(fwd) Varying Time Commitment Levels: what's an admin to do?

[J C Lawrence]

<<Jay/Cimri has been invited to the list, but I haven't checked yet to
see if he's a member yet>>

Comments please:

From: cimri <cimri1 at gte.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Varying Time Commitment Levels: what's an admin to do?
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 15:27:33 -0800

Hey all,

What do you do, or should you do, if anything, about the people who
can play 10-15 hours every day vs those who can spend maybe 1-2 hours
a day playing your MUD?

I've been thinking about this for some time, as I would bet many of
the thoughtful post-ers have in this group.  A recent posting by 
"Matt" <mcowley at netutah.net> reminded me of this.  He wanted to be able
to play sometimes in an environment where a full-time commitment was
not required to enjoy his mudding experience, though he had played
several places where it WAS required, and it took a lot out of him,
etc.

Anyway, I'm throwing the general questions out to the group, with my
own preliminary thoughts:

1. muds tend to reward activity of some kind with something (exp,   
levels, eq, knowledge, powers, skills, whatever)
2. generally speaking, the more time you spend, the more of these
   goodies you get
3. so, people who play more often, or longer get more goodies

Now this is, in and of itself, not necessarily a problem, but

4. what about the disaffection that results when one maladroit /
   misanthrope plays 15+ hours a day and attains to a certain
   power and influence which s/he uses maliciously to make other
   players feel unpleasant, or inadequate, or whatever?  

   Yes, this can happen anyway, but it could be exaggerated by
   the frequent-flyer mudder, especially if this is not a very
   capable player who makes up for inadequate skills by huge
   investments of time.

5. what about the excellent player who simply cannot put in more
   than a couple of hours one to three times a week?  in many
   muds this would mean they would never get involved in the 
   mainstream of activity and could be marginalized, mistreated,
   etc.  

   Yes, this can happen anyway, without time-related discrepancies,
   but again, the frequent-flyer mudder scenario can exaggerate
   the problem.

Okay, I hope that illustrates the situation, be it a real or
imagined problem.  I've recently read something which brought
to mind a very simple resolution:

Why not have a couple of different muds with different time limits
on them?  I mean, the 'hour a day' mud and the '20 hour a week' mud
and the 'all-out frequent-flyer get a life? mudding IS life!' mud.
Players could play in any they wished, but would be restricted to
total time spent in the first two muds.  Then if you don't like the
idea of bonehead the mudder somehow 'getting ahead' of you by
playing all day and night, then you go into the hour a day or
other limited mud.  

Well, that's that!  Comments?

Jay // Cimri

--
--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...