[MUD-Dev] Re: pet peeves

[diablo at best.com]

On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Darren Henderson wrote:

> On Fri, 12 Feb 1999 diablo at best.com wrote:
> 
> > shouting advertisements for Achaea. The solution would just be that he or
> > she wouldn't be a God anymore in Achaea (All my Gods either have a
> > financial interest in Achaea or are people I know personally anyhow, so
> > they are unlikely to do something they know I wouldn't like) If someone
> 
> Perhaps its just me and I don't know how you mean the term "financial
> interest" but this strikes me as a very bad idea. Machines and connections
> are cheap. Allowing anyone else to have such a claim on a game to me
> diminishes your control of it (ghods forbid that anyone accepts a monetary
> contribution from a player - thats even worse). It also creates a sense of
> perceived privilage even if it doesn't exist. 
> 
> I don't have a problem with the appointment of friends as long as they are
> people you can trust implicitly although such appointments can lead to
> problems as well it tends to be more of a risk if we are talking about
> more immature individuals (such muds fade fast anyhow).
> 
> Does anyone else have a feeling for such things? Who should you consider
> for your admin team, should you accept monetary contributions?

I think you have misunderstood. Achaea is owned by a company which has
investors, etc. It just so happens that three of the major investors had
the personality types I wanted in Gods. That's also the only reason any
friends were appointed as Gods too. They had to fit certain roles I wantd
filled (Goddess of Light, God of Justice, etc). It should be noted that
none of the investors became Gods because they were investors either. It
would be irresponsible of me to make people Gods unless I think they will
be good for the game as Gods. (Also, in Achaea, Gods are more of a role
position than an admin position. They don't really code, although they do
have unlimited OLC power, unlike mortals, who have to have basicaly every
single thing they want to create or edit approved and allocated ahead of
time by myself or the other God who codes).

> By the same token, I once had a person show up who just started chatting
> with me and with in a months time I had made her an admin. She however was
> not looking for the position. Her demonstraited knowledge and willingness
> to simply offer up solutions was wonderful. She was also a very fast
> coder. Simply ignoring her out of hand would have been a significant loss.

I don't ignore experienced players who want to talk to me about things
like that. I owe it to them to listen I feel like. I don't owe a thing to
a newbie though.

--matt