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Old 01-05-2006, 04:24 AM   #161
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Old 01-05-2006, 04:26 AM   #162
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I've thought about my presence here in this forum some, and will say this to some responses.

Matt, I admittedly allow my lack of trust and my sensitive nerve about what I consider to be condescending statements made by you to other MUDers on forums to get the better of me. I, therefor, do tend to push to the point where I am no less condescending than you, merely on the other political/economic-view spectrum as you. Therefor, I will cut the condescension, though it does not change my opinion of you, Vryce, or a few other such people.

Spoke - your post was something that I read, re-read, and decided I liked parts of. I should not try to claim to be the voice of the whole community - however, this is done, in part, because the loudest and most vocal members of these threads are(largely) the ones that I feel are the most selfish and least helpful to the community. It's something I am willing to drop, again, as most of this forum's most vocal players are loyal to the dominant groups of this particular forum, which happen to be the larger commercial MUDs.

Lanthum begs a little response as well, before I back off a bit from what seems to be an overly sensitive subject(fairness and community, that is).

Before I correct you, I'll say that of course I have the right to tell people my opinion. That is what opinion forums are for, silly.

Moving on; I have nothing against commercial MUDs, and as you noted am even working on a commercial project. I am merely an advocate of not forcing non-commercial MUDs to compete with commercial MUDs for voter ranking(hence the concept of having two seperate lists). I am also against commercial systems that advertise themselves misleadingly as something most players would assume to be non-commercial. I am also against commercial systems that give huge game mechanic bonuses to players who put out real money, making it *nearly* impossible to become competitive in such games without devoting many years to working yourselves up to something someone else can buy easily. I find these things unethical. I am not, however, against commercial gaming in the slightest - graphical mmorpgs are, by design, meant to suck money out of the player. They are boxed and mass-produced and given "expansion-packs" for this reason. You come to expect this from them. You should not come to expect this from text-based MUDing, as it is not our origins, nor is it what most MUDs strive for. That is my point.

All points made from here-on-out will specificy that I am not the voice of the entire community, and I will avoid "thumping my chest" at Matt/Vryce/anyone else that I have issues involving their ethics/etc.
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Old 01-05-2006, 04:45 AM   #163
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I'm talking about costs for the players though. The players (as a whole) have to pay money in order to be competitive. The fact that some of them will pay for others does not, in my opinion, make the game free.

To apply the same logic to your example, we'd be talking about a mud hosting service that advertised its hosting as "100% free" - but then you realised that in order to have sufficient resources to run your mud for more than a couple of players, you'd need to either pay the hosting provider, or get the admin of another mud to pay it for you (perhaps in exchange for doing coding or building work on their mud).

I recall a situation a bit like that in the past, actually. A mud hosting provider gave a "free" hosting connection to a mud run by someone I knew, in return for sending traffic to their site. After the mud had gone through all the trouble of setting everything up (including shipping a computer over to act as their dedicated server) the provider stated that unless they sent at least a million hits per month, they'd have to pay. Such traffic was simply not possible for the mud in question, which left them in a rather awkward situation.
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Old 01-05-2006, 04:54 AM   #164
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... bastards. : p
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Old 01-05-2006, 09:41 AM   #165
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In another , I attempted to price "sweat equity" in MUDs, and never got a straight answer from IRE.  The number I was looking for was the conversion rate from money to time.

In other words, Hajamin toes the IRE party line and mentions that you can always write areas, essays, helpfiles, and such for credits.  In some of those areas, you're essentially working for the company-- you put in X hours of work, and they pay you.  The question is, is it worth it?

I was able to grab some numbers from another game that's much more open about how they reimburse.  In that game, if I wanted 3 in-game currency units, I could either do work that would take about an hour, or I could pay around $2.

Now, the heart of the pay-for-perks model is forcing people into that decision.  IRE has described their game as a place where "3/4 of our sales are driven by PvP".  So, let's say I want to compete with Daedroth's character, the dirty fiend.  (Could be a fight, but really could be anything credits can effect.)  He knows I'm coming, so he drops $20 on enhancing a key skill.  That's a pretty modest amount of money as an isolated incident.

Now, I have the following options:
1) Compete at a disadvantage.
2) Drop $20 just like Daedroth did.
3) Spend 10 full hours cranking out essays, area work, etc.
4) Decline to compete and find poorer targets.

10 hours?  That might be my gaming time for a week.  The real choices are #1, #2, and #4.  And if Daedroth spends more than $20, #1 becomes increasingly impossible.  (If all that money didn't buy him victory, why would he spend it?)

It's an arms race.  I can't beat Daedroth unless I spend like he does, or invest an unreasonable quantity of time.  The system is designed to create this result.  Pay, or be a second-class citizen.

And that's the difference between pay-for-perks and the other models (flat fee, or free).  It's a tilted playing field and always will be. Some people like that sort of thing, and all we're asking for is some honest labeling of it.
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Old 01-05-2006, 10:16 AM   #166
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OK, I'll grant you that, but they all do revolve around credits, not IC actions in the game for the most part.
These take RL OOC talent to do. I haven't the talent, nor the inclination to do art, poetry, or prose.
So OK, you can work for a game and get paid for it. To me, time is money. I'd value mine at at least $50/hour.
You can't seriously count on luck as a mechanism to fund advancement, can you?
Depending how they're given away, this might at least by an IC thing. But still, winning events is not something you can control.
Being a guide is a valuable and worthwhile activity, and those who spend their time doing should be compensated. However, again this is compensation for time spent.

Remember, I am not against pay-to-play. I do it all the time. I bought Aetolia credits, and if I kept playing, would do so again. I simply maintain that it should be considered something more than pay-for-perks and perhaps a little less than pay-to-play.

I also maintain that the games do not adequately document up front the amount a player might be expected to pay. The normal pay-to-play game model uses a nice, predictable, and documented fee structure.

The sneaky part is in grabbing new players, who don't know, and actually can't tell from game docs how much they will be paying. So let's do a back of the envelope calculation. My guild has a doc telling you that it will take 294 credits (about 1750 lessons, I don't remember precisely) to trans a skill. Is that documented anywhere in the help files? No (at least I'm pretty sure not in Aetolia--I never found it). Why not? I hope it isn't to keep new players from figuring out the payment required if you choose to buy the credits.

Let's see: I have 8 major skills. Let's add in 4 extra mini-skills for a total of 12. That would take 3528 credits to trans them all. Subtract the 166 credit-equivalent you get for getting level 100 (1000 lessons / 6). So that's 3362 credits. Current prices on the site, for buying 2000 + 1500 credits is $1022 (getting only 3400 credits only saves you $7, so might as well get the extras).

You know, I only spend $131/year on my graphical MMORPG, which is a rather typical cost for a 12-month sub. By the way, the above amount is therefore 7.8 years of subscription costs for my MMORPG. So this is not a small amount of change. And note, the above is all for advancement. No perks here.

This somewhat reminds me of those "free" contests you can enter, that then begin to send you puzzles where you can buy hints/word lists/etc. to get you the best scores.

I'm not saying it isn't worth it--that determination is for the player. I'm also not saying that you can't find ways to get "free" credits, though I don't consider the examples above good general mechanisms (where your "free" play generates them--only grinding for cash to buy credits fits that bill, and in that case, you're likely buying credits someone else has bought).
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Old 01-05-2006, 11:33 AM   #167
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Thanks for providing some numbers. Most pay-for-perks games are notoriously sparse on public disclosure, as you mention, and for obvious reasons.

So, maximizing what you consider a reasonable skill set (12 skills) costs $1015 (we'll assume you get the absolute cheapest) per character.

Let's say you decided tomorrow to never spend another cent on your game. How many hours do you think you would have to invest to 'trans' those 12 skills? Assume your present level of skill, and no "charity" from other players. (In other words, if you can make money to buy credits by selling them stuff you find, that's fair game. But having a friend just hand you stuff isn't really "earning" them.)

If you're feeling ambitious, maybe break it down by different methods if you're familiar with them. In other words, "I could spend X hours farming an area, or Y hours writing area content for them, or Z hours... "

I'm curious how IRE values your time, and if it's close to the $2/hour figure I calculated from another game with a documented fee structure.

Aside: This is straying from the topic heading a bit, but I think it's very interesting to discuss. Maybe move your response to the 'price of sweat' thread I mention a couple posts up?
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Old 01-05-2006, 12:09 PM   #168
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All of our games also give out credits for winning contests. Some skilled artists and story tellers have received thousands of dollars worth of credits directly from us, not from having bought credits from other players.

So yes, you can obtain it for free, and it doesn't require another player to pay for you. I wish you'd do a little more research before holding forth on a business model you're not that familiar with, with all due respect.

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Old 01-05-2006, 12:14 PM   #169
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Pardon me? Hobbyist MUDs are, by and large, newcomers to the MUDing scene. The very first MUD went commercial, and nearly all of the MUDs from the first 9-10 years of MUD-dom were commercial.

You're doing it again. Don't try to tell the mud community what it can and cannot do or what it should and shouldn't be. Why don't you let the mud community decide for itself by deciding what games people in it wish to play?

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Old 01-05-2006, 12:17 PM   #170
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That's just a subjective value judgement. "Unreasonable quantity of time" is your opinion and is no different from that other guy saying that Simutronics are thieves because some people are willing to pay $80 for a quest.

The fact is, we have many long-time players who never pay a dime. Do they view their playtime as an "unreasonable quantity of time"? I doubt it.

You keep trying to conflate "equality" with "free." They're unrelated.
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Old 01-05-2006, 12:17 PM   #171
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KaViR, I know you usually do not go and read a post twice to make sure you did not take someone's words out of context.

Let me explain to you how it is correctly done:

First, you quote an entire paragraph, not just the words that might sound controversial
Then, if you were actually reading the post, you would have noticed that the previous paragraph refered to the so-called pay-per-perks MUDs characterizing them as free to play while this chapter in question refered to those on which you cannot obtain anything with your real life money.

So, once again, you failed to make sense in your replies.

By the way, here is a quote of your post
This of course, beyond any question proves you do not make sense.
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Old 01-05-2006, 12:21 PM   #172
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Any talent is OOC. Are you telling me that any game in which you can advance via talent is bad because some people may not have the OOC talent to do so? I completely reject that as a game design axiom.

Then it's probably not worth it for you to play our games and not buy credits. The choice is completely up to you, of course.


Free and "something you can control" have nothing to do with each other.

You mean just like you're compensated in every bashing MUD for spending time...bashing?


Exactly, thank you.

I hope you continue to enjoy Aetolia!
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Old 01-05-2006, 12:23 PM   #173
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Anyway, this topic has been done to death. I'll summarize, and then bow out gracefully, largely because I'm tired of clicking to the end of an 18 page discussion.

1. We're free by every standard use of the word in the games industry.
2. TMS isn't going to split itself into two lists because Adam is too savvy to alienate the people who contribute the most to the site.
3. I like pie.

Good night, and good luck.

--matt
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Old 01-05-2006, 12:42 PM   #174
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I do believe it would be hard to define the credit/RL hr exchange for a game that is somewhat complex. Why? because different things would lead to different exchange rates, if you gold run, you would get one rate, but if you build areas, the exchange is different, and if you gold run, but you do not know how to do it correctly, you might get less gold than someone who has been doing it for years, etc etc ... so, I think your question is an oversimplification and that is probably why it has not been answered.

I also think this approach to a 'pay-per-perks' game does not necesarily apply to every game of this type. The reasons are many. First, a new player, or someone who has not spent much time playing the game, will not only lack the skills, but also the knowledge that comes with playing the game for long. Now, I do not know IRE games in depth, but I am very aware that by merelly having a deeper knowledge of the game you play, you can overcome numerical disadvantages, be it having less levels, less classes, weaker weapons, or smaller skills. If a game is poorly designed, and knowing how to use your skills does not play an important role on the outcome of PvP interaction, then your example is totally right, the player who spends the most or plays longer will have an advantage and you will have to play against weaker players. But you stated clearly that you have about 10 hr/week to play, so, it would also be imposible for you to compete against the average college player, who usually plays longer than 2 hrs a day.

Now, I assume IRE games are appealing to a large number of people in part because they are not poorly designed (again, I am not privy to this information because I have not played any of them long enough to know), and for a game that has been open for long time, the balance is usually very solid (things tend to go toward an equillibrium, and is the developers job to rock them a little to keep them alive, moving this equillibrium a little). So, if we accept that a game that would appeal to a large number of people is probably well designed and not simplistic enough for it to be (if (credits(A) > credits(B)) -> A wins else B wins), then I believe it should be posible to play and enjoy a playing said game without spending any money and being able to compete with many people (depending on how much you spend in time to learn the game, advance your character via other means, etc ..).
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Old 01-05-2006, 02:00 PM   #175
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I accept that, and explicitly addressed the issues. I'm curious what the other poster (who is familiar with IRE games by his own description, yet isn't an employee) estimates as his rate of credit production if he's not paying, given his skill, and the method(s) he would most like to employ.

I can quantify what income/hour I could expect in RL for myself. (I wouldn't wave my hands and keep saying "It depends on what I'd do!") Quantifying it inside a game should be trivial for a player with sufficient experience.

It would be even more trivial for Matt, as I'm sure any responsible business would review the value of their best-selling product (credits) to make sure no one is exploiting means to devalue it. More concretely, if there was a way for a player to consistently generate more than X credits/hour, you can be damn sure he would shut it down, and he knows very well what X is.

However, Matt has taken his ball and Vryced his way home, and wouldn't give an honest answer anyway, so I'm asking an experienced player for an informed opinion.
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Old 01-05-2006, 02:38 PM   #176
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You say this, then say;


You should hold yourself to the same standards you accuse other players of not holding themselves to. You can't be the voice of Syno anymore than I can be the voice of the Common MUDer. You can buy yourself into many things, but immunity-to-hypocrisy is not one of them.

If people want to play IRE games, that is their individual decision. I've played IRE games before, though they never really captured my attention for long. As I've said before, I consider the model that you use, and your dealings with the community to be unethical. There are players who would agree(admins of truly free MUDs more-than-likely), and some who would disagree(probably mostly the ones who play your games).

Players are able to determine what games they wish to play and howmuch money they wish to spend - but at the end of the day, that does not create a free, fair, and equal playing-field; which is a setting most truly free MUDs(and also some commercial MUDs) try to hold themselves to creating. You can call yourself free, advertise your MUDs as the most challenging PvP in the universe, and walk around pretending to be the mouth of Syno on these forums... none of that means that you are telling the truth, however. It is for every player to decide to trust you or not - I personally do not for many, many good reasons.

---

Valg's on the money here - since we're using a capitalistic model, let's simplify all of this. The claim is that you can receive credit bonuses via providing work/goods to the MUD.

Goods = Money
Goods = Credit
Money = Credit

Goods are not really free, it's a misleading backdoor excuse. People put hard work into creating a piece of art, a piece of literature/etc, and sell the rights to you in exchange for a Credit reward. That is not free.

The only option to achieve the same status of those players who buy game-mechanic enhancements is to spend years. And even then, for PvP(for example), a wealthy opponent can drop 20$ when necessary to buy skillsets that will aid them in filling a weakness in defense, or to protect against another specific player(who may not have the ability to pay money to keep up). This is not a truly free system. It's capitalistically savvy(perhaps unethical, but that's just my opinion), but it is certainly not free.

----

Skip this next part if you don't want to read a slightly off-topic rant about PvP and MUDs.

The element of MUDing I have the most experience with is the design, critique, use, and abuse of PvP on MUDs. On the best PvP MUDs, either there is an end that anyone can reach given some time - and once that end is reached, all players are on(more-or-less) equal footing, allowing skill to be the determining factor in combat... OR, the system is level-less and/or successful PvPs award points that can be used to enhance your character. The latter system is used in both Everwar and Utopia, probably the two of the better PvP MUDs I have ever played/reviewed(I was not always staff on Utopia, there's a reason I stuck around).

On the worst PvP MUDs, there is a) cheating, or b)a system that rewards the players who have played the longest by using a system of infinite(or nearly infinite) character/stat/skill expansion, or c) a system that rewards players who are lucky/wealthy enough to be able to by their way into powerful PvP characters. It does not promote success through PvP skill, no matter how pretty the layout of combat itself is.

And you don't need to play Aethia/Aetolia to find large group on group PvP battles. If that's what you really want, go find a better, free PvP MUD that focuses entirely on PvP. Some of them have large battles also, with better and more challenging PvP systems(Everwar, for instance).
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Old 01-05-2006, 04:07 PM   #177
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I'm replying only to avoid dragging Synozeer into something: I'm not his voice, nor did I claim to be speaking for him. He did, however, tell me what I told you, in almost the same words, so get off your high horse.

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Old 01-05-2006, 04:43 PM   #178
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This is completely fine, Matt; if you want to throw your weight around to protect your interests, it is within your rights/means to do so. It only further shows your character.

If Syno refuses to add the seperate lists, that is fine, if unfortunate for non-commercial MUDs. It is within his rights to do so, as he owns this site.

As far as my high-horse; whether or not I'm actually on a high-horse, the forum could always use outspoken people like me to balance out outspoken people of the opposite political-mindset. Like Matt.

You want the path of no-resistance Matt, and you can't always buy it. Some people don't like the way you play ball, and this is the place where we can talk openly about it. Same goes for Vryce, or anyone else of the sort. I'll try not to speak for the entire community, as it is a very large and diverse group, but I'm not going to stop calling out my opinions.
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Old 01-05-2006, 05:30 PM   #179
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Contests of luck and skill can be fun, but we're still talking about scenarios where one person wins and many lose. In order to play competitively a player needs a way to consistently obtain credits.

Apparently people can also earn credits by developing code and areas, but this is really an external activity to the mud itself, and is something done by certain pay-to-play muds as well (in fact even AOL did this for a while, with the whole 'free accounts for volunteers' thing, although I've no idea what happened after the whole lawsuit fiasco). It's also not something that everyone can do, as I'm sure you don't recruit everyone who asks.


Well I've tried to gather what information I can, but other than what you and other players have said the information seems a little sparse. Is there a section on your website which explains exactly how the model works?
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Old 01-05-2006, 05:45 PM   #180
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Prior to my current association with Aetolia, the highest credits/hour rate at which I was able to work was approximately 60 credits/hour. The closest credit packages sold, packages of 40 and 100 credits, cost 50 and 40 cents per credit, respectively. Approximating a 60 credit package at about 43 cents per credit, this would come to around $25.80 per hour. That's more than a lot of people playing MUDs these days is going to make, so the opportunity is there for the "sweat equity" of earning credits within the game (Note, these are not credits that were previously purchased by other players) to surpass that of working for the money to buy them OOC.
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