[MUD-Dev] Community Relations

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Eli Stevens (Grey) wrote:

> I know that I would want a player to at least make a token acknowledgement
> of the favor I was doing them - offering them a place to have fun.  While I
> would not expect fawning or fake, suck-up type attitudes, some respect is
> appropriate.  If you cannot appriciate the gift, why should you have it?
> (Flamebait?)
> 
> The other players, however, are not explicitly providing the environment,
> and so are not as deserving of respect _in that sense_.

Remember though that many of us are involved in commercial endeavours, and
that attitude is not appropriate for most commercial endeavours. When a
player is shelling out hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of dollars over a
period of time to play your game, you are not doing him a favour. You
might say he's doing you a favour, but I don't think that's accurate
either, as presumably he thinks the fun he gets out of your game is worth
the money. Personally, even though Achaea is commercial, I am sometimes
willing to lose customers who irritate me, simply because I don't answer
to any corporate management above myself. Being able to do that
occassionally is a good outlet for the frustration all admins sometimes
feel. However, I'm quite sure that Simutronics, for example, would be most
upset to find out that one of their GMs was treating players as if he
expects the player to be grateful to him.

It's understandable why someone running a free mud would act that way,
and, were Achaea not my main source of income, I probably would too. You
create something for free for the enjoyment of other people, and I think
it is quite reasonable to expect that those taking advantage of your
generosity show you some respect. No one starts a volunteer project with
the goal of getting spit on.

--matt




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