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KaVir · 10-28-2004, 04:11 AM

I suspect it may have more to do with the allegations of cheating that would no doubt arise should an employee (or family member) win.

A couple of years ago I participated in a weekly pub quiz. A couple of friends took turns at being the quiz master, and the team of the one playing would almost always win. Now it may well just have been that, as friends, they shared similar interests and therefore knew the answers to the sort of questions the other would pose - but it still caused a lot of disgruntlement, even though the winnings were very small (each player put a couple of euro into the pot and the winner kept it all). If the prize had instead been lottery prizes in the millions, I suspect the situations would have become very ugly.

The same logic could also be extended to muds, particularly those with intense competition between players. A mud developer is going to know the ins and outs of their own mud in a way that no player can ever match, and that is going to give them a natural advantage - but other players may not see that. Instead, they may just see a staff member's mortal character who seems to be advancing far quicker than normal, and jump to conclusions.

The problem with that is that the immortals tend to lose touch with the game from a player perspective. It becomes very difficult to know what works and what doesn't when you don't actually play - and the longer you're an immortal, the more the mud changes, and the more you lose touch.

Just as knowledge of developing the mud gives a huge advantage when it comes to playing, so the knowledge of playing also gives a huge advantage when it comes to development. But just as someone's development knowledge is going to get increasingly outdated once they stop working on the mud, so their playing knowledge is also going to get increasingly outdated once they stop playing.

I've seen muds where the staff were too involved as players, and gave in to the temptation to cheat. But I've also seen muds where it had been so long since the immortals were players that they had completely lost the feel for what made the game fun. Both situations have the potential to destroy a mud if they get out of hand.

10-28-2004, 04:11 AM	#3
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	I suspect it may have more to do with the allegations of cheating that would no doubt arise should an employee (or family member) win. A couple of years ago I participated in a weekly pub quiz. A couple of friends took turns at being the quiz master, and the team of the one playing would almost always win. Now it may well just have been that, as friends, they shared similar interests and therefore knew the answers to the sort of questions the other would pose - but it still caused a lot of disgruntlement, even though the winnings were very small (each player put a couple of euro into the pot and the winner kept it all). If the prize had instead been lottery prizes in the millions, I suspect the situations would have become very ugly. The same logic could also be extended to muds, particularly those with intense competition between players. A mud developer is going to know the ins and outs of their own mud in a way that no player can ever match, and that is going to give them a natural advantage - but other players may not see that. Instead, they may just see a staff member's mortal character who seems to be advancing far quicker than normal, and jump to conclusions. The problem with that is that the immortals tend to lose touch with the game from a player perspective. It becomes very difficult to know what works and what doesn't when you don't actually play - and the longer you're an immortal, the more the mud changes, and the more you lose touch. Just as knowledge of developing the mud gives a huge advantage when it comes to playing, so the knowledge of playing also gives a huge advantage when it comes to development. But just as someone's development knowledge is going to get increasingly outdated once they stop working on the mud, so their playing knowledge is also going to get increasingly outdated once they stop playing. I've seen muds where the staff were too involved as players, and gave in to the temptation to cheat. But I've also seen muds where it had been so long since the immortals were players that they had completely lost the feel for what made the game fun. Both situations have the potential to destroy a mud if they get out of hand.