Had a spirited debate recently with the assh^H^H^Hperson that I used to run a mud with recently. He was the head coder and I was the head builder, (equal levels, character-wise) and what his argument basically boiled down to was that only the code counts when determining who owns a mud, the world is superfluous, even though I had written 8 areas and revamped and shaped all of the rest over the years. My argument was that the two are equal, since mud code without areas would be pretty boring, and areas without code would just be a bunch of lifeless text files.

Personally, I felt like it was an insult not only to myself, but to area builders anywhere, that that aspect of a mud is 2nd class compared to the importance of code.

So what are the opinions, if any?

(if you don't get the ^H^H^H thing in the first line, go

)

This is most definitely usually a "sticky" situation.  I'll give you my two views on it.  When I originally started Feudal Realms I had a co-imp/owner.  When things got to the point where we couldn't really co-exist, we both had copies of the active code at the time, and the areas, I moved the main game to another server, and the players (for the most part) came with me.  I am "technically" the owner now of Feudal Realms, but I share all responsibilities (and some costs) with my staff, so I guess we've become an ownership conglomerate.

*revised once I re-read original post*

I am not a builder, I have built things, but I don't classify myself as a builder.  I am a coder, but the fact that I set myself up upon splitting as "the Imp" is the distinction.  It honestly doesn't matter if you are the coder, the head builder, or just the overseer of a mud, any can (and have been) owners.  The distinction of what makes a mud, honestly in my mind is a combination, it's not just code, not just areas, but also the players, I would even say that the players make up a greater % of the mix than anything...

*end revision*

My advise to you is that if you have problems such as this again, start over with what YOU want, get people to assist you knowing that YOU are the owner, and that you have control of the project, not anyone else.  Either that, or find someone who you can safely trust (or someones) and go into a partnership type agreement.  There's lots of different ways to set it all up honestly, find what is most comfortable and useful for what you need and want.

Terloch

You own the areas you've written, he owns the code he's written, and everyone owns whatever they've contributed.