Lately, I've been trying every single MUD I can get my hands on -- desperate to find that new game to call 'home'.  I'm beginning to see what I feel is a trend, and I'm interested to see what others think:

Do admins/coders/whatever actually play their mud?  And I mean strictly play it - no god powers, no 10,000 hp zappage, just regular ol' newbie wooden broadsword slapping into a bare rat hide.

Do you pick a persona for a character, check out the tavern, try and outfit your character with the choices given, earn a little bit of cash the old fashioned way -- really, truly try your MUD .. or do you just admin it?

I play my mud, I don't see the point of going through the trouble of starting a mud if I don't want to play there. I used to be an imm on a mud where the IMP didn't play ANY kind of mortal, even a enhanced one, and I didn't understand that.

I have often said to other members of the Imm staff that playing the mud is a good way to keep in touch with what is going on from the player's perspective. You notice all kinds of things that you might not if you were only running your guild/overseeing the mud/doing the coding/or building. You get a better feel for what is still needed (if you're a builder) and best of all you get to roleplay a variety of characters that aren't the one you spend the most time with (your Imm). Being an Imm is a responsibility after all so that is where most of my time goes, but I find its healthy to mort even if I only do it once a week.

Siuan
Guild Imm and Council

I play my mud, I guess that's the answer you were looking for firstly.

I don't set my own stats, make my own eq, set friends' stats, etc. Neither do the immortals. We don't condone cheating. Just because I own the game, players do not cringe at the thought of fighting one of my characters, or even killing him. I roleplay a lot, utterly bored of killing.

However, owning the game/coding it, you know all the code, and how to exploit certain things. Probably why i don't fight people.

I play my mud. I figure it's one of the only ways to keep in touch with the mud really. It's one thing to build and code, but another to see how those things affect the game.

I have a character, I've worked her up through the levels, remorted her, watched her get her ass handed to her, all of that. I don't cheat, but I do know that as an admin I have an advantage over most players, I've worked over almost all of the levels, so I have more knowledge about the areas of the mud. Granted, we have a lot of areas and I have a mind like swiss cheese, but I still have that advantage, which is one I can't be rid of.

I play mine, but not as much as I'd like to. I just don't have sufficient time to play a character and establish the relationships and ties that are possible on the game. I do like starting a new character and seeing what happens to them, right off the bat, but I hate getting into a position of leadership or where other players depend on them, because I know I won't be able to sustain it.

In some ways, this makes me sad - I started as a player, and I've had a number of characters that I loved and kept alive for a long time. But I also know I do a lot more for the mud on the admin level.

All of our staff are encouraged to play characters, and most of them do, which helps drive code changes when they report an imbalance or a problem, or even just something that's really annoying.

I play although I find I rarely have time for it. I do encourage our staff to keep and use an annonymous mortal though so they can actually get a feel for player attitudes and game play.

It's easy to lose sight of the things the mortals deem important if you just hide and make tweaking adjustments to the world. Our whole function is to attract them and make it fun for them isn't it?

Re: Do You Play Your Mud ..
 

I do.

I played a long time before accepting to admin, and in fact it's a requirement on SD to have played for some time before being offered a GM or coding position. It's important to know what the game is like as a player in order to be able to improve it.

Re: Do You Play Your Mud ..
 

With the exception of total "twink" muds - (which luckily aren't as common now as they used to be) - I actually think most admin play their muds as "normal" chars, without any extra gear or tweaked stats. If nothing else just to test if the engine really works.

All our current three coders have normal morts, which they log on much more frequently than their imm chars. One of them doesn't even have an imm char, he usually calls on some of the other staff when he needs a reboot to get new stuff in.

I have a mort myself, but regrettably I don't have time to really play any more, so I just use her to test new zones or scripts. Building is a lot more time consuming than coding, so I feel that I can do more good for the Mud by sticking to my job, than fooling around with my rather useless mort, who has lousy equip and is an even lousier fighter.

Since ours is a rather old Mud I think all but the newcomers know who the imm-morts are, but that doesn't seem to matter much, they are treated as one of the gang.

Re: Do You Play Your Mud ..
 

I actually play my mud, and I do it specifically without perks or special help. Most commonly, I start a new character from scratch and play it for a month or two just to make sure the low level environment is sane - there's plenty of feedback at higher levels and I feel less urge to sanity check the extreme high end.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD

Re: Do You Play Your Mud ..
 

Yes. Often with extra powers though. But usually even then it is no problem. It gets a problem when IC roleplay conflicts with overall game changes though - you can't be admin AND partake in game play with a character at the same time (on the same level that is. I exclude unique IC events that drive the storyline forward)

Also, admin MUST play regularly every now and then, otherwise they WILL lose touch with what is going on.

I've seen the latter happen too often. Admin is so clueless that it is then doing the wrong decisions.

I cant speak for Admin but it would depend.

If I want to drive the story forward, then I would create a character to do so, and eventually pass the story on to the players, leaving it into their hands what they do with it.

If I would create a MUD, I would however not actively play in it. Being admin would be too much work already (I would regularly playtest it though)