So you're willing to look us in the face and tell us that nobody, anywhere in Carrion Fields, can EVER link one to the other? If it can -ever- happen, then you're selling an influence on gameplay, whether you want to admit it or not, and regardless of how small that influence likely is (and I'll agree that it would likely be quite small).

And it can happen. All it takes is one person mailing another person from the @carrionfields address and saying, "Hi, my character is <so and so>.

--matt

I'll go one step further, because the accusation that having an "@carrionfields.com" email address changes your in-game influence is so ridiculous. It's almost as good as the prior "KaVir is spiteful and wants to hurt Matt in any way he can manage." accusation, on a topic where KaVir and Matt have been in total agreement.

Jimbob Johnson tosses us $20, because he thinks we're swell. Only thr Implementors (co-owners) receive notice. They see the donation came from "jimbob@yahoo.com", and send him a thank-you note and instructions for an @carrionfields.com account.

Now, let's look at another staff member, Aarn. Aarn, like other Immortals (everyone else on the staff except the co-owners), has no idea a donation even got made, let alone the real name or contact email of Mr. Johnson. However, Immortals do more or less all of the interaction with the players, unlike Implementors. (Players basically never see me in the game, I don't have an active religion or priests, etc.) Unlike me, Aarn has an active religion, plays an active hand in running his cabal, keeps a flock of priests and other followers around to spread his good word.

Jimbob Johnson makes a new character named Malaclypse. He doesn't have to input his real name, email, or any other personal information. He prays for Aarn's favor, hoping to become one of his empowered priests. He secretly has his fingers crossed, hoping his donation will curry some extra favor. Now:

1) Aarn has no way to tell Malaclypse is played by Jimbob.
2) Aarn has no way to tell Jimbob donated.
3) Neither Aarn nor Jimbob can speak OOC to the other. Carrion Fields is roleplay-required, and all interaction is IC. Aarn knows this, and he also knows he's potentially being watched and/or logged for quality assurance purposes.
4) Heck, Aarn can't even see what IP Jimbob is playing from. Even if he could, what good would that do him? The donation didn't come with that information.

That's the extended answer, but I wanted to be clear that the accusation in question could not be more incorrect.

Yeah, because after all, NOBODY ever goes OOC in a game that is labeled as roleplay-enforced and nobody ever uses extra-game methods of communication to spread information. Nobody here is naive enough to believe that nobody has ever, in the history of Carrion Fields, gone OOC in game or has communicated in-game information to other players via out-of-game methods.

Further, you sell memorials to dead characters, allowing players who play new characters to bask in the glory of the dead one. You can claim that nobody ever knows who someone's alts are, but again, nobody here is naive enough to believe it never happens.

--matt

Much like your (outlandish, IMHO) example of a player bribing the owner, any such favor is against our rules. If I caught a staff member doing In-Character favors based on that sort of information, they'd be penalized or dismissed depending on the severity. It's right in the rules that every new staffer gets the day they join, and it is enforced.

This is very different from a codified system where you offer things for sale. As a parallel, you couldn't argue that a charitable organization (like the American Cancer Society or what have you) isn't a nonprofit because you could bribe their executives.

You're missing the point. A player doesn't have to bribe the owner. A player just has to buy something from another player for optional payments to have an impact on gameplay. There's nothing you, as the mud admin, can really do to stop that as long as anything of value is transferrable between characters.

So it never happens then, right? Or does it happen, and people are punished afterwards. I'm sure it's the latter, or you wouldn't have to speak of enforcement. If it's the latter, then it's too late: Already had an impact.

No, you couldn't not call the ACS a nonprofit, because nonprofit has a very specific meaning, as determined by the IRS, and it's got nothing to do with bribing.

You keep switching between two positions:
1. Money affects gameplay and that's what you want to categorize.
2. When it's pointed out that money can affect Carrion Fields gameplay, however trivially (and I'll agree, it's probably pretty minor), you change to basing it not on whether money can affect gameplay, but to whether the admin policy embraces that or not, which is -completely- separate from how money affects gameplay.

Blizzard, for instance, is -very- against real-money transactions between their players, and yet the single most traded virtual currency is Blizzard's gold coin. The admin policy is totally against those transactions, and yet money still has a huge effect on their gameplay.

In your case, the effect of money is potentially much smaller (nobody's going to set up a business to farm Carrion Fields items/currency. Too small a market.), but it is nevertheless not zero. Your policy is against it, but policy isn't reality. It's what you WISH reality would be. I wish we didn't have any grief players at all, but it'd be a lie to say we didn't. Admin policy may be against it, but that doesn't mean it can't and doesn't happen. Did you know, in fact, that prohibited transactions between players for real money started with text MUDs, in Gemstone? It was against admin policy, and it was happening without them even realizing it for awhile. A mud admin isn't able to know if it's happening either. He may discover it, but there's no way to know it's not happening.

So, what you appear to be saying is that muds should check off whether they WISH money couldn't have an impact on gameplay, but if we're going to be checking boxes based on wishes, I have a lot of potential boxes to add.

--matt

The problem here, Matt, is that you come across as very intelligent when posting on virtually every other topic.

When you post clearly outlandish or ridiculous things on this one, it comes across as theatrical, as some kind of drooling internet idiot facade you put on to try to make a point.

We know you're very much not a drooling idiot, and thus these dramatics fail to persuade.

They don't need to persuade you though, with all due respect. They just need to persuade Synozeer, and the only reason I bother to argue is to ensure he sees how little there is of the motives behind this that is genuine (if he's even reading this thread. I have no idea, but he could be.)

It's very clear that the people pushing for disclosure of more information aren't about "disclosure of more information." They're about selective disclosure of revenue models in such a way as to, they believe, big up themselves, as it were. I've already said I have no problem with full disclosure. It's Valg that does.

--matt

The stank of desperation is starting to sting my eyes, Matt.

I understand you have a need to advocate the wallet-slap-fight games that you derive your income from.  I also understand that you want to cloak your business model from a person who is new to TMS and is searching the games.  That puts dollars in your pocket, and our honesty threatens you.

But please stop trying to pretend we all run that kind of game.  It's completely transparent that Carrion Fields uses a diametrically different business model.  You can claim such a label isn't necessary (though the fact that this has been the hottest topic on TMS for a long time suggests the opposite, as does the froth on your lips when this topic continues to thrive), but claiming we fall into the same category as Achaea is just embarrassing.

To quote the_logos
I am 100% confident that anyone who actually looked into the things Carrion Fields does to generate revenue would agree that they have no affect on gameplay what so ever. In particular, we allow you to purchase a very detailed character sheet once your character is dead and gone that includes immortal comments, pk statistics and more from your life. It's something the players like to see, and makes for great discussions regarding past characters. It creates no affect in the game what-so-ever.

Personally, I would be fine with adding a checkbox for "Game is run by paid professional staff." and "Game is run by volunteer staff." Would that make you happy enough to deal with detailed checkboxes on whether people pay to play your game or not?

I don't think it would. If you really were cool with "full disclosure" on the listings, you would have just proposed the other check boxes you wanted to see to go along with the "pay to play" stuff. Instead you're just grasping at whatever you can to keep from having to properly label yourself.

But please, prove me wrong. Post the list of checkboxes YOU think MUDs should use when listing on TMS, if the existing proposal isn't good enough for you.

All right, then. Propose your full set of checkboxes of things a player looking for a new mud could be reasonably expected to want to know. Nothing goofy about whether a MUD has geomancers or not -- a genuinely reasonable list.

I'd be for disclosure of revenue model because I believe it's something that a player looking for a MUD would reasonably like to know, preferring one or the other. I also believe there are a lot of other things a player would want to know that aren't currently searchable on TMS. I would personally be for the implementation of any reasonable set of additions.

It's in the best interest of the staff of any MUD that players are able to find it that would be inclined to like it and want to play it. A lot of criteria can make this easier, of which revenue model is but one.

To quote the_logos
The second sentance of your statement there is, quite frankly, completely and utterly false. I can only assume you don't have much practice catching cheaters on your MUDs. I only rank in the middle of the CF-Immortal-Totem-Pole, and I have several tools that would allow me to catch this, most times easily. And the imms ranked higher then me have quite a few more.

These are a big part of the reasons we can say with confidence that money doesn't have an affect on gameplay in CF.

We don't all run the same kind of game. However, optional payments can affect gameplay in Carrion Fields, and you DID change your reasoning behind that only upon it being pointed out that they can.

--matt

No, and in fact, I'd be quite opposed to those, even though it probably makes my games look better. I think that sort of thing is unfairly stigmatizing due to preconceived notions that potential players will have about their meaning.

I am cool with full disclosure, but I'm also not the one on a crusade here. A list of checkboxes is going to require a lot of thinking to cover all the relevant intricacies. If Synozeer wanted this and wanted help, I'd help him. I'm certainly not interested in helping people who are expressly on a crusade "against" me though, lame though that crusade be.

--matt

Actually, no, you can't, and the reasons why are well-understood in the developer community. There has been one design that's been proposed by Randy Farmer (who did the Lucasarts Habitat virtual world back in the late 80s) that makes Ebaying/selling items for money very difficult, but it's not been implemented as it doesn't appear to make for a very fun game.

I can prove money can have an affect on gameplay in Carrion Fields, but it takes some effort on my part. I'm willing to do it if you're willing to sign a contract obligating you to pay my costs after I succeed. Here is what I'd do:

1. Either post here or use our adspace here or on Mudconnector to advertise that I'm looking for Carrion Players, and will pay someone $100 for some item of trivial value. If that gets no responses, I'll just increase the amount. I don't know what game currency you guys use, but I'd think that there are a lot of kids who would happily sell me 1 of the smallest denomination of currency for $100.

2. Sign a contract with the person obligating me to pay them and them to give me the item.

3. Screenshot the transfer of the item specified in the contract.

I mean, trivially, all I have to do is have a friend create a character in CF, pay him $20, and have him give me a gold piece. There, gameplay has been affected, and all you guys know is that a gold piece (or whatever) changed hands, since it looks absolutely no different from any other transfer.

Btw, if you're interested, here's Randy's article:

And the resulting Terranova discussion:

You might also check out which is auctions for stuff on another text MUD (Gemstone).

--matt

Carrion Fields, LLC hasn't pocketed a penny like this. Sorry. If you insist on the hypothetical bribery angle (not that I'd consider those "fees", but whatever), we can add text at some point that we're discussing payments to the ownership/company.

I'll second Disciple's thought: If "optional fees impact gameplay" is conceptually too complicated for you, even though everyone else seems to get it, and you agree we run very different kinds of games (as you just stated), feel free to suggest a checkbox that differentiates between the two.

I've deliberately posed language that is as neutral as I could think of. I'm not asking for a checkbox that says "WvW (*), or PvP?" That would be too pointed.

We use very different business models. How would you describe that difference?

(*): The "Wallet vs. Wallet" gameplay model, where two players square off in a competition of who bought the most credits. Exciting!

I suspect Matt could really give a damn about the business model of Carrion Fields. His entire line of discussion and list of links/sites is probably just an attempt to divert the conversation.

The point remains that TMS bills itself as a 'One Stop Mud Resource'. Individual MUDs harbor no responsibility to provide information of any kind on their home pages. Their listings on TMS however should provide as much information as possible because it would be beneficial to players and conform to the way in which TMS labels itself.

Really, your response stands to reason, based on what I said earlier. You aren't interested in full disclosure of any sort. You could just say that and be clear with us all, rather then beating around the bush.

Also, thank you for offering to come cheat on our MUD. I think I can speak for the entire staff when I say "No thanks." I trust as a professional MUD developer you would find that, well, unprofessional.

The only thing I can really say as to the "optional payments affect gameplay," is that, it could "theoretically" happen in any game on the list. Now, if it applies to all of them, it doesn't really matter enough to even bother with in my opinion.

And it could "theoretically" happen in any mud, however hard it may actually be is up to the individual game.

Let's take Armageddon, I "could" tell them I will donate $20,000 if they will improve the crim code and fix the brew code.

Would they turn it down? Maybe. Would it effect gameplay if they do accept 20k in exchange of code revamp? Uh.. Yea.

Sooooo. If it applies to everything, it doesn't matter.

At least you recognize it CAN happen, and that's kind of the point, isn't it?

--matt

I don't see them as being fundamentally different, just different in scale. You sell things that can affect gameplay, so do we. In both cases, money can directly affect gameplay, though certainly in our case it affects it more than in yours.

Frankly, this really shows your real motivations, which don't involve disclosure, but promoting your MUD instead. The important thing to you here isn't disclosure, but finding a way to separate your MUD from our MUDs in any way you can.

--matt

Sorry, but we don't sell influence. Neither does the American Cancer Society, even though you could theoretically bribe officials. I have access to our bank records, and nothing in there is in exchange for anything related to gameplay. We'd pass any audit of our finances.

We're not interested in separating our game from yours in any way we can. We're interested in honestly disclosing an important and crucial difference. Why are you so interested in concealing it?

You've previously stated that we run fundamentally different models. I'm sorry to see that you're backtracking to continue your charade, but I'm not surprised. Good luck getting anyone to buy it.

These new check boxes sound ok to me. The more useful advanced search filters are, the easier the experience for the players using them, and the happier they'll be with their results.

Being able to search for "free" is a no-brainer for a search field .... "purchaseable perks" or something to describe the achaea option also seems reasonable to me. I have a good feeling that there's people who'd want to search that, and I'm sure it isn't undesirable to list it clearly on TMS, if its already listed clearly on the game's website. Seems like just a matter of getting the wording right.

Other suggestions I've longed for, for several years:
* search results default as random picks (limits alphabetical advantage on mud lists, which is lame in my opinion)
* searches may be ordered by most popular voted
* searches may be ordered alphabetically if you want.

Earlier today, at a Red Cross office:

Matt: Hi.  I understand the Red Cross hates Japanese-Americans.
Employee: I have no idea what you're talking about.  Federal law prohibits such a thing, it's incompatible with our mission, and there are countless examples showing that we treat Japanese-Americans like we treat all Americans.  Could you explain?
Matt: Well, I bribed one of your employees to say something negative about them out loud.  It's right here on this tape.
Employee: Well, that would be against our rules, and that employee would be fired if they did say that while on the job.  It certainly wouldn't reflect on the Red Cross.  May I see the tape?
Matt: Sure.  (*Hands it over.*)
Employee: Sir, this is a cassette of Weird Al Yankovic's "In 3-D" album, with "I heart A.Y." scrawled in crayon on one side, and "Red Cross Evidence" scrawled on the other.  I just played a piece, and it's just polka medleys.
Matt: Well, I don't have an actual proof it happened.  But it theoretically could happen, and I could theoretically bribe an employee to say that on behalf of the organization, and that's what's important.  It's how I came to the conclusion that the Red Cross is a commercial enterprise that hates Japanese-Americans.
Employee: Might I interest you in one of our mental health brochures?

I'm amazed you're trying to say this information doesn't get out. What do your players do with those email addresses? Do they not send mail to each other, about the game? I think this is a pretty safe assumption. Of course, its only an assumption.

The point I was trying to get at is that your proposal is ambiguous. Obviously, if I can use it to link your game and IRE games into the same group without any great leap of logic, the terms are not very clear. And really, Valg, its not illogical to suppose a carrionfields.com email address isn't going to give someone at least a certain air of authority while playing carrion fields.

- Ryan

To quote malaclypse:
If you're used to the non-mandatory roleplay model, I can see where maybe this would be hard to believe. Personally, the character Aarn has been around for more then a year. I've had email contact with perhaps six mortal players in that whole time. Four that I can think of were people emailing me after their character was gone to ask about something directly, or to get clarification on something that happened to them in the game. The other two were anonymous emails from non-CF addresses from people who wanted help finding roughly what times I was playing at because they were having lots of trouble reaching me in the game.

There are several factors that go into making @cf email addresses irrelevant when dealing with the players:

1. Like Valg said, there isn't any way for the immortals to connect a given character to an @cf email address. Of course some of the higher-ranked immortals can check the IP addresses of characters, but again, the IP addresses are not connected to the email addresses, so it's irrelevant.

2. If you're talking about who your current character is in an out-of-game setting, and the information gets back to the immortals that you're advertising it, there will be consequences. At the least everyone will frown on you for mixing your character with your out-of-game persona while the character is still active. At worst, you'll be denied for breaking the rules.

3. There is no OOC talk allowed on CF (newbie channel aside, and that is closely monitered). I think this one is key to understanding what we're saying. If your character is running around talking about email addresses or telling people who the player is, or any number of OOC things, you're eventually going to be caught. Our players are used to - indeed they demand - this level of IC-control, and the few times it does happen it is often reported to us by the other mortals who hear it long before we catch it ourselves.

Like all players, ours communicate through official forums, un-official forums, chat rooms, instant-messaging, and whatever else you can think of. Of course some of them know who others are playing, we're not naive. But if it comes out in the game, like I said, there are consequences. We put a lot of effort into keeping track of these things. In part it's just the way the culture of CF works. Our players WANT things to be in-character, all the time, and that's the way we enforce it.

If you played CF for any decent length of time, you would completely understand how someones email address could have zero affect in the game. If it still seems unclear or doubtful, let me know what part you're hung up on, and I'll see if I can explain it better.

While the theme of this thread seems to be, yet again, attack IRE and the Pay-for-perks model they use, I'm not going to jump on either side. I just have a simple question:

How many of you, that speak so strongly about how much money does or does not effect the game play, have actually played those games for any extended period of time? How many of you have taken the time to see(in the case of IRE games) how hard it really is to get those credits without money? I have a strange feeling, none.

If you haven't played the games, you can't claim to know how much these things effect game play. Therefore how can you claim to be speaking with players in mind, when you don't know how they feel? The only person in here that has said they are a player, didn't have a problem with the way things are... What are your real motives?

Baram, you're a customer of Matt's, licensing the Rapture engine from IRE. (As is Malaclypse, your business partner.)What's your motive for leaping to their defense trying to frame everything as "an attack on IRE"? Or are you motive-free?

How is asking TMS to accurately label games by their business model an attack on anyone? I'd prefer accurate labeling because I'd like browsing players to know we're completely free, unlike a lot of other games. I've stated this multiple times, so you can stop asking now.

The question posed by this thread was "Any news about the search engine for commerical/no?". I think that after reading this thread thorougly I can safely come to the conclusion that Carrion Fields accepts donations and money influences gameplay in IRE games.

If I am wrong please correct me.

However that would render the listings useless for players. A player who wants to find a mud with original races or an original world would have to actually log on to each mud to find out. Worse still, imagine the player who wants 100 levels or a remort system, but only finds out the mud was lying after they've put dozens of hours into the game and reached the maximum level of 50.

Some people do not want to advertise certain features of their mud, and the fact that we've had this discussion so many times goes to show that - as a result - options such as 'pay-for-perks' will never be added. However there may be some value in having an optional box where each mud owner may choose to write a couple of sentences about their payment model.

But regardless of whether that option is added or not, I strongly believe that the listing data should be accurate. That is why I would rather see the 'pay-for-play' entry removed entirely if no alternative is found - because at least that way it can be made clear to the player that it's up to them to find out such information themselves. Misleading information - or worse still, false information - undermines the value of the listings, and will result in players going elsewhere for their searches.

Things like "extended race selection" and "multi-classing" are indeed audited, although "newbie friendly" is not. The world size can be very hard to prove, but if it looks wrong from the area list the mud owner may be asked to double-check their room count.

In retrospect:

I just want to repeat the motive for starting this new thread about a question that had already been beaten to death in several other threads.
After 8 new pages of more or less off-topic arguments, there has still been no reaction, neither positive nor negative, from the list owner, Synozeer, to this proposition.

My above post has really nothing to do with the basic and initial question about a search engine for commercial versus non-commercial muds. It was just an attempt to explain the motives and mechanisms behind the wilful diversion of the discussion from the actual issue, by certain interest.

And the basic issue still is this:
There is a concrete demand for a function in the search engine to discern whether a mud on the list is commercial or non-commercial, and in the extension, in what form the business idea is implemented. The basis for the demand is a feeling that such a function would improve the quality of the listing and the Website.

So far most posts seem to confirm that such a function would provide a valid and appreciated information to the customers, (which in the case of the list functions would rather be players in search of a new mud to play than the owners of said muds). To a great majority of these players, information like this would be interesting, valid and wanted.

In regard to the mud owners, a majority of the muds in the list are DIKU based, and as such bound by the licence. (I think in this context we can disregard the few rogue muds that wilfully break the licence). Consequently it would be safe to assume that a majority of the listed muds would like the search engine to contain this information.

The decision about implementing or not implementing such a system can only be taken by the list owner, and it should be based on an unbiased evaluation of the pros and cons. If, as has been hinted, the decision would be in any way be influenced by the opinion of certain mudowners, based on whether they pay or not pay for advertisements on the Website, this would be regrettable, to say the least, and also in a sad way reflect on the issue itself, whether or not money can buy you advantages in treatment.

It takes exactly one instance to establish that what you're selling can affect gameplay. There are dozens of people playing Carrion Fields. The idea that none of them have ever, even in the slightest, been affected in-game by what you guys sell is naive, at best, and severely misunderstands the pervasiveness of inter-player communication (which you cannot monitor since they can just do it off-game).


If there are consequences, gameplay has been affected. The consequences themselves are evidence of that. Punishing someone after the fact doesn't remove the influence. Claiming that because it's punished afterwards it has no effect is like saying Blizzard isn't affected by gold-farming because it's against their policy.

Keep in mind that nobody is saying this has a huge impact on Carrion Fields. My guess is that the impact is quite small, but you can't really have a check box that says, "Optional payments may have an effect...but it's small" without a way to tangibly measure that effect, and someplace to draw a line along the continuum from small effect to much larger effect.

--matt

You're not asking for accurate labeling. You're asking for selective labeling designed to attack other MUDs.

--matt

The problem is, if it's purely an attack, it's an ill-considered one.

MUDs draw different kinds of players.

Some will prefer the things that come with a commercial MUD and have no problem with the idea that some players will be paying for perks so that others can play a MUD with a paid staff for free.

Others prefer the good and bad that comes with a purely free game. Others still prefer a game with up-front or monthly fees to play but no other exchange of money.

Come up with verbage that casts each in a favorable light, but let players find the kind of game they want to play. None of these models is inherently better for all players, just as differing stances on RP or PK are better for all players.

For five minutes, let's assume that the_logos isn't trying to weasel around anything and that Valg is not attempting to kick him in the crotch. Drop all the animosity just long enough to ask yourself: What benefits players the most? What would best help me insure that the people who find my game really want to play this kind of game?

To quote the_logos
Geez logos, I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse, or if it's something worse. I'll tell you what, you come play CF for a while, and try to claim you're some kind of VIP because of an email address. I promise our players will laugh at you, if they don't ignore you outright. I can say with 100% certainty that your email address is irrelevant when playing CF.

Our players OOC personas certainly do develop reputations, but it has nothing at all to do with money, donations or email addresses. They'll generally develop over time from playing a good list of characters and being known for making intelligent posts on our forums. In fact it's kind of a ritual on CF, when a reknowned character dies off everyone wants to know who played him or her, and much discussion ensues. It would be a small effort to read our battlefield posts to understand.

Dude, several of us even asked YOU to post the fair list of labels you would like to see. How is THAT selective labeling?! But naturally, you refused. The bottom line is that it would be much better for the players who come to TMS to have an accurate list of information about each MUD listed here. The only people who don't seem to be in favor of it are you, the people that work with you, and the people that buy their code base from you.

One might start to think you were trying to decieve us!

A few other thoughts. I'd like to see more entries added to the category search listing in the drop down box on the main page. Ex: RP Required, RP Encouraged, RP Accepted, Open PK, PK Restricted, No PK, World Size. I also think it would be beneficial to players to have the top list on the main page cycle through the categories at regular intervals instead of only showing the total votes list.

(I added the break into the paragraph I'm quoting for clarity.)

I agree with the first part. The site gains utility if it can quickly guide players to the kind of game they're looking for. If they don't want to play a roleplaying-required game, they won't be happy on our game! Send them elsewhere! Drop-down menus would accelerate that process.

I disagree with the second part, at least in the sense of an arbitrary rotation. The present system rewards games for sending a lot of traffic here, and diluting that could hurt the incentives which drive that traffic and keep the site active. A couple of sortable categories might be a nice alternative though, so the player could just see a list of the games they'd want to play.