So, to humor Brandy, Kelson brought up a version of the TinyMUSH server, 2.0.8 something, since he had no faith in the quality of the later levels, and he had beaten on this copy to an extent that he was happy with the stability of it.
Brandy proceeded to putz around with creating the global (+) commands and started to build Shankill. This also was the birth of what is now known as 'BrandyMail' since I wanted +mail on the game, but didn't have access to one.
Kelson created the concept of how the crystal ranges would work, and wrote the sled code. The crystal ranges eventually became a 2000 by 1352 virtual flying grid, with only one actual sky room. This allows for 2,704,000 separate gridpoints and a possible 10,400 claim sites.
Around Jan/Feb (?) a post was put out on alt.fan.pern and rec.games.mud.tiny asking for people to help create the MUSH. Most of the people who came on weren't really interested in helping, but there was one person, Samira, who came on and started chugging away at building the Joslin Plateau Facility on Ballybran.
The three of us slowly worked, on and off for some months.
We eventually got to the point where we realized that we weren't going to get more real help for this monumental task without actually opening the game and starting the roleplay.
So, the official opening of the game was September 1st, 1993. We made the ever-faithful Sami a wizard and let in the masses.
It was somewhat of a nightmare, in that we had no trainers, interviewers, and a lot of the basic code just wasn't there.
There were no claim sites in the crystal ranges, so people had to quickly build some so our very first singers actually had something to find.
Class 2000 (our very first) was a group of great people who kept their spirits up through beta-testing some rather buggy code. There were 13 recruits in that class, 8 of whom adapted to Singer. Other adaptations were: 1 sorter, 2 sled techs, 1 medic, and one death in adaptation. The death during adaptation was really due to the player deciding he didn't have enough time to play the game since he and his wife were expecting a baby.
One of our Singers, Elenna, actually had to code a sorting table before crystal she brought in could be sorted. We're still using that sorting table today, though it has been modified a little.
Something must have gone pretty well, 'cause the entire class signed and posted a warm thank you to the CrystalMUSH wizards on rec.games.mud.tiny.
Amoung the other things we hammered out was code for the crystal, cutters, sleds, and managing the unwieldy quarters of the JPF.
Fellano, a wizard, was in charge of training up the first few classes of players and faded away with burnout. We added a coding wizard, Corzaon, who worked on several database toys to keep track of the economy and myriad other contributions including the casino moon, Shoralynn. Unfortunately, he lost his access after graduation. We also added a building wizard, Elissa, who is now on a leave-of-absence for an undertermined time.
Several builders began creating the planets in our little corner of the FSP. We had planets/moons with water sports, mountain recreation, and casino entertainment.
As we grew, we found that we needed more help and created the STAFF positions as well as adding more wizards: Aria for building and Tate for MUSHcode.
We finally added Maxim's Planet for the <ahem> more mature players, and a politically intriguing planet for those who choose to *not* join the Heptite Guild.
CrystalCon was held on the weekend of July 21-22, 1995 in Minneapolis where three of the wizards live. We ate, shopped, talked and talked and talked. It was one giant slumber party for all. Sami put up a tent on Brandy's lawn and had to "fluff" the grass afterwards. Some highlights, as Sami remembers them, were two players, remaining unidentified, logged in on terminals in the same room and proceeeded to interact on the mush; that is, typing instead of speaking to each other. Another one was the trip to Mall-of-America. Brandy's kids were cute and spoiled by Kelson. Mr. Brandy was the perfect husband. Attendees: Tsia, Brandy, Kelson, Samira, Tate, Jarred, Patrikk, Telandra, Kael, Aram, Rykos, Geon, Tsuri, Mlyaen, um, is that all?
Well, we've lost a lot of dinos as they go on with their real lives, but we keep attracting new players. We're up to Class 2031 (as of 8/10/98) and still going strong.
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