[SnowTroll]

Lots of muds police multiplaying. It's easy. A mud doesn't need to be a pay-to-play mud or have full time employees watching everything to do that. Lots of muds try to police scripting, but that's a little harder. A lot of muds, even the heavily staffed ones, don't bother and instead just let people script or try to create systems where scripting just isn't that useful or valuable. Lots of muds police griefing and enforce roleplaying. That's equally easy, especially if the majority of the playerbase is on the same page. (I've actually found the roleplaying and lack of griefers better and more enforced on the non-comercial muds since comercial muds have an incentive to keep everybody around and be a lot looser about restricting behaviors.) Lots of muds try to police out of character communicaiton and trading, but that's harder (without players tattling on each other). It's silly to hint that a pay-to-play, fully staffed mud is somehow necessary or better at enforcing something as simple as multiplaying, or any other types of rules. The actions required to police each of the above (and other things) are the same regardless of whether the players pay to play, with a small difference: It's not that staff members on paid muds are better, more numerous, or more attentive. It's that in a pay to play mud, players don't want to lose the real money they've invested so they're more likely to behave.

So here's something about these forums (and forums everywhere). Forums are for discussions. If somebody posts an advertisement for a mud and says it's awesome, and someone else logs into the mud responsive to that ad and thinks the mud sucks, I would hope that the second individual replies to the thread, responding to everything the first poster said was awesome, and explaining why the mud sucks. And that the discussion continues from there. If someone checks out the mud's website and finds a lack of information or another issue or fact about the mud, that's up for discussion, too. If someone plays or used to play the mud and has something to say, that's fair game. If someone doesn't and has never played and never will, but they still have something to say, that's great, too. Welcome to the internet.

Discussing muds is what this place is all about. It's not about posting a free ad and getting a bunch of new players and income, while calling anybody who makes a counterpoint a troll, flamer, lurker, and griefer who's ruining the mud community and contributing to the downfall of the entire genere of games. If you want an ad, buy some banners on sites around the internet where potential new players might see them. If you want a discusion, post on some forums. Reading through the thread, absolutely nobody is saying, "Your mud sux because it costs money. I don't play it, never have, and don't know anything about it, but it sucks!" There's a lot of semi-intelligent commentary hidden in the cracks. Not all of it, but it's great to see a lively discussion thread versus a single-post promotion. (Plus, a thread like this is way more likely to attract attention and get people to check out your mud's website than all of the generic single-post promo threads around here.)