[MUD-Dev] Admins as Mortals

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Travis S. Casey [mailto:efindel at io.com]
> Sent: Friday, November 19, 1999 11:10 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Admins as Mortals 
> 
> I've recommended before that a commercial mud ought to run at 
> least two
> servers -- one where the actual playing is done, and a "beta" 
> server where
> new areas are developed and playtested.  This way, builders 
> and such can
> be set up to only have special powers on the development server, where
> they can't directly affect the "real" game.  This also insulates the
> players from bugs in test code or the need to reboot to test 
> things (to
> some extent -- some bugs may still make it through the 
> testing process,
> but the worst ones should be caught there).

All the MMORPGs do this. In fact, the chain is even more involved than that,
since the architecture of the MMORPGs actually involves multiple servers. So
you develop on a small mini-environment of some sort, then move to the a
full testbed test server, then to the public servers.

However, an interesting facet of MMORPGs is that "builders" and "coders" are
a minority of the overall admin staff; the majority of the staff is usually
police of some sort, plus a subset that handles events and the like. In most
commercial systems (EQ, UO, the Simutronics games) a lot of those are
volunteers, not salaried employees.

-Raph



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev