Wacko - The story
** Editor's note : The beginning section was written by
ch'od, so all uses of 'I' refer to him. - c (7/30/94)
(Fall/spring 91?) - Given the declining state of our origin
muck, Pegasus, Den & I discuss how we would run a
muck, if we were given the chance. What starts as
a casual discussion leads to a near all night
discussion about the pluses and minuses of various
administrative rules.
The following notes and ideas were the original game
plan for our muck, which we named 'happymuck':
********* notes begin ***************
hidden flags - suspect flag? Logs all commands by this
person? <== hacking. ?
3 wizards - Den, ch'od, and Icarus
player council - 5 people public vote
no remote spoof (hardcode?) w/ paranoid option & "> name"
thing
@stats <= nice to see all, or own.
simple global scanner - private:yes option, desc, pennies.
flags - more needed?
vehicles - vote for usage or not.
@chown. <- @chown/stone players who are evil.
toad for: spamming/spamcreating
@wipeout = @turn (player) to (thing) [generic @TOAD]
messages change (no standards) - remove/change all normal
messages. (like: Permission Denied)
important : initial logon NEWS "there are new news"
kiosk
extra prop #? needed for anything?
no active wizards - mail all requests to #1 <- 'msgs'
for global mail?
@zap
homeless flag -> can't create anything
no apartments.
@doing
@recycling by time? def? regular purges?
boot after 1 hour idle?
************* end notes *****************
The conception was just for our usage. We never
thought we would ever actually get a server. Out of
curiosity, I continue to poll players' opinions of what
they want and don't want. I find very few things that a
player wants, especially in terms of theme. In fact, the
majority of players I ask would rather have absolutely no
fixed theme at all.
Fall semester, 1993 -
While casually talking to someone on pegasus,
someone asks me if I could help them set up a muck on a
Linux server. I ask, half joking, if there was a chance
I could get a muck on that machine. He says, very
surprisingly, yes, although the server is extremely shakey.
He says to write to the sysop. I write a letter, stating
what the purpose of the muck is, how it would be run, and
state probably the most restrictive thing - That if he
requires that we let him/her be a wizard, then we don't
want the site. It is important not to interrupt the
triangle of trust and cooperation between Den, Icarus,
and myself.
I help them set up the muck. I log on every now
and then, and ask the players how serious the chances are
of me getting a site here. Opinion seems low. The server
is also extremely unstable and has a tendency of going down
every couple of days. I wait for someone to confirm/deny
my ability to get a site.
When it seems like I'm not going to get a site, the
person who said I could have one to begin with mails me a
account name and password. I log on, and notice that it
there is also another muck being compiled on this account.
I attempt to compile tinymuck 2.2, but gcc doesn't work -
the include file directories do not have public access.
Out of pure coincidence, Satan (another Pegasi),
logs onto Pegasus. We discuss the situation, and he helps
me compile the code on his own Linux machine. (much to his
dismay - he hates MUCK with a passion). I ftp it over, and
we work on the muck.
Instabilities abound. The server crashes on a dime.
Daily crashes are expected, with unknown amounts of uptime.
The server does not seem like a reasonable possibility, even
if it is the only possibility.
While discussing the situation with byte, I decide
that it is not worth the trouble. byte tells me that he
noticed that at the store at which he works, there is a SUN
Sparkstation IPX workstation under a table, totally unused.
He says that there is a slight chance he can borrow it, and
if he can, then we can transfer happymuck onto the IPX
server, and run from his dorm room. (The dorm rooms at MIT
just installed direct internet cables - several megabyte per
second transfer rate)
He asks his boss, and after a period of
consideration, all is go. byte sets us off, and happymuck
is born. Icarus is missing in real life, and Den & I begin
work without him. In fact, communicative ties with icarus
have been gone for so long that he does not even know about
the existance, or even our original plans for happymuck.
Timeline follows - (f) entries by Frank/ch'od
(p) entries by Pete/Den
------------------------------------------------------------
** Editor's note: The following entries start in 1993 and
progress on into 1994. frank started the muck initially
while I was on my christmas break. I got back when he
had to leave. How convenient! (p - 6/13/94)
12/17 - (f) Made the basic rooms, put up a public sign in
the commons. Feel free to change any/all
names.
(f) Added a obvious exits program, cuz it was annoying without it.
(f) Current login screen :
blah
[just that in the middle of the screen]
12/18 - (f) Turned off builder bit only, since there's no
way to set them to default with the B bit
on.
(f) Turned off player registration by deleteing
the lockout.sites file. Set all players to
start off with 500 pennies.
(f) I also removed the @osucc from the player start
- it was annoying me, but I guess it can be
nice to have.
12/27 - (p) I did some looking around and a bit of fiddling.
ummm yea, you can't compile on this machine.
drat. Anyway.. I think I found a way to
keep the BUILDER_ALL thing going.. actually
I called it FUNKY_BUILDERS.. anyway.. that's
left to be tested and everything.. oh, I
changed a lot of the db.
(p) did a little cleaning up, removed some
extraneous files.
12/30 - (p) I made a bunch of stuff. Many macros and a few
programs. Page and find namely.. I let some
more people on.. Aria and Haigha..
(p) it seems that this place is turning into an
amusement park :P
(p) wow.. the db is almost back up to 100 objects
already.. zowee!
1/3/94 - (p) I managed to compile! Thanks to byte, of
course. Anyway, the FUNKY_BUILDERS hack
works just fine, every new player starts
out as a BUILDER now.. guest has remained
!B. /src/utils/player.c and
/src/include/config.h
(p) I fixed 'home' so it no longer steals your
posessions. Somehow that got overlooked
before. /src/game/move.c
/*** Editor's note: When I had logged on long distance
during break, everyone kept referring to a muck called
'wacko' which I had never heard of. Sometime prior to my
call, someone was wandering around our muck and said,
"This place is Wacko!" In response, Den changed the title
creen from 'blah' to 'wacko', and after that,everyone named
our muck 'wacko'. The rest is history. - C **/
1/12/94 - (f) we broke 200 a while ago, but are at 213
objects right now.
(f) just got back from winter break, so ready to
rock and roll
1/13/94 - (p) just did some mega-editing on all the files
that are necessary for the 2.3 patch to
include byte's mods.
1/14/94 - (p) after a bit of hacking, removing all calls to
ansi_compat.h in the makeiles, it compiled
fine. HOWEVER, this does not mean that we
wish to leave it like this. It would be
nice to recompile with ansi_compat.h as soon
as someone can find it ;)
1/15/94 - (f) byte installed solaris.
(f) added a 'create name password' to the opening
screen.
(f) moved HAPPYMODS to the root directory since i
am too lazy to go to that directory
everytime I wanna look at it. =)
(f) I put an ad on rec.games.mud.tiny. Just a 2
liner. It reads:
Wacko: The only Amusement Park run
on 100% caffeine
address: red-branch.mit.edu 6003
1/16/94 - (f) installed @trig, and zap. I also got my
first MUF program to work. whee.
(f) The ad's been up for half a day and we've
had 5 visitors. hmm.
(f) I change the login screen:
wacko [still in the middle of the screen]
blah blah blah, blah "connect guest guest".
blah blah blah blah, blah "create name password".
Have a nice blah.
Translation: To look around, type "connect guest guest"
To make a character, type "create name password"
Have a nice day.
1/17/94 - (p) development has moved from red-branch to
mccsun1, same login same passwd. Only
problem is, you have to remember to come
here and write in the happy.log, I changed
the name, btw.
(p) I cleaned up a few of the messages that I
forgot to fix before fixed the @patchlevel
problem, byte fixed the 'home' problem
nothing really interesting. working on
@freeze.
(f) We broke 50 players. Now we'll have to fix
them all.
** Editor's note: Somewhere along the line, we stopped
'developing'. It could have been when we moved off of
mccsun1 to mccdec1, but I think it's just because we got
lazy ;) -p 6/13/94
1/18/94 (f) We're at 400 objects. Double took a week.
(f) Work begins on the Wackventure.
1/19/94 - (p) It's 4:39 pm and we just hit 500 objects.
wow.. 100 in a day.
(f) byte fixed a problem that was causing locks
to not work.
1/20/94 - (f) 100 players. doubled t in 3 days.
(p) Sheesh, we hit 700 tonight.. at about 1:30
am (the 20th) not the 19th.. anyway..
1/21/94 - (f) We're at 800 objects. Double took -three-
days.
1/22/94 - (f) We now have exits that can do @asucc &
@afail. also Odesc and OSetdesc (?) are
done.
1/23/94 - (p) Appologies for having been gone the whole
weekend, however I couldn't exactly miss
B-Fest 94. Anyway.. I believe the previous
message reference to 'OSetDesc' is probably
'SetODesc' the MUF primitive for setting
said property.
- (p) I just noticed that we were at 956 objects
and it's 7 pm EST. 145 players.. woo woo!
( woo woo curtesy of spider )
- (p) It's midnight, gametime.. mon jan 24, and we
broke 1000!!
1/24/94 - (f) Voting machine is finished. Voting begins.
1/27/94 - (f) 200 players. double took 1 week
(f) 1600 objects. double took 6 days.
1/28/94 - (f) Den & ch'od get grumpy and have their first
public wizard spaz Both semi-retire from
wizardship.
2/ 3/94 - (f) 3200 objects. double took 7 days.
2/ 5/94 - (f) player purge - 80 players who owned 0 objects
& hadn't logged in in 2 weeks deleted.
(f) P-Day annouced. Purging begins when db is
1.2 megs compressed.
2/10/94 - (f) Due to a troublemaker, I've started logging
all commands.
(f) Changed the name to 'snow', since stony
brook had their first snow day in 16 years.
Also, changed all the 'blahs' to 'snow'
2/11/94 - (f) (patched entry). I don't know when the
exact date was. Certainly it was sometime
during this exponential growth. Macgyver
from NAILS got on here and thought this was
a nifty place, so he decided to post
billions of public invitations inviting the
little rugrats over. In general, they went
around, forming their cliques (i.e. wouldn't
talk to anyone but other Nails people). They
generally did everything that you could
consider annoying. They pickered over the
public thinknet, and pretty much made
everyone else turn off thinknet, Killfest.
Demand help for building. Den & I turned
off eep because they refused to think about
anything, they'd eep and then ask den & I
a billion questions. Ridiculous. They also
loved to abbreviate words like, 'How r u?',
and about 25% of them went around doing
nothing but asking, "What happened to
NAILS?' and 'This isn't NAILS'.
At one point Dot tried to bring some people
onto Wacko, but with all the crumb crushers,
her friends decided Wacko was a really
immature place, and left.
I went on Nails to see who exactly was
posting all these. I found a note from
someone named <><><><><><><> telling people
to stop posting and bringing people over.
That post was pretty much the last public
post, and it turns out, <><><><> was one of
the few Nails people I rather liked, who was
on Wacko as 'BingBingBingBing'.
2/13/94 - (f) Seeing how a bunch of people were killfesting
, and since nothing is getting built anyway,
I lock greed, to annoy the NAILS killfesters.
2/14/94 - (f) NAILS crashed, and a lot of their two year
olds logged onto snow. I @shutdown for 5
minutes to see if any of them would leave.
didn't work at all.
2/16/94 - (f) Just to annoy the NAILS people more, I turn
greed back on, but shut off wacknet. I end
up getting annoyed that I'm just trying to
annoy people, and turn them both back on.
2/17/94 - (f) A lot of killfesting happens. I turn greed
back off.
(f) Mr.Beeblebrox accidentally hangs the muck
twice via @afail infinite loops. Byte adds
a bugfix.
(f) Pete changes the login screen so now we're
'rain' instead of snow. He changes the
'blah' bottom words into 'drip'.
??/??/?? - (f) What happened to all the entries? The
entries until 3/14
happened in roughly this order.
(f) Den gets absorbed in RL for a while, and
dissapears.
I notice that growth has nearly stopped.
I wait for Den to get on so I can start
purging.
Den doesn't show, and so I purge. I delete
nearly 300 people who had no description,
or owned no objects, leaving 150. However,
most of the stuff left doesn't get touched.
In an effort to make areas more interesting
to explore, I decide to move all interesting
areas to one part of the muck. I go around
taking a survey of player's opinions. I
orignally wanted to just move all the wacko
stuff (to get the original flavor back), and
nuke the rest. However, since some of the
present building is nice, but not wacko,
the result is a three way split.
wacko - cool - blah.
Current login screen:
o
c
k
o
c \ /
\ / o
a triad
| l
w |
m i s c
"connect guest guest"
The three way split is not working. It's
turning into a popularity contest, people
being insulted if their stuff isn't scenic
enough to get out of 'blah'. changing
'blah' to 'misc' seems to help a bit.
Den comes to visit. After discussion, it
is agreed that the player start should go
directly to a wacko place, so people get a
first impression which is the same as what
we wanted originally. We decide to start
anew, since the idea of dividing the muck
into 'sections' is not too hot of an idea,
and starting over is easier than trying to
fix something broken fundimentally.
03/14/94 - (p) Nothing imporant to say, we've stagnated a
bit.. well building has decreased, along
with a lot of other things times are hard,
there's too much thinking about the future
and what the people might want. I dream of
a time when I sang a song, and everyone
would cry for more. Seems now every time I
step into the light they barely let me know
I'm there.
(what the heck was that?!?!?!?)
(f) New login screen:
wacko wacko wackowackowacko
wacko wacko wackowackowacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wackowackowackowacko wacko
wackowackowackowacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wackowackowacko
wacko wacko wackowackowacko
(connect guest guest)
3/16/94 - (f) Finally - a minimal db. Finding one for
2.3 b 2 was hard, because 2.3 b 3 came out,
and most sources for 2.3 b 2 were deleted.
Horatio had one though, so construction
begins on a new wacko.
3/17/94 - (f) The search for 6 builders begins. In
keeping with the starting '6' theme, 6
builders will initially build 6 rooms. Then
growth will try to be a little more
organized so it's not such a random hodge
podge of roads.
3/20/94 - (f) Changed from 6 to 4. that way, 4+me+den
will be 6 builders. initially, 6 builders
make 6 rooms for the db called '6'. The 4
chosen are: Bingbingbingbing, C0de0md0,
Fredd, and Horatio and/or Haigha.
4/ 2/94 - (f) Psychoferret showed me something annoying.
a 'sweep' in the player start causes every
person in there to leave and then come back.
several nice screenfuls of spam. I've
placed a 'sweep' fake exit there.
4/ 4/94 - (f) Den's done the RL problem dissapearance act
again. I am greatly reluctant to start the
db without him. But I don't want us to sit
there like peg, for an unknown amount of
time. I'm going to put up the new db, but
not do any public building until Den's
return.
Current login screen:
wackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowackowacko wackowackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowackowac owackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowackow wackowacko ckowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowacko owackowackowac kowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowac ckowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowa ackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackow ack ckowackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackow wa owackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowacko o wackowack ackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowacko kowackowackowac ckowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowacko ackowackowackowacko owackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackow wackowackowackowacko owackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackow ackowackowackowacko owackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowa ackowackowackowac kowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowac kowackowackow ckowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowack wackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowackowa ckowackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowackowac wackowackowackowackowackowacko
wackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowackowacko
(connect guest guest)
(f) 200 objects at midnight tonight, 50 players.
4/ 5/94 - (f) 400 objects. double in 1 day. :P
- (f) After long discussions with people, we have
a huge building meeting today, and debate
the merits of a building plan I came up
with, working off of a suggestion by byte.
Basically, private houses all have an
entrance 'object'. The object has the
entrance exit to their house. So their
houses exist without eating up public exits.
Also, every public builder is responsible
for linking 2-3 other players. That way,
we expand in some sort of dartboard like
effect.
Since this will be fairly easy to change,
since player houses can be easily moved, I
am going ahead and starting up. Hopefully
Den likes the plan. If not, we can always
change again. At least with portable
houses it'll be a lot easier.
4/ 6/94 - (f) Am trading programs with Deimos, although
All that I know she wants is thinknet. I
took 11 of peg's programs, including hand,
pull, finger, wiznet, @moveprop, their
connect notifier, myexits
(f) I put a message in the motd about the idea
of a wacko party - interest seems high, but
the plausability is still questionable.
Still fun to think about.
4/ 8/94 - (f) 100 players. double took 4 days.
(f) 800 objects. double took 3 days.
4/ 9/94 - (f) Totally restructured the news.
welcome - introduction screen for first
timers
status - status changes of the muck
houses - How to make a house.
building - the current building game plan
usefuls - useful things you should be
aware of
public - public areas
party - Info on a possible WACKO party
map - It's backwards pam.
topten - Top Ten list of the week.
exits - handy exit message help screen
4/10/94 - (f) I'm bored again, so I put an ad on the
newsnet. Basically, the ad is the topten
list, with one modification:
Top Ten reasons to play on Wacko
10. everybody and nobody is a wizard.
9. No Poofda
8. 'rupert' and 'boisenberry' are legal commands
7. You shouldn't. It sucks. In fact, I HEY LEGGO MY
ARM! OW! HEY!
6. The only muck on: red-branch.mit.edu 6003
5. No artificial colors, preservatives, or flavorings.
(except caffeine)
4. It's the largest box of crayolas this side of the
border.
3. The god looks like a tie fighter
2. Home of the original flying garbonzo bean
And the number one reason to be on Wacko.....
1. cuz its wacko.
4/15/94 - (f) Someone logged on yesterday by the name of
MG. I taught this person how to build.
Today I notice that he/she already made
16 rooms. Yesterday was MG's 1st time on a
muck. This conversation followed:
Me: Wow... 16 rooms. That's pretty darn
fast.
MG: Yeah, I needed to finish the mansion
for the party tomorrow.
(pause)
Me: Uh.... what party?
MG: Why, the rec.arts.disney party.
I have a really bad feeling about this. This
isn't entirely unexpected, but I hope we
don't get a massive influx of people
from -anywhere-. A muck like this requires
slow growth to maintain its flavor.
4/17/94 - (f) 1600 objects - double took a week.
200 players - double took a week.
(f) Interest in WackFest '94 is extremely high.'
It is pretty much a guaranteed event.
Milwalkee, WI, on June 26th.
4/18/94 - (f) I get into yet another fight on Pegasus.
Deimos tells me she is writing another
'pull' program, and wants me to erase the
old one. I decide to erase all of them
just cuz I don't want to deal with them
anymore.
in case people aren't sure, I post a note
that I want programs written on wacko to be
public domain, since this 'This program
is mine and I don't want you touching it'
attitude makes me want to puke.
[Editor's note - I take that back, kind of. I was mostly
just kinda pissed after the fight. But it would be nice to
alwys be able to say, 'sure! take whatever program you want!'
although I respect the right to keep your own programs
private. - C]
4/19/94 - (f) I've been peeking at rec.arts.disney, to
watch for aftermath effects of MG's party.
Today I see a post by MG for yet another
party. And he says his mailbox was stuffed
with people wanting another one. Bad. I
talk to deimos and am going to send them all
to peg.
(f) New login screen:
______________________
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ I went to \
/ WACKO \
/ /| and all I |\ /
\ / | got was | \ /
\ / | this lousy | \ /
\/ | T-shirt | \/
| |
| |
| |
| |
+----------------+
(connect guest guest)
4/23/94 - (f) MG throws a fit that I'm getting rid of
them, since nowhere is nearly as acessible
as here. i decide to let them stay.
4/26/94 - (f) Pegasus goes down. The machine it was
running on was sold, so it is hard to say
when / if it will be back up. This doesn't
have much to do with Wacko, but it is a
sedimental entry, it being Our first real
muck.
*** Editor's Note: 6/06/94 - (p) Pegasus died, whaaaaa!
Actually tho what I was writing about was that I think
frank meant to say it was a SENTIMENTAL entry, not
sedimental. If it was sedimental, oh nevermind just
.
4/30/94 - (f) Qwest is having disk problems. We've
already gotten 15 of their players. I'm
not sure if this will be a problem. I
turn on Registration to solve both the
Disney problem, and the influx of recent
players.
(f) I take another tally. Of the people who
have created the most objects, This is the
top 10.
ch'od - 163 Munro - 111
Boobear - 87 tillery - 52
PsychoFerret - 128 MikeLaga - 93
chepe - 70 MG - 118
Doc - 88 MC - 62
Note, MG, Doc, Boobear, MC are of the disney clan.
Other stats:
Number of objects people w/ this many objs
----------------- ------------------------
41 - 50 5
31 - 40 9
21 - 30 14
10 - 20 14
5 - 9 22
2 - 4 29
1 object 28
0 objects 206
Very annoying. 206 of the 337 people haven't created any
objects. That implies that we're getting more people than
we know what to do with.
5/ 1/94 - (f) Someone logs on as guest. I get persuaded
o give them a character, a la Fox and Elena,
and someone else. I decide I can't
tolerate the idea of refusing to give
omeone a character, so I turn off
registration altogether. I hope I don't
come to regret the decision.
New login screen:
It's Wackotime,
Wackotime,
WACK, WACK,
Wackotime,
Wackotime,
Wackotime,
WACK, WACK,
Wackotime
Wackotime, WackotiiIIIiiime!
(connect guest guest)
(I.e. the Song, It's summertime, ...... )
5/ 4/94 - (f) Brain storm Ola! Den creates a new
character, 'wacko' password 'wacko'. I
change the login's end from
(connect wacko wacko -- or guest guest.. whichever you like)
(what a silly guy that ch'od is... - Den 4/4/94)
to:
(connect the dots)
(what a silly guy that ch'od is... - Den 4/4/94)
(Ain't seen nothing yet. =) - ch'od 5/4/94)
It's strange how nobody thought up the idea
of renaming the guest to something else.
5/ 5/94 - (f) Login restored - new people will probably
be way too confused without the guest
character.
5/ 6/94 - (f) Doc posted another party. That explains
his surge of building. (120+ objects in a
couple of days). I wasn't in the mood to
deal with it, so I turned on registration
and renamed the two guest characters
(guest and the).
5/10/94 - (f) New Login screen a la Den -
Dashing through the net,
in a one horse open sleigh
over wire we go,
wacko all the way
bells on blah blah blah,
making spirits bright,
oh what fun it is to be on wacko muck tonight...
wacko-muck wacko-muck wacko all the way
oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh, hey
wacko-muck wacko-muck wacko all the way
(connect the dots) or (connect guest guest)
5/13/94 - (f) Any idea why room #100 was Link_ok to begin
with? It seems like it's been that way
since forever. I set it !L. Then again,
I also made room #0 Haven (so people could
fix munged up parent rooms, and people are
seeting thir HOME to #0. gah)
[ Editor's note : A guy named ken pointed out that the
above made no sense. I am not sure if I intened to set #0
ABODE, which would be correct, or if I did a wrong and set
it Haven. - ch'od ]
(f) We hit 400 people, so I decided to purge.
226 people who owned no objects @toaded,
leaving 174.
5/18/94 - (f) New login screen by den:
I'm just fresh out of ideas.
[many blank lines]
Animaniacs Happy Meal Quote-o-The Week
--------------------------------------
"My name is Wakko and I always wear this hat.
In case you didn't notice, I'm a wild and crazy cat!
I'm silly and I'm kooky and completely off the wall.
If they measured "wacky" in inches, I'd be 10 feet tall!"
connect the dots
- or -
connect guest guest
5/24/94 - (f) Well, due to Messing with MIT's net, Wacko
was down for its its longest time yet -
around 36 hours. I got about 4 e-mails
asking what the deal was.
*** Editor's Note: 6/06/94 - (p) Actually, it was because
byte was moving red-branch to a new location, out of his
dorm room.
5/24/94 - (f) I'm going to go ahead and merge both dbs -
in a new 'best of' db, since building has
gone rampant.
5/25/94 - (f) Okay, maybe I won't. I've just spent
several hours trying to duplicate the cone
of tragedy with its many exits. I don't
know why this is taking so long, since I
just /logged, examined all the rooms, and
am trying to edit the log so I can do a
monster /quote.
5/27/94 - (f) Talked to den about the problem. We agree
that we want things that can't co-exist
(wanting freedom for players, wanting to
keep a level of quality control) Den
doesn't want to make a new db, and I think
it'll be too much trouble for what it's
worth. We decide for now to recycle all
of the 1 way exits to the many Link_ok
rooms, and disallow rooms left link_ok.
We end up nuking about 120 objects/exits.
We'll probably do something about
undescribed objects and really boring stuff
later (like mazes).
5/28/94 - (f) Hmmm. I seem to be the only one babbling
in this .log file. The west exit out of the
cone dissapeared. I wonder what happened
to it. Anyway, I put it back. Yay. It's
just a big hole now, cuz I'm too lazy to
fix it for real.
*** Editor's Note: It was my fault, actually, I was mucking
around (no pun intended) and I accidentally @recycled the
exit. waaaaah. -p 6/13/94
5/30/94 - (f) I was in the player start, scrungy land,
and I got 10 lines of 'BZZZT. Hornets fly
all around you'. Then, soon after that,
I got another 10 lines of it. So, I did a
@wall and said, 'Okay, whoever is doing that
Hornets thing, cut it out'. Then, in the
next 2 minutes, 30 lines of hornets. Okay,
enough is enough. I looked through the
last 30 commands but for some reason had a
hard time figuring out what was causing it.
Then I caught chepe whispering to the guest:
'type 'l'. I examined 'l' and it was owned
by peachy, linked to a program by chepe.
The program not only did 10 hornets, but it
also broadcast them to 10 different rooms!
I recycled the program, and @booted chepe
for being so agressively cocky.
Checking to see if he was doing anything
else annoying, I noticed he had his own
spoofer. And a quick grep through the
commands log confirmed that he made it so
he could spoof other people. I recycled
it and told him that was rather rude.
6/ 3/94 - (f) This is old news, kind of, but I don't see
an entry. There were a couple of crashes
where someone would run the MUF program
map-contents.MUF (#91). If you don't run
this program with the correct parameters,
it crashes the muck. I didn't know what it
was, so I made it Dark, so nobody would run
it. Afterwards, byte told me to turn
debugging mode off of @sweep. I said it
wasn't D. We tried to figure out what was
wrong, and I did @find = D, and I realized
it was map-contents! So now I stuck it in
the dark room thing.
(f) New login screen:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ @
@ @
@ @
@ @ @ @
@ @ @ @ @ @
@ @@@ @@@ @
@ @@@ @@@ @
@ @ @ @
@ @
@ @ @ @
@ @ @ @
@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @
@ @ @ @ @
@ @ @ @ @
@ @ @ @ @
@ @@@ @
@ @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Wacko : Accept no imitations.
connect guest guest
-or-
connect 4 Iwin!
(f) Well, well. We have a troublemaker.
Someone created a character named ch'ad and
then created a number of objects described
as ch'od and ch'ad having sex. Then someone
else, though very likely the same person,
logged on as guest, picked up a bunch of
Triton's stuff, left a note named 'random
note' saying, "I took all your stuff since
your building sucks", and then left it all
in my room. Of course, I find out about
this right after I erase the command logs.
duh.
(f) Duh, To do some purging, I recyled all the
objects in the player start room.
Unfortunately, the 'last' object was also
in there, so I had to create a new object,
and change the hard coded db # in the two
'last' programs.
6/ 6/94 - (f) Okay. I got bored again. I decided to do
a @stats of all the players, focusing on
rooms. It's a pretty even spread, for
the most part, and I like that. The only
people with >= 20 rooms are: Doc: 49,
Triton: 38, Me:37, Munro:28,MG:23,
MikeLaga:22. The Disney clans still have
all their stuff. MikeLaga & I have public
areas, so the only one with signifigant
Building is Munro. Not a big deal.
(f) As I'm sorting out all the rooms, I notice
that it's really a pain having parent rooms.
A) It adds a LOT of rooms, so doing a
@stats for a room check isn't that accurate,
and B) parent rooms aren't really necessary
unless you're making your own globals. So,
After manual chugging, #0 now has two rooms:
PARENT: Who cares (contains 90% of rooms)
PARENT: I care (contains the 5 parent
rooms of the people who have globals).
This would be a real pain, but I wrote two
programs - one takes the output of @find
and returns all the names, (good for
/quoteing @stats) and one program that
returns all the db #s. (good for /quote
@chown,@rec,and @tel)
(f) Oh yeah, I reorganized the news. All the
entries are in alphabetical order. Yee haw.
(f) The happymuck directory seems to be pretty
useless. I zipped up the muf directory &
db, and am keeping them as souveniers.
I'm going to erase the directory.
(p) Just throwing in my 2 cents.
6/13/94 - (p) This constant purging of #0 is really
irritating. Oh well, I guess it's just our
lot in life. Anyway, I don't think it got
put in here, but a while ago, ch'od created
room #2000 and room #3000 that were,
#2000: PARENT: I care
#3000: PARENT: I don't care
This was to lessen the load of empty parent
rooms, and still keep organization. It sort
of works, #0 got changed to If you see this
message, type: news parents I don't know if
it works or not.
(p) As the first Wacko party draws closer and
closer, we have decided to change the
opening screen to count down. ch'od did
all the hard work of writing the numbers..
I'll include a sample here, and you can
extrapolate what the rest are like.
wacko wackowackowacko
owacko kowackowackowackowa
kowacko ckowackowackowackowac
ckowacko ackowac ckowack
ackowacko wackow owacko
wackowacko wacko wacko
owack wacko wacko wacko
kowac wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko wacko wacko
wacko ackowac ckowack
wacko ckowackowackowackowac
wackowackowackowackowacko kowackowackowackowa
wackowackowackowackowacko wackowackowacko
(p) thought i'd also include the stuff from
'news' that includes all the information
on who was going and what. too bad a lot
of people won't be able to make it.
PARTY
Because I need to set solid facts, Expect the party to be
on Friday, June 24th, in Milwalkee, WI. It will end when
everyone leaves.
Meeting location: Grover's (Amy Jo Wesner) house
200 E. Gauer Cir. Milwaukee, WI 53207
Telephone # - (414) 481-1312
The current list of interest people include: Barker,
Bing^4, BooBear, byte, catalin, Cerebus, ch'od, colette,
Colwin, Coconut, cumquat, divebomb, dolphin, elena, Fredd,
fluffy, Gene-Splicer, Gracie, greg, grover, haigha, homer,
Jasmine, Kafka, kisda, Lulu, Melora, Mikelaga, Ophelia,
Nakor, Robert_smith, rutabaga_man, serb, sharia, spider,
superdelicious, susana, victoria, wackywafer, YingYing,
and DEN!!!!
Total: 41 people.
If you aren't on this list, let me know who you are and
where you'll be (city and state, please, so I can mark
them on my map)
It's looking like its all go, folks. This oughta be a riot.
Please look at: 'news rides' if you can give a ride, or
need a ride.
This is your average 'I need/I have' list in
ridespeak. If you can help someone get to the party,
please do! If you need a ride or have any info you can add
to this, please do! (I changed this, and I think I
understood it correctly, if not.. then tell ch'od, because
he's here more than me)
Needs a ride
------------
Elena - Iowa
Bing^4 - W. Montana
Driving from//can fit//willing to pick people up (distance)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Den - E.Central IL up I-94 // 3 or 4 + me... 4 if you
like crunchies // no more than 150 miles out of the
way, probably.. dunno, ask me :P
wackywafer - Kewaunee, WI by Green Bay // ? // if Closeby,
ask.
Robert_Smith - Boston // 2-3 more // Don't know.
MikeLaga - New York // 1-2? // Can pick up someone in NY
or NJ
Kafka - Naperville, IL // ? // someone close, if share
gas.
Groups that are Driving already
-------------------------------
Colette & Kisda from - Georgia
cumquat, byte, spider, and maybe Gwendolyn - from Boston
sharia, catalin, grover,homer - locals - they might drive
around the block
Serb, dolphin, Victoria - from Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Robert_Smith, Lostpup - Boston
Fredd - Canada a lot, finally from Toronto to the party
Den - Urbana, IL.
wackywafer - Kewaunee, WI
Mikelaga, divebomb - New York
Kafka - Naperville, NY
(p) I, or ch'od, will include a list of who
actually shows up and all those goodies
after the fact, but for now.. it's just
wait wait wait :)
18/06/94 - (p) wow. well maybe 'wow' isn't the right word.
It's 3 in the afternoon on this lovely and
terribly hot saturday, and there are no
people on. How odd. Anyway, the other day,
ch'od and I built some little adventures.
It seems that with all the property locks
and such, we don't even need any programs!
That makes it all the easier. But it still
involves a lot of work. I think I get tired
after a while, typing and such. Anyway. I
really don't know why I'm adding this in,
it seems like it belongs more in like.. a
journal or diary than it does in the happy
log. wheee.
6/28/94 - (f) Just an addendum - there are a couple of
programs. Both of them are hodge podge
programs I wrote. One will print out
a status screen, saying 'you are 5 inches
tall' or so, depending on what your
properties are. The other one will set or
unset properties depending.
(f) Well, There it was, here it goes. The
final outcome of
Wackfest:
Attended : byte, ch'od, colwin, den, fredd,
grover, haigha, reality, sharia
Those were the main 9. We hung out for
pretty much the entire Party, which lasted
Friday - Sunday. catalin, jynx, &
wackywafer were also there, although most
of them just stayed for 24 hours or so.
So, how was it? It was smaller than I had
hoped. But in a way, smaller was nicer
because it meant I could hang out with
people for longer periods of time. It was
pretty unorganized. Spent a number of times
trying to decide what to do. Things we did
include: Eat, roller blade, wander at the
beach, sit around and talk, play cards,
drive around, Went to a goofy church thing
called 'Fun Fest', wandered around a mall.
It was quite a bit of fun. It was a little
less so, since I had met most of the people
there already, but I still enjoyed myself a
lot. Great people, all of them. It adds a
lot to talking after seeing them talk, and
move for real.
Although this isn't really party based, Den
& I went right afterwards to Northwestern U.
to visit barker, boobear, jasmine, santoki,
and yingying. We stayed there for 2 days
and hung out. That was pretty cool, too.
Selma called us there, so I talked to her
for a bit.
(f) current login screen:
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
ckowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackcko
wackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowackowackowackckowac
(connect guest guest)
7/ 2/94 - (f) Troublemakers, troublemakers. You gotta
hate em. Some boofoo made another disney
party invitation: letter follows:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: FDC Castle, Wacko MUCK
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 94 21:53:42 -0500
For all of you who are interested in journeying to the FDC Castle at
Wacko MUCK (non-FDCers welcome), here's how you get there:
telnet red-branch.mit.edu 6003
create (at title screen)
jump -d2193
Type QUIT to exit...When you return, you'll type create at the title screen.
The Castle's a really interesting bit of cyberspace, with references from
nearly every Disney animated feature and lots of rooms and passageways...
It's very realistic, and you feel like you're really walking into one of
the animated features...Kinda like a big Disney choose-your-own-adventure
book on the computer...
Future Disney Cabinet Official Duck (Wak!)
--- end letter [names removed to protect the innocent]
blah blah. I mailed him a e-mail saying that I would think that he would
have had the courtesy to let us post our own invites for our own muck.
Also, Serb's still planning on having his 'convention'.
50 people or so logging in as his character. It sounds absolutely
horrible, and Den & I don't like it one bit. It's just another form
of 'using' wacko, not for it being wacko, but a 'I can do it there, so
I will'.
7/12/94 - (f) den wrote a @doing that is basically
equivalent to 'finger -doing'. Not quite
sure why it was wrote - I guess people
couldn't figure out 'finger -doing' even
though it's in 'finger''s description.
(f) Den & I both agree that Wacko is a pretty
comfortable size now. from now on, there
will be no advertising whatsoever, although
people are certainly welcome to bring a few
of their friends.
(f) New login screen:
a $ d 8 x %
x c 1 # 8 X }
1 Q D I W 3 4 x 9 9
cow f e 3 ; [ g 6
2 c v r r r y 7 7 o ;
; o n s +---------------------------+ f 3 r
c a | Wacko's login screen is |d 3 ] cx
= ' l s | suffering technical | c 2
v o 8 3 | difficulties. | @ *
} U K *&^ | | f e q c o
x q | In the event of an | s 6
] & 2 * | emergency, please type: | x q b
q l 6 | | | a a b
`2 k q b q | connect guest guest | b w g
go a d e +---------------------------+ [ run 9
s 4 f d 5 n r get 2 s d q
d 3 9 % ] 2 c the 2 9 b d s q
x 1 d 2 b 3 k q cpu o 2 c e q ,
7/19/94 - (f) Our db hit one meg in size (kindof).
1011132 bytes = 4163 objects - 717 rooms,
1950 exits, 963 things, 156 programs, 377
players, 0 garbage.
7/20/94 - (p) I've been testing a Maas-Neotek robot under
the name of lyn. She seems to be annoying
a lot. :P but anyway, the original idea was
for her to try and find every possible room
that is 'linked' - except, since we use the
object exits the 'bot has a hard time
finding them. also the exit names are all
goofy, and I had to reconfigure the thing
so that it could deal with all of our error
messages and such :P Other than that, I'm
trying to get it to parse the 'Ways ta go'
to find exits in rooms, and maybe get it to
look at objects as well as players. whee
fun.
7/26/94 - (p) Ok, we're in Newsweek, August 1, 1994 edition,
page 10 in the Periscope section under
Cyberscope, article All Disney, All the
Time. but this isn't the reason I'm adding
something, ch'od will do that he has more
time we just recompiled with the 'to summon
a wizard type eep' thing removed and changed
to 'For basic help type: eep' I also changed
the Kill cost to 101, min cost 25 and
insurance return to 0. Things = 8, Rooms =
4, Exits = 2 Other than that, recompile
went fine, and now we're not as bothered by
guests.
(editor's note - actual article enclosed for completeness)
Newsweek, August 1 issue, page 10, : 'All disney, all the time'
"Delighted by Simba's advent? Worried about Michael Eisner's health?
Ready to role-play as a 'toon? You're not alone. In rec.arts.disney, a very
popular Usenet group, there are more than 200 threads waiting for you to
pull. Lurkers can head straight for the FDC(Future Disney Cabinet) postings.
This role-playing exchange can be charming--imagine Tinker Bell talking back
to a studio exec, or the cast members of "The Lion King" acting out their
roles--but recently a few characters took over a branch of MIT's Wacko MUD,
or Multi User Dungeon, and were reprimanded by the school. For a look, telnet
to red-branch.mit.edu 6003. Once inside, check out Never-Land and Palace
Atlantica from "The Little Mermaid."
(f) at midnight - 417 players.
7/28/94 - (p) 8pm EST 434 players. (actually, about 3pm
on the 27th we were at 420, but I forgot to
write it in.)
(f) I got bored, so I counted the # of creates &
guests. Den nuked the status log, so it
started at 10 pm, 7/26.
15 created characters
94 guests.
7/30/94 - (f) 450 players. Not too bad. We've had:
22 creates
89 guests since 7/28.
(f) Fun event of the day. I heard before, from
a person logging in.
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