Scott Jennings (game designer)

Scott Jennings, aka Lum the Mad, was a well-known MMORPG commentator whose site, The Rantings of Lum The Mad, existed from 1998 to 2001. Lum's website played host to a long series of rants about the MMORPG community of the time. Currently, he is working for Mythic Entertainment, makers of Dark Age of Camelot. He also has a blog, Broken Toys, which is updated infrequently (and sometimes about games, too).

The handle "Lum the Mad" came from the Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons and Dragons game and was the name of Scott's Ultima Online character.

A Brief History

Not a whole lot of Lum's writings exist anymore, especially things before he gained his fame writing about MMORPGs. Lum has copies of his old stuff, but currently is unavailable for viewing until he can find a more reliable way to format and organize them on his blog.

Before The Fame

Lum's foray into the internet began with a web site about Daggerfall, where he dispensed helpful tips and tricks. His focus eventually shifted to a game called Ultima Online(UO). This is where a lot of his initial rantings began.

His writing style was brash, but creative. They garnered the attention of many fans and critics of the game. They would eventually grab the attention of the UO developers, subsequently further increasing his popularity.

Lum's thrusting into high bandwidth bills wasen't without its follies. His attempt to aquisition lumthemad.com was thwarted by a devious internet personality known as Dr. Twister (Chris Hood). The good doctor managed to grab the site before Lum, and would only let him have it for a substantial amount of money. Instead, Lum settled for a .net extention.

The Golden Days

As more MMORPGs came to the scene, so did Lum's rants focus on them. His dabbling in Everquest presented a disturbing picture of where MMORPGs were going, a prediction which has largely come to pass. He had some good word for Asheron's Call, but they too had their own foibles. His later works became even more elaborate, such as a mock-up event for Shadowbane done entirely with Warcraft 2 sprites. Instead of the usual review article for World War II Online, he posted a long, profane and hilarious chatlog of him testing the game offline, in which he uttered the famous words, "I WILL TAXI TO VICTORY!"

He garnered many well-known MMORPG staff and developers to have discussions on his site, such as Richard Garriott, Raph Koster, and Mark Jacobs. Discussions often centered around the very virtual worlds they built, with lots of interesting comments from the community.

He wasen't always there to write everyday, however. He gathered together a team of writers to fill-in with whatever he couldn't cover. The LumCorp staff, as they were called, consisted of quite a few people over time. Arcadian Del Sol, Delusion, Hedron, Bob "gBob" Roland (who worked for NetDevil), Lietgardis (who now works for Wolfpack Studios), Myschyf, Riprend, Savant (who until recently worked for Themis Group), and Lum's Other Half (his wife).

Lum Sells Out For A Bagel

Keeping up the immense bandwidth bills was tedious. Being at the fall of the dot com bubble, finding a host with cheap prices and reliable service was tough. It also didn't help that banner ad revenues were beginning to fail miserably, which eventually lead to the end of one of his favorite hosts and sponsor, the Crossroads gaming network.

He began asking for donations, of which the community provided him with a large amount. It's estimated over $2,000 was donated before the falling out. He kept the site going for quite some time on the money, even keeping a page updated as to how he spent it.

Unfortunately, as with much of the tech positions at the time, Lum lost his job. However, it wasen't long after being laid-off that he was approached by Mythic Entertainment for a job opening. He was hired to work on the back-end parts of Dark Age of Camelot and developed the Camelot Herald.

The term "sold out for a bagel" was actually coined by Sanya "Tweety" Thomas, who also used to rant and was hired by Mythic as their Internet Relations Manager. On her own rant site, she made the comment "Also, Mythic's CEO bought me a bagel", to which has become a running gag since. Another important line Lum borrowed was the response to the conspiracy theorists, "please direct all complaints about me being a sell-out corporate whore to www.I Don't See You Paying For My Health Insurance.com".

Successor Site Self-Destructs

With Lum gone, it was up to the writers to keep the site going. The money which had been donated was given to the writers, and a new site sprang up as slownewsday.net.

The rabid events that took place at slownewsday.net would fill a list of its own. Primarily, hatred grew between some of the writers and Mythic. Intent on keeping its realistic image, Eldin (the head writer at the time) would constantly rip into Mythic's game, the company, and their CEO, very much nonsensically. However, at the same time, Eldin failed to change the back-end of the site, which was necessary to remove any implication Lum had anything to do with them. In what he admits was a very immature thing to do, Lum went into the site and shut it down himself. He rather quickly went back and restored it, realising he wasn't really helping the situation.

While Lum continued to not interfere afterwards, slownewsday.net eventually killed itself in a fiery blaze. Some details are very speculative, but you can get an idea of the SND.net fallout from Down In Flames, a great retelling/rant by a somewhat quiet and understated ranter, Musashi.

The Diaspora Of LTM and What Lum Does Now

After the slownewsday.net break-up, the community spread into several communities, some of which still exist and are quite active.

• Player2Player, originally headed by gBob, it became the immediate successor site after SND's implosion. After some changes in ownership and some scuffles, it lost a lot of favor with the community and pretty much sits in the water.
• Waterthread, named after a famous LTM board thread, it was the main successor for some time. Eventually, the head man lost interest and merged the forums to f13.net.
• F13, which wasn't well-received, kept a few of the migratory from waterthread and is fairly active with new readers.
• Corpnews, which began around the same time as lumthemad.net, got a large boost when the community that didn't like the watherthread/f13 merge went here instead. This site is fairly active.
• The Morlocks, also having been around since ltm.net, isn't too active but kept a few of the old community coming.

Lum himself has taken up his own blog, Broken Toys, which he infrequently updates about random stuff sometimes but not always relating to online gaming. The blog doesn't currently host his old rantings and won't hold them until he resolves some technical issues.

Lum continues to work at Mythic Entertainment as of this writing.

External Links

• Broken Toys - Lum's current blog
• An interview with Corpnews - ironically, Sanya Thomas was one of the interviewers.