Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Do you think it's worth writing out the others as well? I.e.,:

Note that I've also swapped the order of the second and third options, so that it scales from one extreme to the other.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

KaVir wrote:
Sounds like a winner to me.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I'm still pushing this one:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted and rewarded in-game; rewards exist that are accessible only with payment/donation
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted and rewarded in-game; all rewards are accessible without payment/donation from the original recipient or any other
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted but not rewarded in-game.
[ ] Neither payment nor donations accepted.

Dropped one level of distinction in the pay-for-perks space for the sake of eliminating complexity and subjectivity, and closed the "it's 100% free because non-paying players can have items transferred from paying players" loophole, which is nonsense.

Happy with the way it provides a very clear gradient of "freeness" for admins considering where they want to position themselves in that space.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I can see the pros and cons of both lists being presented here. I would like another minor change to the last box just for readability and consistency. That is:

Old Words: [ ] Neither payment nor donations accepted.

Perhaps: [ ] Payment and/or donations not accepted.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I don't think that'd work out well. There's an implied choice in "and/or", which is what the "neither - nor" language is meant to remove. We'd wind up with someone saying "oh, I don't accept payments, but I do accept donations, so that check box applies" -- or even the other way around.

I prefer the "neither - nor" because it's very inarguable, but "Payment/donations not accepted" would probably work.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I think this is about as clear as one can make it.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

In addition to your list being more complex than the 4 choice one, I think "accessible only with payment/donation" may have a different meaning to someone who muds 8 hours a month compared to one who muds 8 hours a day.

In general, I prefer fewer choices to many and I like checkboxes instead of radio buttons, otherwise I'll have to run multiple searches.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

The Sword of One Thousand Lies could be available
for an online paypal payment of $50, or 2,147,483,647 platinum
coins in-game (which would take you 67 years to collect).

In such a case, a game would not be lying, in a strict sense, if
they said that the SOOTL was a perk available without having
to pay money....despite the fact that for all practical purposes,
it isn't really available except through the exchange of real
world funds.

For this reason I've accepted dropping this sort
of qualification from the payment types list. I'm not
that happy about it, because it's really useful
information, but it can be fudged so easily as to
be meaningless in practice...like "free".

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Yeah. I'd still like to see that go in, but I won't yell and scream about it.

Won't argue with fewer choices being generally good. Nothing about any of this would need to mean you wouldn't get checkboxes, though. Even if it were a radio button in the MUD admin interface to select the option*, it'd still be more sensible for the options to be searchable using checkboxes.

* Which, as has been discussed, isn't a given; possibly we may want people to be able to specify the case where you're required to pay to play and you can pay more for in-game rewards, for example, though I think pay-to-play subsumes pay-for-perks nicely.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Just FYI, the line above was not moderated, it is code built into vBulletin that was not working (more accurately, not properly turned on).

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Oy gewalt. I've triggered the engagement of an auto-censorship setting. I can't decide whether I should hang my head in shame or put it down as a lifetime achievement.

The conversation I've had with the person who dinged my reputation for that has been interesting. (I love the fact that another post I made involves far more obscene and offensive concepts, but because it doesn't use certain specific words, it's okay.) But I'm still kinda boggling at the culture shock of running into people who seriously believe that certain combinations of letters are bad and others should be punished for using them until they learn to stop.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I wouldn't do either, the feature was turned on and wasn't working, so hand yourself a "found a bug" cookie.

You are? Then let me be the first to officially welcome you to the internet :)

Uhoh, maybe I shouldn't have added the first post, now we're off on a tangent. You did remind me of another discussion I need to start though..

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Mmm. Cookie.

Thanks! A/S/L?

I've just been sheltered by my long disengagement from forums like these, I suppose. I'm used to just, y'know, talking. Intelligent people speaking freely and all that. Obviously I'm not utterly committed to profanity as a way of life, but it is a pretty ordinary part of my vocabulary and it's odd to think of conceivably being tarred and feathered for it, as if that were a valid and rational thing to do.

It's okay. The thread was creaking under its own weight, far too bloody serious, and badly in need of a rest. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled self-serving rationalization and marginally polite acrimony by teatime, never fear.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

You don't commit to the profane lifestyle, mate. It's not a choice.
We were born that way. Oops, outed!


What I found really really interesting was how cleanly the camps
split between people who were associated with commercial mud
activity and those who were not. There was one person in
200+ posts that self-identified with non-commercial mud but
spoke up for the commercialers...and even that person seemed
to be more outraged by characterizations than the actual
reasoning in the posts.

I suppose you could say that speaks to the callow self-serving
instincts of the commercial types, or you could say it speaks to
the reactionary communism of the freemers. I like to think that
we're *all*, on both sides, at best true believers in conflicting
viewpoints...at worst self-deluded but well-meaning.

Whatever the case, it seems that the objections to the
modified Lasher checkboxes are waning, and I suggest it's
a good time to start talking about whether it really will be implemented.


I wouldn't wory about it. Something tells me that your levity-oriented
offtopic digressions in this thread will not be deleted...unlike mine.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

You go, *****. See you at the ******* ****** ***** Pride March next week?

I don't really know where I fit, there. I think of LS as non-commercial, but it's definitely tainted if you apply sufficiently communistic standards. I don't have any sympathy for commercial MUD operators who want a system where people who specifically want MUDs with no money involved will wind up funneled to their MUDs despite their preferences; I also have no patience for systems that work to indiscriminately ghettoize all MUDs with a revenue stream.

Hmm. Could be, wabbit. Lasher? Whatcha think?

That's what you get for being a laughing pirate. Some people are deeply offended by laughing pirates, you know. Religious convictions, bad experiences with laughing pirates who killed their parents, that sort of thing.

Oh, that's awesome. I'm honored. :)

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Finally.

The previously mentioned 4 select options plus an optional text box isn't anyone's perfect solution but seems to be a reasonable compromise most can live with.

Players who absolutely don't want a mud with any payment involved period can select that. Players who don't care will leave it as "ANY" on the search page or browse and read comments.

Would display similar to the way codebase displays when someone has entered additional "codebase notes". Example:

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Ninjas, usually.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Interesting.

So "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" deals are scams now, is that it? Wow, that's rich. You and Miss Teen South Carolina are possibly the only people who would say this and believe it.

Man, the mental gymnastics some people have to engage in to try and justify their arguments. Only the most paranoid and cynical consumer advocate would call "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" a scam. Normal people just consider it a good deal. Compared to you, Ralph Nader is P.T. Barnum.

If there was ever any doubt about the questionable motives of people who feel they should be able to tell other muds how they label their costs, this post removes them all.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

So.. is this where we get to the part where Logos threatens to pull back all IRE adds? :)

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I think that The Gentleman That Runs IRE has already done the math on
this and dropped his objections.

While I strongly and vehemently disagree with the wanton, arbitrary,
and unappealable posthosings that occur around here, Lasher's
willingness to consider the "free" issue with reason foremost rather than naked
greed is a very promising sign.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

(Cratylus and Scandum, I find both of your recent posts presumptive and offensive and the reason this thread is so long. Your dislike and bias for commercial muds astounds me. If you hate them fine, but why the baseless flames? At least flame on topic and on post, please, not arbitrarily without substance.)

I have some problems with the multiple choice answers which I said I would describe in a later post, so here they are. Let's look at the options:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, rewarded in-game.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted, not rewarded in-game.
[ ] Neither Payment nor donations accepted.

First. Would anyone ever check that first box? I can't see any MUD on TMS checking that, can you? Would anyone here state they would check that (I'd really like to know if someone would select this option)? If not, it is useless.

Second: Option two and three are subjective. Anyone can define what a reward is or is not. If you don't believe me, read this thread from the first post to the last. And if this is the case we are back to my original two options:

[ ] This mud has some donation, registration, and/or payment features.
<Text box with Description and Payment features.>

and/or

[ ] This mud does not accept money (donations/registrations/credits) in any form.

Am I the only one that can see you are either a mud that brings in money or you are not?

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I have stated this before. Evidently I must state it again.

I love commercial muds.

I want commercial mud owners to get rich, fat, and happy.

Commercial muds do great things for my hobby.

I heart them.


In fact, I recently poked at a mud (sadly I don't remember which)
website to try to log onto it, and there was no login information on
the website at all. As best as I could figure it, you had to
register and pay and stuff before logging in.

So yes, I would hope that such a mud would indeed check the first box.


Similarly, anyone can debate what "is" is. There is a threshold for
being able to debate things with a straight face, and I believe that
"in-game rewards" is it for this discussion.


I can see it too. I don't limit myself to it.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I don't think the 4 select options (which are popular with what, 5 people? 10?) are good at all. They still allow, for example, people who sell merchandise to claim they do not accept payment. They also let people pretend donations or merchandise purchases do not result in any in-game rewards, which is an idealistic claim that is at best unverifiable and at worst false.

This actually starts to matter if you create explicit, searchable categorization. Once you have that, you create the impression in the player's mind that the information is accurate. That set of 4 options would reward people for lying, and I think systems that reward lying are always a bad idea.

This site was created with the express purpose of promoting muds. A big part of that means giving mud operators the right to describe their mud in the manner that is most accurate and important to them. Very few aspects of a mud are more important to describe accurately than its costs to play or if it is free. That is precisely why we have such massive discussions about it. So to force mud admins into 4 vague, often inaccurate choices is antithetical to the goal of promoting muds.

Like chaosprime, I am very much against any efforts to try and "ghettoize" professional muds simply because they have some form of revenue stream. I believe that is precisely what some of the very small, vocal minority in support of these "4 select options" are hoping to accomplish. If their goal was truly "giving the player useful information" then they would be totally in support of the professional vs. hobbyist select options as well. But it comes as no surprise that they are against those. I imagine they feel those options are an attempt to "ghettoize" hobbyist muds. I think they are incorrect, but you'd think they would at least get the point.

Ultimately, that is why I think it is an extremely bad idea to cave to this small handful of people and create these "4 selection options." Their motivations are certainly suspect, and even their addmitted goal cannot be reached with this change. This change would only open up the system to more abuse, and it would be worse because explicit search options would create an illusion of truth that would not exist. At least players KNOW hand written information about a mud is in the words of the admins and therefore inherently taken with that bias in mind.

That is why I think the text area for filling in payment model information is the best option. It gives mud operators the ability to describe their payment system (if any) in a way they feel is most accurate about their game. It also gives players useful information they KNOW is biased (since the admins themselves entered it).

If you absolutely must have some sort of select options, then go only with things that are pure fact and actually can be verified. Something like:

[ ] Money accepted in some form (payment, donations, sale of merchandise).
[ ] No money accepted in any form.

And of course, since the goal is information for players, create at the same time:

[ ] Professional Mud. Admins are paid and full time.
[ ] Hobbyist Mud. Admins are unpaid or not full time.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

This is easily fixed by adding a line explaining that payment
is accepted for non-in-game merchandise. Good point, though.


I'll be the first to admit that the proposed system has flaws. It
is imperfect, you betcha. But it's hella better than trusting
people's imaginations to correctly guess what "free mud" means.


This is no more correct than me suggesting "free mud" is lying.
The question is not which is telling the truth. The question is
which is less imprecise.


You still have the freedom to describe your mud however you
like, AFAIK. And the 4 choices are not vague. They were chosen
and generally ratified specifically for their approximation to precision.
As I've said, it's far more precise than "free".


If you think I'm some part of malevolent cabal trying to suppress
commercial muds, then you've just not been listening. This hobbyist v
professional thing was correctly judged as a distraction to the
specific question this thread is focused on. If you *really* care about
it, why not start a new thread for it?


I understand that you prefer to have maximum freedom
in how your mud is listed. I respect your desire to do so.

I just don't think it's necessary to demonize people who
disagree with you in the way you did in this post. It's
offensive and inexcusable. I can only hope you don't actually
think it advances your position.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I have no issues with commercial muds, but I'd be uncomfortable playing a mud where the paying players are the knights and the non paying players are the peasants.

My post wasn't a flame but merely blunt, confrontational, and to the point. You can't expect everyone to be a polite gentlemen, sort of like you can't expect everyone to be a God fearing christian. Not to mention that by your hypocrite standards your own post is a flame, last time I checked being "offended" or "astounded" doesn't give one a license to flame, though I'm aware that some people are raised to believe so.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Sounds reasonable.
I would extend it to:

Game type:
[] Money accepted for rewards (subscription, donations, sale of merchandise)
[] Donations without rewards accepted.
[] No money accepted in any form.

Game publisher:
[] Company (professional paid staff)
[] Hobbyist

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Hephos, there is a general agreement on the options Lasher
seems willing to accept:

It seems to me that it includes the payment style
options you favor.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

There isn't general agreement on that at all. You're talking about 5-10 people. That isn't general agreement by any stretch of the imagination.


The problem arises when you start talking about "rewards." That is a vague term that is completely open to interpretation. Also, it is totally unverifiable, which makes it very inaccurate.

These searchable checkboxes create a much greater implication to a player that the information is true. That is why it is important that they indicate statements of fact rather than opinion as much as possible.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

The interesting thing with that statement is that Lasher seems to be part of 'the very small, vocal minority', since the suggestion that now seems to be reaching a concensus was his.

Apart from that, Cratylus already said all that needs to be said about your rather offensive post, so I'll refrain from further comments.

The 4 options selection is not perfect, but it is a definite improvement to the current situation, and I support it.

Preferably with an added text area that gives the owner the opportunity to further explain their system.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I think those 4 options will work alright. It's obvious that some commercial muds won't like it much since they love to claim that their games are "free" but.. I'm sure they'll get over it with a little bit of counseling. ;)

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Yes, if they require payment and/or donations to play. The idea of the listings is that you have to be truthful. Some people may lie, but the same is true of all options - people listing their LPmud as "custom", or claiming to have been created years before the codebase they're based on, etc. Yet those options are still considered to be worth including, because in the vast majority of cases they provide useful information to the player.

They already are; it's the equivalent of the current "Pay to play Mud" option, which 31 of the muds currently listed on TMS are already using.

I don't think it's at all subjective, but if Lasher feels the meaning could be twisted then it would be a simple matter of clarifying the intent, perhaps even with examples.

You're either based on Diku, or you're not. You're either a pure PK mud, or you're not. You're either created in 1998, or you're not.

The point of the listings is to provide information to players who are looking for muds to play. Giving them more information is a good thing, as long as that information is accurate.

Lasher's four choices cover the main payment models in such a way that there's very little room for intentional misinterpretation. While I would certainly like to see more options, I can't think of a way to do so without making them fairly open to exploitation (such as the sword from Cratylus's example, which can be purchased for $50 or earned for 'free' with 67 years of play).

I don't think Lasher's approach is ideal, but it's still a big improvement over what we've currently got, and combined with the text area it seems to address most of the valid concerns.

At this point I think most suggestions have been covered, so it's mainly a case of ignoring the distractors, finalising the wording, and waiting to hear Lasher's views.

Here's one other random observation: As we're using checkboxes rather than radio buttons, that means muds can choose not to click any of the options at all, and instead simply fill in the text area. Is this desirable?

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

The four choices avoid the use of the word 'free':

Thus a commercial mud could still list themselves as "Payment and/or donations accepted, rewarded in-game." and in the text area write something like "You can also play every part of this game for free".

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Can't the checkboxes be made obligatory to fill in? I think it is pretty important for the search engine to work as intended that at least one of them gets checked.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

If the boxes are obligatory, what would you initialise them to? The muds listing themselves as "pay to play" could have the first box automatically clicked, but for the other muds you'd have to do one of the following:

1. Manually go through each listing (not feasible),
2. Default them to one of the options (resulting in incorrect listings), or:
3. Leave them blank until the listing is updated.

If you go for the third option, then those muds that really don't want to select an option will just avoid updating their listings, which doesn't really benefit anyone.

Don't forget though, if muds choose not to select any of the options, then it just means they'll show up on fewer searches. If you're running a pay-for-perks mud, the people looking for non-payment muds aren't going to find you with a search even if you don't click any of the boxes - but if you don't click any boxes, the players who prefer pay-for-perks muds won't find you either.

The last three options are mutually exclusive, but I could see some people trying to select multiple options just to appear on more searches. Furthermore, a pay-to-play mud which has no additional costs would presumably click the first and last options, but the last one is rather misleading (particularly if people are doing a search for non-payment muds).

I think perhaps they might be as radio buttons after all...it's a bit unfair on the pay-to-play muds perhaps, but their listings aren't really going to be affected by this change anyway, and they'd still have the text area if they wanted to elaborate on their payment model.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Not sure whether it's a minority or majority, but the only "side" I am on is adding a search option that is useful and less open to interpretation. It will have to default to "Not specified" for existing MUDs just as the newly added option for "rating" does, but like that field will require completion when the MUD listing is edited.

There is a fine line between adding useful information and so many options that search is impossible. We could pick almost any of the dropdowns (pk, roleplay, worldsize, originality) and endlessly categorize them. We provide a high level category and interested players can choose to search or not search on it if they care about that particular subject then read the description and/or visit the MUD for more information.

I use the PK example a lot because it is a good equivalent but with the emotion taken out and in my own experience it is a subject that a certain portion of players care about significantly. Here's some searches that may or may not be fair:

Player: "Restricted PK? - screw that, I want full PK"
Admin: "The mud is entirely based and balanced around PK. Everything we have ever done for the past 5 years has been to facilitate PK and make it fun. It is labelled 'restricted' because you can't PK new players under level 10. Some people will flame us if we label it full PK and there is even a single exception."

Player: "Full PK? I don't want to have level 89,000s killing me at level 2, next".
Admin: "We labelled it full PK because anyone can attack anyone anywhere, but you cannot be killed again for an hour and cannot be killed again by the same person for a day. It isn't so bad." (Maybe this one should be labelled restricted, maybe not).

Player: "No PK at all? That stinks. I don't like predatory MUDs but I do like arenas and the chance to duel others or take part in group arenas/battles/whatever."
Admin: "Oh, we have those, but we don't really consider them PK so listed ourselves NOPK."

Player: "So wtf is PK on this mud?! It isn't specified"
Admin: "Well the categories didn't fit us. You can be nopk. You can join a faction and have restricted PK against other factions or you can join an army and, for you, the MUD is 'full PK'"

Keep in mind in each of these scenarios the player is a player looking at options in the search window. The 'admin' line is something the admin might say if they got a chance to respond, but they won't unless the player is interested enough in the rest of the MUD details to check it out and ask. Is the searcher moving on to a different MUD a fair outcome to the MUD in question? When every MUD tries to distinguish itself and do different things in different ways, trying to categorize them all is pointless.

Some experienced players feel very strongly on PK one way or another and will filter out a MUD based on the category without giving it the benefit of the doubt. Other's don't care. Other's will see if they like the look of the MUD and have a mental note to "ask about PK".

My point with all this? When you take out all the emotion from the debate the payment model selections are no different.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

First, you'd make it part of adding a new MUD.

For existing MUDs, just have a (non-selectable) flag of "Unknown payment model", until the owner decides to update it. This wouldn't show up on any search that mandated a specific payment model, but could show up if the searcher didn't have a preference.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

And thank you for that. It's akin to the food debate where the FDA's job isn't to stop you from buying anything, but rather to make sure that the contents of a food package are labeled in a way that the consumer can understand.

The slippery slope argument presented by others is a logical fallacy-- while we could make 4000 options, there's obviously a point where rigor gets sacrificed for user-friendliness and transparency. We want a system that any visitor can understand.

Exactly. Each MUD is already labeled in a couple dozen ways, some of which seem very trivial to me. Each MUD is also labeled by their response to "Pay to play Mud?". Moving that from a binary option to something mildly more descriptive (4 boxes plus optional text) makes the web site's Search function much more useful, on a category that everyone agrees is important. It would presumably be optional-- the default would be that all searches wouldn't care about a payment model, but you're welcome to specify one if that's important to you.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Sure. Why wouldn't they? If you're running an outright pay-to-play MUD, you have less reason to be shy about it than if you're running a "free trial" style MUD, because there's never any benefit in someone who doesn't want to pay to MUD finding their way to your game.

Commercial MUD operators of the actually professional persuasion know that anti-commercial people getting directed to their MUDs is not going to generate conversions, it's going to generate ill-will. The reasons to be completely honest on your listing are the same reasons you wouldn't advertise your MUD by spamming.

Getting more precision in how MUDs are described is a benefit to said professionals, because while the only options are "pay" and a vague notion of "free", the only courses of action that are incentivized are 1) going fully pay-to-play, which many don't want to do, or 2) finding a way to construe your game as "free", which differentiates you from pay-to-play (as it ought to because if you can play for free, you are different from pay-to-play), but which results in people to whom "free" means "no money involved ever" winding up on your site, which doesn't help you. More precision lets the people who are interested in your kind of MUD find their way to you and lets those who aren't avoid you early in the process, and that's to everyone's benefit. The greatest harm comes when you're forced to describe your MUD using a category that's either too broad or unfairly stigmatizes your game. The exercise many of us have been engaged in is trying to work up a set of categories that does neither.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

What I hear you saying here is that you don't want to be forced to describe your MUD's payment model, which some people will react badly to, without also having the opportunity to describe the benefits of the payment model, which is that it supports full-time professional staff.

I agree with you that that's a tremendous benefit, and I wish devoutly that I could go full-time myself; I have a very distinct picture of the benefits it would have for my MUD. But, while I fully support the idea of adding that setting, but I don't think it needs to be made a "rider" on this one. If it's worth adding, it's worth adding on its own merits, and presumably worth discussing in its own thread.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I do not really have a strong position on the question of how a mud owner determines his/her own Payment model nomenclature. I also do not have a strong position on how these categories are named. Most of the proposed categories all seem reasonable to me. I do have a strong position on the way the mud search engine lets players do searches. When I was just a player (and not an admin) I did not want to play on muds which were "Pay Muds" in the strictest sense (eg. registration fee to login); I was a poor college student after all. So when I did searches on mudlists, I wanted to search thru all muds which were not strictly "Pay Muds". I did not care if there were optional donations, pay for perks, donations with perks or whatever. The current search engine design would force me to do X-1 searches (where X is the total number of choices in the payment models dropdown menu) to find all the muds that I would play on. So I am in favor of making it CHECKBOXES (yes, I mean checkboxes) for the searches. The mud admin should probably be required to select only one type for their mud; but as for the player's searches, I think they should have the freedom to generate their searches however they wish. Google lets me do searches for 'final fantasy -movie'. That is, a search for "final fantasy", but NOT including the word "movie". I think this CHECKBOX approach would allow the same functionality for the mud search engine. Incidentally my suggestion may also alleviate some of the apprehension by the "100% free" and "100% pay" camp folks, who might get excluded from searches that the new player intended. Isn't that the goal? To search for what the player intends?

I have the same criticism for the PK dropdown menu. Please let me select "No PK" AND "Restricted PK". It saves me tons of time doing searches.



EDIT: changed 'Its' to 'Isn't' in second to last sentence of first paragraph.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Several good answers to my post awhile back there that made some good sense in what people seem to want. After the several last posts, I got to thinking that because this Pay/Free debate is so important to so many of us, perhaps we could extend out the list. Like this:

A two item option can be checked, you check one of the two. If you check option 2 you do nothing else, however if you check option 1, you can check any or all of the subsequent check boxes.
---------------------------------------------------
[ ] This mud has some donation, registration, and/or payment features.


(Sub options, click as many as apply)

{ } Registration is part of this game.

{ } Donations are accepted.

{ } Rewards are part of donations/registrations/payments.

{ } Rewards are not part of donations/registrations/payments.

{ } All rewards in this game can be received without registration.

{ } All rewards in this game can be received without donations.

(There could be several more option boxes but I think you get the picture)

[ ] This mud does not accept money (donations/registrations/credits) in any form.
(No further option buttons here).
---------------------------------------------------

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I want options that are factually accurate. That is why I fully support having 2 options that are based in fact:

[ ] Money accepted in some form (payment, donations, sale of merchandise).
[ ] No money accepted in any form.

There is no wiggle room there. It is fair. It is accurate. It gives players the ability to find muds where there are absolutely no financial trasactions that could or do affect the gameplay (well, aside from third party influence).

The reason I think it is a legitimate rider is because it allows us to see if the folks behind the first change are truly and honestly motivated by a desire to give players useful information.

If they don't support the professional vs. hobbyist information, then clearly their motivation is NOT to give players valuable information, but is instead something far more insidious.

I actually do support giving players valuable information, which is why I think both sets of options should be added (if anything is added at all).

[ ] Money accepted in some form (payment, donations, sale of merchandise).
[ ] No money accepted in any form.

and:

[ ] Professional Mud. Admins are paid and full time.
[ ] Hobbyist Mud. Admins are unpaid or not full time.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I strongly disagree.

For starters, there should be no need for a good-faith
litmus test. That's kind of lame right there.

Beside that is the fact that this is a *separate* issue.

Finally, your reasoning is faulty. It is equivalent to:

"If you don't support this spending bill, then clearly your
motivation is not to support this country, but rather something far more insidious."

It's fallacious and it seriously does you no favors in portraying
yourself as a reasonable participant in the debate.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I would not call that "accurate" from a players point of view (or mine). What if i want to search for muds that only have subscription fees. Or muds that are payforperks? Or muds that allow donations to make the mud grow but does not give ANY whatsoever perks or rewards?

You should have those options definable.

[] Money accepted
------------------------
...[] subscripton fees
...[] donations with rewards
...[] donations without rewards
...[] In-game merchandise sold
... whatever more options there can be

[] Money NOT accepted
--------------------------

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

My belief that you're acting in good faith is eroding kinda rapidly. It's looking more like you believe that you'll somehow benefit from the selections carrying the message that all MUDs that accept money in any form are the same, so whichever type of revenue structure you have is no different from a MUD with a cafepress store where you can get shirts with their logo on it.

I feel as if you're sort of humiliating yourself by trying to conceal your payment model that way. You're a professional MUD administrator, man; you'd earn a lot more respect by stepping up and calling a spade a spade. If you have the guts to base a business plan on it, you ought to have the guts to stand up in public and say that X, Y, and Z is exactly the way you do business and you're okay with it. If you're not proud enough of what you're doing to do that, then that's something you need to give some serious examination.

You might feel like you're committed to the tack you've been taking, that you'd be opening yourself to ridicule by changing positions, but I'd ask you to seriously reconsider that. It's never too late to do things better than you were a minute ago.

That argument is very nearly paranoid. That interpretation is not necessary in any way. The mostly likely explanation for any such lack of support is that they find it tangential to the issue at hand.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

<Snip: Removed other discussion and placed in new thread - Xerihae>

To get back to the matter at hand, I'm still happy with the following:

Combined with the text area, this seems to cover everything.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Those details are far better answered via an explicit explanation from the mud operator, from information off their web site, or from information inside their game.

No set of checkboxes is going to accurately and honestly convey this information.

If you want to search for muds that only have subscription fees, or pay for perks, then you select the first option, and narrow it down from there.

The point is, the following is actually accurate and does not inject vagueness or wiggle room into the issue:

[ ] Money accepted in some form (payment, donations, sale of merchandise).
[ ] No money accepted in any form.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Woah there. Humiliating myself? Lets not get carried away.

Threshold has NEVER hidden its payment systems or plans. You cannot even finish character creation without being FORCED to read a detailed helpfile that lists EVERY possible perk you can pay for.

But I don't want to be forced into describing my mud in a way that is inaccurate, just so some other guy can lie about the fact that they sell merchandise, and that people who buy t-shirts get bonus xp every other Thursday, and somehow that is not considered "pay for perks" in his eyes.

It isn't tangential at all. If the goal is giving players valuable information, then lets improve the whole system at once. Lets not just add one small thing to benefit the whims of a very small, very vocal handful of people.

The Professional vs. Hobbyist option idea has been around as long as the multiple payment plan options. So if the goal is giving players valuable information, lets do it right. And most importantly, lets do it by creating options based on fact, not vague opinion and interpretation.

These options are factual:

[ ] Money accepted in some form (payment, donations, sale of merchandise).
[ ] No money accepted in any form.

The other countless versions of options that include things like rewards, what kind of rewards, how expensive the rewards, whether the rewards can be obtained in game as well, etc. are incredibly vague and prone to abuse and dishonesty.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

This seems confusing compared to just searching for "I only want Pay for Perks", or some other multiple-choice option.

It's extremely vague regarding what a player often cares about-- there's a vast gap between "It's OK if you chip in for the server, but you don't have to." and "$X required to register an account." The suggestions with 4-5 binary options do a much better job of describing this.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

How is it confusing? Don't just throw out words with negative connotations without explaining HOW it is confusing.

A pay for perks mud would choose the first option, and absolutely anyone who was looking for a pay for perks mud would know to choose the first option for their search. Would they then have to narrow their search down by READING the text box? Yes they would. But we are talking about muds here. So what if a tiny bit of additional reading is involved. At least the search options themselves were kept accurate.

There is absolutely nothing confusing about that whatsoever.

It isn't vague whatsoever. Inclusiveness does not equal vagueness. My two options are the opposite of vague: they are explicit, specific, and accurate.

The gap between two different payment systems is nothing compared to the gap between accepting money in some form and not accepting money in any form. That is the true gap that really makes the most critical difference. My options actually clearly differentiate between those two realities. All the other sets of options don't.

Also, there is no such thing as 4-5 binary options. If it is binary, there are 2 options. Come on man, you work with computers you know that. :)

What is the problem here? Why are you so against a set of options that is actually accurate, and does not CREATE ways for someone to game the system?

The suggestions that have more than 2 options create a whole new set of problems and inaccuracies. Whether or not money EVER changes hands for ANY reasons is the only issue that can be factually stated.