Hey, just some thoughts regarding heroimming. My assumptions first (I couldn't find any official documents outlining heroimm duties, so I'm going by word of mouth.... correct me if i'm significantly wrong)
- Heroimms basically get to do 2 things:
* Handle new players (mirror room/n00b channel)
* Write (but not code) an area

Then, after some time, you get to do more stuff.. Have a religion, run quests, etc. Then, even later, you might be trusted with access to code stuff.

This approach makes sense to avoid rotten apples in the staff since that could cause alot of damage. But the problem is, it completely and absolutely kills the prospect of ever imming for me (and I think many others).

I know pretty well in which areas I have skills, and it's also those areas that I think is fun, and that I know I'm fairly good at. Basically, designing stuff and coding. I could write areas, sure, but I'm not that good at it. In the current system I would probably have to put in a few thousand hours before I could ever get to do that stuff. This is essentially a waste for everyone since I would be doing stuff that I 1) suck at and 2) don't like doing.

Also, many players have been playing here 10+ years, and (I would guess) their personalities are quite well known by the imms. It would seem to me that the information available there is much more valuable to assess somebody's qualities than a trial-period as heroimm.

Hence, my suggestion is to increase the entry level of new imms (and possibly accelerate the process after that as well). For example, if I could write code for an area I am working on, then working on an area would be quite fun instead of being a prospect I instantly reject. Other options could be allowing new staff members snoop people, tring mobs and run quests, hand out limited rewards for roles etc, approve lastnames, give titles, run a religion, choose whether to be visible or not, etc.

Just thought about it since 1) There were some discussions about lack of imms to run cabals and more importantly 2) The churn rate of heroimms is, from what I've seen, ridiculously high. And that's not even counting everyone that is discouraged from ever trying it out.

Anyway, whaddoyathink?