Current events

New Zone: Moonbase Delta

It felt like time we had another lowbie zone. The early days of our players' career should be more varied and exciting, I thought, and should show more of the game engine's potential. Obviously, the Tessier Building will remain a favourite for grinding the early levels, but one a player reaches about 4th (and can no longer go to training camp), they have the option of joining the Rebelstar Raiders instead.

Based on a popular series of computer strategy games from the 1980s, the area features many of the same characters, objects and game concepts. It's quite heavily scripted, too, to achieve some of the same game objectives. Create a new character and have a look? Your comments would be appreciated.

- Artoo

Ajaxterm offline

The server hosting ajaxterm will go offline for a few days.

- Zaphod

New logo

Hope you like the 'postage stamp' logo, which is now used on the Yahoo Group, the MySpace Group and (I believe) the Facebook one as well. It's based on a WWII era poster, encouraging women to join the war effort. Add a little Wormhole-style twisted humour, and... well. The new image is on our front page, because I felt that the 'Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?' thing was getting a little tired.

I (and some of the others) are going to be uploading similar WH-themed parodies from time to time. Why don't you join the fun? The next one might have a Bladerunner theme. Well, I'm pondering it. Remember: sacred cows make the best hamburger.

- Artoo

A new way to MUD

Check out the web-based program that will allow you to connect to the wormhole even if your network blocks the port you would normally use to reach us. It's in beta-test stage, but you should find that connecting to the game is now as easy as loading a web page! Thanks to Zaphod for this cunning work-around...

http://ajaxterm.wormhole.se

- Artoo

SPAM problems on the wiki

It looks like some robots found a way of adding SPAM to random pages on this wiki. If you see anything that looks like SPAM, delete it! I'm looking for a solution to prevent it, but if that does not work I will be forced to disable the user account creation and start managing user accounts by hand.

Update User account creation is disabled. Users with SYSOP status can create new users. Mudmail Zaphod to get an wiki account.

- Zaphod

If only! May 1st 2007AD

- Artoo

The Jawas have landed! April 27th 2007AD

For those of you who sometimes wonder if you have a Wormhole addiction, consider the nature of mine: I spent this afternoon looking through the 'Galactic Phrasebook' so I could make sure that my Jawas use 'authentic' phrases. I am almost certainly a much worse case than you, therefore... so keep playing!

Anyway (despite my own lingering unhappy memories of my incarceration aboard a similar vehicle) the Jawa sandcrawler is now *in* as a regular feature. If can't guess which planet to find it on, you probably shouldn't be playing a science fiction MUD. Another little piece of the Wormhole universe falls into place... from the people who brought you non-stick gravity. Oh - and it's Wormhole MUD's biggest use of the 'ship' code yet, at a whopping 94 rooms, so bring sandwiches.

- Artoo

Would you like spam with that? April 26th 2007AD

The Bajoran priest in reception now serves an astounding total of 496 different varieties of spam, including one-liners, film quotes and little pieces of Wormhole history. It seems like only yesterday I was pleased to say that he had a repertoire of 400 things to say and do. (In fact, when Wormhole was resurrected a year ago, he had just 48.) Now... who's going to make it five hundred?

- Artoo

Tatooine April 17th 2007AD

Three new areas (plus two new ships) were recently uploaded. And the game rebooted first time! (*gasp*). The additional material means a much more detailed representation of Tatooine, rather than just Jabba's palace. It's being playtested now... should open in a week or two!

- Artoo

Scripts, scripts, scripts... January 31st 2007AD

Scripting is a means of adding interactive functionality to game areas. For example, it allows area authors to code mobiles that can be bribed, or threatened... test tubes that explode when dropped... rooms that corrode your armour... if the creator can think of it, they can probably code it. A few days ago I wrote a script that simulates gravity in the skies above Hoth; if you drop an item while flying, it smacks down onto the landscape far below.

The only trouble with scripting is that the massive flexibility it offers tends to complicate the development process. If writing a regular area is like populating a database, scripting is a lot more like programming. We recommend that novice area authors continue to design areas where the bulk of the work is done by the game engine... although some scripted eye-candy is always nice... aspiring script-writers can see the expanded Builder entries. Expert builders such as Bertha have used the same functions to produce highly interactive areas.

Everyone else... watch out for mobiles that talk back. Killing them might not be the most profitable course of action!

- Artoo

MYSQL upgrade January 21st 2007AD

Looks like the upgrade went well. However i missread the info I got from the ISP. The upgrade was scheduled for 19-20 of January starting at 15:00 GMT+1.

- Zaphod

Korriban open January 15th 2007AD

Korriban was closed for renovation, but it's back by popular demand. Originally created by our founder, Vader, Korriban has never been listed as offically 'open' because it lacked most of its room descriptions. Many of these have now been added, so for the first time, the area that you used to 'wormhole' to on the sly is now officially connected. Now... can you find the connection?

- Artoo

MYSQL upgrade January 8th 2007AD

Our ISP that hosts this Wiki will perform a mysql upgrade on January 15th. Since all content is stored in a mysql database the Wiki will be completly unaccessible from 3:00 pm GMT+1 (=Servertime). This won't affect the game itself.

- Zaphod

Balancing Underway January 5th 2007AD

A happy new year to all Wormhole players. Some of you may have noticed small changes to your characters, such as finding that you are now able to practice a skill that wasn't available previously. This is a result of some balancing work, changing the skills that each profession gets in an effort to make the less popular ones more interesting. No present-day character will find any skills taken away... you just might get to practice the new alternatives as well.

Also, there have been some code changes since an eagle-eyed developed pointed out that there was no way to design a weapon to chop or stab. 'Flay' was in-game, but no classes ever learned it. These issues have been addressed, so hopefully combat is getting a little more interesting.

Balancing will continue - at a low level, nothing too radical - for the foreseeable future. It takes a long time because it's hard to really get to know each character option, in terms of the style it should use, and the equipment available, etc.

- Artoo

A star is born November 17th 2006AD

Monomer and I broke a bottle of Champagne over the Death Star last night. Quite literally: I used the break command. This marked the occasion of the completion of the 74 rooms that describe the surface of the Imperial battle station. This left 24 near-space rooms to be done, although that's proving to be easier. Coming up with 74 ways to talk about what is basically a big metal beach ball is hard!

TIE fighters... check. Snub fighters... check. Turbolaser turrets... check. Still to be done: Imperial gunners, ion cannon turrets, tractor beams (?) and perhaps an Imperial shuttle or two. Biggest problem: building ship-to-ship combat functionality into the game code. Still, at least we have the 'playground' all set out now.

In other planetary news, Ecks is also using the planetoid template, to model the dustbowl world of Tatooine... and very nice it is, too.

- Artoo

Ships October 20th 2006AD

While we still can't offer you player-pilotable ships just yet, a space scooter can now be hired from the Hangar 19 dealership in the northers sector of the docking ring. Buy one, drop it, mount up and go exploring!

Had to edit the shop 'the hard way' because OLC for shops is still busted. Given the level of difference between the way the builder documents describe shops and the present-day reality, I'm not surprised. Authors, avoid the Builder:Shops entry... it's very iffy.

- Artoo

October 9th 2006AD

This news item replaces the one for October 5th, with some good news: ships are now worth visiting. While you can't fly them yourselves yet, ships are like miniature areas in their own right, complete with items and targets inside... a ship appears in a single MUD location, but if you BOARD it, you might find that it contains ten, twelve, thirty or more rooms!

Last week, a bug was uncovered that meant players couldn't level on ships, despite earning experience points. That was because of a the way your position is calculated in the game engine... it's now been fixed, meaning there's no excuse. Break into a starship and assault the crew today!

Thanks to Vader for a stupendous one-hour turn-around, from bug report to fix.

- Artoo

The Aether is open September 29th 2006AD

Erm, I'm not good at formal, so here goes. The Aether is open. A new 60-80 zone of my own creation. No further details are being given by me, sorry, lips are sealed. The new 'silencer' borg implant. I really don't see the point.

- Amigone

Zone news September 26th 2006AD

What's new? I was asked after a recent reboot. Good question. Actually nothing... the new material was buggy, it seems, and prevented the game restarting, so nothing went in on that occasion.

Still, there are developments afoot.

• The newbie zone is being modified to make the game seem less intimidating, and more exciting. This reflects our primary aim, for now, which is to increase the size of the player base.
• There's also a newbie-level spacecraft being worked up, complete with a 'crew' of juvenile delinquent ferengi space pirates. Because everyone loves puching ferengi in the face. Even other ferengi.
• And let's not forget Ecks' ambitious work on Tatooine...
• Nor Amigone's creepy experiments with the aether...
• Plus the Death Star now has a spherical surface (room descriptions 50% done).

One or two existing areas are also being repaired or improved, and some more dodos have been identified, for removal. It's a shame to get rid of a zone, but we have to respect the fact that new authors want to work on their own ideas, not inherit some dreadful half-finished thing from somebody else. (See the recent eGroup discussion for explanations of the kind of characteristics that distinguish a zone that doesn't meet our quality control standards.)

- Artoo

Back to School September 7th 2006AD

We'll soon be welcoming back those players who are unable to MUD during the summer, because they play while they're at school or university. WELCOME BACK!

If you are one of those unfortunate students who finds that mudding is frowned upon, why not show your teacher the article that you can find here: Wormhole for schools. We believe that a MUD should be safe, and that it should be intellectually challenging, not just a waste of time. It's worth a shot... see if you can get Wormhole to become the subject of a class project. Get your teacher interested and we'll do the rest.

New and improved August 25th, 2006AD

The times they are a-changing... Wormhole's growing faster than Bertha's waistline! One way in which wormhole is expanding is that it's no longer a collection of little 'bubbles' or reality, with transporters in between. It's now possible to board a spacecraft and fly from one location to another.

The first areas to be connected via the 'space' medium were the space station itself (courtesy of the new docknig ring), Hawkworld (which now boasts a spaceport called Hawk Field), The orbital museum of waxworks, the space-based robot factory and the human colony on Paradoxia.

I am also working on an editor for ships, since the syntax for shipbuilding is quite complex. "Is it a WLD? Is it an OBJ? Is it a ZON? ... No, it's a wormhole .SHI file!" It's got more than a little of each. Still, initial results have been satisfactory, resulting in the creation of some large ships that can be boarded and explored... or hijacked and flown about the galaxy. Trouble is, nobody gets the necessary skills to pilot ships yet, except immortals. We'll be thinking very carefully about who should be able to fly what, and when. Hopefully redressing some of the balance issues of the less popular clases. Meanwhile, ask a friendly immo to take you for a spin!

In other news, some of you have experienced and beta-tested 'Chapter 1: The Awakening', a new interactive novella that explains how players come to find themselves in the Wormhole world. It's heavily scripted; if most wormhole areas are like reading a book, this one is more like playing a role in a movie. It's going to rock the MUDding world! Congratulations to Bertha for bringing this long, painful project to fruition during our long absence.

Exciting times. Stay tuned, and keep levelling!

- Artoo

Updates and more updates

As you might have noticed there are lots of changes being made to this wiki, please help us by adding you favurite MUD client and your webpage to the wiki.

The ultimate goal is to replace our homepage with this wiki. In fact, we now have - Artoo.

--Zaphod 11:13, 12 July 2006 (CEST)

Thursday 13th July, 2006 - 8pm Server Time there will be an assassin quest. Min 10 players required.

The quest takes some time to set up, so if you intend to play - please sign up on the *quest terminal*, so if there arent enough interested players I'll know not to bother.

For more information on the rules of the assassin quest, check the quest-terminal, post#2.

- Zeus

As posted on Wormnet

So Ecks and I have set a date. I don't feel like we need to make an announcement - who HASN'T heard by now?

Date: 7 July, 2006 Time: 1:00 AM GMT Location: WormholeMUD!

Artoo has agreed to do us the honor of presiding over the event. Amigone is pleading with us to be the flower girl (will the dress even fit him? hmm), and everything else, well, we'll figure it out between now and then or wing it! We hope to see a lot of you there. Let's use this event to also remind the imms we're dead serious about Wormhole being the greatest MUD ever and that we're all still here.

P.S. Don't forget to vote for the MUD on mudconnect.

- Miriam

After some time off, following a server crash, the Wormhole is up and running again!

Brought to you by Zeus (project leader) and Zaphod (host and network engineer), the game was re-opened for play on Sunday April 23rd 2006. I list it here because the Wormhole is, effectively, and ongoing event. Connect anytime, see some old friends and make some new ones. This is not just a nostalgic re-run. We're open for business and intending to be in business for years to come.