Curious Areas Workshop

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The Curious Areas Workshop was a collaborative zone building group that was active between September of 1993 and September of 1996, creating nearly 20 DikuMUD zones for the public domain.

Among the zones written by CAW that appear in JediMUD are The Abandoned Cathedral, the Orc Enclave, Froboz' Fun Factory of Doom, The Three of Swords and Werith's Wayhouse.

You can download individual .zon files by clicking on the links in the list below.

Featured CAW Builders[]

Here are the featured CAW builders, according to the CAW site (http://post.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Caw/):

Amanda Eterniale[]

Amanda Eterniale was the most prolific builder for CAW. She was the main designer of the general theme that links the older areas produced by CAW. Along with Builder_5, she made up half of one of the most creative area writing teams during her tenure.

Builder_5[]

Builder_5 was one of the original founders of CAW. He served as the principal zone editor for CAW, but was also involved in producing several areas during his run with the team.

Matrix[]

Matrix was a relative newbie to the world of mudding compared to the rest of the CAW, but he established himself as one of the lead storytellers and masters of format. He was better known as Furry on VieMud.

Mercutio[]

Mercutio was not an official member of C.A.W., but donated Ancalador to C.A.W. shortly before he lost his net connection. It is rumoured that he has regained his connection and is building once again.

Serene[]

Serene was one of the older builders of C.A.W., and has long since moved on to the real world.

The Wandering Bard[]

The Wandering Bard, contrary to popular belief, is not a reincarnation of Mercutio. In truth, not much is known about the Bard, but it is told that he is an excellent weaver of story, and can be found regularily on VieMud entertaining the patrons of Otto's Inn.

The Demise of CAW[]

In late 1996, citing licensing scofflaws, and a general disrespect of their intellectual property, Alex Fletcher, founder of CAW shut the project down, ending several years of successful public domain DIKU-based zone publishing. Some of CAWs zones still exist as a part of JediMUD today.

CAW Website Posting[]

Important News: September 7/1996

C.A.W. is shutting its doors forever. There is one final area in production to be released whenever free time allows work on it, and then that's it. This area isn't even being written by me; the last seven areas I wrote I refused to release public domain for exactly the reasons below.

It was nice sometimes. I hope some of you enjoyed our areas and found them useful. I hope some neophyte builders out there will take the text below to heart and not bother releasing materials to the public domain.

It just isn't worth the trouble.

The Reasons[]

Four years ago I had an idea. I was a veteran mudder, a veteran imp, a veteran builder. The socializing available on muds had helped me through some very difficult times in my life and I wanted to give something back to the community.

That's why I formed C.A.W. -- the Curious Areas Workshop. It was a way for some friends and I to write a bunch of mud areas and released them public domain. Free areas written by semi-anonymous donors flying under the C.A.W. flag. No egos were involved, no immortal power-mongering; it was a Good Thing (tm). As for the quality of the areas, they were at least average.

Did I say Free Areas? They weren't exactly free. The licensing included with the areas required simply that C.A.W. be given credit for the areas wherever they appear, in whatever standard format is given by the archive or mud that uses them. Nearly all muds have some sort of credits or areas command that shows information about who built what area. Having C.A.W. added to that list should almost have gone without saying, right?

Ah, but you haven't seen the horrors we have for the last four years. Lots of muds not bothering to credit C.A.W. with their area builders. A few new ones every month. I can deal with these, these aren't so bad. Most people say oops when you send a polite email, most mud admins aren't assholes.

The ones that made me quit releasing areas public domain were the ones who took off our name and put their own on there. Fuck copyright, fuck common sense, fuck general niceness -- just take credit for my and other people's work. A few of these every year have worn down our feelings of largesse to a bare nub. Frankly, none of us want to contribute anymore. Frankly, I wish I had never released areas public domain in the first place.

This isn't a new feeling on our part. We've talked to many other builders who released areas public-domain at one point or another who echo the same feelings. Although most mudadmins aren't total assholes, the ones who are really take the cake. And then there are still other people, like Jason Huang and his mud pages, who go completely beyond anything we've seen before with their audacity in stealing our work.

The original article from this morning that was posted on [news:rec.games.mud.diku rgmd] this morning can also be seen if you are interested.

The Curious Areas Workshop[]

The Curious Areas Workshop was created for the creation and distribution of DikuMud areas to the public. Permission is given to change, etc these areas for individual DikuMuds and clones.

Why?

The individuals involved in the initial creation of C.A.W. were tired of seeing their work disappear on muds that come and go as quickly as a summer rain. C.A.W. gives them, and others, the chance to distribute their efforts to the general community -- a chance to give back to the mudding community in a small way.

Would you like to see us personally on your mud? You won't. We don't want free wizzes/favours for our work here. In fact, we will state categorically that if anyone comes on your mud claiming to be associated with us, they aren't.

There is one exception, one only. Caw and Furry exist as entities on VieMud, our pre-release testing grounds. If you need to get in contact with us for any reason, you can reach us onVieMud or directly at fletchra@qsilver.queensu.ca

We welcome criticism, ideas, challenges, bug/typo reports, and advice. If you use one of our areas in your mud, and want to be put on our mailing list for updates, announcements, and errata,drop us a line!

Note: If you have a link to this page from another page, or know of distribution sites for any of the material found here, please let me know. If you find the information useful at all, or use any of the material, again, please drop me a line.