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Old 08-18-2004, 11:40 PM   #41
rhakshai
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I'm not entirely sure of all the details because my char is not an Arcanist. But from what people I've said, there was at least one prior action of attacking about 7 different people's loyal pets (on Achaea this is considered the same as attacking the pet owner and if unjustified, is an illegal pk action). Most guilds have rules forbidding novices and probates to engage in pk- the idea is that they should be staying out of trouble and learning about the world and the guild before going around killing people. Also most guilds do not appreciate it when a member breaks the pk rules, as this makes the whole guild look bad and conflicts with the noble ideals of a lot of guilds.

The last incident Kimberly was involved in (again, after several prior problems) was she claimed someone engaged in an unprovoked attack on her. She wanted to either issue (an ooc appeal to the administration to enforce the pk rules, which is supposed to be a last resort) or hire an assassin to teach the person a lesson (I'm not sure which it was). From what I understand, the Arcanists discourage both issuing and vengeance. Also the guild rules probably forbid pk, as i've already outlined. The secretary in question talked to Kimberly, but she insisted that vengeance was her right, and at that point the conversation basically became a rant by Kimberly (I believe the secretary described it as a temper tantrum).

Also as an fyi, so you don't think it's blatantly unfair to not allow Kimberly her vengeance- guilds typically do not ignore such problems, they simply prefer to deal with the issue instead of having novices and probates running around looking for revenge. I don't know how the Arcanists handle it, but most guilds reallydon't like novice-killers. They will guild enemy the offender, or go after him themselves, or go to his guild and try to get him disciplined there. Or all three. This is usually a better solution than the novice can manage on his own, and it's always much better than issuing (the administration discourages issuing unless there is no in-character way to resolve the problem).
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Old 08-19-2004, 04:55 AM   #42
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Quit your trolling, Jaz. It doesn't become you.
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Old 08-19-2004, 05:57 AM   #43
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There is one thing that really bothers me in this affair.

Why on earth did they pay her? They obviously did refund all her money, Mihaly himself confirms that.

If this Kimberley really is the raving lunatic that all the Achaea people paint her out as, if she repeatedly broke rules and threatened the mud owner over e-mail and made a total ass of herself – why on earth refund her?

If there never was any real cause for complaint, why pay? Wouldn’t that just set a precedence to all problem players that kicking and screaming and making a big fuss pays? It seems a totally irrational thing to do for any mud. It obviously wasn’t out of pity, the comments show that.

Why pay, if the other party is all at fault themselves? Just to make her leave? They could easily have banned her, and apparently they did too. To shut her up? That didn’t work obviously, at least not at first. She only managed to get herself banned from these Forums out of sheer stupidity, (or sheer ignorance of Forum rules and netiquette). She got booted for spamming, and rightly so. But they couldn’t know that she would do that.

It is obviously in the interest of Achaea to make her appear in as bad light as possible, that is a commonly used practice. Making the opposition appear as jerks obviously diminishes their credibility. And there is no way for her to defend herself any more now.

Why pay? It keeps bothering me. It would be interesting to see some comments from other commercial muds. How do you handle similar situations? Do you usually pay your problem players to make them leave, or do you just kick them out? And if you pay them, what are your reasons for doing so?
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Old 08-19-2004, 06:53 AM   #44
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I believe the reason for the refund was simple. Achaea's immortal staff is going on vacation and they didn't want to have to spend the pre-planned, pre-payed for vacation talking to lawyers about some crazy former player who's threatening to sue. Achaea, while I don't know the exact figures, makes a good chunk of money. I know of people like Dresden who openly admits she spent 10g + on the game, others like myself have spent around 1g over 5 years and 2 IRE games. It's not the first instance of a refund, but it is not a precedent. Usually, refunds are not given. But to buy 200 credits, which is what I believe she bought, is $70...$70 to avoid a lawsuit and get to go on vacation? I'd be all over it too.
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Old 08-19-2004, 06:56 AM   #45
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Just something I thought I would point out...

Kimberly threatened if she didn't get her way she'd slander Achaea on 'popular mudding forums' - it seems like she's now doing so
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Old 08-19-2004, 07:43 AM   #46
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For the record, attacking a person's character doesn't diminish their credibility, at least not in the eyes of intelligent people, because attacking the person and not their assertion is a fallacy (ad hominem). Instead of attacking the person, the actual assertion should be checked for validity, something which some of you have done while others have not.

In this case, all I can say is that I'm glad I don't play Hack & Slash MUDs anymore. This sort of thing happens too frequently on many of them.

Take care,

Jason
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Old 08-19-2004, 08:00 AM   #47
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Old 08-19-2004, 08:19 AM   #48
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If you're a raving lunatic, which game are you more likely to try? The game that a fellow raving lunatic tried, and due to her crazy antics (like asking for vengence, CRAZY!) was kicked out and her money not refunded, or the game where she was kicked out and her money refunded?

Refunds make people more willing to try new things. They also get customers that you've had problems with off your back, regardless of where the problems came from. Most of the time, at least. It makes good business sense to refund money to unhappy customers.
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Old 08-19-2004, 11:16 AM   #49
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I admit nothing of the sort.

I am not in the habit of trolling, and I would never even have commented to this rather stupid thread unless Jazuela, Threshold and yourself hadn’t all in turned baited me. Maybe I should have ignored your trolling, but as you can see I am getting a bit tired of it by now.

It is true that I don’t much like the concept Achaea uses to get money from their players.
It is also true that I don’t like them claiming to be ‘free’ in the Mudlist, 1). because their – and apparently your – definition of the word doesn’t correspond with what most people understand with a ‘free mud’, 2) because it interferes with the advertisement space of muds that really ARE free, and 3) because it leads to endless mixed flame/promotion threads like this one. I think it is a case of false – or at least misleading – advertising. I am not exactly alone in those sentiments either.

It is true that I have expressed these opinions on occasions. I think I have every right to do so on a Discussion Board. Just as much right as you have to repeat your mantra; ‘Achaea is entirely 100% free to play'.

Apart from that, could you please back up your offensive allegations by some solid evidence? Preferably in the form of links, not quotes taken out of their context, so that the audience can form their own opinion based on the total content of the threads in question. If you cannot do this, do yourself and the rest of us a favour and shut up.
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Old 08-19-2004, 12:03 PM   #50
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You're not alone by a long shot. In my opinion, "pay-for-perks" ends up being de facto pay-to-play in an environment where competition is stressed, which encompasses nearly all MUDs. It is quite different from a true "free" MUD like the one I represent, and infringes on advertising when someone uses the term "free" to mean something very different than "money has no impact whatsoever on the game".

I'm much more fond of the subscription-type model. (A flat fee is paid for access to the game for a certain time period. I believe Threshold uses this, among others.) It's up front, and still results in a level playing field inside the game. In other words, your success or failure is still a function of your skill, and not your credit card. I would play a game of this sort if I thought it was the best one out there.

Returning to the original point of the topic, Achaea shouldn't be surprised if they advertise themselves as "free", and people are confused when allegations arise, like the ones Kimberly inconherently vomited forth. While I'm aware that it's unquestionably legal to charge someone money for a virtual credit, then revoke the impact of that (in accordance with the EULA they agreed to) at the opinion of other players in the game, it is something that would make be very hesitant to invest funds in that manner. And I'd be doubly confused by the amounts changing hands after I saw the word "Free" popping up, if I wasn't already familiar with the model in question.
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Old 08-19-2004, 12:47 PM   #51
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I'm afraid I can't quite follow your logic there. How is it that advertising a game as free to play (which it is, let's not kid ourselves) results in an individual then paying $200 in the first place? I mean, if it was Kimberly's prerogative to play for free, which is entirely her option, she isn't going to be spending that money. No amount of policy ignorance (which a brief scan of the website or about ten minutes of play time would clear up) would lead to this scenario, at least not where concerns whether the game should be considered free to play or not.

As a side note, Achaea's success speaks volumes for the credibility of its business model. I can't speak for the numbers exactly, but enough people do very well for themselves without spending a dime (myself included for the first two and a half years or so there) that claiming that the playing field becomes irrevocably unbalanced by the pay for perks system is simply inaccurate.
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Old 08-19-2004, 02:03 PM   #52
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What MUD has this happened on?
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Old 08-19-2004, 02:23 PM   #53
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What MUD has this happened on?

That's how I read the following statement from the_logos, posted earlier on this thread.  Kimberly purchased credits, used them for 'lessons', and lost lessons (or the skills purchased with lessons, or some other downstream effect of the original purchase) because, in the opinion of her guild, she was not acting appropriately as a member of that guild.

Nobody -ever- takes credits away from a player unless it is a result of credit card fraud, and players, or even normal Gods, cannot take them away. On Achaea, only 4 of us (all paid, full-time employees) can do so. What Kimberly lost was lessons. You can spend credits on lessons, and also get lessons by rising in level through questing, hunting, etc. You can get credits by buying them from us or getting them as rewards or buying them from other players, in-game. You use lessons, incidentally, to raise skills.

Once you've spent credits, as the disclaimer says, the value of what you've spent them on may increase or decrease as a result of your actions or the actions of other players. Kimberly was unable to accept this, apparently feeling that anything another player did to her as part of the game system was, in fact, "us" (the administration) doing it to her.


As I'm pointing out, that's all legal, because Kimberly apparently signed a EULA to the effect that she understood this at the point of purchase.  Achaea refunded the money in this event, but they were not legally required to do so.  My impression is that it was done as a courtesy, or at the very least in the name of efficiency, as in "It is not worth our time/effort/aggravation to dispute this amount of money.  Please take it back and leave quietly."  Either way, it's professional customer service.
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Old 08-19-2004, 02:43 PM   #54
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Unhappy

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Old 08-19-2004, 06:46 PM   #55
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You may wish to read a few of the other messages in this thread as well. She 'lost' nothing due to the opinion of a player, assuming she 'lost' anything (which I disagree with, but for the sake of the argument will pass on that), it was due to her own actions.
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Old 08-19-2004, 08:11 PM   #56
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Molly did not say this, Brody did. Please don't put words in others mouths.

Edit: Misread it entirely. Please ignore this post. My apologies
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Old 08-19-2004, 08:15 PM   #57
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From Reyas: She also, technically speaking, did not lose lessons either. She spent her credits on lessons, then spent her lessons on guild skills, then due to her own actions, was booted out of the guild. When leaving a guild, you lose your guild skills.

From Hardestadt: If you invest those credits in lessons, learn skills and then be an arse and get kicked out of the guild you are subject to lesson loss when you forget the guildskills in question.

As I previously stated, she lost something derived originally from her purchase.

From the_logos: ...player organizations are extremely powerful. They serve to weed out twinks in that they enforce certain basic roleplay standards and simply deny a class to players who aren't fit to play that class. For example, the Druids guild may decide that a particular novice player doesn't have an understanding of what it means to serve and protect nature in Achaea, and so may require that said player go learn and then write a paper on the topic. Being kicked out of the guild before you've progressed to a certain point means you will simply lose your Druid skills entirely.

From this, I gathered that if it is a player's opinion that you do not live up to the standards of your guild, you can be expelled, with consequent loss of skills.

Combining the two, if a player deems you unworthy of guild membership, you will lose some of what you paid for. That's all I've said, and it's consistent with everything in this thread posted by Achaea admins and customers.
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Old 08-19-2004, 08:44 PM   #58
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[quote= (Azhon @ Aug. 19 2004,20:11)]Actually, Molly did say that. It is incorrectly attributed to Brody. Go to page 3 I think - just past half-way down the page and you'll see her post where she responds to my JOKE about waiting for her to respond with a conspiracy theory.
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Old 08-19-2004, 10:21 PM   #59
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hence why i behave like a good girl in Achaea. ha ha ha ha. sorry.
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Old 08-19-2004, 11:22 PM   #60
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If you have to "Pay to Play" Run in the other direction of the scam. Toooooo many free MUD's out here to find oneself fool enough to line the pockets of folks that laugh at those willing to "Pay to Play".
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