A while ago I made a post about beginning development. It was located here. I'd been meaning to write another, but I have been busy with everything contained in the posts from then until now.

Anyway, in that post, I made reference to DragonBallZeta and it's administration verb to allow the administrator to raise the stats of a player, this is where this topic comes into play.

In both Fangames and other RPG's. It's common practice for the lead programmer, big guy, master of all creation, to add in a verb which allows an administrator to edit or change their own or other players stats. Be it for rewards or just to give themselves or their friends an edge in the game their playing. I believe this is be bad practice and I'll explain why. Further on in the post, I'll also mention why it's a bad idea to offer administration as payment for a service, and what games really need what kind of administration power.

We'll start off with bad practice. As mentioned afore, most Fangames and other RPG's both give their administrators the ability to edit a users stats. This I believe, alters the balance of power and does in-fact, ruin the game for other players. It also, to some degree, can ruin the game for the receiving player.

For starters, lots of players spend hours in a game to try and become the best. They will play it, enjoy it and return to it. All the while, their character will grow and become stronger. They have earned their abilities and pretty much know the current state of the game inside out. Now, after someone had put so much time and effort into raising a character from scratch, imagine how they'll feel if someone else was to come along, gloat about how their friends in the administration field made their character strong, then kill the user; only because they can. I don't know about you, but after an incident like that, I'd be pretty put off from playing that game. I mean, what's the point in playing it and betting myself, if I'm only going to be hunted down like a dog by the top administrator's best friend's sister? None really. Sure the game might be fun, but there is no point in trying, when someone kills you (and everyone else they see) with a stat-raised character.

This brings me to my point of stat raising, why it's bad practice, and how no administrator should have this kind of advantage over a player. The role play experience in itself is damaged if suddenly a god of sought, appears, grants their almighty power to some random and departs, leaving everyone else to their own devices for defence. Not only does it put players off by generating the infamous "why bother" feeling. It can also ruin the game for the receiver, whom after killing so many people for so long, decides it's just not fun when there's nothing to beat you. Having no challenge makes a game about as interesting as watching paint dry. Which, when you're drunk, can probably be quite riveting. But looking at the current community, only a select few can actually legally drink. Moving along.

Administrators themselves with such power will probably be too tempted by it to not use it on themselves. You can argue that the programmer will put some kind of block on it. But hey, the key system is abused daily by people making hundreds of keys for themselves, what's one more going to hurt? Essentially, this will ruin the game for the administrator as well, who has nothing to do but keep players in line. Which in a well-programmed RPG, shouldn't be required (more on that in another post). And that gets old, real, real fast. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't play an RPG where my only function is to do other peoples bidding. It's not playing a role, it's being a babysitter, and what's more, I'm not being paid for it.

Speaking of payment, you'll notice in the -hopefully soon to be axed- "Classified Ads" forum, that almost everyone there looking for an "iconner" or a programmer, will offer some kind of administrator power as payment. Anyone duped into working for someone who offers such payment, should have their programming knowledge erased. For starters, you're the programmer, you can just give yourself that ability. The person who's hiring you probably doesn't know their way around a code file any more then they do a high-school (implying people who offer that as payment, are kids). Further more, if you happen to have a disagreement with the owner, after you have given away the source, they can just remove your key from the list (if you're not using a list for admins, you need the aforementioned punishment) and you have absolutely nothing to show for your work. Sure, you can release the source you have, but that will just give yourself a bad reputation. Never work for anything other than money, unless you really enjoy working for free. Then, by all means, do so. Just don't work for this fake payment. The argument with the owner and the stripping of your title will probably succeed in robbing you of the sense of satisfaction you had for making a complete game. So you can't argue that satisfaction is your reward, hell, you'd have gotten that (probably more so) for doing it yourself.

Finally, you'll notice a lot of games will have administration verbs they do not need. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to find a "fly" verb inside a chat environment somewhere. These verbs, just aren't necessary. Personally, I don't like the fly verb inside an RPG environment in anything outside of a magic spell or special skill.

We'll start off on the basics that every game which uses an administrator control system should have. Mute, boot, ban and warn. They are a must. Trolls are everywhere, and the struggle to keep them at bay is failing due to programmers not adding these the first chance they get. This was in fact proven to me last night in Chat, when the entire thing was infested with trolls, and those with administrator access (me included) couldn't do a thing about it. To be honest, it's infuriating.

A warn verb is necessary to make sure a message of warning is reached to your would-be troll. A boot verb is used to show them you're serious. A mute verb is used to silence them for a time, so they can see how the community talks and what to say. And if after all that, they still refuse to behave, remove them from the game/application entirely; I.E: Ban.

As I mentioned in the last post, the Tiberath Phenomenon kills your interest in a project. This is where libraries are useful. A bare bones administration system needs nothing more then the definition of three lists (Banned, Muted and Staff), an override of client/New() and client/Del() procs and four client/verbs. It's fairly easy to make one that you can just click into your project. Saving you time, effort and the chance of doing something boring enough you'll lose interest as a whole. Like so many before us have done.

In summary:
Never add in stat raising administration verbs.
Never work for an administrator status.
Never add in exceptionally pointless admin verbs.
Never host a project that hasn't got the ability to defend itself properly.