[MUD-Dev] code base inquiry

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Richard Woolcock wrote:

> Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> > 
> 
> The majority of this discussion between you and myself has been snipped, 
> because it's starting to get repetitive.  I can see where you're coming
> from and don't disagree with it - but I don't think we'll ever share the
> same views as our motivations are completely different.
> 
> > it sometimes ticks off the players, who would prefer we spend more time 
> > doing exactly what they want. I'd get too bored running Achaea that way, 
> > however. I have to remain amused as well as the players. That, to me, is 
> > the great thing about running a small commercial world. As long as you 
> > can maintain a certain level of quality, you can make money and still have 
> > reasonable freedom to do what you want with it (of course, this assumes 
> > that some segment of the mudding population shares your idea of what is 
> > fun, but that is not unlikely I would say).
> 
> So basically you're a half-way-house between purely hobby and purely
> commercial?

Ponder. I'm not sure I'd put it that way, but that probably sums it up
pretty well, particularly if you categorize purely commercial as the
Simutronics/Sony/Microsoft/EA types. If we stopped charging money
tomorrow, I'd probably still keep Achaea going out of my own pocket
(overhead is not high aside from my salary).

> > Right, you have a job. You can't spend 50 hours a week and employ other
> > people to work 50 hours a week on your mud. Chances are, if you were
> > independently wealthy, you'd still not spend 50 hours a week working on
> > your mud. I don't know what you do, but if you were independently wealthy,
> > do you really think you'd work as hard, as regularly, and as steadily at
> > your job as you do now?
> 
> I'd probably put the same about of time into my hobbies - one of which
> is building my mud.

Yeah, into your hobbies. So would I. I'd spend all of my time doing that,
but I wouldn't be spending 50 hours a week on any one hobby. I certainly
wouldn't be coming back to my condo at lunch during ski vacations to check
and make sure I'm not needed for anything on Achaea, and I certainly
wouldn't be encouraging people to call me any time of the day if there is
a problem. It's a level of dedication issue really, and hobbies are only
worthwhile to people while they are having fun doing it. When it loses the
element of fun, hobbyists tend to quit, whereas commercial players don't,
out of necessity.

--matt




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