[Asking Nyn about Firan: What code they have, and perceptions from her POV as both a player and an admin.] From afar, Nynaeve chuckles. They're code is open under GPL license, but I understand. Lets see. They've got a working +social system, a working economy that's dependant on players making items. Players are vastly restricted in what they can do as far as code goes. IE, all the generic commands that are usually available are locked ot them. They can't create anything with @create, examine anything, etc. In fact, they are limited to the IC or OOC commands that are specifically 'in theme' for them to use. Which makes the economy work so well, players can't just @create things. hey've got banks and their own form of money, etc. (MORE) Melissa paged Nynaeve with '+social?'. From afar, Nynaeve nods. Remember how we were going to do social status stuff? Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Ah, right.'. Nynaeve pages: They've got a whole system on that, and means of gaining SPs (social points) etc. Long distance to Nynaeve: Melissa nods. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Also, I know their code is GPL'd. However, they rely on some things I'd rather not rely on (including a few hardcode mods), and also they're written in MUX/TinyMUSH 3.x, while I'm going to be in Penn. The difference is not that apparent to the average player, but I'd pretty much have to rewrite a good part of their code to make it work for me, and given that my coding style is MUCH different that Adam's, I'd have to say it's not worth that much effort, I'd rather do it from scratch.'. From afar, Nynaeve nodsnods. Nynaeve pages: They've got social imperatives like persuade and praise and diss - which gives or takes away social points for the social system, or spend points with other skills (manipulation, intimidation, etc) to make/coerce people to do things - but only if its IC. They've got a combat system, its a little advanced and takes some time to learn, but otherwise seems alright. Its got timers, and engages and disengages people, etc. (MORE) Nynaeve pages: They have a mixed approach as far as players and RPing go. They've got 3 levels of characters, Really Important Characters, Middling Characters, and Not So Important Characters - all pre-generated. No one can make their own char, which is an acquired taste but isn't so bad. They have secrets, plothooks, family, and relations all written into them already. Players are pretty much free to RP out whatever they want with the characters, so long as they stick to their sheets - even stealing (which there's code for) and killing people if necessary. They've got a working legal system, jails, trials, etc. The staff pretty muhc takes a hands off approach to RP unless people do something so cosmically and phenomenally stupid that htey have to step in and mediate the major factions through GM'd actions. Though, lately, they're starting to be more hands on with the important figures - guiding them away from the massive wars that have happend in the last year or so. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'If that's it for the top of your head :)'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'I've just thrown up a couple of questions to pull over.'. Nynaeve pages: Staffing Techniques. - People they're looking to have as wizards start out as playerhelpers. They greet people and guests, help them learn theme, help them find characters, help them get settled in and show them around the game. They're sometimes a player's first RP experience. Right now they're grading logs, and giving out birthday bonii and working as descers too. If someone looks like staff material, they're tapped to be a Wizard. As a wizard there's a tiered training system. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'That's one of the questions :)'. Nynaeve pages: They start out as Builders/Trainees - then Juniors, then Full Staff. Recently, they've gone up to more Senior Wizards, and then there's the Chiefs (Steph and Adam) They're expected to do a minimum level of work at each stage, and learn a little bit of everything. Code, GMing, dealing with problem players, and day to day tasks through the @request and @job system, answer characterr questions about sheets, etc. Nynaeve pages: It seems to work really well too. They've got a mentoring system where someone one level higher mentors someone of a lower level, to help teach them. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Are they actually trained in stuff they don't know?'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Or just .. tossed stuff?'. From afar, Nynaeve nods! From afar, Nynaeve has seen peopel that don't know any code to start coding smaller things in the span of a few months. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'How do they convince the staff to stay with the program?'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Cool.'. From afar, Nynaeve hrms. Trainees and Junior staff are welcome to return to just RPing if they fell they can't really put in the time. They've got a small turn over rate, but then the game also has growing pains right now. There's some incentive things, like badges (type @badges here - I've imp'd mentoring and badges here both) [Result of @badges will be found at bottom] Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'can anyone get those, or just staff?'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Also, Do players seem to mind not being able to do all the "normal" stuff - code, create, examine, etc? What sort of commands are *enabled*? Page and bboard, I seem to recall. What about @/+ mail?'. From afar, Nynaeve hrms. The @badges code is publically accessible. I would think anyone could get them, but I've only ever seen wizards getting them on Firan. I think we intend to give them to our greeters and make greeter specific badges for them for the work that they do. We also intend to add more. As far as staffing incentive /here/ I occassionally give my staff 10 pts of XP for the time that they put into the game, especially since I offer XP to players who do extra work for the game above and beyond RPing. Staff get less than the players do sometimes. Commands. Hrm. They have BBs, @mail, IC messengers, a whole slew of IC commands for character use, and page. I've only heard a handful of people griping about the "normal" stuff. They can use \\ and I think @emit. @pemit is disabled though, because people were using it to cheat. They'd look up the code in the Firan repository and then @pemit it to themselves to see if they were pregnant. For wizards, they've got a nice system called @tags that puts IC tags on people like 'unconcious' or 'pregnant' etc. Yes, they've got a coded pregnancy system. Its kinda neat, if you really want coded pregnancy stuff. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'I don't mind the coded pregnancy, but the coded sex is right out ;)'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'You said "Its got timers, and engages and disengages people, etc." -- What do you mean? Like timers for NPCs, characters which aren't off the rack yet, characters that are idle... ?'. From afar, Nynaeve hrms and will show you. Its easiest. I think. Nynaeve pages: Each combat action has a timer. If you use a combat action, then that resets the timer and makes you wait X amoung of seconds before you can do another combat action - so you can't just hack and slash and hack and slash at a person. There's also differnet combat styles which will either add to the timers or shorten them. Speeds, if you will, and weapons affect the timers as well, adding to speeds and such or taking away from them as necessary. Nynaeve pages: A command, @combat, tells you what your timers are: --------------------------COMBAT REPORT FOR LISA--------------------------- ENERGY 23 RESERVES 89 DAMAGE (none) DELAYS (seconds) engage: 18 (next -- now) disengage: 18 (next -- now) attack: 26 (next -- now) capture: 8 (next -- now) aim: 8 (next -- now) shoot: 38 (next -- now) throw: 38 (next -- now) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Oh! cool.'. From afar, Nynaeve oh, yeahs, and part of their ecomony/combat system is an energy system. People have to eat food, and sleep or nap, in order to gain energy, which they can later use for various tasks like crafting or combat, etc. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'See, that's where I'm not willing to go.. I think that requiring people to eat, sleep, and bathe is, while realistic, perhaps a bit tedious. :'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'I'm perfectly willing to assume that they eat and sleep while they're logged out :'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Do the 'three tiers' of characters bug people?'. From afar, Nynaeve hrms. That's a hard question to answer. People on Firan are restricted to 3 alts only. They can have one character from each tier, or for the middle to low tier can give up one of those slots to have a second char of the same Tier. IE, you can have one Level I character (Very Important) and Two Level 2s, or One Level 1 Character and Two Level 3's. The premise is you really don't have much time to devote to more than 3 alts. And getting an alt is restricted by how much XP you've earned, to show that you're going to stick around the game and with a character first. SO, a person wanting a second alt has to earn 15 XP. A person wanting a third alt has to earn like 50-75 XP. 50 if its a lower end char, 75 if they want a Level 1 (Feature) char. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'How does EXP get earned?'. Nynaeve pages: Mainly by @voting people. They're limited to 5 votes a week. There's no voting tiers. People can earn XP other ways too. They have monthly 'Help Question' contents, where players are given a series of questions on the theme and help files of the game, and they dig through them - and if they get as much XP as the number of questions they answer correctly. Firan staff also closely watches RP. They have a spy system, and sometimes @award for funny poses they see on it. I know most games frown on that, but after using it and watching people, it has been really useful and handy in catching players we didn't really want around. Lets see. They can also send in RP logs to get XP. Wizards and Player Helpers read them and @award for XP, but no more than 1 log a week will get "graded". Long distance to Nynaeve: Melissa nods. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'What kinds of problems do they seem to have a difficulty dealing with? Any guesses on why they're difficult?'. From afar, Nynaeve hrms. Defeating player apathy is one of the major ones, and we see that on all games. In this case, the players are blaming the staff for not taking inititive with the military. Firan's major theme is based around defeating a group of 'monsters' so to speak called Shamibelians, and the military for the last few practice seasons have been dismally failing their tasks. But, its not a staff related problem really. Its a player related problem. Most playres are taking the defeatist attitude rather than seeking solutions that would benefit everyone, because they're too afraid of the IC repercussions. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'yeah, that'd be a difficulty.'. From afar, Nynaeve nods! The flip side is, if they DON'T get off their duff and do something, then they'll end up being a conquered nation as the Shami's advance. Its a catch 22. Long distance to Nynaeve: Melissa nods. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'ooh, last question I can think of.. :)'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'and it's one of my Patented Easy Questions (tm)'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'What do you really like about adminning and playing there? What kinds of things do you dislike?'. From afar, Nynaeve snickers. From afar, Nynaeve hasn't forgotten the question. Dealing with poses. Hrm. Long distance to Nynaeve: Melissa nods. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'And like I said, it's one of my "easy questions", so I figured it'd take you a while.'. Nynaeve pages: Likes: Adminning - I like learning new things, and I have definitely gotten a chance to learn new things. I've taken a few bolder steps toward coding. I find that I have a chance to widen my skills in certain areas, and apply them. There's also an easy camaderie among the staff too, which makes asking for help and just basically adminning more enjoyable. Playing - its a different sort of enviroment. Its an escape from Wheel of Time, which I desperately need on occassion. There are times that you just get sick of the them. Nod. But, there's other stuff too. I like how the characters are set up with secrets, goals to jump into, relationships and such. I like the different things to do there, social games, crafting of items, etc. Long distance to Nynaeve: Melissa nods.. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Okay, you answered like. What's the dislike? :)'. Nynaeve pages: Dislike - Admin - Dealing with crankies - but then, I've never liked dealing with crankies, not even here. But I will when I must. As a wizard, sometimes having to kill players for stupid things. Like the player who couldn't swim, and wasn't a guard, attempting to defeat a Kraken knocking down buildings along the shoreline. I GM'd a scene like that, and gave the player plenty of @checks and stuff to see if he'd make it out alive, and the rolls went against him. There was no logical way to save the char. But, I deal with that too, when I must. Playing - Character Death - I've been through it, it can be pretty hard to play, even if its the most logical step to take. Crafting is an iffy thing, but you don't HAVE to take a crafter character. Crafters can make custom descs, sometimes it can be come tedious, especailly when you build your character into a famous sort of popularity. But overall, its not a BAD thing. It just gets tedious after a fashion. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'If that's the worst of what you can think of... then that's not too bad.'. Nynaeve pages: Its the worst I've personally experienced. Nod. Nynaeve pages: Except for the occasional crankie who comes back afte rbeing banned for X amount of time for a 'time out' sort of situation and decides to come back and ruin several chars and such until he gets caught. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'Again, you get that.'. From afar, Nynaeve nods. Yeah. You get that. Nynaeve pages: Really, its nothing worse than what I've seen on Tales. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'well, okay. You've given me stuff to think about. And hope ;)'. From afar, Nynaeve grins and hugs. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'I think I can even pull this off. But I'm looking at Firan, just because they did it first and longest for the ultra-coded stuff..'. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'And because they're probably the most successful (by any number of measurements) of the original theme games.'. From afar, Nynaeve nodsnods. They've been open maybe a little longer than Cuen. And they're starting to have some growing pains. The not enough staff syndrome. But thinks seem to be going along steadily. Long distance to Nynaeve: Melissa cools. Melissa paged Nynaeve with 'OKay, end of log ;) I gotta go harass people about dinner thoughts.'. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- @badges: All Badges Badge Description advertisement Wendy's Where's the Beef Pin Has done some advertising for Cuendillar MUSH. advertisement2 Mc'Donalds' Golden Fries Award Has organized commercialized advertising for Cuendillar MUSH. advertisement3 Burger King Plaque Has over-achieved in advertising for Cuendullar MUSH. advertisement4 Hardees' Super Size Trophy Has become an advertising genuis. Where's the next commercial? approval Neophyte Has approved a character. approval2 Apprentice Has approved 5 characters. (no one of importance) approval3 Journeyman Has approved 20 characters. (including restricteds) approval4 Master Has approved 50 characters. (everything, excluding pregens) @bb Basic Bulletin Board Badge Can read and post to the BB efficiently. borgcomm BorgComm Beginner Understands the basics of BorgComm. borgcomm2 BorgComm Assimilated Understands how to maneuver the BorgComm roster system and other admin building Worker Has built a room to spec. (private room) building2 Foreman Has built 15 or more rooms to spec. (manor house) building3 Architect Has built 50 or more rooms to spec. (organization) building4 Master Architect Has built 100 or more rooms to spec. (area) chargen Basic Character Creation Created one pre-generated character to spec. chargen2 Bronze Plaque of Penmanship Created five pre-generated characters to spec. chargen3 Silver Plaque of Penmanship Created 20 pre-generated characters to spec. chargen4 Gold Plaque of Penmanship Created 50 pre-generated characters to spec. debugging Tracer Has debugged a global command or two. debugging2 Debugger Has debugged many global commands. debugging3 Coredumper Has debugged a system or two. debugging4 GDB Has fixed commands that are vital to the game. helpfiles Draftsman Has written a helpfile. helpfiles2 Editor Has written many minor help files or a major helpfile. helpfiles3 Publisher Has written many major help files. helpfiles4 Author Has written written several whole sections of help files. @mail Basic Mail Guru Badge Can read and send @mail efficiently.