[Juason]

You know.. fine, that is fair. It wasn't my intent to get defensive at the onset of this thread. Having not made the post, I just saw a lot of anger/disgust at the pay to play followed by speculation and constant negativity, and wanted to try and explain things a bit. As Jaz said, he hasn't played in 10 years.. so I felt like those assessments were out of date.

Some of the insults made here weren't even by DR players or people we know - and I wasn't intending for my replies to come off as insults. Asking someone who looks like they got a little too worked up to take a walk is just common sense...

Anyhow - it was surprising to see such hate for pay MUDs, and I've learned quite a bit during the back and forth regarding what some of the participants in this discussion like.

As for the better policing. When a MUD hits a large enough size, like 200+ players, policing does become more difficult. 200 players online might mean 1000 players throughout the week. In DR we give real-time customer support for things like lost items, unconsensted PvP (we use a profile system so people can choose not to participate in PvP if they would rather not), buggy items, spells, abilities and other mechanics. We also have a feedback system that players can go to if they experience account theft, to contest warnings and other problems.

It is entirely possible other MUDs do this well and do it for free. I've not seen it with the half-dozen I've tried over the years and so view it as something unique.