November 15, 2006: AS OF TODAY, MUD2.COM is free to all players. All existing PAYPAL subscriptions have been cancelled to ensure that you will not be charged again. All accounts now have unlimited access to the game. If you find that you cannot play (e.g., if the game informs you that you need to buy more time before you can play) please e-mail me (sysop@mud2.com) and ask me to fix your account. Other than that... enjoy!
October 31, 2006: A HALLOWEEN SURPRISE
Are you scared yet? Well, you really shouldn't be. This surprise is actually going to leave some money in your pocket, while at the same time (I hope!) bring more players to MUD.
Yes, you guessed it: effective November 15, MUD will be FREE.
During the course of the next two weeks, I will convert all pay accounts to free accounts with unlimited access. The online interface will also be changed to ensure that all new accounts automatically receive free access. Needless to say, the links to PAYPAL will be eliminated.
Well, almost. That is because your donations are still quite welcome. Keeping MUD alive is a "labor of love" for me, but it also costs some money, so if you feel that it is appropriate to contribute financially, such contributions are always welcome.
Indeed, some of you may have annual subscriptions with unused time. The only proper thing for me to do is to offer a refund on any unused portion, but you will be offered the option to donate your unused portion to the game instead.
One thing that will not change is the level and quality of service. (I should say, there will be no change for the worse. One can always change for the better.) MUD will continue to run on the same server (recently upgraded) and the game will continue to be managed as before. I will drop the ads we've been running on Google AdWords, since there'll be no more funds to cover the cost, but other than that, everything shall remain the same.
My promise stands, as before: MUD will remain open so long as people continue to play. So now is the time to bring some friends, as you can all play for free!
June 21, 2006: TODAY THE MUD2 system locked up several times, for reasons unknown. I was forced to completely reset the system, possibly kicking some of you out, for which I apologize. I do not yet understand what causes these lockups; I have attempted to reinitialize the database and clean up the game folders, but I am not sure if this will solve the problem. If you are in the game and it appears to lock up completely, please don't hesitate to send me e-mail (sysop@mud2.com); I'm usually nearby and I should be able to fix the system promptly.
April 19, 2006: MUD2 MOVED TO A NEW SERVER today, as I upgraded my main server to a shiny new dual-core AMD64 machine. Such a major switch is bound to cause some problems... if you run into any difficulties while playing the game, and you suspect that it may be due to the new server, please don't hesitate to drop me a note.
November 19, 2005: A NEW VERSION, of MUD has just been installed. We thank Foddy from mudii.co.uk for providing us with the new code. Mortals may type GO NEW at the main prompt to find out what's in the latest version. Needless to say, if you run across any bugs, please don't hesitate to let us know!
January 29, 2004: ONCE AGAIN, we're hit with a DSL connection problem that causes my primary Internet link to go up and down continuously. I recommend that you try host2.mud2.com which is my cable modem backup, and appears to work reliably for the time being.
January 15, 2004: LAST NIGHT'S CONNECTION PROBLEMS appear to have been fixed, courtesy of Bell Canada. I received no official word yet, but after a night with intermittent connectivity or no connectivity at all, suddenly this morning everything seems to be back to normal. Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience!
January 14, 2004: WE'RE PRESENTLY SUFFERING from an intermittent connection problem. I reported this problem to MCI Canada; however, it may take up to 48 hours before this problem is fixed. In the meantime, if you find it difficult to play using the regular game address, you are welcome to try the backup address: host2.mud2.com. (Do not use the numeric address for the backup connection; it is dynamically assigned and it is subject to change at any time.) My apologies for this problem, I hope it'll be resolved shortly.
January 11, 2004: TABITHA'S EXCELLENT CLIENT PROGRAM, Clio, has a new version: Clio v1.8 is now available from http://www.wabe.org.uk/clio/. Oh, and did I mention that Clio is Open Source software? Thank you, Tabitha!
October 13, 2003: THE OUTAGE TODAY was due to a major equipment failure at my upstream provider, MCI Canada. What made things worse was that it was a holiday Monday (Canadian Thanksgiving) and thus it took them over 9 hours to have a technician on site to resolve the issue. Sorry for the inconvenience, folks, hope we won't have another outage for a little while now!
August 15, 2003: THE EAST COAST POWER OUTAGE hit us big time here in Ottawa. We had power restored for a few hours late at night, but the power went out again later in the morning. We're advised that we're still on a rotating blackout schedule as the city is getting no more than one half to two thirds the power it needs. I brought the server back up with a UPS, but if the power goes down again, so will the server, so be prepared for unannounced outages.
August 1, 2003: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Richard Bartle's new book, "Designing Virtual Worlds" is now on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131018167
July 4, 2003: HAPPY 227TH BIRTHDAY, America!
June 2, 2003: TODAY I RECEIVED not one but TWO undeliverable message notices in response to e-mails I purportedly sent as sysop@mud2.com to various recipients.
I DID NOT SEND THOSE E-MAILS. I DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL ATTACHMENTS. If you received an e-mail purportedly coming from me urging you to open an attachment, please don't: erase the e-mail instead. The attachment, in all probability, is a worm/virus, and the e-mail is intended to trick you into opening it and infecting your system. In general, it is a very good idea NEVER to open an unsolicited attachment. Needless to say, installing a good virus scanner program, securing your system with the latest security updates, and not opening strange e-mails, not even in a preview window, are also on the list of recommended practices if you wish to avoid infecting your system with an unfriendly piece of malware.
November 23, 2002: BIG CONGRATS TO MAURI OUR NEWEST WITCH! Neither dragons nor skeletons nor blood-thirsty warlocks would stray her from her appointed destiny.
October 12, 2002: PLEASE READ A WARNING about the W32.BugBear virus in our bulletin board. (Type GO BB to go there, then type 2301 to read message number 2301.) In recent days, I began to receive an ever increasing number of infected e-mail messages addressed to my MUD1/MUD2 mail aliases, leading me to believe that there are several MUD players out there whose systems are infected by this critter.
July 12, 2002: TO PARAPHRASE ELTON JOHN - THE WITCH IS BACK.
After a prolonged absence Mistress the witch has re-joined the ranks of wizdom. Congratulations Mistress on a job well done (twice)!
June 1, 2002: CHARGING IS ON AGAIN for MUD players; I hope you were able to put the free month in May to good use.
During the free month, all subscriber accounts were reset to 'pay-as-you-go' status. Your time remaining was adjusted using the formula (2*n+300), where 'n' represents the number of minutes you had on your account. This means that if you had 600 minutes left on your account, you now have 1500 minutes, just like new subscribers do; but even if you had no time left on your account, you can now enjoy a 300-minute "grace period" which should give everybody enough time to begin payment. (Players with prepaid monthly or annual subscriptions were individually contacted by e-mail. If you believe you had a prepaid subscription and you did NOT receive an e-mail about it, please e-mail sysop@mud2.com.)
You may have noticed that it is no longer possible to buy additional time using the K command. Instead, you should please visit the following Web page: http://www.mud2.com/__form_1.html. Through this page, you can purchase additional game time, or you can start a monthly/annual subscription.
Please DO NOT SEND PAYMENT 'by hand' via PAYPAL. Those payments cannot be processed by the new, automated system, and will not be properly credited to your account. To send payment, please use the Web page, which takes you to PAYPAL at the appropriate point, with the correct payment parameters.
May 29, 2002: PLEASE DO NOT SEND PAYMENT via PAYPAL directly. If your account is due, please visit http://www.mud2.com/__form_1.html. Through this Web page, you can purchase additional hours, or you can switch to a monthly or annual subscription. Thank you!
May 8, 2002: TABITHA just announced a new version of the Clio client software for MUD2 players. Please visit http://www.wabe.org.uk/clio/ for details.
May 2, 2002: THE ADMIRAL has reached a decision!
The deadline has passed and the results from the joint ABC and Muddled Times quiz have been examined. The results are as follows:
3rd place: Laura (from mud2.com)
2nd place: Art (from mudii.co.uk)
1st place: Oberon (from mud2.com)
This means that Oberon is the winner of Bombow's 7th Challenge!
Oberon wins the prize of free time on the system that he doesn't normally play on. So expect to see more of him on mudii.co.uk! Or will he be anonymous?
April 28, 2002: MUD2.COM - A RELAUNCH. Changes are afoot at MUD2.COM. First, it is my pleasure to announce that between now and May 31, 2002 the game will be >>>FREE<<< to all players. Play as much as you want, bring as many friends as you can!
Second, effective June 1, 2002, new, DRASTICALLY REDUCED RATES will be in effect. Monthly subscriptions will be available at USD 7.50. The new rates are made possible by a new, automated payment system.
For more information about these changes, please visit our Web site: http://www.mud2.com/relaunch.html.
April 22, 2002: ADMIRAL BOMBOW has generously extended the deadline for his seventh challenge until the 28th April! This challenge being a quiz that can be found at http://www.mud2.com/bombow/quiz.htm in the current edition of ABC. Even more generously, you don't have to answer all of the questions, just send in what you know and let the Admiral do all the hard work.
The prize for the winner: 1 FREE MONTH on the system that you don't normally play on!
Take a look at the challenge and send your answers to bombow@mud2.com
And while you're at it, if you haven't read it yet, do read the latest issue of the ABC. You won't be disappointed!
April 3, 2002: EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA! Well, sort of... maybe not an extra, but definitely a very special edition of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles is now available for your reading pleasure at http://www.mud2.com/bombow/.
This issue is well worth reading. First of all, what makes this issue special is the fact that it is a JOINT ISSUE of our Admiral Bombow's Chronicles and the Muddled Times. Second, you are welcome to participate in Bombow's Seventh Challenge and win a fabulous prize: a month of free playing time on the "other" system (i.e., if you regularly play at MUD2.COM, you'll be offered a free month at mudii.co.uk.)
Thanks to our editor, Hawumph, to all contributors, and last but definitely not least, to the kind folks from the Muddled Times who agreed to share their creative talent in this joint issue!
March 7, 2002: OUR ADMIRAL BOMBOW'S CHRONICLES and the MUDDLED TIMES of mudii.co.uk fame will be joining forces for their upcoming issue. This unique issue will contain stories written by authors from both sites. That is, I hope it will be both sites; but in order for this to happen, Hawumph, our volunteer ABC editor, is asking for your help! As he says, "we don't want the mudii lot hogging all the stories so even if its just a snippet of gossip or an amusing death", let him know, preferably before the planned March 25 copy deadline. Oh, and before I forget; the quiz in this issue will come with a fabulous prize. Something to look forward to!
December 24, 2001: DOESNT LOOK LIKE PEACE ON EARTH IS GOING TO BREAK OUT. But at least maybe we can hope for goodwill towards men.
Happy Holidays to all mud2.com players and best wishes for a happy healthy and prosperous New Year! - Tethys
December 21, 2001: BLOODY HELL, ANOTHER PESKY WIZ! Seems we have another feline wiz this time in the person of Kitten the witch.
Congratulations to Kitten and condolences to the pack of hounds trying to catch her sleeping after a good bowl of milk! - Tethys
December 1, 2001: THOSE WHO DIE THE FORCE LIVE BY THE FORCE??? Only in Mud it seems. Yoda the wizard (under the nom-de-guerre of Barbarian) successfully cast a FORCE spell on Weasel the warlock to go over to wizdom and everlasting life after having lost two mages to nasty FORCE spells himself!
Oops! A little matter of being short one task but Yoda blundered about for a bit and sorted that too. Well done Yoda, and welcome to wizdom! - Tethys
September 11, 2001: It is my most fervent hope that no MUD player was hurt or had a loved one suffer during Tuesday's horrifying attacks in the United States. This madness is beyond belief.
July 6, 2001: A BRAND SPANKING NEW ISSUE of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles is now online. Thank you Hawumph for putting it together, and thanks to everyone who contributed!
June 19, 2001: THE MOBILE BASHES at 4PM Eastern time on Tuesdays are becoming popular again. Pugsley the wizard asked me to remind you all not to miss the next Bash!
December 20, 2000: A NEW VERSION of MUD, 4E(40), has just been installed. If you encounter any bugs or oddities, please don't hesitate to report them. Thank you!
December 18, 2000: ANNOUNCEMENTS CAN BE CONFUSING. The easy part is congratulations to Ladytessa, our November Player Of The Month! The strange part is that Benny achieved both Death Of The Month and he attained wizdom. Must have been wishful thinking on the part of the wizzes who voted. Errr, congratulations and condolences to Benny!
November 14, 2000: OCTOBER'S PLAYER OF THE MONTH is Garfinkel: Congratulations! And the usual condolences to Ninja, who earned the Death Of The Month title.
October 15, 2000: HAWUMPH THE WIZARD asked me to post this reminder: every Tuesday at 9PM GMT (That'd be 5PM MUD time while daylight savings time is in effect) there's a Mobile Bash, held at this time primarly for the convenience of UK players. Hawumph volunteered to be here this Tuesday (the 17th, that is) to provide immortal assistance. For further details, please read message 2145 in the Bulletin Board (just type BB at the main Option prompt here.)
October 11, 2000: NOTWITHSTANDING ANY RUMOURS TO THE CONTRARY, we still have players (not that we couldn't use more!) and hence, we still have a Player Of The Month. For the month of September, this honour goes to Argle. Congratulations!
And yes, players still know how to die. At least Roland does, who has earned the title Death Of The Month for September. Congra... I mean, condolences!
September 8, 2000: CONGRATULATIONS TO MERLINSDAD, our August POTM, Player Of The Month! And condolences to Benny, the August DOTM (Death Of The Month).
September 6, 2000: TO ALL GUESTS WHO TRIED AND FAILED TO SIGN UP FOR A TRIAL ACCOUNT: the sign-up facility is now fixed and (supposedly) works fine again. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
August 22, 2000: IT'S OFFICIAL, WE HAVE A NEW WIZ! Having attained 204800 and the requisite tasks, Forestlord the mage reached level 11. A quick name change later and Raistlin the wizard joined the ranks of mud2.com immortals. Congratulations Raistlin! - Tethys
July 23, 2000: NEW SERVER, NEW VERSION. It took many more hours than I expected, but the game is finally on its new, permanent (I hope) server. Needless to say, this complex switchover is likely to have caused some problems, hopefully nothing major. If you encounter anything unusual, please don't hesitate to report it!
June 9, 2000: BEING THE SHY TYPE VIKTOR wouldn't blow his own horn so I will. Take a look at http://www.gamers.com/270687 for a nice article on Viktors recent port of THE original MUD to NT. - Tethys
June 9, 2000: PROOF YOU CANT KEEP A GOOD MAGE DOWN. Oberon is now Oberon the wizard, as the game is wont to say when the requisite tasks and points are achieved
to make level 11. Congratulations Oberon, welcome to immortality! - Tethys
June 5, 2000: I KNOW IT'S TERRIBLY LATE, but the votes are in for April: Marmite is a winner of both the Player of the Month title (in tie with Footloose) and the Death of the Month award. Congratulations! And now I am off to beat some wizzes so that they vote more quickly this month...
April 17, 2000: CONGRATULATIONS to Dimmy, our March Player of the Month! And condolences to... Mistress the ex(?)-witch, our March DOTM...
April 11, 2000: Some of you have already seen, from Pugsley's post on the bulletin board, that one of our players tragically passed away last night.
I think I can speak for all mud2.com players to say we are shocked and saddened that Huxley won't be back.
I for one counted him among my friends here. We will miss you Hux. - Tet. (sadly)
April 10, 2000: A NEW MUD CONNECTOR site at http://topmudsites.cjb.net/ lets you vote for your favorite MUD game. To vote for MUD2, please go to our LINKS page at http://www.mud2.com/links.htm and click that nice little VOTE button that appears about two thirds of the way down. Let's see if it helps us get a few new players...
March 23, 2000: THANKS, PUGSLEY, for reminding me: embarrassingly late, but here are the vote results. February's Player Of The Month is Melusine; congratulations! February's Death Of The Month is, hmmm, well, it seems that it's the bee1 that earned the title this time. I wonder... some wizzes also voted for Tethys as POTM. They must have thought that I wouldn't get the votes tallied before April 1 I guess...
March 5, 2000: THE MUD2 SERVER DIED A HORRIBLE DEATH this morning, so we're now running on backup hardware. Since this backup machine always proved itself to be MUCH more reliable than the MUD machine, I'm tempted to leave the game here on a permanent basis, and use the MUD box as a backup box when I bring it back to life. In any case, as you can imagine, moving the system in 'panic mode' is no easy task; if you encounter anything unusual, please let me know as soon as possible!
March 2, 2000: Myself and many other players have had to endure an extraordinary amount of totally unacceptable behavior on the part of some players who all log in from a particular university. On the other hand, it seems many other players from the same site just want to play and enjoy the game like anyone else.
In keeping with our policy of confidentiality I will not identify the site but those of you playing from there know exactly what I am talking about, many of you I have personaly spoken to, others have spoken to Viktor and other wizzes.
I guess peer pressure is a whole lot better than anything I can offer. Do you want your site denied access to mud2.com? - Tethys
February 23, 2000: SO WHAT HAPPENED TO the January Player Of The Month? Nothing, really; it's just that the votes were coming in slow, and then your favourite arch-wiz was even slower counting them. But they're finally in: Congratulations to Bluetooth, the first Y2K POTM! And condolences to Raistlin, whose untimely demise earned him the first DOTM title of the new year.
February 21, 2000: IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS. Congratulations are due to both Blackwood and Antman, welcome to wizdom! - Tethys
January 23, 2000: CONGRATULATIONS TO FURY, the first wiz of the new year. Proof positive that wizdom is Y2K compliant! - Tethys
January 18, 2000: THE LAST PLAYER OF THE MONTH for 1999 is Dybbuk! Congratulations! As for the Death Of The Month, well, we have an interesting situation here: this title was earned by Blackwood the mage despite the fact that Blackwood neglected to die in December. Could it be a case of wishful thinking on behalf of some of our more evil wizzes?
January 14, 2000: ARE YOU A COMPUSERVE USER? If you are, it's time to pay a visit to the MPGAMES forum there. As of two weeks ago, MUD2 has its very own section there, thanks to the forum's ever enthusiastic manager, Nightshift.
As you know, CompuServe until recently was the home of the longest running version of MUD2's predecessor, MUD1, which ran there under the name British Legends. When BL was shut down in November last year, I approached Nightshift and asked her about the possibility of opening a MUD2 section there. I was hoping that not only might we be able to present MUD2 as a desirable alternative to BL to many now homeless players, but also that we might be able to attract new players through this added exposure.
All of you with CompuServe accounts are, of course, encouraged to visit the new section in MPGAMES. (It's section 4, by the way.) Others are also welcome to visit as guests; you will not be able to post any messages, but you will be able to follow discussions or download files from there. (If the news are to be believed, this, along with all other CompuServe forum areas, will become completely free later this year.) You can access MPGAMES via the Internet through the following URL: http://go.compuserve.com/MPGAMES.
January 14, 2000: UUNET CANADA, our service provider, will perform scheduled maintenance here in the Ottawa area on January 20, between 03:00 and 07:00 EST (that is, MUD time.) They are warning us that during this time period, interruptions of service can be expected. Well, hey, at least this time around we got the notice in time!
December 28, 1999: WE DON'T REALLY NEED Y2K here at MUD2.COM; we can have our own computer problems regardless of the year! Today, we had not one, but two unrelated problems. First, the MUD machine's hard drive began to sound like a lawnmower (so what's this with MUD2 and hard disks anyway?) so following my own advice, I replaced it before it got any worse. Second, I seem to be experiencing a mysterious performance problem on the LAN that the MUD machine is on. In fact, as I try to troubleshoot the problem over the course of the next few days, it may be necessarily to temporarily interrupt access to the game again. My apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you all for your understanding and patience!
December 17, 1999: THE PLAYER OF THE MONTH for November is Clare. Congratulations! The contest for the Death Of The Month title ended in a tie between Kerriann and Xanthe. Condolences...
December 13, 1999: BEWARE: New monsters have been spotted in the Land!
December 4, 1999: NOW THIS IS WHAT I CALL AN OUTAGE: Not only is UUNet's Ottawa connection dead, so are their 1-800 support numbers in Toronto! Anyway, as a call to their toll number revealed, they're aware of the problem and working on it. Hopefully, the network will be restored in no time, and you'll all have a chance to read my apology here for this unexpected Saturday afternoon outage.
November 24, 1999: AS SOME OF YOU probably know already, it appears CompuServe finally axed the last remaining copy of MUD1 there, British Legends. And, unless this turns out to be just a technical glitch after all, they did so without warning; suddenly, attempts to enter BL result in a terse message: That page is empty!
With a certain degree of reservation (after all, the last thing I want is to be seen as a vulture over there) I decided to post a message there, inviting all players to visit MUD2.COM. Some of them may decide to come over, pop in as a guest or open an account on a trial basis.
I am sure many of you know what it's like: the game you love, an on-line place that's almost like a second home, disappears with little or no warning. So please, treat any "refugees" with patience and understanding. As I'm a former BL player myself, you'll also have my thanks.
November 22, 1999: ONCE AGAIN, A TIE: October's POTM title is shared by Ginzu and Tingle. The DOTM vote, on the other hand, was unanimous: condolences to Sassenach!
November 22, 1999: OCTOBER was the worst month to date in the history of MUD2.COM with respect to timely payment of accounts. Several accounts have been unpaid since October 1. Because of this, I found it necessary to immediately change the status of these accounts; if you are one of those affected, you may find that you're unable to play the game without purchasing additional playing time. This does not, however, mean that you must pay by the hour from now; just quickly pop that cheque or money order in the mail, or send me up-to-date AMEX or VISA (sorry, no MasterCard) information, and your account will be reinstated to its former status right away. And if by any chance, I changed your account status by mistake (hey, I may be an expert programmer, but I'm a novice accountant) please don't hesitate to write to me immediately!
October 25, 1999: TOBIAS THE WIZARD is hosting a special Halloween Sorcerers' Bash this coming Sunday at 15:00 hrs game time (3 PM). Since it is going to be Halloween and The Land is a special place of magic and mystery, expect some surprises! I've been told there are fabulous prizes at stake and all manner of mischief will be afoot.
I encourage you all to come out and participate. A Sorcerers' Bash is a great opportunity to practice your fighting skills without the pesky problem of losing your persona. If you have no empty slots, show up a little early and I'll be able to set you up for a restore after the event.
Even if you don't plan on playing the Sorcerers' Bash, do try to drop in, I promise there will be Tricks and Treats aplenty. - Tethys
October 24, 1999: CONGRATULATIONS to Jake and Kerriann: our new Players Of The Month! And the usual condolences to Antman, the newest winner of the Death Of The Month title!
September 20, 1999: YOU WERE WONDERING, perhaps, when your favourite arch-wizzes will get off their fat hind parts and do their monthly duties... well, the wait is over: the votes have been cast and tallied, and August's Player Of The Month turns out to be the mighty Shalimar. Congratulations! We also have a new Death Of The Month: may Circe (well, one of her previous incarnations anyway) rest in pieces, er, I mean, peace!
September 16, 1999: UUNET CANADA surprised me with yet another so-called "scheduled" outage tonight; needless to say, as far as I am concerned, there was nothing scheduled about it, as they failed to notify me. My apologies for the temporary unavailability of the game and the MUD2.COM Web site during this outage. If they continue doing this, I'll eventually move MUD2.COM to another Internet provider, but as you can imagine, that's not a simple undertaking and besides, UUNet is supposed to be, if not the best, then one of the best anyway <sigh>
August 17, 1999: THE VOTE FOR PLAYER OF THE MONTH would be a tie, were it not for the fact that poor Shaime was also a candidate for Death Of The Month. That leaves Clare as our sole surviving Player Of The Month for July. Shaime, unfortunately, also failed to earn that less coveted title; our July Death Of The Month is, actually, a tie between Caoilhion and Talyn.
July 31, 1999: NETWORK DOWNTIME: UUNet Canada sent a note about scheduled network maintenance that will take place between 4:00 and 6:00 AM on August 3, 1999 here in Ottawa. During this period, all connections in Ottawa will experience an interruption of service; in other words, MUD2.COM will likely be unavailable.
UUNet Canada is also informing us of planned maintenance activity in Toronto between 4:00 and 5:00 AM on August 5. Although this does not specifically affect Ottawa connections, past experience suggests that it may interfere with our connectivity to destinations outside of Canada.
Well, at least this time around we were warned in advance!
July 19, 1999: INCOMPETENCE KNOWS NO LIMITS. At least this was my conclusion today after a gentleman, here to install a new air conditioner, assured me that his work will not affect our power in any way, only to accidentally (?) shut down all our power a few minutes later. Had he told me in advance that he's working on the fuse box, I could have shut down all the systems here in two minutes... instead, I ended up wasting an hour or more, recovering from the consequences of this unplanned power outage. The worst thing is, I am actually paying these people a bonus for priority service! Well, whatever my excuse, sorry for the unexpected outage. I would promise that it won't happen again but I can't; they're still here, working (although they say they're done with the electrical work now.)
July 9, 1999: THE VOTES ARE IN: June's Player Of The Month is Morgaine. Congratulations! As for the Death Of The Month, this title is shared by three players: Hawumph, Malaise, and Sonsie all received the same number of votes from our esteemed wizzes. I suspect these hapless mortals would all have preferred to live on without this dubious honour...
June 27, 1999: WELCOME BACK CRAB THE WIZARD. Err, well, welcome Ender the wizard. A little naming conflict with a certain crustaceon mobile means that Crab is now known as Ender. Mind you, I don't fancy the fate of said mobile when Ender is about. - Tethys
June 19, 1999: CONGRATULATIONS TO KHAN, May Player of the Month. Oh, and condolences Hawumph, but Death of the Month has to go to somebody! - Tethys
June 11, 1999: A NEW VERSION OF MUD has just been installed. As usual, please report any unusual behavior or bugs that you might encounter. Thanks!
May 24, 1999: ADMIRAL BOMBOW'S CHRONICLES is back! This is the third year of our newsletter, so it was only appropriate for it to acquire its third editor as well: please welcome Tobias as the new editor-in-chief of the ABC! The newsletter also has a new look and richer content than ever; go see for yourself at http://www.mud2.com/bombow/. Thanks to Tobias and all ABC contributors!
May 16, 1999: A CURIOUS RESULT: Rogaine is the winner of both the Player Of The Month and the Death Of The Month titles for the month of April. Goes to show that in the magical Land of MUD, just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't live on successfully! Or is it the other way around? Success doesn't guarantee that you will manage to stay alive?
April 21, 1999: PASSWORD PROBLEMS? Some of you reported a problem logging on to the game even though you're using the correct account number and password combination. As it turns out, this is not a case of the forgetful user: we indeed seem to be having a software problem that occasionally causes passwords to become corrupted. Until a fix is found, the only solution is to send me Internet mail (sysop@mud2.com) if you cannot log on; I'll fix your account right away. If this problem has affected you, my apologies for the inconvenience!
April 19, 1999: ANNOUNCING THE DUBLIN MUD MEET: If you plan to visit Ireland on July 24, 1999 to meet your fellow players there, please take a look at Grumpy's Web page at http://homepage.tinet.ie/~osweeney/mudmeet.html for more information!
April 15, 1999: THE VOTES ARE IN (better late than never): March's Player of the Month, by unanimous vote, is Flick. Congratulations! As for the Death of the Month, this time Caoilfhion earned this not so coveted title.
March 14, 1999: FEBRUARY'S PLAYER OF THE MONTH is Oberon. Congratulations! This month's Death Of The Month vote was a tie: Aoibheann and Azrael share this somewhat more dubious title.
February 18, 1999: THINGS APPEAR TO BE SLOWLY COMING BACK to normal... According to UUNet Canada, they had a major router breakdown here in Ottawa Thursday morning, which affected many of their customers, including Web-sites like the Government of Canada's main site at http://www.gc.ca/. Mud2.com wasn't spared either. As of this time, I see routing is finally coming back to normal; I am crossing my fingers and hope that this is for real, and that the problem has been resolved.
Thank you all for the concerned e-mail (some of which actually managed to get through to me when the network came to life intermittently) and I appreciate your understanding!
February 18, 1999: UUNET CANADA informs me of a major router problem here in Ottawa, which is why many of you are unable to connect (or connect reliably) to MUD2.COM at this time. They do not yet have an ETA, but they expect to fix the problem hopefully within the next hour or two. Until then, MUD2.COM is more or less dead in the water, along with countless other businesses and even several ISPs that rely on the same backbone service... Isn't the Internet fun?
February 9, 1999: A REMINDER to those who pay by the hour: when you use the K command to buy additional time, charges are being made in CANADIAN DOLLARS. At current exchange rates, one US dollar is worth approximately 1.50 Canadian. One hour of play time costs $1.50 Canadian, with a minimum order of 10 hours.
Some of you apparently thought that the charges are made in US dollars and were surprised when you didn't receive the amount of play time you expected. Sorry for the confusion!
February 6, 1999: THE NEW YEAR'S first Player Of The Month is Crazybobo. Congratulations!
January's Death Of The Month title was won by Nasti. Condolences...
January 30, 1999: IT TOOK AN EFFORT but we're back among the living. MUD2.COM's server now has a new hard disk. The old one suddenly began to report read errors, something that no operating system takes kindly; Linux is no exception.
The new hard disk is not only bigger, it should also provide better performance, as it is a SCSI drive. It is also brand new (I just received it as a warranty replacement for an older unit) so it should give us a few years of trouble-free service (crossing fingers.) And now it's time for me to go and find a SCSI controller for the the machine I just cannibalised to get MUD2.COM back up and running...
Please accept my apologies for this unexpected downtime (it HAD to happen just when the weekend starts, right?) Thank you all for your patience and understanding.
January 29, 1999: MUD2.COM was down due to a system crash that happened in the middle of the night. This affected the game proper as well as the Web page. The cause is unknown although I suspect that the server's hard drive is no longer 100% reliable; I'll do further tests and replace the drive if necessary.
Thank you all who sent me mail about the problem. Hopefully I won't appear ungrateful when I ask that in the future, please do NOT send me multiple messages every hour. One message will do just fine, unless you actually have new information you think I ought to know about. I am not going to work any faster just because my mailbox is overflowing, it merely adds to my headaches!
As usual, thank you for your patience and understanding.
January 28, 1999: MUD2.COM IS FEATURED in this week's Online section (published every Thursday) of The Guardian! The section's cover story is a lengthy article by Jim McClellan that talks about MUDs in general, and MUD2 in particular; even our Web address is in there, except that for some reason, all links are broken in the on-line version. Oh well, you can't have it all!
The Guardian's Web address is http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
January 25, 1999: UUNET SERVICE OUTAGE: On January 28, between 2:30 and 3:00 in the morning Eastern time, UUNET will be upgrading hardware and software in their core router in Ottawa, in order to prepare for new high-speed customer connections in the Ottawa area. All connections in Ottawa will be affected. They anticipate an outage not to exceed 15 minutes during this maintenance.
January 15, 1999: AT LAST: It is now possible to sign on for a trial account over the Web. Please direct your friends and relatives to http://www.mud2.com/cgi-bin/welcome.cgi. Needless to say, any errors or problems should be reported immediately (thanks!)
It is now also possible to have subscriptions that are paid for by the hour. Please send me e-mail or MUDmail if you wish to convert your existing subscription into an hourly one.
For more information on hourly subscriptions, please visit the updated FAQ at http://www.mud2.com/faq.htm. The Prices (http://www.mud2.com/prices.htm) and Terms (http://www.mud2.com/terms.htm) pages have also been updated to reflect the availability of hourly pricing.
Please note that in a sense, this remains an experiment; if the Web-based signup or hourly pricing turn out to give us nothing but trouble, we reserve the right to discontinue these options at any time. Hopefully, that won't be necessary.
January 11, 1999: CONGRATULATIONS to Florence, the Land's newest witch!
January 11, 1999: AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, we are one step further towards the goal of being able to offer subscriptions that are charged by the hour. (What you may have noticed is that the game now states that you're using a flat-rate of free account.)
The point is, we need a few brave volunteers. A few of you have indicated in the past that you'd be interested in converting your account: now is the time. If you are playing less than 20 hours a month on average, this subscription is for you; otherwise you're better off remaining on the flat-rate monthly (or annual) plan.
If you are interested, please send me mail!
January 7, 1999: DECEMBER'S PLAYER OF THE MONTH is Dustbunny, elected by unanimous vote. Congratulations! The Death Of The Month title was earned this time by Sonsie.
January 1, 1999: THE VOTES ARE IN: the mortals' most favourite wiz is none other but Tabitha the fair witch! As for the evilest, perhaps the result is not that surprising: it's our sinister wizard from the Highlands, Macleod!
December 21, 1998: CONGRATULATIONS to Tabitha! She was declared the winner of Admiral Bombow's Fourth Challenge. The Admiral hosted a festive get together in the inn's Party Room; his guests sipped eggnog while Bombow recounted the runners up tale authored by Antman. We can look forward to Tabitha's story in the next issue of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles.
December 15, 1998: ADMIRAL BOMBOW will be hosting a prize giving ceremony in the inn's Party room on Sunday, 20th December 1998 at 4pm EST (9pm GMT). The winners of the fourth Challenge will be revealed, with astonishingly valuable prizes awarded to the successful Challenge entrants.
Not only will the inn's own ample stores be available, but festive supplies will be laid in to help the celebrations along!
December 13, 1998: AND THE PLAYER OF THE MONTH for November is: Hawumph! Congratulations! And condolences to Pricnessca, winner of this month's Death of the Month title!
December 12, 1998: REMINDER: THE DEADLINE for submitting your entry to Admiral Bombow's Fourth Challenge is December 13... tomorrow, that is!
What is this Challenge? Well, in case you haven't seen it, it's in the latest edition of our newsletter, Admiral Bombow's Chronicles. The newsletter is available on the MUD2 Web site at http://www.mud2.com/bombow/. The URL that takes you directly to the challenge is http://www.mud2.com/bombow/event.html.
All players are invited to participate!
December 4, 1998: AT LONG LAST: the newest issue of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles, our newsletter, is now available on-line! Please point your Web browser to http://www.mud2.com/bombow/. A great big thank you to all who contributed to this long overdue issue!
December 1, 1998: UUNET CANADA just sent notification of a scheduled outage that will occur on December 3, between 2:30 and 3:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. In their own words: "UUNET is performing maintenance on our backbone router in Ottawa. This maintenance is being done on a priority basis to correct a potential performance issue. All connections in Ottawa will be affected. We anticipate an interruption of service of less than ten minutes during this maintenance." Thank you for your patience and understanding!
November 19, 1998: A NEW VERSION OF MUD2 (version 4E(36) in case you're wondering) has just been installed. If you experience anything unusual (that is, more unusual than what you'd normally expect in MUD2) please don't hesitate to send me mail or use the BUG command in the game. Thanks!
November 10, 1998: CONGRATULATIONS to October's Player Of The Month: Mohican! Well done! And condolences to the holder of this month's Death Of The Month title: Beermug!
November 8, 1998: UUNET CANADA informs me that presently UUNet is experiencing a major routing issue in the United States, which affects their network connectivity worldwide. Consequently, we cannot see the rest of the world and the rest of the world of course cannot see us (this means most of our players of course.) Our Canadian connections are working fine, in case you're one of the lucky few connecting from a Canadian ISP without a US routing segment to MUD2.COM. Hopefully the problem will be resolved soon; in the meantime, I apologise for the inconvenience.
October 22, 1998: I AM PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE that TETHYS (tethys@mud2.com) has been named the Land's newest arch-wizard! As some of you know, he is a personal friend and colleague, and he is also the managing director of InCAD, the company that processes all MUD2 credit card transactions, so the choice was obvious; he also lives nearby so in case of an emergency, he can have access to the MUD2 system. Mind you, I was beginning to worry that he'd never make wiz in the first place, he was bumbling so much; but he made it at last, and we recently completed his basic arch training.
He is my representative in all matters, so please feel free to approach him with respect to game problems, questions about your account, and such.
October 19, 1998: IF YOU ARE USING THE JAVA FE, please be aware that a new version has just been installed. Browsers, particularly IE4, occasionally do not automatically load the new code, which means that you may encounter problems after logging on, when trying to enter the game. If this happens, the easiest thing to do is to get your browser to clear its cache (View - Internet Options - Delete Files) and then restart your computer. The restart is necessary because of the browser integration in Windows, due to which one copy of the browser (the Windows Explorer) is always running. Netscape users should not encounter this difficulty (i.e., they do not need to restart their machine) but clearing the cache may still be necessary.
As usual, if you have any problems, please don't hesitate to contact me via e-mail, I'll be glad to be of assistance!
October 16, 1998: BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: We have September's results. Our latest Player Of The Month is Moonlit, while the coveted Death Of The Month title was earned this time by Billyjoel!
September 7, 1998: CONGRATULATIONS TO KIT: August's Player of the Month! And heartfelt sympathies to Laura, who earned August's Death of the Month title!
I also have good news for UK players: lower prices if you're paying by mail. Starting this month, the price of a monthly subscription has been reduced to 12 pounds sterling, the price of a yearly subscription, to 120. These new prices will remain in effect as long as the Canadian dollar remains as low as it currently is. (Note that if you're paying by credit card, you already enjoy the benefits of the low exchange rate, as we're charging credit card customers in Canadian dollars.)
August 13, 1998: THE JAVA-BASED MUD FRONT-END application is now available! If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 or later, or Netscape Navigator 4 or later, please visit http://www.mud2.com/mudfe.html to try this new program. In addition to being pretty, this front-end also contains features specific to MUD2. I hope you will enjoy the experience!
August 11, 1998: THE VOTES ARE IN: July's Player Of The Month is Arcady the necromancer! Congratulations! As for July's Death Of The Month title, it is not at all surprising that the winner is Poledra, who died to a mortal FOD when he was mere inches away from wizdom.
August 5, 1998: A NEW VERSION OF MUD, version 4E(35), has just been installed.
This version contains a considerable number of changes. Because of this, Richard has prepared a version of his change log for mortals. Please type GO NEW at the Option prompt or select item 2.3 from the MUD Library.
As usual, a new version can mean new bugs and/or problems. If you encounter anything that appears to be erratic behaviour, please don't hesitate to send MUDMail to either Richard or myself.
A big thanks to Richard for creating this new version, and a big thank you also to all players who helped to test it!
July 30, 1998: PRICE REDUCTION FOR US PLAYERS: Because of the low standing of the Canadian dollar, the subscription fee for players who pay by mail in US dollars is reduced to 20 dollars per month, or 200 US dollars per year, effective immediately. The new rates will remain in effect as long as the Canadian dollar stays at its current, low level.
Please note that this does not affect those who pay by credit card: you are already enjoying the benefits of the low exchange rate, your bank's foreign exchange policies permitting, because your card is charged in Canadian dollars.
A couple of you already sent in your August subscription fees: in your case, a credit of 5 US dollars will be applied towards your September subscription, so next month, you'll only need to send in 15 dollars.
Unfortunately, the new rates cannot be applied retroactively; i.e., if you renewed your annual subscription at an earlier date, or sent in several months' worth of payment prior to July, the old rates apply. The obvious reason for this is that at the time I cashed your cheque, the new, low Canadian dollar exchange rates were not yet in effect.
July 19, 1998: HAVE YOU BROUGHT ANY WEDDING PRESENTS? In case you've forgotten, the wedding of Tobias and Florence happens TODAY!
July 13, 1998:
.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.
* *
} "GREETINGS TO ALL MUD2 PLAYERS!" {
* *
} The Pleasure of Your Company {
* is Requested at the Wedding of *
} {
* TOBIAS and FLORENCE *
} {
* to be held on *
} Sunday, 19th July 1998 at {
* 2pm Game Time (7pm BST, 1pm EST), *
} {
* and afterwards at a reception *
} in the Ice Palace. {
* *
.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.__.:*~*:.
July 10, 1998: THE VOTE FOR JUNE'S Player Of The Month and Death Of The Month yielded curious results. The June POTM is near-wiz Mithriel; the Death Of The Month is last month's POTM, Mercury, proving yet again that the Curse of the POTM is not just idle speculation. Oh, and why are these results curious? In accordance with MUD2.COM's standing policy I cannot tell you, but I think most of you know...
June 27, 1998: UUNET CANADA informed me of an overload at present on their main US-Canada connection between Toronto and Cleveland. If you experience lag, it is most likely due to this problem. At the time of this posting, they have not yet been able to provide an estimate as to when things will be back to normal; hopefully by the time you read this, all will be working fine!
June 12, 1998: WILL MERCURY THE MAGE SURVIVE the POTM curse? He is, after all, our newest Player of the Month, beating Damned the warlock by a single vote. The Death of the Month vote was a tie: Kenny and Madhatter received the same number of votes, no doubt in recognition for the excellent entertainment they provided for the Land's wizzes.
May 27, 1998: A MUDMEET IS TO BE HELD on Saturday, 27 June 1998 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The meet will commence at 2pm in Deacon Brodies Tavern, on the Royal Mile. Take the opportunity to visit Edinburgh, meet some of your fellow mortals and wizzes, tell tall stories about The Land and generally have a good time! Details are available on-line at http://www.decadent.demon.co.uk/ed98/.
May 24, 1998: CONGRATULATIONS to Endiss for triumphing over Admiral Bombow's Third Challenge! The Admiral dished out staggering prizes at a party in the inn, after revealing the solutions to his most recent set of puzzles. Sonsie, the ever chatty gossip, won a well deserved runners up prize and Bombow commended Tabitha the witch for making the best entry from an Immortal. Well done, everyone!
May 20, 1998: TO REWARD THE WINNERS of Admiral Bombow's Third Challenge all players are invited to a prize giving ceremony to be hosted in the inn's Party room on Sunday, 24 May 1998 at 4pm EST (10pm BST).
The solution to the most recent Challenge will be revealed before valuable prizes are awarded to both the Winner and Runners Up. As always, the inn's plentiful supplies will be available to encourage the celebrations!
May 5, 1998: CONGRATULATIONS to Meurtriere, Player of the Month for April! And condolences to Greybeard, who earned the much less coveted Death of the Month title.
May 4, 1998: THE LATEST ISSUE of our newsletter, Admiral Bombow's Chronicles, is now available on-line. Thanks to our tireless contributors thanks to whom we have another great issue! Don't forget to look up the latest Challenge of the good Admiral, which is yet another chance for you to win valuable prizes. The URL of the newsletter is http://www.mud2.com/bombow/.
April 30, 1998: PLEASE DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED ADVERTISING about MUD2.COM to anyone. Today, I received a complaint from a player at another Internet game who said that their site was flooded recently by a MUD2.COM player who was promoting our game. Unwanted advertisement rarely has a positive effect: on the contrary, it tends to alienate prospective players. So if you really want to help (which I certainly appreciate) please refrain from embarking on such unsolicited advertising campaigns on your own. Thank you!
April 7, 1998: TUESDAY BASHERS: It has been suggested that, as most players live in countries where Daylight Savings Time is used, Tuesday afternoon Mobile Bashes should be held at 4PM game time (Eastern Time.) I heard no objections to this idea, so starting next week, Tuesday afternoon bashes will be held at that time, which I understand is 9PM in the United Kingdom throughout most of the year.
Of course nothing is cast in stone; if it turns out that for several of you, holding the bash at this time is inconvenient, we can always change things. Please let me know!
April 5, 1998: ADMIRAL BOMBOW has announced that Sirkilalot is the winner of the second Challenge. Congratulations! The Admiral generously rewarded Sirkilalot at a well attended ceremony in the Inn, during which the secrets of the Challenge were revealed. In addition to honouring four well deserved Runners Up, Bombow also praised Gromit the wizard for the best Challenge entry received from an immortal.
April 4, 1998: CONGRATULATIONS TO TOTO, our March Player of the Month! And, well, uhm, congratulations to Beermug, too, for becoming our March Death of the Month, although this is one title he surely would have preferred to do without!
April 1, 1998: UUNET CANADA just informed me that there will be a brief loss of connectivity tomorrow, April 2, between 0400 and 0430 Eastern Standard Time, as they are upgrading some of their core routers. My apologies for the inconvenience that this may cause.
April 1, 1998: A PRIZE GIVING CEREMONY is to be hosted by Admiral Bombow in the inn's Party room on Saturday, 4 April 1998 at 4pm EST (10pm BST).
Splendid prizes will be awarded to both the Winner and Runners Up of his second Challenge, to which the answers will be revealed. As before, the inn's stores will be emptied to encourage the convivial atmosphere!
March 12, 1998: THE LATEST ISSUE OF ADMIRAL BOMBOW'S CHRONICLES is now available on-line: http://www.mud2.com/bombow/.
March 11, 1998: CONGRATULATIONS TO CRAB, the Land's newest wiz!
March 8, 1998: THE VOTES ARE IN: and it's a tie! The two Players of the Month are Rainbow and Sirkilalot. Congratulations!
In an unprecedented development, the title of Death of the Month goes to a mobile: the Dragon! Our unlucky lizard got ahead of Tethys by a single vote!
March 1, 1998: A HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS to Crab, winner of Admiral Bombow's first Challenge! Crab received his reward at a ceremony in the Inn, where the Admiral also honoured Rainbow and Keyser for their splendid entries. Tabitha the witch was awarded a special prize for the best Challenge entry from an immortal. Finally, a special mention for Florence, who did very well, but given her relationship with a waggish wizard declined to accept a prize from the Admiral! Congratulations all!
February 28, 1998: ADMIRAL BOMBOW just informed me that he will host a prize giving ceremony in the Inn's Party room on Sunday, 1 March 1998, at 4 PM EST (2100 GMT). Not only will magnificent prizes be distributed to the Winner and Runners Up of his first Challenge, but also, the Inn's beer, wine and spirit stores will be looted to enable generous toasts to their success!
February 14, 1998: SASSENACH the championne tried to steal a daffodil from Tethys the mage this morning. Just what is this game coming to? <shaking head>
February 8, 1998: JANUARY'S Player of the Month is Lestat. Congratulations! The Death of the Month title was earned by Belgarath. This isn't the first time, Bel, is it? Let's just hope it's the last!
February 8, 1998: A REMINDER: If you wish to cancel or suspend your account, please do so BEFORE the end of the month to avoid charges for the new month. If you send your request after the first day of the month, the new charge may already have been processed and it is not refundable. I am posting this reminder because I received a few cancellation requests during the past week; luckily, February payments have not yet been processed, but that will not always be the case. Thank you for your understanding!
February 1, 1998: THE DRAGON IS DEAD! Long live the brave mortals who decided to challenge the Land's most fearsome beast! Congratulations to all for a spectacular victory!
January 31, 1998: THE ANNIVERSARY ISSUE of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles is now available on-line: http://www.mud2.com/bombow/. I would like to call your attention in particular to a new Challenge issued by Admiral Bombow himself: this is your chance to win lots of points thanks to the efforts of the good Admiral!
January 26, 1998: ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS: Be it announced that the site that became known as MUD2.COM will celebrate its first anniversary this coming Saturday, January 31. Several spectacular events are planned on this date. The day's activities will begin at 2PM: Starfire the witch will hold an anniversary mobile bash. I have a feeling that this bash will be more successful than most, so be there!
Next, at 4PM, two other eminent witches of our Land, Innocent and Tabitha, will hold a Scavenger Hunt. During the Hunt, you are asked to collect objects of a certain type and description. The most successful among you will win prizes. Details can be read in the mortal bulletin board (type GO BB at the main Option prompt, then type 1094 to read the message that contains the announcement.)
Lastly, at 4PM Sunday, an event unlike any other will take place: the Land's bravest (or foolhardiest?) mortals will set out to kill our very own lizard in a fight. The dragon, of course, laughs at this; but we have yet to find out who will laugh in the end.
All times in this message are Eastern Standard or MUD time (type /D in the game to find out the difference between MUD time and your time zone.)
Last but not least: an anniversary issue of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles is in the works. Watch for an announcement in the next few days!
January 10, 1998: THE PLAYER OF THE MONTH for December is Beermug. Congratulations to him and also to Crab, who earned that somewhat less coveted title: Death of the Month!
January 8, 1998: A SEVERE ICE STORM here in the Ottawa region caused authorities to declare a state of emergency. Among other things, power lines are down in many parts of the region and although it has not affected us yet, power may go out here as well during the next hours or days. The problems may also affect our Internet connection. I wish to apologise in advance for any outages and ask for your patience during this period of unbelievable weather. Thanks!
January 6, 1998: MUD2.COM'S INTERNET PROVIDER (UUNet Canada) is currently experiencing a problem that apparently affects all non-Canadian connections to our server. Assuming you got this far so you can read this message, you may be experiencing severe lag (if you use Internet testing utilities, you may see a huge packet loss.) I have been assured that this problem will be corrected as soon as possible; until then, I have to ask for your patience and understanding. Thank you all!
December 31, 1997: BE SURE TO READ a special new year message from Innocent the white witch. The message is available on the MUD2 Web page at http://www.mud2.com/1998.htm.
December 20, 1997: BE SURE TO READ a special holiday message from Innocent the white witch. The message is available on the MUD2 Web page at http://www.mud2.com/diduknow.htm.
December 13, 1997: A NEW VERSION OF MUD2, version 4E(34), has just been installed. Yes, there have been some changes, so be on your toes! Most importantly, MUD2's two long lost areas, the NORTH MOUNTAIN and the TEMPLE, are back! I hope you'll all like it there. Needless to say, if you encounter anything unusual that appears to be a bug, please don't hesitate to send me mail about it.
December 7, 1997: NOVEMBER'S Player of the Month is LAURA, a MUD2 oldtimer who just returned to our game recently. Congratulations on a well-deserved title!
The Death of the Month title was earned by Lestat, no doubt in honour of the numerous spectacular deaths that he performed to provide entertainment to his favourite immortals.
December 5, 1997: THE CANADIAN POSTAL STRIKE is over. Therefore, I'd like to ask all players who pay by mail and have not yet mailed a payment for December to please do so at your earliest convenience. Taking into account possible delays while Canada Post processes the backlog, I decided to extend the deadline for December payments to arrive until December 20. If you believe your payment will not make it here by that date, please let me know immediately!
Of course this also means that we're now able to accept new subscriptions from players who wish to pay by mail instead of using a credit card.
Thank you for your patience and understanding!
December 5, 1997: DECEMBER'S Sorcerers' Bash will be held this Sunday! This is your opportunity to test your fighting skills and earn the admiration of not only your fellow players but also your favourite immortals!
December 1, 1997: THE LATEST ISSUE of our newsletter, Admiral Bombow's Chronicles, is now available on the Web at http://www.mud2.com/bombow/. The highlight of this issue is two reports from the November MUDMeet, held in London, England.
November 23, 1997: THE WIZARD FORMERLY KNOWN AS HILOBAY decided to change his name back to what he has been known as for many years: Panther the wizard. Welcome, Panther, to MUD2.COM!
November 19, 1997: A NATION-WIDE POSTAL STRIKE just began in Canada. Therefore, I would like to ask all players who currently pay by mail to _NOT_ send any more payments until further notice. Your account will remain open and you will be requested to send in your payment when this strike is over (hopefully soon.) If you have mailed a payment recently and have not yet received confirmation from me that it has arrived, please let me know immediately. In any case, your account will remain in good standing until the strike is over and sufficient time has passed for your payment to arrive.
Unfortunately, this also means that for the time being, we can only accept VISA or AMEX cards as methods of payment for new subscriptions. My apologies to all current and prospective players for the inconvenience.
November 16, 1997: NEW VERSION: MUD version 4E(33) has now been installed. As usual, please alert me to any potential problems or odd behaviour.
One significant change that will affect all players is the method used to calculate the point loss you suffer when you flee. In the new version, this loss is proportional to your stamina. If you flee when your stamina is nearly full, you may suffer a very significant loss of points; if, on the other hand, you flee when you're near to death, your loss may actually be non-existent! Of course, the risk is significantly greater ...
Although there are no other changes of this magnitude, you'll see a number of small things that behave somewhat differently. As always, your comments and suggestions concerning these changes are welcome.
November 7, 1997: AND THE PLAYER OF THE MONTH IS .... Mapper! Congratulations! The Death of the Month award for October is shared by Angelone and Lestat; both received the same number of votes from their cheering immortal friends, no doubt in reward for the excellent entertainment that their deaths have provided!
November 2, 1997: ADMIRAL BOMBOW'S CHRONICLES will no longer be published on a monthly basis. Instead, it will become an irregular publication, with new issues coming out as material becomes available. Sorry, folks, but I received far fewer submissions than I'd hoped for, and although I could fill the newsletter with my rumblings, I don't believe it'll remain very popular that way!
Mind you, should this announcement trigger an avalanche of submissions, we shall return to a monthly schedule as soon as possible! Just as a reminder, what ABC needs most is NEW material, especially fiction. So if you have a story in mind about the sorcerer who fell in love with the dwarf queen or a science fiction piece about the Land's future, now is the time to write it!
October 7, 1997: SEPTEMBER'S VOTES are in: Congratulations to Crab, our latest Player of the Month! As for the Death of the Month, this time it's a tie between Adrian and Inferno (neither of whom, incidentally, appear to be deterred by such a minor inconvenience as the untimely loss of a mage.)
October 3, 1997: OCTOBER'S SORCERERS' BASH will be held this coming Sunday, at 2100 GMT (that's 5 PM EDT for us East Coast folks, and not 4 PM as some moronic arch-wiz thought whose banner proclaimed this mistaken notion to all mortals entering the game throughout the summer!)
September 17, 1997: BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: The September issue of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles is now available for your reading pleasure at http://www.mud2.com/bombow/. Enjoy!
September 16, 1997: PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS that some of you might be experiencing are due to a cable cut UUNet suffered near Cleveland. Consequently, most of UUNet Canada's international traffic is now routed via slower gateways between Vancouver/Seattle and Montreal/NYC, causing lag, especially during peak traffic hours. UUNet cannot say at present when things will be back to normal, other than stating that AT&T (who owns the broken cable) is working on it.
September 10, 1997: PLAYER OF THE MONTH: Inferno! Congratulations! As for the death of the month, that honour is bestowed upon Jezari this time around.
August 14, 1997: A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY to earn points and share the excitement presents itself this coming Sunday, August 17. Innocent and Tabitha, two of the Land's beautiful witches, conspired to brings us our very first SCAVENGER HUNT. The rules are simple: 30-odd objects, ranging from the obvious to the obscure, will be scattered across the Land and the first two players, one magic user, one non magic user, to bring at least 20 of these AT THE SAME TIME (obviously, after having found a means to carry them) to the presiding witches in the Cave of Stars, each win a fabulous purse, loaded with coins worth many thousands of points. The prize won by non magic users will be worth a lot more so it's is worth your while to play the hard way!
Every participant will receive a note at the start of play that lists the items that need to be collected. Rules will be presented on a leaflet that will be available in the tearoom for your reading pleasure.
Sounds easy? Hmmm, did I mention that swamping, stealing, and killing will be allowed? No, it won't be easy ... but we are certain that it will be a lot of fun and participating will be well worth the risk. The time? 4PM Eastern Daylight Time which, if I am not mistaken, translates into 2000 hours GMT. See you all there!
August 10, 1997: LATEST MUD2 NEWS: The August issue of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles is now available on-line, at http://www.mud2.com/ABC9708/.
The newest wiz in the Land: Homer! Congratulations!
July's Player of the Month title goes to Florence; the Death of the Month is Macleod's. It is not every day that you see a wiz start over as a novice!
August 2, 1997: SORCERERS' BASH: as you all know, July's Sorcerers' Bash was canceled due to serious problems at MUD2.COM's ISP. Our problems are solved, our connection is better than ever, so the Sorcerers' Bash is back: tomorrow (August 3) at 5 PM Eastern, 2100 GMT! If you never before played, a sorcerers' bash is a time when you can fight (and die!) with impunity: all you need is a "scrap" persona that a kind witch or wizard will "sorcerise" (turn into a sorcerer, complete with magical powers, temporarily.) So not only is a sorcerers' bash fun, it is also a great opportunity to perfect your fighting and survival skills. All players are welcome!
July 21, 1997: NOW THAT CONTACT HAS BEEN REESTABLISHED by NASA with the Sagan Memorial Station in Ares Vallis, Mars, it is again possible to connect to MUD2.COM from the red planet. However, such connections will unavoidably suffer from a lag of approximately 23 minutes. This is due to the round-trip light time between the two planets. This situation is unlikely to improve in the absence of Internet providers with reliable faster-than-light data communication equipment; on the contrary, in the next several months, lag is expected to increase as Mars and Earth fly farther apart following their separate orbits. Martian players are therefore advised to connect via terrestrial Internet providers who offer proxy server capability to avoid TCP/IP network timeouts, and it's also recommended that they plan ahead and exercise extreme caution to avoid fights and other situations where quick reaction to events in the game is essential for survival.
July 19, 1997: UUNET CANADA reports a UPS failure here in Ottawa; their ETA is around 6PM Eastern, by which time hopefully their equipment will be back on-line.
I'm crossing my fingers that this is an isolated incident and that I didn't bet on the wrong horse after all by selecting this provider. I guess the next few weeks will tell! In the meantime, I apologise for this outage.
July 17, 1997: WE ARE ON THE DIGITAL LINE! The transfer took a bit longer and was more complicated than I anticipated, but finally, everything is in place. In fact, the actual transfer took place Wednesday morning; however, the Sprint half of the Internet was still trying to route packets via the old Internet Service Provider. Now that that is resolved, everything is working fine.
Most of you should see an improvement in service (less lag, fewer network problems.) However, some of you, most notably those of you whose ISPs are connected via Sprint, may see a degradation. Sadly, this is unavoidable: whoever I chose as the Internet Service Provider, there will be people who will be 'far' from it in networking terms, and thus suffer more from network congestion. As before, if the degradation is unacceptable, I will gladly offer my assistance to help you find an Internet Service Provider with better connectivity relative to us.
Once again, thanks for your patience and understanding during the last two weeks! You've been a great bunch and I really, really appreciate your support!
July 14, 1997: MUD2.COM'S new (old) IP address: 199.166.252.64. Please use this IP address when configuring client software such as zMUD. Note that we are in the process of moving to a new provider and a high-speed line; therefore, outages will be inevitable in the next few days. However, I'll do my best to keep those outages at a minimum.
IMPORTANT: the old IP address may cease to function at any time. Please set up your software with the new address as soon as possible!
July 9, 1997: THE NEW SERVICE has been ordered and it's just a matter of days before MUD2.COM begins its new existence using a high speed ISDN connection to UUNet Canada's T3 backbone network. My apologies in advance for any service interruptions that may occur in the next few days while the transition takes place. Thanks for your patience and support!
July 5, 1997: CONNECTION UPDATE: it appears that the owners of IOSPHERE.NET have come to a dispute over who owns the service, and are presently wrestling with each other electronically for control of the "root password." Apparently, the welfare of their customers is no longer a concern in this fight for control.
As you can imagine, it is not trivial to move an entire service to a different Internet Service Provider. I have put things into motion and sometime next week, MUD2.COM will be routed via UUNet Canada; an old dinosaur that I once dropped as a service provider, but one that nevertheless provides quality service and more importantly, a direct connection to its backbone network with no intermediaries. I'll also use this opportunity to upgrade the speed of the connection; although we have not yet had bandwidth problems, we now have a solid base of subscribers so that such an upgrade has become affordable.
From what I can see from here, the condition of IOSPHERE's systems is deteriorating (no doubt due to semi-competent attempts to obtain control) to the extent that I expect additional service interruptions to be the norm for the next few days. For this reason, I have also decided that this Sunday's Sorcerers' Bash ought to be postponed; it makes no sense to organise an event when service may be interrupted at any time!
In the meantime, I apologise for this extremely frustrating situation. I also ask for your understanding while this madness is taking place; I assure you that I am doing what I can and in a very short time, we will have Internet service through a professional organisation.
July 5, 1997: THE CURRENT CONNECTION PROBLEMS will be over soon, as MUD2.COM will be connected to a backbone provider directly via ISDN. Until then, I have to ask you to bear with me, while this increasingly unprofessional service provider keeps on screwing around with their systems (and consequently, with their customers.) Thank you for your patience!
July 4, 1997: GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS: MUD2's Internet provider is having major problems, and they just gave me a warning that there might be an extended outage today or later this weekend. My apologies for this folks, sadly it's almost completely out of my control. I say 'almost' because as soon as next week, MUD2.COM may migrate to a different Internet connection and at the same time the speed of the connection will also be upgraded. It may mean additional (hopefully brief) outages of course but I hope to be able to count on your understanding; in the end, it'll mean better service for everyone. Thanks for your patience!
July 2, 1997: THIS MONTH, Mithriel became the winner of both monthly titles: she is our Player of the Month for June, and her death was also the Death of the Month. Congratulations!
July 2, 1997: THE NEW ISSUE of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles is now available at the MUD2 Web site, at the address of http://www.vttoth.com/mud2/bombow/. (Yes, this is still that blasted temporarily URL; Real Soon Now, if my ISP is to be
believed, MUD2's own Web site at www.mud2.com will become operational.)
July 1, 1997: INTERNET TROUBLE: MUD2.COM's Internet provider had a major system outage this morning, and although the system is back up, it still has trouble accepting incoming e-mail. If you need to send me mail urgently, you can also use my address on CompuServe: 70674.3414@compuserve.com. Sorry for the inconvenience!
June 30, 1997: THE JULY SORCERERS' BASH is going to take place this coming Sunday, July 6, at 5 PM Eastern Daylight Time (that's 2100 GMT.) All are welcome; here is your chance to try magic and fighting with little risk and a chance to earn a great reward!
June 30, 1997: THE LATEST VERSION of the MUD2 software, 4E(32), is now installed. Please report any problems or apparent bugs to me or Richard; it's best to just use the BUG command in the game for this purpose.
June 30, 1997: CONGRATULATIONS to Tobias, the Land's newest wiz!
June 21, 1997: CONGRATULATIONS to the Land's newest wizard, Hilobay!
June 13, 1997: THE SPRING CONTEST was won by Panther the necromancer. Panther correctly guessed the creators of 6 objects in the contest, and identified a further 4 objects as contest objects but associated them with the wrong wiz.
Honourable mention should go to Galahad the mage: Galahad actually had a better score than Panther (7+1) but unfortunately, because of his close relationship with one of the contest organisers, we decided to award the prize the Panther instead. Nevertheless, Galahad deserves a great big congratulations as well!
During the contest, mortals were expected to find the following objects and correctly identify their creators:
Saucer with cream - Cat the wizard
Book "The Scarlet Letter" - Hester the witch
Helpful diary - Innocent the witch
ACME hunting kit - Jillithe the witch
Black corset - Mistress the witch
Rotting cadaver - Pugsley the wizard
Small meteorite - Starfire the witch
Ancient astrolabe - Starquest the wizard
Stone tablet - Trefle the witch
Arch screwdriver - Viktor the arch-wizard
Dragon notebook - Zedd the wizard
Thank you all, wizzes and mortals alike, for participating!
June 11, 1997: THE SPRING CONTEST is now over. Results will be announced Wednesday evening at the beginning of the mobile bash. If you failed to submit your guess but would like to participate, please send me mail immediately and I'll see what I can do for you. Thank you all!
June 10, 1997: OUR SPRING CONTEST is soon over. In case you haven't read the sign in the Tearoom, the contest is about correctly identifying a variety of strange and unusual objects that pop up in the Land from time to time, each belonging to a different wiz. Answers should be submitted by e-mail (MUDmail) to Starquest or Viktor before the deadline: midnight Eastern time on Tuesday, June 10. The winner will take home (well, to the swamp) a fabulous prize, the value of which can be found out if you just VAL the chest that is on display in the Tearoom (yes, the prize is in it!) Remember: you have nothing to lose by guessing, so keep those guesses coming!
June 3, 1997: THE MAY PLAYER OF THE MONTH is Barf the warlock! Congratulations! The title of Death of the Month goes this month to Callisto the mage, who died to the vampire in a spectacular fashion one morning.
June 1, 1997: OUR NEWSLETTER IS HERE! Take a look at http://www.mud2.com/mud2/ABC9706/ for the inaugural issue of Admiral Bombow's Chronicles. For those of you with no World-Wide Web access a text version is available upon request; send e-mail to Viktor please.
May 24, 1997: OUR 'FRIEND' BELGARATH did his stunt again; this time under an assumed name, he made yet another attempt to flood the game with macros. Why, I have absolutely no idea, but I am getting really sick and tired of having to worry about him.
I wish to apologise in advance if his actions were to cause service interruptions in the future. He is obviously completely out of control, and if he feels wronged (as I assume he will, after I booted him out today) nothing stops his rage. In the long run, he will only be a minor annoyance but in the short run, he can cause some unpleasant moments for all of us. Sorry.
Belgarath, if you read this: go make someone else benefit from your presence, will you? I have no time for your childish behaviour.
May 16, 1997: MACLEOD THE WIZARD has returned. He was another wiz who made on the old system before persona records were transferred; unfortunately, my mail didn't reach him when the old MUD2 site was closed but he found us anyway. Welcome back, Macleod the Highlander wizard!
May 13, 1997: CREDIT CARD CUSTOMERS: please remember that all charges to your account will be administered by INCAD CORPORATION of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Thanks!
May 8, 1997: A MINOR UPGRADE of the MUD2 system has just been installed. This fixes a few bugs and, most importantly, allows us to open 'guest accounts'; accounts that are restricted to guest mode playing only but nevertheless sport saveable personae. Of course a new version, however minor the changes are, may also introduce new bugs; if you see any unusual software behaviour, please don't hesitate to let me know!
May 4, 1997: Our first monthly Sorcerers' Bash was won by Sepultura. Out of 5 opponents, Sepultura disposed of four personally, attaining the level of sorcerised necromancer (gasp!) in the process. Congratulations, this was some game play!
May 4, 1997: BELGARATH THE ONE-TIME MAGE is now back in the game, after a brief absence. The reason for this absence was that after he lost a 150K persona due to what he considered an 'unfair' fighting tactic, he took it upon himself to issue, and carry out, a variety of threats. Threats issued included a threat to sabotage our game using unspecified Internet programming techniques; to sabotage his opponent's Internet connection; and to participate in the operation of a pirate MUD2 site using an illegally obtained copy of the MUD2 system software. When these threats were followed up by a successful attempt to actually cause a series of crashes, his access to our system was terminated.
Since that time, I have received numerous requests from Belgarath's friends to allow him back in the game. Knowing how good a player he really is when he plays by the game's rules as opposed to trying to circumvent them, I was willing to lean in his favour. Having received a promise from him to play honourably in the future, I decided to give him one last chance.
Welcome, back, Belgarath. I hope you will not blow it this time and Belgarath the one-time mage will soon be Belgarath the mage again ... or who knows, maybe even Belgarath the wizard one day!
May 2, 1997: THE PLAYER OF THE MONTH for April is Tethys. Tethys joined our Land shortly after it came into existence at MUD2.COM and has shown great promise since. He also died a lot but hey, as we are so fond of saying, you haven't lived until you've died in MUD2! His biography can be found in Library 2, or by typing GO TETHYS at the main prompt.
The title of Death of the Month was earned by Belgarath the mage, who managed to die in a spectacular fashion due to an untimely force.
April 29, 1997: HEAR YE! HEAR YE! HEAR YE!
Our first ever monthly Sorcerers' Bash will be held Sunday, May 4, at 4 PM Eastern Daylight Time (that is 2000 GMT, probably 2100 in most parts of the UK.) During a Sorcerers' Bash, all participants will be "sorcerised" (your throwaway personae will be given temporary sorcerer status.) The Bash lasts until all participants are dead except the last one, who will be the winner of a fabulous prize. This is your chance to experiment with fighting tactics and enjoy the thrill of the hunt without risking your main personae!
April 26, 1997: PASSWORD SECURITY is what protects your accounts from unauthorised access. Still, many of you have not yet changed the password that was assigned to your accounts at the time they were created. You can change your MUD2 password easily, by typing /P either at the main prompt or in the game itself.
April 21, 1997: SORRY FOR THE UNEXPECTED OUTAGE: apparently, there was a minor hickup at our Internet Service Provider that temporarily interrupted our Internet connection. All should be fixed now, and at least this brief outage gave me an opportunity to upgrade the system to version 4E(31), complete with Richard's latest fixes. The nasty bug that caused us to revert to 4E(30) twice has been found and killed (and Richard specifically requested that I pass on his thanks to Pugsley, Starfire, and all others who helped to reproduce the problem.) Still, as before, if you encounter anything odd or seemingly abnormal, please report the occurrence to me. Thanks!
April 19, 1997: TIME FOR A NAME CHANGE: The arch-wizard known as Gandalf shall henceforward be called Viktor the arch-wizard. All of you know my real name; and my arch-wiz duties prevent me from engaging in extensive role-play. Therefore, I concluded that it's best if I use my real name; at least I will no longer need to sign my MUD2-related e-mail messages as Viktor/Gandalf! This change shall also reflect the fact that I am much more MUD2's administrator than a player of the game. Note that the name 'Gandalf' will remain reserved for some time, so as to avoid the possibility of confusing an impostor with the real me.
April 12, 1997: THE BAD LAG that many of you are experiencing is something completely beyond my control. It appears that some gateway machines between MCI and Sprint lose packets by the bucketful, forward packets out of sequence, even create some duplicate packets; needless to say, when packet loss reaches or exceeds 60%, chances are you will be lucky if you even manage to connect to the MUD box, and interactive gaming is completely out of the question.
Some of you (e.g., those with demon.co.uk accounts) may not see MCI even if you attempt to do a traceroute to the MUD box. However, a traceroute from the MUD box to your systems shows MCI hosts on the route. What this means is that the route is asymmetric; packets travel along different routes to and from the MUD box.
I have no idea as to when this problem might be resolved or even whether the Powers That Be at MCI or Sprint (whichever is responsible for this) are aware of the problem in the first place. That said, I am investigating the possibility of using another provider with MUD in the future; however, that will not solve the current problem and for all I know, this may be a solution that generates more trouble than it is intended to solve. For the time being, all I can do is ask for your patience; let's hope somebody at Sprint or MCI is is working weekends!
April 11, 1997: A NEW MOTHERBOARD has been installed on the server. I am pretty sure this will correct the problem; last night, as I was trying to fix the system, it got progressively worse until it failed to boot altogether even with all adapter cards removed. If that is not an indication of motherboard failure, I don't know what is!
So let's cross our collective fingers. MUD2 is back up and running again and I sure hope it will stay up so that I can go to sleep for a change!
Many of you replied to my mail that I sent out to the Internet address of all active players. (If you haven't received it, perhaps the address I have for you is obsolete; please let me know. A copy is available on this Web site.) Without exception, all your comments were very supportive; it really helped me as I was arch-wizzing with a screwdriver. Thank you very much!
April 10, 1997: FIRST OF ALL, I APOLOGISE for the repeated unavailability of the system today. As announced earlier, we have reverted to version 4E(30) after an attempt to upgrade to 4E(31) resulted in a series of nasty crashes. However, our problems did not end there; a few hours later, the operating system crashed several times, making me suspect the hardware. Whether in fact the 4E(31) crashes and these ones are related or not, I have not yet been able to determine.
I would like to request your patience for the next couple of days while I try and track down this problem. It is possible that we will have a few more crashes until I am able to identify the faulty component (if indeed, there is a faulty hardware component behind all this). Thank you for bearing with me.
April 10, 1997: WE HAVE REVERTED to version 4E(30) after a series of unexplained and nasty crashes that occurred today. Hopefully, the crashes WERE caused by the new version and this will clear up the problem! My sincere apologies for the inconvenience!
April 10, 1997: VERSION 4E(31) OF MUD has just been installed. Please report any bugs, problems, crashes, or odd behavior that you may encounter in the Land. Thanks!
April 9, 1997: JILLITHE THE WITCH is the Land's newest immortal. Congratulations on a quick recovery; barely more than a week after she was ambushed by the thief, Jillithe claimed her rightful place among MUD2's wizzes!
April 5, 1997: AMIDST THE FLOOD OF NEW WIZZES it appears I failed to properly carry out my duties: I failed to announce the ascension of Hester the witch and Cat the wizard. Belatedly, I ask for their forgiveness and offer my congratulations! And now we have another wiz on our hands: shortly after he earned the title of Player of the Month, as if to prove that the "POTM curse" is mere superstition, Hakuman crossed over to immortality and revealed his true identity: he is none other than Mudguard, one of MUD2's legendary wizzes. It is an honor to have you among us!
April 5, 1997: AN OLD WIZ HAS RETURNED: Runeblade the wizard, who earned his title before MUD2 was shut down by Kesmai, has come to reclaim his title. Welcome back, old friend! (For those of you unfamiliar with this site's beginnings: our initial player database was inherited from the Kesmai site which was abruptly shut down on January 31. All active players, wizzes and mortal alike, had their accounts transferred and were able to reclaim their personae if they chose to subscribe here.)
April 2, 1997: THE PLAYER OF THE MONTH for March is Hakuman. Congratulations! The other monthly title, the DOTM (Death Of The Month) was awarded unanimously to Jillithe, who was just a few thousand points short of wizdom when the thief took her life. Jillithe recovered from this setback with surprising swiftness and is again solidly on her way towards her goal of attaining wizdom!
April 2, 1997: SORCERERS' BASHES will be held less frequently. The next Sorcerers' Bash will be held Sunday, May 4, at 2100 GMT (4 PM Eastern Daylight Time). From then on, Sorcerers' Bashes will be held at the same time on the first Sunday every month. Don't miss the opportunity to improve your fighting skills and earn a fabulous prize!
March 25, 1997: MURPHY'S LAW must be at work: MUD2's Internet provider is recovering from a major system crash just as I am writing this. Murphy's law, of course, is that principle of nature that determined that this crash had to happen during our scheduled Mobile Bash. Needless to say, I am just as helplessly waiting for that system to come back to life as many of you doubtlessly are ... all I can do is ask for your understanding and apologise for the inconvenience.
March 20, 1997: THE SMALL PRINT HAS ARRIVED: please read our new Terms and Conditions document. It is available in the Library and also on the Web page (click on the Terms icon). There is nothing new in it that was not covered by the "plain English" version, but it spells out many things in far greater detail.
March 20, 1997: DALAMAR THE WIZARD has usurped Starquest as the newest immortal. He snuck in to wizdom in disguise as Lesk the mage. His last words to me as a mortal were "hopefully the next time I'll be a fellow wiz"; however, as he was still almost 30,000 points short of that goal, I didn't take his warning seriously!
March 14, 1997: STARQUEST THE WIZARD is the Land's newest immortal. After several failed attempts at immortality (and earning the Death of the Month title two times in a row) he decided to go undercover and sneaked in to wizdom as Quixotic. He has now reclaimed his rightful name. Congratulations!
March 14, 1997: IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CREDIT CARD CUSTOMERS: Please remember that all credit card charges will appear on your statement under the vendor name InCAD Software Technologies Corporation, of Ottawa, Canada. The credit card charge is $30 Canadian a month (converted into your local currency) or $300 Canadian a year. At present rates, this translates into approximately $25 U.S., or 15 pounds in British currency. Monthly charges will be applied on or after the first of each month, until you cancel your subscription. Annual charges will be applied on or after the first of the month in which you began your subscription. If your credit card information changes (in particular, if you get a new card with a new expiry date), don't forget to notify me immediately!
March 6, 1997: TO ALL WHO SENT PAYMENT ALREADY: thank you! May you enjoy every moment of your stay in the Land!
That said, many of you have not yet sent me anything. I would understand this if you had been away and didn't receive my e-mail (this is what the March 15 / March 30 extension was all about after all) but many of you play daily and still didn't bother to send me a note. If you are playing under the assumption that MUD2 is still free ... well, it isn't.
Beginning March 10, the accounts of those who play daily but have not sent me a note on payment yet, will be removed. Whether you are a 0-point novice or a wiz, I WILL NOT RESTORE YOUR PERSONAE! No pay, no play. The only way for you not to see this message is by not playing at all between now and Monday, in which case your account will not be affected anyway.
If you DID send me a note but never received a reply; please let me know right away. It is possible your e-mail disappeared somewhere and I certainly have no intention of harming your account.
March 5, 1997: A PROTOTYPE WEB PAGE for MUD2.COM has been constructed and can be viewed at www.vttoth.com/mud2.
March 3, 1997: MISTRESS THE WITCH is the Land's newest immortal: congratulations! In the meantime, wiz votes are in: this month's Player of the Month is Kelly, while Starquest has earned the dubious Death of the Month title for the second time in a row!
March 1, 1997: CONGRATULATIONS TO TABITHA, the Land's newest witch!
February 26, 1997: CHARGING WILL BEGIN March 1. An e-mail that provides the details has been sent to the Internet address of all registered MUD2 players. If you don't receive it within 24 hours (say, by the evening of February 27) do let me know and I will verify that your address is correct in my database and send you a copy.
