[cratylus]

matt/sarapis/the_logos/whatever wrote:

This is the position that makes people think that
"free mud" is an inadequate descriptive term.

Since the ability to play some portion or aspect of
the mud for free is easy to provide, any commercial
mud can, under your definition, call itself "free"
even while insisting that advancement past level 1
requires payment.

This definition of "free" may be satisfactory for
the purposes of the mud advertising itself, but it
goes against what I feel is the implied (indeed,
common sense) meaning of "free" in a mud context.

From the frequency with which this disagreement
pops up, I suspect I am not the only one who feels
this way.

Because "free" is commonly used in misleading ways,
I think it's more productive to avoid "free" as
a category in mud listings, and opt for a system
that accurately describes the relationship of
the given mud with their players' money.

I fancy my modified Osiris scale, though KaVir's
will do nicely as well.

The idea is to avoid the abuse of confidence that
marketing commercial muds* as "free" represents.

-Crat


*Where the commerce involves the players' money.