Too bad I miss the gala. But I still wanted to tip my hat towards the
community in the form of this little note. I've come to realize that nothing
in my life has had as much actual transfer value than getting involved in
BatMUD. By having transfer value I mean that you learn thing A and the
competence transfers over to thing B. In my case, thing A is BatMUD and thing
B is my current job in "real life."

For example, consider a career in software integration and testing. There is
no better scenario to prepare yourself for this kind of work but to have
experience in creating content into a multiplayer game such as BatMUD. Face
it: living, sentient players are by far the worst thing that can happen to
your carefully grafted gaming environment. Their behaviour is - at worst -
totally unpredictable and our players will do whatever they can to gain an
upper hand in the game. So, if there's aloose end to be exploited somewhere,
our players will find it and exploit it.

I've come to learn that this experience also prepares you to look at things
from architectural point of view (in finding weaknesses, being a player or a
wizard doesn't matter). To succeed as either player or coder you will
eventually develop a rigorous discipline of how to systematically plan and
execute complex projects involving months of work - and not only start and
talk about them, but to single handedly see to their completion.

So... thanks BatMUD. I owe a lot to this community.

Yours,
Sirdar Silverfang the Magus