Has anyone ever participated in an area where the players are the primary decision makers?

I was thinking about doing that for an area, although I'm not sure how it would work. I thought about giving up a half dozen options, and having the mortals vote on them. Whatever idea gets the most votes is what gets used, and there's a new idea every so often until the area is complete.

Has anyone done an area like this or considered one? How did it turn out? Does anyone forsee drawbacks for this idea (like hte obvious, lack of participation)?

That sounds like a good way to get players involved in the creation aspect of the mud. I have not done this but I thnk over all you should make it clear that you have the veto ability for any idea put out there. Also are you speaking purely about theme or layout, mobs? objects? I think there are aspects that should not be decided by players but still the project sounds kind of fun.

Ytrewtsu

What I figured was instead of giving them free reign, I'd come up with the ideas for people to vote one.

The first idea would be theme of the area, perhaps I'd give them a haunted forest, mountain range, castle, ancient ruins and one other choice. The idea with the most votes would be the one I made.

I'd have other things to choose, level range, number of mobs, and other things like that. I wouldn't let them choose stats of mobs or objects, or the entire room layout. THey'd have a hand in the creation of the area, but the ultimate creation would come from my mind and their suggestions

This is a great idea actually. I just posted a note to my playerbase asking them for initial suggestions as for area concepts they'd like to see added, with emphasis on current theme and history taken into consideration. Once we have enough ideas in that work, we'll put up a web poll and have everyone vote on it and then start construction on the winning idea(s).

I'll post something about it once it's further in progress. Very cool idea, thanks for the idea...


Terloch

Sounds like a snazzy plan. You could give players various ways of contributing to the building process- a 'suggestions' box is the easiest option. You could have a shop in the market place that sold 'void sections' (for extortionate prices), that the players could then 'manipulate' how they wanted. They could submit completed void sections to the immortals, and if they were good enough, these areas could then be linked to the rest of the world. The best player-built areas would win awards.

Wow. *explodes with ideas*