I am brand new to the MUD world and my first try ever was with Iron Realm's Achaea. First of all, you can not advance your charachter or gain levels without purchasing credits. They imply that it is free but in order to advance you will likely have to shellout at a minnimum $200.

Secondly, after I spent my money, I was effectivley blocked by the administration from accessing my charachter.

Thirdly, even though you purchase credits, other people in the game have the power to take them away from you if they do not like you. This results in you spending a lot of your time kissing peoples butts and doing things like writing essays about respect, not exploring.

Fourthly, your advancement is largely dependant on what a small group of elder players think. They are not welcomming towards new people and are very power hungry and eltetist.

Fifthly, once you dont fit in with one guild, or if you make the wrong guild choice, you will not be able to join another guild. This kind of behavior (guild switching) is totally prevented by the other players.

And lastly, after spending 200$ + here and haveing 50% + of that "taken away" by elder players who wanted me to write essays about respect, the admin refused to reinstate my charachter or refund my lessons. To qoute Mr. Mihlay, the CEO .. "You are not getting your money back, I will ban and delete you, you can go...****...yoursefl."

A warning to all those out there who are considering spending money with Iron Realms Entertainment...DO NOT DO IT. They are highly unethical people who will scam you. You buy credits, you switch guilds and loose 50%...forcing you to buy more. BEWARE OF UNETHICAL COMPANIES PREYING ON PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT EXPERIENCED MUDDERS!!!

Thanks for the tip, I will contact them. Right now I just want to spread the wrod. When a company is run by bad people and encourages illegal and unethical behavior...word will get around. If I have to spam this baord every day so that every enw mudder goes in with a heads up I will. I will also contact, the BBB and various other consumer rights organizations. My goal is to do everything I can to put the word out there about my experience and hopefully loose Iron Realms a lot of buisness. Maybe they will learn that no matter what your field...customer service should always be a top priority.

Chuckle. Of course, what you leave out is that you spent your time in Achaea demanding that the world conform to your expectations rather than playing the game as it is, threatening me repeatedly over the space of a dozen emails, complaining of OOC harrassment anytime another player did anything you didn't like, and so on.

And, of course, you were refunded your money, just to get you to go away.

Anyway, your psychotic behavior is underlined by your need to make so many different forum posts. Being "Kimberly'd" is now our code word for dealing with an insanely irrational player.

I'm not going to waste any more time replying to you.
--matt

By spamming the forum you are certainly not making yourself many friends around here - and you are putting yourself and your complaint into a bad light. Excessive spam is a banishable offence on all decent muds, so if it was this kind of attitude that got you banned, no wonder.

I expected no less of a reply from these people. Dont be concerned about their response, they just want people to pay and go to the site so they wills say whatever they need to. Truth of the matter is I am a hardworking educated and produtive member of society with many firends and a large family. As a consumer, I just want others who may be in shoes similar to mine: new to MUDS, have some cahs to spare and considering investing etc... to be aware that there is the potential here for you to be robbed.

Sounds like you were refunded. Whats the fuss about... Most games don't refund you after buying their box and finding out you didnt like the game.

Goodbye Kimberly.

Duplicate posts deleted, member deleted.

-Synozeer

I have been a player of IRE muds for 5 years (or more, it gets blurry when your oldest (existing) char is pushing 150 and you know there's another 20 years hidden hidden in other chars before him.

I didn't spend money for quite afew years and was quite happy. I have since spent money on not only Achaea, but also on Aetolia. I have been watching this Kimberly person from afar, seeing her first rant on the Achaea Forums, trying to gain sympathy, seen another long time player and well respected IG leader almost go crazy dealing with this person. Kimberly's first post basically went something to the effect of "I'm an Accountant, I'm better then you, bend over backwards and do as I commandeth, for I'm a graduate from college who paid you money" - if I were Matt, I wouldn't of even refunded her, considering that under the EULA they don't have to. She broke the rules. She HARASSED the Admin and other players. She acted like a spoiled brat and got a proverbial spanking for it, i.e., loss of character.

Kimberly'd....I like that one.

-Chris, one of those guys who loves IRE

I have to echo the sentiments of Hardestadt and Dask. After more than a year of playing all three IRE games, I've never encountered anything at all like what Kimberly describes.

Her comments are so off base that I felt compelled to post just in case some new mudder passed by one of those excellent games based on the misguided rantings of one person.

I find it difficult to think this is anything more than a joke post, or simply someone who hates Achaea and made a bunch of things up to slander it. So, I won't bother doing any Rebutting, no matter how gratifying it would be, for the same reason that you shouldn't attack the Mist Dragon in Final Fantasy II until he solidifies. But this guy- he'll never solidify.

I think Kalt has hit the nail on the head, this looks like "the misguided rantings of one person". You'll notice IRE staff are not concerned by the post, this is no doubt because they are confident the type of player that can't see this as a rant is the type of player they don't want. So in fact, the post is probably doing them a favour by "pre qualifying" their new players in a fashion. If things are as bad as they are described in the post, IRE would have gone out of business a long time ago due to lack of players.

Just for the record, I have never played an IRE mud or have anything to do with their admin.

Heh. Earlier today, this "misguided ranting" was being spammed on every single forum available on TMS - repeatedly, even after being removed, until Synozeer dealt with the spammer.

So, it's understandable to see some defensive posting going on, I think.

I'm just waiting for Molly O'Hara to chime in and claim that this Kimberly is actually an alt of IRE admin, intentionally spamming and getting the alt booted just to get a bunch of people to defend IRE and tell everyone how great the game is.

C'mon Molly - don't disappoint us - you KNOW you wanna!


Caveat: Whatever Achaea is doing, charging, not charging, charging double, stealing peoples' credit cards, sending their cousin Guido to their house making them an offer they can't refuse..whatever.. it's working. So good for them and STFU about it for everyone else.

What I find the most amusing is 'guildheads or similar figures' making people write essays about respect. Do they also have to type their names on a board 200 times without triggers, or stand still outside the recall point holding buckets of water?

<span style='color:black'>I bet this is just a publicity stunt like that Aardwolf chat room, and this so-called 'Kimberly' is really an alt of an Achaea admin!</span>

<!--QuoteBegin--Hardestadt]
Given that you were made to write an essay about respect+I'd assume you were extremely insulting to a guildhead or similar figure.
[/quote-->[quote= (Hardestadt]
Given that you were made to write an essay about respect @ I'd assume you were extremely insulting to a guildhead or similar figure.
[/quote)]

I thought she made that up.  That's bizarre.  Writing essays?!!  Is this IC or OOC stuff?

[quote= (Tyche @ Aug. 18 2004,02:40)]<!--QuoteBegin--Hardestadt]
Given that you were made to write an essay about respect+I'd assume you were extremely insulting to a guildhead or similar figure.
[/quote-->indeed. if i recall correctly, in few guild in achaea require essay. *shudder*

I wish she was kidding. I'm going to talk about Achaea here, as of our games, it's the one I am by far the most familiar with (being lead designer on it).

One of the upsides of our game systems that in some areas of the game, most notably actually being able to learn skills, player organizations are extremely powerful. They serve to weed out twinks in that they enforce certain basic roleplay standards and simply deny a class to players who aren't fit to play that class. For example, the Druids guild may decide that a particular novice player doesn't have an understanding of what it means to serve and protect nature in Achaea, and so may require that said player go learn and then write a paper on the topic. Being kicked out of the guild before you've progressed to a certain point means you will simply lose your Druid skills entirely. This kind of real, tangible influence in the game is fantastic for immersion because it really does give players significant control, and I believe that the more control you can give players, the more tied into your world they're going to be. City of Heroes, for instance, is the antithesis of this idea. It's a great game, but a poor world. One feels no responsibility towards it in-game, because there's nothing you can actually affect.

On the other hand, this kind of real, tangible influence sucks sometimes. Once you hand significant control to a playerbase it's hard to take it back. They will resent it immensely. So, we've ended up with a situation where some of our guilds (guilds control access to classes) are extremely restrictive, requiring quite a lot of time and effort to get admitted. It does legitimately serve to cull out the people who want a standard hack & slash mud, but there's no doubt it drives away a significant number of players as well. Although 10 years ago when I was in college I would have eaten it up, now, with less free time on my hands, there's no way I'd be writing essays to play a mud, whether that's to create a character or to please a guild leader.

Anyway, we're just very reluctant to mess with the structures players have created and empowered. They're important parts of the world and it's hard to know how radical changes to their level of power will cascade down to the rest of the world. We did reduce the loss you can suffer from being kicked out of a guild at the apprentice stage (Kimberly's situation) from 50% to 10%, but that was because her situation was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, not because of her specifically.

Really, the fear is that by making life too easy and reducing the consequences for your actions vis a vis other players we might end up robbing Achaea of its soul. You can lose your niche by trying to appeal to too broad an audience outside that niche.
--matt
P.S. I only mention this because it's a potentially very interesting discussion that I'd like to participate in. I (and a good portion of the Achaea team) will be in Vegas the next few days on a team vacation. So, can't reply until I'm back on Sunday or Monday!

*chuckle*

I think this thread is quite amusing, though probably not for The_Logos and the rest of Achaea's admin. Personally, I have very little experience of Achaea itself but far too much experience of the attitude displayed here.

What I find amusing is that the player shelled out $200 on a game without questioning her actions or experiences. Throwing money at something you don't like is only likely to make you more resentful.

There are TONS of muds out there, offering quite different environments and player-bases. Most of them are completely free and don't even accept donations. To my mind, a true newbie should take their time sampling what's on offer before committing any money to mudding.

I am now a regular donator to my chosen mud, having played there for several years and found the experience wholly enjoyable. I can understand why people do the same thing for Achaea.

I'm guessing English isn't your first language Enola - if it is, then my second guess is a serious deficiency in language skills, or maybe even an attention problem. Here's the answers to your question, which were already posted on this thread and easy to read on page 2.

1) In ordered to learn certain skills that are only offered by certain guilds, you must be a member of that guild. If you leave that guild, you lost those guild-specific skills.

2) What was clear in reading Matt's response, was that no credits were taken away from Kimberly. She spent her credits on things - and those things were taken away because she abused the privilege of getting those things. She chose to spend her credits unwisely, in other words.

3) The_logos IS Matthew Mihaly. He didn't have to change his name to be that.

Finally - that sentence - your closing "With no discontent" - did you mean "With no disrespect?" I'm just curious about that..heh.

Quick response here as I have a flight to catch:

Nobody -ever- takes credits away from a player unless it is a result of credit card fraud, and players, or even normal Gods, cannot take them away. On Achaea, only 4 of us (all paid, full-time employees) can do so. What Kimberly lost was lessons. You can spend credits on lessons, and also get lessons by rising in level through questing, hunting, etc. You can get credits by buying them from us or getting them as rewards or buying them from other players, in-game. You use lessons, incidentally, to raise skills.

Once you've spent credits, as the disclaimer says, the value of what you've spent them on may increase or decrease as a result of your actions or the actions of other players. Kimberly was unable to accept this, apparently feeling that anything another player did to her as part of the game system was, in fact, "us" (the administration) doing it to her.

Everything she lost (and I'll point out we completely refunded her money to get her to just go away, so she lost nothing in the end) she lost as a result of the game functioning normally and in accordance with help files on the subject. She just didn't like the way the game functions, which is kind of just tough luck. I was jokingly wondering if she thought she was playing a single-player game in which the other players were actually cleverly-scripted NPCs (as that would explain her apparent feeling that the game world should revolve around her view of how to play). Perhaps she thought the whole game experience was set up to screw her over. I have no idea, and am just glad she will not be playing our games anymore.

--matt

Uh, I don't know you. You're just text on a website. I've never had a conversation with you, I've never met you..I've never even exchanged instant messages with you via AIM or whatever.

I might think you're a bit obtuse at times, and seem to enjoy taking shots at Matt (who I also don't know), and I might state that on occasion, but no, I have no particular dislike - or like - for you.

I am a player on Achaea, and will try to answer these for you.

1> Guilds on Achaea are player-run. There ARE generally guild NPCs you can learn skills from if a guild member is unavailable to teach them. (Yes, you can use your lessons to learn from a fellow guild member). Generally speaking, you DO need to be accepted into a guild to learn guild skills.

2> Hmm. How to respond to this. Kimberly may have sworn that she had credits taken away, but this does not make it so. I can write the word "candy" on a box of matches and swear up and down the box contains candy, but that doesn't change the fact there are matches in there. She also, technically speaking, did not lose lessons either. She spent her credits on lessons, then spent her lessons on guild skills, then due to her own actions, was booted out of the guild. When leaving a guild, you lose your guild skills. She could just as well have spent the lessons on general skills and not have 'lost' anything.

3> She's an idiot. Each time she opens her mouth, she loses a little more credibility. Were she a tenth as educated as she claims to be, she would accept the fact the she is unwanted, has been given a full refund, and go on with her life. Instead she keeps trying desperate actions to win people over to her side, losing people who may have been sympathetic to her before with each post she makes, here and elsewhere.

I understand where you might say her rant couldn't be based entirely on nothing...but it is. You are right in that she feels she has something important to say, but that is as far as it goes. She may feel that way, fine...but I may feel the sky is purple with yellow clouds, and you're all morons for thinking it is blue. If I go around calling everyone a moron for thinking the sky is blue, how popular do you think I'm going to be? Everyone will rightly classify me as a moron myself, and crazy to boot.

Agreed with Brody. I don't think it reflects negatively on a game when someone posts Kimberly-esque rants about it, and the admins post a rebuttal.

If the_logos had replied by spamming every forum with two-page rants about how "OMG KIMBARLY TEH N00B SUXXORS!!11"... well, that would reflect negatively.

Any reasonable reader can tell the difference between this kind of review and the kind that should attract/repel you with respect to a particular game. If they can't.... well, I'm not sure you'd want a player who couldn't.

As an aside, nitpicking a poster's grammar/spelling is not a good use of forum space. We've had plenty of foreign players come through our game with poor English skills, and many are big contributors in terms of roleplaying, ideas, etc. Worry more about the quality of what they're saying, and less about how they're saying it.

For the record, I am also an Achaea player and rather active on the IRE Achaea forums. We've had quite a discussion about Kimberly over there, which let us see all sides: Kimberly, the guild leader who outguilded her, and the administration. I'm not going to go into all the ludicrous details, but most of us who have read the boards, know the people involved, or had some level of involvement with Kimberly, agree that the actions taken by the guild and by the administration were proper. I think Mihaly summed it up best- she expected the game to behave the way she thought it should, and when something happened she didn't like, she resorted to extremely immature behavior.

I also wanted to respond to an earlier question in this thread, about guilds sometimes requiring people to write essays, because I think Mihaly's response did not directly address that specific question.

There are generally two situations in which a guild will require an essay. One is as part of an entry or advancement in the guild. All guilds mandate a period of novicehood followed by a period of probation before new members are considered full members, and these new members are required to do various tasks to prepare themselves for life in Achaea and the guild, and to demonstrate their commitment to join even if it takes some effort. These tasks usually include purchasing a personal supply of curative herbs, learning the basic layout of the land, and various other things which vary by guild. Sometimes a person is required to write an essay...requirements vary from a couple paragraphs on what the guild means to you to one guild I know which requires a fairly intense research paper from its higher-level probationary members.

The second type of situation would be where a guild leader requires a guildmember (again, usually a novice or probate) to write an essay as a penance. Usually this is when dealing with someone who has committed a major offense against guild rules or policy, or with whom the guild has had multiple small problems. The guild leader is tempted to just kick the person out and wash his hands of it, but still feels the person deserves another chance. The essay is a way for the person to demonstrate that he regrets his action, understands why he should regret it, and will try harder. Often this essay takes the form of an essay on respect for one's guildmates or people in general.

This was exactly the situation with Kimberly. Previous problems in the guild, new problem that she refused to listen to the guild leader about, degeneration into a tantrum and disrespectful rudeness to the guild leader- but the guild leader gives her a chance to write an essay on respect and redeem herself. She refuses, more belligerance, and ends up outguilded.

Personally I understand the reasoning behind essays on "respect," but I don't approve of them generally. Too often the task is seen as meaningless drudge work and the situation is not adequately explained to the person required to write the essay. The whole point is to help them understand why the guild has such rules and why their behavior was not acceptable, but when the person doesn't understand and is refused an explanation, that person just becomes bitter and the whole point is lost.

By the by, I don't think that's what happened with Kimberly- it's just a general objection.

Wow seems kind of intense, writing an essay, normally I mud to get away from those :-P. Thanks for the insight into guildhood on Achaea, pretty intense, but hey what works, works. So is there one guildmaster (As I will call it) or is there a committee, or how is that done, is there just one person who makes the decision, could seem like a elitest game that way. Just wondering.

What was Kimberly's offense that required the essay?  The reason I asked is because I've always been curious of the mindset behind a request that could well be characterized as treating people like children that need to correction (and the subsequent behavior of them like children) versus treating them like adults (edit: to begin with).  Assuming you believe that most thinking adults response to being requested to write an essay on "respect" would be an indignant and mature "You can kiss my ass".  ;-)

Enola: There is a single Guildmaster, whose title is specific to the guild but can generally be known informally as just the "Guildmaster of GuildXYZ" who in turn appoints what are known as Secretaries, who act in different roles according to each guild. My experiences as a GM and as a Secretary and my observations of others in those roles leads me to the opinion that Secretaries generally act as their name implies: They do a lot of busywork.

Secretaries are often responsible for handling administrative work within the guild, monitoring behavior amongst members, and generally keeping order, as well as acting as leaders in lieu of the presence of the Guildmaster. Along with this role, they also serve as advisors, helping the Guildmaster to decide on and enact policies for the guild as a whole.

Now, certainly, due to their beaurocratic nature, Secretaries aren't always in a position to have any real power beyond what the Guildmaster grants them. Certainly they have privileges that extend to inguilding and outguilding members, as well as a variety of other things, but ultimately they are merely at the beck and call of the Guildmaster, and far too often he or she will simply appoint friends as Secretaries to avoid having to deal with any overzealous pencil pushers trying to vie for power.

Of course, people are often smart enough to realize when this is going on, and the Guildmaster can, at any time, be voted out of office by members of the guild. Unfortunately this process is also open to abuse, given that only members of a certain guildrank have the ability to vote at all, but this abuse is rare as it usually causes the Divine to step in so as to allow the guild to move on where otherwise it would fall into stagnation.

Wow, a nice little system there, and no I'm not to lazy to find this all out for my own just not enough time to infiltrate the system so to speak. I think this also gives everyone a better view of Achaea maybe in appeal to some people.

I am the guildmaster of the guild Kimberly was exiled from. Let me say first that though I was not the person who actually removed her, had I been around, I would have done so as well, no question.

1. We made /every/ attempt to treat Kimberly like an adult, and every chance for her to act like one. She refused. This was not her first, nor second, nor third major problem with her in the guild. I have had several lengthy conversations with her, during the last of which (before the event we are talking about), she admitted fault and said she would try to do better representing the guild and city. Which was quite obviously a lie, as she got herself into essentially the same sort of trouble.

2. The central philosophical tenants of my guild revolve around respect, tolerance, loyalty, and taking responsibility for your actions. This information is publically available in any text about us, and given how long we put up with her antics before she wore our her chances (and the novice test which she passed) there is no chance she didn't know that. Yet she repeatedly violated everything we stand for. She chose the guild, and then decided she didn't want to do anything except what she wanted.

The person who did remove her wasn't some power hungry person flaunting their position and screaming "You must respect my authoritah!" She's an ex-guildmistress who left on her own terms, who is entirely dedicated to the good of the guild. Kimberly was on her last chance, and she knew it. The request for an essay was a final offer of reconcilliation extended to her, and the response was a slap in the face.

If it had been me, the exact same thing would have happened. Its entirely in-character, and the appropriate response from any responsible guild leader.

Actually I was looking for something more specific than "antics" and concrete than a list of fuzzy platitudes... Did she make fun of someone's orange mohawk?  Did she call Bubba a wanker?  You know forensics.  What exactly did Kimberly do that really got everyone's dander up?

I'm not entirely sure of all the details because my char is not an Arcanist. But from what people I've said, there was at least one prior action of attacking about 7 different people's loyal pets (on Achaea this is considered the same as attacking the pet owner and if unjustified, is an illegal pk action). Most guilds have rules forbidding novices and probates to engage in pk- the idea is that they should be staying out of trouble and learning about the world and the guild before going around killing people. Also most guilds do not appreciate it when a member breaks the pk rules, as this makes the whole guild look bad and conflicts with the noble ideals of a lot of guilds.

The last incident Kimberly was involved in (again, after several prior problems) was she claimed someone engaged in an unprovoked attack on her. She wanted to either issue (an ooc appeal to the administration to enforce the pk rules, which is supposed to be a last resort) or hire an assassin to teach the person a lesson (I'm not sure which it was). From what I understand, the Arcanists discourage both issuing and vengeance. Also the guild rules probably forbid pk, as i've already outlined. The secretary in question talked to Kimberly, but she insisted that vengeance was her right, and at that point the conversation basically became a rant by Kimberly (I believe the secretary described it as a temper tantrum).

Also as an fyi, so you don't think it's blatantly unfair to not allow Kimberly her vengeance- guilds typically do not ignore such problems, they simply prefer to deal with the issue instead of having novices and probates running around looking for revenge. I don't know how the Arcanists handle it, but most guilds reallydon't like novice-killers. They will guild enemy the offender, or go after him themselves, or go to his guild and try to get him disciplined there. Or all three. This is usually a better solution than the novice can manage on his own, and it's always much better than issuing (the administration discourages issuing unless there is no in-character way to resolve the problem).

Quit your trolling, Jaz. It doesn't become you.

There is one thing that really bothers me in this affair.

Why on earth did they pay her? They obviously did refund all her money, Mihaly himself confirms that.

If this Kimberley really is the raving lunatic that all the Achaea people paint her out as, if she repeatedly broke rules and threatened the mud owner over e-mail and made a total ass of herself – why on earth refund her?

If there never was any real cause for complaint, why pay? Wouldn’t that just set a precedence to all problem players that kicking and screaming and making a big fuss pays? It seems a totally irrational thing to do for any mud. It obviously wasn’t out of pity, the comments show that.

Why pay, if the other party is all at fault themselves? Just to make her leave? They could easily have banned her, and apparently they did too. To shut her up? That didn’t work obviously, at least not at first. She only managed to get herself banned from these Forums out of sheer stupidity, (or sheer ignorance of Forum rules and netiquette). She got booted for spamming, and rightly so. But they couldn’t know that she would do that.

It is obviously in the interest of Achaea to make her appear in as bad light as possible, that is a commonly used practice. Making the opposition appear as jerks obviously diminishes their credibility. And there is no way for her to defend herself any more now.

Why pay? It keeps bothering me. It would be interesting to see some comments from other commercial muds. How do you handle similar situations? Do you usually pay your problem players to make them leave, or do you just kick them out? And if you pay them, what are your reasons for doing so?

I believe the reason for the refund was simple. Achaea's immortal staff is going on vacation and they didn't want to have to spend the pre-planned, pre-payed for vacation talking to lawyers about some crazy former player who's threatening to sue. Achaea, while I don't know the exact figures, makes a good chunk of money. I know of people like Dresden who openly admits she spent 10g + on the game, others like myself have spent around 1g over 5 years and 2 IRE games. It's not the first instance of a refund, but it is not a precedent. Usually, refunds are not given. But to buy 200 credits, which is what I believe she bought, is $70...$70 to avoid a lawsuit and get to go on vacation? I'd be all over it too.

Just something I thought I would point out...

Kimberly threatened if she didn't get her way she'd slander Achaea on 'popular mudding forums' - it seems like she's now doing so

For the record, attacking a person's character doesn't diminish their credibility, at least not in the eyes of intelligent people, because attacking the person and not their assertion is a fallacy (ad hominem). Instead of attacking the person, the actual assertion should be checked for validity, something which some of you have done while others have not.

In this case, all I can say is that I'm glad I don't play Hack & Slash MUDs anymore. This sort of thing happens too frequently on many of them.

Take care,

Jason

If you're a raving lunatic, which game are you more likely to try? The game that a fellow raving lunatic tried, and due to her crazy antics (like asking for vengence, CRAZY!) was kicked out and her money not refunded, or the game where she was kicked out and her money refunded?

Refunds make people more willing to try new things. They also get customers that you've had problems with off your back, regardless of where the problems came from. Most of the time, at least. It makes good business sense to refund money to unhappy customers.

I admit nothing of the sort.

I am not in the habit of trolling, and I would never even have commented to this rather stupid thread unless Jazuela, Threshold and yourself hadn’t all in turned baited me. Maybe I should have ignored your trolling, but as you can see I am getting a bit tired of it by now.

It is true that I don’t much like the concept Achaea uses to get money from their players.
It is also true that I don’t like them claiming to be ‘free’ in the Mudlist, 1). because their – and apparently your – definition of the word doesn’t correspond with what most people understand with a ‘free mud’, 2) because it interferes with the advertisement space of muds that really ARE free, and 3) because it leads to endless mixed flame/promotion threads like this one. I think it is a case of false – or at least misleading – advertising. I am not exactly alone in those sentiments either.

It is true that I have expressed these opinions on occasions. I think I have every right to do so on a Discussion Board. Just as much right as you have to repeat your mantra; ‘Achaea is entirely 100% free to play'.

Apart from that, could you please back up your offensive allegations by some solid evidence? Preferably in the form of links, not quotes taken out of their context, so that the audience can form their own opinion based on the total content of the threads in question. If you cannot do this, do yourself and the rest of us a favour and shut up.

You're not alone by a long shot. In my opinion, "pay-for-perks" ends up being de facto pay-to-play in an environment where competition is stressed, which encompasses nearly all MUDs. It is quite different from a true "free" MUD like the one I represent, and infringes on advertising when someone uses the term "free" to mean something very different than "money has no impact whatsoever on the game".

I'm much more fond of the subscription-type model. (A flat fee is paid for access to the game for a certain time period. I believe Threshold uses this, among others.) It's up front, and still results in a level playing field inside the game. In other words, your success or failure is still a function of your skill, and not your credit card. I would play a game of this sort if I thought it was the best one out there.

Returning to the original point of the topic, Achaea shouldn't be surprised if they advertise themselves as "free", and people are confused when allegations arise, like the ones Kimberly inconherently vomited forth. While I'm aware that it's unquestionably legal to charge someone money for a virtual credit, then revoke the impact of that (in accordance with the EULA they agreed to) at the opinion of other players in the game, it is something that would make be very hesitant to invest funds in that manner. And I'd be doubly confused by the amounts changing hands after I saw the word "Free" popping up, if I wasn't already familiar with the model in question.