I am looking to become an administrator for a MUD, or I would also like to become a builder if someone is willing to teach me. I have played on over 100 MUDs over a 3 year period which I have been Mudding. I am currently playing a MUD (Elysium RPG, check it out). But I have been playing for about 1 1/2 years now and Im looking for something different. If you're interested, please post a reply and I'll get back to you.

You're unlikely to get an administrators position as a cold hire right off the street. At Dartmud, we recruit our creators from people who have been playing (recently) at least six months and have an intimate familiarity with the world.

My suggestion is to find a mud you like and play it for some time until you have something useful to contribute to the world, then apply for a builder position.

Being an administrator on a mud is not something one does lightly for something different to do. It can often be a huge headache.

And if you do find a mud willing to let you be an admin off the bat, it's a crap mud, I guarantee you.

We require our admins to have at least 1500 hours of playing time, and they have to do a minimum of 500 hours of apprentice time before they become a full admin. That's a full year of 40 hours a week.

--matt

In other words, you don't want people with a life ?

As far as I see it, you can only put in 40 hours/week if you :
a) don't have anything else to do (ie. is unemployed).
b) are studying, and keep the mud running in the background.
c) aren't involved with a person of the other sex (or is involved with another mudder).
d) don't have kids. And finally,
e) don't have other people in the house who might like to use the computer once in a while.

The above is only a short list of things that prevents me from putting in such an amount of time - I refuse to idle to get the 'time played' up.

Don't even try to argue with him, or prove a point welcom, it's not worth the effort...

Normal posters don't talk your ear off when they lose. The logos is known to do that. For 30 pages.

Let the logos win.

No, we want long-time players who known the game inside and out, and then we want admins willing to sacrifice a lot of time in order to gain the privilege of playing an in-role God. Few, if any, put in 40 hours a week and it'd be essentially impossible to go from newbie to God in a year. It's a mult-year process really, though presumably most mortals don't seriously start playing realistically thinking they are aiming to be a God.

I think this high barrier to entry is probably why we've never had an admin on any of our games go psycho and try to mess with the game intentionally (course, there have been accidents).

Incidentally, time idle wouldn't do much for you. Those numbers are largely guidelines, as there's little chance of someone acquiring a level of proficiency first as a mortal and second as an immortal in less time, unless you had previous experience in one of our other games.

--matt

"Lose" implies there's something to "win" and I don't think there is in the sense you're using the terms. Newsgroups aren't battles. They're attempts (or should be in my opinion. You're welcome to your own.) to arrive closer to some sort of truth about the subject at hand via a somewhat dialectic process. Everybody with sense "wins" when they gain knowledge or a better perspective on some issue even marginally relevant to his or her life.

--matt

No use arguing with them, Matt. They've been conditioned to believe that open discussion is a bad thing.

I think this is one of the big things which has changes in the MUD community over the decades, a major change which people have taken for granted.

Originally a MUD was just a hobby. Gods were pretty much selected by virtue of being collegemates with the other Gods. Muds were run by people with lives.

Hmm, when someone with a life undertakes a massive endeavor such as running their own mud, rather than spend a few weeks setting up a stock system and then spending 40 hours a week babysitting it, theyll instead devote some time and effort to making something new and innovative which runs itself. "If you build it they will come..... If you download it from the nearest stock codebase archive they will come but only if you give up the rest of your life to babysit them"

This has to do with the fact that people with lives want to make a product enjoyable to the general public, something they can show an arbitrary friend who's never heard of MUDs before and the friend will like it. Whereas, the majority of people who set out to start their own MUD, pretty much market it to geeks and nerds who are already established in the MUDs.

A standard mud might be described as "20000 rooms, triple tier remort, OLC, IMC, optional PK, Builders accepted". Try running that past a random person on the street. They won't be the least bit interested, in fact they won't even understand what you're talking about.

No, originally, muds were almost entirely commercial. It wasn't until about half-way through their lifetime so far (90 or 91 or so) that there began to be a lot of hobbyist muds. And those commercial muds were run by people quite devoted to them.


I'm not sure what your point is exactly. Setting up a stock mud is either simple curiosity or a perceived inability or real unwillingness to do the work involved in creating your own system. I don't see what it has to do with having a life or not. I can tell you that as someone who did create his own, successful system, keeping what I've created going dominates my life. That's no different from any other entrepreneur though. *shrug*
How is that different from saying, "I run a virtual world, but there's no graphics." The most common reponse I get when I tell random people what our company makes is a blank stare. Most people have never heard of Everquest, much less text muds.

--matt

The first MUD (which started in 1978) was hobbyist, although several years later (in 1984) it also became the first commercial MUD. This seems to be the trend which quite a few of the more successful free/hobbyist muds have (and are) following.

But as far as Welcor's post goes, I'd have to agree. Unless you're paying your staff full salaries, you're only going to be able to pick up those who can't get jobs in the real world. Look around in the free mud community and you'll find that almost all of the best mud coders are those who also make a living from software development - I'd much rather have someone like that who could put in 4 hours a week than someone without the skills to get a real paid job who was able to put in 40 hours a week.

Yesterday on the radio the DJ said the show Queer eye for the straight guy was useful because straightmen are unable to dress themselves or decorate. Now, we find out that not only do gays and lesbians have better color coordination, but they also better coordinate their time!

I:)

I'm very bad to tease you, but I can't resist!

Concepts of virtual reality are well known. They are dealt with in depth in metaphysics and epistomology, a very serious academic branch. I believe that a MUD which boasts simply "a virtual world with no graphics", rather than "15000 rooms, RP encouraged, 32 customized races, custom locker code", is much more likely to spark the interest of Joe RandomWebsurferWho'sNeverMUDded.
That said, if your MUD is just a cheap stock, Joe will inevitably discover that you did NOT, in fact, really make it from scratch and that, indeed, the people who DID make it from scratch are offering him a far superior product.
Imagine for a moment that you run the best, most successful stock MUD in the whole world. You are invited to a big real life dinner solely for successful MUD owners. Once there, while eating some fancy food, someone asks you if you had trouble setting up the non-blocking sockets. Your face turning a shade of red, you admit "Oh well, I just downloaded SMAUG.... I don't know what sockets are"

I'm not sure where you live, but the average person on the street has not even heard the word epistemology before. I'm willing to bet most people reading this don't know that branch of philosophy studies without looking it up.

I was just trying to point out that saying "20000 rooms, remort, etc etc" to the average person on the street is no less confusing than saying, "I run a text mud."

--matt

Well, I'm unsure why you're equating coder to admin/staff. A coder is one type of an admin or staff member. The majority of our code is written by professional, full-time developers.

As for our excellent volunteer staff, the idea that they cannot put in a lot of time and have a real world job is erroneous. Many full-time jobs are only 40 hours a week. We have had a huge range of people volunteer to help the community, spending significant amounts of time. Some of them have been:
- Software developer for Ubisoft
- Runs her own porn busines.
- Was one of the Army's youngest Captains.
- Runs two martial arts dojos and fights in extreme fighting
events
- Student (of course)
- Legal clerk
- Chef in australia
- Hotel manager

I'm sure we're not alone here in having a diverse group of admins. The stereotypes that even some mudders have about other mudders are a bit off sometimes I think.
--matt

Heh heh. Not to contribute to stereotypes, but two of our most creative admins ever have been gay men. They also manage their time very well and get a lot of things done in that time.

--matt

I'm not! The last two movies ruined Star Wars for me.

Go subscribe to mud-dev. I budge and change my opinion there now and then, but that's likely due to the fact that the quality of discussion and reasoning employed is a heck of a lot higher than a basically unmoderated web board. Sadly, mud-dev may as well be renamed graphical-mud-dev these days though.

--matt
P.S. Seriously, if anyone's interested in pretty good, often higher-level discussions of issues relating to muds generally (text and graphical, admittedly more graphical these days, but they're more or less the same thing anyway so most discussions apply to both), go to

Welcor, I think you misinterpreted what he said.

He said, 1500 hours play experience and another 500 hours as an apprentice before they become a full admin.
That's the equivalent of a year at 40 hours a week, but it is not required to do it all in a year. It can be 2 years at 20 hours a week, 4 years at 10 hours a week, etc. Do the math, there's no requirement to give up your life.

I prefer the most competent people possible who also have the time to make themselves useful. You can extrapolate from that what you will.

What we value are the stakeholders of the mud. That includes the players, the employees, the volunteers, the investors, etc.

I'll tell you what though: While we're in the suite of rooms we we get every year in Vegas (or somewhere else nice) for the admins, you can stop by and ask them how the way we treat them compares to the way they've been treated on any other mud they've admin'd on.

--matt

Thanks. Exactly. The best probably tend to be the people who take 2-3 years to do it. So that's like 15 hours a week, or a bit over 2 hours a day.

--matt

How about instead asking them how they feel their compensation compares to that of all other 40-hour-per-week jobs?

KaVir:
Aside from your continuation of the "40 hours/week solid" claim that Matt and others have already debunked:

Remember, these people started out playing a GAME in their leisure time. They were then offered the opportunity to take a leadership role within the game, a position that comes with responsibilities and perks. They accepted. Characterizing this relationship as exploitation of employees is laughable. Matt's got good legal counsel too- I'm sure he'd have looked into this during the AOL lawsuit.

How much will your GodWars II admins be paid? Nothing? :)

Stilton

I think this sounds - quite a bit - more reasonable, and stand corrected.

Going back to the original question (amazing how off topic these discussions become), I'd recommend making enquiries to new MUDS for builder positions rather than established MUDs, who most likely first look to their player base. Try running a TMS search for games that are "hiring builders" and whose status is "not open" or "open for testing". Presumably, if they're still in development and hiring, they don't have a longstanding player base to draw from and are interested in building/expanding. Further, I'd recommend when you make an inquiry, you send an area idea and sample room descriptions. Finally, I'd steer away from asking for a nebulous "admin" position, which most likely will be interpretted as asking to be a god. MUDs are much more interested in creative builders and will reward hard workers that produce quality areas with admin/god positions.

The point is that (1) Matt requires a huge amount of time investment from the staff (comparible to that of an employee), (2) doesn't pay them anything, and (3) makes a living (and from what he's said in the past, quite a good one) from running a successful commercial mud. But the part I really take exception to is the way he seems to think that his staff are getting a much better deal from it than those staff of other muds.

I place no requirements on the other admin (indeed some of them have yet to make any contributions), nor do I make any money from the mud itself.

I can understand you being angry at me for disproving your arguments on the other thread, but that's no excuse for making equally poor arguments and comparisons on this thread. Why not cut your losses, act like an adult, and treat each thread as a separate issue?

From a staff members perspective, what they get for the amount of time they put in is probably much, much more than what they'd get from most free muds.

I see what you mean about the difference being Matt earning money from the enterprise, but if it doesn't bother the staff then it shouldn't bother you or I. If every involved party (players, staff, company) is happy with the arrangement , then who are we to complain? It's not like Achaea is some third-world sweatshop and staff is working for $0.10/hr 20 hrs per day because their families will starve otherwise. These are mostly well-educated people with plenty of leverage.

You haven't actually addressed the points Mason and I made in the other thread exept to point again and again at a single FAQ entry that's not quite applicable AND is obviously intended as a general guide for the general public rather than as a definitive reference, but let's keep that over there.

You've hurled cheap personal insults in both threads. I haven't.

I hope you didn't regard the Godwars II comment as a personal attack; I was pointing out that lots of time and get fun/satisfaction of contributing +neat vacation is arguably getting more for your effort than putting in lots of time and getting "just" the fun/satisfaction of contributing.

I haven't said that I feel your own reaction against helping someone else earn money with your mostly uncompensated effort is unreasonable. I'm just asking you to accept the idea that other people can reasonably disagree.

Choice of how we spend our free time is, after all, a question of opinion.

Stilton

I think if someone want to have very hardcore requirements for admin on their MUd then they are entitled to that. In response to the ORIGINAL reason the thread was made; you don't want to be an admin. If you do, do what we all did - wait awhile (EARN it).

Thank you Estarra, those are some good ideas. Now in response to Grey, I didn't post so people could tell me what to do, I asked a question and if you don't have an answer to my question, don't post at all.

That's not the way discussion forums work. You are allowed to post, and other people are allowed to respond. If you don't want other people to reply to your posts in certain ways, then your only option is not to post.

I'm sure you wouldn't like people to tell you what to do. I don't mind him posting his opinion, but he was distinctly telling me what to do, and I don't have to take that if I don't want to.

Now that thin-skinned and defensive are covered, all you need to do is demonstrate a hunger for power and you will fit the prototype for an immortal. Good luck!

But we haven't demonstrated exactly how he'll abuse that power yet. Maybe taunt him a little longer?

As an admin, you'll have to deal with a lot more than people's opinions. I don't think you know what you're getting yourself into really. Shortcuts are not the path to success. I apologize if my statement seemed out of place, but I think I have a good deal of experience on the matter. or at the very least, a bit more than you do at the moment.