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Old 10-01-2007, 05:54 PM   #557
Spoke
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Join Date: Oct 2003
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Re: What does "Free" Mean?

It seems to me that you are trying to argue that you indeed agree with most people that more information is valuable for players searching MUDs. This is how I interpret your insistence on the multiple sub-options system. Now, I do believe that you can potentially group several of those you list together, say,


Since it seems you no longer have a problem with requiring a donation for a service as you mentioned earlier, you can safely go with
[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.

Since we can now group together payment and donations (as your example allows for donations to be required as well),
[ ] Payment and/or donations required to access some content.

would group the 2nd and 3rd options, as you no longer care for non ultra specific information (you complained about the meaning of content before, but you now use words like "certain", "levels", "rewards" without a formal definition so I guess you are cool with the use of "content".)
For the 5th, 7th and 8th you can use,
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, has results in-game.

though it conveys a different type of information, in your wording it lets people know what they would get for their money without understanding (if they have not checked into the game beforehand), in the presented form it lets the searcher know whether the game is designed so that money will have a measurable impact in the game experience. (I am not entirely happy with the "has results in-game" bit though, "provides with bonuses during game" or something that cannot be as easil(L)y marred by nit-pickers would be prefered)
As for your 6th option, the obvious replacement is
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, no results in-game.

Previously your argument against this presentation was that anybody giving money would immediately compromise the integrity (if they even had some to begin with) of the MUDs staff regarding their game, which would inherently lead to them getting disproportionate advantage over everybody else who did not donate. Yet you are o-key with adding an option that says "Rewards are not part of ..." which leads me to think that you understood your previous complain was somewhat groundless.
And lastly
[ ] Neither payment nor donations accepted.


So it seems to me that both things convey a very similar message, both move in the direction you and others seem to want for the searching options (that is, towards giving players more information -see quote above-), and thus would be preferable to the 2 box model where nothing changes.

Now, the two main arguments I read over and over against the MUDs that would potentially click the "no results in-game" option is that people cannot be trusted to follow their own policies, be it on well established games or new ones and that a mouse pad or coffee mug WILL impact your game experience no matter how little coffee you drink or how good a mouse pad you had before. Oh, the_logos argument has been addressed in a prior post so I will not repeat what the_Disciple said at 6:20 am today. (no idea how to quote multiple posts)
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