complaint about anything at all to be
whining. *chuckle* As an administrator of an AberMUD, I have both
the inclination and "need" to keep track of Crimefighter's page.. he
has, after all, put himself forward as our spokesman, though he is
far, far, FAR from our spokesman. Though he is 95% of the time a
brainless twat, occasionally he can be quite dangerous, and so he must
be monitored. This is fortunate, however, because said monitoring
generally leads to some good laughs.. it's unreal how seriously this
fool takes himself. I recall an old picture on the page with Lucas'
roundish face accompanied and dominated by a large glass Nintendo
trophy.. apparently those of us visiting the page were supposed to be
impressed. ;) Take a good look around the page, note how much of it
is there basically desperately asking, "Am I cool yet, guys, huh, am
I?", and then see if you can't figure out why half the time I'm
reading anything on it, I'm laughing my ass off. *grin*

[Logan Hanks]

In article <377720b7...@news.pcisys.net>, PFC Bryan S. Slick wrote:
>I will make no public reply to this, for the sake of others in the
>newsgroup, other than to say that once again, Crimefighter is either
>completely misguided, or completely full of shit. (I consider the
>latter much more likely.) CF, you don't know what you're talking
>about, you weren't involved.. stay out of it.

You baited him. Why do you expect him to ignore you now? This is all too
typical. You attack Crimefighter, and when he responds you claim that he
busted in on your private life and that he should shut up. I know CF has said
some nasty things in the past, but you're the one that started this thread.

logan

[Shadowstorm]

Gee, Bryan. Apparently YOU know AARON to the core. And before you
reply, no, I don't think calling someone a "complete imbecile" is any
less sweeping a statement than calling you the biggest hypocrite in
mudding. There may well be other, larger hypocrites, but none of them
seem to feel the need to prove it day after day on the newsgroups (among
other places).

And Aaron does have a valid point. For having such a dim view of CF's
page, you certainly give it more exposure and free advertising than
anyone else I know.

Finally, follow your own suggestion.

Awaiting your pointless chuckle-filled reply,
Shadowstorm

In article <37772187...@news.pcisys.net>,
the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick)
wrote:

>
> *ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL* Aaron.. one suggestion for you, pal.. f*ck
> off. ;) I just love reading the opinions of complete imbeciles such
> as yourself who consider any complaint about anything at all to be
> whining.

<snip>

> Legolas Greenleaf aka PFC Bryan S. Slick
> Operator, C-5 (M113A2 Armored Personnel Carrier), 1-68 AR BN
> Founder/Owner, ElvenMUD, AberMUDding at its finest since 1994
> Come visit us at: telnet://elven.mudservices.com:9000
> Visit ElvenWEB at: http://elven.mudservices.com
> (c) Rivendell Enterprises, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

[Aristotle]

In article <37772187...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>*ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL* Aaron.. one suggestion for you, pal.. f*ck
>off. ;) I just love reading the opinions of complete imbeciles such
>as yourself who consider any complaint about anything at all to be

>whining. *chuckle* As an administrator of an AberMUD, I have both
>the inclination and "need" to keep track of Crimefighter's page.. he
>has, after all, put himself forward as our spokesman, though he is
>far, far, FAR from our spokesman. Though he is 95% of the time a
>brainless twat, occasionally he can be quite dangerous, and so he must
>be monitored. This is fortunate, however, because said monitoring
>generally leads to some good laughs.. it's unreal how seriously this
>fool takes himself. I recall an old picture on the page with Lucas'
>roundish face accompanied and dominated by a large glass Nintendo
>trophy.. apparently those of us visiting the page were supposed to be
>impressed. ;) Take a good look around the page, note how much of it
>is there basically desperately asking, "Am I cool yet, guys, huh, am
>I?", and then see if you can't figure out why half the time I'm
>reading anything on it, I'm laughing my ass off. *grin*

This post reeks of jealousy.

It sounds more like you wish YOU were the administrator of an ABERmud
newsletter that people frequented.

As stated earlier, if you think he does a poor job, start your own and see if
you can get people to read it and/or recognize it as 'the newsletter for
ABERmuds'. If people go there and read it, obviously they find it useful.

[Aristotle]

In article <377720b7...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>I will make no public reply to this

Really? Then why the hell does this post of yours even exist?

>, for the sake of others in the
>newsgroup, other than to say that once again, Crimefighter is either
>completely misguided, or completely full of shit.

I thought you said you were not going to make a public reply?

[Steven Lucas]

PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:

> >It sounds more like you wish YOU were the administrator of an ABERmud
> >newsletter that people frequented.
> >
> >As stated earlier, if you think he does a poor job, start your own and see if
> >you can get people to read it and/or recognize it as 'the newsletter for
> >ABERmuds'. If people go there and read it, obviously they find it useful.
>

> *chuckle* jealousy? I think not.
>
> As for doing it myself.. I might consider it, if there weren't already
> two sites that do an admirable job, The AberMUD Central and The
> AberMUD Depot.

They both started a newsletter? *ponder*

[Sterling]

On Mon, 28 Jun 1999, Aristotle <thre...@threshold-rpg.com> wrote:
>In article <377720b7...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>I will make no public reply to this
>
>Really? Then why the hell does this post of yours even exist?
>
>>, for the sake of others in the
>>newsgroup, other than to say that once again, Crimefighter is either
>>completely misguided, or completely full of shit.
>
>I thought you said you were not going to make a public reply?
>

Ok, you know how in quotes you put in a word for someone that completes the
meaning of the sentence?
"I will make no [meaningful] public reply to this"

Sterling @ Wyld Knight
(who makes very few [meaningful] public replies)
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Wyld Knight - wyld.qx.net 3333
http://wyld.qx.net/~rezo
re...@lords.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Mon, 28 Jun 1999 21:35:26 GMT, thre...@threshold-rpg.com
(Aristotle) wrote:

>In article <377720b7...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>I will make no public reply to this
>
>Really? Then why the hell does this post of yours even exist?
>
>>, for the sake of others in the
>>newsgroup, other than to say that once again, Crimefighter is either
>>completely misguided, or completely full of shit.
>
>I thought you said you were not going to make a public reply?
>

>-Aristotle@Threshold
>--

Hello? I said "other than" to say what I said. What I meant, which
is obvious even to you, I'm certain, is that I'm not going into
details.

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Mon, 28 Jun 1999 21:34:11 GMT, thre...@threshold-rpg.com
(Aristotle) wrote:

>In article <37772187...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>>*ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL* Aaron.. one suggestion for you, pal.. f*ck
>>off. ;) I just love reading the opinions of complete imbeciles such
>>as yourself who consider any complaint about anything at all to be
>>whining. *chuckle* As an administrator of an AberMUD, I have both
>>the inclination and "need" to keep track of Crimefighter's page.. he
>>has, after all, put himself forward as our spokesman, though he is
>>far, far, FAR from our spokesman. Though he is 95% of the time a
>>brainless twat, occasionally he can be quite dangerous, and so he must
>>be monitored. This is fortunate, however, because said monitoring
>>generally leads to some good laughs.. it's unreal how seriously this
>>fool takes himself. I recall an old picture on the page with Lucas'
>>roundish face accompanied and dominated by a large glass Nintendo
>>trophy.. apparently those of us visiting the page were supposed to be
>>impressed. ;) Take a good look around the page, note how much of it
>>is there basically desperately asking, "Am I cool yet, guys, huh, am
>>I?", and then see if you can't figure out why half the time I'm
>>reading anything on it, I'm laughing my ass off. *grin*
>
>This post reeks of jealousy.
>

>It sounds more like you wish YOU were the administrator of an ABERmud
>newsletter that people frequented.
>
>As stated earlier, if you think he does a poor job, start your own and see if
>you can get people to read it and/or recognize it as 'the newsletter for
>ABERmuds'. If people go there and read it, obviously they find it useful.
>

>-Aristotle@Threshold
>--

*chuckle* jealousy? I think not.

As for doing it myself.. I might consider it, if there weren't already
two sites that do an admirable job, The AberMUD Central and The
AberMUD Depot.

Legolas Greenleaf aka PFC Bryan S. Slick

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Mon, 28 Jun 1999 20:54:20 -0500, Steven Lucas
<sml...@geocities.com> wrote:

>PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick wrote:
>
>> >It sounds more like you wish YOU were the administrator of an ABERmud
>> >newsletter that people frequented.
>> >
>> >As stated earlier, if you think he does a poor job, start your own and see if
>> >you can get people to read it and/or recognize it as 'the newsletter for
>> >ABERmuds'. If people go there and read it, obviously they find it useful.
>>

>> *chuckle* jealousy? I think not.
>>
>> As for doing it myself.. I might consider it, if there weren't already
>> two sites that do an admirable job, The AberMUD Central and The
>> AberMUD Depot.
>

>They both started a newsletter? *ponder*
>
>--
>Crimefighter Co-Creator, Promised Land MUD

Nah, I meant two places that cover Aberdom pretty well.

Admittedly, when you take out the personal commentary on stuff that
doesn't involve you, and the ranting about issues that have nothing to
do with MUDding, you do a Hell of a job on the MUD issues, such as
updates, changes, etc. (though I have noticed that you never have a
peep to say about changes on Elven, though we change quite a lot) ;)

[Aristotle]

In article <3778241...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
>Hello? I said "other than" to say what I said. What I meant, which
>is obvious even to you, I'm certain, is that I'm not going into
>details.

The point is why make it sound like you are disregarding the post when clearly
you aren't. That's like a cop pulling you over and saying "well, I'm not going
to punish you, except for this speeding ticket I'm giving you". It just
doesn't make any sense and it is totally contradictory.

[Chad Snyder]

In article <3776d141...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net
says...

> On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 22:28:26 GMT, thre...@threshold-rpg.com
> (Aristotle) wrote:
>
> >In article <37766430...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:
> >>>Uhhh...you mentioned more than just a "name or two" in passing.
> >>>*chuckle* You even brought up something about slashing tires. I'd say
> >>>that would have more meaning than just to the target. Yes, you could
> >>>compare what you said to at least some of the things that CF may have
> >>>said about you, just as I was able to compare your past behavior to ZD's
> >>>present behavior.
> >>>
> >>>--Rachael

[snip]

> >Yeah, I bet you get really tired of people pulling out examples of disgusting
> >stuff you have done and said in the past. It really ruins your attempts at
> >riding atop your moral high horse when your own actions knock you right off.
> >
> >
> >-Aristotle@Threshold
>

> *laugh* The irrelevant point in question was her ridiculous attempt
> at an analogous relationship between myself in the distant past when
> her ass was fired from ElvenMUD and Zero's recent past behavior.
>

Actually, the main point was to expose your lie of "I mentioned a name or
two, in passing, that would have meaning only to the target of the post."
Further, if ZD has gotten personal with you, then this analogy is valid
because you have gotten personal as well, by saying more than just "a
name or two, in passing." Thus, my post wasn't irrelevant nor
ridiculous. As for being "fired" from Elven, you conveniently forget
(must be that selective memory you have) the fact that I gladly RESIGNED.

--R

P.S. If I was hired in the first place, I never received any money for my
work during that year. ;) Also, since when does an employer hire someone
and then promote him/her to the same level as the employer, yet still
consider that person a subordinate? I have yet to hear a owner of a
company hire someone and promote him/her and promote them to the level
of partner, but still consider him/her a subordinate.

[Chad Snyder]

In article <3776d1bd...@news.pcisys.net>, the2...@pcisys.net
says...

> On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 20:25:32 GMT, cier...@ic.net (Otis Viles) wrote:
>

> >On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 17:51:44 GMT, the2...@pcisys.net (PFC Bryan S. Slick

> >and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick) wrote:

> >>Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was quite a long time ago, no? And

[snip]

> Well, as for this all I can say is that while I see your point about
> not being able to undo the action, it remains irritating to me that
> not once has Crimefighter even attempted to apologize for sticking his
> nose into my personal life, up to and including comments regarding the
> custody hearing for my daughter.
>

> It is true, I admit, that when I feel attacked, I respond quite a bit
> stronger than the original attack.. I battle this continually, and
> usually control it. However, attacking my family in any way,
> particularly my daughter or wife, is the surest way to remove any and
> all inhibitions I have towards your total destruction, no matter who
> you are, or how minor the infraction may have been. I make no
> apologies for this, nor will I ever. My family is untouchable, either
> via common decency by those I deal with, or through extreme, no-limit,
> nothing out-of-bounds retribution.

So am I the exception? I haven't made any attacks on your family (your
wife, child), yet I get your "stronger than the original attack.." If
you usually control it, I must be the exception since you seem to enjoy
getting personal with me. (Maybe it's because I expose your lies so well
without getting personal...;)

--R

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

On Tue, 29 Jun 1999 10:24:57 GMT, myst...@visi.net (Chad Snyder)
wrote:

Whatever you wish to believe, Terri.. *shrug*

[Shadrach]

You are using this newsgroup to conduct a private 'argument' with
Crimefighter. Your post does not contain anything of use to a mudder. If
you dislike Crimefighter then use the filtering functionality of your
newsreader accordingly; please refrain, though, from inflicting your vitriol
on the general public.

Regards,

Shadrach

[Shadrach]

Boring; irrelevant; of no value to the group. Please discontinue.

Regards,

Shadrach

[Sterling]

I responded with an element of humour and sarcasm to the first post; ignored
the second. To this one though I must respond in some seriousness.

Is this newsgroup moderated? Are you the moderator? Did I miss this
pronouncement somehow? Much as I dislike pointless posts, the fact remains
that there will always be plenty of them. Your post falls into that
category as well. (this was the serious answer)

Now for the humour.

Boring; irrelevant; of no value to the group. Please discontinue.

Sterling @ Wyld Knight
(Sterling has just been named moderator of all newsgroups and has instituted
the following rules: 1) No one shall post between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm
EST on weekdays, because I'm at work and may miss the post; 2) No one shall
post between the hours of 5 pm and 11 pm EST on weekdays, because I'm busy
doing "life" things and may miss a post; 3) No one shall post between the
hours of 11 pm and 9 am EST on weekdays because I am sleeping or preparing
for work and may miss a post; 4) No one shall post on the weekends because I
may not be home and therefore may miss a post; 5) Posting at any other time
is allowed)

[PFC Bryan S. Slick and/or Mrs. Stacy S. Slick]

*laugh* Did someone make you moderator of this group and I didn't
notice? To use some crass terminology, "piss up a pole, jackass!" ;)