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"Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one."
And the points I raised were not irrelevant, though obviously beyond you. Let's look at your points then shall we?
1. "...people are limited timewise and are in most cases not on equal footing. I'm not limited to 24 hours - I'm limited to 3 hours maximum. My brother who still goes to school is limited to 6 hours. The effect of this is that if we were to both play the same 'fair' MUD, he would have a 200% advantage."
There is a cap time-wise to how much you can achieve in a day. Unless a day is longer, the amount of time in it is the same for everyone. True, some people have access to more time in the day to do things, but that's ultimately a choice for them. Some people value their time differently, but ultimately the cap for how much time can be spent is the same for all. You simply make choices to prioritize what you want to do with it. You choose work. That's your call (and a good one). Your brother could just as easily have the same or less time if he prioritized his education to a greater degree than he obviously does. He chooses not to, affording him greater time to MUD by choice. Money, on the other hand, is not as easy to simply generate by choice. Sure, you can go without eating, but if you don't have the money, you can't simply create it out of thin air. By contrast, everyone has the ability to choose how to spend the same amount of time.
2. "There isn't (the same limit money-wise)? I'm fairly sure there's a limit on how much money you can spend - it's the amount of money you possess."
And not everyone possesses the same amount of money. Thanks for making my point.
3. "You seem to be implying that competing for resources is somehow relevant to how much of an advantage you can have if you pay for yours. The fact is that you can't buy gold or experience in IRE. You can buy credits and they don't translate to any sort of raw resource."
And those credits are used for what? They're used to purchase that which you'd otherwise be limited to in access or people wouldn't buy them. With credits, one is able to bypass the limitations in-game because credits are not determined by in-game accessibility. Instead, they're determined by one's bank account IRL.
4. "If you're really interested in knowing how I got to where I am I'll be happy to tell you though - I gathered gold by 'ratting' (a quest that lets you kill rodents and exchange the corpses for money) and I bought credits for the gold."
And there's someone else out there that did nothing but type in their credit card and purchase ten times as many credits. You were limited by the time it took to run the quest, the amount of rats you had available to kill, the number of others competing for those same rats. They just typed in their credit card number. So you aren't really playing the same game as them unless you spend real money. Because so long as there's a discrepancy in what you can achieve, it's not an equal footing. They game isn't free if you want to succeed like they can simply by spending their RL cash.
5. Curiously...
"Skill goes an extremely long way in IRE PVP and usually compensates for any statistical disadvantages."
"...I've yet to see a fighting system this capable of allowing skill to trump stats."
So which is it? Skill trumps stats or skills can't trump stats? You say both in the same paragraph.
6. "The heralded levelless PVP MUDs I've been to usually end up depending on something like power-levels or skill levels instead - few are ACTUALLY levelless."
Then they're not leveless.
7. "And a system that doesn't at all depend on stats would undoubtedly be a very boring one."
"Every MUD out there that was worth playing has seen players advance through the use of money."
Again, I question your experience since these statements are far from accurate. The first is an opinion, not one shared by all and the second is a sign of your lack of experience since there are plenty of MUDs where real money simply wouldn't gain you any advantage. Maybe it's true with H&S games like IRE's, but not of all types of MUDs. And yet, you state "every MUD out there that was worth playing" as an absolute.
8. "I've been playing for about 2-3 years now, I think and I challenge anyone to prove to me that I haven't been playing for free or that I haven't been enjoying my time. I'm also not a lone exception by any standart (sic)."
You've been playing for free but not with the same opportunity for success as those who pay. That's the point. As for enjoying the game you play, that's fine. But it doesn't imply that you're getting an equal opportunity at succeeding in the game or that the game itself is up to par with honestly-free games. Without experience playing other games, 2-3 years or even 23 years is irrelevant.
Jason
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