ACK!MUD is a MUD codebase, initially developed by Steve Dooley, Martin ??? and Andrew Smith.

When development was starting, Andrew was very keen on using "Ack!" as a mild expletive, so Steve took this as the name for the MUD. Initially, the MUD was not intended to be a codebase, but merely a standalone game.

During development, Steve was attending The University of Essex, whilst Martin and Andrew were studying at Cambridge University. Thanks to an ethernet connection in their University accommodation, Martin and Andrew were able to hook up an old PC which became the host for the MUD.

Sadly, once Martin and Andrew graduated, ACK! had no host, and vanished from the Internet.

Some time later, Steve got talking to a fellow MUD player going by the name of Cyberlich, who was looking for a site to run a modified Merc MUD. Steve offered the ACK! code instead, and ran a demo (on a Linux PC and a slow modem dialup connection) for Cyberlich and his colleagues.

Cyberlich and his team liked what they saw, and decided to take the codebase. They quickly found a site to host the MUD, which they ran this as Shades of Evil which became a long-running and very popular MUD. The Shades of Evil team took it upon themselves to release updates to the codebase as improvements were made, as well as providing help and support for others implementing their own MUDs.

Lineage

ACK!MUD is a derivate of the Merc codebase, which itself is based on the DikuMUD codebase. The Mud Tree page shows DikuMUD and its descendants.

The developers were active players of the Hidden Worlds MUD, which helped to inspire early features of Ack!, particularly the multi-Class elements of the game.

The Versions

During its history, there's been three large versions of Ack!mud. 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3. 4.2 is still considered the standard ack!mud code base, and was primarily a "circle" based mud, where almost every pker was (something)/assassin. A few muds have added special flavors to this code base by giving racial bonuses far beyond the normal, or by trying to make spells deal enough damage to make them worth casting. The newest 4.2 code base muds have added more end game content for Realm Lords (The highest attainable level in standard 4.2) buy giving them access to special classes or the ability to spend experience or quest points to train certain things. 4.3 is most known for the dramatic increase to spell damage, making circle all but obsolete. Other notable changes include race specific equipment slots (Some races could wear more equipment than others, some less), worth while racial bonuses, and the move from Held/Clutch/Shield/Wielded slots to just left hand, right hand. In doing so, they fixed the skill dual wield so that it was now very viable whereas in 4.2 it made you lose 2 slots of equipment (Held and Shield).

The Muds

During the course of it's life time, the ACK!Mud code base has been host to several muds, some more successful than others. Keep in mind this list is in no way in chronological order.

Shades of Evil,
Adesa,
Shared Madness,
Aftershock,
Swikeshock,
Planes of Sithilus,
Paradise Revisited,
Realms of Fire and Ice,
The Final Sacrifice,
Road to Turmoil,
Mists of Time,
Elusions,
Illusions of Granduer.

External links

Official Website

Cyberlich's account of events

Update History

This page was last updated by Redrum on 18APR06