September 20, 2001 - (Special Edition)

As I believe, I already mentioned the upcoming 10th Anniversary of MUME's existence. So, at this time i would like to go back in time, 10 years. My chat partners were Eru and Manwë, and this is the story they told:

• Before MUME was born, most of the future Imps and coders were playing a mud called SEJNET (a diku-based world adapted on VAX/VMS system) at Federal Institute of Technology (Lausanne). Among them were Manwë, Aule, Innocent and CryHavoc, whom Eru didn't know at that time. Eru's character there was BigCat. Eru was really bored because he never got above level 14 and the SEJNET world was getting boring - it had no real geography and was too chaotic. For these reasons, Eru took the diku sources, and decided to start a new game on his own. As Manwë and Aule were the members of a Student Association in school, they quickly heard about Eru's project. Eru's idea was to have a coherent world, for role-play and travel.
• One day, as Aule was sitting in Sattelite, in his chair behind a beer, he looked up to Eru and asked: 'Why not make it Tolkien?'
• Eru hesitateed a little and replied: 'So, why dont YOU make the world and i worry about the code?' So Aule created the very first zone in mume - Bree.
• Then Manwë came along, helping to code. One of the reasons was also Eru's bad English - he hadn't learned any of it at that time, and within all his code were poor English phrases, making all the basic messages sound rather funny.
• Varda came along, to help Aule with the building. Varda was also the Tolkien fan that made them change their names, for originally MUME's implementors had same names in mume that they had had in SEJNET (now shut down). So, thats also how MuadDib became Manwë. Aldur also joined Aule in world creating process at that time.  
• All the first players were from SEJNET, kind of refugees. The very first play-tester was Stranger. He was also kind of a victim- always bravely trying to kill and exp, but mobdying to bugs, losing eq, etc. And those green dragons in Bree that had to be quickly purged before reboots...
• Then came along CryHavoc, stating he would be interested in MUME having a world editing system. His work became all about /obj /zone and /mob.
• The original idea was to name the game The Tolkien World, but then Eru had a different idea - MUME- Multi Users in Middle Earth. When Aule left from the team, CryHavoc came. Aule and Manwë coded the fighting prompt together (cold/tired/hurt).
• In the meantime, the rumour was that Eru spent a whole 3 months working on how to make the password no-echo on login.
• Then Eru hired Redcap, he would hire also others, and make MUME develop faster. But as good as Redcap's ideas were, he was also unstable: demoting others, killing others. Then he himself got demoted and reimmorted again.. it was a long circle. He also had the original idea for a trophy system, which was immediately adapted.
• Nada came along then, introducing mudlle to the game, as to put some dynamic procedures into the game (this was at the time of MUME III). In MUME III there were about 10 to 15 existing zones(Shire, Bree, North-Greenway, some of OER and Fornost), and all whitie races were present right from the start.
• Cryhavoc introduced orcs, they were located in old OOC ( near Nen-i-Sul), from where they have been moved twice, once to ABR and then where they are now.
• Then came trolls, and last but not least- the Númenórean race.

As to my chatting partners, they definitely see MUME's existance spanning well past the 10 years. Eru said MUME is a 'second home' even while retired, he is very proud about what MUME has become into.

Last but not least, I asked my companions to describe MUME in 5 words:

Eru: Role-play, complexity, richness, fun and mature.

Manwë: Crafted game and world design.

Eru: The cyber jewel!

My warmest thanks to the two creators that helped me to compile this story.

• Birthdays: Alkar 15.Sept., Sloshed 22.Sept.
• Also, Voile is moving to UK, Leicester currently, so he will be away for a few weeks, before he gets his internet connection working again.