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I don’t always agree with Dulan, but in this matter I do.
Blatant and lengthy advertising has no place in a discussion thread.
In fact I’d go as far as to suggest, that posts like that one from Seraphina are partly the reason for the sense of ‘hostility’ that some of the new p2p muds may have experienced from the more established community on these boards. Personally I detest having a TV show interrupted by commercials, and I get equally irritated when a discussion thread is interrupted by lengthy advertising. Call me picky, but I believe I share this feeling with quite a few people.
However, as Seraphina herself points out, she is just a player on DragonRealms, not part of the Admin, so her posts should in no way reflect negatively on Simutronics. (In fact I found most posts from the Simutronics people both measured and sensible). It shouldn’t even reflect negatively on Achea, were it not for the fact that this mud has managed to get quite a reputation for unethical behaviour on this and other mud sites. Once a reputation like this is established, it sort of lays you open for suspicion
As for the issue of the discussion, I generally have no problem with Pay-to-play, as long as it is not in breach of the Diku licence, and as long as it is up-front and not disguised in different cheesy ways, designed to trick the prospective customer and ‘rope them in’, before they find out.
I do however have a particular problem with the form ‘pay-for-in-game-advantages. Why? Because to me mudding is a skill game. Your success in the game should be determined by your personal skills, whether they are about game mechanics, PK, Roleplaying, or social skills. It should NOT be determined by the size of your wallet, or, worse even, the size of your parent’s wallet. That just breeds lazy, spoilt and demanding players, and God knows, there are enough of those around already.
But then again, this is just my opinion, I guess everybody is entitled to theirs.
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