Wizardly Behavior

Acting Wizardly

So, you made wizard. Congratulations! Now, get ready for the hard part. Players will beg you for answers to their questions, ask you to do things for them, and yell at you when they get angry. Your fellow wizards will ask you to create game content, disagree with you, and (sometimes), reprimand you when you're wrong. You'll have to learn to do all of these things, while managing to make your maps, code, images, or web pages; review player maps, Hall of Fame images, and complaints; and, most importantly, not break ANY rules. Ever. As a general rule for everything that you do, if you aren't sure, ask an Elder wizard or higher.

That's the fun part. In addition, you'll be tempted to abuse your power, deal too harshly with players, get demoted, create bugged items that keep people who have them from logging in, make badly unbalanced game content, and have the higher-level wizards yell at you.

Still interested? Even if you're willing to deal with this, you might not have what it takes. You'll need maturity, intellect, mapmaking ability, and knowledge. You'll also need respect, not only for other wizards, but for players. Did I mention maturity?

This manual is an attempt to quantify behaviors that should already be instinctive, to be a place that people can look back to as a guideline, or, if need be, so that the Arch Wizards can show wrongdoers that they were, in fact, doing wrong, and that there is a list of rules to follow. You are expected to follow all of the rules, and to do as they say.

Dealing with the other Wizards

Interactions with other Wizards are some of the most important you'll have in Wyvern. They control, directly or indirectly, a great deal of what happens to the game and to your Wizarding career. So be nice to them, dang it.

Dealing with wizards of higher level than you is a bit difficult. You should treat them as you would treat someone older and wiser than you are: you might be older or wiser than they are in reality, but you haven't proven it yet, and they just might deserve the treatment. Listen to what they say. If they're wrong, don't be disrespectful about calling them on it. Friendly jokes are ok, inane teasing isn't. This goes for everyone.

Dealing with lower-level Wizards is a bit easier, but not much. They're more likely to be wrong, and often less likely to admit it. Still, they deserve your respect. Remember, you used to be where they are, and might have made the same sorts of mistakes. Treat them nicely.

Dealing with Wizards of similar level to you is often the easiest. They're less intimidating than higher-level Wizards, and they can generally take and dish out a bit more than lower level Wizards. There's often a greater sense of cameraderie between members of equal wizard level than there is among other Wizards, and you can generally count on them for help with whatever project you're currently working on.

Dealing with Arch Wizards is a special case. The best thing to do with them is to try to help them out, save them time, and generally act or react as you would to the boss at your job. They're in charge, and, we hope, they should be. Overall, anything that saves these guys time is good, because it ends up making more time for them to work on the game core, adding content and fixing bugs.

When another wizard "Screws Up," don't rub their nose in it. If you're in a position to reprimand them for it, do it in private, preferably the tell channel. Don't bring it to wiz-tells or shouts, and definitely not to the wiz boards, even if you don't "name names." You wouldn't like it if you got bawled out in public, so it is safe to assume that they wouldn't, either.

Sometimes, even high-ranking wizards will screw up and break rules. This can happen for any number of reasons: a bad day at work, lack of sleep, the neighbors playing their music too loud, breaking up with a significant other. The reason itself is none of your business, however, the transgression itself is. The best thing to do is to tread lightly, don't yell, and talk to an even higher-ranked wizard, even Rhialto or Legolas. If it gets too bad, you might even log out. If this happens, email one of the Arch Wizards about it.

General rules for dealing with other Wizards:

  1. Be respectful.
  2. Don't argue if you can avoid it.
  3. Don't get angry.
  4. Remember: You are not better than they are.
  5. Don't bring politics, religion, love, Merlin, or music into discussions.

Dealing with Good Players

Dealing with good players is much trickier than it seems at first. You'd think that it would be instinctive, and that's partially true. You should reward good behavior. You should not give them superpowers. This can be a problem. What is an appropriate reward?

Rewards should vary in direct proportion to behavior. Finding a broken teleporter in a map that the player is testing for you is worth a pat on the back, maybe a few hundred xp, at most. Single-handedly finding, explaining, and analyzing a major bug is worth several thousand xp, or a low-powered rare item.

The easiest way to reward a player is "xp foobar 500," where foobar is the player to be rewarded. This will send the player an xp voucher, which they can redeem for experience points or gold. Xp vouchers are available in increments, type "xp" by itself to list them all.

Giving players a low-powered unique item is a memorable way to reward a player. Even a custom picture on an existing item is sometimes enough of a reward, and there is no threat of a new image upsetting the game balance. Generally, a reward should not grant more than 2 or 3 skill points in any skill.

General rules for dealing with good players:

  1. Don't unbalance them.
  2. Do reward them
  3. Make the reward such that they will remember the good deed itself, rather than the reward.

Dealing with Bad Players

Dealing with bad players is pretty easy. The punishments are all outlined in the wizard rules, player rules, and player manual. The thing is to remember that these punishments are the rule. Don't get creative with punishments. It may seem that it would be more effective to alias shout to something else for a player who is abusive in shouts, but silence is the best way. If you come up with a punishment that would be more effective, talk to an Arch Wizard, don't just start doing it.

General rules for dealing with bad players:

  1. Be fair.
  2. Don't mete out any punishments on heresay alone. Make sure that there is evidence.
  3. Don't hesitate to punish people simply because they are your friends. It doesn't give them any more right to break the rules.
  4. If a higher-level wizard tells you to punish the players differently, do what they say.

Dealing with Power

Power corrupts, goes the saying. Well, you've now got power, if only over the players in an online game. If you're corrupt, you'll be banished. Don't be corrupt.

Don't randomly punish people, don't deal more harshly with people you don't like simply because you don't like them. If your friends say that someone broke the rules, check to make sure what they say is true.

To put it bluntly, if something feels wrong, it probably is, and if it doesn't, it could be.

The ONE rule for dealing with power:

  1. Never, ever, let emotion get involved with the use of your authority

General Behavior

Or: How Not to Get De-wizzed Your First Day on the Job

Being a wizard is generally a lot of fun. Especially when you first start out: new powers, new responsibilities, fun new toys to play with. The world lies at your feet, ready for you to impose your will.

Or not.

It's natural to want to try out your new powers, take them for a spin around the block, er, globe. However, until you know what you're doing and have proven yourself capable of handling the powers correctly, limit your tests to your workroom or test maps. That means you shouldn't run around redecorating other wizards' maps or the continent, or making LQs (live quests) in New Verden, or disguising yourself as a riagor and chasing players around, or any of those other ideas that seem to occur to new wizards.

But if you, really, really want to do something on the continent or in someone else's maps...don't. There's almost always some aspect of it that will cause problems you haven't thought of before. You can get a senior wizard or higher to help you with something, and they should be able to explain the ins and outs of it, and watch over your shoulder to make sure you don't mess up. But if in doubt...ask an elder or arch wizard. Don't just figure "Oh, it'll be OK..."

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