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Achaea Switches To Anarchaea After HD Crash

Posted by simoniker on from the looting-panic-death dept.

Daki writes "Achaea, the flagship text-based MUD of Iron Realms Entertainment, suffered 'a massive hardware failure', and all of the current player and world data was damaged early last Friday morning PST. After sending the damaged harddrive to a data recovery firm in Toronto, it seems as if the world of Achaea will once again be up and running by Tuesday morning at the earliest. In the interim, they decided to roll back to a week-old copy, but the info gained on this backup version will be wiped when the recovered data is loaded. This has caused the birth of a world dubbed 'Anarchaea', where rules have no meaning, the gods fry the players at request, and players are killed by homicidal butterflies and socks. During Anarchaea, the text-based MUD even reclaimed the number one spot on Top Muds, which is quite a feat."

9 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Lets try this again by moosesocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Thanks to slashdot, they're about to suffer another massive hardware failure.

    But, seriously... Until I saw this article, I had honestly thought the MUD scene was dead.

    Never really ever did get into muds. Maybe once their HD is back up, I'll create a character... (who in their right mind doesn't use RAID?)

    --
    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    1. Re:Lets try this again by E_elven · · Score: 4, Informative

      www.mudconnector.com

      There's a lot more out there than Achaea. Use the search feature.

      --
      Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
    2. Re:Lets try this again by b0r0din · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There's no pretty much. The MUD scene is dead.

      I used to play MUDs a lot. And by a lot I mean the fail out of college type. But this doesn't really seem like news to me. Sure, it's nerdy. But this sort of thing happens to MUDs all the time, and there are about 1000 of them, and aside from its mild popularity, it's about a maintenance window. Equipment failures, bad HDD, etc, that's not news. IMPs going and making a crazy server for a week, that's not news either. I remember when we were switching over to new code on a game I used to play, he made a non-PK mud PK, and gave people all kinds of weapons and NPCs were switched into and killing people. That was a lot of fun. But I wouldn't announce it as news. So I guess for about 10 people who care, you just made their day :)

      But just for the record, who here still actively plays? And who doesn't? Who did?

  2. Hilarious by Nutcase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the funniest thing I have read all day. The mental image is classic. That said, thats the only place you get an image, as it's text based... so I would probably just be confused. (Uh Oh.. geek street cred dropping rapidly...)

    I would've tried it, but they closed to new accounts until the hdd is restored.

    That said, the most interesting thing is that the MUD is commercial. Which I would presume means that all those requests for death by god are being paid for. The game sells currency which players use in game for things.

    Even if Anarchaea is free, Achaea is not... which means they just got some really great free advertising. If I was them I would have a yearly "hdd crashed" special event.

  3. Backup by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Funny

    I remember one time, someone had a their home directory as /home and I did a normal deluser. Boy I'm glad I back my servers.

    Only happens once, and you backup the rest of your life.

  4. Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm the CEO if Iron Realms, which owns and operates Achaea and a couple other text muds. First, I realize this is a low-value news article to most of you, but we didn't submit it (one of our players did). Second, I am fairly embarassed about this whole thing. The backup problems were a result of a minor but very crucial screwup on our ISP's fault that left us without backups since February 12th.

    Anyway, believe me when I say this is hardly the kind of publicity we need or want. (We've only got about 5000 users but that's plenty when you're a text mud.)

    --matt

  5. Updates to my Post by daki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Please forgive me Matt, I didn't mean to reflect poorly on the Company, but in the two years I have been a customer of Iron Realms, I have never once been disapointed. When the character creation is back up, I urge you all to give it a try, as it is by far the best MUD out there.

    --
    "Sure I like deadlines, I like the 'whoosh' sound they make as they fly by" - Douglas Adams
  6. Sounds like... by dynoman7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    where rules have no meaning, the gods fry the players at request, and players are killed by homicidal butterflies and socks ...my kind of game! Where do I sign up?!?!

    --
    Blarf.
  7. Re:OK, I'm know I should be shot for not knowing t by Synic · · Score: 4, Informative

    MUDs are the precursor to MMORPGs.... seriously, a little googling would have turned up the answer and a more comprehensive history.