Since a few members insist on persisting to drive the "Concern about the New Voting rules" subject off-topic into an unrelated area, I thought I'd start this thread. I thought I'd also just start off by demonstrating, quite clearly, that the only people who have a problem with the word 'free' as commonly used are a handful of people on these forums. And hey, it'd sure be nice if certain people could manage to post without calling other people morons or insulting users who play particular games, etc.

Users of the word free as it is commonly understood:
- Google (Go ahead and search for 'free game' for instance and note the ads that come up for games that are free to play but offer the opportunity to pay extra for whatever. Google ads are patrolled, incidentally, and they shut down ads that make false claims.)
- Kart Rider (one of the largest online games in the world. It's estimated that 1 out of 4 South Koreans play it.)
- Runescape (3 million users)
- Real Arcade (millions of users)
- Habbo Hotel (40 million users)
- OnRPG.com (Major MMO site that correctly lists Achaea, for instance, as a free MMO.)
- Second Life (only about 110k users currently but one of the most talked about MUDs in the mainstream media, from the NY Times to the BBC. Basically, a graphical MOO.)
- Puzzle Pirates (graphical MUD)
- Planeshift (graphical MUD)
- Conquer Online (graphical MUD)

I could go on, but there's no real point.

On the other side, trying to redefine the word free:
- A handful of forum posters.
- Um.

Discuss.

--matt

Edit: Oh yeah! The FTC supports the commonly accepted use of the word 'free' rather than the redefinition sought by a few people here as well.

And before you get all excited, our attorney informs us that case law has determined that provision (h), which pertains to the frequency of free offers, applies to those services or products which are not typically free from that product retailer (so you can advertise 'free coffee' if you're a car wash as much as you want since you will never charge for it).

The debate isn't over legality. (If it was, the logical step would be for IRE players to be suing IRE, which has nothing to do with TMS.) It's over how TMS could more accurately label the games that use it. Adam can choose to sort or label games however he chooses here.

Advertising (what's in your blurb) isn't about being objective and accurate, unfortunately. It's similar to how various games can claim to be "best" without providing standards for the comparison. Yet Adam would be equally free to label games "TMS's Best/Worst Game of the Month".

Correct. It's over the meaning of the word free. The thing is, we're using the almost universally accepted definition, which is what I'm pointing out. You're asking to redefine the word.


--matt

I know that in the week or so after joining these forums I was called immature, communistic, intolerant of "poor people"(like myself, i suppose), stupid, and high-horsing... so I'd agree with the latter part of the statement. The former part of the statement has you assuming to be the voice of anyone not on these forums.

The common use of the word 'free' is not your use of the word 'free'. The percentage of text-MUDs who use a different definition of the word 'free' than IRE's is probably much higher than those that do use IRE's definition. However, it would be difficult to prove as much without a poll.

All of the games in your listing of examples are graphical in nature, and therefor exist in a largely different community, with different standards of what 'free' infers. The argument here is not over legality, or backwards twisting of the dictionary definition to suite your purposes - I do not disagree that under your point-of-view, IRE games are free. However, what the term 'free-to-play' means for most MUDs that use it is something completely different than what it means for IRE. Your graphical game-examples do not resonate as relevant, as the graphical MMO community is very different in many ways from the text MMO community.

Beyond that, Achaea's website does appear to go somewhat out of its way to be somewhat vague about its own credit system, certainly not telling its players just how important credits are for significant skill-level growth in the game.

Honestly, though, at the end of the day, you can use misleading advertising and twist words around to make it look like you are being 100% honest; it's your call, and your game. I won't like it, as many people won't - but there are some people who certainly won't care.

I believe my argument was always geared towards the fact that this website resource should not be as vague as some MUDs' advertising, and not that the MUD's were illegal for using misleading/vague advertising. The players deserve to have clear-cut knowledge on the resource site of whether or not a MUD is 100% free, pay-for-perks, or pay-to-play.

Well, I casually play one of IRE games, Puzzle Pirates and Armageddon.

I guess I sit right on the fence with this argument. When I think of the three games I play, I think of them all as free. From my point of view, I am playing for free. With Lusternia, I'm not a fighter and in Puzzle Pirates, I don't want to own a crew so there's really no reason for me to pay. However, I do earn credits and doubloons in each game during my normal course of play.

From a free player's point of view: I'm not required to pay anything, but I can access the game for as long as I like. I can do the quests, RP with the other players, gain gold and levels, etc, all for free. If there is a way to purchase perks, I can if and only if I wanted to. I also have the ability to earn those same perks through play.

From a paying player's point of view. I do everything a paying customer can. I can earn perks while playing the game, but I can also buy them with real money. I can do this as little or as often as I like and will still be able to access the game.

From a subscribers point of view: I pay every month and have the same access to everything every other player has. If I do not pay next month, I can not get into the game.

Well, I also see where everyone else is coming from when it comes to the labels. I can't remember what my first impression of Achaea was when I first played it. I do remember that when I made a new character in Lusternia I got a "credit bonus for new players" prompt every time I logged in. I think I went to the credits help file and found out its possible to advance through the game by buying credits. I think that is how I found that perks were for sale. So, maybe some type of label would be helpful since so players would know exactly what they are getting into.

Well, I said all this to say, if you look at it from the point of view of someone who doesn't care to pay, you'll find that it is possible to enjoy the game and advance without sending in any money. So, the 'Free' label does apply. But, it may be a good idea to put "free to play. Optional ability to buy in-game perks." somewhere mainly because the game is free, but if you feel you'd like to you can send money in and receive credits.

Note that the bold statements are not quotes, but are my interpretation of the common arguments used on the other thread, followed by my response.

1) It is possible to play for free.

But without access to many parts of the game, and with a far weaker character than those who have invested credits into their character.

Zhiroc provided information based on his experiences playing Aetolia. He pointed out that it takes around 294 credits to max out a skill. In the example he gave, with 8 major skills and 4 mini-skills, it would take him 3528 credits to max them all. Subtract the 166 you get for playing your way up to the top level and that leaves 3362 credits which someone needs to buy, costing $1022 (enough for 7.8 years of subscription costs for Zhiroc's favourite MMORPG).

That's over a thousand dollars per character, and it has to be paid for by the same customers who are being told that the mud is 'free'. Over 95% of that character's skills will have been trained with cash, funded by customers of the mud. Less than 5% of the character's skills will have come from the player working their way up to the maximum level.

For a game which claims PvP and group combat as its most important focus, a player is going to be at a severe disadvantage without credits invested into their character.

2) You can earn credits from lotteries and contests.

But not consistently or repeatedably. You cannot reliably perform these activities to build your character, any more than you could reliably pay your rent by trying to win the lottery.

3) You can earn credits by working for the mud.

You can do the same for most commercial muds, but that doesn't make them 'free'. The advert is targetted at players, not staff, otherwise every mud could advertise itself as 'free' on the basis that the admin don't have to pay to play their own game.

4) You can buy credits/perks with in-game gold.

But only by trading with other players, who in turn have bought those credits with real cash. Those credits still had to be paid for by the players, and it is those players to whom the mud is being advertised as 'free'.

In certain non-IRE muds this option isn't even possible - the perks you buy are non-transferable. In some cases they even have a yearly upkeep cost (you'll lose the super items if you don't pay each year), yet these muds are also listed as 'free'.

5) It might not be "completely free", but you can still play for free.

If the definition of "free" on Top Mud Sites only means "free to play", then surely Threshold would also be free? Sure, you have to pay a one-off $50 registration fee sooner or later, but after that it's just perks. The same with Guild Wars - you have to buy the game in order to play, but after that you don't have to pay any more in order to play. Yet Threshold advertises itself on TMS as 'pay-per-play', while Guild Wars states on its website that it is "priced at a comparable cost to other first-tier PC games" although it has no "subscription fee of any kind".

And what about, say, "The Eternal City" (just as a random example), which also lists itself as free? You can play it for free for 30 days, but after that you have to pay $12.95/month for a Skotos account. Is it 'free' because you don't have to pay anything on top of your Skotos account costs, which gives you access to a load of other thing as well (i.e., it costs nothing if you're already paying for the other Skotos games)? Is it 'free' because you could play at a disadvantage by creating a new account each month? Is it 'free' because you could perform services for other players in return for them paying your monthly fee?

6) But you'll still have your character, even if you stop paying.

This is true for IRE. It is also true for Threshold or Guild Wars, assuming you've already payed the initial cost.

But what about the muds which have a yearly upkeep cost on their items? Sure, you'll keep your character if you stop paying - but you'll lose your super items. And isn't equipment part of your character?

And what about muds with a monthly fee who simply lock (rather than deleting) your account if you stop paying? You might not be able to play until you start paying again, but you'd still have your character, and thus the chance to play again when you wish.



In summary:

The problem is that TMS only differentiates between 'pay-per-play' and 'free'. These alone are obviously far from sufficient to describe the many different payment models out there, and IMO have ended up becoming more of a liability than an advantage - they are simply too misleading. This leaves three options:

1) Leave the listings as they are.

2) Add more payment models to the database.

3) Drop the 'pay-for-play' option entirely, so that the players know that it's their responsibility to check what payment model the mud uses.

I would prefer 2, but that's obviously not going to happen. As such, I think 3 would be the better compromise - it avoids this whole mess, and the players will no longer rely on misleading information. I cannot see any reason for option 1, other than to deliberately mislead potential players.

Matt, I'm curious what your explanation is between say......a generic free MUD where no money is involved at all, compared to one of your MUDs.

They are obviously not the same, and the former is considered by the majority as a "Free MUD." So what exactly would you call a play-to-play or play-for-perk MUD? Are you saying that you'd still consider it......."Free?"

How about making it simple then... Flag certain Muds as 100% Free

100% free is simply Muds where you in NO WAY can further your character by the use of real money. Nor any subscription fee of any sort. Muds that follow the "you can donate if you like" but don't reward it in any way would be in this category aswell.

The second category would simply not have the "100% Free" flag in their listing. Here goes all others, whether it be pay-for-perks, subscription fee, pay for equipment, get a restring on equipment for donating... All where you get anything at all for donating or otherwise spending money.


This if anything would make a perfect definition, after all we're not putting muds into categories, just flagging those that won't let your money change anything in the Mud.

ps. Now I know some people will have a problem with the "donate for cool restring" thing not being listed as 100% free. However you DO get something for your donation (even if it's something that small), then you ARE getting something for spending real money!

I don't use "community" definitions of words - I use the real ones. And even if I did, you are not the community and you should not speak on its behalf while decrying Matt for speaking on behalf of the rest of the world. I find it extremely hypocritical.

Seriously, you go to the website, see the prominent help files, whatever - it's not like they want to hide the fact that they sell credits if it's how they're making money in the first place - you see that they're selling these "credits," and what do you do? I know that if I was curious how important credits were, I would, you know, ask a player. It's not like they can tell you exactly how important credits will be, because it depends on your play style.

It says free to play. That is literally true, you can play all you want. It might not be free to get ahead (not being an IRE player myself, I don't know how practical it is to get credits the hard way), but they never claimed that in the first place.

Isn't there a market where you can buy credits for gold? That makes it pretty much the same as acquiring any other resource that your character might need but can't gather directly. Consider a crafting-type play style which requires a character to purchase goods from other players - in fact, some game designers actually think this is a good thing! Imagine.

And before you go off on how "someone is paying for it," credits are created whenever someone wins one of the oft-mentioned lotteries or contests - it doesn't matter who, specifically, all that matters is that the credits enter circulation when anyone wins.

I'm not sure what the point of worrying about the selection in the database is anyway. It doesn't show up on the main info page, and as far as I can tell you can only specifically search for pay to play muds, you can't exclude them.

I'd certainly appreciate such an icon or color code being available. (The ranking list would remain unchanged, but 100% free would get something to denote their business model.) Carrion Fields certainly uses a very different model from IRE, and it would be great to have a way to get that knowledge to players in the face of IRE's (ab)use of the word "free".

I covered that in point 5.

I covered that in point 4.

I explained that in my summary.

Yes, the definition of free to play (which is what they SAY) is free to play.

Your analysis is false, which I explained to you. Not all credits are paid for. Not that it's relevant in the first place that someone paid. If you purchase credits with gold that someone originally purchased with real money, they still don't cost any money to you. Likewise, if I spend a thousand hours of my time building a free MUD, it's still free to everyone else even though there was a large "cost" to me. If I give something away, it doesn't matter what I paid for it.

No, you didn't. Again, it's not even shown on the info page.

KaVir @ Jan. 10 2006,06:50
There is of course one very simple solution, which nobody has mentioned yet, and which doesn’t require any changes of the database at all.

IRE could simply remove the intentionally misleading claim of being ‘free’ from the listing.

But that is obviously not going to happen either.

And it is pretty easy to guess why.

*
By the way, I just checked the info offered in the TMS database. The fact whether a mud is free or pay-to-play doesn't even show up there. Isn't that a bit weird?
Then I made a search for pay-to-play, (which was the only commercial option offered), and got a rather short list. The IRE games weren't on it of course. Neither was Medievia, (not surprisingly).

Which is another reason for either changing the basic definition to 'free' versus 'commercial', or adding more paying models for the commercial ones.

Threshold is also "free to play": You have to pay $50 to register, but it is free to play. The Eternal City is also "free to play": You have to have a Skotos account in order to access Skotos games, and that account costs $12.95/month, but the game itself is "free to play".

Do you think this what TMS means by "free"? Do you think this is what players have in mind when they are looking for a new mud?

GemStone IV has a free draw, in which it's possible to win free subscription for a month. Therefore not all subscriptions are paid for. Does that mean that GemStone IV can advertise itself as 'free'? Do you think that sort of interpretation would be useful for prospective players?

Some entries list the feature "Playerkilling Allowed". What do you assume about an entry which doesn't list that feature?

Some entries list the feature "Quests". What do you assume about an entry which doesn't list that feature?

Some entries list the feature "Level-less System". What do you assume about an entry which doesn't list that feature?

Some entries list the feature "pay-per-play". What do you assume about an entry which doesn't list that feature?

Honestly, I'm surprised at the resistance to the idea of differentiating commercial games.

You can't give a copy of Linux away to Joe Sixpack Home Computer User. (Although you could, because it's totally free.) Cable TV has made a ton of money highlighting all its advantages over free TV. ####, bottled water is a huge industry even though tap water is damn near free.

Consumers don't mind paying for quality. Were I running a commercial game, my angle would be, in essence, to portray my game as the clear choice of people who were serious about quality entertainment and all the free games as the laughable products of crackheaded hobbyists who would almost certainly go rogue and take up windsurfing instead of mudding at any time. The choice to instead try to hide among the hobbyist muds is baffling to me.

It's not about IRE though- it's about the entire range of payment models used by muds listed on TMS (of which there are many) and the attempt to fit them into two overly broad categories.

If the 'codebase' section in the mud listings only had 2 options - "Diku" or "LPmud" - I would take the exact same stance; either expand the category options, or drop that category entirely.

They already take this angle on the forums. Much as they claim that pay-for-perks is a highly attractive model (because it allows you the "advantage" of investing both money and time to get ahead) on the forums.

But yet, when you ask them to call themselves a "commercial pay-for-perks game" in their advertising, there is staunch resistance. The doubletalk is the clearest sign that something is amiss.

I would not have a problem is the separation was crystal clear.

Cath 1: MUDs that ever receive money from players.
Cath 2: MUDs that never receive money from players.

Then flag them differently. If money leaves the player's hands and goes to the admin's hands, for whatever purpose it stops being "free" according to you own definitions (and KaViRs and the everpolite the_Disciple, etc) for those players.

There may be dozens of sub-cathegories for each, but if your intent is to keep it simple, also keep it clear.

Many hobbyist MUDs receive donations from loyal players or friends of the creators for the purposes of helping keep their servers up or whatever, using that system could be even more inaccurate.

I might be inclined to take your posts more seriously if you didn't keep lying, particularly in regard to the fictional things that I've supposedly said. If you want to participate in such childish antics, please leave me out of it.

Maybe some of the confusion is a missing word. What if IRE and related games were flagged "can pay for perks" or "may pay for perks"?

The conditional word would clarify the optional nature of purchases, and it certainly describes the business model, as you agree.

As long as certain people refrain from claiming that their MUDs are more valuable to the community, that they somehow represent the MUDding community, that hobbyist MUDs don't live up to their potential (as defined by certain individuals), or that others don't constantly throw out absolutely ridiculous examples to support their claims, I'm fine by that.

Take care,

Jason

Those are donations, ie. contributions without expectation of reward. Buying credits to advance is not the same thing since these are purchases in exchange for benefits.

Really, "perks" is an inaccurate word if it in anyway helps one succeed.  Those are advantages, not perks.

If you're paying and receiving the former in both examples, it's pay-for-perks, but if the latter, it's pay-for-advantage/success.

The simplest solution is generally the most likely to succeed, both from a users point of view and from an admin point of view.

So, rather than changing every mud's listing to include the choice of "free" or "almost free" or "not remotely free" or "we think its free but they don't", it'd be much less painful if the commercial boys just had the tag "commercial", and the rest had nothing. That means just a few entries need tweaking rather than the whole darned lot.

For simplicity's sake, the way to achieve this painlessly for Synozeer would be for him to just define "commercial", and have him then require that all muds which he has defined as "commercial" must mention this in the text of the TMS list description (ie the 3 lines of blurb after the mudname on the list). That way it isn't overly prominent, database tables don't have to be changed, code doesn't have to be written, and just a few muds need to do anything at all. Maybe a link somewhere on the list to the definition of commercial would help too, so users know what they're getting into.

And, imo, commercial would be like it says on the tin, covering both pay to play and pay for perks.

Fyi, to me, describing something as free means 100% free at every point within gameplay, not free at some points but not others deeper down. As a user I'd definitely like to know this beforehand, I'd hate to invest a lot of time in something and then discover that to get to that last 1% you need to pay.

In this case there are prerequisites to playing which make "free to play" false. No such thing in IRE's case.

Synozeer's actions speak for themselves. You are not TMS.

Maybe. They can make that decision for themselves.

This is a straw man argument if I've ever seen one. What I said is that not all credits on the market have to be paid for by someone. If IRE is giving away credits at some particular rate, it doesn't matter who wins them as long as they enter the currency market and can then be purchased with gold. Lotteries are not fundamentally different from random drops, in fact.

The point is, it's NOT on the info page.

you say Unless "having a cost" also has a new definition in TMS, when a handful of people give away money for the game the keep running they incurr in expenses and therefore it has a cost for them.

also, you mention something similar disgised in your usual sarcasm
So, if a game requires and is forced to solicit their players to donate money from time to time to cover game expenses, and none of the players spent money on the game. the game would be forced to cut down costs or shut down, therefore these type of games are not completely free either. The first few years MudHobbiX was free and no donations were required, after eyar 3 the owned decided to add a lot of cool stuff and remove the limit of players connected at a time, so he bought space in a server, soon the MUD grew too much for him to cover all the costs by himself and was "forced" to ask the players for help. If they want to keep playing the game they like they have to spend money, else, the MUD goes back to a severely handicaped game (again, using words you like to use).

Now, as an example of you making up definitions to fit your purpose, you have
which is of course totally arbitrary, and allowed you, in that thread, to bash the MUD(s) you wanted to bash at that point. Surpricingly so, in this new thread now you claim your intention is not to single out IRE.

, we see a deeper explanation of your point of it being free for the players for as long as they do not have pay (or see themselves in the situation that they have to contribute or see the game go for that mater)
, is an example of you being told what I am telling you right now by a different person
Here you seem to miss the fact that "pay-for-nothing" would actually be "pay-or-you-nor-anybody-will-be-able-to-play".

Anyway, I could keep going back in that discussion, or look for the other one on which you used the same "logic" and "arguments" to keep quoting you, as you like it.

Do not be childish yourself and pretend to make others believe whomever is pointing out a flaw on your line of thought is lying.

That is incorrect. The contests are based on skill, which is why some people win consistently.

--matt

You're setting up a false assumption. It is a few forum posters who want to use the word 'free' as they want to. The rest of the world uses the word 'free' as we do. See the list above, which includes Google.

I'd say that if you can play without paying money, you can play for free. The option to buy other things is just that: an option. It doesn't affect one's ability to play for free. It may affect one's ability to be competitive, or it may not if the game in question allows one to simply invest time instead of money to be competitive. In any case, the issue of competition is not relevant to free or not free and MUDs are not inherently competitive things. They are for some people. They aren't for some people.

--matt

I've got no resistance to our games being labeled commercial. They are commercial. They're also free. I have resistance to mis-labeling our games AND to dictating to me what marketing points I choose to list on the front page of TMS. Singling out whether you have pay-for-perks or whatever makes no more or less sense than, say, labeling games as "Run by Professionals" or "Run by Amateurs."

IRE games, for instance, would be the former. Carrion Fields' would be the latter. I'm as sure players would like to know whether they're getting a professional or amateur experience as other people are apparently sure that players want to know, on the front page, whether there are pay for perks or whatever. In other words, neither of us are sure at all, and neither of us have a whit of evidence to support that.

Further, while it is strictly true that, for instance, IRE is run by professionals and Carrion Fields is run by amateurs, is this what you want to see on the front? It's undeniably true according to at least one meaning of the word, but it also serves to force games to market themselves in certain ways. Carrion Fields may very well choose not to advertise that it's run by amateurs, and I couldn't blame them. Without the opportunity to explain to the prospective player what exactly the consequences of that are, you're kind of hamstrung. Amateur vs. Professional carries, in some people's minds, other consequences. For instance, that Professional is better than Amateur. This is not true, as we know. It's merely different.

I have the same objection to forcing us to label ourselves as having a pay-for-perks option on the front page as Carrion Fields (or another hobbyist MUD) might have to forcing them to label themselves as "run by amateurs."

I'm going to cram another idea into this post too, as I'm out of town and in a hurry: I don't actually have an objection to labeling ourselves as "has the option of paying to shorten time investment", but I do have an objection to "pay-for-perks." I feel the latter comes with loaded assumptions about the nature of the game, in the same way that labeling a MUD as "run by amateurs" does, even if they are both strictly true.

I also have a problem with labeling just as "pay-for-perks" unless it includes more detail. For instance, to more completely (but still not completely) describe our revenue model, I believe the following information would need to be included:
1. Free to play.
2. Option of paying to gain in-game things.
3. All things that may be paid for may be instead obtained via either skill, luck, or greater time investment.

I have no problem to categorizing ourselves as the above. That's what we are. If that selection of options were available in the database, I'm totally fine with that. I'm not fine, regardless, with being asked to market any specific feature of our game on the front page, as I don't believe that the option of pay-for-perks is proveable, at all, as being more important to players than a host of other options (such as the level of customer service, whether it's a PK mud, whether it's an RP enforced mud, etc etc etc)

--matt

I'd say it's roughly as important as those things.

I'd also be in favor of flagging RP into one of a few categories and PK into one of a few categories as well, although that's not what we're discussing here. It's as true that many players know what they want in those categories as well, and these would also be ways the site could be improved.

(Level of customer service is too hard to objectively quantify, especially if games have to self-rate. It's in a game's best interest to rate things like RP level and PK level accurately, on the other hand.)

The mudding world comes in a whole rainbow of colours. We celebrate the unique nature of the many different text based worlds we occupy, yet we insist on using such black and white terms to describe them. Pay or free... Hack n slash, or rpi... pk bloodfest, or pk free. There sees to be little concession to the fact that the muds listed here cover a far broader spectrum.

My mud offers a small thank you for donations, it's small, really it is because if it was actually worth having and gave an advantage to players we'd have more of them donating! yet I've been scolded in the past for calling our mud free. My mud dosn't have perma death so it's been called hack n slash as it doesn't tick all the 'RPI' boxes. I could list alot of things that my mud supposedly is or isn't according to those who see the world in only two shades.

I do have to wonder if all the nitpicking and pedantics is really about wanting to provide the right information for prospective players, or just yet another attempt to discredit certain muds in order to make your own realm look better. I'm not a fan of IRE games, but these constant chest beating matches that crop up every time Matt posts have got me wondering just what the motives are for arguing these points.

I'm all for having a wider range of options as far as the pay or free situation goes, because I do not see how any mud that has ever accepted a donation from a player to help cover server costs can be slotted into the same category as a mud that can be played by subscription only

I debated getting back into this argument, because I think I've already said my piece, and I doubt I'll change any minds. But oh well.... Believe it or not, I'm trying to be reasonable here....

I get, every year, enough frequent flyer miles through "free perks" from credit card companies, rental car agencies, and hotels to take at least 2 trips free. Yet we'd sue the airlines in a heartbeat if they started advertising themselves as "free to fly".

In advertising, it is not sufficient to make a completely true statement--it also has to be a not-misleading statement. For example, in the recent past, I believe the government has started to regulate the advertising terms "low-fat" and "light cigarettes" not because the claims were false (and they were not), but because they were misleading. The fact that they were universally used in the industries they pertained to before the gov't changed the rules did not matter.

Let's face it, advertising is basically taking stretching truth to an art form, no matter what the product or service. The line between ethical and unethical is in the eye of the beholder, and the government.

OK, if someone wants my definition of what makes a game, or anything else "free" that is not misleading, here it is: that a sizeable portion of the customer base uses it freely. This makes it a rather functional definition: It's usable/fun/etc. enough for a large enough group of people to see it that way. Otherwise, the "free" label is mostly a bait-and-switch ploy. I'd say that fraction should be somewhere around 20-25%. But again, here we'd argue as to the number.

The #1 thing that puts the "free" label on the IRE games on very shaky ethical grounds for me is the lack of documentation about the number of lessons it takes to level your skills. Without this vital piece of information, a prospective player can't evaluate the economics of the credit system for themselves. Oh, and by the way, the numbers attributed to me in an earlier post probably overstate it a little, because rereading the docs, I found that mini-skills take less lessons. How many less? I have no idea--it's not documented, and even my guild doesn't have those numbers posted. I also cannot inquire using a command in the game as to how many lessons I've spent on my skills, so at this point, I still have no clue.

And by the way, being one of those players in games that use spreadsheets and databases to understand games down to their basics, the above, and the implication it had on my RL costs was not apparent to me for at least a couple of months. The credits I bought using the 21-day novice bonus were plenty to handle skills at the beginning. I was just beginning to burn them up pretty quick near the end as I started getting to higher levels. If I had continued, I no doubt would have been spending at probably a rate 3x or more what I spend on a graphical "commercial" MMORPG, which I found astonishing. And that's without a single artifact... But that would have been my choice had I done that. Luckily, I decided to walk away...

I'd also question the ability of the credit market to support free players with enough credits at reasonable prices, but that's really hard to predict. It looks like there about 434 credits for sale right now (at about an avg of 3k/credit). But last summer, the number took a big dip, and prices almost doubled. Without following the market daily, it's hard to say whether there's enough there to support say, 5 or 10 players getting gold and buying them up to play free. It might be an interesting test, but I have no time for it, and no inclination to grief existing players if it does send prices through the roof.

Where do have these prerequisites suddenly come from?  You yourself stated that IRE games are free to play because "the definition of free to play (which is what they SAY) is free to play".  Well, based on that definition, so are Threshold and The Eternal City.

Yeah, it's starting to get difficult to answer my questions, isn't it?

How are they supposed to do that when you can't agree with your own definition of "free to play"?

No, I am simply pointing out the flaw with claiming that contests can remove the payment requirement.  A rule made for one mud should exist for all - and if were ruled that advancement earned through contests counts as a valid alternative to payment, then such muds would be perfectly entitled to list themselves as free as well.

I understand what you're trying to say, but what you don't seem to realise is that many of the pay-to-play muds have the same sort of approach, and could use the same reasoning to list themselves as free.

Neither are "Playerkilling banned", "No Quests" or "Level-based System".



My post was in direct response to your statement "If a player can get or not in-game advantage has no bearing on the labeling a game "free to play"."

Is that the best counter you can come up with?  To deliberately quote me out of context in an attempt to make it look as if I'm saying something I'm not?  You really are pathetic...



Approximately what percentage of the overall credits within your mud would you say come from contests?



It is about wanting to provide the right information for prospective players - or at least, not providing misleading information.  I've recommended that the whole "pay-for-play" entry be removed entirely, but it seems that some people don't want that, either.  I wonder why.

It makes little difference to me personally, as I specifically choose not to list my mud on TMS.  However I still dislike the idea of players being mislead, and have been flaming such adverts long before TMS or IRE existed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: It shouldn't be a question of "free" vs. "anything else." It should be a matter of "commercial" and "non-commercial."

IRE runs a business. One of the aspects of its business is to make a profit (whether it does or not is irrelevent, though I believe it does). It is a commercial venture, and it gains its revenue in part from money paid by players for in-game benefits. It doesn't matter that those players can play without paying. It -does- matter that they can get benefits for money, and that some of them do.

The moment in-game benefits become payable via out of game currency, that game ceases to be "completely free to everyone." Because the moment ONE person does pay for an in-game benefit, it is no longer free for that one person. And so - "free" no longer applies to that player, and by extension, no longer applies to that game.

Either it's a commercial game or a non-commercial game. Non-commercial games don't accept money for any in-game benefits. Notice, I didn't say "don't require money." I said "don't accept money." You don't have to "require" money to be a commercial venture. You can merely "allow" it, and you no longer qualify as a non-commercial venue.

So I say, get rid of the whole "free" vs "pay-for-whatever" crap, change the wording to "commercial" vs. "non-commercial," and you've got everything tied up nice and neat in their own appropriate packages.

1) The bulk of our senior staff makes a living as programmers, more than one dealing with games. It would be misleading to call them "amateurs" because we don't charge anyone for Carrion Fields. I'm personally an amateur (I did sell some non-CF content to a small company about 10 years ago, but I presently don't derive a penny of income from CF), but you should refrain from assuming things about my colleagues.

2) Does "Players may pay for perks" suffice to describe your model? Maybe the icon links to a definition of the term. An example:

"Players can contribute money for in-game advantages. Unlike a pay-to-play model, such contributions are optional. These advantages may or may not be exclusively available to paying customers-- see the game's website for further information."

3) I think it would be useful to have similar icons for PK (all characters, optional, no characters), and RP (required, encouraged, optional), for what it's worth. Players often have strong opinions there as well.

Well, if you have to pay before you can play (i.e. subscribe to something), then it's ... not free to play. This is pretty simple, I think.

No, it's not. To put it simply, I can't answer because the question is wrong. I am not TMS either. I don't know what Synozeer thinks, so I can only judge by his actions, which so far amount to not changing anything.

My definition of free to play is that you don't have to pay money to be allowed to play the game. It's that simple. I have never claimed anything even slightly different. If Threshold lets you play the game without having paid, it's free to play. If The Eternal City lets you play the game without having paid, it's free to play. If you have to have a Skotos subscription, that counts as paying.

There is no requirement in the first place, but that's not the point. What I said was, and I'm repeating it for the third time, is that not all credits on the currency market have to be paid for. If nobody bought credits, you'd still be able to buy them for gold because they are given away in events. It's not just that they give stuff away - it's that there's a market for it which makes it functionally equivalent to any other limited resource in the game.

There seem to be two things people have a problem with here, the "free to play" label which is in IRE's ad text and the database entry. I say IRE is perfectly justified in calling themselves free to play on account of the easily verifiable fact that you can go and login to their games and play all you want without spending a dime. The database listing could certainly be made more descriptive, but since it doesn't actually say anything false on the info page, I see it as more of a "gee, TMS search sure could be more helpful" thing than a "burn the capitalist pigs" issue. This is not specifically directed at you, but I've seen quite a few people throwing around words like unethical over this. That is not a claim to be made lightly and I don't think it's justified. Given the options "Free" and "Pay-per-play," IRE is more of the former than the latter, if you consider that you never actually pay to play. You pay for the +5 Sword of Super-Leet, maybe, but that's different.

The whole issue of the database listing could be solved by changing "Pay per play" to the catch-all "Commercial." I think that would be totally reasonable. Again, though, that is up to TMS, not you or me or even Matt.

FWIW, I think that even if IRE didn't allow you to access all content for free, they'd have a reasonable shot at claiming "free to play."

Listing "pay-per-play" would in fact be misleading and untrue - if I saw that, I would instantly assume I needed a subscription - while saying nothing does not. Unless you look at every info page until you find one that happens to say pay per play, you will never even notice. If it said Free with no qualifiers, you might count that as misleading, but it doesn't.

As for other games which do not list themselves as Pay-per-play but take your money... again, do you have to pay to play? If not, saying nothing is less misleading.

You can advertise yourself as whatever you want, misleadingly, or not; You can actually do whatever you want, technically, none of us can really stop you.

However, your attitude is sickening sometimes, Matt. You claim to represent the ENTIRE world(outside of a few forum posters), when I would stake money on the fact that most MUDers would agree with our definition of free as opposed to IRE's. Beyond that, you try to use an offensive analogy, calling Carrion Fields an amateur run MUD.

What makes IRE professional, versus a MUD like Carrion Fields? Is it your business model? Is it because you, personally, make a profit? Do most of your staff members make profit? Are the ones who do not amateur volunteer staff? Does that make you partially professional?

No matter, I'm sure you will find some very narcissistic way to answer these questions without answering the spirit behind them.

IRE is "free-to-play, pay-for-perks". That is what it is. There are not enough contests to keep the credit market alive, therefor bought credits are necessary for character developement. Trying to hide or under-emphasize the importance of the pay-for-perks/credit section of the game is misleading. However, none of this argues anything more than your more-than-questionable economical-ethicality and condescending attitude towards other MUDs.

All I've seen in these forums are posters from a variety of MUDs arguing void of any give-or-take with players/mostly-admins of IRE games. All I've seen is Matt acting like IRE owns this website, and that protecting IRE's right(and they do have a right) to vague and misleading advertising is more important than the rights of the players to be able to clearly see on this resource website what level of economics will be involved with MUDs in the listings.

Is there anyone who isn't from IRE/Threshold who thinks that it would be a -bad- thing to have this website color code MUDs by "100% Free", "Free-to-Play, Pay-for-Perks", and "Pay-to-Play"?

The meaniong of 'free' is not an improvement of subject-name, really, in this now multi-thread discussion. The discussion, for me, goes even further beyond ethics, to a simple inquiry about why TMS can't add some kind of icon or color-code to aid its players. So far, I haven't gotten a chance to really hear from Syno or non-IRE/Threshold players.

I don't play any IRE games (or Threshold), and I think it would be about on the same level as color coding MUDs with orcs, half orcs and no orcs. Why are you so intent on singling out this property in particular?

My personal proposal is that we color code MUDs as "somewhat time consuming," "extremely time consuming," and "full time job." This is way more important to me than money.

No no no. IRE games are free because there is no charge associated with being able to play them. You can play them without having to pay to do so. Ever. You won't be charged for any time you spend playing the game. Does this point really need to be made yet again? I get the sense that a handful of people posting here are the only ones who seem unaware of this very well understood concept of "free." You know, the one that can be roughly translated as "it won't cost you anything."

You must have purchased a subscription to Skotos in order to play The Eternal City, it is part of the Skotos package. The Eternal City is not free.

You HAVE to pay the $50 registration fee to play Threshold beyond an initial grace period. Threshold could probably market itself as having a free trial period, but it is a pay-to-play game with purchaseable perks.

The individual IRE games do not require the purchase of an overall subscription to IRE in order to play them. The IRE games do not delete your character if you play too long without paying a registration fee.

I can understand people wanting to assert a distinction between hobbyist games in which no money is accepted for anything and commercial games which do accept money for in-game benefits. I can understand people wanting an entry on the information page that would document this distinction.  But neither of those positions requires one to make the absolutely laughable argument that a game which can be played free of charge cannot honestly advertise itself as "free to play" simply because one, for some unknown reason, has chosen to interpret "free to play" as meaning "non-paying players will have exactly the same playing experience as players who spend their inheritance on in-game perks."

What's offensive about the word "amateur" as it's used in this sense? It simply means that Carrion Fields is operated as a hobby and not as a profession.

You've done a good job of demonstrating Matt's point that a mud might not want to be required to advertise itself as an amateur mud though.

It's equivalent to me saying Matt is "the Vryce of IRE", then backpedaling with "in the sense that he is the administrator".

We're "amateur" in one sense of the word, and not in the other, pejorative one. "Hobbyist" is a less loaded term, and thus preferable. Matt knows this, as do you.

I am going to try and keep my comments here as brief as possible.

Are I.R.E. games technically free? Yes. Is it easier to attain 'success' in an I.R.E. game by paying real $ for perks? I would also say yes. Can you still you achieve 'success' without paying for perks? Yes you can, to varying degrees. I myself achieved high rank in my guild and managed to 'transcend' several skills without paying a dime. I have found it viable to achieve great political status in I.R.E. games with never having spent a penny. Achieving a high PK related status is much more difficult. This is much easier to accomplish by spending real $. You must also have a certain amount of client coding skill or the $ spent wont mean much however.

Now on to the 'shady' business which while not illegal can give a poor impression of I.R.E.  I.R.E. games are high conflict so if you don't want to feel completely helpless when your faction is under attack you'll need to participate in PK. The quick way to gain the skills to participate in PK is to buy credits. I.R.E. does not allow for the posting of skill lists on its forums or in its games. Excepting the kindness of a friend whom may already have the skill you want you will have no way of knowing how high the skill is ranked in its group. I.R.E. also does not make readily available information regarding the number of credits required to 'transcend' (learn the fulfillment of) a skill. If you want your character to change factions they will need to forget the skills they have learned and in doing so will permanently lose a large % of lessons (lessons are the actual currency used to learn skills, 1 credit = 6 lessons).

I make no judgment here. merely take the information I have presented and make of it as you will. On a final note I am curious what makes I.R.E.'s staff professionals? Simply because they are paid? I have experience managing a service department in a retail field and I can assure you that being paid to do a job does not make one professional. Where am I going with this bit of innuendo in regards to I.R.E.? I'll leave that for another discussion as much of it could be considered purely subjective.

Geez, this same old argument seems to crop up at this website every few months or so. Free vs pay for perks/pay...commercial vs non-commercial...whatever...

The underlying sub-text is that there is competiton for players on this website, & the pay for perks/play muds are resented by the certain free mud owner/players because, pick one or all:

- they don't label their muds as play for perks clearly, so it is looked on by the free muds as deception.

- they don't generally allow reviews of their muds to be posted.

- they have a larger playerbase to vote, so they are usually higher ranked, which also causes jealousy.

- As they also generally pay for advertising that supports this website's existence, they are also thought to receive special consideration from the website admins.

Point is, why bother beating the same ol' dead horse?? IRE & Threshold & the like are not going to point out clearly to potental players that they are play for perks, it is bad for business. A player will eventually find out soon enough when they play the game, & if they still choose to play, so be it. TMS is not going to require any "play for perks" labeling as that would be bad for their business. That's what it boils down to...business.

All the wailing & gnashing of teeth is just a waste of time, it's been debated on this forum over & over again, ad nauseum...

By the way, I'm just a player, not a mud owner or admin...

Exactly - if it's about howmuch traffic this site can bring in to maximize revenue, we should be told that by the owner. If it's about trying to create the best possible website for its users, then the choices are more obvious.

If certain MUDs threaten to stop voting as heavily if this site labels them for what they are, then those threats should be exposed and we should say 'shame on you, bad doggie!' and tell them to stop Vryce-ing up the MUD Community.

If there are no threats, there'd be no reason to think that adding an improvement to the site's listing process would do anything to harm vote competition.