One of the ways in which Iron Realms manages to thrive in the face of competition from Eve Online to World of Warcraft is by providing an environment that feels palpably different from that which a player can get elsewhere. Part of this drive is instantiated in our game mechanics and part is instantiated in the admin-assisted roleplaying we do. Unlike most MMOs, many of our admins also play fictional roles, usually as Gods (in the polytheistic sense), and directly interact with players in-role. Our admins, most of whom are volunteers, do a superb job at a very difficult task, both by direct in-role interaction and by ‘backstage’ work on admin-assisted roleplaying events, but there’s a general feeling in Achaea, our biggest MUD/MMO, that the roleplaying has suffered as compared to Aetolia, Imperian, and Lusternia, largely due to the fact that Achaea is quite a big bigger than the other three.

Today, I announced that we’ve hired two part-time Assistant Producers for Roleplay with job descriptions as follows:

“As Assistant Producer for Roleplay, you will help to ensure the continuous flow and evolution of the roleplay and storylines within the world of Achaea, in order to promote overall game dynamism and the immersive appeal of a changing environment open to influence via interaction.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: working with other staff and volunteers to prepare and carry out roleplay story scenarios; extemporaneous roleplayed interaction with the playerbase; assisting in the continuous development of a cohesive world background, history, and mythos; and content creation, such as writing scripts, summaries, or promotional material for roleplay events.”

I’m really excited about this. It’s the first time that we’ve hired people specifically to work on the roleplaying environment in-world. We’ve always had our excellent volunteer Gods doing this as well as the paid staff on each game, but you can’t ask volunteers to do things on a schedule or to break their backs doing something. They have their own jobs, lives, etc. The existing paid staff members on each game have typically a wide range of responsibilites that includes developing the roleplaying environment, but only as one of many components rather than the focus of the job. The two new APs for RP will be focused almost completely on facilitating roleplaying and I’m pretty confident we’re going to see a marked change for the better.

As almost always, we made the hires from within the Iron Realms community. Both the new APs (already in-game volunteer Gods known as Ourania, Goddess of the Moon and Valnurana, Goddess of Sleep and Dreams) have been involved in Achaea for many years, starting as players, moving up to Celani (a kind of admin doing mainly behind-the-scenes work that volunteers spend 600-1200 hours as while preparing to be a God), and finally passing muster and getting promoted to God.

I’m truly glad to be able to give them their first paid jobs in the games industry, even if it’s on the lunatic fringe. They are decidedly deserving of it and I know they are absolutely chomping at the bit to get started. Congrats you two!