For years I have watched the disparity of treatment both by owners/producers of the muds as well as the players to these Gods.

As a person looking in from outside of the collective of administration and volunteers, I have observed that Coder Gods appear to raise in ranks tenfold faster than Builder Gods. Certainly 'valid' reasons are present for this, however it gives the wrong impression to an outsider that they are perhaps more hardworking than a Builder God, which certainly is not necessarily true.

So here are a few observations I have made over the last 10 years in IRE muds and last 3 years here in Lusternia:

1) Coder Gods are most often recognised for their contributions, and usually in a rather public manner in form of announce posts, or word of mouth through Envoys. Everyone knows immediately what that Coder Dude has done.

2) Builder Gods never get recognised for the areas they built. No one knows which God built which area, so Builder Gods rarely get the pat on the back for a job well done in writing the hundreds of descriptions which seldom get read.

3) Even if we did not take note of named contributions, Coder Gods get pats on the back more often over the same period of time than Builder Gods. For volunteer Gods, this is likely the best source of motivation - when players expressed their delight colourfully at a bug fixed (a few days of work at most usually) or at a new area released (takes several weeks).

4) The lack of information about how Gods are ranked and have to work for these ranks also plays a part. This causes the side effect of players becoming unhappy with their "new" Builder Gods, who cannot gain godranks as fast as their counterpart Coder Gods, earning privileges to have more order members allowed, or special order items, or new temple grounds, or special order mobs, RP items like huge momuments placed in important city locations and so on. It has been my experience that to get funky Order items and quests, one must glue oneself to a Coder God, as they appear to speed through whatever godranks and privs there are.

5) Then there are the Gods who do the administrative work of issues, trade item designs, and I'm sure a load of other 'behind the scene' jobs. Do these Gods ever get appreciated? I noted in Lusternia itself most of these get yelled at, insulted regularly whenever they try to do their jobs. Perhaps in this case it is a good thing no one knows who they are as this could potentially be very demoralising. But I am curious. Do these Gods earn their ranks from this work too? Or do they do this work knowing full well that it is unlikely that they will get even a small thanks for it?

6) Lastly, we have seen this time and time again. Coder Gods are able to work their way into a paying position. Getting paid to do a job, we all know is possibly the best incentive out there. What happens to Builder Gods? Has any Builder God reached the top? Can they even? What happens when all the incentive they have worked for runs out? Is that why so many quit?

So, because of these above observations, it is unlikely that I would ever be ask to be part of the volunteer administration at the risk of my sanity. Why would anyone in their right state of mind give up their months and years of characters they've built up for a place on the 'target practice block'?


What are your thoughts?
-Player of Neuf etc

Lusternia has 1 extra paid position, it seems. This is generally given to the senior coding god, to keep them coding and not wandering off to other positions/jobs (as, let's face it, the coding aspect is the heart of Lusternia. It might not be the soul-- that would go to creativity, but everything that's done requires coding).

I will whole-heartedly agree. Builder/Admin gods get very little in return for the hours of work they put in, building areas, running events, planning events to run, handling Org issues, handling Admin issues, reading the myriad of books submitted for contests, handling designs, updating help files... their placebo payment is "You get to be a God! You get an Order! You get a Temple!" however, the fine print says "in order for you to get those you need to.... do more work!!"

Coder Gods get all the kudos, all the "Yay so and so coded a cool thing!" all the announce posts glorifying their deeds, while Builder/Admins... take the majority (Coders do catch flak for bugged skills, but bugged quests/events still come out on top) of the crap from the players for not handling things in time or spitting out enough areas or not dealing with an issue in the way they wanted. When was the last time there was an announce post saying "Congrats to so and so who just became our head builder god(dess)"?

Well, I have no idea who puts in how much work (and neither do you), but I have no problem with coders getting more perks then builders (if that is indeed the case), due to the nature of the work. People who work hard and can code well are much rarer then people who work hard and write well. You see a similar trend in the real world- coders tend to get paid more then people with jobs involving writing.

The point isn't at all about money.

The point is those that do the writing, the building, the designing, the scripting of each and every one of those denizens you talk to and get quests from, the scripting of those quests, the scripting of the cool prize at the end of the quest, are not recognized for their work. They are instead told "what is your next project?" and kept in the dark from the players.

In the real world an author will get 10x as much recognition as a coder. How many of Bill Gates lackeys do you see being applauded in the news? Whereas, how many best sellers have you seen in the last book store you were in?

Edit: Writers by the way make far more money over time. As they get royalties from pretty much anything they publish until they die, and a good contract will continue royalties on to the widow/children of the author. I can tell you I know the names of far more screenwriters, authors, playwrights, songwriters than I do "coders".

Edit:: Also the possession of denizens when annoying players sit there for 4 hours straight spamming "blue" over and over hoping that if they say it the 600th time they will get a new response.

I think the difference is, just about anyone can build or run an event or handle administration issues. You have to have skill to work with IRE code. You cannot have a successful game like Lusternia without a good mix of the two. I say yay for all the Gods, Celani and people behind the scenes because they really do a lot of their work without expecting thanks or accolades.

While I'd agree that administrative issues wouldn't be anything except a time-consuming necessity, there are a lot more people who think they have literary talent than there actually are, and even then, building a good area is a different talent than emo poetry on dA, and not many people have it. I mean, seriously, have you seen the designs that the trademasters come up with? Mostly crap. Thank Estarra that most of them don't get jobs as builders.

How many writers become best sellers? Sure, the more famous writers make more money then the average coder, but what percentage of writers succeed to that level, compared to which writers don't? But this is irrelevant to the thread. Coder skills are less common then writing skills, and due to that, I wouldn't find it unreasonable that they be given bigger perks to keep them around.

If this was the case then you would not be subjected to a a writing sample, to only getting positions you have aptitude for. I think it is easy to assume that "anybody can build or write events" because I am pretty darn sure not anybody can and it is no picnic to do so either. I am almost positive that running an event is a lesson in patience that most people can't possibly understand. I am really inclined to believe that building an 80 room area, describing each room with a good flow, and not repeating rooms, then building the 100+ denizens and describing them all, then scripting responses, quests and adding in quest items, then planning an event to bring the area out to the public, scripting that, testing that, all in a relatively short period of time is not something that "anybody could do".

I could be wrong though.

As someone who has been there as two Goddesses in an IRE game, I would say you could be wrong. I have done all those things you mentioned quite easily but I was never allowed anywhere near the code.

It doesn't matter what percentage of writers make it compared to coders. I will bet any amount of money that you know about hundreds more people in the creative industry than you do in the coding industry, unless you live in a shoe box.

Again, this is not about money, it is about recognition.

Well if you came from Achaea I will buy that anybody can do it there.

I had to respond to this, though I should really be in bed.

I disagree strongly with Bhiele's statement that 'anyone can build or run an event or handle administration issues'. With IRE's high standards and Lusternia's even higher quality of writing, not many people are able to provide such good quality work consistently as Lusternia's Volunteer Builders have done. Running an event, certainly. Anyone be given a script and told, go repeat everything there. However, it takes a creative person to come up with the event in the first place, then to plan it all out, followed by sitting hours watching the players to finally make the right guess, to which they can respond to and move the event along. So basically, in the time a Builder God plans, writes and runs a simple short event, the Coder God would have fixed several small bugs. Judging by past occurrences, the Coder God gets a huge yay, cool, thanks! So happy that annoying little bug is fixed and so on. Whereas the Builder God might get a few raves in the rave thread, if lucky. More likely get many rants in the rant thread. But no one would really know whom they are praising or insulting. That is the sort of disparity I refer to.

PS I would love to see a real programmer do administrative work, or even creative work. I live my life surrounded by these people, most of them have some of the worse creative minds out there. No offense to my spouse. :-/

I am not going to respond to 99% of the topic, because it's not my place to. However, Charune is an excellent coder - when Estarra said he is talented, I think that's a far cry from the truth. Talented is an understatement. I know it's not the intention, but it almost seems to undervalue what our coders do.

That said. Go look at Lack of Rants for nigh every area released or event ran, and really wonder if you would want your name associated with some of the angst that's felt. I sure don't. I do not want any of it to be carried over ICly to reflect upon my character.

And I am actually bothered by the statement that 'anyone' can build an area or run an event, or handle administrative issues. The people who handle our issues are top notch, and do a fantastic job. Better than I could, and it's a far cry to even deign to possess some of the tact they regularly display. Our active builders, especially the Camenae, do fantastic jobs behind the scenes. Areas can take months or more to produce, and for those of you who think people who can produce quality areas are a dime a dozen, I fully challenge you to put in an application for a mortal builder or an ephemeral slot, and try it out from the other side of the fence! Scripting out personalities, designing rooms, quests, layouts, coming up with reactions and descriptions for every mobile, replica, room... It's not something anyone can do.

That said! I don't mind being a volunteer. I actually enjoy the work and the creative outlet. I cheerfully float along and enjoy every moment of it - and the people up here are smashingly rock awesome, right down from our super cool Creatrix, Estarra, to our nimby-numpty godlings like myself. And everything between and excluded.

Sure, I gave up a lot to become a god. Characters I loved like they were a part of me. But I'll be damned to have anyone think I'd ever go back and not have applied, or that I regret anything. Simply knowing that my areas are part of Lusternia, my events were ran, the little people that live inside my head have been fleshed out and given a life of their own. As strange/cliche as it sounds, that really, really is reward enough for me. That, and hearing how much players enjoyed the interactions or the events, or love this new area or that new mobile. I am a volunteer, I work fourty hours a week at a real job bringing home some real bacon, complete with a dog that I walk every evening after I make dinner and run every morning before I shower for work. And, while there's some things I'd like to change, my place in Lusternia is most definitely not one of them!

Re: the post above this. Estarra both builds and codes. Lusternia is definitely her brain child completely. She programs, she codes, she scripts, she describes, she does administrative work, she is the grease that keeps Lusternia rolling along. Morgfyre, prior to leaving for MKO, did these things, as well. And he did all of them extremely well, as does Estarra.

Oh good lord. I wasn't being insulting to any building or event-planning gods. What I meant was any of the people chosen to do volunteer work in this capacity could do it easily or surely they would not have been chosen. I know how hard it is, I was trying to commiserate. It sucks totally to put your heart into an event or area and have no one appreciate it. All the volunteers have extremely stressful and difficult jobs. I was NOT belittling anyone or insulting the ability of anyone that volunteers for any IRE game.

If anyone actually read my post they might have seen I was offering kudos to both sets. However, I am still of the opinion that building is easier than coding. Return to the crucifixion.

Not saying coding is easy, but I will say coding is easier than creativity.

Coding is a cookbook. You know what you have to make, you know what the code is, heck you have probably already put these exact same lines of code in 20 other places already, you just have to grab them and put them in.

Creativity means well... you have to be creative to begin with, you have to be able to visualize a concept and build that concept from the ground up in every little detail. There is a lot more involvement in creation, than there is in taking lines of code and putting them together.

This is very subjective. Many, many people find inspiration much easier than very structured rule-based stuff like that (not including me though.)

And how did the coder get to that point? Lots of experience and practice. Which... makes them even more valuable.

Right, cause the creative person has never written a piece in their life. Has just instantly jumped into action as a writer of words. They had no prior experience in writing until the day IRE told them to start spitting out words to build their 10,000+ room games.

A coder without creativity is an overglorified assembly line worker who somehow managed to acquire the title of "professional." A real programmer is creative out of necessity. It's the difference between the guy who tightens screws and the guy who designs airplanes. You don't have room for code monkeys on a small staff, only programmers.