DaWiz

DaWiz, Implementor, Sapient.

What follows is the help file of DaWiz from AVATAR MUD, written by him:

DaWiz, Implementor, Sapient.

"In June of 1994 I was stuck at home, because of work issues, while the

wife was in Hawaii at a family reunion, I started exploring the internet.

One night I found a place called Farside - stopped to see what it was all

about and never left. Became an Imm after someone took "hack and

slash" to heart and hacked Farside then slashed most of the pfiles away

(with a force all delete)."

See him for: Critical, mud-wide issues only.

Don't 'tell' him unless he talks first.

He can be reached at dawiz@outland.org.

Responsible for: Primary responsibility is the integrity of the code.

Delights in: Making Snikt go glassy eyed by talking about obscure

programming techniques.

While not as quick to wreak havoc on miscreant players as Snikt,

he does have a perverse sense of humor when dealing with them - usually

involving multiple trips to death dealing situations. Also has been

known to full-ban entire countries.

See also: WIZLIST.

The Passing of a Great Man

When I was a junior immortal, DaWiz was the boggie man. He was the keeper of the code of Avatar, rarely seen on channels, and I was terrified of him. He was the one that when a new immortal made host, gave the speech about not breaking things and when you inevitably did something stupid and the mud crashed, you felt about 2 inches tall. He really wasn’t mean. But we so didn’t want to disappoint him.

Later, one day, we bonded over a gemstone - specifically over reddish man-made corundum, or a man-made ruby. He had found this place that made them so that they were perfect but they were technically still rubies or sapphires (any color of corundum other than pinkish red). He eventually had this really awesome piece made for his wife and I saw it (in pictures at least) before she did. It was beautiful.

We later met at an Ubercon, one of the latter ones, where Kariya drug me over to introduce the peace loving hippy (me) to the gun toting redneck (DaWiz) (those were pretty close to Kariya’s words, if I am not mistaken.) I was by this time long past being afraid of him and proud to call him friend.

He worked diligently and hard to keep avatar’s code clean. He designed and created the first mobprog. And he created the hero quest otherwise known as The Ultimate Dragon.

On February 9, 2014, slightly after midnight local time, Glen Vaughn, who we all knew as DaWiz, left this world. He passed away from lung cancer, in his own words, brought upon by over 50 years of smoking. He leaves behind his family, and his first grandchild born last year. And he leaves behind his Avatar family, who over more than 18 years learned to love and respect him.

Requiescat in pace my friend. The Summerland is better place with you there. And I’m sure you will keep the code clean and the servers running smoothly.

For the Immortal Team - Past and Present
-- Cerdwyn,
Feb 9th, 2014