The End of the Era

[Gatz]

This was an April Fool's Joke for 2008. Realize this isn't real and is an old post.

I’ve decided, after a lot of hard soul-searching and self reflection, to retire from my role as Owner of NarutoMUD. While it has been a fun ride, I feel it is best if I step down now and I will elaborate why I’ve come to that conclusion.

Over the past couple years; I’ve noticed the constant fluctuation of players and, even with the constant improvements to the game engine, it seems to not sway a player to stay. Sure, we gain a player here or there but their stays never last. The volunteer staff that NarutoMUD operates on is painful empty and has been for over a year. The only people who volunteer to be builders have no motivation to learn it on their own, despite being pointed to very good resources. They claim they’ll help once they get ‘taught how’ and yet I don’t know any, if any, serious MUD owners that have time for that, including myself. NarutoMUD’s volunteer Immortal staff is its heart beat, with so few Immortals we’re dying a painful death. No one seems to have that passion to learn how to create interesting, fun zones like I did years ago, that same passion that drove me into coding on MUDs. No one held my hand, I worked and worked at it and failed repeatedly until I got some grasp on what to do, but it seems that era has ended or has it?

Recently, some new Naruto themed MUDs have gone into development and I’ve been sad to say blatantly ripped ideas from me. I hope the astute would be able to discern which skills and elements of NarutoMUD I have created, because either that MUD owner can not or simply doesn’t care. That truly has me disheartened, but the point which made my heart sink is they have a healthy and active builder staff. After my years of effort, we can’t make –one- person have the passion to create wonderful zones for us? Yet, with only being a shallow copy, they have inspired the talents of many.

Which led me to realize the problem, me. It’s clear I have mismanaged the MUD from many angles, alienating our player base and potential Immortals. I might not have ever had what it takes anyways. I’m not looking for pats on the back or empty complements, just a graceful final bow. I’ve made up my mind, and I haven’t totally finalized the plans for NarutoMUD, but I do have a plan.

Please consider this my “2 weeks notice” almost, at the end of this week, I’ll have an official announcement on the future of NarutoMUD, I hope you all stay tuned.

[Hazamishi]

I'm very sorry to hear this.

[Isamu]

Sorry to hear that...
Good luck to what comes next!

[Abigeiru]

I'm sorry to see this... I really did enjoy playing here, I'm not sure what could have been done to make it better... You tried hard Gatz... You had some great ideas... Wherever your future takes you, I wish you luck... We really enjoyed knowing you... Abigeiru

[Chaos_Advocate]

That is truly tragic to hear... I only encounter a MUD that seems truly worthy of my time once every couple of years, and to this day still lament the loss of two others I had grown fond of... I'd only just started getting into NarutoMUD over the last month or two, and it will be sad to know that now, even as the daily grind of work slowly turns my soul to powder, I won't necessarily have NarutoMUD to turn to for comfort... -sniff-

You have created a great thing here, master Gatz, with much potential, and it's a shame it wasn't as well recieved as it deserved. You have my respect, and my sincerest wishes for the future.

Regretfully,

Sako

[Suzaku2]

Oh man...now I'll have to add this to the list of awesome MUDs that I can't play anymore. Well...I guess it was fun while it lasted. At least I met a handful of cool people over the year or two that I've played here. Thanks for everything Gatz.

[Furu]

I think this MUD is awesome, apart from the constant need to rest due to stamina. I also got my friend into playing this. I hope this place doesnt shut down..

We are new players from today too.

[Sukotto]

I'm very sad to hear this. I have had fun while playing this mud for about the past year. It was fun while it lasted and who knows. perhaps i shall encounter you all elsewhere, untill then have fun everyone.

[Gatz]

Okay, I finalized my plan for the fate of NM. I decided I'm going to release the source code, but because I've seen this far too much, MUDs releasing their source code only to see a billion clones pop up with almost no changes, I've decided to remove the areas and skills, which have had a lot of love put in them by various people. Anyone halfway decent in coding will be able to take the shell given to them and produce an exact copy of NM, but this way, it'll probably fall into the hands of someone who truly cares about making a great Naruto themed MUD.

We barely had any areas anyways, the skill system is pretty straight forward, I doubt this will cause any trouble for whomever wishes to use it. I will release the code sometime next week, and also shutdown the MUD at the end of next week. I hope to see you all still playing, as it'll be fun to let the old girl go out with a bang, instead of a sad fizzle.

I've decided to exit out of MUD Programming, as I feel it is sort waste of time now. When I got into MUDs, there was a very strong community of people wishing to not only consume but add, now it seems I hear "LOL but I'm lazy!" nearly every day from players who wish to only consume. I feel that maybe after a decade or two more, the next generation who will come after us may get fed up with that and realize that when you -don't- wish to add, the void is filled by lame licensing, rental or other fees to make it prudent to support the community. I've always felt MUDing should be free and be about the community, with everyone adding to the enjoyment, as well as consuming.

There has been many players who I feel have added a lot to NM, to all of you, I truly am sorry, I hope this doesn't feel like a punishment. You've were all the reason why I even opened NM to the public in the first place and kept it going all these years. I'm sorry Beta never came, please don't hold a grudge. One day, Beta will come for you, I promise.

[Suzaku2]

[Gatz]

http://narutofor.us/Naruto-Current.tgz

There you go, I've removed a lot, but there is still 98.8% of NarutoMUD's heart and soul left. I took out just enough so that only the truly worthy could pick up the gauntlet. Can you just run Make and bam, your own copy of NM? No, but do you have a strong base to build your dream NM if you put in a little work? Definitely.

I'll miss you all, especially all the wonderful people I've met along this journey. It was around this time 4 years ago that I first started dreaming about a NarutoMUD to play. I can only hope one day we can all laugh and have adventures together again in the world of Naruto. Remember, this Friday is our closing date, I hope to see you all there. Friday, 9 pm CST.

[Suzaku2]

[Yamashita]

It figures you'd put the closing right at the same time as the BSG premiere...
Thanks for providing the code, and good luck with future endeavours.

[Gatz]

April Fools!


Seriously though, while I may have been overly dramatic, I've touched on a lot of things that are real issues to me and many MUD Owners. I've seen far too many great MUDs shut down because their player base was made up of pure 'takers'. It could be just a sign of the times we live in, but if a MUD loses all of the 'givers', it'll die out fast. So, what can you do to give back to NarutoMUD? Well, there are a few ways, one is just to play and enjoy the game, not trying to be a jerk to anyone and being helpful. Another, is by donating, while we don't require donations or reward you directly, they are a very great way to say 'thank you' for all the people that actually contributed to the construction of the MUD! All money donated goes directly to MUD Magic and guarantees NarutoMUD will be around for a long, long time. Lastly, you can become an Immortal, this isn't for everyone.

As a growing MUD, we need builders, badly. How hard is learning how to build? Not bad. I'd say learning how to MUD was harder, but most of us are having fun while we learned so it didn't seem so hard. The same with building. It is really exciting and fun, so the challenges become rewarding and exciting. Can it get frustrating? Sure, but I think if you're a MUD vet, you've probably had more frustrating times with players or Immortals or the MUD itself! How can you get started? Simple, be a good dude and I'll let you sharpen your skills on a stock SMAUG FUSS, roped off from NM completely, where you can see how to do the basics without worrying about breaking anything. When you show you're ready for the big leagues, I'll put you up on NM's builder port. Simple! Honestly, if you even devoted an hour a day to building, within a month, you'd be better than me.

Lastly, the code I provided is -actually- NarutoMUD's code...from August 8th, 2004. So, it is almost a stock SMAUG FUSS 1.4. What I'm getting at is there are no free rides. Quality MUDs are built on love and hard work, if you lack the passion then you have no reason to be working on it. I've had to work and work to get to the skill level I'm at, it's a never ending journey, and there are no shortcuts. Once you get really adept, you see that even stock codebases like SMAUG or ROM aren't really the best to build a MUD on, because they are a set of ideas from -other- people, often times the systems need to be re-written completely. In the case of SMAUG, it uses the cutting edge coding style of 1980. I don't think I need to go into much detail over how many improvements have been made since then. I'll leave that source up for another week, but you're better off with a fresh SMAUG FUSS copy.

I'd like to close out this by saying that we have so many wonderful players and a few crappy ones. Thankfully, the crappy ones never seem to stick around. Forgive me for enjoying April Fools too much, and thank you all for all the love you showed to me and NarutoMUD. Please, come back to NarutoMUD and lets have more adventures together.