I don't know Delerak, but I'm an Arm player, fairly new to the game (only since August of this past year). A few things the reader might want to know about a couple of things he pointed out:

1) He mentioned his character dying, then rezzing with the 2-hour grace period for new characters (it's two hours, not three, as he stated). His character then went to retrieve the corpse and an IMM promptly slayed his rezzed character, meaning he could no longer rezz (only one rezz per new PC).

Fact is, retreiving your corpse is a HUGE no-no in Armageddon, because your new incarnation would have no memory of dying, and therefore wouldn't even know to look for the old corpse. The IMM was right in removing his character from the game.

2) He mentioned about bringing a kank into the 'rinth and getting chewed out by an IMM for it.

Regardless of the size of the alleyways, the 'rinth is not a place where anyone would WANT to bring a kank. Why would he have done this in the first place, unless he just wanted to see if he could? And what kind of roleplaying is that? Answer: it isn't. It's deciding that you can take advantage of game mechanics in a way that they were never meant to be used.

Just because I *can* spar 24/7, doesn't mean I should, for example. Just because I *can* see people who hide well, walking into a room, doesn't mean I *should* have my character notice them and point them out each and every time. Just because I *can* listen to conversations at other tables, doesn't mean I should let my character be magically capable of hearing them from the other side of the room.

So in summary, I believe that Delerak was writing out of anger, and his own personal sense of RP, rather than taking into consideration the INTENT of the game and all its nuances.

I just thought I'd mention this.

Let me say that review was not out of anger.  If I was angry I would take it out on the mud itself.  It was a review, simple as that, I quit for good reasons, why play at a place that does nothing for you?  You have nothing to show, nothing but bull **** and a few memories of actual people who knew what it was like to take a role and mold it into something spectacular.  I gave you a couple  of things too, my latest ****, which was with a kank in the 'Rinth, (of course it warrents judgement and death by an imm who probably knows nothing of the 'rinth and just gave some reason he/she thought was right.) And the first **** I got into with the corpse.  So I guess that's the best way to teach a PC.  But I would have learned anyway without that.  What makes it better is people go back for their corpses all the ****ing time, and imms do nothing about it, make up your ****ing mind, don't take it out on a select group of players you do not like.

"When an immortal at a roleplay intensive mud uses their commands more often then their brains, it then becomes a roleplay interference mud, which I think Armageddon has become"

Thanks for replying, I always love to chat it up with someone who thinks they know the mud.  Besides, my point in the review wasn't if I was right by doing it IC, the fact was the imms use their ooc powers to control things ic to what they believe is right, which is of course not right.  Then again what mud has ever been a democracy toward the players?  None I would say.  Then again, without players you have no ****in' mud, without the ordinary people you have no country, no kingdom, no world.  Something to brood over, eh?

-Delerak

None? One of the most famous text muds ever, LambdaMoo, was run by the players. Of course, they eventually chose to give control back to the admins.

--matt

Never heard of it. How is this..
No online, and running mud?
-heh..

You can never have true democracy in a mud, only the illusion of it.  The admin can give the power to the players - but they can also take it back at any time they wish, and there is nothing the players can do about it.

I guess you can go as far to say you cannot have democracy anywhere.

Consider the US President, House, Senate, and all upper-tier political figures as Admin. What would stop them if they decided to attack Canada? Even if 95% of the public didn't want to attack Canada?

But, you really could have a democratic MUD. It'd be fairly simple, although not that successful.

The Arch Wizard creates a system that only he has permissions to change: every two years everyone in the Administration has their bits removed, then the players vote for the next person to have administration. The players who were voted into Admin/Builder/Imm get auto-generated users.

Then the Arch Wizard scrambles his password to the game and can only perform mandatory functions (like rebooting the server).

Probable? No

But it can be done pretty easily.

It doesn't have to be a pure democracy, when the player can actually influence the world without the interaction of an imm would be great, but still not possible at muds like Arm.

Real-world governments can be (and in the past have been) overthrown by the people. Muds, on the other hand, cannot - nor can the admin of one mud decide to "liberate" another; their power means nothing outside of their own game. You could have the mud equivilent of terrorism (bringing down the mud or its server, destroying data files, etc), but even that would have limited (and temporary) impact. Fortunately, unlike the real world, if you don't like your mud "government" its very easy to simply move elsewhere (or even create your own mud).

That is a dictatorship giving the illusion of democracy. The power rests in the hands of the players only for as long as the Arch Wizard wishes - and should he wish to disband the existing mud "government" (perhaps because, as is extremely likely, it was ruining the mud) there is absolutely nothing anybody could do about it.

The Arch Wizard (or head implementor, or whatever you wish to call the owner) is not the equivilent of a president - they are the equivilent of god. They create the very world in which people play, define its rules of reality, and are answerable to nobody. They can give others the right to run a democracy - and they can take that right away. They can be a "good" god or a "bad" god, they can rule with an iron fist, or ignore the players entirely, but at the end of the day it is always their decision. And that is what a dictator is - someone with absolute power.

What everybody is ignoring here is the simple fact:

The implementor is the one paying for the game.
He (Or she) is the one who created the game.
Without him, there can be no game.

So I think the imp has every reason in the world to be able to be a "dictator", because the players can't run the game they play at (That would cause lots of horrible things to happen, mainly cheating, or would create a state where the players become the dictators and nobody would play the game).

So what if the imp is a dictator? It's his game, he's paying for it, he made it...

Not "ignoring", but "taking for granted". I don't think anyone has disputed the fact that the implementor can do whatever s/he wishes, because that fact is plainly obvious. The dispute has instead concerned whether or not it is possible to have a mud run as a democracy - and my argument is that no, it is not possible to have a democracy, only an illusion of one.

In the end, even despotism is a more effective form of government than anarchy.

It is possible to have a democracy KaVir, you just need to be creative and playful, and not so factual.

Democracies breed autocracies, autocracies breed democracies, thus has it ever been.

You mean, you can imagine it's a democracy if you ignore the fact that it actually isn't? Lying to the players is bad enough, but lying to yourself is really silly. As I've said before, the best you can achieve is the illusion of democracy - but the real power always lies with the owner of the mud. The owner can overturn any decision at any time, cannot be voted out or removed from power, and are limited only by their own sense of what is "right" and "wrong". For better or worse, they are dictators, and IMO that's a good thing - I can think of few things conceptually worse from a development point of view than a mud run by the players.

Been playing Civilization, haven't we?

I'd like to contribute a few things, because this thread is rapidly moving to the point where it's being assumed that Armageddon = bad dictatorship that's driving away all the players. I'm not convinced that's true.

Some facts about the game:

We have about 20 active staff members, and a staff discussion board where things are argued/discussed/hashed out, including policies, building, and plotlines. This includes when a player tries to make a major change to the world - things are debated and a consensus reached.  So, right off the bat, you have 20 dictators, which should confuse things a bit.

I don't think you'll find a lot of muds with a stronger community. All staff comes from the playerbase, and usually those are longtime players. Players contribute all sorts of things - including artwork, poems, stories, documentation, movies, items, npcs, rooms, rumors, weather messages - and there's a lively discussion board at

The game's been around over 10 years. The staff has  a wealth of tradition, history, and social documentation, and a major concern is making things make RL sense and that player actions take the virtual world into account and make the mud a RP experience, not just staring at a text screen.  Admittedly, it's not everyone's cup of tea - some people prefer MMORGs, or hack and slash, or the Sims. That's what makes the gaming world interesting.

I also don't think you'll find a lot of games where things are so constantly worked on and improved. We just implemented a new bug tracking system, and I'm looking forward to seeing that in action, helping us figure out what takes priority - because we continue to get new ideas and inspirations - often from the players.

Sorry to interject in this thread, since admittedly I'm biased, but when the game's being attacked by someone who was repeatedly banned for OOC, for cheating, and for multiplaying and given second chances by multiple staff members, as well as  the same person who put up the "Armageddon Cheater's Board", I feel the need to say something.

I think most every MUD in the top 10 has had a disgruntled former player (usually one of legendary twinkiness and rulebreaking) come to air his dirty laundry on TMS.  I've seen it in countless threads, and I usually tend to just think "Oh, look, another whining moron who would rather bellyache than be civil."

There is no such thing as bad publicity, and though I disagree with 95% of what Delerak said in his review, and subsequent posts on the forums, we all know that no mud can appeal to everyone.  Delerak is not good for ArmageddonMUD, it isn't good for him, both sides have proven their point.  I wish him the best of luck in finding the world he so desires, or even creating it himself.

As far as players influincing the world, while I don't have as much knowledge about the game as Sanvean, I know that I myself have done marvelous things in game without much if any imm-support handed down for me.  I have also known very well that they were there for advice if I needed it, and coding/building support if my play required it.  

Delerak (known better to Armageddon players as Exodus) has allowed a breakdown of communication to fester and become this rage, which he apparently feels should be forced upon TMS forum members.  I do not agree with this action, and hope that disgruntled players will use these forums for what they were intended for, finding and making the best games for the players whose style they fit.

Lord Templar Hard Nose says, in tatlum:
"If the shoe doesn't fit, find another ass."

Regarding the democracy/dictatorship debate... If the admins turn the mud off, they won't be getting whatever they hope to get by leaving it on. The mud admins can't force players to play their mud rather than going somewhere else. (Oftentimes they don't even know what all the players are doing within their mud at any particular moment.) Nor can the players force mud admins to change their mud or work on a different mud. The mud community as a whole works on a pure free market capitalist system. Mud admins may have power over the mud, but they don't have power over the mud players, except what the players freely give them. Thus, there is no dictatorship, unless you are referring to an individual's dictatorship over himself or herself.

 If I want a completely RP game and everyone who comes on trys to turn it into a HnS or ooc chatroom, since muds are dictatorships I can individually ban people or just shut the entire thing down and try again some other time.  Do the players have a say in the decsion?  Only if the owner chooses, it is his kingdom.

Of course not, owners have absolutely no control on what the PEOPLE who play muds do.  Just the same if I type force Burr sing and dance, you dont stand up from your computer and start doing your best Travolta impression.  They DO have complete control over your connection/character once you log into their dictatorship.  They can't force the person behind the computer to do anything, but they can certainly restrict you from their game.

No but if they wanted to know, they could certainly find out.

Exactly, they have complete power over whatever they wish to enforce.  This makes a mud a dictatorship.

Again it seems you are confusing the RL person and the connection/character.  I can not make you log into my game, but once you do you grant me complete control over that character/connection.  No matter if I choose to use that power or not, it is still there and thereby the mud is still a dictatorship.

While it is true that a PLAYER democracy is an unrealistic Utopia - (and, I agree with KaVir, a very undesirable one for several reasons) - I do believe that a sort of democracy still can exist within the Administration.

In our mud, for instance, there are three imps, (there used to be four, but two left over the years, and I took over one of the abandoned places). The three of us all have different specialities, and do different work around the mud, but we all have equal power, we all have full access to the shell, and all important decisions are discussed until a concensus is reached between us. If one of the imps should decide to leave the mud for some reason, the other two would keep it running nevertheless.

Even if the imp that has the server, (which I suppose would make him the 'formal' owner) would decide on his own to shut the mud down, it would only take a day or two before we had it running on another server. Perhaps not a democracy, but at least not a dictatorship either.

Also this way of running the mud has worked fine for about 6 years now, so it seems a pretty stable arrangement.

You would be, for lack of a better term, forced to relocate your game based on the powers of the "owner".  Many muds use this type of hierarchy, which as you stated is not exactly a democracy, but certainly alot closer than the broad generalization that has been used so far through the thread.

Since I'm feeling (and somewhat smelling) funky, I'll take a stab at a democratic mud layout.

The Owner has a shell( an account with a hosting service might be the simplest form for the purposes of the setup), creates a game and draws citizens.  He has complete power over these citizens ( at least whatever is granted to him by the internal game design) and has the power to bend the world to his vision.  At a specified time the Owner position is put up for election where the citizens have the power to re-elect the incumbant or place a citizen into his position.

In the latter case, that citizen is then given the powers of the owner (day-to-day maintanence, shell cost upkeep, everything owners must deal with) and the previous Owner is returned to the citizen populace.  The cycle continues.

Would this make for a good game? I really doubt it. Interesting perhaps on a different scale than is combat fun or are the areas good.  Not sure if that would qualify as a democratic mud, but it is the closest thing to it I can think of.

Why is a player democracy not possible? Players make the existance of a mud, and imms create the mud. I never understood what makes it so hard, you let your players (considering they are mature and capable enough) to make decisions on how the mud should be ran. The problem with 90% of all imms is they think they are above the players, the wizlists are always caste systems, why? #### if I know, maybe it goes farther back to the first creators of the actual text game, maybe they believed in a caste system. I don't care what the players of Armageddon think of me, I've left but not without stating the way I feel about the staff, which of course will anger most of the staff, and the players, sorry, but I believe that if you can't take the criticism of someone who was repeatedly banned for OOC, for cheating, and for multiplaying and given second chances by multiple staff members, as well as the same person who put up the "Armageddon Cheater's Board" then you probably need to rethink your whole statement of a strong community within your mud. It's not a community, it's players who brown-nose, play characters that live for real life years in a clan that is run by an imm who provides the in character money, all of this at a mud that hails being a harsh desert world, roleplay intensive, roleplay required... no free lunches? I can name safe places in the mud where you can find free food and water in this harsh desert environment. Disgruntlted? No, dissapointed that I put so much time into learning the mud, the players, the world, areas, cities. I can say that it was a good experience, you'll find good players in character sometimes, but I said in my review half or more of the player base are new people just learning how to read and write, using nod, smile, and grin more then the emote command. Yes I was there, and I was banned, beaten, and battered by the staff for my mistakes, nowadays that kind of treatment probably comes rarely, the discussion boards are always open, one can enjoy the luxury of seeing newbie postings every so often, -- well I can't anymore, I think my ramblings have gotten me banned, which proves that I might be feared because of what I know or type, or something. I think I've bantered enough for this morning, though I always loved argueing, especially with admins!

And what happens if the owner says "Actually, I've decided I don't want to step down - too bad"?

Or what happens if, a couple of weeks into the new owner's rule, the original owner says "You're ruining this game - so I'm going to take over again"?

As I said, it's only an illusion of democracy. The owner can let people act like it's a democracy, but s/he will always have the "true" power.

However if you look at the big picture - at muds as a whole - I suppose you could reasonably say that they are a true democracy. Players can "vote for a candidate" in that they can choose which mud they wish to play. If they don't like it, they can leave (withdraw their vote, so to speak) and go elsewhere. They can even elect themselves if they wish, by starting their own mud.

But within a single mud, it is always a dictatorship. The owner (or group of owners) wield the power.

Because they would ruin it. A mud needs a single common vision to strive towards. Listening to suggestions and feedback from the players is common sense. Automatically acting on those requests, however, regardless of how silly or selfish they are, would destroy the balance and fun of the game.

In terms of power and responsibility, within their own realm, they are.

The first owner is the only one that really matters as far as proving there can be a democracy within a mud.  The Owner must be completely in line with the idea, and if voted out must surrender his position.  If you wish to claim that there is no-one that would put themselves in that position, I would be inclined to agree with you and the entire notion could be dismissed.

Once the first citizen vote is held and a new Owner is elected, you have seen a democratic mud.  Whatever the new Owner elects to do is really irrelevant, the citizens used their voice to decide on a new Owner through democracy.   They must then play within the descion they have made.

He could say the new owner was ruining the mud all he wants, but he would have absolutely no power to regain control of the mud unless he wanted to rerun for the office.  Somewhat akin to if Bill Clinton decided to voice his opinion that GW Bush was running America into the ground and since he was a former President he was going take back his power.
This is where the majority of the problems discussing this comes from.  There are various levels of power that are being bantered about and it is easy to say since players can not dictate what the owner does, a democratic mud would be impossible.  Even within my scenario, the current owner is/could be a dictator to the players.  But he would be a dictator elected through a democratic process.  I am not exactly sure which form of government that would fall into.

Again I am not at all advocating this structure of power, instead I am uselessly debating on whether or not it is truly impossible.  The tried and true dictatorship gives the much needed stability and focus games need to grow and survive.

However it's completely at the discretion of the owner as to whether or not they step down. Furthermore, unless they transfer the account itself to the new owner, they'll be able to reclaim ownership at any time should they wish to do so (and if they do transfer the account itself, then once again it'll be up to the new owner if/when they want to step down).

But he would if he was the owner of the host. He could just reset the password (or request that the mud hosting provider do so), kick off the old owner, and reset his own privilages.

But Clinton couldn't walk into the Whitehouse and kick Bush out. The mud owner, however, could do exactly that. Equally, Clinton didn't really have much choice about stepping down - he couldn't just have said "Too bad, I'm staying - if you don't like it, move to a different country". That's why I said it's only the illusion of democracy - it's only "democracy" while it's convenient for the owner to be so. The owner wields the power, and that is a dictatorship.

I tried to address this with the statement you quoted, I think we are going to start debating in circles.
Once again I think you missed the concept behind my outline.  The owner voted out WOULd pass complete control to the new owner.  He would have *absolutely* no administrative power.  This is why I suggested for simplicity sakes that the server be an account with a public host provider.

(Time to stretch, bear with me) Stripping away all the beaucracy of the US system, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the US Military.  If you believe in the age-old axiom of "he who controls the military controls the country", then Clinton certainly could have said, "I don't want to leave.  Just try and force me and my army out."  Would democracy in any form be considered an illusion due to the fact that the citizens could elect a maniacal dictator into power?

Regardless, it seems to me no matter what happens when taking the situation to its ultimate conclusion ( which is, in all probability, what you outlined.  Somewhere down the road an elected owner would say "go to ####, its my mud now.") at the first vote and change of ownership the mud would be considered a democratic mud.  It may turn out to be a democratic mud that did not work, but democratic none the less.

If the original owner can choose whether or not they want to step down - or can reclaim their position at any time - then in my eyes that is not a democracy. You seem to think it would be, as long as the owner agreed to go along with what the people want. Does that pretty much sum it up?

I would say yes, because it's still a government by the people - it's still the citizens who have supreme power to choose who will rule them.

But if the ruler could choose whether or not they wanted to step down - or the original ruler could choose to take over whenever they felt like it - then obviously it would be the ruler who had the power. The ruler could choose to step down if the vote went that way, but it's still their decision, not that of the citizens. Thus the "illusion" of democracy. The power really lies in the hands of the ruler, not the people.

Sure, it's possible though it's pretty arduous for what would be a social experiment. Set up a C corporation and issue shares to all players. New players would get shares upon hitting whatever goal the company wanted (time, level, acceptable essay, whatever). The shareholders elect the board of directors, who hires the CEO. If the player shareholders are not happy, they elect new directors who will be more amenable to a course of action desired by the majority.

Not saying it's worth doing. Just saying it's possible.
--matt