*grins*
Hope to see you in the game then, Eagleon; is one of my current favourite haunts.
Funny you should mention the two of them. Accursed Lands was derived from DartMUD. In fact, it's still occasionally refered to as DartMUD II, although both games have developed considerably since 1997 when AL was launched. AFAIK, the relationship between the staff of the two is amicable, and there may be some cross-pollination of ideas. I'm always delighted to see good code bases go forth and multiply.
I not so long ago abandoned DM in favour of AL, for reasons I don't want to go into here for fear of getting even further off topic than I have already. Suffice to say, AL fits my style of play better. However, it wasn't due to the equipment saving issue, and I do believe that DM has some really great features that AL lacks (or at least, lacks so far). Credit where credit is due.
One criticism often levelled at AL is that the gameworld is just huge, which in itself is a good thing, but due to the lack of tells or global IC channels, finding your friends (or enemies) can be very difficult without resorting to extramural means such as ICQ, the use of in this manner being (thankfully) illegal. It was this problem that highlighted for me the community-building advantages of the equiment handling scheme DM uses.
(There are means of addressing this issue without removing equipment saving, and I was thrilled to learn that some of these may be in the works at AL, but still.)
Regardless of my observations as a player, I'd be really interested in hearing the "official" reason why DM chose the equipment saving scheme it did (Ogma?) and also any further thoughts people have about the influence of "renting" on gameworld economies, communities, etc.
Maia, curious
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