[Pleos]

Amazingly, like the fellow from DragonRealms, I now find myself in the position where I must also reply to a review given to us by the fellow Tim.

While I can accept someone not liking TP MUD, and certainly TP MUD is not for everyone (no MUD is), I can't accept someone openly lying about the game. TP MUD is not perfect, no MUD is of course, but when a disgruntled player chooses to openly smear the game, well, I suppose it's my turn to reply.

Originally Posted by The immortals are in dire need of a brush up course on the Tenets and Rules of the MUD. The immortals are not supposed to do anything that could cause a change in the concept of a character - in other words, no major plots are to be enacted upon a character without advanced communication with the player.  The immortals are supposed to let the players drive the action, not be the sole driving force themselves.  The immortals are -never- supposed to discuss a player or a character with another player OOC.  And yet, I have experienced all these things first hand...and witnessed many more examples second hand.

Originally Posted by Previously when I complained about how one immortal had violated 2 of the tenets of the game - first by orchestrating the stealing of my character's wife's baby then logging off before he told her what was going on, second by giving OOC knowledge to another player as to how to recover that baby - I was rebuffed with an "inconclusive" and the immortal involved was actually promoted...a reward for violating the rules multiple times.

The tenets state:

When roleplaying a god persona, care should be exercised when interacting with mortals. Actions that may cause a change in a player's character or concept should be considered a major event, and as such care should be taken to not alter the character's concept if at all possible.

It does not say anywhere that Gods cannot absolutely impact things. In one of the particular incidents this fellow complained about at the time, was when a God (switched into an NPC) took the baby of a PC. But, the PC *willingly* gave up the baby to the NPC after some coercing. The God didn't actually type "steal baby PC" or "claim baby PC" and take it away. The PC was foolish enough to hand over the child, because the NPC was convincing enough.

Gods do intervene and will have an impact, possibly a major one, particularly when characters veer off course with their concepts or religious RP. They are Gods.

In some cases we do speak to the players beforehand, other times we do not, because the storyline is moving quickly and action is needed. Furthermore, in the above example, when Tim complained, the PC who actually *lost* her baby did not complain. Not only that, she was excited about the prospects of recovering her child. She didn't complain, Tim did. But the whole storyline was completely fine and within guidelines. If Tim can't accept those guidelines, that's fine - he's free to play elsewhere.

As for giving OOC knowledge, I believe the sum of the knowledge was this "The baby can be found." or "The baby is alive." In order to help guide the players in their search, this information was given. Beyond that I do not believe much more was said. If it was, mistakes do happen, we are all human.

As for the Imm being promoted - the Imm in question has been a member of the Staff for years and performed some great RP storylines. He has guided tons of players in improving their RP and making TP MUD an exciting and fun world. I do not believe there has ever been a single complaint against him.

Other IC actions taken by this God with his religious followers, steered one of those followers away from Tim's PC, which made complete sense to the religion of this God, and this also angered Tim. IC must remain IC. And religious roleplay is taken seriously at TP MUD.

Originally Posted by I was encouraged when I read on the web site and in the Forums that participating as a builder or coder was not a requirement for in-game advancement.  I was quickly relieved of that false notion.

This is a complete lie. In-game advancement is not impacted whatsoever by any OOC efforts volunteered for the game (coding, building, etc.)

Originally Posted by I got into an argument with a player Out of Game, using an instant messenger software while neither of us was playing.  I called her a nasty name.  She complained to the Implementor.

This is true, he did call her a nasty name and we did receive a complaint. But it wasn't simply a nasty name. It was abuse. And a good amount of it. And that is something I cannot tolerate whether it's inside the game or out. Respect for the playerbase and Staff is paramount to the success of TP MUD and I take that very seriously. Plus, what he was saying to the other player was so beyond innapropriate, it wasn't just a casual, bad name, it was almost as nasty as you can imagine.

Originally Posted by and offered proof that the player with whom I had argued was cheating In Game, using OOC knowledge to advance her characters. At the same time, though her cheating was done in game and proven to the Implementor, nothing was done to the other player.

Actually, he has no clue what was discussed with the person in question, or what punishement was handed out.

Originally Posted by Despite the fact that nothing was said or done by me in game to this player or her characters, I was given a choice of deleting all of my characters, or being site banned.

Again, this is not really true. The Staff decided that due to the nature of the abuse and the fact that the acrimonious OOC relationship was likely impacting things ICly, we offered Tim a fresh start. Stop playing his existing characters, leave them be, and create 1 new character. Do not tell anyone that you play the character and stop speaking to people OOCly. That is the sum of what we offered him. So in fact, we offered him what we felt was a very fair opportunity - get into the game with one character and focus on what TP is about: roleplay. Leave the rest of the nonsense behind.
 

Originally Posted by I soon learned why.  She was in process of helping to recode an area on the MUD.  It seems that a player who is actively coding has fairly free reign to cheat and be immune to any repercussions.

This is again a complete lie. In fact, the player he's referring to is not "recoding an area", or doing any building or coding. Discussions were had with this person and an Imm regarding possible coding but nothing came of it. They were very preliminary discussions and nothing more, and had no impact whatsoever on how we dealt with Tim or this other person.

Originally Posted by Lest I sound like a vengeful victim, let me hasten to add that at the same time as this player was complaining to the Imp about me, she was complaining to me about him.  She felt that an IC punishment her character received was only meted out because she was friends with a recently demoted immortal that this Imp disliked.

This again is completely bogus, only stressing the point that what you hear OOCly about people or a game over the Internet is rarely all truth or in many cases even partial truth.

Firstly, the person that was punished ICly was not punished by *me* (the Imp in question), but by the Staff on a whole. We discussed the progress of her character development and came to an agreement on how the IC punishment should work. I was the one that pulled the trigger, and I did speak to her about it beforehand. She was willing to take up the challenge of the punishment and move forward, even though I was clear that it would be very challenging, but could be great fun as well.

The IC punishment was handed out because the character was all over the place in terms of her character concept and development. At one moment she was devious, the next good, followed by her seeking to walk the Dark path of evil. And then Light again. She devoted to multiple Gods over the span of a few weeks and the Gods, ICly took notice. How can you be a follower of the God of Nature one second then switch to the God of Darkness? So the Gods, ICly got involved because of the extreme nature of the IC situation.

This has nothing to do with an Imm that was recently demoted/retired, or this player being friends with that Imm. I didn't even realize they communicated at all.

Originally Posted by Membership in the Organizations is supposed to be a reward given for good RPing.  In fact, many of the orgs require exemplary RP as a condition of membership.  And the process of gaining membership is supposed to be RPed out.  Yet, there have been numerous instances of characters with seriously questionable RP (for example, a priest of Light begging an Evil priestess for sex) being admitted to Orgs within an hour or two of real time.

In this statement, he is partially correct. Membership in Organizations *is* supposed to be a reward given for good RPing. Moreso, it's that the top RPers make their way into the Orgs if they choose. And yes, he is correct in saying that a character or characters with questionable RP have made it into Orgs. Sometimes Org leaders are fooled ICly, sometimes even the Staff make a mistake. Oftentimes a player RPs well for a certain amount of time, accomplishes his/her goal and lets the RP slip off. But, the character he used in his example has and will be dealt with further.

Where he is incorrect is that players are admitted "within an hour or two of real time." This does not happen. It certainly did not happen with the character he uses in his example above. Our typical procedure for Org Membership is significant IC RP amongst the players, as well as a concept check and review by the Staff. We're all human, some slip through the cracks, but it is not quite as dire as Tim makes it out to be.

Originally Posted by Recently there has been a spate of voluntary character deletions, banning of players (others, I was not banned), and immortal "forced" retirements.   All of this points to a "sick" MUD.

There is always turnaround, players come and go. TP MUD is constantly evolving into an improved and more advanced RP environment. Again, it's not the MUD for everyone, and that's fine. So, some players will indeed be leaving as they decide the vision and forward direction/evolution of TP MUD is not for them.

We have recently banned a handful of players - for cheating, abuse of players and Staff and horrible RP. Simple as that. This also happens, and is part of the life of a MUD. The Staff is doing what they can on a constant basis to clear out those people who do not deserve to be playing TP MUD, to make it a better environment for everyone else.

As for immortal "forced" retirements, there recently were two Immortals that retired, both of which were asked to retire. It was time for both of them. One understood quite well and one did not. This was a difficult situation for all involved, but as TP MUD evolves so to does the Staff. The Staff of a MUD is never truly static, all MUDs add staff and lose staff for various reasons.

Originally Posted by This MUD had a great deal of potential.  Unfortunately, a player base which seems to average 15 or 16 years old, and a hugely deficient immortal staff (both in numbers and in consistency) have kept that potential largely unrealized.

Well, I can't disagree with the "potential" part, but the rest is once again untrue.

Our playerbase likely is moreso in the 17-20 average range. I believe the playerbase, slowly, is maturing and we are attracting older players, more experienced players. TP MUD does not have a registration-type process, so at the present time, it's open to anyone willing to connect. This means we get all sorts, but that's nothing different from most other MUDs. Even MUDs with application processes can't block out every immature player or every problem player.

Meanwhile, while speaking to Tim he has told me his real age (if he was truthful with that), which is roughly double the age of our "supposed" playerbase of 15-16 year olds, yet even at that age he's being horribly abusive to players OOCly and being as disrespectful as any player I've come across. A player's success, maturity and quality in terms of RP is not absolutely and totally hinged on age.

Finally, with all of Tim's badmouthing and ultimately his lying (whether he believes what he's written or not, and I suspect he does), he is still playing TP MUD. It seems at this stage he has taken me up on the offer of playing 1 character and to date we are reviewing the situation.

In general, the playerbase can never truly know the full story of what is going on with a MUD or amongst the Imm Staff. They can never know what transpires between the Staff and a particular player. Players do not have the 20,000 foot view that the Imms have, which is how most MUDs operate.

Chat messaging software is the death of MUDs. It's use can so easily kill the IC intensity of a game. I recommend for players to simply not use it. But of course, some do, and we cannot stop that. And, people lie over the Internet (they do so in real life as well, of course, but it seems quite common for people to "take on personas" online). The playerbase of *any* MUD will very often be chattering OOCly about what's going on, the state of the MUD. (Not cheating, just general chit chat). This is very common. But the problem comes when a player accepts absolute lies hook, line and sinker.

Tim is a disgruntled player. Things have not gone his way ICly, nor OOCly with the relationships he was attempting to develop through the game. That happens. But the review he's provided is largely a lie and not representative of TP MUD.

Thank you.

Pleos, TP Imp