Wizards of the Coast acquires ArmageddonMUD

[Sanvean]

For Immediate Release — 31 March 2004

RENTON, WASH., 31 March -- After weeks of negotiation, Wizards of the Coast, Inc. has purchased the rights to ArmageddonMUD. ArmageddonMUD is an online, text-based role-playing game set in the company's Dark Sun campaign. The purchase entails two website domains and licenses to the game's C-based code.

"We're very excited about this new market for our Dark Sun setting," said company spokesman Michael Landers. "The playerbase of these online communities are very loyal. It's really encouraging."

Among the changes to take place is a complete overhaul of the administration, with all of prior administrators of the game, the nearly seventy, being downsized. Michael Landers stated that two of the prior administration, known as "Nessalin" and "Sanvean", will remain with the subsidiary, staying for a short while as the game begins a slow conversion toward a full Dark Sun campaign. Four consultants have already signed on to begin the transition of the game.

Among the reported changes to take place in the remodeled Armageddon:

Psionics will be greatly expanded so that most of the skills will be available to all classes as well as added into the capabilities of many NPC monsters.

Mantis and halfling races will be opened up and integrated into the game world so that they're a viable race that can interact (and even party) with the other humanoid races.

Metal, while still rare, will become more common and be available as a reward to those that complete successful dungeon crawls.

Exciting new 3rd Edition Prestige classes like Gladiator, Mind Flayer, Shadow Dancer, and Defiler Hunter.

A new D20-based combat system that will be familiar to WotC fans everywhere.

Play will be available for a low 14.95 per month fee. Established players will be offered a 10% discount.

About Wizards of the Coast
Beyond the shores of imagination lies the Emerald City of Seattle, a perfect training ground for wizards. Here, you'll believe in the impossible when you see giant birds of steel learning to fly and mermaids of java on every corner. Here, the sun shines only for those who have cultivated the art of patience.

Just outside of Seattle is a little town called Renton, where the "Wizards of the Coast" work and practice and play. Each wizard has a magical story to tell, for the miles of yellow brick roads that brought them to the Emerald City are crooked and rocky ones. But the wizards' favorite story of all is the one about the great wizard Peter and his friends, who never gave up on their dream to make magic, and who taught the rest of us to believe.

One night in the small college town of Walla Walla, Washington, four friends gathered, as they often did, to talk and play games. On this particular night, however, a dream was planted in their hearts when one of the friends suggested that they make games of their very own. Not just any games, but the finest games around. They even came up with a name for their game company, so sure that their dream would someday come true. They would call themselves Wizards of the Coast.

Several years later, a circle of eager wizards had gathered under the name Wizards of the Coast. The wizard Peter had met a game-maker and mathematician wizard named Richard and magic happened. The wizards created a game that would come to be loved by thousands of people and it would also make the wizards' dreams come true.

Dragons and samurai aligned with the wizards in 1997 to create the largest adventure game company in the world. In fact, the wizards became so popular that Mr. Potato Head and his friends at Hasbro, Inc. asked the wizards to join their family. Currently, the wizards develop and publish trading card games, tabletop roleplaying games, novels, magazines, family card and board games, and electronic media products. The wizards have many friends, including relationships with Warner Bros., Lucasfilm, and Marvel Comics.

Magic is still made every day at Wizards of the Coast, for if we have learned anything at all, it is this: when people with dreams and diligence get together, anything is possible.