[Gore]

I think we are turning this into a too big of a deal. I asked Lasher if he could produce us with some statistics after this has been implemented. That way we will know 3 months or 6 months from now whether the actual enduser found this kind of ranking relevant at all, and I am sure that this decision can then be revisited. In the meantime, why not give it the benefit of doubt and see what happens?

[KaVir]

I think most of us realise that that has been your stance all along. However almost every other poster on this thread has recognised the limitations of the current approach and is looking for something that provides more information for the players, while also allowing the mud owners to more clearly label their payment model.

Lasher's proposal is exactly that:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] Neither Payment nor donations accepted.

Combined with the text box idea, it's a win-win situation for everyone. The players have more information for their search criteria, and the mud owners can clarify exactly what sort of payment model they're using.

[Valg]

1) It's rude to categorize the people advocating the multiple-category system as simply "yelling the loudest". Address the argument, instead of consistently trying to marginalize its supporters.

2) No one has shown an example of a game which was not trivial to categorize by KaVir's suggestions. Every MUD proposed has been rapidly marked in the four-category system without controversy. That suggests the model is using criteria that are neither inaccurate nor vague. Most importantly, it uses criteria that players certainly do care about-- whether or not you acknowledge a difference between mandatory-fee, pay-for-perks, and selling T-shirts on a website, the people using the search function certainly do.

3) In contrast, you haven't addressed the fact that a search function that returns 95%+ of TMS's MUDs in one category is not useful to searchers. Equating a MUD that wouldn't refuse a voluntary donation to DragonRealms ($50-$75/month plus optional perks) is ridiculous-- I'd care about that difference, and I'm relatively wealthy by US standards. Most high school or college students would care, as would a lot of adults who don't have a lot to spare for entertainment. You might as well be suggesting "MUDs with vowels in their name" as a criterion. That would be very factual, easily verifiable.... and completely useless.

[Atyreus]

I prefer the four options:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] Neither Payment nor donations accepted.

The only option that is ever likely to create problems is the third one. In fact, I have little doubt that if this method were adopted we would start seeing "Mud X claims that donations are NOT rewarded in-game but players who buy their coffee mugs and t-shirts get special treatment!!!!!!!!!!!!!" threads.

While I agree that the two-option method is more easily verifiable, it isn't particularly useful. The four-option method gives a player the same information (whether or not money is accepted in some form and could thus affect gameplay whether or not it is supposed to), and further allows the player to determine whether a payment/subscription is required and, if not, whether or not the game is ostensibly designed to provide in-game benefits in exchange for payments/donations. The benefits of this added information outweigh whatever disadvantages the four-option method may have in allowing some bad actors to portray their games as "payment/donation accepted but not rewarded in-game" while playing favorites to their biggest donors.

In this case, what the mud presents as its model with the four-option method is going to be more informative than the limited but more easily verifiable two-option method. Using the two-option model, one could also argue that the number of players online field should be limited to two choices:

[ ] Game is multiplayer
[ ] Game is not multiplayer

This method is, after all, very easily verifiable and leaves no wiggle room, whereas a mud owner could always doctor a who list, populate a mud with bots, and/or ask certain trusted players to keep 6-7 characters logged in at a time.

[KaVir]

Well you're always going to encounter the occasional claims of "special treatment", regardless of whether or not cash is involved (the imms help their friends, the owner helps his girlfriend, the admin boost their own characters, etc), but for listing categorises I think it's important to stick to the unambigious verifiable facts - and the four-choice solution does exactly that.

The advantage of separating the last two options (not accepted vs not rewarded) is that the player is kept aware of whether or not money is involved. The third option is effectively saying "The official stance of this mud is that payments and donations have no effect within the game - but they do accept payment and/or donations, and there's no way to verify what unofficial impact it may have on the relationship between players and staff".

[Threshold]

<Snip snip: Please refrain from personal attacks against other members - Xerihae>

But I have read tons of examples in this thread alone of situations where the 4 choice options failed miserably to address a situation accurately.

Merchandise, subscriptions, pay-for-perks, etc. are functionally the same. They all create a business relationship between player and admin. That is the most critical difference between a truly free mud and a non-free mud.

It is also incredibly naive to claim there is no effect on the way people are treated once they have sent money into a game (for whatever reason). That's just completely bogus. I think we would be doing players a grave disservice by making them think there WAS a difference, when there just isn't.

Furthermore, there is absolutely NOTHING clear or accurate about the hopelessly vague "rewarded in game" concept.

[Threshold]

Exactly. And that is why it would be a titantic mistake to *CREATE* flame fodder.

Everyone here who makes games knows this implicitly. You do not release into your game things that you KNOW IN ADVANCE will be abused, misused, and will create chaos. It just doesn't make sense.

As a player, I'd be pretty annoyed when I searched for games where payments were not "rewarded in game" and then found out that people who buy merchandise get faster customer service or get the "admin's ear" more easily. And honestly, there is no way you can guarantee that such things don't happen.

The 4 option list creates an implicit guarantee to the player using the search options that the information is correct. That makes it infinitely worse than the obvious marketing blurb being something other than what a player expected.

The status quo is better than deliberately creating something that is completely ambiguous, vague, and frankly, deceptive.

[Zhiroc]

That may be how you view it. But I can tell you, that I will never, ever play a pay-for-perks game again.

I will, however, play without agonizing over it, a required-pay OR a donation/merchandising/anything that is out-of-game game. So, for me at least, they are not functionally the same.

And you know how I feel about the word "free"

[KaVir]

<Snippy: Removed reference to snipped post - Xerihae>

No, you haven't. In fact I specifically asked if anyone could come up with any situations that didn't fit the four-option system, and nobody has.

You're saying that the following are functionally the same?

1. Everything in the game is free, but you can buy t-shirts from the website.
2. It costs $10 per month to play.
3. Play for free, but costs $1000 perks to create a full strength character.

Don't you think there might be a difference from the perspective of the player who's looking for a new mud to play?

The four-option system also takes into account whether or not money changes hands.

The concept is both clear and accurate, and has already been explained. No examples have yet been provided which aren't clearly and easily identified as being rewarded in game or not.

You'd be clicking on the wrong search box. If you want a game where people can't even buy merchandise, you should have clicked only the last box:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[X] Neither Payment nor donations accepted.

No listing option does that. There's no way to guarantee that a mud has been truthful about its creation date, or that an LPMud doesn't list itself as "Custom". If you dismiss the value of options that people could potentially lie about, you'll end up with no search options at all.

But the four-option system is about as clear and unambigious as you can get, and while nobody is likely to find out about the player who slips the mud owner $50 for a secret in-game bonus, neither would your own two-option system.

Is anyone other than the Thresholds actually still arguing in favour of a two-option system?

[Newworlds]

It looks like this argument will never end, but I still do not like this module because of the failure to properly categorize. I'll explain here:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
This is all well and good but as I've stated before few will check this box as it stands mainly because "required" is ambiquous. There is not a Text mud out there that requires you to PAY immediately before you can log on. Many require you to "register" a valid email, but not send money. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong here.

[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
Nicely worded, but as we've seen in this thread, rewarded in game is ambiquous and I'm not trying to be Clintonesque. Rewarded in game can be easily circumvented by what you believe a reward is.

[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
This will likely be 95% of the checks of muds here. Again a ruination of the reason for the options.

[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
Like the above, very few will check this giving a lack of broad range for the player that is seeking a "free" game, but wants some options, more than just getting 5 responses to the query, four of which are MUSHES when they are seeking a MUD.

I have to again promote the 2 Selections with multiple options under the first selection as the best answer. The main reason is that you could gain a multitude of responses based solely on your preferences for the check options as shown:
---------------------------------------------------


[ ] This mud has some donation, registration, and/or payment features.

(Sub options, click as many as apply)

{ } Paying registration is required to play.

{ } Paying registration is required at certain levels.

{ } Donations are required at certain levels.

{ } Donations are encouraged but not required.

{ } Rewards are part of donations/registrations/payments.

{ } Rewards are not part of donations/registrations/payments.

{ } All rewards in this game can be received without paying registration.

{ } All rewards in this game can be received without donations.

(There could be several more option boxes but I think you get the picture)

[ ] This mud does not accept money (donations/registrations/credits) in any form.
---------------------------------------------------

[KaVir]

The option is "Payment and/or donations required to play", not "Payment and/or donations required to log on". On the front page of TMS click the "Click here for advanced search" link, go down to "Pay to play Mud?:" and click "Yes". There are 31 muds listed, and all of these would use the above option.

The intent is clear - payments and/or donations result in some form of recompense within the game. I think the wording is also clear, but it could be changed to something else, or there could be some sort of help text beside the listing to make it clear to the mud owners which option they should select.

I suspect it'll be the most popular, but I'd be surprised if more than half the muds checked that box. Even if they did, it'd still be an improvement over the current system, and the text area would allow the muds to further elaborate on what sort of form the payments or donations take.

I suspect quite a lot of muds would click this option as well, but it'll be hard to know for sure without seeing it in action. Either way, it's a distinction that's clear and verifiable, and which at least some people feel strongly about, therefore I don't see any harm in including it (and I note your own suggestion includes it as one of the two main categories).

While I like the idea of more options, those listed in your proposal are far too ambigious and open to (mis)interpretation. Something similar was discussed and dismissed back at the start of the thread, and the reasons for doing so are still valid.

We've had 11 pages mostly discussing a four-option approach, and still can't reach a full consensus, so for the sake of practicality (and sanity) I think the best solution would be to go with what we've mostly agreed on (the four choices with a text box). I know the Thresholds want the system to stay the way it is, but as far as I'm aware you're the only other person who's actively against it - and that's because you want more options. But if you want more information, surely you'd prefer the four-option approach to the current "pay-to-play vs free-to-play"? Perhaps it'd be better to do this one step at a time - add the four-option solution, see how it works out, and if you still think it falls short propose another refinement.

[Milawe]

I honestly find New World's system to be the most useful. Is there money involved in the transaction or not? Yes? How is it involved? You've answered the basic question that people want to know, and you've added the details they need to know. It's an expansion of the two choice system that I like VERY much. I find it to be more accurate as well as more helpful to players.

I know that if I want to play a free game, then I want no money to be involved at all. That way, there's no sneaky ways that money come into play that can't be gauged otherwise.

I think it's easy to see why many people want the four option system. Most of them do fall into one category, but that category also has a TON of wiggle room and is impossible to enforce. Until you can get rid of the word "rewarded", we'll just keep having the "free" discussion every few months, and people will keep flaming each other over it every few months.

[chaosprime]

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, has results in-game.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, no results in-game.
[ ] Neither payment nor donations accepted.

[Jazuela]

I like chaosprime's minor wording change best out of all the options so far.

As for suggestions of adding more types of options to the options - remember, this has to be something that someone searching for a mud will search for. If I'm looking for a mud, I'm not going to spend 15 minutes trying to decide which of the 150 different click boxes I need to check off. As a player, here's my personal list of things I'm looking for:

RPI
ONLY voluntary Donations accepted as any monetary exchange, and with no in-game returns at all, of any kind.
English language

and - if filters were added, I would filter out mushes so they didn't show up on the list.

Then - once I had the list of whatever shows up, I'd be able to check each game with a name that sounds intriguing to me, for all the OTHER criteria I'd look for in a game - such as a stable server, a game that's been around awhile and is "gold" (not in testing phase), a fully-functioning website complete with game documentation and helpfiles, and I'd also see to make sure the game is basic telnet-compatible and doesn't require a browser to access, and doesn't force colors as a default, and allows the player to use their own color scheme - or none at all if they prefer.

But I wouldn't look for all that stuff in a search engine. I'd only look to see if it's free, if it's an RPI, and if it's in English. If I could choose the "type" of free, the only "type" I'd need to know about, is if it allows people to donate, but doesn't give anything in-game in return for the donation. If it has a cafe-press link, I'll find it AFTER I've determined that I don't have to pay for anything AND I don't have to compete with people who do pay something. The four options are just enough - not too few, not too many, to keep my interest.

Not unlike all my clear, concise, brief (heh) , and perfectly proportioned posts.

[Atyreus]

The current system (pay-to-play vs. free-to-play) creates flame fodder because people feel that certain business models should be labeled as something other than what they currently are (just for the record, I've personally have never had a problem with IRE or similarly financed games declaring themselves to be free to play). The two-option system you propose is going to create flame fodder for a very similar reason: the same people who felt that there was something not quite right about, say, an IRE game being grouped in the same free-to-play category as their own we-don't-solicit-but-will-accept-the-occasional-donation-to-upgrade-the-server mud can certainly be relied on to not be happy about being included yet again with the very muds that run business models that are significantly distinct from their own.

Your proposal realigns the field a little bit, but completely fails to acknowledge the distinctions that those advocating a change have been clamoring for.

By that reasoning, however, we should do away with letting mud admins author their own information pages and should just let a select group of auditors do the work instead.

Players are just as capable as those who support the two-option system of looking at muds in the "payment/donations accepted, not rewarded in-game" category and concluding that the possibility exists that donors might be rewarded in some way (whether consciously or not) by the game's admins. Like your proposed system, the four-option method gives them the information you seem to think is so vital - that payment is accepted in some form from players - and allows them to avoid such games if they are the sort to assume that all such payments are probably rewarded no matter what the admin claims.

Yes, I'd probably be annoyed if I logged into a game that claimed that they didn't provide in-game rewards for donations, only to find out that they actually did. I might also be annoyed if they claimed to be full PK and I logged in and found all sorts of PK restrictions in place, or if they claimed to have a bajillion rooms and I logged in and found out there were maybe only a couple thousand, or if they claimed to be running a custom codebase but were running a thinly-disguised LP mudlib instead. I still wouldn't support limiting the information available in any of the relevant search fields just because it might make the veracity of the information volunteered a bit more easily verifiable, particularly not when the amount of information available to me drops significantly.

I'm not sure how the two-option method is supposed to be less ambiguous than the four-option method. Yes, it tells me a mud accepts payment in some form from players (as does the four-option method), but it completely leaves open the next couple of questions that would come naturally to most consumers: (1) Is a payment required? and (2) What, if anything, do I get in exchange for said payment?

[Newworlds]

I can only assume you didn't read my post about the two item option + system which is by far better than the four option system IMO, frankly because of the reasons I posted about the four option system. In short, the four option will really turn into a two option with 95% of the muds claiming option 3 and the other 5% claiming option 4.

With the 2 option system (plus multiple sub selections if you select the first option), you guaranty a fine breakdown of selections that will lead to superior searching.

[Threshold]

You are right. And honestly, people should mind their own business more and not obsess so much over how other people choose to market their games. It is no wonder our segment of the gaming industry flounders: too many people devote too much of their energy towards taking someone else's MUD down. That time and effort would be much better spent making one's own game better.

As a side note, this is another reason why I think the whole payment issue should be avoided completely in any official capacity by Lasher or the search options. It is an example of some people being busy-bodies and trying to force their own opinions on everyone else.

It isn't really analogous. People are very aware that the hand written areas are written by the MUD operators. It is obvious in advance that there is an inherent bias. But checkboxes have a much greater implication of accuracy, as if the operator of the site has verified that information himself/herself. That is why I think checkboxes for this issue are especially bad - particularly since this involves money and therefore makes it more contentious than comparatively trivial things like PK rules, number of rooms, etc.





Yeah, but the thing is, people aren't really crushed by minor inaccuracies or exaggerations in those areas. If the number of rooms isn't exactly what was claimed, or the PK system is a little different than they expected, or the codebase is a little different, most people really don't care very much. But when it comes to money, people care a LOT. That is why this particular set of checkboxes is more serious than any of the others, and that is why Lasher shouldn't even touch it. Being wrong (which will most certainly happen in many cases) is more serious when it comes to money than in any of the other little factoids.

If I thought I rented a drama, but it turns out to be more of a dramedy, I might be a tad annoyed. But if the movie was good, I ultimately don't care. I also won't be mad at the store I rented it from. I'll be mad at the people who made the movie.

But if the sign says it costs $4 to rent the movie, and later I find out I got charged $6, I am going to be enormously ticked off. And now I am mad at the store (and the people who run the store), not the people who made the movie.


Something is not ambiguous simply because it "only" answers one question instead of many. The 2 option method answers the MOST important question and does so with complete clarity: does money change hands between player and admin or not?

The 2 option method is less ambiguous because it does not introduce subjective concepts like "rewarded in game", "has an effect on the game", or even "donations vs. payments." Furthermore, it doesn't scam an innocent player into thinking there is any such thing as money NOT affecting the relationship between player and admin once there is any financial transaction.

But in the end, the superiority and greater accuracy of the 2 options vs. the 4 still does not avoid the much larger problem. That is the fact that we have MUD admins obsessing over the way other MUDs advertise themselves, and seem to think it is appropriate for them to force certain MUDs into a less advantageous marketing position. That kind of behavior should be ignored and shamed, not catered to.

[KaVir]

Nice. That addresses the complaints about the use of the word "rewarded", while still remaining concise.

When you market your game on TMS, it is other people's business. It's the business of the other muds you're competing with, it's the business of the players who are looking for a mud to play, and it's the business of Lasher as site owner.

[Valg]

Could you please cite one of these examples, using an actual game? I've searched the thread and I'm unable to find your examples.

No, they are fundamentally different to the player because some are required payments, and the other two are optional, with or without a difference in play if they are ignored. This absolutely matters to a player.

Again, do you really think a player wouldn't pay attention to the difference between the DragonRealms model ($50-$75/month plus additional fees for perks available) and a game that offered CafePress T-Shirts? Are you saying that difference isn't important to a player?

If a player subscribes to your viewpoint that purchasing T-shirts or whatever impacts the fairness of the game, they can search for only games which check:

[ ] Neither payment nor donations accepted.

The four-option system's additional flexibility puts that choice in the hands of the searcher, instead of obscuring it among one tiny category and one monolithic category that ignores all differences between financial models.

[Valg]

The participation in these threads suggests that people disagree with that notion. The way that you presently market your game cheapens the way we use 'free' in our advertising. We both know there is a difference, but you're arguing for a system that suppresses that difference, and that is my business. One of the marketing strengths of our game is that there's no way to spend money and impact gameplay. That's appealing to a lot of players (from our own feedback), and we want a way to get that fact out.

Lasher has a distinct stake in the site being useful to as many people as possible. A maximally useful search function makes the site more useful to players who have an interest in MUDs and are trying to find the right one for them.

Imagine how upset you would have been if the store called the rental "free", but didn't mention a $6 fee if you want to watch the film. If the $2 deception ticked you off, I'd imagine the $6 version would be much more upsetting.