The Hysteria Project: Hystory

Edhadeya

Part IV: Time

        No matter how much you love a game, it will eventually become boring if it never changes. One of the most challenging aspects to running a MUD is coming up with and implementing new ideas on a regular basis, to keep the game fresh and interesting to the level 150 players who have run the game for years.

        Unfortunately, the administrators and coders, like the players, have lives. Lives with school, work, significant others, children or any combination thereof. It can become very difficult to find time to log in to the game itself, let alone spend a few hours adding and testing new features. And again, the only forms of compensation the Admin team receives for their time is a sense of accomplishment and the satisfaction they get from knowing others are enjoying the product of their hard work.

        Often times an idea you come up with and spend hours writing just doesn't work out how you wanted it to, and it seems like all that time was spent for nothing. This is also a necessary part of the game. No one hits 100% of the time. Most ideas that won't work are filtered out in the discussion process, but not always.

        I learned a lot from my first stint as Creator on Hysteria. I can never fully explain to anyone exactly why it was eventually shut down. The goal now is to take what I've learned in the past and apply it to the latest incarnation of the game. Expand what can be done, keep it fresh, keep it new. Try to make it fun for everyone and hopefully... maybe... I won't have to ban anyone this time around.