[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN/OPERATION] A rant about NPC ops

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

On 4/16/07, Peter Keeler <scion at divineright.org> wrote:
> Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
>
> > (III) I think it encourages "cult of personality" to develop around
> > the ops.  Further feeding their egos at the expense of those more
> > deserving and the RP environment.  Some segment of the players
> > automatically responds by brown nosing.  The op, only being human,
> > enjoys the attention and responds by bestowing social advantage on the
> > brown nosers both through more attention and little op "favors" like
> > the aforementioned special titles,  and the whole thing quickly snow
> > balls into a clique centering on the op.  This is natural, human, and
> > *highly* destructive to the game as a whole.  In the worst cases, the
> > game becomes about social engineering the ops, not about playing the
> > game.
>
> Out of curiosity, how does an op showing up as a powerful villain in
> thegood guy stronghold with a no attack flag compare to other games
> where theops show up as "themselves", ie. text MUDs or Second Life where
> anyonewith Linden as their last name works for the company?

Its an interesting question.

In these games where RP isn't an issue you obviously don't have RP issues.

That having been said, if they have any special abilities then they
will inevtibly create the drive for players to "social engineer" the
operators.  Unless thats what your environment is about its probably
not healthy.

Otherwise, IMHO its a bit childish and speaks to a weak ego of the op
that they have to go into their own created world to feed it, but its
not nearly so objectionable in my mind.