[Qira]

Hi. I've advertised for staff on a mud a few people and I are looking to start based on the Shannara Series of books. I know I don't get much of a responce from those because it's hard to get a staff. I start school in August for a major in Computer Science in hopes of one day becoming a programmer, so I *know* that eventually this mud WILL be here, even if it takes a few years for me to learn the coding at school. I just wanted to get it a good start earlier than that because I have such high hopes for it. We want it to be all original and we have some very amazing ideas (types of things that I haven't seen elsewhere, although I sure haven't been to an extremely large number of muds). I don't know any other way to find staff and I'm not in an extreme hurry to do it even. I am just going to be persistant in posting here and there every so often. I could go into details about the mud, but there's really no point. There's only one other shannara mud that we know of. I've played it and it's a bit *too* realistic for me. We want realism, but not to an extreme. I have such high hopes for it and I have faith that when it gets done that it will do well and people who like the books won't be disappointed in it. We're not the type of people to give up on it and I know that if I have to wait a few years and do EVERYTHING myself and not get it all done but in 10 years, the mud WILL be here. That's how much faith I have in it. I guess I'm rambling here. I just want to know if anyone has any advice for me in it. I believe it's going to be circle mud. The builders that we have all have experience in that type and it looks as though it will do good with our ideas. Anyways, would love to hear any advice any of you have. Thanks

[Nostrum]

Take your time in finding staff. There are a bunch bogus applicants out there. RL associates are one of the better ways of eleviating some of the pitfalls of staffing a MU*. It is good that you have high hopes for it and just remember it will be a real pain sometimes being an Imp. Is the MU* going to be a general theme support of the books or will the areas work there way step by step thru the series? Just out of curiosity, what is too realistic in your opinion? Have you set out Imm duties so that all are clear as to what their role in the game is?

[Qira]

The mud is going to be general I believe. We're gonna have it based around the time in the Elfstones of Shannara so we'll have more characters for imm types to play. Basically how we're going to do the imms is since there aren't gods based in the books, we're going to have the imms play important characters from the books. They'll all have their certain areas to be over. Like an imm playing Allanon would be over the druid and stuff pertaining to the druids. An imm playing Brona would be over the evil side of the mud. An imm playing Wil might be over the Stors and their healing. We don't have all that set 100% but those are some for instances.

Too realistic.. you can't 'who' and see anybody on. When you walk, it pauses before you take a step and you can't spam in commands. If I'm really running away from something.. I know before I get there that I'm gonna go east when I hit that point, I don't have to wait to get there to decide that. It was way too much like lag *shiver* And unless you find someone that's a player there and knows anything, it's just extremely hard to get started as a newbie. I'm not criticizing that mud at all. I'm sure it's great if you can get started. I like some of their realistic ideas.

Like we want to type 'who' but you'd only be able to see who out of your race is on. Stuff like that.

So far, I found a coder and 2 builders. I know the coder personally. But I'm going to keep trying. I know determination usually pays off

[Sainos]

I'm not familiar with how tyrannical Terry Brooks is about his intellectual properties, or indeed, with the use of intellectual properties in MUDs in general. There are plenty of existing discussions, here and elsewhere, about them, though, and plenty of more knowledgable posters. That said...

If you're really set on creating a mud that mirrors what he presents, it'd probably be a good idea to make sure either: 1) he's okay with it, or 2) it's okay to do whether or not he's okay with it, as you don't want your hard work to go down the drain if he decides to play hardball for some reason. The people at the other Shannara mud you mentioned might be able to tell you a little bit more about the permissions, if any, they had to obtain.

Your determination will serve you well. With a healthy dose of patience, you'll do fine. If you're just starting as a CS major, you might start in on languages with Java, as it is the golden boy of the moment. It's pretty close to C/C++, so if you're planning on using an existing codebase that makes use of C, you shouldn't have much trouble making the jump. There're lots of resources for learning C, so it should be cake.