[Molly]

the_logos: Posted: Aug. 24 2004,00:41
There he goes again, broadly insulting the community.

Just because HE wouldn’t hesitate doing an unethical - or even illegal - act and because he once found another Mud Administrator that is as crooked as himself, does this give him the right to insult everybody on the list?

It’s funny how people who lack ethics and moral completely themselves often like to assume that the rest of the world is the same as they are. I don’t really know why. It cannot be to ease their conscience, since they obviously haven’t got any. So it must be because they think they can get some benefit from it.

[the_logos]

Chuckle. Oh yes, clearly most hobbyist admins wouldn't sell me, say, a wooden club in the game for $10 million. Heh, SONY would sell me a wooden club in Everquest for $10 million. But yes, you're obviously right Molly. *pat pat*  

--matt
P.S. You're wrong, and insisting otherwise is just silly.

[Dulan]

P.S. I wouldn't.

No matter how much you offered me. And I'm serious. It's been tried on me before.

10 million? Show me the money. Untill then, you are full of crap. And even in that case, I still would refuse the money.

Plus, your example is a logical fallacy.




Go read up on them, please the_logos. I don't see why I'm bothering with pointing out all of these at this point.

[KaVir]

That seems reasonable IMO, although I would suggest replacing the "pay for perks that you can obtain for free anyway" with a more explicit "pay for perks that can also be obtained through normal gameplay".  This is because I've seen at least one mud which offered huge in-game advantages for sale (advantages without which you couldn't legitimately compete) - but also allowed people to earn those same rewards by performing other services (like writing articles for them, etc).

Therefore I'd see three categories:

1) Money makes no difference.

2) Money can replace gameplay in some instances.

3) Money can give you things gameplay cannot.

I suppose there could even be another category, whereby money can buy status symbols which don't really directly affect gameplay (fancy titles, named equipment, etc).  But for me the important thing to know is "can other players buy what I have to work for", and even more importantly "can they buy things that I can't earn even through play".

Regarding the claims that I attack you whenever possible, I really don't think you're in any position to start pointing fingers.  Indeed, I can't think of anyone on these forums who's provoked or insulted as many people as you have over the last couple of years, and indeed I consider you one of the main reasons for the decline of the quality of posts (a decline which even started to right itself when you stopped posting for a while, but which seems to have continued again now).

Re: Dulan - Don't forget the "Generalizing from Self" (eg "I'm a liar. Therefore, I don't believe what you're saying"). Or better yet, click .

[the_logos]

Dulan, you've never had a mud worth 100k much less 10 million, much less a mud in which someone would pay 10 million for a wooden club. Nobody has offered you 10 million for anything in your life, and to claim that you have been is, frankly, absurd.

It's a hypothetical, obviously. I don't have 10 million and there is no text mud in existence I'd pay 10 million for anymore. And you wouldn't refuse the money. What's worse, you know it, but want to big yourself up.

There's no point in debating this anymore. You and Molly are living in some sort of delusional fantasy.

--matt
P.S. PLEASE learn to use 'logical fallacy' in the proper context, given that it's your favorite two words.

[Dulan]

You just strawmanned my argument, the_logos.

And it's all that can be used against you, as you so flagrantly abuse them.

You've actually managed to use _4_ _seperate_ _fallacies_ in TWO FREAKING SENTENCES.

Enough said.

As for "bigging myself up", no. Offer me 10 million in cash for, say, a wooden club in a MUD I admin/imm on?

I'll get it for you as a player. But that's not happening from an imm. However, as noted, that "hypothetical question" was a logical fallacy intended for one purpose and one purpose alone.

P.S. It is being used in the proper context. You, apparently, still don't understand what one is - after all this time. And yes, I still remember that Traithe argument quite distinctly - the second I used logical fallacies on yourself, you began falling apart. Traithe saved your ass, but only as an amused third-party.

[the_logos]

I also want a "Has glaives" or "doesn't have glaives" option since that's what I care about, not whether it charges money or not. One thing is important to you. Another is important to me.

I don't care if people get insulted by my opinions. I don't care if they get provoked by things I do. That's their problem, not mine. What I do try to do is avoid flaming or attacking people who don't do it to me first, and I think you'll find virtually no examples of me doing that. There may be one or two (who knows, it's been a couple years), but I'm fairly scrupulous about attacking only individuals who attack me or our company first.

Take Molly O'Hara for instance. She apparently hates me because I pointed out that builders are not valued the same as coders. Controversial? Shouldn't be. Professional developers certainly disagree as is made clearly evident by games industry salary surveys. Fine, she's insulted. Tough, it's true.

I just don't care if people get provoked or insulted by statements like that. I don't care if people get provoked or insulted by pointing out the obvious, such as the fact that there are no muds where SOME amount of money (make it a trillion if you want. Just hypothetical) wouldn't buy somebody SOMETHING. Any mud admin claiming otherwise is either Bill Gate's heir or lying to us or himself/herself.

So yes, I will definitely accept that I'm controversial and people get provoked by the things I do or say, but as I've said before, that's their problem and individuals do not get attacked by me anyway until they attack me first.

I mean, seriously, if you want to talk about quality of discussion, go back and read Molly's ridiculous post. Or how about the 10 page thread in which people argued about Kimberly's psychotic ranting. I'd suggest blaming them for the garbage posts, not me, as they're the ones that posted them.

In any case, this is one thread I'm done with. We're free and have no reason to stop advertising our muds as such. Jazuela's post really said it all.
--matt

[aardfrith]

Dulan said:

So your whole argument is based on rumors and hearsay and you've had no direct experience of these muds? Go out there, make characters on each of these muds and attempt to buy stuff before you make accusations.

the_logos wrote:

This is an opinion, not a logical argument. How can it be a logical_fallacy?

By the way, I have found plenty of IMMs that have created such equipment out of friendship, not even bothering about money. I remember the first mud I played, one such IMM said "oh, you've reached level 50, have a new weapon" and suddenly I was doing double damage with ever hit. How about we add another category for corrupt IMMs?

[KaVir]

I really should have learned by now that trying to hold any sort of constructive debate with you is a waste of time. I try to provide a compromise, and all I get in return is sarcasm. No wonder your own mud forums were such a flop.

Or those who suggest anything which might work against your company's best interests...like, for example, fair advertising.

But it's not really individuals I'm talking about - you seem to have the habit of attacking entire groups of people, and you've done it repeatedly. The first time I saw mention of you was a post of yours on MUD-DEV where you said you'd never consider recruiting someone who had ever worked on a free mud because they'd be irrepairably damaged by that experience. And your attitude since then doesn't seem to have improved at all - it's almost as if you're deliberately trying to ruin these forums for the rest of us, to turn them into a never-ending flamewar with the Medthievia attitude of "all publicity is good publicity".

[aardfrith]

I apologise for the double quote in there. I'm not exactly used to this message-board thing. Much prefer the note editing system that I've used for the last 5 years on Aardwolf.

[aardfrith]

Strawmanned? Is this some reference to the Lou Reed song?

Could you explain this term to me, preferably with one of those natty links you do?

[Sinuhe]

R*O*F*L

Does this guy think he is God, or is it just a common case of megalomania? And he thinks that _he_  is the one with the problem.

This is hilarious!

And here is another juicy titbit from the same person:

So this guy, who likes to pose as the big Tycoon of the Mud world, freely admits that he bought a cheat sword from some shady Mudowner for 500 bucks to advance his player. And he doesn’t even have the decency-among-thieves to keep his end of the bargain, and keep quiet about the shady transaction. He spills the beans on an open discussion board, giving the name of the other party as well.

Some role model for the kiddies, huh?

And then on top of it all he claims that Sony would sell him a cheat weapon in Everquest, (for a considerably larger sum, but still). That is libel if ever I saw it. I wonder what the Sony people would think if they read this board. maybe someone should mail them the link.

Is this guy for real?

[Enola_Phoenix]

I sleep for a night and have to catch up on 2 pages of the_logos. This is a little late, but I'd like to thank Molly for sticking up for everyone, us hobbyist don't do it for the money, and anyone who is that desperate to pay a large sum for an item on a game, I'd think fishy anyway.

What I want to know, what is free? I think I'll start a poll here in a moment, but Jazuela's opinion of free, is just that her opinion it doesn't seem to be that of the majority. the_logos can't tell us what free is, but keeps referring to others (convenient that they posted a subject on free for him) errrr for the discussion, since he made sure we knew she wasn't a player of his mud. Was that done with 10k or a Million dollars to get her to post that for you so, you wouldn't have to actually make a solid statement? (Oh yeah, I'm directly attacking you the_logos, its a conspiracy were all out to get you)

So the_logos and without referring to anyone else. What is free, you're defintion don't crow the screen with quotes, just tell us what free is?

[Cierel]

Get yer straw man right !

I see ad hominem, but it is, of course, irrelevant. I'm no logical expert, and I certainly don't know every term for every fallacy, but I think the argument stands.

The Logos says that you (Dulan) would accept money, which is an unsubstantiated but reasonable claim. You deny the accusation. There is no more evidence for your point than the Logos'. Both sides are so hypothetical as to be meaningless.

I contend that $10 million is so many orders of magnitude off from the prices of all pay-for-perk options I've ever seen that it's an entirely different game. Offer enough money and you can buy almost anything, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's for sale. If a MUD has never sold anything and has no intention of selling anything, it can reasonably claim to be free of perks.

As I see it, there are two separate arguments here that have become muddled. One is free versus subscription. Some MUDs require all players to pay in order to play. Others do not. This is a clear case of free versus not free. Achaea, Aetolia, and Imperian are free by this definition. You may play forever and never spend a cent. There may also be MUDs for which players are required to pay a one-time fee analogous to purchasing the game. I don't know of any, but it's a model that could exist. Thus, we have free, subscription, and one-time fee.

The second argument is over perks, and there are really several types. There are MUDs with no perks whatsoever (the vast majority of MUDs fit here, in fact). There are MUDs with perks that are available through gameplay (IRE's games). There are MUDs with perks only available for pay . Furthermore, under both types with perks, they can be either cosmetic or gameplay-affecting. The list is thus perk-free, cosmetic perks available for pay or through gameplay, game-affecting perks available for pay or through gameplay, cosmetic perks available for pay only, and game-affecting perks available for pay only.

Obviously this can be broken down even more into level of effect and other "analog" details, but this system looks like a good categorization of the "digital" pay traits. Whether or not it's useful and informative is up to you.

[Traithe]

[Jazuela]

<blink> Woah I totally missed that part of the thread, where Dulan claims Shadows of Isuldur doesn't fit "his" definition of free.

Dood - SoI is free, according to EVERY definition of the word. Not only yours, but even (gasp) the dictionary's definition! Imagine that.

It's a DIKU deriv. It's also a Tolkein-based world, and he just went through #### and back to secure permission for his game to continue existing.

Of all the people who post on this forum, I'd say Traithe has the most integrity. SoI doesn't charge anything for their game. You can't give them money for any part of their game. They're not allowed to take it (though I believe they do accept voluntary donations to cover the cost of their server...), they're not allowed to ask for it, and they are very straight-forward in this.

Man..Dulan that was just a ludicrous accusation. Maybe you should lay off the crack or something.

[Enola_Phoenix]

Accusation or not, crack, come on seriously, have we resorted to using such flames as drug abuse. He said it was based on heresay, drop that discussion at top.

[Dulan]

Jazuela: No reading comprehension? None at all?

I stressed that SoI comments were based on rumor/hearsay.

I have no direct experience with SoI, albeit, I am going to be playing it in the future. The hearsay/rumors moved it up on my list to be played significantly, I admit, but that does not mean that I know for sure one way or the other if it does.

Stop pulling Achaea's in this discussion, please. If you can't bother to read all of a post, don't read it at all.

Traithe: Hearsay/rumors. An aside, I tend to audit MUDs that have hearsay about license violations before others, and hearsay/rumors are the best ways to find out who does and does not I find. I could begin auditing MUDs from the TMC list alphabetically, but that is a lot of work as it takes me between 40 to 80 hours just to audit -one- MUD. Not very fun. Albeit, the rumors -did- get SoI moved up on my list to be audited, so there is a benefit for you from that.

As for the apparently offensive remark about SoI, my apologies. I did stress, however, that it was merely rumor. I will be editing the post, however, to remove SoI in a bit. Again, my apologies - I thought that stressing it as hard as I did that it was merely rumor would have less of a reaction from yourself.

Cierel: Too many levels of information.
Free
Pay for Perks
Pay to Play.

You can easily break up Pay to Play in at least as many levels of definition as Pay for Perks. At this point, that is irrelevant. Or perhaps this would be better.

Free
Optional Payment
Payment Required

Is that any better? It completely removes any argument related to the MUD itself, as either payment is required - subscription-based - payment is optional - perk-based - or there is no payment.

aardfrith: Same comment as Jaz - reading comprehension. I stressed in the post that it was merely rumors.


As for the_logos? I just plain don't like him. Period. I have to admit, I do hold some measure of respect for him due to his accomplishments with respect to MUDs, but that's only at what he would term a "professional" level. On a personal level, he disgusts me as he has the same beliefs as Vryce apparently with respect to advertisement, as well as the same god-complex as Vryce.

Feel free to flame that statement, but it's my honest opinion. While Achaea/the_logos has a moral advantage on Vryce, Achaea's at about the same level as him ethically - note KaVir's post.

I've mentioned it SEVERAL times in this thread. No logical debate, no real argument whatsoever. Just tons of logical fallacies with his only intent to gain advertisment for his MUD. Furthermore, he will not respond to points that are inconvenient to him. Even if he is completely dead wrong, he will make constant use of the strawman logical fallacy - he never addresses any strong points of his opponents, only the weak points. Only in trolls have I ever seen such a blatant lack of respect for an opponent on the internet.

####, I half-suspect Kimberly is a creation of his merely to gain publicity at this point.

-D

Oh yeah. And this post is not representative of any person, place, or thing other then merely myself. So there.

[Molly]

the_logos, in response to Dulan, Aug. 24 2004, 04:24
the_logos, in response to me, Aug. 24 2004, 03:41
----
Trying to patronise people, or calling them silly or delusional in an attempt to diminish their arguments is very bad debate technique. I guess Dulan would call it logical fallacies. I'll just call it very bad form and bad netiquette, and something that certain people, who lack the sense of decency that most people are equipped with, will resort to when they run out of arguments.

You are right about one thing though; There is no point in debating ethics and moral with a person like you. Just as little point as there is in debating music with a tone deaf person or colour schemes with someone that is colour blind. If you lack the properties yourself - or even have no clue about the meaning of the words - you can obviously not debate it.

My comment was not meant as an attempt to debate with you either. I have long since given up any attempt to debate with you, since you always resort to the above methods instead of addressing the real issues. I rather meant it as an alert to the rest of the posters on the list, in case the spam made them miss what type of person you just painted yourself out as.

I don't live in a delusional fantasy. I am quite aware that people exist in the world, who live by the standards: ‘If it is not illegal – do it, and to #### with ethics and moral! If it IS illegal –####, do it anyhow, as long as the profit outweighs the risk of getting sued, or even caught!’

I just don’t assume that everybody is like that. I even believe that the ones that do exist are a very small minority. If they weren’t, the society, as it is, would not exist for much longer. Just as predators would soon be extinct if there was nothing left to prey on.

I believe that most people are decent and honest and have some sort of built-in sense of right and wrong. Calling me delusional because of that belief really tells a lot more about you than about me.

the_logos, in response to KaVir:
---
Again: handing out your own theories of why people disagree with or dislike you, in an attempt of bettering your own case, is equally bad debate technique, especially if you try to present them as facts, not theories.

For your information: I don’t dislike you - (I won’t even use a childish word like hate) - because we once had a disagreement in a discussion about builders. The main object of a Discussion Board is to ventilate different opinions. If only one opinion is allowed, all discussions soon die down. Over the years I have disagreed with a lot of people on these boards – (including KaVir) – and most of us still manage to be civil to each other.  

The reason why you irritate me is your general obnoxious attitude, which you have displayed in numerous cases, here and in other places. For example recently with THIS declaration:

the_logos, in response to KaVir, Aug. 24 2004,04:44
---
Guess what? If you get a reputation for repeatedly insulting and provoking a lot of people, it IS your problem. Not theirs. But I suppose you wouldn’t understand that either.

KaVir to the_logos: Aug. 24 2004,04:19
[quote]Regarding the claims that I attack you whenever possible, I really don't think you're in any position to start pointing fingers.  Indeed, I can't think of anyone on these forums who's provoked or insulted as many people as you have over the last couple of years, and indeed I consider you one of the main reasons for the decline of the quality of posts (a decline which even started to right itself when you stopped posting for a while, but which seems to have continued again now).[quote]

---
Hear, hear! I couldn’t agree more.

[Traithe]

Your apology is accepted - thank you.

The recent business with the Tolkien folks has me a little on edge regarding our image in the community, at least insofar as any commercial aspects go, and so I'm trying as best I can to make sure there are no lingering misconceptions that could bring trouble our way (again).