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Molly · 08-29-2003, 08:20 PM

Since this thread has turned into something pretty interesting, let me try to explain a bit better what lies behind my, in retrospect, rather blunt statements.

First:
I don’t have anything per se against commercial muds, in fact I am involved in a potential commercial project myself, where my partner is coding a Mud from scratch, while I am going to provide the areas for it. What I DO have a problem with however, is commercial Muds that aren’t up front about being commercial and that attempt to rip their players and/or staff off – or at least have as their first priority to squeeze as much profit as possible out from them.

Let me give you some examples of what I consider ‘ripping off’:
1. Claiming that your Mud is ‘totally free to play’, while in effect players will have an almost crippling handicap, unless they shell out an amount of RL money on equipment, weapons, skills, spells and special commands.
2. Hiding the fact that your Mud is commercial, by putting the info about it in some obscure place of the Website, while at the same time allowing players to play for free for a month or so, in the expectation that they then will be ‘hooked’ enough to accept the fee.
3. Hiding the cost by calling it ‘donations’ and then hassle the players that choose not to donate, until they either submit or quit the Mud.
4. Paying your staff ‘peanut money’ for putting a lot of work into something that you yourself are making – or expecting to make - a pretty big financial profit from.

Secondly:
Builders – and even Coders – can get a bad deal in both commercial and free muds. Usually the nature of it is a bit different however.

You have to realise the fundamental difference between free and commercial Muds in a discussion like this.
In a free Mud, nobody makes any profits. Not the Owner, not the Imps, and consequently not the Coders and Builders either – NOBODY. It’s a totally voluntary enterprise, a hobby that we do for FUN, and that requires free contribution from everybody involved. The owners/implementors are usually the ones that put up the largest amount of free work, and they are also the ones that actually have to shell out some money, for the hardware and the server.

In a commercial Mud, the owner makes a profit. It can be big or small, depending on how successful they are in selling their product. (Note that ‘most successful’ here, doesn’t necessarily mean ‘highest quality’ of the game itself, it only means how many players they can get to pay a maximum amount of $, i.e how good they are at marketing their Mud and how smart they are at inventing features that generate money).

Now you can naturally get a bum deal in a free Mud too. In fact there are tons of Muds, ran by immature twinks, who not only treat their players like crap, but also their staff. (Totally crappy commercial Muds like that don’t exist, for the simple reason that nobody in their right mind would pay a cent to play a mud like that).

BUT, there is also a rather limited number of free muds that are run ‘professionally’, (in spite of the non-profit condition), by mature people, who try to be as fair as possible both to their players and their staff. These Muds do exist, and in many cases their game quality equals that of the commercial Muds. They also set up Build Policies that guarantee the people that work for them a fair treatment, although payment in cash is generally not even an option for those free Muds – for a very simple reason:

Most free Muds don’t have a totally custom code. The majority of them run on DIKU or any of its derivates – MERC, CIRCLE etc. – where the licence that goes with the code expressively forbids anyone from making any kind of profit. It doesn’t matter how much the code has been modified or added to; if it started out as a Diku derivate, it’s still a derivate, and the licence applies.

That said, here are some comments to some of the posters:

Hephos1 cent – or even 10 cents - per hour, for pretty qualified creative work is and will always remain a lousy payment. They’d be a lot better off taking a job at McDonalds, which I hear is not all that hard to get. I’m not sure what the current wages are, but one thing is for sure; that would allow them to ‘play daoc’ for a considerably longer time, for the same amount of time put down on the work.

Hephos2:Hephos3: I can think of at least one reason why a Builder would want to yank their area away from a Mud, even if they DON’T plan to use it somewhere else.

If they leave the Mud on very “unfriendly” terms, it would be quite understandable to me if they no longer want their area to be used there. Fall-outs between owners and staff are not exactly uncommon. But a fact is; they are a lot more likely to occur, if the staff member figures they have been given a bum deal.

Most serious Muds give full credit to their Builders, and they also recognise the fact that the author deserves the copyright to their own creative work.

I run a Mud with 100% unique zones myself, so naturally I wouldn’t be very happy if any of our zones turned up in another mud, and our Builders are made well aware of this fact, when they sign up for us. Our Builder Policy also states that any zone approved and entered in the Game Port will NOT be removed under any circumstances - unless the Imps decide so for reasons of their own. Also our OLC and our Mob-script engine are so far from stock, that it would be hard to adapt a zone built in 4D to another Mud. Basically it would have to be rewritten from scratch. That leaves us pretty well guarded, as well as the Builder.

Still, there would not be much I could or would do about it, if anyone should decide to break this “gentlemen’s agreement”. To my knowledge this hasn’t happened yet, in 6 years time. If the problem should ever occur, I guess we’d deal with it when it happens. Most likely our decision would be to remove the zone in question from our Mud, in spite of the hassle that would mean, to get rid of the objects in the pfiles. We have over 160 zones by now, so the loss of one or two would not be that big a blow.

Malaclypse: Since I run a free mud (= not making any profit from it whatsoever myself) – no, I haven’t. Our Mud runs on Circle code, so even if I wanted to, the licence prohibits me.

I do however provide as fair conditions as possible for those that build for me. Including Builders getting full credit, retaining full copyright to their own work, and getting an Immortal on the Game Port in return for the first 100 room zone they produce. They also get a copy of their zone, on demand. (Actually very few demand it, strangely enough).

For a commercial Mud, I’d say, that if you cannot afford a fair payment, (for instance if the Mud is just starting up), a fair deal would be some part of the future profit, if and when the project ever leaves the ground.

The_Logos: No, that actually sounds like a pretty good deal, much like the one I got myself on my current Mud. I wasn’t promised anything when I entered it, not even an imm on the game - in fact the contrary, since I came there with the reputation of being a troublemaker. I ended up Imp and co-owner. That’s what I call a good deal, even though I never did and never will get a penny in real money for all my work.

BUT – how many of the Builders out there get the same good deal? – even the good, talented hardworking Builders?

One question of interest, though, matt. You are talking about Coders here, aren’t you? Or do Builders get the same deal from you for putting down the same amount of work on the project?

08-29-2003, 08:20 PM	#28
Molly Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Sweden Home MUD: 4 Dimensions Posts: 574	Since this thread has turned into something pretty interesting, let me try to explain a bit better what lies behind my, in retrospect, rather blunt statements. First: I don’t have anything per se against commercial muds, in fact I am involved in a potential commercial project myself, where my partner is coding a Mud from scratch, while I am going to provide the areas for it. What I DO have a problem with however, is commercial Muds that aren’t up front about being commercial and that attempt to rip their players and/or staff off – or at least have as their first priority to squeeze as much profit as possible out from them. Let me give you some examples of what I consider ‘ripping off’: 1. Claiming that your Mud is ‘totally free to play’, while in effect players will have an almost crippling handicap, unless they shell out an amount of RL money on equipment, weapons, skills, spells and special commands. 2. Hiding the fact that your Mud is commercial, by putting the info about it in some obscure place of the Website, while at the same time allowing players to play for free for a month or so, in the expectation that they then will be ‘hooked’ enough to accept the fee. 3. Hiding the cost by calling it ‘donations’ and then hassle the players that choose not to donate, until they either submit or quit the Mud. 4. Paying your staff ‘peanut money’ for putting a lot of work into something that you yourself are making – or expecting to make - a pretty big financial profit from. Secondly: Builders – and even Coders – can get a bad deal in both commercial and free muds. Usually the nature of it is a bit different however. You have to realise the fundamental difference between free and commercial Muds in a discussion like this. In a free Mud, nobody makes any profits. Not the Owner, not the Imps, and consequently not the Coders and Builders either – NOBODY. It’s a totally voluntary enterprise, a hobby that we do for FUN, and that requires free contribution from everybody involved. The owners/implementors are usually the ones that put up the largest amount of free work, and they are also the ones that actually have to shell out some money, for the hardware and the server. In a commercial Mud, the owner makes a profit. It can be big or small, depending on how successful they are in selling their product. (Note that ‘most successful’ here, doesn’t necessarily mean ‘highest quality’ of the game itself, it only means how many players they can get to pay a maximum amount of $, i.e how good they are at marketing their Mud and how smart they are at inventing features that generate money). Now you can naturally get a bum deal in a free Mud too. In fact there are tons of Muds, ran by immature twinks, who not only treat their players like crap, but also their staff. (Totally crappy commercial Muds like that don’t exist, for the simple reason that nobody in their right mind would pay a cent to play a mud like that). BUT, there is also a rather limited number of free muds that are run ‘professionally’, (in spite of the non-profit condition), by mature people, who try to be as fair as possible both to their players and their staff. These Muds do exist, and in many cases their game quality equals that of the commercial Muds. They also set up Build Policies that guarantee the people that work for them a fair treatment, although payment in cash is generally not even an option for those free Muds – for a very simple reason: Most free Muds don’t have a totally custom code. The majority of them run on DIKU or any of its derivates – MERC, CIRCLE etc. – where the licence that goes with the code expressively forbids anyone from making any kind of profit. It doesn’t matter how much the code has been modified or added to; if it started out as a Diku derivate, it’s still a derivate, and the licence applies. That said, here are some comments to some of the posters: Hephos1 cent – or even 10 cents - per hour, for pretty qualified creative work is and will always remain a lousy payment. They’d be a lot better off taking a job at McDonalds, which I hear is not all that hard to get. I’m not sure what the current wages are, but one thing is for sure; that would allow them to ‘play daoc’ for a considerably longer time, for the same amount of time put down on the work. Hephos2:Hephos3: I can think of at least one reason why a Builder would want to yank their area away from a Mud, even if they DON’T plan to use it somewhere else. If they leave the Mud on very “unfriendly” terms, it would be quite understandable to me if they no longer want their area to be used there. Fall-outs between owners and staff are not exactly uncommon. But a fact is; they are a lot more likely to occur, if the staff member figures they have been given a bum deal. Most serious Muds give full credit to their Builders, and they also recognise the fact that the author deserves the copyright to their own creative work. I run a Mud with 100% unique zones myself, so naturally I wouldn’t be very happy if any of our zones turned up in another mud, and our Builders are made well aware of this fact, when they sign up for us. Our Builder Policy also states that any zone approved and entered in the Game Port will NOT be removed under any circumstances - unless the Imps decide so for reasons of their own. Also our OLC and our Mob-script engine are so far from stock, that it would be hard to adapt a zone built in 4D to another Mud. Basically it would have to be rewritten from scratch. That leaves us pretty well guarded, as well as the Builder. Still, there would not be much I could or would do about it, if anyone should decide to break this “gentlemen’s agreement”. To my knowledge this hasn’t happened yet, in 6 years time. If the problem should ever occur, I guess we’d deal with it when it happens. Most likely our decision would be to remove the zone in question from our Mud, in spite of the hassle that would mean, to get rid of the objects in the pfiles. We have over 160 zones by now, so the loss of one or two would not be that big a blow. Malaclypse: Since I run a free mud (= not making any profit from it whatsoever myself) – no, I haven’t. Our Mud runs on Circle code, so even if I wanted to, the licence prohibits me. I do however provide as fair conditions as possible for those that build for me. Including Builders getting full credit, retaining full copyright to their own work, and getting an Immortal on the Game Port in return for the first 100 room zone they produce. They also get a copy of their zone, on demand. (Actually very few demand it, strangely enough). For a commercial Mud, I’d say, that if you cannot afford a fair payment, (for instance if the Mud is just starting up), a fair deal would be some part of the future profit, if and when the project ever leaves the ground. The_Logos: No, that actually sounds like a pretty good deal, much like the one I got myself on my current Mud. I wasn’t promised anything when I entered it, not even an imm on the game - in fact the contrary, since I came there with the reputation of being a troublemaker. I ended up Imp and co-owner. That’s what I call a good deal, even though I never did and never will get a penny in real money for all my work. BUT – how many of the Builders out there get the same good deal? – even the good, talented hardworking Builders? One question of interest, though, matt. You are talking about Coders here, aren’t you? Or do Builders get the same deal from you for putting down the same amount of work on the project?