Ok, I?m not sure how seriously to take the tainting/favoritism posts.
I?ll be clear, most of you have been here longer then I, and even the Kada?El Tavern has been in creation longer then I.
Is it favoritism?
Well that depends?Kada?El has done an excellent job of presenting a great character, both on these boards and on her fan site, in fact it is often hard to tell what is her character and what is her as a real person.
Will Kada ?El be getting in game money from the Bar???
Probably not, unless she gives up the Kada?El name and lets us NPC it.
What does she gain from it (recognition)
What do others loose from it (nothing, no mater what it was going to have a name and a proprietor)
Now, lets get to the nitty gritty?why her? I mean come on she is a pansy elf , right?
Well, no matter what she is/isn?t Kada-EL has provided many of the devs of this game both past and present with some kind of inspiration, be it sub-conscious, or conscious?deliberate on her/his part or not.
And to some it was enough inspiration to write a bit about, and make a map of the institution, that then lead to months of modeling?getting it perfect, as well as making many little things in the game (candles, chairs, tables?)
So in effect it was a snowball effect. Will this type of thing happen in the future?more then likely.
Lets be realistic for a second. Who would you help first?an real life friend just starting in the game, or a guild mate who needs help to get a slightly better sword for his twink.
If you answered the guild mate, you are a great role-player, but you know nothing about priorities.
Now, do I think it is fair/nice that some people are recognized more then others, No?but it will happen.
Will there be this effect in resolving disputes in the game? Yes, but my hope is that it is almost non-existent.
If a Dev, playing his normal character takes advantage of another group, and a GM sees him/her or it gets reported?the Dev will be given the benefit of the doubt, however if it is found that the DEV was at fault, all the GMs will know who it is, all the Devs will know that a dev was being a prick?in short it?s like when a cop beats some one up at a bar, at first it seems as if all favors went to the cop, but quite often later the cop pays for his mistake in a way that is worse then just disorderly conduct?
Anyway?I went off the deep end?is there favoritism, Yes. Will there be in the future, yes.
Will I and a few other Devs do there best to not see it in game play, Yes.
Will we allow it into story line? Yes.
We will write about PCs, and quite likely we will write about the ones who win some ?GM event? how much we write depends largely on inspiration given by that character/player, we could just fill his name into a premade story, or really give it a whirl. That depends on the person we are writing about and the person doing the writing.
I think it is foolish to think we can rise above favoritism. The best we will be able to do is limit it as much as possible.
And I?ll be posting a much more important topic/poll.
But you are right, this does set a poor precedent, however I do not think it is that big of a deal as long as it does not go far beyond this.
Perhaps having a Tavern for every good and semi popular fan site might be a good thing to do???
Actually I think that would be a good idea :-)?
I?ll end it there before I sink into deeper quick sand.
(specialy for the pansy elf comment)