Here's a quote from you, Matt, in a thread earlier this year(January).



This is an obvious implication that if Syno were to create two lists(in this argument, the pushed idea was to seperate the top MUD lists into added categories of "commercial" and "non-commercial"), that you would be "alienated" and pull your traffic, thus causing him to lose "advertising dollars".

Your subtle threat/bullying is evident by anyone who really wants to read into what you said(though I'm sure now you'll try to twist your own meaning a different way).

You often speak for Syno, as if you partly owned this MUD. Why does Syno put up with you? He must be "too savvy to hamstring his own site" by "alienating" someone who paid him so much money and traffic. Despite the fact that IRE games would still appear at the top of the Commercial MUDlists in the old proposed split list idea(therefor not costing you rank, and allowing TMS users to search through new, more specified categories), you still felt the necessity to stress that being forced to put your games into such a distinction would alienate you.

There were other such things said on this forum and TMC, but I really don't need any more than that quote to show what I needed to. I think I'll get some sleep now ... g'night.

Wow, thats's a great example of a logical fallacy. Not only that, you are confusing what goes on in the game, to what is necessary to play the game.

I am not here to argue weather or not it is free to play, only the irony of calling players of a free game, customers, which..oh god i'm not repeating that crap again.

Anyways, you do realize, I hope, that by the definition of purchase it is stated that it can be via money or equiv. which referrs to any other economic system such as barter, indenture , slave etc. All brought to bear from the individual themself. I highly doubt anyone puts their body in labor or danger in order to engage in a MUD. Unless of course maybe someone goes and mows Matt's lawn or something and gets a few whatever super power sword sharpeners.

next time you reply, try not to commit such a blatant fallacy by using a definition to negate a definition of a condition, especially a bad one that no longer relates to the intent.

Logos,

With all due respect, you should learn to just let threads/arguments like this one go.

I'm sure it feels like you're just defending yourself, but it comes off like one guy insulting another and the second guy responding by hosing down random schoolchildren with an uzi. You don't do a service to yourself or your games by sinking below the level of people taking shots at you.

We can argue about whether it is in some objective sense sinking or not, if you like. I'm just telling you how it comes off to me.

1) You routinely insult other MUDs, singly and in groups. You insult staff, players, and anyone who disagrees with you on a forum. You do not have a leg to stand on regarding this topic. I would provide citations, as I have on previous occasions, but other posters already have. Heck ,you insulted me in a thread I haven't posted in, in the very post you complain about people insulting people. It's hypocrisy of the highest order, and it's the kind of amateurish behavior that drags down the discussion threads.

2) There are a number of games with larger playerbases than Carrion Fields. Feel free to search, but you won't find me being critical of any of the other big players besides IRE and Medievia, including games far larger than yours.

As an example from this site, I wouldn't play Aardwolf-- I prefer roleplaying games with more tightly-focused themes and PvP action. But a lot of people do like Aardwolf, even more than the number than like Carrion Fields. Where are the "anti-Aardwolf" threads? There aren't any, because Aardwolf handles themselves more professionally than you do.

My specific problem with IRE stems from misleading advertising. I am aware you can legally get away with the term "free", just like you can legally get away with a lot of shady things in the world of advertising. My stance remains that TMS/TMC/etc. are under no obligation to label your games "free", and would better serve their customers with more accurate descriptions of the games that use their site, regardless of the threats you have made on this matter. Your game is most accurately described as "May pay for perks", and operates under a distinctly different business model than the many "free" MUDs that use this site.

My specific problem with Medievia deals with intellectual property theft and plagiarism, charges which are well- documented by independent code audits.

I don't have to prove it, just demonstrate it. Given your history of posts slamming us, that part is easy.

You mean trying to damage a business on a community forum where the business gets a lot of its business from? Easy.

Insults like 'schmuck' are not libel as they do not assert a statement of fact. You may call me a schmuck or an asshole or whatever all you like. What you may not do is make false assertions presented as statements of fact.

Again, I'm waiting for your proof. You made a factual statement for which I'm guessing you have not a shred of proof. You claim you're right. Show us the proof. What you posted a couple posts above is just me complimenting Synozeer on his acumen, which was a genuine compliment.

Show us the proof, shut up, or continue to libel us. Your choice.

--matt

Our games are most accurately labeled as "Free to play." If you want to distinguish your games, come up with a label to distinguish yours. YOU'RE the one who wants to claim a perfectly valid phrase or word for your personal meaning. If you want to distinguish yourself, label your games as "Free, with limited option for money to affect gameplay."

--matt

Perhaps they are too busy actually playing the games that TMS promotes to care about it?

Fat Tony, is that you?! You know how I said, two years ago, that I was sure you were smart enough never to return to this town--to my town?

Well, it wasn't a compliment.

Bang.

Wow, those words are a great example of dribble that is really saying nothing SirTank.

What I said is not a logical fallacy. It is a very honest and serious reason to call them ALL customers, as Matt said. And it's the very reason people use the pay-for-perks model. Because while some people sacrifice their time, and yes, labor to obtain status and ability within the game, others sacrifice money. And if you are trying to be professional, you can't choose what to call some of them, while having another term to call the others. So Matt chooses to call all of them "customer". All very well within the scope of the definition of all of those words.

As a side note - this is exactly what I did and most business owners do. When I owned a Sports and Gaming Card shop, I called everyone who came in the door a "customer" - even the kids who only came in to play around and NEVER spent a dime in my store.

It's also what most undergraduate and graduate level business and advertising classes teach. The use of the word customer to everyone - even non-paying people - not only is technically correct (because people have to sacrifice something: money, time, effort/labor, etc), it makes them feel important. It makes "non-paying customers" think they will get the same level of service as someone who pays.

But from your last post, I doubt you have ever taken a graduate (or even undergraduate) level advertising or business class, and thus I doubt you will be able to agree with it.

I showed the proof, refer to my previous post - you can claim whatever angle that you want, but as Asaudan so humorously already stated... it is obvious to the other people of the forum that you have made underhanded threats to site admins. I have no need to show more proof; my above post's quote's insinuations are not difficult to comprehend.

As far as libel goes - I double-dog dare you to take this forum into a civil suite. It's really sad, because not only do you not have a leg to stand on, your throwing out legal terms that you obviously barely understand is funny. In a sad way.

I could counter more of your points, like your inability to distinguish the difference between libel and defamation, but meh. Before I even got a chance to continue to criticize you, Valg, Disciple, and Asauden already took most of the rest of the words out of my mouth.

You double-dog dare me? Wow. Well, when you're done with recess, you may make the choice to either continue to libel us or not. Up to you.

--matt

I know this thread is not about Medievia and that this is totally off-topic, but the thread has already gone way way off-topic so...

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the 'well-documented code audits' you mention are dated 1996, right? That's 10 years ago folks.  TEN YEARS.  The code that is shown on that audits is NOT the code that exists today.  I know I know 'once a derivative, always a derivative'.  In addition, not that it matters at all at this point, but the code that was picked apart by KaVir 10 years ago was not given to anyone by the administrators of Medievia.  It was in fact stolen itself.   And no, we are not going to be giving out Medievia V code for audits so don't even mention it .:p

I just wanted to point out that the code that the 'anti-medievia' people always refers to gets older and older as each year passes.  Not to mention the fact that new code is added daily and has been since that 1996 code was leaked.  

The argument is old, no longer valid, and just as this thread and the other new thread about IRE points out, people just LOVE to rehash old topics over and over and over and over again.  Not only that, but these topics are things that will never ever change.  IRE will always be listed as 'free' and Medievia is not, and will never be, DIKU.

The problem is that even after those ten years you still refuse to prove your claims of originality. When you lie once, no amount of time spent ducking from the keen pitch-forks of the community's stalwart watchmen will help 'your word' tip these scales in your favour.

Face the audit or stand the rumours. It is a sorry state self-selected, but no unfair fate to any of ye, for though the tyrant be Vryce, his underlings have well copied him.

You see a man beat a very young girl, and he sees you, indeed, and grabbing the girl, flees into his manor house. Alarmed, you run back to your home town and alarm the militia, who follow you as you lead them to the offender's lands. He refuses to let any past his fortified and trapped yard, but shouts instead from a window that the girl is alright. Meanwhile, rumours spread from your home town to neighbouring lands--tales of this evil man--and there is much grinding of teeth and sewing of war-banners. A siege is laid against one border of the manor, and the angry folk sneer at the friends of the man, who still continue to trade with him despite all.

Ten years pass and the man comes out, but his look darkens as he sees that, though he still has his friends, his reputation is ruined. He repeats himself: "The girl is fine!" he says, but the crowd, watching him from behind a tremendous array of long pikes and drawn bows, shall have none of that until they see her for themselves.

Yeah, screw them.

"In the case of "a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire," the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author's death."



"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains."

Actually, KaVir's efforts are a large part of the reason that most of the MUDing community is aware and vocal about Midievia's lack of ethics.

Another reason why people who feel strongly about the community's integrity should continually bring up issues with IRE/Matt in an effort to incite positive change for the community.

You claimed that the argument was no longer valid because the code was 10 years old and had been changed.

I proved that you were wrong.

I said it less than ten years ago, the industry standard for expiration of statements.

'Aim high to hit a far mark,' said Robin o' th' Hood. Or was it 'Objects in mirror are less legal than they appear'?

My name is Legion, and also is my name Youpeople, for I am many, whose collective agenda may or may not benefit from driving you away. Not that I need to.

True, if you define the 'mudding community' as the people who read TMS, TMC, and Mudmagic forums. In the end, the people who read this forum and the other MUD forums are a very small minority of the people who play MUDs. In Medievia alone, before we started the voting stuff, most of our players never heard of the MUD sites. Even after we have promoted TMS and TMC on the game with echos and so forth, still not many of our players care to come here and read and discuss. What I'm trying to say is that yes, this argument may deter some people from trying Medievia and has in the past I'm sure, but the audience of these sites is only one place out of many that Medievia is listed and advertised. Word of mouth is still, by far, the #1 way people hear about Medievia. On any given day, people joining the game from "Mudportal" is about 10% of our total new character creations. Of that 10% how many have read these threads and care? If they cared, why would they log in in the first place?

As MUD Advertising is largely word of mouth, so are issues with IRE and Midievia and many other things that are discussed here. People who do not post read these forums and people who do post read these forums are still affected; the discussions here enlighten people, help shape their opinions of things within the community - then the readers/writers relay the discussions to other MUDers they are in contact with via word of mouth. The forums are braved by the more vocal leaders of the community, but through word-of-mouth, the discussions here educate, effect, and resonate with the entire MUDing community on some level.

Okay, you got me. I'm baited into going further off-topic.

It's like this: No matter how many stories you build onto your house, how many times you renovate the kitchen, replace the carpet, add a fireplace, etc., the basement is still there. Even if you should add a bathroom and a rec room to the basement, it's still a basement, and your house still has one.

If they don't care, that's up to them. But at least they can now make an informed decision, knowing the facts about the legal and ethical situation of your mud. Because some people do care.

As for not changing anything...before I audited that code, you would always deny being Diku derived. My audit achieved two primary things:

(1) it dramatically reduced the number of flame wars (because every time someone started defending your mud, they would simply be pointed at my site, and after reading it the best they could come up with was "who cares?") and:

(2) it got you and Vryce to stop pretending that you're no longer a derivative, and instead fall back on things like "you can't do anything about it".

Again this is true, so ok, we don't get some players from other MUDs because they have heard through their buddy that we're evil. It is STILL a small minority of the potential players we have out there. If you count up all the MUD players out there, sure there are quite a few, but it doesn't compare to the amount of people we are reaching with our PC gamer ad every month and our other on-going advertising campaigns. Of course we are losing potential players by the ant-medievia crap, but again, I think that the number of people who don't log into our game because of it is pretty insignificant.

You seem to pay a disproportional amount of attention to this insignificant little campaign. You're right, of course; this site is insignificant also. Totally not worth your time.

Bye, and drive safe. I hear the road to HELL HELL HELL is slippery; they renewed the pavement, belike.

edit: almost forgot my manners.

Brave confession. Yes, very sadistic.

If you really want to debate, you should introduce some new evidence to keep things fresh. As you pointed out, it's been ten years since the last time, and even then it was non-consensual. I concur: infantile.

New evidence? As I said before, Vryce is not going to let anyone see his code. Call it defensive and childish if you want, but truth be told, he doesn't give a rat's ass about this issue anymore at all. He doesn't even understand why I even get involved anymore. I tell him what I told you, it's fun.

Correction: The Diku team's code. Just because he stolen it doesn't make it his.

So you engage in infantile, abusive discussion because it's your idea of fun? I guess you outrank me in our holy troll order.

You're still not listening.



"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains."

You'd be better off sticking to your "We can get away with it" line.

No one is claiming Medievia is MERC. Independent code audits have, however, confirmed that it is a MERC derivative. As such, you are legally subject to the license, including the display of the original authors.

Which of the following are you claiming?
1) Medievia was never based on MERC.
2) You've modified the code a lot, therefore you aren't a derivative. (Hint: This isn't true, no matter how many lines change.)
3) You're a derivative, but the license doesn't apply.
4) The license applies, but you are within it.
5) The license applies, and you are violating it.

Call me curious.

Summary; Midievia's unethical. We like to educate. You don't care about the educated players who don't play your MUD - you'd prefer the uneducated, apathetic, unethical, or drone-players to populate your illegally operated game. Kudos.

Summary Part Two; I'm really glad that Iron Realms has created more flexible payment options for its loyal customers. I want to help advertise this new, wonderful improvement for IRE customers. Even if 3/4ths of the IRE games advertise themselves in such a way as to make them look just as free as games like Carrion Fields, with only technicality and syntax as their defense. Good job, IRE! Payment options, woohoo!

Carrion Fields, "Completely Free"

IRE games, "Free to Play"


Two different meanings, both accurately describing what they are. Problem solved.

Incidentally, just today Ubisoft announced that Shadowbane is now free to play. They used the industry standard version of free that is being called into question by Carrion fields and cohorts.

Here's a link:

- Ryan

I find it truly amazing that a simple announcement post regarding some new options IRE has added to its credit-buying business model can turn into a 9 page thread about something that has been discussed more often than abortion.

A 'free to play' game with a 'buying business model'. Now that is funny.

How so? You can play it for free, or buy things...

It's not that amazing. Forums are notorious for easily getting off-topic - and the (c'mon, you have to admit it's true) comedical irony of IRE advertising a new payment option was worth a ironic poke or two. Matt's defensive and self-righteous nature is what started the thread's snowballing.

At the risk of continuing this thread's ludicrous slaloming... no, I really don't see how it IS that funny as everyone knows what the deal is with IRE: if you want to pay, you can, if you don't, you don't have to.

These payment options are ways for those who DO want to pay to be able to do so more easily and efficiently. I didn't actually bother to read any of the thread as I've read its like umpteen times before, so I can't comment on who started the derailing this time.

It really wouldn't affect me much since I'm very secure about my history with PvP consulting, designing, etc. I'd probably call you silly and talk about something more interesting. You chose to take what someone found funny(I found it humorous too, and I try to judge things fairly), and become defensive and insulting. You could've just laughed it off and avoided further negative public debate involving your company.

You didn't though, and here we are; you can't really make yourself out to be the victim. If you trip and fall into a puddle and I laugh - and then you punch me - I don't think anyone would say that I started the fight unless they were friends with you. Same thing here.

In other words, you'd insult me back, having recognized that I just attacked you by saying you were "funny in a sad way." That's what I did. Was it the best course of action in response to a troll like Aarn? Probably not, but on the other hand, I get tired of their unprovoked attacks.

Now, of course, you're going to explain how calling someone 'silly' isn't an insult, and that you didn't really mean that's what you'd do, right?

--matt

Nah, Matt - Jono's right. If I started a fight and slugged you in your face....... you'd probably feel very hesitant to join and support this cause. However, if you felt almost entirely supported and the pbase attempted to control subverted disastrous jaw-clenching action to support the dwingdling playerbase.

Not right. Your words speak as simply about my projects as I can consider. The ones that require logic, reasoning, planning, and playing require money to charge - or something else to offer. That is perfectly fine as PvP MUDs started offering something unique to cover their MUDs. In this case, it is the volcanoing of a larger project that is obviously supported.... a true supportee would not only volunteer energy to this project, they would volunteer effort/editing. This is why there is no large group with a market on solo performance.

Actually, Matt would trip, fall into the puddle, then claim he meant to do it because he's so used to lying that it's natural.  Then he'd twist words to claim that he didn't fall ("fall is a season and you can't do a season").  Then, he'd probably verbally assault rather than physically assault (though given his lack of morals, who knows) someone for pointing out that it wasn't intentional.

Matt has to be defensive and lash out at people.  He can't keep people interested in his VIAGRA MUDs forever.  At some point, with the exception of the really pathetic ones, his "customers" realize that they were lied to and that there are vastly superior genuinely-free MUDs out there and that his sub-par crap isn't worth their time.  So, he's got to constantly recruit new victims and that results in his defensive attacks on anyone who points out his dishonest advertising methods.

Sadly, his paranoia that some at TMS have a desire to put the community ahead of his selfishness scares him to no end.  In fright and desperation, he lashes out.  So he behaves like he does.  It's sad, but it's of his own making.  If he had confidence in his own games, he wouldn't need to take the kind of actions he does.

I'd suggest that his parents would be disappointed in his behavior if they read these forums, but they probably wouldn't be since they contributed to it by not doing a very good job raising him and spoiling him as a child.  That's why he still acts like one today.

Take care,

Jason

On the intended topic:

Matt, this change is awesome, thanks. Bought credits for the first time ever the other day with these new options. Much <3.


On the derailed topic:

Those of you crying about IRE games and their false advertising about free to play: I did some quick calculations with my main character on Aetolia (Wedric). His stats are below:


Skills Rank
------------ ------------
Vision Expert
Avoidance Capable
Tattoos Transcendent
Survival Transcendent
Weaponry Transcendent
Groves Transcendent
Metamorphosis Transcendent
Concoctions Transcendent

Miniskills Rank
------------- ------------
Constitution Capable
Thermology Capable
Frost Capable
Antidotes Capable
Fitness Gifted
Galvanism Adept
Philosophy Capable

Three artifact pipes, valued at 50 credits each.
And a 1600 credit player house.
To transcend a main skill, it costs roughly 300 credits.
Wedric's total worth in credits is around 3550 credits.

Now, the price of credits ranges from 66 cents to 29 cents. This means Wedric's worth in dollar value ranges from $2343 to $1029.50 USD.

As I stated before, until this week I have not spent a -cent-. Also keep in mind that this is just one of my characters. I have several more worth a bit.


Fact: IRE Games are free to play.
Fact: You can -choose- to pay to make life easier for you,
Fact: You can always put work in and achieve the same as spending $1000.