[MUD-Dev] Re: After a long absense, a semi-return (and TFD)

[Travis Casey]

On 26 September 1998, Nathan F Yospe wrote:

> We've discussed many times some of my favorite topics. AI, NLP, crafting
> room descriptions, and simulation persistance... but there is one topic,
> which I have never actually seen discussed here, that concerns me. Where
> do you put the tabs for admin control? Dikus have imm commands (wizhelp,
> etc), LPs have coder privlidges, and M*s have... well, on some of them I
> see coder bits everywhere, but... in all cases, there is a handle for an
> admin to do things beyond the ken of an ordinary player - *as a player*.

> Here I differ a little in philosophy. All players... all characters... a
> character controlled by an admin, or one controlled by a newbie... start
> out the same, and none has any way - as a character - to affect the game
> world, beyond actions as a *normal* character. Admins affect things as a
> force of nature, from an administrative account, by such hooks as linked
> world addition, transfer, creation, and deletion, control of NPCs, large
> scale alteration of environments by means of property editors... all as,
> and I consider this important, a purely administrative function. There's
> nothing personified about the interface, aside from NPC control, and the
> admin has no face or name.

I agree.  When I was working on PsyberAge, I was setting things up so
that people logged into a shell, and that shell was then attached to a
character.  Admin powers belonged not to characters, but to shells.
Thus, while one could be logged in as a character and do admin
functions, it wasn't your character that was doing the functions.
Indeed, you could switch to controlling an NPC and still have your
admin functions, or even give up controlling any character at all and
still have your shell with its admin functions.

I realize that this isn't quite what you're talking about, but it's on
the way there.  I don't see a large difference... after all, even if
admin controls are completely separated from character controls (e.g.,
you can't simply type a command while logged into a character to
access an admin function), there's nothing that will stop an admin
from having his/her mud client and the admin interface up at the same
time.

Now, should the admins be present in the game as characters?  To
reference the post that I just made on room descriptions, I'd say that
this is a part of the group contract.  For some muds, the answer will
be yes; for others, it may be no.  Some arguments, pro and con:

In favor of having admins on as characters:
 - Helps players realize that there's a real person who's the admin.
 - Can make communication with players easier -- there's no need to
   create a separate way to communicate with the admin.
 - Can encourage the admins to chat with the players, which leads to
   players feeling that they can come to the admin with problems, and
   can lead into discussions about the game where the admin might
   learn of problems.
 - Can help the players to know when an admin is present -- people may
   be more likely to give complaints or suggestions if they think
   they're likely to be looked at now instead of later.  Also, seeing
   an admin logged in may remind the player that he/she wanted to talk
   to an admin about something.
 - "Being there" can help with troubleshooting -- a player may not be
   able to describe where he/she is in a message, but if the player is
   there, most systems provide a way to go to him/her or find out
   where he/she is.

Against having admins on as characters:
 - May hinder suspension of disbelief -- if there's an admin on, and
   I can overhear people talking to him/her about the game, this
   reinforces that it is just a game.
 - Admins may be more likely to become emotionally involved with
   players if they are present as characters, which can lead to
   favoritism and other problems.  (Note that "emotionally involved"
   includes emotions against the player -- if you hate someone, you
   are emotionally involved with them.)
 - Can help the players know when an admin isn't present -- people are
   more likely to try to abuse the system when they believe there
   aren't any admins on.

My own feeling is that *someone* should be available online to the
players at least some of the time.  Failing that, there needs to be a
way to send a message to an admin while you're logged into the game.
Preferably, a quick and easy method that can be used from anywhere in
the game.

However, there's no reason why many people on most muds need to have
admin-type powers.  For example, on many LPs, all creators have
certain admin-type powers.  Traditionally, this is to help creators
test their areas.  As I suggested a few years ago in
rec.games.mud.admin, though, I think a better idea might be to run two
parallel muds -- the open mud and a testbed mud.  Creators could have
special powers on the testbed mud, but not on the open mud.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
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