Markus,

Great idea, I think the person who came up with it, is a varitable "genious in the making" with there idea - Sure would take the "chore" out of Administating your system... I can think of some things that would make it "complicated" though... As the author states, it would be hard, in a "business" environment, to "sell" your boss on the idea that you arent playing a game, but, actually doing your job, and the other thought, also brought up by the author, who's to say that you wont just want to "play" and do it by taking the system, or network, or another user, down, just so you can play the "game"?

I can imagine a "team" of players, oops, I mean "Sys Admins", playing to all-ends-of-the-night, with headsets on, so that they can "coordinate" there efforts together better, all attempting to "take down" a rogue process that has gone berzerk, possibly an XMMS process on a users system, connected to the "companys" netwrok, that is not responding anymore, and has locked the users system from any response... "Charlie is just around the corner.", "Ten-four, confirm, I can see XMMS, its big, its really big.", "Confirm, I see it too, its going after the INIT5 process. INIT5 is taking substantial damage, it won't be long before it will be wounded.", "Enough with the excess chatter, we're going in. Blue1, follow me in, we're going to be the first wave, Green5, you hold back with Red2, and back us up if we dont succeed.", "Confirm, may the force be with us."

Heck with using "Doom" for the game, go with a Star Wars game, a system could be the Deathstar, or something... [giggle] -=- This reminds me of a scene in Airplane II, where a kid thinks a console for directing incoming shuttles "happens" to be right where the "Tour" is going by, is a game, and ends up distroying a landing spacecraft... Possibly, this should not be a used interface when you have kids running around? Or, may I suggest, a screen lock, especially if you are root with this game / interface running on it?

The author has a good idea, its interesting, ingenuitive, and just plain, fun - the "drudgery" of System Administration, would actually be fun... "Oh, drats! I've got to kill another non-responding process! Oh, the pain of my job!" ( with the best sarcastic voice I can do this in ) -=- Lastly, the author did bring up a concern though, and quite valid actually... If you are "really" trying to do what you have to do, to regain the system, whats to say that you don't get killed off in the process? Whats to say, that you inadvertantly, kill off the "wrong" process? -=- Its a good analogy, a "fantasy role playing game" being seen as a "System Administrator" guarding there systems, processes being seen as monsters, and you, the hero, must save your system... Very imaginative, but, be sure you dont accidently think its really a game, and not the "tool", and start going after "all the bad guys".