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| What sites can be listed for voting? |
| Although we have a few exceptions grandfathered in, our definition of "MUD" is a primarily text based game that can be played via telnet. It may have other graphical interfaces and clients, but the heart of the game is still recognizable as a text based MUD.
Browser only RPG and MMO games are not elibigle for our rankings. |
| Do I have to put a voting button or link on my web site? |
| If you wish to be ranked on the list, you must have a voting link back to this site. A ranking list works because you send traffic to this site, and in turn you'll also receive traffic.
You can choose not to participate in the ranking list voting, but still sign up with it. In that case, your site will only show when it comes up from a search. |
| Why were my votes reset? |
| The votes are reset on the first of each month to give everyone a fair chance of getting to the top and to keep the voting process active.
The site in first place at each vote reset gets rewarded with a "trophy" icon until the next reset, where as the trophy goes to the next person who is at #1. |
| How often can I vote? |
| Your vote will count only once every 12 hours. For the most part, the script will stop someone from inflating their votes.
If we catch you cheating such as using open proxies, your site can be suspended and / or banned from the list. The integrity of this site is based on the fact that cheating will not get you to the top, and that the rankings are as fair as they can be. |
| Can I automate the voting? |
| You can create tools to make it easier to vote for your MUD with a single click, but you cannot automate the voting entirely. TMS is a traffic exchange. Games send their players here to vote and they gain exposure to other MUDs while here. Players coming from other MUDs to vote get some exposure to your MUD.
Automaing the voting boosts your ranking unfairly and undermines the integrity of the entire system. Games found distributing tools to automate their player's voting will no longer be listed in the rankings. While we realize that is easy to beat the gateway page and automate anyway, note that we reorganized the page regularly. If the number of votes for your mud drops drastically after a gateway page changes, that is a strong indicator of automation. |
| Can I offer rewards for voting? |
| You CANNOT offer incentives or rewards to players for voting. That means you cannot give players items, experience, or anything else in return for votes. You cannot display different messages based on whether someone voted or not, or reward a player for voting by not showing messages.
You CANNOT offer global incentives for rankings such as "double exp this weekend if we are in the top 10". You CAN have a system that ‘nags’ a player about voting as long as participation in that system is totally voluntary and there are no tangible positive or negative effects for a player choosing to use or not use such a system. Such a system must also allow a player to easily opt out of it at any time, also with no positive or negative effect, and it must be off by default. Such as system must also not make whether or not a person voted visible to others. It is fine to post notes and reminders asking people to vote for you. These rules are in place to make sure that when a player votes for you it is because they want to support the game, not because of peer pressure or bribery. |
| What do the IN and OUT numbers means? |
| IN stands for the number of people that clicked on the Vote button on a web page to get to the Top MUD Sites List, and OUT is how many people have left this list to go to that site. |
| How can I write a review about a MUD? |
| Our review system interface is currently down pending a redesign so the best place to review a game is in the forum under the "MUD Reviews" forum.
You can view old reviews at: http://www.topmudsites.com/cgi-bin/reviews/index.cgi |
| I think someone is cheating. What do I do? |
| Email webmaster@topmudsites.com and it will be looked into. |
| Players from my site are trying to cheat. I can't control their actions. |
| Much like a parent, you are responsible for what your little ones do.
Make it well-known on your site/game that you will take measures against any player who is trying to cheat this system, and that it can only end up hurting the mud instead of helping it. |
