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''Ancient Anguish'', abbreviated ''AA'', is a fantasy-themed MUD, a text-based online role-playing game. Founded in 1991 by Balz "Zor" Meierhans and Olivier "Drake" Maquelin, it opened to the public on February 2, 1992. It is free-to-play, but has been supported by player donations since 1994. ''Ancient Anguish'' is based on a "map-coordinate" system rather than linked areas, which contributes to the immersive feeling of entering another 'world'. Areas are then placed on the nearly 10,000 room "map" and tied into the geography and history of the fantasy world, called Oerthe. In addition, the mud strives for a "describe-all" policy for all areas, whereby any item/object/feature should respond to as many of the senses as possible, which adds to the immersive quality, although not all older areas conform to current balance and describe-all policies. It is noted as incorporating adult themes into its gameplay. ==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. It was also the basis of one of the earliest ethnographies of virtual worlds, and was further explored in a master's thesis on the socialinguistics of virtual worlds. The lead designer of Ultima Online, Raph Koster, played Ancient Anguish for inspiration creating LegendMUD.〔(Raph Koster: "Ultima Online is fifteen", raphkoster.com 2012-09-25 ). Retrieved 2014-12-03.〕 Various aspects of LegendMUD later shaped the design of Ultima Online. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ancient Anguish」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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