[MUD-Dev] Re: A little help

[Robert Woods]

Dave wrote:
> Hello, i have just joined MUD mailing list, it is wonderfull to know how
many people > are out there that enjoy muds. I have been having a promblem
with my staff, its > probaly i am no that picky on picking my staff but
there are not alot of people wanting > to join my staff. Right now i have
about 9 immortals, 4 regular immortals. I mean > those 5 other immortals
come on chat then leave, and they are suppose to build, so i > do not know
what to do, i was thinking firing them, i have made them reapple once > but
they all do build when have to. I could start making each builder do so
much each > week, But i am not sure. Send me some ideas on how to make a
policy and change > staff to be good, 

A method that I have seen that encourages this well is having different
ranks of immortals, based on achievement.

Here's a model that I have seen is:

Initiate - a "newbie creator" who is here primarily to learn how to
build/code.  Once they get an area done, they can advance to...

Creator - The primary part of the work force.  They are expected to know
how to perform building and to contribute.  Once they have shown that they
are significant contributors and know what they're doing, they can be
promoted to...

Senior Creator - These people, in addition to writing standard areas, may
also be responsible for building other aspects of the game...quests,
guilds, etc.

Elder - These people are put in charge of a domain, generally one of their
own devising.  They should generally create the first area in the domain
themselves, often as a final project as senior creator.  Then, they can
recruit some of the lesser immortals to aid them in their domain.  Elders
should generally have a good command of the protocols and such that deal
with building.

Ancient - These are people who you trust with administration tasks, but are
not necessarily ready for full Arch status.  They generally, in addition to
domain responsibilities, may help out in one of the generalized areas
(guilds, law, balance, approval, qc, world, documentation, role-playing,
etc.) as their abilities direct.

Arch - Generally, the highest rank of immortals.  There should be a
universally limited number of arch positions...otherwise, people end up
tripping over each other (if you want to see a good example of that, go
check out mud.stanford.edu 2010 - Revenge of the End of the Line). 
Generally, I tend to prefer having one Arch per Sphere of Influence
(guilds, law, balance, approval, qc, world, documentation, role-playing,
etc.).  Of course, the owner of the MUD and the primary coder(s) should be
arches.

I come from an LPMud background (MudOS driver, Nightmare/Foundation
mudlibs) and have found that this system tends to help.  People get a sense
of achievement in being able to achieve a new level, gain more power,
etc...plus, they tend to take some of the "slave-driving" work from you
when you assign an Elder+ a new Initiate.