The first time I pointed my telnet client to mud.arctic.org, I was in fifth grade. I turned 30 last month... hadn't thought of the game in years (a decade?) and hadn't played seriously since high school.
Last night, on a whim, I randomly decided to see if anything was going down on port 2700. I was thrilled to be greeted with that same familiar connection screen, and even more thrilled to realize that I still (very roughly) know my way around Palanthas. I guess MUDding's like riding a bike -- you get rusty, but you never forget.
The simple act of pummeling lowly rats and maggots in the graveyard brought back a flood of fond memories. I can't really tell you how thrilled I am that Arctic's still around. It looks like the numbers have dwindled (remember back when we had nearly 200 users online at once on a regular basis?!) but I'm happy to see that there are still a bunch of faithful players out there.
This isn't an "unretirement" post - time's hard to come by these days - but I enjoyed my brief visit last night and I'm looking forward to coming back on a more regular basis.
Lastly, HUGE kudos to the admins and players who've kept this game up and alive over these years. It really is a work of art. You all rock.
Andrew
