[Molly]

Actually you are wrong there.

All Muds based on Circle code reject ALL donations. It's in the Circle license.

But it still leaves enough Muds to prove your point.

[Splork]

We have been around for almost two decades...

We are hosted on a dedicated server costing us almost 1k a year. We split the costs between fellow creators. While we are offered dollar after dollar on a daily basis, we say no because this type of debate is just not worth it.

SlothMUD III is a FREE mud and always will be. While we are a free, hobbyist type game, there is no denying our professional-like delivery on a high quality text MUD.

Years ago we lead the way with such things as Multi-classing and scan. Most recently we have lead the way with real time player maps() and real time stats, etc.


SlothMUD accepts NO donations, PERIOD.

[Detah]

My Zmud (v7.20a) mudlist shows 216 Circle muds. Add two for NewWorlds and SlothMud III. SlothMud III is present in my Zmudlist. NewWorlds is not. I stand corrected. So, there are at least 218 muds which would fit the No Donations/Payment of any kind criteria. My primary point about the grouping of Pay-to-register muds with Donations-accepted/no rewards muds still stands.



PS. I think its very cool that you guys can afford to do that.

[Xerihae]

I created a new thread for the Professional vs Hobbyist discussion and moved the majority of posts that were discussing the issue into it, any further issues regarding that topic please direct there.

[Milawe]

You guys need to quit giving Threshold credit for MY system! HAH!

I originally created that system because this discussion crops up every few months because some people have strong objections to several muds advertising themselves as "Free to play" although you can actually play them for free. If you have a codified system, do you know how often we'll be seeing posts like "Tavern of the Shattered Worlds Mud" marked themselves as "Donations accepted", but they give their players a little in-game tattoo for it? That's a game benefit!!! Or, IRE marked themselves as "Pay-For-Perks but Able-To-Play-For-Free", but that's a lie! We need to create a "Pay-for-Perks and Impossible-to-Level-without-20000-hours-played-a-day" check box just for them! Do you really think these issues won't crop up CONSTANTLY with any check box system that isn't clear and concise with absolutely no wiggle room?

That's my sole reason for suggestion a very simple, very easy to enforce system. It saves everyone a lot of time and effort, and in my opinion, it's the most helpful to people looking for a mud. They can and will be able to find a "free mud" with one simple click of a button. We can easily help enforce whether or not a mud takes money then, and there's really no beating around the bush on this one.

There's really no insidious motivation behind my suggestion. I suggested it because there's no wiggle room and no cheating in that system. This thread EXISTS because people are unhappy with how muds are classifying themselves. You realize that with more and more options, people are still going to click what they think will best advertise their mud. That's just one more thing to police, flame each other about, and argue over while being no more helpful than it is now.

I honestly didn't think it would spark some kind of debate. If our primary goal is to help players find games that cost no money at all, then this would solve the problem. I'm confused, though, as to why so many people who run "free games" are arguing against this option. If you're free, then you don't have to worry about it!

There's so many pay models out there, we have no hope of really describing them all. Some of them are truly unique, especially the ones in Asia. They really don't fit any of the western models at all because they are almost all hour/$ based. (I think this has something to do with the number of lan cafes around there.) Do we just keep adding to the various types of payment models there? I can think of about 10 right off the top of my head that exist on major games. Do we add a new type of payment model every time a person comes up with something new, or will games be forced to cram themselves into one of the models that, thus, poorly representing their muds? Or have we decided we don't care about muds once they hit a certain amount of commercialism? What would that threshold be?

If I wanted a free game, I want a game with no money involved, period. I don't want a game where money exchanges hands in an informal system, and there's absolutely no way to tell what the benefits are. There are plenty of muds out there that take no money and exist for free. This would be the easiest and best way to help players find them.

Everything else is just variations on a scale of taking money, no matter how lofty the ideals or pretty the package.

[Threshold]

It provides the ONLY useful information: Does money change hands between players and administrators or not?

That is the MOST important question related to any financial element of a MUD.

All of the other options people have suggested are vague, give people tons of wiggle room, and create huge opportunities for liars to benefit.

A lot of us make games, right? Do you release a system into the game KNOWING it is completely abusable right off the bat? Of course not.

Why is there resistance to a simple, factual differentiation between MUDs that take money (in any form) and those who do not. It makes no sense to resist such a clear, concise distinction that is more explicit than anything that has been proposed or anything that has existed in the past.

Are there people who don't actually care about informing the players, but hope to gain some kind of marketing advantage over MUDs who take money, but just not in as explicit a manner as a commercial mud?

[chaosprime]

Does it make sense to you that others might think the same thing about a system that intentionally draws no distinction between a $10/month pay-to-play MUD, a pay-for-perks RP MUD where the only purchasable perks are equipment descriptions, a pay-for-perks competitive-PK MUD where it costs $500 to stand on an equal footing with other players, and a MUD that will do absolutely nothing in exchange for your money other than sell you a hat with their logo on it?

It is very easy to interpret that as an attempt to confuse and disinform players by making the "pay" category so broad as to be worse than useless. (Just as the "free" category presently is.)

[Valg]

You're going to have to explain how a system that reveals more information (several questions about financial models plus a text box for further comment) constitutes "resistance" to being honest about how much a game will or won't impact your wallet.

Some players enjoy a game where success doesn't depend on how much money has been spent. We cater to those players, and I want them to be able to find us. (Carrion Fields sells merchandise on our website, and will accept voluntary donations from players, though we don't solicit or reward them.) These players might be frustrated by your pay-for-perks system.

Other players are happy to spend money if it gets them ahead more quickly in the game. You presumably cater to those players, and want them to be able to find you. These players might be frustrated by our system.

Lumping us both together with one deliberately broad category that includes the vast majority of TMS's MUDs serves neither of those audiences. Players view the ability to buy a T-shirt differently from the ability to buy in-game enhancements. Having a few different descriptors helps the searcher find what they're looking for.

[Milawe]

This is impossible to disguise once you get the mud's website, though, so I don't really see how having it INACCURATE on TMS would help players. With my system, the player already goes in knowing that money is going to exchange hands. To get an ACCURATE representation of any mud's payment system, a player will have to go to the site and the game. If I understand correctly, IRE is a pay for perk system in which credits (what you pay for) help you level your skills. On Threshold, we have a pay for perk system that gets you things like housing or extra storage space. This may or may not help you level depending on how you play your character. Those two systems are vastly different. The thing they have in common is the fact that you don't HAVE to pay to play and that money changes hands. Also, in a game like KoL, you can get Mr. Accessory by players selling theirs for an obscene amount of meat (in game money), or you can get it by donating $10. Mr. Accessory is helpful, available without real life money, but not game-breakingly useful. Most people who have ascended or engage in PvP don't even use it. Is that a "donation" system, or is it a pay for perks system? If it is a pay for perks system, how does it even resemble that of IRE or Threshold?

In addition, there's even a multitude of "Donation" systems out there. For some, you get a graphic put next to your name on the mud's site. For others, you get nothing except the gratitude of an admin and possibly the rest of your playerbase. For others, they list their donators, so people can be thanked... and you have no way of gauging how this affects people's characters in general. Some "donation" systems reward players with things that they claim have no effect on gameplay. And yet on others, the IMMs will create goals for the MUD where donations reach a certain level (enough to buy more RAM, etc.), and the entire mud gets rewarded in various ways. The point is that there IS so many different systems. There's so many systems that bleed into each other. When does donation become more than just a donation? How do we police it on TMS?

Can you honestly tell me that you think that there won't be mud admins trying to police each other and stuff each other in categories that THEY see fit (just as is happening now) rather than what the admins believe is best for their muds? At least my system is actually helpful and not inaccurate.

[KaVir]

Give me an example of a mud that doesn't clearly fit into one of these categories:

[ ] Payment required to play?
[ ] Payment / Donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment / Donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] No Payment / Donations accepted, period.

[Milawe]

Well, I haven't played all the pay muds in the world, but let's just look at Fairytale Land, which is not a MUD but it IS an online RPG which is mostly played in Asia.

Fairytale Land has the most bizarre payment system I've ever seen. You have your free account. You have your paid account that is pay/hour, and it's pay for perks. Technically, they can click quite a number of those. The free account lets you play the game but for a certain number of hours per day. The pay account is pay by hour, so you have your free hours + your paid hours. Then, if you pay a certain amount up front, you get various in game rewards. LOTS of players never pay to play because the internet cafe buys the hours. Then they resell the hours to their customers. So, technically, you could play for free, but it's not really free. Where the heck do I list something like that?

Granted, I don't know of any muds that have a system like that, but what happens if one is created? If they decide to classify themselves as Payment/Donations accpted, rewarded in-game, someone could STILL argue that they're really Payment required to play, because in my opinion, they are even if it's the lan cafes that are paying for the hours, not the actual players.

Last but not least, with the above system, you can still have people trying to cram each other into various categories. Take IRE, for example... what if I absolutely suck and really can't level without paying? I would want them to be listed as payment required to play. (Purely hypothetical, not something I am claiming they do.) There are some people who believe that of the IRE games anyway, but I bet they will get listed as Payment/Donation accepted, rewarded in-game. Are there going to be multiple flame wars trying to force the_logos to change the listing? What of a mud that that accepts "donations" and gives people a little graphic by their name on their website or something? Does that count as in-game reward? What if they just get a little badge in-game that doesn't do anything but look pretty? The difference between the two, especially if it's not an RP mud, is almost non-existent. Are they both in game rewards or not? Technically, one IS in-game.

I guess I feel that the system simply won't offer the clarifications and the solutions that people think they will. I also think it will be impossible to police, creating even more animosity and anger between mud owners. I could be wrong, and I'm not saying that it's a BAD system. I just don't think it really solves anything.

[Threshold]

I understand that the system that I and some others have suggested has less detail. I think "confuses" is the wrong word though, because I don't think you create confusion by being concise and accurate. Look again at the first choice:

[ ] Money accepted in some form (payment, donations, sale of merchandise).

Anyone who reads that can already see from the choice that it is very inclusive. It is both obvious and explicitly stated that this includes payments, donations, and merchandise sales. So people already know this includes a lot of different things. That is where the text box or the MUD's web site comes into play to get the final details.

Because those extra options do not "reveal" extra information. They actually cloud the issue and introduce enormous room for misinterpretation (either deliberate or accidental), misunderstandings, or out right lying.

Those 4 options give MUDs that sell merchandise an ENORMOUS loophole. It allows them to claim they do not accept payment or donations, but they do. Selling merchandise is accepting payment.

Furthermore, this whole issue of rewarded or not-rewarded in game is a total nightmare. Who is going to define exactly what "rewarding in game" really means? I already proved there are a ton of different ways this can be interpreted. Creating specific search options for it creates a much higher implication of truth and accuracy than what people simply write in their mud description. Therefore, there is no logical or reasonable way to have check boxes that differentiate between games that "reward in game" or not.


And a lot of people DON'T view those things differently. But the larger point is, the multiple options don't serve ANYONE, because they simply create confusion and wiggle room. Further, they cloud the REAL issue, which is a player being able to distinguish between games that absolutely never take money for any reason, and those who do.

I think you create a weird implication when you speak of being "lumped together" with pay for perks muds as if you're being tossed into a pit with lepers. You aren't being "lumped together" with them any more than you are "lumped together" with them by being listed on TMS. When you make comments like that, it implies a more personal motive than simply wanting to give players useful information.

[chaosprime]

This is still not an meaningful argument. No set of selection options prevents lying, and I don't see how the four-options-plus-text-box system rewards liars any more than yours does.

You're right, and because of the obvious likelihood of better customer service for supporters of the MUD, I suspect this argument is not just correct but also relevant.

I think it would be worth modifying the four-option proposal to be inclusive of that; something like "payments / donations / merchandise sales accepted, rewarded in-game" and "payments / donations / merchandise sales accepted, not rewarded in-game". Armed with that information, one can judge the risk of preferential treatment for purchasers for oneself; if one is greatly concerned, that's what "no money accepted" is for.

[Threshold]

Because you can't wiggle out of these options:

[ ] Money accepted in some form (payment, donations, sale of merchandise).

[ ] No money accepted in any form.

Either money changes hands or it doesn't. If someone wants to cheat the system, they aren't going to be able to defend themselves by arguing semantics. They'll be caught in an outright lie.

I still think differentiating between "rewarded in game" and "not rewarded in game" is not only impossible, but a road to absolute horror for these forums. There is no way in a million years we could reach any sort of consensus on what "rewarded in game" really means, and that just means countless threads with people getting angry about it.

Also, players themselves will have different definitions for it, and it is not helpful to give them a checkbox for "not rewarded in game" when we know in advance that is a term with many different meanings.

Creating explicit checkboxes we know are extremely unreliable is irresponsible at best and deceptive at worst.

[chaosprime]

I don't really agree. If anything at all happens in the game consequent to your funds transfer, that's a reward in-game. Yes, I'll go so far as to include having your character struck by lightning, dismembered, etc. Shall we generalize the language to "in-game consequences", "no in-game consequences"?

[KaVir]

You can play for free, therefore "payment required to play" does not apply:

[ ] Payment required to play?
[X] Payment / Donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment / Donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] No Payment / Donations accepted, period.

A mud using such a payment system would probably want to elaborate in the text area as well, but that would be their choice. All a player needs to know is that it's possible to play for free, but that they can make payments for more goodies.

Fortunately it's very easy to prove that the IRE games can be played without payments or donations - therefore:

[ ] Payment required to play?
[X] Payment / Donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment / Donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] No Payment / Donations accepted, period.

The website is not within the game (assuming its a regular mud and not a website game), therefore:

[ ] Payment required to play?
[ ] Payment / Donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[X] Payment / Donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] No Payment / Donations accepted, period.

TEXT AREA: Donations are rewarded with a trophy graphic on the website

They get it in-game, therefore:

[ ] Payment required to play?
[X] Payment / Donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment / Donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] No Payment / Donations accepted, period.

TEXT AREA: In-game rewards are purely cosmetic

That's because they're both extreme borderline cases. Despite that, the four-option system is sufficiently clear that there's no difficulty deciding which category the above two examples fall into. This results in a system that's very simple to police, while also increasing the transparency for players - and with the text area as well, it allows muds to clarify their precise model and ensure that they aren't misrepresented.

[Milawe]

Ahhh! I missed something really vital about this system.

I didn't realize we got a box to type all sorts of stuff in, too. Is this the system that's going into place?

Would it be bad to go the route of "Money accepted"/"No money accepted" and use the box system? It seems like if we're going to be typing in our transaction types, making the search as basic as possible is the best idea, the most easily policed, and helps people doing searches the most.

[Threshold]

Here is yet another reason the 2, explicit, not wiggle-able options is better:
That seems like a slam dunk really. The text box should ADD TO the information, not be something people have to use to SUBTRACT from the misinformation and imprecise nature of the vaguely specific 4 option list.

The 4 options are totally ambiguous and multiple people have shown how easily they can be misinterpreted. That is why they are not as good as the very precise and explicit 2 options.

Providing more options at the expensive of accuracy is not a good trade off.

[KaVir]

Well these are all still just suggestions right now, but this system was originally Lasher's idea and seems to be the most popular choice within this thread.

I think it's better to give more options if possible, as long as those options are unambigious. My original proposal had 12 choices, but was a bit ambigious, which would have made it difficult to police. The four choices are completely unambigious however, and while some people might be unhappy with their classification at least it's not open to misinterpretation.

[cratylus]

Only, I think, if you want to be intentionally argumentative. I think
that there is an understanding in the mud world about
what an in-game reward is, and it can be gleaned from
the statements made by a Diku author:

"I feel it is important that I make clear how I see the limits of the license; You should know I am not against donations as such, and he may sell his merchandise as he pleases, but he may not use the game directly for this. The way I usually define this is if the players get some tangible modification within the game for their donations. Then it becomes commercialized. They pay for a service that is within the game."
-- Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt

While not every mud is subject to Diku licensing, nor does every
member of the mud community necessarily agree with Staerfeldt's
comments, I think this aptly sums up the common-sense and generally
accepted idea of what an in-game reward is.


It is a reward.


It is a reward.


It is a reward.


It is a reward.


It is a reward.


Since it falls outside what Staerfeldt defined as an in-game reward, I'm
inclined to say no. A policy that promises you get more prompt/thorough attention
from admins if you donate does not qualify as a reward.

If you think this merchandise/support thing is so important, then let's just
add check boxes:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donation accepted for out-of-game merchandise.
[ ] Payment and/or donation accepted for enhanced admin support.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] Neither Payment nor donations accepted.


A bit silly, if you ask me, but your objections argue for *more*
options, not *fewer*. I think you're the only one who misses that.


-Crat