Isn't that what happened?

For MMORPGs I think we need a new term: "sponsor". A sponsor is someone who is effectively the host ruling many different servers, each of which has an individual host who operates at the sponsor's discretion. The individual hosts should have little or no power except perhaps some basic admin control to prevent trouble to their servers. (In practice, a host can use other tools to be a problem if they so choose.)

Now a game could effectively have multiple sponsors, and thus multiple multi-server worlds. In practice, usually the creator is the sponsor for this type of game.

Lummox JR

Moderators and admins are the same thing. At best you're talking about different levels of admins.

Lummox JR

Lummox JR wrote:

FlameMarth wrote:

I think the chain should go like this:

Creator(That actually does some work) -> Coders -> Mappers -> Artists -> Host -> Moderators

Good gads man, why should random people who contributed to the project have more authority than the host?! As mentioned elsewhere, for certain types of games where hosting is not public but is done so by someone on behalf of the creator, only then should the creator have more control (excepting debug verbs of course). However, other contributors such as programmers, mappers, and artists, should have no such control. Perhaps some should be GMs with ability to affect ingame elements, which puts them just below the level of admin/moderator, but clearly GMs should also be determined by the host, not in payment for services.

Basically you've just fallen victim to the same bad thinking that's plagued so many other games. Making someone an admin or GM (and there is a difference) is NOT something you should necessarily do whether they contributed to the project or not.

Lummox JR

Ah, but I never said anything about their commands, I was just saying, those are the people that deserve the most credit and say in things.

Giving them commands wouldn't hurt if you make sure to only give them basic moderating commands like Boot, Ban, and Mute or give advanced commands only to trustworthy admins. In most cases, offering administrative powers motivates them to work harder, since most people that work for free usually don't want to work without in-game rewards nowadays.

Lummox JR wrote:

FlameMarth wrote:

Ah, but I never said anything about their commands, I was just saying, those are the people that deserve the most credit and say in things.

Credit yes, say in things no.

Giving them commands wouldn't hurt if you make sure to only give them basic moderating commands like Boot, Ban, and Mute or give advanced commands only to trustworthy admins.

Any admin commands should be given only to the trustworthy.

In most cases, offering administrative powers motivates them to work harder, since most people that work for free usually don't want to work without in-game rewards nowadays.

That's complete horsecrap. It's what DBZer "authors" think when they try to organize a team, because their unoriginal material doesn't motivate any developers of real caliber who are willing to put in effort on a good project. Instead this bribe of GM or admin power (or both, since these people conflate the two) is offered indiscriminately in return for such assistance. Just because someone made great icons doesn't mean they're a good GM or admin.

Basically if your development team is only motivated by ingame goodies, you're working with degenerate losers. Ditch those bozos and get people who actually have ethics and professional pride.

Lummox JR

That's why I only accept work from people that do not care about admin powers... Most of my admins don't care about "admin verbs", and that sends me the message that they are fit for administrative position, although most of said admins recieve no commands at all (maybe a special Announcement verb, but that's about it) and those who do usually just recieve basic moderating commands.

Doesn't matter much to me.. I do most coding/icons myself.

The chain of power in any given game should lie where it does the game the most good. This obviously depends on the scale of the game, the way in which it runs (i.e. is it hosted on an 'official' server, is it released for people to host themselves, etc) -

Ideally, any game released able to be hosted by anyone (or anonymous/unknowns, reguardless) should be allowing the host the means to control certain aspects of the game. They are in a certain sense the 'creator' of that instance of the game, in that they are providing uptime for the game under their cost/time/bandwidth/whichever.

The rules should be slightly different for a game hosted permanently - The word 'staff' enters into the subject (this is generalization - I'm assuming games able to be hosted by anonymous/unknowns/anyone are relatively small in scale and games hosted permanently are *not*), and you can begin talking about differences between Host, Creator, Moderators and Game Masters.

Theres no reason that a creator should have any special privilidges within a game to moderate, unless he serves a function to do so (which many choose to do, mind you). There are a number of reasons for a host to have administrative commands, in order to deal with abuse and/or controlling the up/downtime of the game from WITHIN the game as well.

And, for clarification:

Host = The personnel owning the space / connection used to broadcast / run the game

Creator = Persons who have created the actual game

Moderator = Personnel hired/used to keep the game 'clean' - Not used to deal with game bugs

Game Masters = Personnel hired/used to deal with in-game bugs that crop up - Players stuck in an area where you aren't supposed to be stuck, runtime errors causing problems, et cetera.

Most non-commercial games or smaller games in general tend to 'blur' the lines between certain elements of staff, with certain people taking up one or more positions (A creator who also hosts his own game, and also moderates, and also deals with in-game matters, for example), which isn't wrong by any means. It's merely important to understand that they are seperatable concepts and for purpose of illustration should probably be kept that way.