Right now we're looking for staff, but this is not an advertisement - we recruit only from our playerbase. However, this staffing round (I think we take on new folks every 6 months or so), someone suggested having people actually go through an application process.

I'm trying it, and here are the questions we came up with:

1. Why do you want to be on staff?

2. How much time do you think you will be contributing in a normal week? Do you have time constraints that will affect when you are online, or any life-changing events that will remove your ability to log on.

3. What do you think you will bring to the game? What areas of expertise, both in-game and out, do you have? What would you like to work on?

4. What are your expectations for being a staff member? How do you think being on staff would affect the way you play as well as the way you interact with players?

5. What three things would you change about the game?

6. How would you describe yourself in online interactions?

7. Do you work well with other people? How thick-skinned are you? Can you take feedback without feeling defensive?

8. What's your mud experience like? What other games have you played? Have you worked as a staff member on any game before?

9. What do you think the most important thing you've brought to game right now?

10. What's your favorite feature of the game, and why?



Does anyone else use a process like this? Has it worked for you? Are there other questions that should be asked?

I've used a similar process when interviewing people for Staff positions. It's not something I've put into email form though, or some other text-based form that people could respond to.

Another question I've asked (which may or may not apply to Armageddon given the way that short descs are all people ever see and chars change quicker than on TP) is, "Who do you think is a good RPer and why?" and "Who do you think is a bad RPer and why?". I like to see what kinds of references people have for good RP and bad RP, in the context of the particular game.

I've also asked people to give me their opinion on the existing Staff, be it generally or specifically (i.e. with respect to a specific person or a specific topic).

Also, I wouldn't go just with questions, but have an idea of what answers you're looking for, particularly to questions like, "Why do you want to be on the staff?" In my experience there are better answers than others to this question.

Experience has shown me, as it probably has for many, that it is very difficult to truly -know- someone through online interaction alone. I've been fooled by people, both positively and negatively, and the same can be the case when hiring Staff. One thing I do try and do is ask questions at random - jumping from topic to topic. It's interesting to see how quickly people can respond, and how open they'll be when you are asking direct, pointed questions on a variety of seemingly random topics.

Hope that helps...

Pleos

Hi Sanvean. I recently went through an online application process on our mud, Avatar MUD, and have a great deal of experience in hiring in the real world.

One of the things you want to avoid is asking 'yes or no' questions. Those are far too easy for an applicant to bull his way through. Of course he is going to answer yes to the question: 'Do you work well with others.' He wants the job!

Use open-ended questions that force the player to reveal some of his personality. A better question might be: "How would you deal with a difficult person if you were a new immortal and there were no others online? What would you do" Maybe give the applicant a complete scenario and have him work through it.

Hope this helps. Good luck in your search.

Something I/we have that works well is for the applicant to provide 3 basic room descriptions and a zonal theme focus. This provides a plethora of insight as to grammatical competence, maturity and attention to detail.

Basically your application is a job interview and as such warrants the applicant to actually care about what they submit. If its full of typos, grammar errors or contextual appropriateness you pretty much know they'll either be a lot of work to train or didn't really care. Depending on your world theme, you can also weed out the juvenile "blood and guts on the walls" or "sex you up" types immediately.

I think a lot of the questions you have now are good, especially asking what they would change about the current game.

What you also might want to do is give them sample scenarios and ask how they would handle them as an immortal.  Perhaps even past scenarios that have already happened on your MUD.

That way you'll have an idea how they may act as an immortal.

Two major problems I've seen when MUD's bring up new immortals are this.

1. They bring up most, if not all of the great dedicated players, and then there are no more people to lead the clans/orgs, or to invoke the roleplay and storylines.  I've seen this happen on several occasions.

2. Some MUD's only bring up people who code, build, or are in some way affiliated or friends with the current staff.  Then there is a tendancy to provide them with more le-way.

Also some immortals don't really know what they're getting into and the dedication it takes in the position.  So providing the expectations you have of them from the start would prevent people from biting off more than they can chew.

I think you have a good start on the questions, but again, I think you should give them scenarios to respond to.

I had something similar. Basically any player could act as a builder by using some player builder tools.

They could: Submit a room description, mob description, item description, combat messages, and environment messages.

These messages went into a queue like a forum for the administrators. If an admin liked a description he could approve it and put it into play.

You could then track how many descriptions a player submitted and see how many they had approved. So if player x wants to be a builder and has only submitted 3 descriptions (none of them approved) I would recommend they spend some more time submitting descriptions.