Show me a post in which Synozeer has stated EXPLICITLY that he encourages giving out incentive to vote.

I've as of yet to see it.

-D

"Incentives are officially sanctioned for the time being." - Synozeer.

His first post in this thread. I don't know how much clearer you want it, considering the rules never even implied there was anything wrong with it.

--matt

Many things are legal, yet still frowned upon. Keep that in mind. You can twist the wording of a contract to get something out of it that you want, that was not intended by the creator of that contract. Doesn't make it right.

Also, not quite sure if you noticed, but that sanction was a reluctant one. It's not as if he endorsed it. Only said it was allowed, for the time being, because it couldn't be properly policed. Another thing to keep in mind.

.....Good god, Mihaly. I forgot you took that forum posting as a quote from RPGplanet.net.

Read the context of his message. He definitely implied that the only reason that incentives are allowed is simply because of the time requirements involved.

Several of my suggestions would immediately remedy this. However, all of them that would apply received severe flamings - from Achaea players, mind you. Or so they identified themselves. With, what was it....1 posts? 2 posts?

Eesh. There's a definitely deserving PtP flame here. And it's just ASKING for it. But, I'll be nice today.

-D

-points at Seraphina-

And thus, my thesis about PTP MUDs hath been proved. If it benefits them, they will take anything and everything out of context.

-D

Wow, you might flame PtP MUDs? Your threats are truly frightening in their magnitude and scope. Do you really not have anything better to do than spend your time insulting people constantly on web boards? Most of your posts seem to be all about slamming someone. My fault for replying to any of them I suppose.

--matt

I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you are implying. I reread my post and I don't think I misinterpreted or misrepresented anyone's words through selective quoting.

I want to make it clear that I am not an employee of any Mud just a player who enjoys the game I have been playing. I am now looking for a free mud for my daughter and her friends to play as well.

Certainly commercial muds have to take income into account because they are businesses and money is the main point of running a business. The quality of the product is an important aspect of why people buy it so if you are implying they will do anything for a buck you are wrong.

Please refrain from using me or my product as an example to try to make your points.

Sure, our players that are voting are encouraged to vote within the guidelines set up by Synozeer.    Multiple votes within the 12 hour timeframe do nothing but cost Adam extra bandwidth, so they're encouraged to vote once every twelve hours if they're so inclined.

Please don't even THINK of equating that with paying for votes.

Dulan...

Again, I ask that you not lump all of us folks into the same group.

The logic being used baffles me just as much as it does you, I'm sure. Much akin to the same logic used for that RPGPlanet quote, I'm sure.

Eh, sorry Bubba.

Reflex.

But, there's not really a term for Vryce and ilk that I know of. Well, there are expletitives, but I don't think Synozeer wants those used on these boards.

-D

Well, personally I refuse to bribe my players to vote, just as I refused to hassle them to vote before.

If that puts us at the bottom of the list, so be it.

This voting business has all become way too cheesy, and in the last month the list lost all interest for me. I don't even bother to check which muds are on top any more.

The only thing that still makes me come to this site is  the discussion boards, but they seem to be deteriorating a lot too lately.

It's kinda sad to see a good site decline...

At first i was hell bent against MUDs using incentives and wanted it gone simply because it caused a misrepresentation of the game's popularity. After all, the list is called, "Top MUD Sites", not "MUD Sites That Bring in the Most Traffic".

But now, as i see it, if a MUD wants to offer incentives and bug the hell outta players to vote, fine. It must drive the players nuts, but it's likely they don't wanna lose their bonus so don't complain about it. In the end i'd say that players will just get annoyed with it, find the game less fun, and in the end, hurt the game more than help it.

If Simutronics ever did something like Achaea did, to force votes, players would leave. No doubt about it. The *one* IG announcement that the button had be put up caused ALOT of complaints. In fact, there were players upset that they even meantioned it in the news section. Just imagine what a daily IG nagging message would do.

If admins wanna hurt their game by doing this sort of thing, i think it's their problem and they are the one who are gonna have to deal with unhappy players. Let them handle it.

To me it seems they care more about advertizing then the satisfaction of their current players. Think that says alot. Definately not the kinda game i wanna play.

I would be against any rewards for voting and decided that if Dragonrealms did begin that process I would discontinue voting. The reason I vote is to attract players to Dragonrealms. The quality of a game is based in it's code but that is only the base from there it is the people that play the game. Getting noticed on this site is the perfect way to attract quality players, but if it goes beyond that into a battle for #1 then the results will be diminished.

Alaire,

Please don't bundle Simutronic's products in with the likes of Achaea. The producers of Simutronics may manage pay-to-play games, but they do so in an honest and ethical fashion with the interests of their customers and the integrity of their games foremost in their thoughts. I truly believe that is reflected in the products they present.

I actually agree with what you are doing as well. After thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I'm beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be much more beneficial for Simutronic's to remove its links here and boycott this website also. Which makes an ass of me, because I was one of the biggest supporters for getting on this list. I actually added the initial link to DragonRealms here.

As a gamer and longtime customer of Simutronics, I am still very happy to see them advertising their games more. I've felt like they needed to for a while. Maybe it'd just be better to do so with reputable sites and businesses that take themselves seriously and present their content in an open and honest way. I'm just not sure, from my perspective, that the benefit of a few extra players earned is worth being associated in anyway with an operation like this.

The misleading nature of this list and its 'rankings' as presented to unknowing websurfers, and the tasteless cheating being allowed to skew that presentation, is pretty sad. Everyone here can see it, most folks are turned off by it, and respectable people who don't have to stoop to such tactics to survive will feel it is beneath them. Maybe if more of the other MUDs follow suit they'll start to get the picture and make some changes, maybe not. Achaea can have their little bought sandbox all to themselves and Synozeer can enjoy the 'traffic' of a hundred or so of their bribed players racing to vote twice a day. If that is what he actually wants here, then more power to him.

Cemm

We don't offer incentives. That said, I don't think we could, given the structure of our game - players don't get experience, or platinum pieces, or anything like that. We could credit voters in our weekly update, as we do people who submit items or note typos, contribute docs, or whatever, but that seems pretty silly, and difficult to track. Our players vote because they like to see their mud up there in the top ten, and because they know that's one of the ways we get new players.

I think it's sleazy to offer incentives, but again, if it's sanctioned, it's sanctioned, and that's the call of the admins of the individual muds, I suppose, as to whether or not they want to participate in it.

I'm not, and I wouldn't have a problem with you paying your customers to vote. I just think it's odd that since you don't care in the least (your words) about being #1 that you'd encourage your players to vote at all, much less every 12 hours.

What I find a little irritating I guess is that you took such a better-than-thou attitude, claiming you told your players not to vote more than once every 24 hours and so on (I think you claimed this at least. I apologize if I'm getting that bit wrong), and claiming (repeatedly) that you don't care about being #1, though you obviously do.

Again, I have no problem with any conceivable method that you would use to get votes, aside from hacking into Adam's server and deleting your players IP records so that they could vote again.

--matt