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Old 03-15-2006, 05:36 PM   #21
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A phrase that no free MUD can honestly use.

This phrase was preceded by the following:

It is itself followed by this:

And this:

Matt, could you be any more of a hypocrite?  I might add that being taken seriously only means that they recognize you make money, not that you're a responsible professional.  Enron was taken seriously too.  We all know what kind of people were running that company.

But since you do want to advertise your new billing options on your "free" MUDs, why not do so on your listing instead of on the forums?  More people will see them and they can't just hit reply and post a response.  Here are some suggested editorial changes to the listings for three of your games (changes in bold):

Take care,

Jason
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Old 03-15-2006, 05:38 PM   #22
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I must say, his reply was on topic. I also foud it quite ironic to see this post on a supposid "site for free MUDs". While I have no doubt that Iron Realm games are free to play initially, and you want to get in on that criteria, fine. But, come on, you have to see the irony in calling your players "customers". That in itself iby definition is "One that buys goods or services".

Maybe you should have chosen a better post tile? and maybe not be so defensive, you came off quite irate and defensive to the point that you were the one that scared me. You went on to insult other muds, like somehow IR games are better? That you've risen above a hobby MUD? That somehow because a programmer chooses to code for a mud other that IR they are inferior? I've got news for you, there are a lot of programmers ou there in this MUD world that are hundreds time better that the best at IR.

Maybe you should check yourself before you go insulting the entire MUD community. No wonder all my players HATE IR games with a passion I've never encountered on the internet before in my 20 years.

Tank
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Old 03-15-2006, 06:03 PM   #23
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What "site for free MUDs?" I know that's not TMS or TMC... maybe you meant that IRE labels themselves as "free to play."

As I've said before, those of you that don't believe their particular games are "free to play" probably haven't played them for a long time. I have, and did so without spending money and never felt that I was at any real disadvantage. If I wanted a skill or artifact, I worked for it and got it.

The main issue with this whole arguement is, both sides are argueing different things. IRE says "free to play" which they are. The other side argues that they are not "free" which they are not. Apples and oranges.

As for the comment that they do nothing for the community, they are advertising in places most games could not afford too. Some of those new players they generate vote here, some of them may decide to try another game... which would mean... they are generating new players for ALL muds. Sure, they get the majority of those players, and probably do it only for themselves, but the fact stands that it does brings new players into the community.
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Old 03-15-2006, 06:23 PM   #24
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Great. What of my favorite aspects of our games is that we're better than Carrion Fields. That is my opinion, just like what you said is your opinion. What, exactly, makes it ok for you to disrupt threads just so you can put forth your opinion? Should other people disrupt any thread started by Carrion Fields to point out that Carrion Fields sucks in their opinion? Just as valid as an opinion as yours, and yet it's almost exclusively Carrion Fields who seems to engage in this kind of lame CONSTANT flaming.

If you'd look around a bit, you'd quickly realize that the way we use free is the industry standard. What you do is just demonstrate your total lack of engagement with the games industry, preferring to try to set your own standards and impose them on other people.

Attacking people constantly because you disagree with what is both an absolutely solid legal and ethical use of the word, is just lame. It's crap like this that drives talent away from text MUDs, since when you see people engaging in the constant attacks that you guys do (and there is no denying that Carrion Fields staff engages in a lot of unprovoked attacks. This thread is a perfect example of that) they just write off text MUDs generally as amateur hour.

And that ****es me off.

--matt
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Old 03-15-2006, 06:37 PM   #25
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Really? Which site did I post on that is for free MUDs? This is a site for MUDs generally, from the humblest DIKU clone to World of Warcraft, if they chose to participate. It is, further, a commercial site. It's ironic to whine about commercialism on a site that is itself commercial.

They are, in fact, free to play, forever. There is no denying that you can play our games, forever, for free. You can argue all you want about whether you participate on equal footing with people who can spend money, but we don't advertise anything regarding that. We advertise ourselves as free to play, and it is indisputably true. It's also completely legal, and, as I've pointed out over and over, it is the games industry standard use of the word.

That's right, because I choose to think of them all as customers and treat them as such instead of dividing them into customer and non-customer players.


I didn't insult other MUDs. I insulted Aarn, who launched an unprovoked attack against me. I don't care about "better". Better is completely in the eye of the beholder. What I AM certain of is that the Carrion Fields developers are the single most aggressively jerkish developers I've ever encountered, at least judging by Valg and Aarn. The kind of unprovoked attacks they make would get them banned from any game developer's chapter.




Again, I don't care about better. I care about making text MUDs that people want to play. You can judge our success or lack thereof for yourself, I don't care.


Where precisely did I insult the entire MUD community? If you got that idea, you've got it wrong. I have no opinion one way or another about "the MUD community" except that I'd like to see it grow, and the kind of insular, hate-driven posts that derailed this thread to begin with are written by the kinds of people who are the problem. If they just opened their eyes a bit, educated themselves about what the standards really are, they might learn something, but instead their main interest is just attacking like rabid dogs.

I'm just glad that TMS and TMC are run by folk who do have an understanding of the rest of the world.

--matt
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Old 03-15-2006, 06:41 PM   #26
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Rules for commercial advertising in the US are set by the FTC. Why not file a complaint with them if you think we're engaging in dishonest advertising? They are, after all, the ones who make the rules.

Or, why not complain to Synozeer? He runs this site. He appears to endorse our usage of the word free, or at least not object to it. In fact, it appears to just be the same handful of out-of-touch people who object. Same old crowd. Same old attacks. As usual, the result will be that nothing will change, because nobody with any power is going to do anything based on their illogical whining.

--matt
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Old 03-15-2006, 06:46 PM   #27
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Unless of course you've been granted the right to claim what's ethical, your statement isn't very objective. Oh wait, maybe you were, since you have attacked other MUDs as unethical in the past while welcoming the likes of Medthievia to TMS.

They write off text MUDs as "amateur hour" because a great many of them suck. Of course, the gaming industry ought to seriously reconsider that since the vast majority of people involved in it produce crap just in different forms, be it text-based or graphical, and "amateur hour" could very well describe the entire industry.

What really ****es you off is that not everyone is willing to sit idle and let you lie about your games or put up with your consistent belittling of "hobbyist" MUDs or your attacks on anything you perceive as a threat to your own games. You're a hypocrite that whines, connives, and lies in order to promote the best interest of his own commercial MUDs at the expense of the community. And that's what ****es us off.

Take care,

Jason
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Old 03-15-2006, 08:16 PM   #28
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the_logos:
That's funny, I thought last week you were saying ad hominem attacks were bad.  

It's easy for anyone who looks to see how these threads always devlove into irrational name calling once the_logos gets to say his piece.  I specifically said, in this thread, that you ran fine games (twice), and that I wasn't going after you or your game personally.  I just want you to advertise honestly.  You respond with personal attacks against me and Valg, and call our MUD crappy.  Then you have the gall to talk about unprovoked attacks?  For shame.

Well, carry on matt.  I'm sure the reasonable folk that read this thread will see what you're doing clearly.  It's easy to avoid a valid issue when you can devolve the whole thing into name calling.
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Old 03-15-2006, 10:31 PM   #29
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They are bad, but I'm also not going to sit here and just let you fire constant unprovoked attacks.
Excuse me? YOU said that we are dishonest in our marketing. YOU launched a completely unprovoked attack that took this thread completely off-topic, and after many instances of Carrion Fields folk doing that, I had enough and fired back. Deal with it.

--matt
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Old 03-15-2006, 10:36 PM   #30
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I assume you've got proof of these lies, or are you just engaging in libel, which is both unethical and illegal? The latter wouldn't surprise me at all, given the source.

God, this is so dumb. It's just the same bunch of fringe types complaining, on so many threads on TMS, inanely bringing up the exact same topics over and over on issues that are, to the vast majority of the community, settled. Swim out of that little pond and join the rest of the world.

--matt
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Old 03-15-2006, 11:03 PM   #31
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For the sake of space, we'll limit examples to just your last post (and the lie at the root of the problem)...it would take far too long to just list all those in this discussion alone....

Whining:
Conniving:
Lying (see also Conniving):
A hypocrite:

Claiming you don't insult others, which you have claimed on several occassions, usually accompanied by additional claims of being a representative of the MUD community...
Let me add another example belittling others:


Take care,

Jason
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Old 03-15-2006, 11:19 PM   #32
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Not settled by the vast majority of the community? Let's see...within text MUDs, some of the largest text MUDs use it this way, TMS allows this usage of free, TMC allows this usage of free. Within the community generally games like Runescape (advertised as free to play) have more players by themselves than all text MUDs put together. Google is also on our side.

Oh, and again, the Federal Trade Commission is on our side. Who is on yours again? I've seen a few forum posters. That's it. Seems pretty accurate to say that it's a settled issue. I'm not aware of any lawsuits or legal challenges to this version of the word free. Are you? I've shown you many large, influential organizations (and in one case - the FTC - THE organization whose say matters) who agree with us. Heck, you're even posting on a community site that permits free as used by us.

So who is on your side? I keep asking this of people who argue about this, but oddly, I never get an answer back or I get vague handwaving about "silent masses" and whatnot (nevermind that the silent masses patron games and services that use 'free' as we do in far far greater numbers than anything in text MUDs).

--matt
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Old 03-15-2006, 11:40 PM   #33
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Why, oh why do you anti-"play for perks" folks always take the bait??  the_logos knew that when he posted this thread that the same ol' people would immediately start flaming him.  Of course the thread is now 4 pages long (so far), & was so successful that he has posted another "bait thread".  If you folks would just shut up with the bitching, the_logos posts would disappear a lot faster.  Course, I've just extended the thread myself, but please, this same argument has been played out over & over, & nothing's changed. IRE is not going to change, so why bother...
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Old 03-15-2006, 11:54 PM   #34
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Your advice that they stop bitching and moaning as it accomplishes nothing is right on, but this was most certainly not a bait thread. Opening up new international payment options is a big thing for us and a big thing for international players that choose to spend money with us. Given how many players we get from TMS, such a large development seemed quite worthy of an announcement. I'm sorry if some people are unable to restrain themselves, but in the end, it's really their problem and it just makes them look silly and fringe.

--matt
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Old 03-16-2006, 12:17 AM   #35
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Old 03-16-2006, 12:39 AM   #36
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I think that the fact that IRE has to be nitpicky in order to justify its claims of advertising itself in the same way that true, completely always-free-to-play MUDs do is what causes the issues to begin with.

As for the rest of the posts this evening; I'll re-summarize and make it simple.

Matt - the only people who ever support you are IRE staff/players. You have a lot of people from different MUDs who are against you. I have played a lot of MUDs(an insane amount of varying MUDs, actually), and IRE is largely disliked - Achaea in particular. It is not fictional, and it is not a "fringe minority". It is the general perception of IRE by a lot of people. A lot.

Matt - you are, indeed, condescending to "hobbyist MUDs", self-important, conniving, bullying, and many other things which is why very few people here seem to like you. Infact, other than Vryce, the wide and consistant responses to you on these forums tend to make me think that you're one of the two least liked admins in the MUDing community. There's probably a reason for that - and it is not success, because other similarly successful MUDs don't have exactly the same problem.

Matt - your post begged for these on-topic replies involving how ironic you referring to your players as customers while calling your product free truly is. Really, all of the defensiveness and IRE player-rallies in the world cannot deny that. IRE'd probably be a lot more successful if you self-medicated more, got struck by lightning, got audited and lost your house, or some other humbling event to put things into a less self-centered and condescending perspective.

In the end, people continue to bring up the same points again and again because they are worth bringing up - even if Syno forever bows down to Matt's insinuated, and sometimes blatant bullying and weight-throwing, they are still worth bringing up so that the newer and less vocal members of the community are aware that there is a very negative connotation implied with IRE and Matt. Much like Midievia and Vryce, with the only line-in-the-sand being the technicality of legality versus ethics.
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Old 03-16-2006, 12:45 AM   #37
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We are completely free to play. If they want to distinguish themselves by adding that they don't accept optional payments, that's fine. That's their choice. What they don't get to do is redefine the word 'free' to mean only the cases they choose them to mean.

Odd. The TMS administrator seems to support me, and it has nothing to do with our advertising here. He's just a reasonable guy and doesn't get caught up in these crusades certain forum members do. He also realizes that the forum members who are doing the complaining are not representative of the users of the site as a whole, or at least, that's what I'd guess.

You go on to say that some forum members don't like me, wish that I could be struck by lightning, etc etc, but as that's irrelevant to Iron Realms and myself, I'll leave it at that.
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Old 03-16-2006, 12:50 AM   #38
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Laughable, considering it is widely known on TMS and TMC that you've threatened to pull advertising/listing if changes are made that do not allow IRE to advertise itself as free in the same way. You can't really say something and then pretend it didn't happen. I mean, you can certainly try, but I suppose us "crusaders" (funny, considering what I do) will just remind forum users of your open manipulation of site administration to get what you want.
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Old 03-16-2006, 12:51 AM   #39
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Thanks Jono. It is indeed pretty incredible, but they seem determined.

And yeah, in the end, what they do is pretty much just them blowing in the wind, but their inanity gets annoying sometimes. I know we're doing at least a pretty good job because the MUD community continues to support us in ever greater numbers, but there's always room for improvement, of course, and that is what this thread was originally about: An improvement.

--matt
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Old 03-16-2006, 01:01 AM   #40
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Yes - I am glad that your customers now have an improved and more flexible way of paying you. Good job Iron Realms. : )
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