I wonder where in my post i said that IRE was evil...? hrm, I guess NOWHERE! I just simply stated that they do, in fact, whether you believe it or not, want to make money. And I'm not your queen, I'm your God...

Actually, I address it quite explicitly. The players in the pay-for-perks MUD also have time invested. As pointed, out, there is a time.money exchange rate. There is, however, one additional resource in play, and as a new player you have 0 of that resource invested when you first log in. Other players have more than 0 of that resource. Therefore, it's an additional category in which you are behind. A repost of your chart, correcting for this glaring omission:

Established 'free' mud player: eq/skills/knowhow/etc + >>> TIME INVESTED <<<
Established 'perk' mud player: eq/skills/knowhow/etc + perks bought + >>> TIME INVESTED <<<

Well, I understand why IRE uses deceptive advertising of the kind you mention. (However, you imply it's guilt by omission, where I think the word "Free" is a mislabel.) I just think you either have to go that route, or go on and on about how pay-for-perks is a wonderful tool that helps players level the playing field.

I really don't mean any offense by this, but I'm going to trust my own opinion, gathered from my own research, over the "But I said so!" claim of someone who makes his income from a pay-for-perks scheme.

I've just noticed that does exactly that:

Will I remain competitive if I do not buy the chapters? Will I be able to compete with and against others if I have only some of the Guild Wars chapters?

Yes. Purchasing the newer chapters of Guild Wars will not make you strictly more powerful. You will have access to many more strategic options, due to the expanding nature of the skills, abilities, items and professions that you enjoy with each chapter. It would be similar to building a deck in Magic: The Gathering™: The more cards you own, the greater the number of different playing decks you can choose to play. When you buy the chapters of Guild Wars, you will acquire a larger collection of skills and abilities from which to build your skill set, but you will not gain more power. So if you purchase a chapter and your friend does not, you will still be able to play competitively against and with one another.

No monthly charge, and those who do pay are no more powerful than those who don't - now that's a pay-for-perks model I could live with.

KaViR et all.

Maybe, just maybe, you are not reading the full posts of people before writting a reply. While in the past there have been instances where Mr. Logos' replies could have been misunderstood, I see his replies to this specific thread crystal clear.

It is obvious that there is an inherent difference between the chess game example and whatever play-per-<fill the blank> scheme IRE uses. I played a couple of their games for a while, I know people who has played their games for much longer time, and in both cases I have not been asked (neither have the people I know) to pay for the game or access to anything.

The fact that there ARE SOME pay-for-perks muds that fullfil Valg's example does not imply the pay-per-perks scheme is faulty, or that all muds with a pay-per-perks muds are faulty in a deep way or that they are not to be considered free.

Your statement at this point of the "discussion" just makes it clear that you are just jumping in the middle without trying to address any of the things being discussed. Just plainly attack the ppp scheme and no more.

From what can be recollected, Mr. Logos is trying to say that in HIS muds, the ppp scheme is such that it offers a clear option for those who want to spend money in their games, while leaving the option for those who have a lot of time and no desire to spend a penny to compete and enjoy their game in full.

Now, going back to the discussion at hand, I think the points by the_logos are valid, time is a resource more important to many people, and if there are people who mud and want to be competitive and do not mind to spend money in their characters, the option must be there (in a comercial enterprize), for implementation, in a ppp system, what is important I think is to gauge how bigger a person who invests money can get with respect to someone who does not. For example, if you can get a special weapon by doing quests and it will take you around 10 hrs playing if you did not spend money, and this weapon is good for about 20 hrs play time after you acquire it and then you can "sell" it for half that price you paid, how much rl-money should access to this weapon cost? $20? $40?. I think that is what you must try to balance, how much in-game time should equate this much rl-money, and how fast can you use this money-bought benefits. For example, if in a game you can pay for 10 of the above mentioned weapons at once, well, it wont really make you 10 times as powerful as anybody else, since you can only use two weapons at a time, true, you will have more variety and choices, and one of the weapons in your pool might give you a small edge at any given time, but you are not significantly stronger after you have two of the said weapons, no matter how much more money you pay.

So, I think it is important in this kind of implementation, that the goods you can access with money cannot be stacked forever, like say, "a small extra % protection from fire" such that a player can keep getting more and more protection from fire in a linear way making it so that if player A has spent 10 times more money than player B in fire resistance, player A's bonuses are 10 times bigger, you can make a curve making further progress more expensive ($1 1st bonus, $2 2nd bonus, etc) making progress slower (or more expensive) and then making the gap to be broaden at a smaller rate OR just make the goods you can access such that they cannot be stacked on each other infinitely (like weapons, or other equipment) so that having 2/3 or more of the same wont mean a bigger advantage necesarily.

It is unavoidable that old players/players who have spent more money, will have an advantage, but as has been said before, if a newbie is willing to spend a summer playing 24/7 a game or $500 in money to start in the same game they will necesarily be stronger, faster, than anybody trying to start said game the "free-all-by-myself-while-keeping-an-active-rl" way.

Another important thing you have to have, if you want people who pay and people who play for free, in the same place, and such that the money invested is not THAT important, is to have a very well built game that appeals to many people so that your player base will be big enough so that there is enough people who do not pay who can compete between themselves and still enjoy the game, there is enough people with insane amount of time so that they can compete with those who invest some/a lot of money in a way that not only those who spent large quantities of real life resources are the elite.

As for the big wallet/no life player, this is a big question mark. I do not thing there is a way to fix?/solve this problem. A player with insane amount of spare time, and at the same time, large wallet will throw off ANY balance you attempt to imprint in your ppp system, since they will have the best of both worlds, thankfully (for those with ppp systems) these people are scarce enough to not represent a huge problem, and seldom someone who loves to play all the time and buy their way up will stick to a single game for too long, since they can buy their way up to any* game (* any as in any that allows it), they probably would just do that, play the game until they "finish" or "top" it, and then move along.

This has been long enough.

Have a good day all of you,

Spoke.

So, which MUDs are you talking about, where money replaces skill in a way that time does not? Certainly not ours, of course, but I'm curious where all these MUDs are that you object to so much.

--matt

Similarly, I understand why Carrion Fields uses deceptive advertising by claiming its classes are 'balanced' when they are only balanced in a certain sense. For instance, I discovered that not every class is balanced for the use of fire-based spells. I was horrified at the mislabeling and I think that there needs to be a new option for the mud listing that says, "Balanced classes....except when it comes to fire-based spells."


--matt

There's arguing your point, and then there's just being asinine.

I hate to say it, but you're well into category #2 right now, man. Come back to the light.

If that's the best you can do, it's a pretty good sign we deliver what we advertise.

None of which answers the question that has been dodged: In this thread, you claim that in a free game "most things are only available to those willing to spend inordinate amounts of time" (*). Given that you claim a can-pay-for-perks (**)model "gives a player more options" (*) and that "consumers want it, and thus it is worth providing to them" (***), why fight a label that accurately describes the financial model underlying the game? Shouldn't you be lobbying for such a label?

Either that, or someone's talking out of both sides of their mouth.

(*): The_logos, (for both)

(**): Probably more accurate than just "pay-for-perks", since you can choose not to if you are willing to accept a slower rate of development relative to those who do.

(***): The_logos,

I think you missed the point of my post then.

We are free. Free, clearly, has different interpretations. To me, free means that you don't have to pay for something to use it, which perfectly describes our games.

Carrion Field classes are balanced. Balanced, clearly, has different interpretations. You can be balanced for 1 vs. 1 combat, 3 vs. 3 combat, sneaking, fire-based spells, etc. Carrion Fields feels it's informative enough to just put "balanced" rather than include more information. That's how we feel about free. Both are accurate, neither give complete pictures of the game, as that would be impossible in 255 characters.

--matt

No. Free is a more powerful way to advertise. How difficult is that to understand?

Look, you're the one doing the lobbying, and if you're so concerned about distinguishing yourself from other free games, go ahead and invent your own term. I'm done with this. We are free. We are labeled free. We shall stay labeled free. End of discussion.

--matt

Not in the least. We know the word "free" is a powerful draw, because we run a free game. (As in, RL money doesn't get your character anything.) I'm pretty sure every ad I've written for Carrion Fields mentions the word "Free".

It becomes our concern when games that have schemes to leverage money out of their players use that label to describe their own, different financial system (*), thus diluting a powerful way for us to advertise.

(*) Not better, not worse. But it is fundamentally different, and should be disclosed as such.

The key difference, and it's an important one, is that a sane person could see 'free' and not get the interpretation you're giving it (and I suspect many would not), but there isn't enough crazy and/or psychadelic drugs in the world to give 'balanced' the implication in your counterexample.

I've done volunteer work with retarded children. They'd understand the difference between these two scenarios. That you're seeming not to strikes me as disingenous, the sort of theatrical stupidity put upon to try to make a point. It's not exactly working.

You're not comparing apples to apples here (neither of you are, if you're defending this argument). The assumption is that your average player has some ratio of time:money which is constant (obviously there's always going to be special cases where people have both more time and money than your average player. That's just life).

However, if we wanted to get all mathematical about it, we can do this:

That equation from before:
[code]
Established 'free' mud player; eq/skills/knowhow/etc + a * (time) + b * (money/perks)
Established 'perk' mud player; eq/skills/knowhow/etc + a * (time) + b * (money/perks)
Where a + b = k (some constant)

Let's just set k to 1 (because we're saying average players)
Established 'free' mud player; a = 1.0, b = 0.0
Established 'perk' mud player; a=ehhh 0.3, b=0.7 (whatever, it's flexible)
[/quote]

The point is, in a free (or subscription) mud, you're forced to have that second term be non-existent.

Now, that's, as I said, with the assumption that the average player a + b = some constant (in this case,  1.0). For your rich kid on summer break, that constant ISN'T a constant. So let's see that:

[code]
Free/Subscription model;
Me; a=1.0, b=0.0 (k=1.0)
Rich kid; a=2.0, b=0.0 (k=2.0)

Perk Model;
Me; a=0.3, b=0.7 (k=1.0)
Rich kid; a=2.0, b=1.5 (k=3.5, the bastard)
[/quote]

I lose in both, but I expect to. Where's the point you're trying to make?
At least in the perk model I have the freedom to choose which resource I want to spend, time AND/OR money.

First, for most games I've played, the actual amount of skill involved is pretty miniscule. It's mostly about the eq/levels/etc that you can gain to make you better. (IRE games being a pretty #### good example of an exception to this btw.)

Second, it's a subjective comparison at best anyway. I enjoy pitting my 'skill' against other people in Halo 2 (a free/subscription model), but I still feel a bit like an underdog because I just don't have the reflexes of a 14 year old anymore. I don't get upset and feel that the 14 year olds have some advantage I don't. I just deal with it and feel that much better when I can beat them.

I am, but apparently you're not.  This thread is not about IRE - it's about Pay-to-Play vs. Pay-to-Advance payment models (a big giveaway being the fact that the thread is entitled "Pay-to-Play vs. Pay-to-Advance").  IRE is one example of pay-to-advance (aka pay-for-perks), but it is far from the only one.  If you read the thread you'll see many different types of pay-for-perks have been discussed, including one that even I find fair.

But the chess game is very much like certain other pay-for-perks muds.

The fact that I specifically cited an example of something I considered a decent pay-for-perks mud should make it clear that I'm not attacking all forms of pay-for-perk.  Go back further in the thread and you'll see me describe a variety of possible pay-for-perks models, with my opinions of each.  Once again I suggest you take your own advice and actually read the thread before posting.

No, it is not unavoidable, and I've already posted the link (and description) for a pay-for-perks model which avoids this pitfall.  Yet again I urge you to please read the thread before posting.

So - just to clarify - you're saying that everything a player can achieve in your mud with credits can also be achieved without? Every single item, skill, class, artifact, pet, etc, can also be gained without requiring any credits?

For example, supposing I wanted to get a tailoring permit - what would I have to do in order to get one without spending any credits? Or what if I wanted a house, but didn't have any credits - how would I go about getting one? Or lets say I wanted Bracers of Frost, or a Stygian pendant - how could I get one of those without credits?

Note that I'm specifically interested in how these things could be achieved without credits - or if that's not possible, I'd like you to explain what systematic way can be used to earn credits without paying for them. "Buying them from other people" doesn't count - that would be like claiming WoW is free on the basis that you can wash your parents car in return for them paying for it, thus costing you nothing.

In response to Spoke and his post, credits are not just swords you get to use for a few days. The credits you buy are with you until you use them. The lessons you gain from them are there until you use them. The artifacts you buy with credits are there, either forever or until they decay.

There are ways to get ahold of credits not spending a rl dime, as said. However, in comparison with buying credits with rl money, its a joke. I don't even know of a way to describe it, its so unbalanced... All I can say is this, the only way to compare with people buying credits in IRE games, is to either become a demigod at level 100, or be a lvl 99 titan with a few years worth of rl time (actually in the game playing) under your belt buying credits with ic gold. People who buy credits? about level 50 or higher, able to own anyone who hasnt bought credits unless they meet above requirements....

Then again, there IS the skill factor, which does change a little. On some occasions, the newb will get owned simply because he doesnt know the full extent of his easily gotten powers yet. sometimes, all those skills gotten in a day or so kinda overwhelm them and they cant check it all out that fast. Once again, however, since they have already spent money in the game, they will continue to play, and once they realize what they have, they are able to easily sell their extra creds to those who slaved for days for ic gold... that will get them all the equipment they need... Then they go out and own some more powerful mobs than theyre supposed to be fighting, gain level 50 faster than anyone who hasnt bought, and then start owning people.

Ok, now, we have all checked out the pay to play vrs pay for perk from an rl perspective, now lets look at it from an ic perspective.... Johnny here, has spent 30 years in this strange realm, learning the ways of his guild. He has learned quite a bit, or so he thought. The other day, he met this 18 year old, with giant flexing muscles and the knowledge of the skills a grand master in his guild would have... Yet the 18 year old didnt know where the entrance was to the food stall, or how to buy the food he needed. He was also naked, and didnt know where to buy some clothes. What an odd experience...

*Whew* Im done.

So there are many different things which can only be achieved with credits, and the only way to systematically bring those credits into circulation is with real-life money (either spending RL money yourself, or getting the credits from someone else who has spent RL money).

You're arguing that such an approach is free because players can get credits from other players - but somewhere, someone had to have bought those credits to start with. I can go into my local pub and quite often a friend will offer to buy me a beer - and I've seen people get completely drunk without spending a cent - but that doesn't mean the beer is free! If all muds used that definition of 'free', then they'd all list themselves as free. I could play Gemstone IV without spending a cent, for example, if my gf offered to foot the bill.

Now you could argue that some parts of IRE (such as the basic game) is free, and in that I would agree - but it's not true to say the full game is free. In order to access the full range of features you need to have credits, and the only way to systematically earn credits is with real-life money (even if you're getting another player to buy them).

And now that I think about it, it seems that Valg's original chess analogy fits IRE as well, with just a minor addition: You can play for free without bishops, pay $20 to play with bishops - or get someone else to pay $20 for you, so that you can play with bishops. Although having read Daedroth's posts, perhaps it might be better to say you can play for free with a king and 8 pawns, and pay (or get someone else to pay) for all of the other extra pieces...

You've got a pretty odd definition of free then.

Your beer is free since you didn't have to pay for it. The AOL cds everyone used to get in the mail were free since you didn't have to pay for them. Your 'free' mud is free because the admin (or whoever) is paying for server costs.

You seem to want to say something is free only if nowhere in the line of its production was money spent to get it. Well, chap, that applies to anything, and if you're going to use that definition for free, nothing in the world is free short of air and water (and water only in some places of the world). Someone is always footing the bill somewhere along the line, be that for games or growing of hopps for beer.

The beer didn't cost me anything personally, but that doesn't make it free. If the pub advertised "our beer is free", I wouldn't be particularly impressed if I ordered one only to be told "It's only free if another customer pays for it". Would you? Are you honestly telling me that you'd consider that honest advertising?

It's exactly the same with the credits. You're saying that they're 'free' because you can get them off another player instead of buying them yourself - but the point you're missing is that another player had to pay for them! The credits are not free - they are bought, by other customers.

Or to put it more bluntly:

You walk into the pub and order a beer? That'll cost £x. You don't have to be the one to pay for it, but someone must.

You play Acheae and want X credits? That'll cost $y. You don't have to be the one to pay for them, but someone must.

Crap, the internet goes out for a few days and know I have about FIVE PAGES worth of posts to read.  I guess I'll just not read them and pretend that I did... I mean...  This is a very good discussion. You never read this.

Actually, that does make your beer free. If you're not willing to concede that, there's not much point debating further.

And your analogy doesn't really apply. If anything, you'd have to compare the game and the pub, not the game and the beer.

Yeah, as an American I would like to think water is free, until I notice that other people have to pay water bills (my water is from the aquifer).  And also that other people are willing to fork over cash for bottled water.

Which is what KaVir did. The pub, like IRE, is the commercial enterprise taking the money in both cases. The beer, like the credits, is the quantity of value being exchanged for (someone's) money. You're misreading a very apt analogy.

No, it doesn't - someone had to buy the beer from the pub, therefore the beer wasn't free, and it would be misleading for the pub to advertise "our beer is free" on the basis that you can ask a friend to buy it for you. Can't you see the flaw with your argument? If that logic applied then every shop in the world could advertise all their products as 'free'.

That's exactly what I did:

You walk into the pub and order a beer? That'll cost £x. You don't have to be the one to pay for it, but someone must.

You play Acheae and want X credits? That'll cost $y. You don't have to be the one to pay for them, but someone must.

I've played IRE games for the past seven years and never bought credits from IRE or other players (and, despite that, became an immortal). They're only really necessary if you want to access the PVP sub-game, which never interested me. I know from experience that there are lots of other similar players, for whom IRE is completely free.

So with seven years experience of IRE games, you've found that it's necessary to buy credits if you want to compete in player-vs-player activities? Sounds like your experience agrees with the chess analogy as well, then.

But what about the other aspects of gameplay that I mentioned in my earlier posts? For example, were you able to get a tailoring (or jewellery, etc) permit without credits? Did you manage to build a house (with rooms and doors) without credits? What magical artifacts were you able to get hold of without credits? And did you manage to get and customise a pet without credits?

Sorry guys, I'm not misreading the analogy. Look at it again.

Your complaint is that IRE games shouldn't be able to say they're free to play. And in your analogy you SHOULD be saying the pub is free to enter and enjoy (assuming it has no cover/door charge to get in). The pub isn't saying the beer is free. Nor is IRE advertising the credits are free (though they actually can be obtained without spending money, as I previously mentioned).

You're comparing the entering and playing of Achaea with the buying of beer in a pub, it's just not the same.

Anyway, I'm not going to bother trying to convince you that free = "don't have to pay for it" because that seems pretty self-evident to me, and since you're not willing to concede that, there's no point in discussing it further really.

I think you guys are arguing the wrong point anyway. I think the point you should be trying to argue is that muds-where-you-CAN'T-pay-for-advancement-with-real-world-money (or can with only a fixed 'boolean' amount of advancement) should have a special category in the listing here on TMS so that people know that. I think that's great, you/they should have that. It doesn't invalidate IRE games' claim to the word "free" though. IRE games apply in pretty much any interpretation of the word. The onus is on you/them to think of some word/term that encapsulates what you're trying to convey (a word that isn't "free", since you don't want to be grouped with other free-to-play muds).

You're asking all the wrong questions here, KaVir. You should be asking "without spending money". And the answer is yes, that's possible on all counts.

1. Credits have no effect on how quickly you advance, in terms of ranking, in an IRE game. If your student rocketed past you in rank, maybe it's because he was smarter than you, which I find quite likely.

My old Lusternia character was a fairly important person for quite awhile, and I never purchased ONE credit. I made it to level 55, led a clan, participated in a handful of large events, and got to play around in a bit of political intrigue (Not that well, mind you, my character was a raving lunatic), among other things. I made a lot of friends, had a lot of fun, and became quite well known. I never sent IRE a single penny.

There you go.

Tailoring permits, ect. only exist in Achaea, I think. I know in Lusternia there's nothing like that to restrict crafting. As for magical artifacts, those tie in with PvP, as all they do is help you in combat. There are a handful of fun little ones that do other things, but they're very cheap and can be attained without spending money.

Pets would require a lot of work to get just by spending gold, but it IS possible, and I'm sure a number of people have done it.

As for a house, in Lusternia you can purchase a house, rooms, doors, ect. with nothing but gold. The only house pieces that credits are used for are special bonus things, such as an item that increases willpower regeneration in that room.

Okay - in even more simple terms:

You can enter the pub for free.

You can enter Achaea for free.

You can drink water in the pub for free.

You can play the basic game in Achaea for free.

If you want to get drunk in the pub, you need alcohol.

If you want the full range of features in Achaea, you need credits.

If you want a beer, the barman has to be paid for it.

If you credits, Achaea has to be paid for them.

Some people have been known to get drunk without spending any money.

Some people have been known to be successful in Achaea without spending any money.

It's possible to win beer in the occasional pub quiz.

It's possible to win credits in the occasional Achaea quiz.

I asked that already, and you dodged the question:

Note that I'm specifically interested in how these things could be achieved without credits - or if that's not possible, I'd like you to explain what systematic way can be used to earn credits without paying for them. "Buying them from other people" doesn't count - that would be like claiming WoW is free on the basis that you can wash your parents car in return for them paying for it, thus costing you nothing.

I don't like the credits in Achaea mostly because I don't like the idea of exchanging real money for money in a MUD. I might be more willing to buy credits if they were in a graphical game, such as DAoC, because I would be able to see what I had and show it to other people with a graphical representation. I've never bought stuff in a video game with real money, but I would be more inclined to buy something that was represented graphically that others could see. I mean, you could read the line of text that says that I have something cool, but it's still a line of text. I guess I like to visually show that I have something cool to other people.

You can basically split the ways to get credits into two options.

1. Time
2. Money

You can invest time into the game, or you can invest money. It took time to earn that money, so there's really no differance.

To get credits without directly sending IRE money, you can:

1. Win an award in an art or writing contest (Not too difficult. Even I've done it)

2. Purchase them from other players by spending in-game gold, via the credit market.

3. Become a Newbie Helper (I'm pretty sure they get a couple credits every hour or so when in newbie-helping mode)

4. Win an in-game lottery.

5. Have them given to you by another player.

Those are all of them off the top of my head. And whatever else you might say, the fact still stands that you can have a lot of fun and get very far in an IRE game without spending a dime.

If your idea of 'enjoying the pub' is to sit around sipping water, then sure, you can do that for free.

But it would be misleading for the pub to attract customers with adverts like "enjoy as many free drinks as you want, all day every day", purely on the basis that you could drink tap water.

This is particularly misleading for muds where many of the features can only be purchased with cash, because the majority of muds are completely free to the players; that is to say, every aspect of gameplay is unlocked without money.

It's for this reason that I find the chess analogy more fitting - most people entering a "free chess tournament" wouldn't expect to have to pay extra if they wanted to be allowed to use their bishops. As Auseklis (who claims to be an immortal on an IRE game) readily admits, credits are necessary in order to compete in the PvP aspects of the game - much like bishops would be needed in order to compete in a competitive game of chess.

Only by implication. But either way, it's clear that there are many things which cannot be earned without credits. And it's clear that the only way to systematically earn credits is with real-life money.

I specifically asked for systematic ways to earn credits - winning the occasional contest doesn't allow you to systematically progress within a mud.

But those players have bought the credits.  I recently bought my friend lunch because he helped me move some stuff to my new apartment, but that didn't mean the lunch was free - the restaurant still had to be paid for it!

So any player can become a newbie helper to progress - and with only 250 hours of helping people they'd have earned enough credits to buy a basic pet?

See 1 (although this seems to be more "advancement through blind luck").

See 2.

Sure, and I could have a lot of fun and (probably) get quite far in a chess match without using bishops.

But the point is the game is only "free" to play at the basic level.  If you want access to the full game (and be able to compete on a level playing field), then that is no longer free.

If your only goal in the game is to kill other players, then yes, someone somewhere will have to send IRE some money for you to have every possible advantage in doing so. But the PvP element is the only one stongly affected by credit purchases. PvE combat can be made easier as well, but to a far lesser degree, due to the differances between player and mob combat. You don't have to buy credits to rule a city or guild, for example. Nor will buying them help you in attaining that rank.

It seems like you're just hearing what you want, KaVir. My appeals to logic and other players' testimony don't seem to matter much to you.

What about the tailoring/jewellery permits, the houses, the pets, etc? Don't you need credits to unlock these aspects of Achaea as well?

As I said, I have only played Lusternia for any length of time, and there is so such thing as permits there, houses cost gold, not credits, and pets don't give you any sort of edge over other players; they just follow you around and look pretty.

Sure they do - I'm already building up a pretty good picture from the various posters. For example two posters have already said that PK isn't really viable without money, while the more non-competitive activites are. I'm still waiting to hear about some of the other aspects (such as houses, pets, crafting permits, etc).

So in Lusterian it's mostly just PK that requires money in order to be viable?  I suppose that's not so bad if you're not into PK to start with, although it really comes back to that chess analogy again (as a PK fan it'd really annoy me to compete against someone else's wallet rather than their brain, and it's definitely something I'd want to know before investing time into a mud).

No, they said it wasn't viable without credits (an opinion of a professed non-PvPer I might add). And they repeatedly tell you that credits can be obtained without spending any money.

Oh, credits alone will never be enough to make you a good PKer by themselves. You need to set up an elaborate system of triggers, aliases, timers, and hotkeys to respond to any situation, you need to know every single affliction in the game (I think there's 50-100 of them), all the ways to cure it, what it does to you, and be able to cure and counter it quite quickly. It's a very complex system. I've seen people with very few credits dominate, and 'credit whores', as we call them, with every artifact in the game, get absolutely destroyed by a weakling with the superior system.

Yet still a non-PvPer who has "played IRE games for the past seven years" and "became an immortal". And even Gorgulu has said that PvP is "stongly affected by credit purchases".

Nobody has yet provided a single means by which credits systemically enter gameplay without spending money. Winning a lottery? That might give you a boost, but you're not going to be able to systematically develop a character with it.

Can be, yep, but they can still be obtained for free. But look how he also points out the HUGE skill factor in pvp combat. And not just bashing skill, but actually knowing the ins and outs of the game.

They have. I think at least 6-7 different ones have come across here, only one of which was winning a lottery. Every other one is 'systematic' as you'd put it (which, incidentally, I read as "spend my free time to get").

Well he certainly stressed the need for triggers, aliases, timers, and hotkeys. I'm not sure if I'd consider that 'skill', but I guess we all have different tastes in that respect, and it's not really the point I'm debating.

Systematic, as in something you can deliberately plan and repeatedly do. You cannot set out to win the lottery, and while it may be possible to win the occasional contest it's not something you can consistently do. The only other option I've seen for bringing credits into circulation is through money - either your own, or someone elses, but still something which is definitely non-free in nature.