Ancient Anguish
Ancient Anguish (commonly referred to in-game as
AA) is a
fantasy themed
MUD based on the
Amylaar driver which operates on the
LPMud codebase. Coding for the mud by Zor and Drake started in
1991, and it opened to the public on
February 2,
1992. It is completely free to play, but has been supported by player donations since
1994.
Ancient Anguish is based on a "
map-coordinate" system rather than
linked areas, which contributes to the immersive feeling of entering another 'world'. Areas are then placed on the nearly 10,000 room '
map' and tied into the geography and history of the fantasy world, called
Oerthe. In addition, the mud strives for a
describe-all policy for all areas, whereby any item/object/feature should respond to as many of the
five senses as possible, adding to the immersive quality (not all older areas conform to current Balance/describe-all policies).
In the early 1990s, most MUDs were housed on university
mainframe computers, either illicitly or with tacit approval from the
computer science department (many of whom played or created the games they hosted!). In late 1993, Ancient Anguish faced the threat of being shut down by the
Swiss university that hosted the game,
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, for excessive
bandwidth usage. Hundreds of players made donations totalling more than
$7000 (US) and bought a
SparcStation 2 workstation, relocating the MUD to
Washington, D.C..
At the same time, Zor (who functioned as
God, or chief administrator, at the time) abdicated his singular authority over the MUD and turned over control to a new God, Amante. Together, Zor and Amante codified the laws of Ancient Anguish and a
Senate of Wizards was established with Amante as the Senate President. The Senate appoints
Archwizards of
Law, Balance,
Quality Control, etc. The Senate consists of the
Arch Wizards of the different functional administrations, plus additional Senators at large, usually previous administrative heads or particularly prolific contributing wizards. In 1995, Amante abdicated his role as Senate President and the Senate assumed complete control over the MUD.
The MUD later moved again to the
West Coast of the United States and continues to be supported entirely through voluntary donations. In February 2006, it moved to a new site in
Michigan.
Though its population is not generally as high as many other MUDs, it remains one of the most popular LPMuds on the internet today, despite facing stiff competition from commercial and/or graphical
MMORPGs. Ironically, Ancient Anguish has been cited by original
Everquest designer Ryan Palacio as being heavily played by the Everquest development team [
1].
New code is continually added to the game by a team of volunteer '
wizards', or coders. Players can elect to become a wizard upon meeting three requirements: 1.) achieving a minimum of 1 million experience points; 2.) completing a number of the quests available; and 3.) earning a number of exploration points (sometimes called "Gaius Points", named after the sage who provides hints to guide players to find them). Players may elect to solve more quests and fewer exploration points, or more exploration points and fewer quests.
Exploration points are generally completed by thorough exploration, prodding, touching, and otherwise investigating a given area or room, or completion of a mini-quest. The hints provided by the Gaius character are generally vague, and no direct statistic is available to players.
New wizards go through an educational process where they learn about coding enhancements for the game, develop an idea for a new area, and proceed to build it. The system was designed to provide guidance both to experienced programmers and those with no experience. These new areas go through a process of validation to ensure they meet the thematic, quality, and balance/playability requirements of the game, and are then opened to all players.
In late 2005,
player levels were expanded from 19 to 50, although no player has yet achieved the
experience point total necessary to progress above the mid-30s.
The game's move to the Michigan server brought several changes: during the move, the old site was available in "
Anarchy Mode", a traditional experience when the game moved from one server to another, with all rules on
player killing,
multiplaying, wizard-mortal interference, and other guidelines of Law suspended. Since all player files had already been
backed up prior to the move, none of this had any long-term effect on players and allowed them to "blow off steam". It proved popular enough that the Senate is considering providing regular Anarchy events on an alternate port of the new server. In addition, the move prompted a change from 25-hour mandatory
reboots to 49-hour reboots, which were tested in late April and then made permanent. These reboots, common in muds to recover
memory leaks, restore the world to a default state, leaving characters to regain equipment from scratch. All skills, stats, and gold are retained.
In May 2006, a new
continent named
Infidian was opened after several years' wait, nearly doubling the available landmass space on the map for areas and alleviating overcrowding of older areas on the main continent of
Anguish (from which the game gets its name). Several areas have already been placed on its map, and more will be 'discovered' in the near future. Infidian is reputed to be the historical
homeland of the humans who came to Anguish, where the rest of the races already lived, and is nearly
pacifistic. At present, Infidian has few explorable areas, although many more areas are in development.
On Ancient Anguish, a player can choose between
fighter,
mage,
ranger,
cleric,
shapeshifter,
necromancer,
paladin and
rogue for their character class. A new class, called Artificers, opened in late June 2006.
Several years ago, a major overhaul of the combat system was coded. Players become more proficient in different types of weapons after gaining experience using them. The more proficient they are, the more damaging weapons they can use. Fighters who lack the powerful spells/special abilities of other classes are able to skill more quickly than other classes, making them excellent at dealing damage.. At the same time, a wide variety of non-combat abilities are available, including
fishing,
origami,
pottery,
prospecting,
seduction, and
weaving.
Players can join different
guilds on the game, for social or adventuring-related benefits. Each guild has its own purpose and restrictions, along with a guildhall and guild-oriented chatline. These guilds include:
* The
Knights of Drin are the personal
knights of the king, Drin Trueheart. Orcs are not permitted to join, and most NPC's found in the guild's home base of Nepeth will attack orcs on sight. Because of the martial focus of the group, only fighters, clerics, rangers, paladins and adventurers are permitted to join. They pride themselves on being friendly to newbies, and fair in dealings with others.
* The
Scythe are an
anti-establishment group of barbarians and hedonists that deny access to anyone with a drop of elven blood. For classes, only paladins are refused admittance. The Scythe formed as a result of opposition to the Knights of Drin. Typically foul-mouthed, they consider themselves the elite players of Ancient Anguish.
Newbies and those who are not self-sufficient are not well tolerated.
* The
Monks of Antana are a strong religious force for good. Dwarves and orcs are not permitted to join; neither are necromancers, due to their evil acts. Currently the least-populated guild, but active members are generally very friendly and social.
* The
Courts of Chaos are a loosely knit
cult that worship the forces of
Chaos. Only the evil can join, therefore paladins are refused. Clerics on Ancient Anguish are not required to worship only "good" gods/goddesses (such as Antana), and are therefore welcome to join and worship the gods of Chaos. Fighters are not permitted either, as the guild has a spellcasting focus (rogues are allowed, however). Conversation is usually limited, although the guild chatline is populated with mysterious disembodied voices ().
* The
Black Bear is a group of nature lovers, allowing all races to join. Paladins, necromancers, and rogues are not permitted to join. Friendly conversation is usually the order of the day.
* The
Eldar, a coalition of elves, half-elves and humans. Any class is permitted to join, as the guild focus is mostly social. The guild's purpose builds on the historical alliances between elves and humans, even during wars between the two species.
* The
Society of the Raven is a band of cutthroats, brigands, footpads and other denizens of the night. Rogues of any race may join, but no other classes. Conversation is usually light, and often concerns recent
marks. Population has been light lately, due to a heavy crackdown by Law on
stealing from players, one of the rogues' primary abilities. Recently, however, rogue theft and several in-game "anti-theft" devices have been "rebalanced" in favor of rogues; whether this will cause another upswing in Raven population remains to be seen.
*
Ancient Anguish website, which includes a link to telnet://anguish.org:2222
* Colored maps of the
Anguish and
Infidian continents
*
AA for Dummies!, compiling information on various aspects of playing
*Ancient Anguish forum, run offsite by players at ProBoards
*ancient_anguish, a LiveJournal community for both players and former players
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