User:Enochuout/End of the Line (MUD)

Once in, avoid everything that moves. Only the swift thinking and swift moving survive. Don't touch anything without checking it out with a toss-away char first. Power is currently held by a group of petty, cruel people. They will do what they can to prevent you from succeeding in any way they can. Things change constantly and without much notification. You will have your ego crushed, your time destroyed, and if you complain, there are many people whose sole job seems to be to ridicule you. This is their job, and they take pride in it. Welcome to Hell.


 * --Minister, 29 Nov 1995

End of the Line, more commonly known as EotL, is a text-based roleplaying game in which you adventure in a myriad of landscapes and realms. You can interact with other players, many of whom connect from locations such as Hong Kong, Chile, Australia, Canada, Russia, England, and the United States (the San Francisco Bay area in particular).

EotL is part of the LP-family of MUDs. LP stands for Lars Pensjö, the original developer of the LPMud driver and the LPC language (which is based on C) used in coding the mud. EotL is one of the original LPMuds.

History
EotL was initially two separate muds: UCR's Let's See Yours LPmud, which Duncan opened to the public in 1989 at the University of California, Riverside, and The Pitt, which was run by Xurbax and Moonchilde at the University of Pittsburgh. The two muds merged together later that year and was renamed End of the Line. In 1990 the mud was relocated from UCR to Stanford University, where it has been ever since. Despite its location, EotL is not sanctioned by or affiliated with Stanford.

Duncan, the Janitor: "I was lucky enough to participate in Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw's MUD1 when it was developed at Essex University. After returning to the United States, I was determined to continue exploring my interest in MU gaming. When I saw the flexibility of the LP parser released by Lars, I knew this was the way to go. In addition to supporting a dynamic database (modifiable from within the game!) it also allowed for time-based events with its heartbeat mechanism."

"I launched UCR's Let's See Yours shortly after the first release of the LP parser. We soon merged with another MUD known as The Pitt, and changed our name to The End of the Line."

"Shortly after its creation, the University of California in Riverside began to question whether or not they wanted to be associated with a 'game', and withdrew their support. Fortunately, Stanford University (specifically Dennis Michaels) came to our rescue and have provided a venue for EOTL ever since."

Hannah, Archwizard: "I started playing UCR's Let's See Yours (LPmud version 1.4.1) in the Fall of 1989, the beginning of my senior year at UCR. At the time, the majority of players were students at the University. I was a big fan of Infocom adventure games so I was easily drawn to this new, interactive adventuring. When you first created your character you logged into the Endoplasmatorium with a small amount of cash. There was the famous money bug in the earlier mudlibs--repeatedly going net-dead and logging back on during the login process increased the amount of money you carried. In the game you killed monsters and collected coins from the corpses (or from robbing the bank). You had hit points, but there were none of today's standard statistics (str, con, dex, etc.) nor were there any player guilds. The God of the mud was Duncan. The first player to make Wizard was Kevin; the second was Benz; and the third was Yakker."

"When the mud became End of the Line we gained a second God, Xurbax, and a few wizards such as Tkela and Totenkopf. The areas drastically changed as well. There was the central town of Glamorgen, and the rest of the mud was divided into North, South, East, and West clans (with Down clan added later). EotL's first notorious player killer, Molak, terrorized the mud during this period, sometimes aided by his friend, Yakker (who became an ex-wizard after deleting most of South clan). This Clan period lasted until July/August 1991, when the mud was taken down without notice."

"When the mud came back up again in September 1991, it was rechristened The Revenge of the End of the Line and all the old wizards who wanted back were reinstated, including Zamboni, Jimbotomy, Mute, Death, Cossa and Bannor. For the first couple of weeks, EotL consisted of one room which was frequently crowded with old players wanting their mud back and wondering what happened to it. Talk about dedication! This single room soon expanded into Eternal City, which continues to be the center of the EotL universe. The mudlib was slowly rebuilt from scratch, at first by newer wizards Sonja, Mortekai and Locus, and later by Mordrick. The clan system was replaced by cabals (still in effect today), which allows more smaller groups of wizards to work together on a common area. Mordrick managed to finish a few base items (e.g. WeaponCode, ArmorCode, RoomCode, ShopCode), implementing them without notifying the other wizards first. Several wizards became fed up with Mordrick and left, including Sonja, Mortekai, Elvis, and Mervyn (formerly Benz). Mordrick would be gone only a few months later in early 1993. It was around this time that Locus promoted himself to archwizard and began a big Frob Fest."

"Mid-1994 saw the next big wave of mudlib coders which included Gridpoint and Zippo; they rewrote and optimized much of Mordrick's code, and Zippo created the BW (Binford All-Purpose Wiz Toy [tm]). Jimbotomy's WeaponCode2 arrived on the scene and radically altered combat (whether or not it was for the better is still debated). Itchy rewrote SkillCode. In mid-1995, EotL's web page was opened. In 1996 archwizards such as Iffy, Devo, and Sterno/Morph continued to further optimize the mudlib using closures, and ANSI color options were added to most forms of communication such as channels and tells."

"There has been a steady rollover of archwizards over the last several years--major coders burn out and quit, fresh-blooded hotshots arrive and replace them. But there is always a base of 'old geezers' who stick around and add their two bits to every policy change or debate. This trend will probably continue for years to come."

Community
The inhabitants of EotL fall into these two general categories: mortals (players) and immortals (administration).

Administration
EotL is run by a group of administrators, or "immortals" that consist of 4 groups. Janitors, Archwizards, Wizards, and Frobs. Most immortals started out as typical mortals who learned much about the EotL world, and then decided they wanted to contribute to its expansion. Janitors are the highest level of immortal and their responsibilities are completely outside of the scope of mortal concerns. Archwizards are responsible for fixing problems in the fundamental workings of the mud, both in code and administration. They handle promotions and demotions, production of core code, and final approval on all mud-related developments of consequence. Note that these are only the official duties of an archwizard. In practice, these wizards are effectively laws unto themselves. Don't bug them unless you have a problem that really requires an archwizard's attention, or unless you have some kind of death wish. About the only times you'll want to contact one of these folks are if a wizard is helping a player cheat, tormenting you completely without provocation, or if you need your password changed. Wizards are the people who write most of the areas, and are responsible for fixing problems with their own area. If you have a problem with a bug, these are the first people to talk to. Frobs are learning what is expected of them as a wizard on EOTL, such as the standards for creating items, weapons, monsters, armor, etc. They aren't allowed to help you, so don't ask.

Players
Players, or "mortals," are the heart of the game. They are here to enjoy themselves by either adventuring through the various realms of EotL, by interacting with other players, or both.

World

 * Main article: List of EotL Cabals

There is no single theme on EotL. Immortals (i.e. coders) have the freedom to make any type of area they want. The entire play-area of the mud can be broken down into many individual cabals. Each cabal consists of a group of immortals who work together on a common area on the mud. You can find out which cabal you are currently in and the list of that cabal's coders by typing "creator".

Races

 * Main article: List of EotL Races

Every player who logs onto EotL has their choice of 18 races, each has features which make the race fun and unique. You can only select a race once, so if you want to try another race, you'll have to start a new character. Some races are better suited for certain guilds, so when you are in the game, you can consult the newbie channel for information on which races are good for the type of adventuring you'd like to do.

Guilds

 * Main article: List of EotL Guilds

By joining a guild, a player has access to training facilities for proficiencies, and to the skills particular to that guild. Guild access is open to almost everybody, but may be require a certain level of alignment, eval, stat or proficiency to join. Guild halls are spread throughout the realm. You can be a member of only one guild at a time, and one subguild, or "specialization". You may join or leave a guild at any time, within their requirements, but mistakes can be costly. Joining a guild will set your current exp to zero, and leaving one will remove all your private guild skills and remove or lower your proficiencies. The moral: choose with care.