Hopefully you weren't simply selectively ignoring those things that contradicted your argument, but at the bottom of page 18 I gave a rather specific example of my own experience in obtaining credits at a consistent rate higher than if I was using the same time to work my actual job.

I guess I was hoping to hear from a few players, not just IRE staff. Something of a conflict of interest there.

The funniest thing about the plethora of misinformation about Viagra MUDs are their claims of incredible RP and PvP and such. The whole pay-for-perks (pay-to-succeed as someone pointed out) system is that it defies good RP because nothing you do in-game can consistently prevent OOC influence, through the application of credits not earned through the RP, from altering one's experience. The bum you're RPing helping out today could be a millionaire tomorrow through no action in-game, simply through their OOC purchase of credits. And PvP is hardly fair if one works hard and someone else just comes along and buys their way to a superior position.

It's really an inferior set-up for quality because it defies the efforts of hard work, consistent RP, and dedication in favor of catering to those more intent on "winning" at any cost (literally). Hence my use of the term Viagra MUDs, because no matter how impotent a player may be, they can still feel like they're more than they are through the expenditure of a little cash.

Really can't understand why people play such games. Unless one's willing to spend a lot of money to keep up with the big-spenders, it's got to be even more embarassing than being a non-spender on a Viagra MUD. After all, if you're going to spend money to get ahead in-game, failing becomes all the worse. That's like hiring a prostitute and not being able to get laid.

But really, folks, why aren't Viagra MUDs held to a standard of honesty (hell, for that matter, why aren't all MUDs held to a standard of honesty) in advertising? Many of the MUDs listed on TMS blatantly lie about their features, though admittedly few do so to the degree of dishonesty that the Viagra MUDs claiming to be "free" do (the usual fibs involve "original features" like warrior classes or "original races" like cat-people). MUDs wishing to appear on the voting list should be honest about themselves. If they can't, they ought to make good on their promises. The nature of so many of the MUDs out there projects a bad image on the whole of the community, why not require some ethics and integrity if MUDs want the exposure on TMS? If MUDs like the IRE games are seriously afraid that the truth will hurt, they ought to spend some time making their games quality MUDs instead of spending the same amount (or more) of time trying to spin their deceit on the forums. Then there's no need to spin, to lie, or to deceive.

After all, aspiring to the honesty of examples like Medthievia is hardly a good model for integrity.

Take care,

Jason

I read your post - but you didn't describe how you were able to consistently and repeatedly earn those credits, other than that it wasn't from working as an employee.

I've followed the conversation thus far and had no intention of actually joining it until the opinion of a player was requested.

The whole issue of the pay-for-perks system.. I'm not sure why it's a matter of discussion in the first place but here we go.

To Valg:
While I haven't really made use of any of the aforementioned lucrative ways to earn credits, I've managed to earn enough to get a full skill and a good ways up in three others. The time I've spent gold-farming has been a good deal less than what I've had to spend on many other MUDs to get to a competitive level - as such the notion that credits are too hard to obtain outside of money purchase is void. Credits are in fact very much available to people who don't spend real money on the game - they just have to invest more time to earn them. They don't have to work for the game either as credits are constantly sold for gold by other players.

To KaVir:
You infact don't need to work as an employee to earn credits. You can buy credits for gold from other players and from organizations. You don't need to 'freeload' off of anyone either.

To prof:
Judging by your response you have some pretty severe preconceptions about what pay-for-perks means in an IRE game. Having more credits than someone else doesn't mean you have an instant advantage over them. There's sort of base-line that you need to achieve and from then on credits are just that - perks. The PVP system is really rather complex and skill is a much larger factor in the outcome of a battle than credits or statistics. Claiming that the playing field is uneven is a fairly useless statement - it's no more uneven than any other game that has a stat-based combat system. In most muds out there you spend hours and hours on the grind to get the better eq, the more levels and more gold and that usually gives you far more of an advantage over other players than credits do in an IRE game.

In conclusion:
I don't see why the attack on the pay-for-perks model is happening in the first place. Every MUD out there is pay-for-perks. The difference is that the millions of gold and rare eq gets sold from player to player without the consent of the administration. A merely academical difference at best.

We've covered this already.  The credits still need to be bought.

It's not an attack on pay-for-perks (which is, IMO, a perfectly valid model).  It's an discussion of misleading mud advertising.  Pay-for-perks might be a valid model, but it's not the same as "free".

It is infact free. You can invest money instead of time. That's the perk. I've played for a good while now without buying a single credit or working for the game as an employee - I'd say that very much means I've played for free.

Credits need to be bought just in the way free MUDs need someone to pay for the hosting - if a MUD isn't sustaining itself it will disappear. Saying it's not free because someone will eventually have to pay something for it would mean including every other MUD out there with a 'Donations' link on it's page in the same definition. If credits don't get bought the MUD will stop to exist, so it's a moot point.

This is, simply, untrue. The best PvP systems usually work one of two ways...

A) There is a stat/level limit you can reach via mob-bashing/questing/etc, and once you reach that limit, you are(more-or-less) "maxed" out statwise. The equipment gathered is gatherable by anyone, and it doesn't take a year of consistant gaming to reach your max power(rather it takes a few months for the devote gamer, tops). Then, the skill-based PVP is on a level playing field, because your opponents are, largely, equal to you and it is about using what you've got to win.

B) MOB-Bashing takes little time to reach max, or better yet; the system is a level-less one. You start out(or achieve quickly) with the skills you need to begin PvP, largely, and the rest of them you earn(or buy) through PvP itself. Using either a classic tier system, or pk-range-restrictions keeps PvP from being about who has the most kills and allows all players to consistantly grow. MUDs like Everwar and Utopia utilize this system well.

Pay-for-Perk PvP MUDs, like IRE games, work like this;

C) Reaching a maximum "level" from mob-bashing/questing/etc will only allow you to learn a certain amount of skills, to a certain level of proficiency. After that, it is necessary for someone, somewhere to pay cash in order to buy credits. The exception of winning artistic contests does not nullify this point - you are required to sell the rights of your contest piece in exchange for credits. Credits become the primary way of learning skills, so the people with the most credits become the most powerful ones. The only ones who can compete with the highest buyers are the ones who have played for the longest time. You can say that talent means more than bought skillsets, but this is a silly point. I've played one IRE for a lengthier time period in particular and remember it going something along these lines:

As someone who had a pair of maxed skills(without paying real cash for the credits I'd managed to get), I could indeed defeat people who had used more bought credits and had more maxed skills than me. If they were newbies and untalented PvPers. People who were closer to my own level of ability, who had bought more credits and had more skills/etc than me had an obvious advantage over me, and often-times no amounts of trickiery/talent would allow me to break into the most upper fold, unless I was able to spend innane amounts of time there(or money). I decided to focus on other, more balanced MUDs I was PvPing on at the time.

It's the way the system is set up. It is designed so that people have to buy credits to achieve higher levels of competition. Capitalistically, it is quite savvy - you promote your MUD as being more intense/challenging in PvP than it actually is, use commonly popular features and high asthetics to draw in a large playerbase, then make the aforementioned PvP be competitive only to those who can afford to buy credits. As KaVir has said, it does not matter how you get credits in the game; someone, somewhere paid for them. And the PvP, however asthetically pleasing, is still bland enough that success is largely playerfile-based(again, unless you're a weak PvPer). And the best playerfiles go to the ones with the most credits.

Now, this is not putting down the pay-for-perks model. Honestly, I'd never toot the horn of PvP on a MUD that required cash-bought-credits to be competitive - but, that's just me. The model itself is fine, however, and quite successful. Misleading advertising, and backdooring around voting rules(to drop even a small reference to the thread's actual topic) is not fine. To me, it's close to being on the same level of breaking free codebase licenses. It is the reason why the word 'unethical' is used so much when referring to MUDs focused on in these topics.

It isn't moot at all. Free MUDs require someone to pay for hosting. There is no profit involved. The money some Pay-for-Perk MUDs make off of their system create a fairly large amount of profit. Instance; Matt is currently looking to hire an artist willing to relocate, and then pay them for full-time work on a new MUD project. Vryce on Midievia has used money from the MUD to help him buy homes, nice cars, and other such things. These truths, while not bad, do indeed go far beyond using credits to merely make the money to keep the MUD running. If credits disappeared, there would certainly be less profit to pay staff, buy extreme amounts of advertising/etc... however, the MUD would still bring in enough from donations, I gather, to survive.

You cannot compare an owner of a non-commercial MUD paying for hosting to be the same thing as a Pay-for-Perk owner using credits to keep the MUD alive. The purpose of credits go much further, and are far more capitalistic.

You've got a lot to learn about MUDs if you believe anything of what you said. Viagra MUDs like the IRE games are pay-for-perks but it could equally be said that they're "Pay-to-succeed" since they do provide an instant advantage. You don't have to spend the time to achieve things in-game, time which can be spent doing other things that gain advantages in-game. That creates an imbalance. Because you could spend 500 hours gaining gold/eq and then 500 hours gaining other less-tangible resources or you could spend $1000 on the credits and only need spend the full 1000 hours gaining the latter. That's an advantage because the credits save you time and that time equates into an advantage. That's why your statement is false. The playing field is not even, regardless of how much you'd like to believe it is.

And not "every MUD out there is pay-for-perks" since some, like RPIs aren't about eq and gold but about RP. Any external advantage is frowned upon (it may occur, but it's policed so aside from information, it's more difficult to attain) since it violates and ruins the atmosphere of the RP. And money changing hands for information is even less likely than for "eq" or "gold" in-game. Now, the main part of this discussion hasn't been about RPIs, but regardless, most non-RPI MUDs tend to discourage out-of-game transactions like the kind you refer to (in fact, the H&S I used to play had a policy of banning anyone caught doing it). Your statement demonstrates a cynical lack of awareness regarding the ethics of the MUDding community or at least demonstrates a curious ethical standard that you hold and have been exposed to.

Take care,

Jason

What does profit have to do with anything? please do not turn this "discussion" into morph of Medievia thread.

The point is, KaViR and you are saying that it does not matter if a particular player may be able to play for free for 5 years, it does not matter if they can max all their skills without spending a dime, what "really" matters is the fact that someone, somewhere, at some point in time, has to be buying credits for that person to be able to access them.

Now, along this lines, the persons argument is valid, every game has then someone, doing a monetary investment somewhere. Most games with a fairly large player base have a donation button, yet they are free. But see, for those players to be able to enjoy their game for free, someone, somewhere, at some point in time, has to sign up in pay-pal, send a few dollars just to keep the game running. And, what if nobody contributed? what if every single player decided they would adhere to your logic and play for free the game that is meant to be for free, with no monetary investment from their part? well, the game would probably have to be moved to a smaller server, something the admin would be able to afford by himself, if he/she is even willing to do it.

Nobody is comparing owners of non/commercial MUDs, because, it is pointless for the discussion. Nobody, not here, not you, not KaViR, goes and monitors the spending of the MUD owners who receive donations for their games, at best I would guess IRE in the US would start checking around if these people do not declare these funds in their tax report, but other than that, nobody here actually knows if all or any of the money "donated" to the "free" MUD admins is actually going there.

I am not saying any of them is not honest or that they are stealing money donated to them, but as you can see, I can only say it because I am a trustful person, not because I can, by any mean, know it for sure.

I guess this means that most MUDs that declare themselves "free" should have a warning on their first page:
[code] IF YOU ARE NOT A COLLEGE STUDENT NOT VERY INTERESTED IN YOUR STUDIES AND WITH LITTLE INTEREST IN SOCIAL LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE INTERNET YOU WILL BE IN AN UNEVEN FIELD[/quote]
because, certainly, I believe all these college age students are ruining my gaming experience by having more time than I do, I mean, it is really unfair that I, being a professional, with a 5 months old daughter have to compete with these guys with no responsibilities and whose hardest days in life are those Sunday morning hangovers.

Your Viagra MUDs advertise themselves as commercial games, and as such, they are obviously games on which you must be able to get something in exchange of money. You disregard a player opinion because it does not fit your argument, but hey, hello, it might be also true, he might be just speaking the truth.

Having more time than others is an advantage in the type of game you prefer, having money instead of dozens of hours a week to play is an advantage in the type of game other people prefer to play. What is amazing is that everytime this thread pops up we learn about a different player who has had a positive gaming experience and has not spent a penny in these games. Which means, in my opinion, that IRE has somehow found a balance between credit cost/ benefit and rl hour spent/benefit, which I think is a great deed indeed.

Some people dismissed the post by a single player who managed to do it without money, because he is the exception to the rule. I would imagine multimillionaires who spend 5k dollars in a month for an online-text game are also the exception and should be examples dismissed as well. Realistically we would be looking at people who spend a cash amount similar to other RPGs of the likes of WoW etc, so, those multimilliondollarplusafieldofoil-guys might just exist in your imagination.

As for every MUD being play-per-perks, I guess what the writter was trying to counter was KaViR's argument, as explained in my previous post.

You can't compare buying ingame perks that are necessary to play competitively against other players to the hosting upkeep costs all MUDs must endure.

Donations are not the same thing as credit-buying. Free-ware computer software gives you a final product, and accepts donations for their service. Share-ware computer software gives an incomplete, or somehow lesser product for free, and requires you to pay to receive the full, flawless product.

IRE MUDs are more akin to share-ware, whereas most MUDs are more alike to free-ware. In this analogy, you can see how it would be misleading to advertise yourself in the same way as free-ware, but to infact be share-ware. To play competitively in IRE(and some other) MUDs, you must buy or barter for cash-paid-credits.

Even if we were to assume that this analogy were entirely apt, and even if we were to assume (incorrectly) that it was impossible for a non-paying player in an IRE game to acquire, by any means, any of the perks available to paying players, your conclusions still would not add up.  The player would still be getting what he was promised:  free play.  Nowhere in IRE's advertising do they promise you the full range of time-saving advantages that are available to paying customers.  Nowhere in IRE's advertising do they even imply such.  "Free to play" means just that.  If I can log on and play without being charged, I'm going to feel like I got what was delivered.  Whether or not I feel my gaming experience is gimped by my lack of payment for extras is a seperate issue.  If I decide the game is not worth playing for free, that is still a separate issue.  It may be a legitimate issue, and I may feel like I have wasted some time with a game in which I cannot compete as well as I would have liked, but it does not provide me with any reasonable grounds to quarrel with the promise of "free play."

You may not like that definition of "free," but the logic with which you and some others have tried to argue that the use of the word is dishonest is tortured at best.  If I get something without paying for it, I get it for free.  If I get that something for free because someone else paid for it, I'm still getting it for free.  I mean, that's pretty much the marketplace definition of "free," isn't it?  Someone else was willing to absorb the costs so I wouldn't have to.

Free means something very specific to most MUDers and gamers. My point(which you missed), is that some MUDs with perk-systems do not announce the way that they work, and most new players are likely unaware of just how exactly important the perk-system is.

I stand by my shareware to freeware analogy. When independent gamers hear the word 'free', it rings a bell. When they hear the word 'trial' or 'shareware', etc, that rings a seperate bell. If a shareware program were to announce itself as freeware, I would consider that shady and misleading. The same goes for commercial MUDs advertising themselves as free, when make profit off of selling perks that are required to be competitive within a game.

My point doesn't involve a nit-picky defining of the words 'commercial' and 'free'. It is over what is obvious misleading advertising. You can bend the english language to serve your argument by attacking definitions - but at the end of the day, it comes down to common sense. Pay-for-Perk MUDs are not free in the same way that totally free MUDs are, and should not purposefully use the same advertising phrases to purposefully mislead players to make them think that they are.

And as Valg says, having a color code on the list would be very helpful to players using this site to find MUDs. It would let them see clearly which MUDs were what degree of "free".

I'm sad to see that I apparently "have a lot to learn about MUDs" and find it unfortunate to have to defend my credibility. Anyway, I've been MUDing for 7 years, I've learnt a thing or two about what it means. Every single MUD out there that contains items and currency of tangible value (i.e. they take time or skill to acquire) is de facto a pay-for-perks MUD. Not de jure. What IRE has basically done is say "We know time is money to people - so instead of letting other players profit by providing these services , we'll do it ourselves." Claiming that pay-for-perks is somehow unethical is hypocritical at best. Every MUD out there that was worth playing has seen players advance through the use of money.

I also don't see what RPIs have to do with this at all. Obviously if there's no statistical advantage to gain, pay-for-perks or balance make absolutely no difference.

As for PVP, I can't possibly agree with what's been said about IRE's system. Skill goes an extremely long way in IRE PVP and usually compensates for any statistical disadvantages. The heralded levelless PVP MUDs I've been to usually end up depending on something like power-levels or skill levels instead - few are ACTUALLY levelless. And a system that doesn't at all depend on stats would undoubtedly be a very boring one. The playing field is never level in MUDs - this is once again from experience. If you can invest less time in gaining levels and gold and quest points and so on and so on you'll be at a disadvantage and I've yet to see a fighting system this capable of allowing skill to trump stats.

DonathinFrye, as for the definition of 'free' that you so vehemently insist must not apply to a pay-for-perks system - any MUD out there requires a large investment of time to play. Time is money. Are any MUDs truly free by your definition if I have to invest so much if I want to be competitive?

I've been playing for about 2-3 years now, I think and I challenge anyone to prove to me that I haven't been playing for free or that I haven't been enjoying my time. I'm also not a lone exception by any standart.

because, certainly, I believe all these college age students are ruining my gaming experience by having more time than I do, I mean, it is really unfair that I, being a professional, with a 5 months old daughter have to compete with these guys with no responsibilities and whose hardest days in life are those Sunday morning hangovers.

Your Viagra MUDs advertise themselves as commercial games, and as such, they are obviously games on which you must be able to get something in exchange of money. You disregard a player opinion because it does not fit your argument, but hey, hello, it might be also true, he might be just speaking the truth.

Having more time than others is an advantage in the type of game you prefer, having money instead of dozens of hours a week to play is an advantage in the type of game other people prefer to play. What is amazing is that everytime this thread pops up we learn about a different player who has had a positive gaming experience and has not spent a penny in these games. Which means, in my opinion, that IRE has somehow found a balance between credit cost/ benefit and rl hour spent/benefit, which I think is a great deed indeed.

Some people dismissed the post by a single player who managed to do it without money, because he is the exception to the rule. I would imagine multimillionaires who spend 5k dollars in a month for an online-text game are also the exception and should be examples dismissed as well. Realistically we would be looking at people who spend a cash amount similar to other RPGs of the likes of WoW etc, so, those multimilliondollarplusafieldofoil-guys might just exist in your imagination.

As for every MUD being play-per-perks, I guess what the writter was trying to counter was KaViR's argument, as explained in my previous post.[/quote]
There's only so much time a person can put into anything meaning that everyone is limited to the same cap time-wise (24 hours in a day and it's doubtful that anyone will do that) and even then, there's a factor of luck to be considered. You're still competing against the other players in that same timeframe to achieve the same things (exp, gold, etc which is limited to what's available in-game at anytime). There's not the same limit money-wise. There may not be any big-gold mob that hasn't already been killed. But with your credit card you can still get the same thing without spending ANY time whatsoever or competing. At any given point, there may be a hundred players competing for the same fifty million experience points available collectively. But you can buy sixty million experience points with your credit card, without competition or regard for the maximum capability if you were playing alone.

You can get something for money on any commercial MUD. That's the definition. The difference between pay-to-play and pay-for-perks is that it's not an even playing field. And in pay-for-perks MUDs that advertise themselves as "free", that creates an advantage for those willing to pay. As for opinions, I dismiss them when they run counter to facts. "Truth" is not the same thing.

As for players that succeed against those odds, we hear stories of these players every now and then minus the details of how they got what they did. Did they achieve it through hard work or because someone gave it to them (or random once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that constitute luck more than they constitute achievement)? IRE makes a lot of money off a lot of players. One or two players that MUDsexed their way to where they're at or actually worked hard don't constitute a significant, to say nothing of relevant, number.

And by stating that "every" MUD is pay-for-perks, they were flat out inaccurate. Speaking of which....

Don't you usually have to bring forth the reasoning behind your opinion during a discussion? 'flat out inaccurate' why?

You never addressed any of the points I raised, yet you continue to make counter claims.

The points you did raise were irrelevant, here's a list:
That is untrue - people are limited timewise and are in most cases not on equal footing. I'm not limited to 24 hours - I'm limited to 3 hours maximum. My brother who still goes to school is limited to 6 hours. The effect of this is that if we were to both play the same 'fair' MUD, he would have a 200% advantage.

Pardon me? There isn't? I'm fairly sure there's a limit on how much money you can spend - it's the amount of money you possess. I suppose Bill Gates could own every single artifact a IRE MUD has to offer, but I think we could write him off as an exception. The funny thing is he still wouldn't actually be any good at PVP unless he gets the MS team to code him a fighting system.

You seem to be implying that competing for resources is somehow relevant to how much of an advantage you can have if you pay for yours. The fact is that you can't buy gold or experience in IRE. You can buy credits and they don't translate to any sort of raw resource.

That's really rather offensive. If you're really interested in knowing how I got to where I am I'll be happy to tell you though - I gathered gold by 'ratting' (a quest that lets you kill rodents and exchange the corpses for money) and I bought credits for the gold.

By claiming that "every" MUD is pay-for-perks, you bring your own credibility into question. Especially when you later ask why RPIs are brought into it. RPIs are MUDs and hence by claiming "every MUD" that includes RPIs.

I didn't claim Viagra MUDs (pay-for-perks) are unethical. I agree with the statement that Viagra MUDs claiming to be
"free" is unethical because they're not really pay-for-perks, they're pay-to-succeed. Commercial MUDs are perfectly legitimate as far as I'm concerned, though I have to note that I've yet to see a commercial MUD that was of a quality comparible to the best free hobbyist MUDs out there. Why people play them is beyond me, but it's their time and/or money to waste. But then again, people are content playing 100% stock MUDs for years on end. Some don't know there's better out there. Some just don't care. Like I said, it's their (and your) time and/or money to waste. Aside from routinely checking them out when I sweep through the TMS 100 listing every year or two, they won't see me there unless they dramatically improve the quality of their games, something they're unlikely to do (and even if they did, they've got a long way to go to catch up to the best honestly-free MUDs).

Jason

I really hope you'd elaborate on this. Suggesting that the only way I could know about it is if I was part of it myself is, to put it mildly, naive. People talk - if you've been part of any MUD's community for any length of time you'd start learning about the things that go on behind the scenes.

RPIs are MUDs, but they have no bearing on the conversation. There isn't a playing field in the sense that we're discussing in RPIs so it's pointless to bring them up as an example.

IRE games claim to be 'Free to play' and that is a statement that is undoubtedly true. It means, though it's odd that I'd have to clarify, that you don't have to pay money to play. No more, no less. The fact that you can also 'succeed' without paying is a bonus, they don't make that claim in their advertizement. And you can indeed succeed without paying, there have been many examples brought up as to this happening and there are many, many, MANY others that haven't and won't be mentioned - purely due to the volume. If you'd care to substantiate your claim next time, it might be worth discussing.

I have no idea what your personal opinion has to do with this discussion.

"Opinions are like assholes.  Everybody has one."

And the points I raised were not irrelevant, though obviously beyond you.  Let's look at your points then shall we?

1.  "...people are limited timewise and are in most cases not on equal footing. I'm not limited to 24 hours - I'm limited to 3 hours maximum. My brother who still goes to school is limited to 6 hours. The effect of this is that if we were to both play the same 'fair' MUD, he would have a 200% advantage."

There is a cap time-wise to how much you can achieve in a day.  Unless a day is longer, the amount of time in it is the same for everyone.  True, some people have access to more time in the day to do things, but that's ultimately a choice for them.  Some people value their time differently, but ultimately the cap for how much time can be spent is the same for all.  You simply make choices to prioritize what you want to do with it.  You choose work.  That's your call (and a good one).  Your brother could just as easily have the same or less time if he prioritized his education to a greater degree than he obviously does.  He chooses not to, affording him greater time to MUD by choice.  Money, on the other hand, is not as easy to simply generate by choice.  Sure, you can go without eating, but if you don't have the money, you can't simply create it out of thin air.  By contrast, everyone has the ability to choose how to spend the same amount of time.

2.  "There isn't (the same limit money-wise)? I'm fairly sure there's a limit on how much money you can spend - it's the amount of money you possess."

And not everyone possesses the same amount of money.  Thanks for making my point.

3.  "You seem to be implying that competing for resources is somehow relevant to how much of an advantage you can have if you pay for yours. The fact is that you can't buy gold or experience in IRE. You can buy credits and they don't translate to any sort of raw resource."

And those credits are used for what?  They're used to purchase that which you'd otherwise be limited to in access or people wouldn't buy them.  With credits, one is able to bypass the limitations in-game because credits are not determined by in-game accessibility.  Instead, they're determined by one's bank account IRL.

4.  "If you're really interested in knowing how I got to where I am I'll be happy to tell you though - I gathered gold by 'ratting' (a quest that lets you kill rodents and exchange the corpses for money) and I bought credits for the gold."

And there's someone else out there that did nothing but type in their credit card and purchase ten times as many credits.  You were limited by the time it took to run the quest, the amount of rats you had available to kill, the number of others competing for those same rats.  They just typed in their credit card number.  So you aren't really playing the same game as them unless you spend real money.  Because so long as there's a discrepancy in what you can achieve, it's not an equal footing.  They game isn't free if you want to succeed like they can simply by spending their RL cash.

5.   Curiously...

"Skill goes an extremely long way in IRE PVP and usually compensates for any statistical disadvantages."

"...I've yet to see a fighting system this capable of allowing skill to trump stats."

So which is it?  Skill trumps stats or skills can't trump stats?  You say both in the same paragraph.


6.  "The heralded levelless PVP MUDs I've been to usually end up depending on something like power-levels or skill levels instead - few are ACTUALLY levelless."

Then they're not leveless.

7.  "And a system that doesn't at all depend on stats would undoubtedly be a very boring one."

"Every MUD out there that was worth playing has seen players advance through the use of money."

Again, I question your experience since these statements are far from accurate.  The first is an opinion, not one shared by all and the second is a sign of your lack of experience since there are plenty of MUDs where real money simply wouldn't gain you any advantage. Maybe it's true with H&S games like IRE's, but not of all types of MUDs. And yet, you state "every MUD out there that was worth playing" as an absolute.

8.  "I've been playing for about 2-3 years now, I think and I challenge anyone to prove to me that I haven't been playing for free or that I haven't been enjoying my time. I'm also not a lone exception by any standart (sic)."

You've been playing for free but not with the same opportunity for success as those who pay.  That's the point.  As for enjoying the game you play, that's fine.  But it doesn't imply that you're getting an equal opportunity at succeeding in the game or that the game itself is up to par with honestly-free games.  Without experience playing other games, 2-3 years or even 23 years is irrelevant.

Jason

So you keep claiming - but yet again, you still don't say how.

As I stated originally:

1) In order to play competitively, you need credits, and:

2) The only way to consistently and repeatedly earn credits as a player (rather than as an employee) is by buying them, or by getting them from another player who has bought them.

Once again you're listing moot examples which have already been discussed. Could you please read the thread? Because this isn't going to go anywhere if I keep having to repeat myself every few pages.

Feel free to host a chess tournament. Advertise it as "free". Then casually mention at the tournament that players can buy back captured pieces for $5 each.

If a player complains that the tournament is unfair, remind them that they have the same opportunity to buy back pieces, but they could play in the tournament for free. After all, with a sufficient gap in skill, they could just keep capturing pieces until their opponent's wallet is empty.

A player may show up who didn't intend to spend money. (After all, the tournament was advertised as "free".) He may perceive that he has no chance to compete, even though he is a skilled player, and his opponents aren't. Just remind him that he spent the resource of "time" learning to be a skilled player, and it's unfair to the other players, who just started playing chess yesterday. You're just allowing them to invest a different resource ("money"), in order to allow people win win in other ways than, you know, actually playing the game.

To make this analogy more accurate, though, you'd need to allow players to have access to some form of fake money with which they could also purchase back lost pieces, and some means to acquire that fake money during the game. In fact, to make this analogy accurate, you'd need a game that was significantly more detailed and complex than chess. You'd need a game that looked more like, say, a mud perhaps?

Nevertheless, the above-mentioned tournament remains "free to play." The free play may very well not be worth it. I wouldn't consider such a tournament worth bothering with unless I had (a) a lot of money to waste, or (b) some sort of garauntee that none of my opponents intended to purchase lost pieces. I suspect most other people would feel the same way. Similarly, with an IRE style pay-for-perk system, some people may look at their system and decide that since they don't intend to actually spend money, that they'd rather not play in a game where players can gain advantages by doing so. Other players may (and apparently do) look at such a game and decide that they feel that they can compete effectively enough without paying to make the game worth playing. For both type of players, the game is free. The only difference is that for the former type of player, it is not the type of free game they are likely to be interested in playing.

I'll second the thoughts of a previous poster, though. I find it somewhat bizarre that such a basic concept as "free to play" even needs to be explained. This is a concept that most consumers, even those who are mudders, understand. Just like most consumers understand that "free stuff" is paid for somewhere by someone.

As an aside, the freeware and shareware analogy does not hold either. "Freeware" and "shareware" have specific understood meanings that are not interchangeable. "Free" and "pay-for-perks" or "free" and "commercial" are not likewise mutually exclusive. A mud can be commercial and have a pay-for-perk system or some other model for turning a profit, and still be free to play. Believing that such a system is unfair doesn't change the meaning of the word "free," nor does it make a claim of "free to play" any less true than it is.

How to respond to this?


Time is not money to all people. I provide a lot of my services for free, as do many many things in this world. While time may be money for a business man, what percentage of people who MUD are business men, compared to the % that are either working class or still in highschool or college? Time is not always money to the players, and to say that it is, and that IRE is giving them a gift by requiring money to be spent instead of time used is absolutely insane. Most people who spend money in such games do not do it because "time is money", but because it is easier and required for success in competition.


You disagree with my rant about PvP, but do not really counter-argument it. If you want a list of MUDs where skill is more important than stats, ask me; I'll give it to you. If you want a list of MUDs that utilize truly level-less systems; I'll give it to you. You cannot claim that IRE PvP relies more on ability than credit-bought skills, as you cannot even master that many skills without obtaining credits. PvP MUDs that don't care about level playing fields are never preferred to most PKers, whether its cash-credits being necessary for advancement, unbalanced classes, staff/player cheating, rampant bug abuse, or anything else of the like.


Absolutely not. There have been so many extremely wonderful 100% free MUDs it is ridiculous. This comment is so extremely demeaning to the community as a whole - after saying things like this, is it any wonder many people get a bad taste in their mouth when they think about Midievia or IRE? I've worked on both commercial and non-commercial MUDs, and I have nothing against the commercial setup(unless it is misleadingly advertised to make it look 100% free). However, to say that there have been no 100% free MUDs worth playing, ever, is ... yeah, what I said before; insulting. I'll avoid going further than saying 'shame on you', as flame wars are never fun, and this topic seems to teeter that way anyways.

You're getting hung up on definitions, so I'll(again) make it simple for you;

There is right and wrong, ethically-speaking. I won't venture to say what "right" is, but I will say that it's wrong to cleverly and purposefully disguise your MUD to appear to be 100% free to most gamers, by using terms that gamers are used to seeing in only 100% free MUDs. If you are willing to use a pay-for-perks model to achieve profit, have the decency to call yourself a "free-to-play, pay-fork-perks MUD", instead of trying to hide it in the back of your website's pages. Also, if you are willing to use the model, don't throw around threats and run intervention when the community calls for MUDing resources to easily identify pay-for-perk models on their resource-lists, which is a tool that should be available for any gamers to use in order to make the best choice possible(for them).

You can argue against the analogies by getting hung up on definitions, but you can't argue against the energy of the argument, which is to improve awareness community-wide for all players, allowing them to know exactly what kind of model a specific MUD is. What's there to hide?

I thought I'd stay out of the discussion to not prolong it unnecessarily, but as it seems to be going on its own... I also warn you that this is a long post as it provides an analysis of the game to support my position.

As I've said, my issue is disclosure. I do not debate the pay model chosen.

I've just taken a fresh look at Aetolia, which I played extensively for about 3 or 4 months starting about a year ago. OK, maybe that's not long...

First, I will presume that everyone agrees that Aetolia is a "credit-to-succeed" game. You can't gain any but the most basic of skills without gaining credits to convert to lessons. It isn't necessary to consider other aspects of the credit system which could in fact be considered just perks, like artifacts.

So the first question is: does the game even try to document this fact?

If you look at TMS, the only clue about the pay model is the "Free to play!" tag on the ranking description. If you go to , the only reference to spending money is through the Credits link on the sidebar. It says:
Well, the word "extra" while perhaps accurate, tends to connote "optional" to most people, and it is not, unless advancement is considered optional. Unfortunately, the online help system has been broken for a number of days, so you can't inquire further from the web site.

Using the in-game help, "help credits" will tell you only about the credit-to-lesson conversion factor. "Help Skills" only tells you how important skills are. In "Help lessons" you will be told:
That's it. No mention of how many lessons it takes to learn a skill (1767, or 294.5 in credits, if my guild's reference doc is right). Without this information, you can't discern just how paltry the 10 lessons/level you get is, and how much you require the credits. Nor, of course, do you get an idea of how many credits you'll need over your lifetime.

So, I fault the game for not documenting the credit-for-success system at all.

Next, the question is: is Aetolia a pay-for-credit system?

Obviously, the most straightforward way to obtain them is by paying RL money to IRE.

Next, there is the credit market, where you can buy and sell credits for in-game gold. By the way, the only reference to the credit market that I saw was the "See also" reference to "Help creditmarket" in the "Help credits" help. While the text mentions buying and selling to others, it doesn't really mention that there is an open market for it.

If I look at the credit market, there are currently 337 credits for sale. The average price is over 3000 gold per credit. (I'll note that the game tells me the avg price is 2779, but that is lower than the lowest listed price, so something is broken.) If this is to be considered a viable way for a player to play the game, there would need to be enough credits available at a price that is attainable.

The amount of credits currently available are only sufficient to max out 1.15 skills for one player. This brings into question how many players could be supported through this mechanism. The cost is around 800K gold for the 294.5 credits one needs to max a skill. That is probably doable if you work at it. (Someone familiar with cash accrual might be able to say how long it takes to do this.) However, if more players went this route and dried up the market, where would the prices go, and would there be any credits available at any price? (Though higher prices might produce more credits for sale--but one wonders how many would turn their RL cash into game cash.)

From a wider perspective, the credit market might still be considered a "pay-for-credit" system as it still requires the playerbase as a whole to be funding the game with RL money, even though it may be that an individual player need not do so. This depends on your perspective.

Methods like winning contests, events, or lotteries, can't really be considered as general credit mechanisms, due to the uncertain nature of it, at least to my mind.

Credits earned by doing work for the game as a builder or a coder cannot be considered general enough as well, as it is both "sweat equity" as well as requiring a player to basically apply for the job.

It has been said that being a guide can pay in credits. Can anyone apply and be accepted? And what is the rate of pay? This one is hard for me to evaluate at this moment.

From the above, my conclusion is that the general game mechanism is pay-for-credit, and therefore, the game is "pay-for-success".

For those who defend the "free-to-play" label, I ask this: you obviously have no problem with this credit model (and like I've said, neither do I from the mechanics point of view). So what is the harm in explicitly laying the above out on the web site (including the so-called "free" ways of gaining credits)? If the answer is that this would hurt recruitment of new players, are you saying that new players would consider this to not be play-for-free?

Why do you suppose "working class" people spend their time working? You seem to be under this impression that labor exists because members of the labor class enjoy toiling alongside their comrades for the sake of the communal good, with no feeling of ambition or desire for self-betterment, which is as demeaning as it is naive

I have been following this whole debate, without commenting, but you repeatedly skirt around a "limousine liberal" mindset that poor people are poor because they are too stupid/naive to realize that "business people" are evil and taking advantage of them. This sort of snobbery, while couched in liberal/pro-labor/communist/"whatever you think you are" terms is in fact rather demeaning of the "working class" you are apparently trying to champion.

Most adults, whether they be "working class' or "business people" or both (imagine that), are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether to spend money on these games, when and if the opportunity presents itself. I daresay nearly ALL working class people spend their time working because doing so gives them MONEY, despite your belief to the contrary. Frankly, I find your underlying supposition that IRE is run by a businessman preying on the fact that working class people are stupid to be EXTREMELY offensive.

I'm working class. I have ambition and goals and plans of self-betterment. However, my gaming time is rarely considered money to me. Gamers do not consider time to be money, they consider it to be fun. The phrase "time is money" itself is a business phrase, which was my point.

I am poor. I paid my own way through college and deal with constant debt and lower class issues that most unsupported american college graduates go through. I don't consider poor people to be stupid, nor have I ever suggested it. I would be insulting myself, and most of my friends. I do consider misleading advertising to be unethical, though - whether it's here, or anywhere.

Work equals money. Time spent playing a game is not the same as time spent working, however, and should not be looked at as the same. To say that calling misleading advertising unethical means that I look down on "poor" people(myself, for instance), is rather backwards. The most offensive things going on in this thread are people defending unethical advertising, and posting ignorant flame messages.

Untrue - you could call working a 'choice' if eating was 'a choice' too. It happens to be a pretty vital activity though. By the same token, you have the 'choice' of robbing a bank to generate money.

And not everyone possesses the same amount of time either. That's a fact.

Credits are used to buy items and skills which aren't available through any other currency. Meaning, credits don't generate much of anything that you would normally have to compete for to achieve. You can however buy credits for gold in the game.

The rats are always abundant. And yes, it took me the time to do the quest. Funny, but that's exactly the same way it works in any other MUD out there - the difference is that somebody can invest money that they've spent time making. If you think killing rats is somehow a more 'balanced' and 'fair' way of spending your time to advance in a MUD, I'm going to have to leave you alone in that reasoning.

I tend to think they both mean the exact same thing. If it wasn't clear, I'll do my best to simplify: player skill>character stats

Every MUD worth playing, as in, every MUD that would be worth spending time on to get things. If a MUD is worth spending time on(to get things), it's worth spending money on(to get things). Some players pay other players to spend THEIR time and deliver the goods to the paying players. If you really find this notion to be new or foreign then I'm going to have to question YOUR experience.

You seem to disregard the fact that the people who pay money are actually investing something in the game that I am not. It's natural that they would have an advantage, isn't it? Just in the exact same way that in the MUDs people say are 'more free' players have an advantage when investing more time.

It's not worth it trying to claim that money and time are somehow not comparable investments - that's simply torturing logic. You should know if you've ever accepted money for devoting your time.

I've posted how I got to where I did. Check my previous post.

1) To play competatively, you need credits and:

2) getting credits for in-game gold is a very reliable way to acquire them.

Perhaps you didn't read the entirety of my post then? I specifically pointed out MUDs that accept donations - a direct monetary cost to players.

Untrue, you're allowing them to invest in order to acquire an advantage over those who haven't invested. It isn't an assured win by any standard. Skill isn't substituted with credits. Credits matter less and less the more you spend, actually.

And money doesn't have a meaning to ALL people either. That doesn't mean the majority isn't concerned with it.You have to invest time or money - it's an investment either way. If a student's time is worth less than the money he'd need to get credits, the student is free to make do with that. What you're seeking to prove is that a student is somehow more justified in having an advantage than a businessman is and oddly enough you do it with the reasoning that there are more students that play these games.

There's a base line that isn't that difficult to reach. Anything beyond that is an extra advantage. Something that enhances your ability instead of making up the majority of it. And you can obtain credits without paying money.

No combat system is perfectly balanced, a good combat system is the one that lets you make up for disadvantages with skill and from my experience - IRE games have precisely such a system.

As for a list of MUDs, I'd ask you to go ahead and post it if it was somehow significant to the discussion.

I'm afraid you misunderstood me - I didn't say they weren't free MUDs - the ones worth playing that is. I merely pointed that if a game was worth spending large amounts of time on - it was worth spending a comparable amount of money on. De facto non-pay-for-perks MUDs are subject to money-vs-time transactions, even if not sanctioned by the administration.

And I would agree with you, but that's not the case. If MUDs are 100% free, as you put it, implicitly then a MUD advertising itself as 'Free to play' would imply that there's something about it that isn't 'free' in the sense you describe. It's a perfect heads up to anyone who doesn't want to play a MUD where spending money gets you something. The information that there's something to buy with money in IRE games is made completely obvious in the very intro to the game - you can't really miss it. The reason you don't see ', but buying credits is done with money' in the advertisement is the same reason you wouldn't put 'We don't give out free beer' in the ad for your MUD. You advertise with the things that are attractive - that's very basic common sense.

The problem with your example is that chess doesn't have rules in it that could possibly apply this sort of model. You aren't playing chess if you can buy pieces back. Otherwise the comparison is fairly apt. The conclusion I can't agree with though - do you think that the money people invest in credits are somehow magicked into the wallets of the buyers? Money has worth, it doesn't appear spontaneously in the pockets of lucky people. They work for it. Money is an investment just as viable as time. As for why they don't advertize as pay for perks, I addressed that just above. They've never hid the fact that they're pay-for-perks mind you, they just don't advertise with it, which is merely common sense.

If a store only has 20 loafs of bread in storage, that doesn't mean that it'll only supply 20 people with bread. The credit market is constantly fueled and there are always new credits avaialable.

And that average number isn't actually broken, it's actually a nice feature telling you the average price at which credits have been bought (not the average of the price they're currently being sold at). They should probably clarify that somewhere, I know.

It isn't truly the advertising themselves as free on their website that bothers me - indeed, a MUD's website should make it as attractive as possible. What bothers me is that there is no move to implement some kind of color code or some kind of way for players using MUD resources to see which MUDs are pay-for-perks and which are 100% free. I think the community deserves that feature, and I think that the threats to pull advertising/etc made by some MUDs only show that their interest is in luring players in with misleading information(or lack of specific information). It's happened here and on TMC, and it's not right.

I may not agree with the efficiency or fairness of the IRE system, but it is their MUD and their call. However, the community should be able to see in black-and-white, using MUD resource websites, whether IRE is pay-for-perks or 100% free.

That is, ultimately, my goal of this argument; a goal that was birthed out of the denial of creating two seperate lists(one for P4P and one for Non-Commercial). I don't think it's too much to ask, and would only improve the site. As some have suggested, a simple color code on TMS would take care of this feature for the common gamer.

The advertising isn't misleading at all. Like I said, 'Free to play' actually implies that there is something that you might need to pay for - but not playing.

As for there not being a movement to implement said color coding - is there actually a strong reason to do it? What it would accomplish is merely turn away players that might have previously given the game a shot. There are apparently also negative connotations to pay-for-perks systems (baseless or not) and as such that would be something negative for IRE games.

If you're concerned about the players, I really don't think you should be. IRE makes it very clear what sort of system it works with so any player not wanting to play can just quit five minutes into the tutorial.

To really make this example like an MMORPG or traditional "grind game", you also have to say:

You can also show up early and press a button on a skinner box for 40 hours in order to have 10 extra pieces to start the game with.

Once again you're claiming you've already posted it, instead of providing a cite. Please provide the page number of your post and the appropriate quote.

But only by getting them from other players, who in turn have paid for them! Can't you see that, following that logic, every mud on TMS should be listed as "free"? You could get someone else to pay for your skotos account or your Gemstone subscription in return for services rendered, too! Might as well start advertising EverQuest as 'free', as well...

Yet the fact still remains that the only way for the playerbase as a whole to consistently and reliably gain credits is with cash. And while (as you pointed out previously) "You can invest money instead of time", the same is not true the other way around - without cash, you will not be able to compete.

There is strong reason to do it - it would increase player awareness when they are scanning through. Some players may see the commercial or P4P color and think, "Oh, this MUD is probably held to a higher standard than most other 100% free MUDs". Some might see it and say, "I don't want to compete with people in a game where credits can be bought with cash." Either way, the players deserve to know as much as possible about the MUDs they are looking at on a -resource website-.

Whether or not IRE is clear in the first five minutes of its system(and I disagree that it is), we have to ask the question; are we protecting IRE? Is that the purpose of TMS? Or is the purpose to be as informative and helpful to players as absolutely possible. It seems that all of these debates, at the core, come down to this. If TMS is meant to be as helpful to players as possible, then it's obvious what should be done. If it's meant to protect IRE's interests - than that should be public knowledge as well.

I don't see why I have to quote myself, KaVir, but if it will get the point accross more easily, here we go:

It's on page 23.


Did you perhaps completely ignore my point about MUDs who accept Donations and incidently couldn't operate unless players paid cash to keep the hosting bills paid? Somebody, somewhere is always paying something if you're playing a MUD for free.

You can, infact, invest time instead of money. That's precisely what I did.


Donathin, I could agree with you that TMS is meant to inform future players about the games that it features. The information it gives out needs to be significant though, to avoid uselessly complicating the design. The color-coding might be a useful feature for players, but then again it might not be. Why would going through the trouble of implementing color-coding be significant for players though? Instead of perhaps using color-coding to for instance illustrate if a mud is PK oriented, RP oriented or H&S? I'd say that has a lot more bearing on the choice of MUD a new player might make.

But that didn't counter my point, which was

You got credits from other players, but those other players bought them. You could have done the same thing on Threshold or Gemstone - should those muds be listed as 'free' as well?

And did you perhaps completely ignore my point (which I then repeated for you) about your example being flawed? If the mud is advertised as "free" to the players, then that implies it is "free" for the players. If the mud rewards donations then that is "pay-for-perks", if it just accepts donations for nothing then I suppose it would be classified as "pay-for-nothing".

But the fact that "someone" has to pay for it is irrelevent unless that person is the one who's being told it's free - such as the 'mud hosting service' example which I've already posted twice for you, whereby the service is advertised as 'free' but where it's not usable unless the mud owner pays for it, or convinces another mud owner to pay for it.

Yet you yourself have admitted that "Credits are used to buy items and skills which aren't available through any other currency", and that "people who pay money are actually investing something in the game that I am not. It's natural that they would have an advantage, isn't it?"

It seems clear that credits are required in order to compete. And it seems equally clear that the only way for a the playerbase to consistently and repeatable gain credits is through the expenditure of cash.

You keep trying to dance around the issue, but have failed to provide anything which actually counters those points.

You're the one skirting the issue, KaVir. Donations or credits, it doesn't matter. Someone has to pay money for you to play for free. Some MUDs sustain themselves through asking for donations, others through selling IG services/items/currency/whatever. You're trying to twist login in such a way to separate the two when they are very much the same so far as 'free play' is concerned. I got credits from players, by PAYING them with IG gold. I spent time making gold so they don't have to and I got credits in return. Nobody sponsored me, as you so tenaciously seek to imply.

And you constantly forget that you CAN get credits in the game.

Credits are, in most cases generated by cash. That however has no bearing on the fact that you can play for free. You can get them from other players by offering services to them. The fact that someone in the total playerbase has to eventually pay something is utterly irrelevant because of the simple fact that if they didn't, the game wouldn't function at all.

I was recently surprised to receive a "free" subscription to Entertainment Weekly. It's not a magazine I'd normally go out of my way to purchase or read, but it was nice to get a chance to look it over without having to pay for it.

Only now, I find that I've been RIPPED OFF!!! Those magazines haven't been free at all. Rather, they have only been coming to me for "free" because there are apparently a whole bunch of other people out there who are willing to pay for this magazine. This is an OUTRAGE!!! I can't believe that Entertainment Weekly can get away with calling this a "free" subscription.

You're failing to grasp the point. It's not just "someone" who has to pay - it's the target audience of the advert (the players) who are paying, yet they're also the ones who are being told that the game is "completely free".

I have to pay a hosting fee for my mud, yet I still advertise it as "free" because there are no costs for the players - and they are the audience for my advert. The company I pay for my hosting doesn't advertise itself as free, because I am their customer, and there are costs for me to pay.

You can play the game 'for free' if you don't mind being at a severe disadvantage. You can also play many pay-to-play muds the same way (eg by creating a new account each month, or by missing out on various gameplay options).

But it order to play competitively, you need credits, which can only be consistently and repeatably gained through the expenditure of cash. Yes, you can trade with other people who have bought credits so that you don't have to pay personally - but the same is true of any pay-to-play mud, whereby you could get someone else to pay your fee in exchange for services rendered.

Obviously TMS isn't going to add a "pay-for-perks" option to the mud database, but your argument would be a good basis for most of the pay-to-play muds to claim that they are also "free". So perhaps the whole "pay-to-play" option should be removed, so that players are encouraged to look the information up for themselves rather than rely on misleading advertising.

Magazines are not competitive games. Would you feel the same way if you were invited to play a "free chess competition", only when you turned up you discovered that you only had a king and 8 pawns, and the rest of the pieces cost $X each? For those who didn't want to spend cash, there would be the option of performing "favours" (polishing shoes, doing the laundry, fetching the shopping, etc) for other contestants, who would then give you a playing piece in return. That'd still be a "free competition", right?

And everyone needs to eat, hence that's the same choice for all.  Everyone does indeed possess the same amount of time, it's merely dependent upon their priorities and lifestyle.  If someone stays "in college" they're not going to have money to do that forever (and if they did, they probably resort to using that money to buy credits) so your hypothetical competition vanishes after a short while.  And maybe you haven't been to college, but it actually does take time.  And if someone's not serious about their classes, the same lack of responsibility can apply to those who are working.

Face it, you're wrong and grasping at straws (and exhibiting some bitterness toward college students too).

That's a circular means of achieving what is available through other currencies, hence creating an advantage for those who purchase credits.  You can't see that?

Killing those rats does not guarantee you will be able to buy credits. Using your credit card does.

And that's not how it is "in any other MUD out there".  Is English your first language?  After the following, I'm inclined to believe it isn't.

Then let's go back to your statement...

So in fact you were lying when you made this statement or simply don't have the English skills to understand that if you have "yet to see" something, it's impossible to claim that "skill goes an extremely long way in IRE PVP and usually compensates for any statistical disadvantages" because you've yet to see that happen.  How can it usually compensate when you've yet to see a system which allows for such a thing?

Instead, start using phrases like "in my limited experience" and "in my uninformed opinion".  It will help when you post things like the following:

No it's not because spending money on some MUDs actually ruins the experience.  This is where your lack of knowledge shines through brightly.  Not every MUD operates in the limited fashion you seem to generalize as the only way.

It's not new.  But it's also not standard as you seem to believe.  And it definitely does not mean it is "free" if this is a requirement for success.

Everything takes time.  Everything doesn't take money.  If you accept money, you're hardly "devoting" your time, you're being compensated.  And the Time = Money comparison isn't completely accurate.  If it were, why doesn't every player that plays for long periods of time receive the same thing every time?  The player that uses money gets guaranteed success.  The player that toils isn't assured that same result.  Hence Time != Money but rather Money >= Time.

So, there are really two games going on in Viagra MUDs.  On one hand, there's a game enjoyed by people who pay nothing.  Some of them can achieve success with lots of work, and not all probably care to.  The other game is one where money is required to achieve success.  They both inhabit the same game however and interaction occurs regularly.  Unfortunately, by claiming that the latter are paying only for "perks" instead of "success", the former are decieved into believing that with time and effort, they too can achieve the same thing.  They're not realizing that chance plays a role as well.  And chance is not something one can control.

Jason

I'm not against creating a tag that determines a game's focus(PvP, H&S, RP, etc) - That is easily added also. I would be all for it, as a matter of fact. That does not change the fact, however, that whether a MUD is 100% free or whether it is commercial(P2P/P4P) is also relevant information that, obviously, many players think is important to show on a MUD resource.

If "pay-for-perks" is a superior business model due to its flexibility in allowing players to trade money for time/skill, what is the objection to labeling the game accurately on this site?

No one's trying to ban pay-for-perks with pitchforks and torches. Only a couple of people still want multiple lists. (I'm not one, and I don't think I ever have been.)

The idea that is resonating with more people is some method of knowing what business model each game uses. Color-coding the names (or placing a small icon next to each name, etc.) does nothing except tell the browsing player what it is.

If IRE doesn't conceal this information from its players (the contention fo the IRe staffers on this thread), what's the problem with it being displayed on TMS?

Kavir, you consistently refer to MU*s as 'competitive games'. I am not familiar with IRE's particular offerings myself, but many games on the TMS list do not fit that label.

This is most likely where much disagreement about the 'pay for perks' model springs from. In a directly pvp game where it's all about the competition your statements about 'pay to succeed' may be accurate. In more RP oriented games or games focused more on social or exploration aspects, it's less about competition.

IRE universally advertises all of their games as "high quality PvP", "intense PvP", or other such terms. They purposefully try to draw PvPers into a system where competition requires credits to be bought. It's capitalistically savvy, but not entirely ethical considering that they make themselves look as free as any other free MUD out there. I believe that is KaVir's point.

Viagra MUDs (ie, pay-for-perks) are specifically competitive. That's the whole premise behind buying the so-called perks. They're advantages that allow one to get a leg-up on the competition, whether it be in PKing or in just keeping-up-with-the-Joneses.

That's why games that concentrate on RP aren't usually (if ever) pay-for-perks. OOC influence, as determined by one's purchasing power IRL, ruins the RP atmosphere.

Take care,

Jason

Why do you find it necessary to label games based on their business models when people can find that information out for themselves? I can go to any game and find that info out for myself. I can tell you right now that the IRE games are play-for-perks, while a game like Threshold RPG is a combo of pay-to-play and play-for-perks (a minimum $50 is required to play, then you can pay for more perks if you wish) . I aslo can tell you that InfernoMUD is a pay-to-play game that has a monthly subscription customers need to pay.

I found all that information out on my own by either visiting each MUDs' websites or by logging into each mud. None of these MUD's were vague about their business models and none of this information was hard to find. So what's the point of having MUD's on TMS labeled? The information is already out there!