Well, I started mudding from the same high school and labs as Sparks!
How did I find out about mudding ?
... well ... I was in my last year as a high school student, during the spring vacation, at the National Maths Competition, when I heard from a younger guy who was also student in my high school and who was also very interested in Informatics that my classmate Badoiu ( International medals in Informatics) was rocking in this great game on the net called Mud.
Hmm, I said to myself, if that guy finds it interesting then it must be. So, after school started and everybody was so stressed out by the outcoming exams ( graduation exams + university exams ) and some teachers were letting us a bit loose... I started skipping some classes and going to the lab to mud. We had it all, lag, bad links, great players ( those were playing from a separate lab, with better keyboards and better connections), all sorts of players, always someone to party with or ask. And ofc those great sport games when the mud went down in the middle of the day.
The story can go on ... But I do feel the need to tell you two things: the mud was, obviously, Nanny! And Badoiu was also know on Nanny as ..... Michel.
Ah and I did kill rabbits in the graveyard tunnels for 2 weeks, while getting lost at the humpbacked bridge on the way to adv guild.
And I did get tricked into becoming pk so my first character is history. And man it was soooo hard to get to level 14 in those days.