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Ok, going to throw my two coppers into this mess, and yeah, I'm sure someone on one side or the other (or both) will flame me.
I run a free mud, have for years, and even without the code licensing restrictions, I would't charge people to play regardless. I don't run a mud to make money, it's sort of against my whole creative process (and my staff's).
For those who do run P2P muds, honestly, more power to you. If you can make a living making games, and have a product people will pay for, once again, more power to you.
What I do have issue with is seeing the rapid decline of the "state of affairs" of TMS as a whole, which may or may not be attributed or affected by the entrance of large P2P muds on the lists. When certain games came on the boards, we were literally OVER-RUN with people posting drivel, putting down any system that wasn't their precious one they've played forever, and generally ignoring that any sort of community was here in the first place, TMS was seen only as a way to get more exposure for their system. Legal, sure. Cheesy and annoying, sure.
What I also take issue with honestly, is the fact that people assume that simply because a game is paid for that it is better, or that an admin is full-time and that is their "job" that they are better, or whatever. Deem me a "hobbyist" if you wish, but on average, I put in 30-40 hours, or more a week on various things for my game. Not 5, not 10, 30-40. Being that I am at my "real job" right now, and typing on here, I'd say that I put in more "real time" into my "hobby" than my "real job" at times (don't tell my boss).
As for the whole advertising thing, I can't honestly chime in about that, because we DO pay for advertising here, and have been the sponsor of TMS for quite some time now, and we shell out $100 a month to do so, with a portion coming from player and staff donations, but the majority of it coming from my pocket. Do we get more players since we put in the ads, sure we do. Have we gotten a few players from P2P muds, sure we have. Have we lost more players to P2P muds than we've gained, who knows, I doubt it.
Enough of my rambling ranting, I'm just tired of being looked at as a second-class citizen from a third-world country simply because I'm a "hobbyist" and *gasp* run a mud in my spare time, with a *gasp* completely volunteer staff, and *gasp* give our service completely away for free...
Terl
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