Well, you might be seriously daring me, but I grew out of that years ago, my friend. My responsibility is to my investors and partners, my players, and my employees, in that order. It would certainly be nothing but horribly irresponsible of me to actually respond to a dare from you.

I also notice your quote doesn't say, "World leader in text-based multplayer gaming." It says, "leader in online games" which is blatantly false.

And as for losing players to us, you might ask some of your ex-GMs who play Achaea now.

--matt

Apparently you might want to consider consulting your lawyers again.  If, as has been alleged, you attributed a quote to RPGPlanet that does not exist, you may find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit charging you with (1) false implied endorsement, (2) right of publicity violation, and (3) trademark violation.  Now maybe you and RPGPlanet are best buddies and you have nothing to worry about.  On the other hand, you may wish to rethink your insert on TMS.

Something I forgot to add to my last post that I intended to:

Outside of being a longtime member of the Simutronics playerbase, I don't represent Simutronics here by any means. That is SimuBubba's position. My perspectives and opinions are my own.

I also don't want to ruin anyone's game or hinder any gamer's experience of this community. Not at all. I'm really excited to see Simutronic's games and players becoming more involved here.

My opinion is that Achaea's business practices are bunk. That is my perspective and that is what I've had to say here.

Cemm

Matt,

I wasn't daring you. I was challenging you. There is a difference. A dare is a child's game. Adults challenge each other to be better than they are.

I'm challenging you to be better than the average bottom-feeding used car salesman who has to lie, cheat, and steal to sell his lemons to unsuspecting consumers.

As Mason suggested, you might want to also re-evaluate the legality of some of your claims (RPGPlanet, for one) as well.

Cemm

Hey, has anyone ever noticed how every time someone on a forum says "Okay, this is getting out of hand, we should stop now," everything gets much, much worse?

Somebody should write a thesis on that. Or something.

Are you accusing us of lying, cheating, and stealing? I really hope not.

Dare, challenge, whatever. You used the words, "I dare you" but you could replace them with "I challenge you" and it means the same thing. Our success speaks for itself, and as you aren't one of my partners, one of my players, or one of my employees, your opinion on the matter isn't likely to affect my decisions. I'm not that irresponsible.

--matt

I didn't know that I wasn't allowed an opinion for a certain number of years. How do I request the admin to email me to alert me when I am allowed to do so? Or is that an automatic thing?

If you had read my response to bubba, you would have understood my point. Instead of getting indignant and sarcastic, you could have intelligently responded to my point. Instead, and unfortunately, your comment is merely another demonstration of your inability to understand the community of which you profess to be a part of.

Regarding whether Simutronics issued IG messaging to vote for their site...  Yes.  ONCE.  It was right after they put the Voting Button up on the site, and it is my belief that it was done just to make us initially aware of the site, and our ability to vote for DR if we so desired.  However, once was enough for many of the gaming population there to object.  They did not object to them making us aware of it, but rather that it was issued as a gamewide announcement, as opposed to a News article.  No experience or any other incentive was used to obtain votes.  Simutronics has also allowed for Player Reviews.  Anyone who has read them will notice that there are both positive and negative reviews.  To me, that speaks much louder...  Personally, I would find any MUD that is listed here on this site that did NOT allow for Player Reviews as suspect. I have tried out a few of the other games on this site since discovering it (Thanks Simu) and I purposely chose NOT to check out Achaea (which I would have since it was listed as Number 1) due to what I have read regarding their attempt to stack the votes by offering IG incentives.

Regarding pay for play... Wouldn't it be a fair assumption that some of them at one time were smaller, free MUDs? Its an honest question. I would think that would be the goal eventually for any MUD.

What former simu GMs now play Achaea? I've been friends with most of the former Dragonrealm and Gemstone GMs, and for the most part I know what games they play and/or work on now... This is the first I've ever heard any mention of any of them playing Achaea.

If your going to make such claims as many former simu gms play your game, please be ready to name names.

Btw, that still doesn't mean jack squat. I can tell you with absolute certainty that Sanya of Mythic plays not only DAoC, but also plays everquest, ultima online, asheron's call, and plans on playing shadowbane and swg when they are released. Why? What better way to know your competition then to play their game?

Also, if Achaea trully is the better game, why has BOTH Dragonrealms AND Gemstone both leapt from not even being on the list to suddenly being listed number 2 and 3 with ZERO rewards or incentive for voting. And only mentioning the voting in ONE of their games and only doing it ONCE ever?

Funny you mention this in just a few days... Simutronics managed to go from not having either of their top 2 muds on the list, to having both of them threatening to knock Archaea off the top list... Personally, Archaea is going to have to offer alot more "incentive" if they don't want to be bumped down to number 3. How many times has Achaea crashed the TMS site? Simu was asked to remove their button from their site so TMS could reconfigure their server to handle the strain... Has Achaea ever generated such a respons?

Not at all.  For a large group of muds out there this is just a hobby.  Something they enjoy to put out (usually) at their own expense.  In some ways it could be compared to writing memoirs, some people do it because they plan on publishing them at some point, other just to get ideas out of the mind and onto paper.  

Along the same lines there are people who enjoy playing the smaller more secluded games as opposed to the highly populated ones.  Not always a question of what's best, but instead what's best for you.

Welcome to the system. The muds they have jumped over to reach 2 and 3 pale in comparison with these numbers. I'm not exactly sure on the numbers ( but sure someone will correct me if I am far off) but probably the largest mud they jumped over hits AT PEAK 400 or so players. A great deal more average 20 - 50 and a large amount fewer than that.

Shrug, no idea what their names are. I don't really care one way or another to be honest, and it's not a reflection on Simutronics one way or another. Lots of our ex-players play other games now I'm sure. Hell, the guy that put together Everquest's original 800 person volunteer force is now one of our full-time employees. Does that have any meaning aside from meaning that he now works for us? No.

I'm also not sure why you're equating quality with position on the rankings list. All the rankings list measures is how much unique traffic a MUD is sending to topmudsites. We're sending more than Dragonrealms or Gemstone III right now. Quality is subjective, and no doubt most of our players think Achaea is a far better game, and most of DR and Gemstone's players think those games are far better games.

--matt

Wow.  That has so ~not~ been my experience.  Most of the free MUD's I've played have lacked significantly in development, diversity, and design.

For me to pay 10 to 20 dollars a month for my entertainment, is next to nothing for the amount of enjoyment I get from it.  Simu has been getting my money for years, and I will say that my money is just as good for another MUD, if only I could find one like Simu to spend it on.

First, I want to make it clear that I'm not an employee of Simu, just a longtime player of their games.

Now onto that quote...

Part 1: Why do I equate quality with position on the rankings list?

Because based on your mud writeup and the so called quotes from gaming sites on your game, being ranked #1 is all that matters as far as quality goes.


Also, you were over 1000 votes before DR and Gemstone hit the list... how exactly are you sending more votes per day if DR and GS in just a span of a few days have managed to catch up to you in number of votes that took you weeks to get?

Quality is subjective your right. And based on the ways Simu and Achaea have gone about getting votes, I'd say Simu was the higher quality game hands down. Not because they offer an incentive to vote, but because the players feel so strongly about the game they choose to vote with no incentive at all.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

--matt

Oh really? I happen to be a law student getting my certification in Intellectual Property from one of the leading programs in the country. My trademark professor is one of the leading scholars in the country in this area.

Try reading section 43 of the Langham Act.

Know who you're talking to before you tell people they have no idea what they are talking about.