The reason _THIS_ MUD shutdown (Score 4, Informative)

Being one of the four people who founded Exile, I can tell you exactly why it shutdown.

The first and foremost reason is drive. Exile was founded by four people, all of whom loved MUDs. We all mudded for years, and then decided to create our own. Eight long years later, three of the four happily moved on to other pursuits leaving only myself.

I was happy to apply my broken knowledge of C and Perl to building the MUD (I'm a sysadmin by trade, if that gives you any clue as to my programming skill, or lack thereof). But then we lost our "free" hosting. Now I'm presented with a hard choice -- dish out money that I don't have for NEW hosting, and continue on, or quietly let the MUD pass and direct my players to other promising MUDs.

To be honest, if I had the spare cash at the moment to pay for hosting, I don't think I would. Running a MUD isn't easy. There's all the hassles for any medium sized coding project, but there's also creative worries, and game-play worries, and the worst of all PLAYER WORRIES.

All the issues above pale in comparison to having to deal with a player-base. To be blunt, players are a complete pain in the ass. They're always wanting more, and always unhappy with the current state of things, and very vocal about it. I can understand those types. But then there are the cheaters, and the misanthropes... Believe me when I tell you, even though I'm sad to see my MUD go, there are a million things I'll never miss. Maybe I'll even stop turning gray... maybe.

By the way, if any of my non-pain-in-the-ass players are reading this, THANKS for a FUN time, and a ton of great memories. I'll miss you people!

-- Hextall, founder of Exile from 6/1/1996 to 6/1/2003