I'm pleased to announce that Iron Realms has hired Chad McHenry, known as Traithe here, as producer for our next text MUD, based on the work of Raymond E. Feist. Until his hiring, Chad was the head admin and driving force behind Shadows of Isildur, a popular roleplaying-focused MUD.

Welcome aboard Chad!

--matt

I second that. Traithe is going to do a fantastic job with this project. I wish him luck, although I don't think he'll need it.

Hehe gratz traithe!

Is this to say he will not be working on Shadows of Isildur as a driving force in the future?

Ah, thats unfortunate. Its sad to see people sell out, especially what seemed like good people.

Good luck to you.

Traithe's a great pick, a good and thoughtful mud admin. Congratulatins, Traithe, and good luck in your new endeavor! I hope Shadows of Isildur will be able to manage without your driving presence.

I like to think we're getting someone with more than 'just' a coder's skillset too. I have confidence in his abilities as a designer and leader as well, which are skillsets equally as important as coding for what he's going to be doing.

How RP oriented is this new mud going to be? Anywhere close to SoI?

Well, little to nothing has been decided about the game at this point, but it will definitely not be roleplaying required. Roleplaying required games are, with all due respect to those who enjoy them, not popular enough.

--matt

A hobby is an activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure. When your paid for your hobby it becomes your regular occupation.

Iron Realms Entertainment, from the information available on their site, and from general implications from their actions as a company thus far have not been to create products that people enjoy. Its been to create products enjoyable ENOUGH to have people pay for them, and to churn out many to cover many genres and thus get the most amount of people to pay for them as possible. Its stated that the company approaches game creation on a business model.

Unless my perception of Traithe was incorrect, I believed him to be someone who was not in it for the money, but rather creating an enjoyable product that everyone could enjoy equally. (Free, with no gimmicks attached). Iron Realms creates products where the advancement of your character is tied to how much of your real money you put into it. It would be entirely different if they were upfront, pay-to-play across the board.

Money is not everything, I'm afraid. I'd much rather do something I enjoy, for free then, as I said, 'sell out', and make it my perogative to work money out of people.

You entire 'business model approach' to gaming and game-design is really divisive to what has always been a for the players, by the players type of community. All the original code-bases were designed with free-use as a paramount objective in the long-run.

If I love killing people, and made a living doing it, someone would object likely. Personal gratification isn't always foremost. And I'm saddened that people would abandon their hobbies for corporate pittance.


Anyways, good for you I guess.

Congratulations, Traithe, and good luck.

Erm, what happened to Matt's concerns about SoT's IP?



It is a big big thread and I'm not sure what happened. What happened? It's odd that after posting something like that he hires its creator.

I'm not sure why anyone would think that a producer of an Iron Realms game is focused on trying to "work money out of people" (whatever that means). Rather, being one of the evil overlords of IRE, I can say my first and foremost focus is to design a game that players enjoy, which brings me immense personal satisfaction. Certainly, if this were a hobby, I couldn't devote the time into the game as I do otherwise.

Anyway, welcome to the team, Traithe! If you enjoy your job half as much as I enjoy mine, you'll be living on Cloud 9!

Shrug, they degenerate into flames because people start flaming me. That's their issue to deal with. I also appreciate the advice on marketing, but I'm confident in our ability to market effectively within the text MUD market. I think our results bear out that confidence.

Heh heh. I know I cry tears of shame that some raving loonies object to whatever they object to. That kind of opinion would only matter if it was held by people with any kind of influence. IRE enjoys a good reputation with people we have to give a hoot about, like our customers or the people whose livelihoods depend on us or the larger games industry, or the media. A few bitter forum posters are irrelevant in the larger scope, though they are fun to play with sometimes.

--matt

The issues have been resolved between SoI and Tolkien Enterprises earlier this year. I'm sure you can find the posts about it somewhere around here.

Oh my god, you're right! Nobody enjoys our games! *panic* Clearly we've invented a new business model where we have to pay people to play. Seems we're paying about 800 people to play right now. Or perhaps you believe we've invented mind control. Yes! That's it! Mind control.

Wow, you're a genius! Let's see, Achaea is fantasy. Aetolia is fantasy. Imperian is fantasy. Lusternia is fantasy. Hmm, I must be stupid. I guess I'm missing the other genres.  Oh, incidentally, the game Traithe was hired for? Also fantasy.

Wow! Again, pure brilliance. Although I guess I have to wonder at your logic, given that it's not possible to buy advancement in our games, and that many players never spend a dime. Likely your mind is just too subtle for me though.

Man, you're on a roll. I can only marvel at the sheer magnitude of your intellect. Taking a job doing something you don't love to do is definitely the way to a happy life. Good thinking!

And? All the original MUDs started commercial or went commercial. The MUDs that entertain the most people have -always- been commercial. Do you see me whining that the free codebases have 'betrayed' the original spirit of MUDs? Of course not, because that would be a ridiculous thing to complain about. It's called 'diversity' and it's a good thing.

I'd object whether you did it as a hobby or for a living.

Yeah, man, I'm always so saddened when any of my writer friends manage to get something published for money. SO sad. I always think, "You poor sell-outs, how dare you try to make a living doing something you love." You really are a genius.


--matt
P.S. Just to make sure you get it, I was being sarcastic in much of this post. Traithe said it nice and bluntly though: Ignorant and childish.

I've said my piece and stand by it.

I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it again here:

Congratulations, Traithe.

You're very lucky to be able to do what you love for a living, and IRE has gained themselves an extremely talented dynamo.

It's a real loss to the RPI world.

The RPI niche needs more people like Traithe, it's sad to lose one to the H&S world, probably part of the reason that RPI's are such a small niche...not enough people who are driven to build and work on them compared to the ones who play them


I agree with the sell out sentiment.

What? Has Traithe also been hired by someone who makes H&S muds? Busy guy, that Traithe.

--matt

To clarify (this was posted publicly so I'm not spilling any secrets here): Tolkien Enterprises ordered SoI to shut down, but Chad was able to convince them to let SoI continue to operate under certain conditions, etc.

Other Tolkien MUDs may want to take note as few admins would be able to pull off what Chad did.

--matt

Personally, I'm jealous.

Anyone that can make money doing something they love is one step ahead of most people. And for many, turning a hobby into a money making job is a dream come true. While most use hobbies as a way of escaping the dreariness of their full-time jobs (or whatever it is they do), I think merging the two - your hobby and money making - is genius.

Making money off MUDs is no easy feat, and if someone can do that more power to them. People make money of all kinds of things. And there's many worse ways of making money - people benefit from wars or tsunamis and they do so eagerly and willingly. Iron Realms makes money off games, it's really neither a big deal or a bad thing.

If someone is willing to pay to play a MUD, so be it. People pay for all sorts of things, some of which I think are worthwhile, some of which I don't think are worthwhile. But it's their choice. A service or product exists, and each person gets to choose whether they wish to purchase said service or product or not. That's the beauty of our system of choice.

Traithe, I don't know you whatsoever, and I've never played SoI, and the_logos, I don't know you either, and I've never played any of your games - but congratz to both of you for turning a hobby you clearly love dearly into a business.

If I had the time, means and assorted other requirements to make a successful pay-to-play MUD (one based on a style and design that I'd want), I'd be on it like peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. So I'm jealous, and truthfully, I think a lot of others are as well.

Bottomline, good luck to you Traithe. Go forth and earn some money - eventually most of us have to (or we're stuck already doing it, depending on how you look at it). *smile*

Pleos

I'm sure that's true, unless, of course, you discovered you suffer from the phobia of Arachibutyrophobia, or, literally "Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth."

Here's some info on this debilitating mental illness:

I couldn't believe these guys were for real, but I phoned them and, if it's a joke, it's an elaborate one complete with automated phone menus and eventually live operators.
--matt

That website is absolutely hilarious. I snickered. I tried to stop giggling. I laughed. I fell from my chair laughing.

Of course, it's hard for those it hits - consider never being able to eat a peanut butter sandwich without experiencing panic attacks *gasp, the horror*

The page is obviously a template, used for a multitude of different phobias, simply substituting the latin and common name from page to page. After all, I find it hard to believe that Arachibutyrophobia "...keep people apart from loved ones and business associates.", and I highly doubt that "...a variety of potent drugs often are prescribed for arachibutyrophobia". Especially the "often" part.
Those statements fit agoraphobia and fear of flying very nicely, though.

Also, though a bit late - grats to you, Traithe. Such opportunities aren't easy to come by.

Your callous disregard for those afflicted with this terrible malady really disappoints me, Welcor. How would you feel if you were at a business lunch with your boss and he insisted on ordering for you...and ordered a peanut butter sandwich. Not even any jelly to lubricate things up a bit. Just peanut butter and bread. Ponder that a moment. And when you're done wetting yourself in fear, maybe you'll feel a little more sympathy for those who have to suffer through their entire lives living in fear of situations like that. It's bad enough as it is without you mocking their pain.

--matt, sympathetically, for he enjoys peanut butter quite a lot.

P.S. Both Oliver Stone and Jim Davis, author of the puerile Garfield comic strip, are known to be sufferers. Those of you out there afflicted should take heart: It doesn't have to impede your life too much. They've accomplished a lot. So can you. Go you!

I'm reminded of a certain song by Tool...

*shrugs* Congratulations, Traithe.

Congrats. But remember... keep the eye on the ole college ball too. Tell Matt to suck eggs during exam time. :-)

Oh please - enough is enough. Some of you just take yourselves WAY too seriously, I think. That you sit in judgment of me without knowing the slightest bit about my personality, my motivations or my thought processes in this particular situation is ignorant at best, downright moronic at worst.

If someone came up to you and said: "Hi. We'd like you to create and design a MUD based on the work of your favorite childhood author, who, by the way, has only ever licensed -two- other computer games. It has the potential to amass a huge userbase, about 10 to 20 times the size of your current project, and we've got a unique codebase for you to structure your work on. Oh: and we'll pay you, so you can do this full time - and you know all those annoying student loans you've got? You'll be able to pay those off, so you can take your $160,000 degree and TAKE that $40,000 public servant position you've wanted since you were a kid the moment you're finished with school." - what would you say?

Sad, bitter people.

I've tried all of them and that's exactly what they are. If you'd just openly admit that about your muds you'd probably get less crap from RPI players.

It's not like RPI players make smartass comments when people call their games an RPI.

A piece of bread is a piece of bread...big deal.

Traithe: I don't see what's moronic about stating my opinion...and if I'm a moron then I guess I must be wrong about you being a loss to the RPI world as well.

There's nothing moronic about stating an opinion.

When that opinion is based on little more than complete ignorance and constitutes a very harsh judgment of someone's character, however - especially when they've done nothing but support the community in the past - well, that should speak for itself.

And to be honest, I'm not sure why everyone seems to think the games are "losing" anything. Whatever my decision here, the product of the past three years of my very hard work will remain for everyone to enjoy, and a very capable and excellent programmer who's also been one of our long-time players will be replacing me. In fact, I'd even venture to say that the guy's a better programmer than I am, by far.

If you really truly think I've contributed enough here to merit some respect, and that my leaving to work on another challenge constitutes a "loss", then consider showing enough respect to examine your speculations more carefully before passing judgment from your mile-high pedestal.

I've seen Matt do and say a lot of ridiculous things on these boards, but I don't remember him claiming his games were RPI. Maybe there are more kinds of muds than just RPI and H&S? *gasp*

Heh. That would explain why of the 900+ combat abilities in Achaea, for instance, about 20 of them work on NPCs. That would explain why of the six places Dr. Bartle's book "Designing Virtual Worlds" mentions Achaea, none of them have to do with monster bashing (instead having to do with character skills, PvP combat, economics, organized events, player narrative and political systems). That'd explain why the recent IGDA whitepaper spends no time talking about monster bashing in our games and instead references the politics in our games. That'd explain why less than 1% of our code has to do with monster bashing. That'd explain why there are about 2 items in Achaea, for instance, you can even get from bashing monsters. Yep, we're clearly all about hacking and slashing those monsters!

Get a clue. Our games are focused on player vs. player tension for the most part including combat, politics, religion, war, and so on. There is monster bashing...but it sucks due to the fact that we place little emphasis on it and have spent little time on it.

--matt

Uh, I hope I'm not a sad, bitter person here, as I sincerely congratulated you and all... Getting paid to build a Mu* would be the cream for me. The lyric is kind of sarcasm, in the context of the song... Hope there was no misunderstanding here...

Oh, obviously they'd say 'no', Chad. OBVIOUSLY. Don't you get it man? These people have -integrity-. *pounds his palm with his fist for emphasis*

Of course, it's easy for the ones criticizing you to do so, because none of the ones doing so have any ability and thus certainly don't have to worry that they'd ever be offered an opportunity like this. Thus they're free to scream and cry like little children, safe in the knowledge that they're losers and so have nothing to lose. They can't even lose touch with the real world, since that is a non-existent connection for them. They live in little teenage dreamworlds where mommy and daddy pay the bills and it's "selling out, man" to get paid to do what you love. I hope they have to flip burgers at McDonalds when they grow up, since doing anything enjoyable for a living is apparently a sin. Speaking for myself (and likely everybody else at Iron Realms), I'll continue having the World's Best Job and laughing it up while these ineffectual morons bitch and moan in their personal hells of frustrated, bitter jealousy.

--matt

Thanks for the clarification. I was sitting there looking at the lyrics thinking, "Is he serious or not? Surely that's way too over the top for him to be serious....I hope!"

Btw, other Tool songs that would be apropos here are: "Intolerance" and "Disgustipated."

--matt