We’ve had at least three separate people inquire about becoming a staff member over the last two weeks. There’s nothing particularly strange about that, except all three of these people -only- wanted to be administrators, they had absolutely no interest in playing the game.
It could just be the different breed of MUD’s that Cedric, Gannor, and I are used to, but the concept of administrating on a game with no interest in playing -is- foreign to us. We’re all very active in the game, creating roleplay, playing mortals, running storylines, etc.
Because of this, I thought it best to give some insight into how our staffing policy works on Advent.
Edit: We are currently not looking for anymore staff, especially during alpha.
Who can be a staff member
1. I am very close with my staff. We talk on the phone, we’ve grown up together (for the last decade anyway), we send each other gifts. We are friends moreso than we are staffers. It will take a lot of trust for us to bring someone into this mix. And it will be a unanimous vote from all the staff, it is not just -my- decision. Implementor or not, the staff has always, and will always act as a team. It is rare that I make any decisions on my own.
Essentially, it has to be a decision of the staff as a whole to promote anyone.
2. All of my staff members (with the exception of Pip) are required to play the game. Cedric and I both realize this may be a foreign concept on most MUD’s, as a lot of MUD’s forbid their staff members from playing mortals. But we’ve played MUD’s where the staff was completely disconnected from the game in-character, and we know the outcome of such. When the staff has no idea what goes on from a players point of view, then they miss all the things that are seriously wrong with the game. They think player complaints are nothing but whining and dribble. We’ve been there, we know this. The staff here play mortals, and they run across the same problems that mortals have. They can relate to player issues, and thus can sympathize with what needs to be done to make the game fun for everyone.
So essentially, in order to be a staff member, you’re going to have to play the game, and we only want staff members that know the ins and outs of the game.
3. Trust. I don’t know how many MUD’s hire complete strangers off the street, but it must be a decent amount. This goes along with #1, but we don’t hire strangers to come staff for us. When we’re ready to bring up more staff members, we’ll pick and choose from players that have demonstrated a great deal of devotion in the game, and are not known for cheating, harassing, or any other demeaning manner. Becoming a staff member is a lot of hard work, and it requires a great deal of faith on our part to give someone access to the world of the Gods.
Essentially, if you haven’t played the game and we don’t know you, you’re not going to be on staff.
And finally, becoming a staff member, at least in our eyes, requires a bit of climbing up the corporate ladder. You start out with the basics, you learn the game, you learn the theme and the world, and then you will be equipped enough to manage the game.
In the meantime, we will accept building applications from complete strangers and players alike.
How to apply to become a staff member
Anyone who wishes to apply to be a staff member, can send an email to imm[@]adventmud.org detailing why they wish to be an immortal, and a religious concept behind that character. All characters will start out as avatars of a particular deity, their concept will be umbrella’d under that God’s concept until the avatar is able to establish their own religion.
For example, if someone wished to create a religion based around chaos, they would be an avatar of Alyasne, and roleplay their character as an entity of that religious aspect.
Once the staff feel on an OOC level that the person is able to be promoted to a full-fledged immortal, they will be promoted as an Immortal. At this stage, they are immortal, but not considered a God until they’ve established a following. Once they have a suitable enough following, they are promoted to a “God,” and their transformation is complete.
You can read about the Immortal Transitions in help HIERARCHY.
