...I finally located scans of the Age of Reptiles books online!

The first part of Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare is now uploaded to the website for all players of AoR to check out. I encourage you to read it and make copies of the pages for yourselves. I will upload more parts and eventually have the whole story available for everyone. The colors are vivid and the scans are pretty well done, I hope you all enjoy it.

Greetings to all of the new folk that have been trying the mud out! Gameplay in AoR tends to have peaks and valleys and I am hoping that the current trend might be a gradually increasing peak. With that in mind, I wanted to mention a couple things that might help to improve character survivability and general interaction.

Firstly, I can not stress how important it is for characters to use the HIDE skill, especially at lower levels. Before level 10, typically, survival is precarious, to say the least. Levelling is relatively quick in AoR but dying can occur just as quickly.

Along with hiding, be sure to check out the example prompt shown on the Guide page here at the website. This prompt is set up to display when a character is hidden as as well as sneaking, so it assists both survival in addition to ambushing. The prompt also has a weather key so one can know when it is raining. For me, personally, it is simply an RP tool. To see how hard it is raining, you will still need to use the Weather command.

Lastly, to improve interaction between players, and this is a major element in AoR, I recommend using the Track skill to locate other characters in-game. The range is relatively decent and no other game feature will help people locate eachother (unless you are speaking to eachother with IMs).

I am currently cleaning up the help file format, which,. for some reason, decided to be lost during some compiling and is unreadable in places. In addition to that, I will be building the zone east of th T-Rex Nest area, which has a new terrain type and some new dino breeds. I may be performing restores on occasion to help everyone out but don't rely on my eyes being constantly on you. Remember to use the THINK command for communicating to me, as I will most often be invisible.

Once again, welcome to the new faces and welcome back to any of the returning veterans!

I am currently working on a new mud project which is something of a "spin-off" of AoR, with some related and similar code elements and game mechanics that a player of AoR would recognize.

Taking place in the latter part of the Pleistocene Epoch, players will portray primitive men similar to Cro-Magnon man in the environs of North America. The setting will be influenced by such sources as The Clan of the Cave Bear (the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel) and Quest for Fire.

Elements of known prehistory and the Ice Age will exist and my goal is to create a realistic game world that incorporates enforced role-play and factual aboroginal life.

Essentially, the mud will be similar to AoR but with the addition of limited communication, possessions and an expansion of skill areas, including crafting. I am hoping that providing a more "human" quality to the project will enhance the longevity and enable me to include more traditional things that muds tend to have.

AoR will continue to run and may see some area expansion, still, for those that desire to experience the life of a dinosaur.

AoR has a new server address located at omen.genesismuds.com  port: 8080 . Shortly, the address will become aor.genesismuds.com  port: 8080 (it just takes a couple days to be set up permanently) and all mud sites will be updated when this happens.

The mud is up and running but all player files have been removed to create a clean slate. All new characters will be assigned to Red Claw pack until further notice. Hopefully, this will assist in generating more character interaction from the get-go.

As far as character interaction is concerned, the mating and egg laying systems should be working as intended. Aside from some help files cleaning-up, players should be able to live and inhabit Pangaea with little to no assistance from immortals. To better ensure one's survival, I (still) highly recommend reading the Newbie Guide which has its own page on the website. Guidelines and other survival tips can be found on the new Forums page, which can also be found on the website tabs.

Although the originally established rules will continue to be enforced and RP Points may be awarded to those participating in that aspect of the game, it is my goal to have immortals go unnoticed during the mud's expansion and development. Utilizing the THINK command is recommended to communicate for RPing 'thoughts,' making efforts to alert staff for RP events or assistance, etc.

Reliance on immortal assistance and ooc chit-chat via the THINK command will be discouraged. Essentially, it is my intention to create a better realm of immersion so, although an immortal may be spotted rarely, they will tend to be invisible.

New players should read the Newbie Guide and take their time while in the *very* small Orientation area in-game. I encourage all players to use the forums here for OOC discussion and immortal oriented communication..

The t-rex nest area is now complete and live in the game now. Let all players be warned! There are a number of adult tyrannosaurs, all from the graphic novel and named, and one is free to roam outside of the nesting area!

What this means to players is that this one t-rex could be encountered *anywhere* in Eden. Tyrannosaurs do make a lot of noise though, so one may give ample warning before entering a room. The best way to be safe, as always, is to use the hide skill, however.

All other tyrannosaurs are limited to wandering in their home area, so players can expect to encounter one or more should they dare to venture into it.

There is at least one incentive to doing such, just as a heads up.

The consent and mating system, along with a revamped layeggs skill code, have been reinstated into the game this week. Consent has been overhauled and has been turned into a mating only code command and all of the "xsocials" have been renamed to be easier to use and generally more intuitive.

Keep in mind that only characters of age 14 and greater can participate in the mating system and only females of age 14 and higher will be given the layeggs skill because of this.

A new skill, circle, is in play and available to characters at level 40 and I am presently looking at other new skill possibilities.

The Egg Mountain area is live, now, and, with it, access to the Eden Lake area as well. The Eden river can now be travelled from its source (a huge waterfall) to to its terminus at the river delta. Next on the list of areas are those that lie on the southern side of the Eden river.

As an extra "treat" feature, the wonderful Starmap snippet written by Nebseni of Clandestine MUD and ported to Smaug by Desden, has been added to the AoR codebase, too. Type help starmap to see more info and make sure you have ansi ON to enjoy this feature when the weather is right.

Mika has been promoted to builder status and will likely be working on the waterfall cavern area, while Jarron will be working on the western forest that is adjacent to the Duskfall home area. I will probably begin work on the T-Rex nesting area that is south of the Red Claw pyramid.

First off, I would like to thank Diga for the hard work and creativity that has been put into the AoR banners. They look totally awesome and I am still looking at avenues of application for them.

We have had a few new players join us and try the mud out. Some of their characters have met untimely demises but such is the nature of the game. The Tribal Warfare story is packed with the deaths of characters, deino and other alike, and the mud does mirror this reality.

Regarding this, I would like to stress the importance of following the rules in place about death (see, help death) and hope that those players who have lost a character can only learn from their mistakes or come to terms with the brutal life in the realm of Pangaea.

Please, try to create a new character with a different name so that any other players associated with the deceased one do not become confused. Try not to become discouraged!

As far as other players are concerned, I am still hoping to see some of our veterans return.

Voting has been regular and we are holding fast to our ranking with improvement being gradual. Ranking will definitely help the mud get more attention but a review of the game will garner even more. It has been brought to my attention that topmudsites.com is no longer supporting reviews, so a new site, mudpages.com, might serve in this capacity. Writing a review for the mud will also earn a player RP points as a "thank you," so consider submitting one!

I think this might be the fifth attempt at running AoR and I believe the mud's origins lie somewhere in the spring of 2004. Since the beginning, I have met some great people and seen the best RPing around. I have been lucky enough to garner the attention of Age of Reptiles fans as well as those brave enough to learn about the setting, with both willing to accept a somewhat daunting challenge to their RPing skills.

Contact has been remade with my good friend, Jarron, and I can only assume it to be of  the best fortune as I couldn't ask for a better partner.

I have consolidated the members of Duskfall into Red Claw, per forum suggestion from a couple players last go around, in the hopes that RP will be more easily found and, perhaps, the MUD can build up from that point more easily, too.

The forums (z9.invisionfree.com/Notes_from_Pangaea) are still open and usable and I encourage any players to use it as well as the blog here. I will be posting important notices, news and such here, myself.