Ancient Anguish - Administration and Site History

Administration and Site History

In the early 1990s, most MUDs were housed on university mainframe computers, either illicitly or with tacit approval from the computer science department (many of whom played or created the games they hosted). In late 1993, Ancient Anguish faced the threat of being shut down by the Swiss university that hosted the game, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, for excessive bandwidth usage. Hundreds of players made donations totalling more than US$7000 and bought a SparcStation 2 workstation, relocating the MUD to Washington, D.C.

At the same time, Zor (who functioned as God, or chief administrator, at the time) abdicated his singular authority over the MUD and turned over control to a newly created Senate of Wizards, with Amante serving as the Senate President. The Senate appoints Archwizards of Law, Balance, Quality Control, Education, Mudlib, World and Map, and Driver. The Senate consists of the Arch Wizards of the different functional administrations, plus additional Senators at large. In 1995, Amante abdicated his role as Senate President and the Senate assumed complete control over the MUD, and has continued to administer with 9 to 12 members who periodically change.

Over the next decade, Ancient Anguish was hosted by a number of access providers:

• Mid 1995 to 1996: Pacific Rim Networks in Bellingham Washington
• Mid 1996 to July 1997: Chaco Inc. in San Jose, CA
• July 1997 to Feb 2006: InReach Internet in Stockton, CA
• Feb 2006 to August 2008: LocalLink.net in Michigan
• August 2008 to current: Colocation America in Los Angeles, CA

Though its population has never been as high as some other MUDs, it remains one of the more popular LPMuds on the internet today, despite facing stiff competition from commercial and/or graphical MMORPGs. Ironically, Ancient Anguish has been cited by original EverQuest designer Ryan Palacio as being heavily played by the EverQuest development team.