(Moved here from the Tavern as it was deemed worthy of careful excision, presumably for not dealing with the DIKU license itself.  Or something.)

Outside of the DIKU license issue, Medievia remains a derivative of DIKU (), yet does not credit the authors anywhere inside their game or in their copyrights.  One of their own (who resigned after becoming aware of the plagiarism) outlines this in more detail.

Has anyone found evidence to dispute any of the following?
1) Medievia IV was a derivative of Merc 1.0 (itself a derivative of DIKU), as shown by .  Previous to this evidence surfacing, the ownership of Medievia claimed the code was entirely original.
2) Medievia V is a derivative of Medievia IV, per their own documentation, and therefore a DIKU derivative.  (No "clean-room" implementation from scratch has been claimed by any party.)
3) Therefore, subject to both the license and copyright law, Medievia must display the authorship of the code which their game is based on.

Yea we get our own thread now!  Woop for Medievia being on the front page again...

Only according to a license that is full of holes, that could never stand up in court and that none of the original authors care about anymore.  

Fighting this fight for years on end when the people who wrote the code and license don't care about it anymore is useless.  I understand your reasoning and all as I've been hearing it for years.  It just really makes no sense to me why the handful of you continue this crusade year after year, to no avail.  You say its for the general good of the 'mud community', but come on, who is being 'bettered' by years of saying the same things over and over?  Who is being pursuaded by constant bickering on this discussion forum that the majority of MUD players don't even read?  Is it just for your own personal satisfaction?  What is to gain from this?  Really, what is your agenda besides rehashing the same old crap every 6 months or so?  

A few years ago Matt tried to gather a bunch of people together to take action against us.  What came of that?  Nothing.  What will ever come of this?  Probably nothing.  Until the day that the DIKU team decides to take action against us, nothing is going to happen.

Do you like me telling you that Medievia does NOT suffer from this crap?  Do you like me telling you that I am the ONLY person working on and probably playing Medievia at the moment who even cares about this?  I mean it just seems so masochistic to me that you would put yourselves through this again and again.  It always gets to this point.  We discuss, bicker, etc about the issue but the bottom line is that it changes NOTHING.  We still have thousands of players and people who volunteer their time and talent to give back to Medievia.

Actually, no. Plagiarism is independent of any license. I can't distribute copies of War and Peace and claim I wrote it, and it's not because Tolstoy attached a license. One can plagiarize even if no money is involved, or if the material has no explicit usage instructions.

This is a much easier fix for Medievia, by the way. Unlike rewriting the code from scratch, crediting the DIKU authors for the work they did would take minutes of your time.

Ironically, as we speak, on Judge Judy there is a case where a woman is being sued by her cousin. She borrowed money to leave her husband who beats her. She went back to him. He claims he doesn't beat her. She doesn't press charges. Jusge Judy still thinks he's a wife beater, even though he's never been formally tried.

I've always suggested someone try to take this argument on Judge Judy. It'd be hilarious. :-p

Yes, but what if Tolstoy was being accused of not crediting Dr. Seuss and that people were claiming he was a derivative of The Cat and the Hat? I know that sounds absurd but at this point what about this argument isn't absurd? We could go around and around in circles for 10 more years about this, but to what end? Again I ask, what is your agenda?

QUOTE: Soleil on the other thread: April 28 2006,19:36
I went and re-read that link, provided by Soleil.

No wonder that she is so eager to point ot that Vryce wrote that document, not she. In fact, if I really wanted to discredit Vryce, I wouldn't bother writing something up myself. I'd just direct people to that page, because that just about says it all. Apart from the lies and shameless bragging, he also manages to insult the Diku team. Nice way to recognise your origin.

Shane: May 03 2006,17.08
I find that 'funny' too.
The way I remember things, Matt was asking people to send him money, so he could consult some lawyer with the intent of sueing Medievia. When there was no rush from the crowd to cough up any cash, (somebody even stated that they didn't trust him with it), he suddenly changed his stance completely. Shortly after, he was actively urging all other DIKU based muds to go ahead and break the license too, on the basis that it was 'full of holes'.

What his motives were for both actions one can only speculate in.

(Please address the argument, not the speaker.)

As Anitra cites in the previous post, you yourself have admitted a DIKU origin on this forum, and in your own documentation. Ex-Medievia staff have verified the DIKU origin of the code as well. This isn't Tolstoy/Seuss, and it's irresponsible to construct such a straw man argument.

The chain linking DIKU to Medievia V is laid out plainly in my first post. Either you can refute one of those steps with evidence, or you can admit to plagiarism. In the latter case, the responsible next step would be to restore the credits of the rightful authors.

You call it irresponsible, I call it absurd, as I did in the original post. Just like this argument.

Again I ask, why should we, a moderatly successful game company, bow down to the demands of a few people on these forums? Just to please you? For the good of the 'community'? Demand away my friend. Have fun. Nothing is going to change.

Besides, you'd have to talk to Vryce about changing anything. That's not my department and he and I have better things to do with our time together than discuss this issue. Whenever I bring it up he just laughs and asks me why I waste my time around here in the first place.

While I agree, they plagiarized and violated the spirit of the license(if not the letter, which a lawyer would have to look at to decide)... it is getting tiring.

This argument comes up a lot, with the exact same points. It is then defended by the same people, using the exact same points... someone bring something new to the table... or drop it for now.

I'm not defending what they did, are doing, I'm just saying this is an old argument where no one wins...

I have a few general questions, and while they may apply to Medievia, my interest in the answers are much broader than that.

Is the game's web site part of the game's environment?

What defines giving appropriate credit in the context of the game? Is there an expected syntax for this? Does the credit have to be overflowing with praise to qualify?

If I started a mud using one code base, and then wrote a new code base because I didn't like the old one and moved the game to the new code base, would there be an expectation to credit the original code base in my current code?

Would credit embedded in the source code for ideas that were obtained from external sources be suficient, un-needed or in addition to credit in game documentation.

Would interface ideas picked up from games that we have been exposed to (but never coded on) be considered a creditable external source?

Assuming that there are no license issues between the holder of the original base code and the developers of the current code base, would credit for the original code base even be required?

Is every mud/game developer required to somehow document their efforts to create a non-derivative code base. Are we all expected to release our source code for audit?

Please keep in mind that these issues do not just involve Medievia. If you could take Medievia completely out of the picture and apply it to something you developed, what would be fair and appropriate?

Sombalance

From a hosting perspective, if someone wrote to the co-location site that said game was doing something illegal (i.e. license violations, etc), I pretty much would think that co-lo site would put a block on the game server access (both physical and net-connection wise) until the problem is resolved rather than face legal or public/community confontation against the co-lo site for supporting such a so-called business entity.

Just my $0.02 worth.

-- M

Do you mean "does the website itself come under the licence of the codebase being used"? Not usually, no, although I can think of situations where parts of it might.

Yes, it's defined in the licence(s).

There's also the copyright notices in the source code itself, which you cannot remove.

If you're moving parts of the old codebase to the new, then yes. If you're just reapplying your own game concepts to a new code base, then no.

Copyright doesn't protect ideas.

No, certainly not - but some cases are rather suspicious (eg one day the mud increments its version number and claims to be rewritten entirely from scratch, without any noticable differences from a player perspective).

Yes, it specifically says you must give credit on the log in screen, and help a HELP CREDITS file listing their names.

Did you write a new codebase, or modify the current one? If you started from nothing, and made a codebase then you are fine. If you, as Med has, started with Diku and over the years modified it... you are still a derivative.

Depends on the situation, with Diku the license tells you what you need to do.

Is this a new code base, or did you modify theirs? If it is a modification, it works the same as a book does... you give credit where credit is due.

What is there to document? DELETE, open notepad, start typing and you're not a derivative.

Take Persistent Realms for example, I used to work for IRE before I took my current position. I would never violate my agreements(NDA) with IRE and copy their code. As I've told Matt, if at any time he wishes to view my code to verify this statement is true, all he needs to do is ask. Is that unfair? Nope, it's called being honest.

As I said above, sure would be. I have no problem allowing someone, who has a valid reason, to view my code. The only people that would have a valid reason, in my case, would be Matt or Chris(CTO of IRE), and both are welcome to view it at any time. If you're honest, and have nothing to hide, why would you be afraid to prove your honesty?

Ninja'd by KaVir, bah.

After seeing the response to my earlier post, I thought I would clarify one thing. I was asking in the context where a license agreement did not define what credit was. The DIKU license seems pretty clear about what it considers valid credit. and I'm not questioning that.

In the case of Medievia, they claim the license no longer applies. Others claim that they should still credit the DIKU team regardless of the state of the license. My question was, barring any license requirement what is fair credit to give to a source environment. If credit was placed on the website, but not in the game, would it be sufficient or must it also exist in the game in some form?

The other issue was that if I claim to have created a NEW code base, but I once worked on another code base, and someone then claims to all they can that I stole code from the original code, should I be in anyway obligated to present my code for audit? What steps could a developer take to protect themselves from abuse later?

Why should I have to?

That by itself does not create a clean room environment. If someone has the old set of source up in one window and a blank text editor open in the other and simply reads the original source and re-types it into the editor window with new formatting, structure and variables, but keeps the same algorithms aren't they still a derivative? I don't think simply saying a developer started with an empty file would be very convincing. What would be convincing?

Sombalance

What a crock. A post that you wrote on May 03 2006,11:56 in the real DIKU License thread got moderated slightly, and then lo' and behold, you start a new thread (about the same issue) a few hours later (May 03 2006,14:49) in a forum moderated by KaVir.

The very fact that this forum is moderated by KaVir makes it the complete WRONG place to discuss anything related to Medievia. He has shown himself to be totally irrational when it comes to the issue. His 10 year foaming at the mouth crusade proves that. Most reasonable people, even those who agreed with him 10 years ago (including myself, and apparently the DIKU creators as well), have moved on with their lives.

That is the only reason you created this thread in this forum which is discussing the exact same issues as .

I honestly wonder if TMS has EVER had a more biased and horribly corrupt moderator.

Yes, actually, and I think everyone here besides you can think of his name.

I think I'm gonna take Shane's advice and just ignore you - you're so the "hot-headed MUD admin" stereotype that I know better than to expect any good ON-TOPIC conversation involving you.

(Please address the issue instead of making personal attacks.)

Why would this thread not belong in Legal Issues? If you don't think KaVir is an appropriate moderator for the forum, you should take it up with Synozeer, since it's his decision. But it's odd to claim that a discussion of copyright infringement doesn't belong in Legal Issues.

OK, Negative Nancy. Take a deep breath and let's take this from the top before you have an aneurysm: if he posts it over there and it gets moderated, then the most logical thing to do is post it where it is least likely to be moderated.

The issue is similar enough without being completely identical; it can support its own thread.

My professional recommendation for you is a maxi with wings, since you appear to be having a permanent heavy flow day.

Ultimately, you should do what people are suggesting not because people are suggesting it, but because it's the right thing to do. It's the honest thing to do. The alternative is to be a liar and a thief.

Even if it doesn't matter to anyone else, to be that kind of low person takes a toll on them. Your children will understand it and learn from it despite anything you do. They'll either learn that stealing is okay if you think you can get away with it, or they'll learn that it's not okay, and their parents are not worthy of respect.

If you're going to lower yourself, at least do it for a good reason. Sell out to make a million. Steal something worth having. Don't sell your integrity for the price of not having to say that some people who helped get your MUD rolling helped get it rolling. Think of every movie, play, or TV show in the history of the world where someone sells their soul to the devil for something dumb or worthless. Essentially, you are making a worse deal than all of them, for basically no reason.

It's not such a big thing to give people the credit they deserve.

That would be where the DELETE part comes in.

This may be a little convoluted, but here goes.



Acuity used to be iChat. I don't know, but I think the change of name may be related to an Apple gadget that now bears the same name.



Some more background concerning iChat. Note the use DGD was put to.



Points I find of interest:

"I have come to see the response to the $100 a month license as
symptomatic for the text MUD "industry". Almost everyone
who contacted me severely underestimated the difficulty of creating
your own MUD, didn't know how to run a business, and was unwilling to
invest $1200 for the first year to get their MUD running.

Then I got involved with ichat. They were in the $100,000+ per year
licensing league. Using DGD and 2 LPC programmers, they created ROOMS
and in 6 months they had 80% of the chat market."

and,

"You'll discover that when it comes to charging for MUDs, there's not
really a long end of the stick. Skotos, last I checked, was just about
breaking even in the business. It's not like they're getting rich by
screwing over small developers -- there's just not currently a lot of
money in the business, so the key seems to be minimal development cost
(i.e. MUDs that suck, few new features, using a standard codebase
illegally, getting people to donate building/development time) so that
you don't have any expenses. Skotos is *really* not doing it that way,
which is one reason I'm so impressed with them."

The point? Professionals do not skirt licensing issues. Professionls recognize and disdain those who do.

There is a lot of money to be made out there in communication and entertainment, not a little of it I imagine from advertising. No one is going to advertise with, sign contracts with, or get into any close association with people who violate licensing and the law. It is simply not accepted in the professional environment. Advertising associated with a massive MUD would likely be game related. How many game developers want to do business with someone who plays fast and loose with copyright?

Heck, what customer wants to pay money to someone who plays fast and loose with ethics in general?

I don't want to hyper-inflate this argument, but what I am trying to say is that it is in everyone's best interest to make things not just okay, but as they say in ethics classes I have had to take, to avoid if at all possible even the appearance of impropriaty.

Developing trust in your chosen field among those in that market is just good business.

Well, when I first heard about the accusations against Medievia, I believe I read that the main reason the DIKU authors weren't doing anything was money, so my plan was to raise the money to help them.

I quickly realized a number of things though:
1. Almost nobody (nobody? I can't remember) in the community cared enough to spend any money on it, telling me something about how much the community actually cares vs. how much a few people say it cares.

2. The DIKU authors really don't give a damn and they aren't suffering any harm.

3. The entire issue is much more complicated than the Medievia attackers would believe, and none of them appeared to have ever actually gotten an opinion from a credible IP expert on the issue. I went ahead and got one, albeit it a quick opinion rather than a full brief (which would be thousands of dollars, and isn't worth it to me to satisfy my curiosity.) I've also shown the license to our accountant (who placed in the top 10 people on the CPA exam, and has a law degree as well) and got similar feedback.

I'm not defending Medievia. I'm defending the legal process, in which someone's guilt is decided in a courtroom, not in an internet forum. Whether Medievia is guilty of license violations or not is of no personal import to me, but since some people are going to argue for conviction in the court of public opinion, I'm going to argue for letting a legal issue be resolved in the manner in which legal issues get resolved. It's a principle thing, but some members here are unwilling to ascribe any motive to defending Medievia but "unethicalness" or whatever. If you don't sing the anthem and salute the flag, you're a traitor, as it were. (Some of the same people also dislike that we advertise ourselves as free-to-play, but that's so off-topic that it probably shouldn't be discussesd here.)

--matt

As far as the criminal portion of the law, I think anyone is free to report that.

It does seem hard to fathom that no one has ever done a thing about it with all the energy spent on the subject.

Well, anyone is free to report it, but an ISP could be sued for cutting off service in breach of contract in that case. It's also incredibly irresponsible. Further, if you, as an ISP, decide that you're going to substantially patrol for IP violations, you may lose common carrier status (There.com is dealing with this, for instance) and then actually be liable for the content sitting on your network. That is -not- what an ISP wants.

--matt

The people who tend to defend Medievia are also some of the same people who sell in-game-perks but advertise themselves as free-to-play, but you are right; that's so off-topic that it probably shouldn't be discussed here.

Hey, come on now. People have started all sorts of accusatory threads on the matter, ensuring that as many people as possible hear about Medievia. Honestly, I find Medievia's marketing to be quite inept (no offence Soleil) and I end up strongly suspecting that the reason they are one of the biggest text MUDs now is probably largely because of all the attention the forum threads have given Medievia over the years. It is probably -the- most discussed MUD on the MUD forums, and while the MUD forums on do not get much traffic (most of the MUD community doesn't use them), all that exposure, year-in, year-out, has likely been pretty good for them.

--matt

That would be off-topic. There have been entire threads discussing a variety of people's problems with Matt as a representative of the community and as a businessman - you can find them if you look back. I came to this forum in January and have already seen plenty of such threads since then. Beyond that - they exist in other MUD Forums too. I won't speak about them again here to be off-topic, but with a little research you can decide for yourself.

Completely agreed. I'd be fired from my day job if my employer had this kind of evidence that I committed plagiarism, long before it went to court.

I see what you're saying, but that's not also how I see it. There is lots of room for legitimate disagreement. I mean, you don't see people shunning Research in Motion (Blackberry) even though it was pretty blatantly operating in violation of NTP's patent and ended up having to settle after a judge's ruling made it fairly clear that it was likely to lose.

I know tons of professionals who use Blackberries and lots of large organizations that signed contracts with Research in Motion even after NTP filed its initial lawsuit.

Professionals tend, in my experience, to recognize that IP issues are complicated issues and wait for the courts to sort them out. Not always, of course, but that's just what I tend to see. Companies like Microsoft frequently have IP issues and are relatively frequently sued for them. That doesn't stop people doing business with MS or a thousand companies like them.

I'm not defending IP violations, but business isn't about condemning companies for one issue while ignoring the rest of the picture.

--matt

Now that, sir, is trolling.

Please do not feed the troll.

Had I not brought it up, someone (we both know whom) would have posted accusing me of misrepresenting why I'm not liked by that person, and accusing me of "unethical behavior" for not including it.

--matt

Possibly the problem with this industry is its cash poor nature.

So much money floating around in high tech, and everyone going in every direction at once, it doesn't surprise me, the deals with Blackberry and Microsoft and all. But, what I am getting at is that mud's as a whole appear to be getting this reputation.

You didn't use existing mud architecture or violate any copyrights, real or imagined, but instead went with Rapture. I am not familiar with its development track, but no one here yet at least has busted out and accused Rapture of copyright violations.

Why go to all that trouble? Wasn't at least part of it because you wanted to put a pure and professional face on your games?

It's one thing to jostle for position, but transparent coopting of other's work is harder to defend in the grand marketing scheme of things, I would think.

I can't say I agree with that assessment, but even if so, well, it's not that undeserved. There are a profusion of Star Wars, Dragonball, etc etc MUDs all operating without license from the IP holders.

That might be an accusation too absurd even for TMS.

Nope. The need for Rapture was an evolution of needs. It's off-topic to go into it here. PM me if you want and I'd be happy to tell you.

Medievia's done pretty well given that other people (all of us having this discussion, for instance) spend a fair amount of time talking about them. I think they also recognize that their attackers are fundamentally toothless because they are third parties to the issue and that the DIKU authors don't care enough to spend any energy to do anything about it. To me, that's the key issue. If they don't care enough to do -anything-, then it's just not a big deal. They don't feel they're being harmed enough to take action, and no harm, no foul as far as I'm concerned.
--matt

That's hard to argue with for me. I just am back to square one though. The cleanest solution to it all would be Medievia porting to a verifiably new codebase.

Well, the easiest cleanest solution would be for one or several of the Diku authors to do as Threshold suggests Lars did. I have heard it before, though in all fairness I am in proximity to Threshold enough that he may well be the person I actually heard it from both times, that Lars tried to get his team back together, and when there was no interest he made it public that he no longer was going to hold people to the LP license.

I have not tried to verify that at all, so... whatever that means. But I have heard it.

Many "small claims" offenses never go to court because of the amount of money and hassle it would take for a non-corperation(such as the few remaining active DIKU Team members) to try to take on a company who had made money off of them enough to make the court situation sticky, at-the-least.

As I said earlier - I think it would be absolutely hilarious to see Hans/DIKU versus Vryce on Judge Judy; but really, that would be about their only option considering the annoyance of international considerations to be made.

Ultimately, them not wanting to spend the money to defend their license does not mean that they don't care about their work and their license. And even still, the many MUDs who do adhere to the DIKU's teams wishes do apparently care about the license.

While Medievia's plagiarism may not bother them, it does bother others. If their attitude is "tough luck, we plagariaze, but feel we've done a hell of a lot of work. Screw anyone in the community who can't deal with our ungrateful attitudes", then that is their choice. It certainly should be no suprise when people denounce their ethics and professionalism, though - they brought it on themselves.

If you have a problem with me moderating the forum, take it up with Synozeer. But - and I will warn you only once - if you continue your highly unprofessional ranting and personal attacks, without adding anything of value to the discussion, I will just remove your posts.

Threshold: May 03 2006,20:29
You know it's funny that you should bring this issue up again.
I got a post deleted on that other thread myself. (It wasn't the first time either).

It was a fairly polite one-line request that the moderator there should do some moderating to deal with your repeated personal attacks. His response was to delete my post and apparently a couple of others too, while at the same time keeping most of your insults in the thread.

I'll repost it here, for others to judge whether it was necessary to remove it or not, and whether or not it is an example of the 'unbiased' moderating that Threshold is asking for:

Where do you see that we are surprised? No surprise here Don, Medievia's ethics have been denounced for the past 10 years now. Bottom line is that we have bigger fish to fry and really do not care that the 'mud community' (in my mind small potatoes, in your mind a HUGE group of people) thinks we are unethical.

Matt did sum it up nicely ...
This is essentially why we don't care. DIKU doesn't care, only 5 or so MUD admins care enough to bring it up over and over on these forums. Keep bringing it up if you like. I will again repeat my mantra: It does nothing to change the situation.

I don't start Medievia-based threads - I merely throw my support in a conversation where support is due. These threads flamed more often before I started using MUD forums at all, so it is only in my personal benefit to add in my two cents to an issue that probably will not die until either DIKU announces that they no longer care, or Medievia at least tries to make some attempt to repair the insult-to-injury they have done.

As far as how big the MUD community is - it is not the forum posters themselves that creates a large community. It is the fact that those who frequent the forums tend to be admins. Their opinions and ideas and ethics are naturally passed through them and into the MUDs they admin. This is easily traceable, sociologically. A group of 15-20 successful admins can effect the opinions of thousands and thousands of potential players. While that may not stop Medievia(I actually would never wish for any MUD to be shut-down, I only wish you would show some decency and respect), it certainly creates an awareness of the issue amongst MUDers both new and old.

That's my personal goal. If any of the other admins who happen to side with me(Anitra, Valq, KaVir, etc) on this issue have different goals, I cannot personally speak for their motives, though I assume that they are similar.

I see you mentioned this in the other thread too, and while I take the point you are making I just wanted to correct you on one thing. Lucasfilm allows and even encourages works of non commercial fan fiction. Here's their Head of Fan Relations Steve Sansweet, quoted in an article on .
I found that quoted on the site. If you haven't seen it I recommend the download. It is very impressive for an amateur film.

Fortunately I don't know anything about Dragonball.

I, for one, intend to make sure the issue doesn't fade. I wanted to give you a chance to at least refute the charges of plagiarism, because I didn't see how you could. I've seen you try to dance around the license issue (I think you're guilty there too, but at least there's room for debate), but this is so much more clear cut.

As another poster pointed out, if you're going to commit a crime, at least commit one for a purpose. You'll still be moral roadkill for doing it, but at least you'd have more spending money. Refusing to acknowledge the DIKU team's contribution is analogous to your decision to deride Synozeer's voting rules and refuse to comply with them. You gain nothing, lose the respect of community, and open yourself up to legitimate criticism for the foreseeable future.

Why would you give proper credit to the Diku code that your Mud developed from?

Simple answer:
Because it's the right and proper thing to do.

But you obiously don't care enough about right and wrong to be bothered about that, so I'll provide you with some other reasons:

- Because for the first time in 10 years that might give Medievia some positive publicity on the Mud boards.

- Because it might save you some awkward explanations the day your children get old enough to go on the net, and ask you why the family firm is referred to as 'Mercthievia' there.

- Because having to constantly defend Vryce's actions in the past is corrupting your soul. (I case you wonder, I am talking about the same process that you yourself refer to as 'developing a tough skin'.)

You know, when you first came to these boards, you sounded like a pretty nice person, and I felt genuinely sorry for you. Now you sound like an echo of Vryce, and I don't feel sorry for you at all.

Keep telling us that we should direct the flames at Vryce instead of you. He doesn't come to these boards. You do. And although you consistantly point out that he, not you, is responsible, you also obviously support his actions. That makes you as responsible as he is.

Even though the legal issue in question is that of license violation, it feels as if the topic continues to circle back to the game mentioned in the topic title. As has been pointed out several times, this merely serves to shine the spotlight on the aforementioned MUD.

If this debate is going to continue, perhaps it should be moved to a new thread, discussed as a legitimate topic of concern, and the use of the specific game's name minimized or even entirely avoided.  I for one do not feel like providing any continued publicity to the particular game itself, but I would definitely contribute more into an objectively discussed thread.

This is a subject that is regurgitated every few months, with precious little new fuel added to the fire.  Let's treat it with the seriousness it deserves, the professionalism it warrants and the decorum that I hope we're capable of... and for a change without providing even more publicity and listening to even more rhetoric regarding the unnamed specific game's lack of proper credits, its owners' ethics, its departing players' chastisements, or its remaining players' chest-thumpings.

This was done first, in the thread.  Valg felt it necessary to create a new thread just for us, and therefore HE is the one responsible for giving Medievia the added publicity.  Thanks Valg.