I'm making an RPG currently and I want to know what YOU think about Admin and Mod powers. Should I just make like 20 admins/mods and let them have all powers?(Mute, teleport, ban, boot) or should I assign jobs to different admins?
My current idea is this -
Listener - Sees all chat and mutes(Temporarily, 1hour-12hours) if someone is trying to avoid chat filter(All chat said anywhere is world is also sent to him)
Observer - Can look at other people and what they're doing, if someone reports being spawn killed or harassed, they can change their view onto the person who reported and watch if it's true, if it is he can take control by either teleporting their, muting, or (temp)banning.
Helper - Talks to people and helps them learn the game.
Trades Master - Talks to people about prices of items so they don't get scammed.
Trade Master Leader - Controls global economy, also selects the Trades Masters.
Teleporter - Can teleport but only if something big is going on, like an event.
Bug Attender(2 or 3 people) - Tests bug when and if it's reported.
Announcer - Announces new events, new people, new ranks tournaments and everything people want to know. Has announce verb.
Moderator - Can ban(Temp), mute(Temp), teleport, and chose to see all chat in world and announce.
Administrator - Can ban(Perm or Temp), mute(Perm or Temp), teleport, change global economy, see all chat in world(if he/she choses too) and announce.
I don't think 1 mod or admin should do all these jobs alone, he will mess-up and miss many things so I believe if the jobs are split it will work more efficiently.
Comments and ideas?
-Poal
ID:152173
 Nov 19 2007, 11:20 am
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Nov 19 2007, 11:21 am
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Garthor
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And you still have room left over for an actual player or two!
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xD Yeah, that's what I was thinking. With that many moderators, the mod:player ratio would be ridiculous.
A good practice I like is a 1:10 ratio | |
It's not like their will be 20 jobs and not like all those people will be on, maybe 2 mods and 1 admin, 1 or 2 of each other job...And not everyone will be on always even mods.
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Right, but say you have a player base of 60 (which, probably won't happen during the first few months at the least unless its a fangame)), then only 2/3 of the population will be players.
Like most games (the exception being fan-games), your player base will be less than 30 to start with, meaning 2/3 of your population would be moderators. As I said, if you have 30 players, have 3 moderators, if you have 60 players, have about 6. Once/if you get above 100 though, I'd say use a 1:5 ratio, and drop it for every 100 or so. | |
Poal wrote:
I'm making an RPG currently and I want to know what YOU think about Admin and Mod powers. Should I just make like 20 admins/mods and let them have all powers?(Mute, teleport, ban, boot) or should I assign jobs to different admins? Okay, first of all, you do not want that many administrators in your game, regardless if their powers are limited. The only people who should be administrators in your game is you and your staff. The actual owner of the game, which I believe is you, should have full control over your staff no matter what. Also, always remember that being an administrator is not to benefit yourself, but to enforce the rules within the game, and to help out anyone who needs help within the game, or anyone who is having problems accessing it. As Jamesburrow said, always have a ratio of administrators to players in your game, otherwise, the workload you will have to deal with will get very frustrating. I have seen many administrators in tons of games act like "no u should sht up!" and "dnt piss/ mi off!". That is unacceptable and even if you have a staff member who acts like that, he should not have any administrator powers. Your staff should be mature and be able to help people out and not ban/boot/mute random players for not agreeing with them. Otherwise, you will lose your player base and your game will get a bad reputation. Being an administrator should not be a fun job, it should be work. Of course you can have fun within your game, but do not allow your staff to edit themselves in anyway and when someone needs help, make sure they respond. I'm tired of seeing games with 50 administrators that are all under 12 years old. There is absolutely no point in it, and it makes no sense. | |
Poal wrote:
My current idea is this - I don't see this as being very practical. Filters are there for people who do not enjoy reading certain things -- if someone is being harassed by players bypassing the filters, I'm sure they'd report it to someone. No sense in having a single person spammed with every single chat line. Observer - Can look at other people and what they're doing, if someone reports being spawn killed or harassed, they can change their view onto the person who reported and watch if it's true, if it is he can take control by either teleporting their, muting, or (temp)banning. Having a single type of moderator to prevent something that is a design flaw in the first place isn't something you should have. For harassment, the same thing as above applies. Helper - Talks to people and helps them learn the game. Don't people ever write guides and tutorials anymore? Trades Master - Talks to people about prices of items so they don't get scammed. Trade Master Leader - Controls global economy, also selects the Trades Masters. Personally, I think the game's economy (if controlled at all by any person) should be controlled by the players. If they have to go through the effort of gathering the resources and putting in the time to create objects, it should be completely their decision to price it. If only the Price Police would bust through the door of every pawnshop where customers are constantly being ripped off. :P Teleporter - Can teleport but only if something big is going on, like an event. Bug Attender(2 or 3 people) - Tests bug when and if it's reported. These all sound like they should just be bundled together -- it's getting ridiculous (announcer?). I don't think any game on BYOND is on a big enough scale to warrant so many different positions -- not even the most popular ones. I'd say stick to two (maybe three -- and that's including yourself) administrators, if any are needed at all. I don't think 1 mod or admin should do all these jobs alone, he will mess-up and miss many things so I believe if the jobs are split it will work more efficiently. I would honestly hope anyone that you'd trust with power in your game wouldn't be confused with an "announce" command. Generally, it's not very complicated to understand how commands work. They're usually pretty self explanatory. If you have really complicated commands, I'd suggest either taking the proper precautions and make sure your staff knows how to use them, not give them to anyone else, or make them more user friendly. I'd stick to the more standard method. :P | |
Okay haha that was a typo, it was 2 not 20 mods/admins
Also I know I hate immature staff that's why if I chose some it will be friends, or people who I meet on the game who are mature enough to have any responsibility(That's another reason I don't want their to be admins, an admin makes some imature kid an admin and he starts banning...) | |
Every once in a while you will come across an rpg that has more players than that, but yeah, when first starting, you can expect that to be the norm, so 1-2 mods should be perfect.
The exception is when the game is to be run 24/7 and the playerbase is scattered about and you want to be sure most time slots are covered, then you can have maybe 1 extra mod for a time slot that cant be covered by other mods. | |
Strong arguments, thank you I decided to take it the traditional way(Though their will be a lvl1-lvl5 admin system that limits new admins from being too powerful).
Thanks for your time! -Poal (PS Don't post or respond to this topic anymore) | |
You can keep a log of your admins and their actions and see what they're up to when you're not around. Give the players a verb or command to request admin help, and record that along with whatever actions the admin made. If they're really good admins, it'll be easily apparent in the logs. If they aren't you can see where they went wrong and you'll have a record of things they did that you may need to fix. It helps when it comes down to "he said, she said".
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In the game I am making I keep things like admin powers and what not relatively simple.
There is 5 levels of power in a game (6 if you count normal players). Temporary Moderators Hosts Moderators Hidden Moderators Admins Hosts and temp mods are more or less the same thing. They basically only have access to server controls and basic functions that will not give them any sort of distinct advantage in the game. They can do things such as kick, mute and ban players, but this only applies to the server they are hosting. As soon as they log out these powers are removed. Moderators get a bit more power. They have access to everything a host/temp mod would get, as well as functions that allow them host events and the likes. Hidden Moderators will be the same in terms of power, but they will be totally invisible in every aspect except to everyone in the game, including Moderators. This is so if they get reports of people breaking rules but have no solid evidence they can monitor those people reportedly breaking the rules without giving themselves away, thus making it easier to catch people out. (Even if the person breaking the rules is a Moderator) Admins basically consists of me. I have access to a lot of technical functions that only I would understand and need. Hosts/Temp Mods are basically designed to maintain law and order in their server. Moderators/Hidden Moderators are designed to handle the player aspects of the game (such as keeping law and order, hosting events, taking bug reports and if possible fixing bugs). Admins are designed to handle the inner working of the game, for the purpose of finding and fixing bugs. It might not be the best method of doing things. But it allows players to handle their own servers without having any powers that are abuseable (well, they will be able to mute/kick/ban you, but nothing they can do will be permenant to your character, so you'll be easily able to join another server). And I don't need to go to the trouble of finding and hiring a bunch of trustworthy people (which can be really hard for someone who doesn't trust anyone!). | |
I think dividing up some many jobs into different classes of people in authority sounds...dumb.
I typically stick with a simple list of who's got power and what they can do with it: Administrator - Essentially being an administrator means you can change anything in the game, edit savefiles, modify variables, delete characters, or whatever. Moderator - the moderator's purpose is to keep the game clean and running smoothly. They do not have the power to interfere with game mechanics, but they can boot/mute/ban or otherwise deal with troublesome players. Therefor, anyone you trust with complete authority in the game is an administrator, including the developers and most likely the host. Anyone who's a loyal, long-term player, but who isn't familiar with game mechanics and/or can't really be trusted not to abuse them can be a moderator. | |
