[DGD] Current state of MUD-dom

[Jas]

David Jackson wrote:

> Yes, but the model of "make wizard, you get to build" is still a very 
> valid one.  Devote enough of yourself to the MUD, and then you have 
> earned the right to add to the MUD.



For starters, I'm not going to debate (much, grin) what "rights" a 
player has or doesn't have within a game they didn't write, on a machine 
they don't own, which is connected to the Internet via a circuit they 
don't pay for, and using metered bandwidth they don't get charged for.  
Previous conferences on player rights have covered that subject.

BACK ON TOPIC, I think that a player who has obviously devoted large 
blocks of time to the game has only proven that they are competent as a 
PLAYER.

Sure, I think it's worthwhile to reward them somehow, but I'm just 
saying that someone who PLAYS the game for great lengths doesn't 
*necessarily* have a management, coding, and/or creative background.  
They MAY have varrying levels of experience in those areas, but it's 
foolish for us to ASSUME they do merely because they reached level 20.  
I mean, even a 'bot can be programmed to macro-play online games:  case 
in point, the Macroquest programs for unattended Everquest play.

I liked Mobydick's idea about making players who reach a certain status 
lords of a "castle" (or cave or forest and so on) and giving them 
extended play options.  I'm more in favor of giving them additional room 
for character growth, and *maybe* let them become something else if/when 
you can see they have other abilities.

The way I see it, it's kind of like working in the computing industry.  
There are people who have stellar skills with the technology, but they 
may (and often do, from my encounters with other technicians) lack 
either "people skills" or project management background.  Just because a 
technician has worked for the organization for a large chunk of time, 
that doesn't necessarily mean s/he is management material.  *shrug*


> I think that it's just that I don't like the term "artsy fartsies". :)



I didn't figure the audience would like the label "long-haired, 
draft-dodging, pot-smoking, warm-fuzzy, touchy-feely, group-therapy, 
peace-mongering, free-love, granola-eating, hemp-tattooed, 
crystal-worshipping, incense-burning, hippy tree hugger" as much.

Or, for any of us who have spent time in our Uncle Sam's service, the 
term "civilians" pretty-much covers it.

JUST KIDDING!  ;)


> I believe that a coder can be a content developer as well.  But 
> perhaps content developers shouldn't be forced to be coders.



I agree; the skills and abilities CAN exist within the same individual.  
However, most people have strengths AND corresponding weaknesses.  It's 
important for each individual to be aware of their OWN strengths and 
weaknesses, but it's also important for the game management team to know 
how to BEST utilize all of the resources at their disposal.... including 
HUMAN resources.


> This type of team works well if you are running a MUD as a business, 
> or your team are all people like you.  However, it has been my 
> experience that while everyone has their strengths, and areas that 
> they might excel, they shouldn't be pigeonholed into roles that would 
> limit their output in other areas.



I'm not talking about pigeonholing people as much as putting the people 
with the greatest ability in a given area IN CHARGE OF (i.e., ultimately 
responsible for the work of) that area.  Granted, they still CAN do 
other tasks; it's just that their primary focus is just on what they are 
strongest in.  Their secondary focus would/could cover "other duties as 
assigned."

For example, in my "day job," I'm a network administrator for a largish 
government organization.  That doesn't mean that I'm not ALLOWED to do 
programming tasks, if a situation arises where I can write a program or 
script to automate some task.  But, we also have analyst/programmers on 
staff with primary focus on writing and maintaining software for us.  On 
the flip side, there's nothing in our organizational model to prohibit 
the analyst/programmers from performing some network administration 
tasks in my absence, or from ASSISTING me with other tasks as needed 
(I've found they make great "tape monkeys" for my remote site backup 
systems, for example).

THAT SAID, at the end of the day, when we both have to answer to the 
chain of command, the network administrator (yours truly) is responsible 
for whatever transpired with the networks (good or bad), and the 
analyst/programmers are likewise responsible for the current state of 
our in-house software.


>> For games I run, knowing my own strengths and weaknesses, it's 
>> important for me to have at least one or two hot-shot coders to help 
>> me in areas I'm weak in and lots and lots of artistic/creative staff 
>> to add powerful content to the cool technologies the gearheads put 
>> together.  When it comes to whip cracking and skull thumping, they 
>> leave that to me, as handling the day-to-day stuff is right up my alley.
>
>
> I think that this is a fundamental difference in the way that you and 
> I might think.  I personally believe that putting labels on people can 
> be a bad thing.  It's better to say, "we're all 
> wizards/devs/management", rather than create a tiered hierarchy which 
> puts people in their place (and which they will rarely try to step out 
> of, for fear of "whip cracking and skull thumping").



I'm not looking to limit or pigeonhole people as much as put the BEST 
people for a given task IN CHARGE OF that task.  That doesn't always 
mean that people with LESSER skill in a given area can't HELP with the 
process somehow, but it does mean that you put your BEST hitter in the 
clean-up position in your batting order, to use a sports analogy.

And for the record, I didn't create the bench-warmer position, even 
though I've occassionally had to assign someone to it!


> Unless, of course, it's a job.  And while I respect and admire those 
> who have managed to have profitable commercial MUDs, I am almost 
> certainly never going to approach my own MUD development efforts as 
> anything other than a labor of love.



I'll agree that MUD development is a labor of love, but I also feel that 
the day-to-day management of a MUD can go alot smoother if you approach 
it with a certain amount of professionalism and dedication to detail.  
That doesn't mean it has to be "work."  There's just nothing wrong with 
using your skills and abilities from your "day job" while poking around 
on your MUD. *shrug*


> Again, with the labels.  Maybe in your world, geeks are idiot-savants 
> who portray one specific skill to a high degree, but are completely 
> lacking in every other area.  In my world, geeks are incredibly 
> intelligent, creative individuals who are passionate about the things 
> that they do.  In short, being a geek can be a good thing.



In my world, people have strengths AND weaknesses.  No single human 
being in my world (or yours for that matter) is all of one and none of 
the other.  It's foolish for ANYONE to not realize they have weak areas, 
and even more foolish for game administrators to ignore those weaknesses 
while assigning project work.  Unless you really WANT "unbalanced" 
lightsabers and laserblasters from one wizard's space-themed newbie area 
used by players to lay waste to end-game golems and dragons in another 
wizard's fantasy-themed area designed for higher-end players, in your 
presumably-coherent virtual world.


>> I think this should be done at the game library (mudlib) level, maybe 
>> as an optional include libary or set of daemons or command objects.  
>> That way, games that opt to not give coding privileges to any of the 
>> players don't have to decontruct anything to start with.
>
>
> You'd be shooting yourself in the foot.  You might as well use Diku or 
> Circle.



On a slight tangent, I'd wager that the DIKU family of games regularly 
has more concurrent players/given hour of any given day than the LP 
family of games.  Why is that, you might ask?  It's probably because the 
code library behind the main game remains fairly stable during each 
instance of the game executable running, from a player's perspective.  
Very-rarely will players on a DIKU (or Circle or ROM or SMAUG and so on) 
see:  Katmandu shouts, "Oh crap, I just pooched the master object!  The 
mud's coming down NOW!  Not sure when it'll be back up!  Sorry!"

Once again, BACK ON TOPIC, there are several valid arguments for either 
GIVING or RESTRICTING (as opposed to merely "not giving") in-game coding 
privileges, depending entirely upon what your long-term goals for the 
game are.  That's another conversation, though, and one likely to be 
riddled with personal opinions that are difficult to challenge or debunk 
the validity thereof.


> I admit that it's not a truly pleasant picture to consider 10-15 
> variants of a lib, with very few actual changes, running around, but 
> any MUD admin worth his salt will take the time to customize and 
> personalize his own.



I conducted an experiment (ok, I was drinking with some friends one 
night and they dared me; it just kind of grew from there beyond that one 
night) in the early 1990's where I wanted to see how many simultaneous 
LPMUD's I could get insta-wizzed on.

I skimmed through all the "new mud" posts in r.g.m.*, looking for games 
that were advertising a "unique" or "heavily-customized" LP code base.  
I'd login to games, shout out wanting to talk to the "God," and be 
frobbed up to at least level 21 (often higher, heh) in no time.  I 
typically spent less than half an hour TOTAL logged into the game after 
being promoted.... just long enough to clone the tracer, visit the 
humpbacked bridge, zap the orcs at the far west end of the trail, gate 
back to town, dest and reset Harry a few times, give a few coins to 
Trixie (what a tramp!), skim the few messages on the board in 
/room/adv_guild and adv_inner, play a round of Go in the pub, and force 
Leo the Archwizard into compromising situations with supposedly-female 
mortal players.

Oh, a few of the MUDs had some cool ideas and maybe had re-done a couple 
of the stock rooms, so I stuck around on those (and contributed on 
varrying levels, depending on my moods).  But, for the most part, all of 
the "new" games were just cookie-cutters.

And about all of those insta-wiz characters on any of those MUDs that 
are still operating, if any of those game administrators are reading 
this, sorry about that.  If I haven't logged into your game in, oh, 
let's say around 10 years, please feel free to remove my .o file and the 
/players/katmandu directory.  On some of those games, I left a rather 
interesting "toy" object in my home directory.  It's called exploit.c, 
and it probably still works unless you've re-done your game security 
substantially.


> Cheers...
> David Jackson
> aka Anderon/Arkangel/etc. etc.



By the way, I'm not a pessimist; I'm an optimist with experience.

Cheers,
Jason D. Bourgoin
aka Katmandu

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