[MUD-Dev] "short" Introductory Message (fwd)

[Simon Miller]

On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Martin Keegan wrote:

[Island]
>> 
> "Oh no, not this chestnut again". I've already been swayed into bringing
> it back - just trying to find a stable site for it. You probably
> underestimate the amount of flak I *still* get from people who hated that
> poor old game.
>

Look, I for one am fed up with the continuous references to Island which
haven't been doing much for the signal:noise ratio on this list.  A lot of
what is being said about is of no relevance whatsoever to mud *design*.

I'm going to create a lot of noise now,  in the hope that it will kill off
this Island-related nonsense.

Let's face the facts:  Island does not belong to Martin Keegan.  He was
only made a meta-wizard (the top level) about six months before it closed
down (and that's not a very long time in the history of a mud which dates
back to 1990.)

Most of Island's code was written by Dr Richard Green, who was also the
head administrator until last summer,  when Martin took over.  By the
autumn,  Island had closed down.  This was not because of a lost site -
the site,  run by a friend of Martin's,  has been home to a CirculeMUD
ever since.  It was because various people,  in particular Richard Green,
*wanted* to close it down.

As far as I know,  Richard Green is opposed to the return of Island.  If
that is true,  then it won't be coming back,  however much Martin might
want it to come back.  Island is not and was never Martin Keegan's mud.
It was Richard Green's mud.

So let's stop talking about the return of Island, please.  If we want to
talk about it from a design point of view,  then that is fine.  Island was
a superb mud from that point of view,  if only because of its originality,
although it was by no means perfect.

Martin,  I really think that you should let Island rest in peace and get
on with Eclipse.  You never miss an opportunity to talk about writing muds
from scratch - so let's see a mud that *you* have written from scratch!