The State of the MUD in 2003


- A Foreword -
You may remember a similar "speech" which was posted in the news, what, a year
or two ago. Now, again, the time has come to toss out information which seems
to take the form of "State of the MUD". What is expressed here are mostly my
(and B.A.T. ry's) views and mainly information from "behind the scenes"; I
wish
this post is informative enough or, well, at least mildly amusing.

- 2003's End -
Balanced Alternative Techniques ry is once again completing a successful year
of providing contigency for our beloved BatMUD. While things have been
relatively quiet, we have seen a great deal of more or less hidden
advancements.

- The Balances -
Even though B.A.T. ry accounting and balances are considered private (with
the exception to the Finnish tax-collectors and authorities, of course), I
want to enlighten everyone a bit about the organization's financial situation.
While the bookkeeping year 2002 resulted as being slightly on the negative,
the year 2003 looks to be somewhat on the positive side; evening out last
year's "loss". We have managed to maintain a solid basis for the continuation
of operations in the future, even though there have been some costs of
operations. We will expect "a healthy amount" of tax to be paid.

- The Hardware -
We have been extremely pleased with the current generation of hardware,
which has not only delivered strong performance gains with all upgrade steps,
but also maintained our historically rock solid "availability". There have
been no major malfunctions, with the exception of a couple of hard drive
failures (in which our fail-safe systems have not failed); thus there has
been no need for emergency measures.

As the AMD Athlon -genre is slowly being overrun with more powerful
solutions, we've completed an evaluation phase of our own on the current
64-bit generation of x86 based hardware. A possible upgrade path exists in
the AMD Opteron based server hardware, but only when there are enough
performance gains to justify the change (timeframe 1Q-3Q/2004).

- Donations -
Whether or not donations will be officially open (as in no preset amount
limitations) in 2004 will be seen about later. The possibility exists that
we may need to gather some funding, depending quite much on which other
projects we decide to pursue during the next year. As the treasurer, I am
personally devoted to contigency planning in cycles of several years. The
possible donations will open only purely on "per-need" basis. We shall see.

- Advertising -
While B.A.T. ry has never before "officially" advertised BatMUD, a need for
the broadening of our playerbase was recognized, thus, in 2003, a couple of
test puffs were thrown out there in the "wild", concentrating on websites
such as the MUD Connector and Mpogd. These were deemed a success and we
have thus agreed to continue similar efforts on those areas from which we
hope to gain good player-material. There have also been some talks of more
visibility (reviews) in gaming publications for the next year. Please keep
in mind that we are not planning to become anywhere near the term "massive"
(in reference to... ), our current size can be considered generally good.

- Logo & graphical design -
While we have continuously added graphical designs onto the current website
among other improvements, we feel that our "graphical extension" needs to be
re-worked to present information even better for possible new enthusiasts as
well as to the established player. Thus, we sat down and pre-contracted an
able "media office" to work with us in the creation of a better layout
(website), official logos plus on other aspects which require higher some
professionalism in design; while still utilizing our "in-house" graphic
artists and coders. A stern policy of keeping the costs down to very
reasonable was also introduced in conjunction with the help of the "man
on the inside"-effect. If B.A.T. ry decides to pursue this path, you will
be hearing (and seeing!) more about it.

- Copyrights -
As introduced in the Wizards' Convention this fall, we are also pursuing
to have a better set of copyright rules (help copyrights, for the old one).
The research for an agreement was done and feedback acquired from the
wizards; then it was sent for outside review (to B.A.T. ry lawyers) and
re-worked into perfection. Hopefully we can introduce it as good and
understandable coding grounds for all of us wizards, me included. In the end,
it's a good thing for the game, just clearer & more official.

(continued)