[PinkFloyd]

I guess I fit under the general description of your low post moron. Why mention low posts? Does having more posts than another person on these forums give a person more legitimacy in your eyes? Anyways I have been watching the top mud sites forums for about 6 years now and I've always noticed you to be one of the most out-of-touch posters. Though I will say that your communist bull**** propoganda always makes for a good chuckle.

But let's get something straight here. A free to play MUD, as has been pointed out many times before, is what is says it is! Free to play unlimited hours without the need to pay a single cent. It's a simple concept you and your ilk seem not to grasp. The fact that some MUD's allow you to pay for perks that make your characters into Uber-Men is irrelevant, it still makes no difference to the fact that the MUD is FREE TO PLAY!
I am a huge believer in truth in advertising, and the IRE games speak the truth when advertising themselves. They ARE FREE TO PLAY, and they have the information on their websites for you to find! In fact it is so easy to find because they have a link to their pay plans on their front page! Or do you follow Valgs desparate example of being confused by the term "credits" to mean "the credits at the end of a movie" as Valg so aptly put it.

Oh and by the way. I have never played anyone of the IRE games, nary even attempted to create a character in anyone of their games. I'm not defending the administrators of the game, I am just following something called common sense. Common sense says when a game labels themselves as "free to play" then you can play a game as much as you want without having to pay.

[Valg]

Psst. You haven't touched on what harm would be done by TMS accurately labeling the IRE games as "pay for perks".

You realize that if you make the case that IRE makes it obvious, than you also make the case that it changes nothing by adding such a label?

(I don't think they make it obvious, which is the source of their opposition to accurate labeling. But either way, I'm in favor of accurate disclosure of how they operate. The only argument I've heard against it is "Players will be driven away by correctly understanding their business model up front.", but I think it's a plus if players are correctly informed about what they're getting into from step one.)

[Graeblyn]

On the probability I am one of those "Low post morons" you seem to believe are shills for IRE, I would like to clarify that I have never played any of their games, but made the immediate assumption that they charged for "something" in their game, or rather than "free to play" they would have just called themselves free. Therefore, it was just a quick perusal of their web site, and what that "something" is became quickly apparent. I decided their credit system didn't appeal to me, and thus I didn't play. I have a feeling I may revisit that decision, because I will be changing jobs soon, and I will no longer have the time to MUD I used to (I can MUD at work presently). Therefore, IRE's model, where my reduced time to put into it doesn't put me at a competitive disadvantage to people who have more free time or can MUD from work, is starting to sound more appealing to me.

Apparently, because this is how I make my game play decisions, I am not very bright. However, I still would much rather rely on TMS and other sites as a mere launching off point and check out the games' web sites for myself, especially given how frequently the profiles on these sites (MUD CONNECTOR, TMS, MPOGD) bear little relation to the actiual game being described. I realize that TMS is said to be a one stop resource, but does anyone REALLY only rely on TMS' information to make their decision?

I would hope, as adults, most of us are more responsible consumers than that!

[DonathinFrye]

Not every MUD gamer is an adult.

I would rather rely on a resource site that was(hopefully) not controlled by a specific company to objectively categorize MUDs in such a way. Yes, I'd rather rely on TMS than the vague and misleading Achaea website, that makes credits out to seem not-that-important if you happen to find the credit information on their website.

Beyond that, there is absolutely no reason(other than protecting IRE/etc interests) for there not to be more specificity to help aid players in wasting their time while hunting for MUDs. It would help with travelling MUDer - is there really anything else to it?

[PinkFloyd]

No, I have touched on it in a direct reply to yourself. I hate to repeat myself, but since you seemingly were not listening the first time I'll tell you again. What would be the point of labeling MUD's on TMS if said commercial MUD's tell potential customers that they are commercial?

Yes, I realize that it changes nothing by adding such a label, which still makes me wonder why we need one if it changes nothing? Why make the webmaster of TMS go through more work just to satisfy your need (and you are the only one here seemingly seeking a labeling system of the MUD's).

Futhermore, I still see how it cannot be obvious that the IRE games are commercial after they have a link on the homepage of each of their four MUD's to their credit systems. Again I'll repeating another point, but it's the consumers burden to find out everything there is about a game before delving into it.

So you see, the answers didn't change. I just repeated what I told you before, and now I get the sense that you are going to ask me again on what harm would be done by TMS labeling games when I already answered you. Could I make myself anymore clear?

[prof1515]

The low-post count doesn't really matter. But I find it interesting when you do see a bunch of low-post count people pipe in defending something because the tactic of sending in players to show support has been used time and again *cough*Medthievia*cough* As for the term moron, it adequately describes someone who considers a T-shirt the equivalent of an in-game perk. If the difference between in-game advantage and wearing a garment while you sit in front of your computer or while you 'trol the mall isn't obvious to everyone, that's either stupidity or blind refusal to acknowledge reality.

As for "Communist bull**** propoganda (sic)", that would have to be one of the funniest terms I've ever heard. Communist is a term used out-of-context by 95% of the people that use it, usually in justification of greed or something they can't defend without villainizing those that disagree. It ranks up there with "un-American" and "un-Patriotic". How exactly does holding others to ethical standards of truthful advertising qualify as "Communist bull**** propoganda (sic)"?

And common sense says that when a game is free-to-play, that means it's free-to-play in every aspect. IRE games are not free-to-play in every aspect since credits are required to unlock some aspects of the game, the most necessary aspects for success. If one can't be a certain type of character or succeed in that capacity without paying money, the game isn't free to play. When money becomes a requirement for success, there is no real freedom. So it's not free in every respect. Unless they advertise the qualifiers, that's what free-to-play means. But if there are conditions, there ought to be a note of that:

This is why IRE's advertising of their MUDs as "free-to-play" is not honest or accurate. It's deceptive. It's an attempt to lump themselves with MUDs where any player can achieve anything without any monetary spending. They may describe themselves as "free-to-play" or "pay-for-perks" but in the end they're "pay-to-succeed". And regardless of how they spin it, they're not free since you can not play to the same level as someone who does pay, even if you want to, unless money is exchanged by you or someone else in your favor.

I'm curious how you define "out-of-touch". How does that term apply to me? Examples?

Take care,

Jason

[DonathinFrye]

Insult flinging on either side does not really help keep pure the intentions of this discussion, which has become to advocate changing the listing system to show players using TMS what kind of MUD they are playing, economically-speaking.

While the word 'moron' is not good to use when trying to push for a positive change(I don't think it's a good way of handling things) neither is showing close-minded, conservative bigotry by calling people "communists." I've watched several people(including myself) be labelled as communists on this thread, and I think it's silly.

A) I am not a communist, though I am liberal and capitalistic.

B) Communism is not a source of evil, or something that should be used as an insult. MUDs are played internationally, and some countries who play our/your games may live in communist nations. Beyond that, some players may actually believe in communistic ideals, and I think it's openly bigotted to use their ideals in negative connotation.


Summary; let's stick to the issues. Sometimes heated words will get thrown around, but let's not allow this to be the focus.

Question; are there any non-IRE/Threshold players/admins in this discsussion who are against color-coding? If so, why? I already know why the others are.

[Hadoryu]

This discussion really outlived it's usefullness with the same arguments being repeated over and over and not a single new point being made. I think we've gotten to the point where everyone considers their arguments to be self-evident, when they aren't to the opposing side.

I'll bow out and state my opinion as I do:
Donathin, the color-coding scheme is going to be a liability in it's implementation. That's what I think at least. A good deal of the people here hold the opinion that pay-for-perks equals pay-for-play, labeling IRE games as such however would be wildly inaccurate and a great disservice to both the IRE MUDs, their community and potential players. The suggestion is to bring more clarity to the TMS listing, but I have sever doubts that this is what will be achieved if it's implemented. I tend to think it might bring further ambiguity.
Also, asking for the opinions of people who are not associated with IRE games in any way, you're going to get skewed results - everybody but IRE has something to win if IRE is represented as a game that requires payment. Keep in mind that the population of the forums are mostly owners/players of competing MUDs.

My experience in Aetolia (which Valg requested earlier in the thread) has been such:
1) I've been playing for free for 2 years or so.
2) I've gained a decent array of skills through buying credits from other players with in-game gold.
3) I'm not a top fighter, but I've been in a secretary position in my guild and have had a pleasurable time playing.
I didn't have to skirt the rules to get any of these.

I'm too busy to spend more time on this discussion, so I'm just going to make a call to at least mantain civility throughout it and to at least read each other's comments before replying.


P.S. Jason, you may have had something worthwhile to say, but you completely discredited yourself by presenting it in a frighteningly immature manner. My advice to you is that you work on your attitude if you ever want to successfully lead any significant project - such as a MUD. Take it or leave it.

[Viravain]

[quote= (prof1515 @ Jan. 09 2006,23:13)]Perhaps because I'm currently an IRE volunteer via Lusternia, my opinion on the matter will be disregarded - or perhaps my lack of post count will do that as well. I'm not exactly certain why either condition should immeditately assign me to the 'you're an idiot' category, or why being a Imm should automatically mean that Matt's arm is 'up my ass' as some have so eloquently quoted, but I can sincerely insist that there is nothing farther from the truth.

I am not paid for what I do, nor do I deal with Mr.Mihaly beyond extreme circumstances. To be perfectly honest, I'm almost certain I don't even like him that much, though I can respect him. I gain nothing from sucking up or playing nice, nor do I ever intend to do so as that is not my style. I don't work for Matt, or do the things I do as an Imm for Matt. I do what I do because I love the game I'm in, and that is the only reason I freely give away hours of my day.

But, accustations of ulterior motives hopefully having been swatted away, back onto the true subject of the topic at hand, or at least what it has progressed into. Namely, the nature of IRE.

I started mudding at the age of 13. I went to Achaea at 15 years of age, still in school and with no incoming wages. No money, nada - to say I didn't do as well as other players who did decide to pay large amounts of money is ridiculous. I have artifacts, I am high in my skills, I was and am still fairly well known - after almost a year of logging in for a few minutes a month, at best.

I entered the artisanal/bardic contests, which are extraordinarily good ways of getting free credits. You don't have to be super talented. My first of many submissions was a simple self portrait that resulting in winning a fair amount of credits. I guided - that was an additional 25-? credits, depending how often you wished to be helping the newbies of the realm. You can also build - more credits.

In the end, I only paid the realm once, in the sum of 20 dollars. I wanted to never worry about being hacked and suicided, and I wanted to support a game that had given me hundreds of hours of free entertainment, as well as give the people I became friends with in the game a small holiday gift.

And that was just myself, who was hardly motivated to do things in any more than an easygoing fashion. There are many, many cases of people becoming omnitrans, as in, fully trained in ALL available skills, with pets, artifacts, being leaders in the various organizations, top merchants, or top PKers. And they've never spent a dime.

Obviously, I doubt this is going to sway anyone into reconsidering their rants and accusations, but as long as they're going to occur, I do love offering my take on things and likely will.

</rant>

[DonathinFrye]

While I don't mind reading IRE posts, I re-submit and ask two things;

1) What does Syno think?


2)

[Hadoryu]

There have been at least three people against color-coding who have stated they aren't players or staff in IRE games, Donathin. Don't ignore them.

[prof1515]

*chuckle* I "discredited" myself in the eyes of those who likely didn't care in the first place and for whom I care nothing of their opinion of me.

I call it as I see it, and anyone that knows me knows they can expect brutal honesty from me at any time on any subject. That quality, while not appreciated by all, has led me to numerous successful projects where people valued honesty over the kind of dishonest showmanship that is commonly exhibited today. Do most people appreciate it? Probably not, since dishonest tactics have been, and continue to be, successful in the world for a long time regarding a variety of subjects. But most people are also ignorant and fail to analyze things, relying on intial impressions. While that may be the reality of the world, that's why the world is like it is. People are quite often fools who support the very things and individuals which they dislike because they fall for the bull**** instead of thinking things through.

Sadly, there's probably not hope for a lot of them since they just don't have the intelligence or the reasoning skills to discern the bull**** from the facts. One can try to help them, but at some point, it's up to them to think. And most don't. Some can't. A few won't.

What we have is a group of MUDs with an advantage gained through vague terminology. They don't want to lose that advantage. They're protecting that advantage. The arguments over the definition of "free" and claims of extremely-rare instances of players overcoming the obstacles of the pay-for-perks system are smokescreens to cover the facts, just like Matt's attempt in another discussion to spin a typo in an IRE banner ad as somehow deliberately being left in to turn heads rather than being the result of shoddy work.

It's about manipulating perception rather than being honest. I don't like it and neither do a lot of other people in the world. Many fall for it, I realize that. But just because many people, hell maybe even a majority, do fall for it doesn't mean it's right or that I need to. Nor shall I. I'm not going to pussyfoot around them either though.

So "frighteningly immature" is really a poor choice of words. Blunt, yes, I won't deny that. But sometimes it takes a little blunt honesty to make people think. At least they know where they stand with me, which is more than can be said for some of the snake-oil salesmen in the world.

Take care,

Jason

[Graeblyn]

If a Threshold player or administration were posting here purely out of self-interest, why would they oppose your color coding scheme?  After all, the info Threshold has provided for this site already includes a statement that it is "per-per-play" so really the only way it would add to Threshold's information here is to make, under the color scheme proposal, that fact color-coded for the illiterate visitor, and illiterate people don't really enjoy text-based games in the first place.  If the variation on this site "enhancement" were to only add another category in the site information about business model, Threshold's information would remain unchanged, but one sentence would be moved to a new slot, so I fail to see how this would have any impact on Threshold, per se. If you are talking about the search option, Threshold would STILL be unaffected, unless you are wanting IRE's games to come up in the seme grouping, which doesn't seem to be what anyone has proposed.

In fact, if I were posting out of pure self-interest, I'd want this scheme (in the variation where only a new category line is added in the info for each MUD) because I suspect, if implemented, the main impact would be to harm IRE's games, to the possible advantage of Threshold.  Even if TMS implemented the color scheme model, it would still not harm Threshold, as far as I can see, since Threshold already highlights its business model, and it only wants players who are planning on paying in the first place.

The real reason I am opposed to this idea has already been mentioned in my other posts on this issue.  Such a scheme would do nothing to prevent MUDS from misidentifying themselves as free when they are not free, if I even agreed that is what IRE does, which I don't.  The information provided already provided by MUDS here CLEARLY isn't standardized, confirmed by any independent person, or adequately policed by the community itself.  Moreover, despite the feelings of a few posters, it's obviously not at all clear that "free to play" means "all game features free of charge" so even if the site WERE to implement some sort of category option for business model, it would only create confusion.  Finally, when we read this thread, it becomes obvious that the real desire is to see IRE labeled everywhere possible as "pay for perks" and to change the whole site just to harm one company's ability to market themselves here is shortsighted.  Any change to this site, in my opinion, should be for the purpose of improving it overall, and so far, the posters for this change have all been people whose primary motive (to screw over IRE) makes me highly dubious of the value of any change they propose.

The fact that you are dismissive of anyone who plays Threshold or IRE games speaks volumes about your mindset, and this mindset, if shared by the others who support your position, probably explains why this thread has gone on for so long, rather than being sufficiently covered in a few pages.  Given that, this will be the last post I make on this subject, unless someone addresses me specifically in this thread.

[The_Disciple]

I would have thought this was obvious, but it doesn't seem like anyone has spoken to this yet, so I will.

Making TMS more informative makes it a more useful/robust site. This is to be desired by the site owner (who presumably wants to run a site like this for reasons other than pure masochism) because the higher quality TMS is, the harder it would be for someone else to start a competing site that eventually overtakes TMS and renders it obsolete.

I'm aware that there are other MUD list sites; personally, I find this one to be the best. The more it does to remain the best, the more traffic and interest it's likely to retain in the future as well.

[DonathinFrye]

I'm not dismissive. Re-read my posts instead of putting words in my mouth - I've stated that I don't mind and even encourage hearing from Threshold/IRE players/staff. However, I've already heard their same points again and again, and I would be interested in hearing others' arguments against a color-coding system.

Quote them to me if you could. I didn't see them. If so, that would be a great aid in my refocusing this conversation towards players who didn't seem to have either a self-serving agenda, or a fierce loyalty to the MUDs who do not want to be publically labelled as "pay-for-perks". While both of the previous are acceptable, I believe the argument with those players has played itself out. They are too focused on protecting themselves, in my opinion, to agree with what would be a pro-active and helpful change to some players.

[Milawe]

Threshold is openly labelled as pay-for-perks. It has been since TMS made that option available to us. This is how we choose to explain our registration system on this particular site.

Graeblyn's point is that this option is already available on this site. It clearly does not appease people who believe that one game or another has mislabeled itself. In fact, people are so unappeased that they've thrown a mud that is CLEARLY labelled as PAY FOR PERKS in with a game who has pay for perks options and labels itself as free. Thus, what exactly is the point?

I'm assuming a color code thing would be by choice like the pay-for-perks/pay-to-play/free mud tag that's already available. What is to make someone who already isn't using the available tags from just not turning on the color tag? You're asking Synozeer to code something new that will ultimately have the same result as what's already occurring here anyway.

Assuming there is some benefit to labeling yourself as "free" as opposed to anything else (which I'm not even sure there is), then how do we police people who have any type of money involved? Who gets to determine how the game should be listed? Does accepting donations of any sort mean that you're no longer free? Does selling t-shirts mean that you're no longer free? This just seems like extremely murky ground where no one will is going to be happy with the system.

Not only is Threshold listed as pay-for-perks, you cannot finish our character creation without a full and detailed explanation of our registration system. I'm assuming that you cannot create on IRE without having their credits system explained. (I don't know this for sure since I've never played an IRE game.) Either way, it's made pretty clear to all players that there's money involved in the games mentioned above. The fact that Threshold is labeled clearly as a pay-for-perks system and yet is getting thrown into this conversation as a mis-labeled mud indicates that no system is going to make certain people happy.

Dalaena

[Milawe]

[KaVir]

I think you may be getting your terminology mixed up, or else you've gotten confused with another mud listing site, because on Top Mud Sites there is only "free" and "pay-per-play" (Threshold is listed as the latter).

Your mud was brought up (along with several other muds) to provide a counterpoint example to the payment model being discussed - in this case, because once the registration fee is paid, the mud itself can be played for free without any further payment required. I'm not quite sure why DonathinFrye lumped IRE and Threshold together, but after 30 pages the conversation had become somewhat diluted.

[Valg]

Actually, Threshold is (correctly) listed as "Pay-per-play". Part of the issue is that there is no third category for "payment accepted but optional", which is what is being proposed. If anything, I've tried to use Threshold as an example of a game that behaves responsibly and just states what they are.

As I understand matters, Threshold requires a fee to set up an account, which makes them pay-to-play. (If you never give any money, you cannot play the game beyond the free trial.) It is additionally pay-for-perks (as in, you can pay optional fees for extra advantages), but the definitions were such that it would only properly be listed in its current category, pay-to-play. Some proposed definitions:

1) 100% free. Non-commercial. RL money cannot alter gameplay.
2) May pay for perks. Optional fees may change gameplay.
3) Pay-to-play: Fees are required for gameplay.

As for enforcement, we currently enforce voting rules (as evidenced by Medievia's dismissal) in order to keep the site useful as resource to players, and this would be much easier to enforce than that.

I'm not aware of any administator who has not been willing to admit their business model on these forums when asked to clarify it. And if they did, it would be very easy to just point people to the game's PayPal or similar link as proof of the misrepresentation, since I doubt any game is dealing exclusively with offline commerce (checks, etc.).

[Milawe]