Why did I name it PipeMUSH? Well, after all the previous attempts, I figured it was a Pipe Dream. I accepted help from any quarter. It didn't matter who people were, or how they'd ever treated me. I went on a great crusade across the expanse of the internet, learning, reading, finding free code, and studying. The idea of PipeMUSH would windup taking the form of 2 MUSHes, mine and Psi's.

I'm not sure how Psi came up with Capitol City MUSH, but it sounded cool. A darker world, with hunted mutants and suspicious government stuff. My side would be the lighter stuff. We came up with the idea for Olympus Island in a 4-hour traffic jam on the NJ Turnpike. During this, Drew and I came up with ways to overcome problems I'd seen on many places. We'd use the basis of my 6-year Tabletop campaign world, since that would be helpful for an original setting. We decided to run the Golden Age Scene. The Battle for Olympus Island. The scene was fun and proved you really don't need a giant grid and lots of code. But, now the work would begin.

We spared nothing. I began with paper notebooks, organized from start to finish. Drew designed the grid on Autocad, giving us maps and distances and even to this day, it feels real. Robert began coding the dice. I tried to get Temporus's code (made on TinyMUSH 3.0) to work on PennMUSH 1.7.5. It was no match. Stormfront from ChampionsMUSH joined in with some code help, as well, but couldn't spare huge amounts of time. I struggled through until April. I even coded Gord to keep me company. I was mostly all alone, except for the guy who had been Algernon on SandyMOO (and Dollybird on AstroCity and Happenstance on ChampionsMUSH). He couldn't help me code, but he would cheer me on. A slight falling out happened, and he stopped MUSHing. I don't seem to stop, though.

In May, just as I was beginning to think I'd have to give up, a miraculous thing happened. Hydra (who'd also been on AstroCity) got annoyed at something on ChampionsMUSH and logged onto PipeMUSH, offering to code something. It was decided he'd do the sheets. With him helping, I decided to keep going onwards. During this time, I was learning code, and learning administration lessons from Shadowrun Denver and Treyvan.

ChampionsMUSH had been suffering a while. The staff was burnt to a crisp. Steven finally had it in July of 2002, and posted his non-farewell. His quote above made me think about discipline. I would want players who had been like me, even if I hadn't been perfect. I came up with FQ. Fun Quotient. If a player adds more fun than they subtract from the MUSH, all is well. Meanwhile, Ocean of ChampionsMUSH came over to watch the PipeMUSH grow and to give his ideas. The people helping out would flux and change, but a few core people stayed the whole time: Logos, Jim, Chimera, and Drew (who would become Jeckle).

One of the biggest breakthroughs came when Wasp from ChampionsMUSH did what people said couldn't be done. +QUEUES. The organizational backbone of the MUSH. From the summer of 2002 to December 2002, more people helped, even if sporadically. The person who was Happenstance returned and began helping Psi out on Capitol City, but helped OIM as well.

Everyone chipped in their 2 cents, and some gave more. The NEWS CREDITS of Olympus Island MUSH is both huge, yet too small to really reflect the community effort that took place. I know I did most of the work, but without everyone handing me tools and support, I don't think I could have done it. Through it, I was told to hurry up, because CM was dead. I didn't want to hurry up. Alpha test would only come when I was 100% sure it was time.