I'd like to clarify the rules and make an amendment to them. By the letter of the rules, what Medievia was doing is not against the rules, but more against the "spirit" of the rules. Aardwolf's system is entirely optional and a player's choice, with no positive or negative effects for players opting to use it or not.

Therefore, I am amending the rules (with the bolded part being the addition to these rules) to the following:

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 also cannot have a system that "nags" a player about voting (regardless of whether they voted or not) unless it is totally voluntary with no positive or negative effects for a player choosing to use or not use such a system, and it must allow the player to easily opt out of it at any time, also with no positive or negative effect.

Just for future reference, threatening a player base to vote "or else" would be against the rules, as it is a negative effect for not voting - the same as if an imm offers to reward players or change the status of the mud or anything in the mud if they vote.

Those muds in violation of this will have until Wednesday to de-implement their current system to follow the current rules. Note that if you feel something MAY go against the rules, but you're not sure, ASK me first, otherwise I may decide going against the spirit of the rules will be enough to enact penalties.

Adam

*applauds Synozeer*

Nicely done, thank you for listening to us.

For the record, I would have thanked you for listening anyway. It's nice to have a place to sound off when we see something that we feel is incredibly out of line sometimes.

Whoops, that's what I meant. Post above edited to reflect that.

Adam

So...why is it that whenever Medievia ranks No. 1 a reason is found to knock them down?

I think it's completely unfair to have Aardthingy be allowed and not have Medievia's vote message be allowed...people can turn off the prompt with two words. You could say global vote messages are illegal because they are unavoidable and you can't opt out of them. It's the same thing!

Aggravated.

Because Medievia's staff seems intent on giving people the ammunition to do so?

And you have it! As I said earlier, I misinterpreted what you and Aardwolf were actually doing.

--matt

So.. basically.. Medievia is still within its rights here - there is no positive nor negative effect.. the only negative effect revolves around using a script to remove the prompt - simply because it is illegal to use scripts to control your character in general - has nothing to do with voting.. And it's pretty easy to opt out when all you have to do is type two words - wow that's mindblowing, eh?!

Vryce cannot tell who votes for sure and who doesn't - even Soleil stated this on IMM last night - so what does your new rule do? Nothing really but no complaints here. I look forward to seeing all the new faces who will check us out simply 'cause we are getting bitched at again over nothing!

Test. I just made two posts to this thread, and neither showed up, though on the front page, the last post by me in this thread currently shows as by me. Hrm.

Edit: Argh. NOW it decides to show me my last two posts.

--matt

Incorrect. The part about the mud being required to allow the player to opt-out at any time...

Medeivia doesn't have an "off" toggle on their vote thing. They have only a "pause" toggle. So yeah you can type in the command when the game reminds you to vote, but 13 hours later it'll remind you again. And again 13 hours later, and the next 13 hours, etc. etc. The player has no ability to tell the mud to STOP reminding them, period.

This is now defined as against the rules.

Just to clarify a few things... because Synozeer modified the rules a bit, we modified Medievia's system a bit.  

We now have an opt-out option.  Players can simply type vote idonotvote and the prompt will go away.  The "threatening" paragraph was also removed from the help file.  

I would think that now Medievia is well within the spirit of the rules of this site.

The rules concerning this have been cleared up a bit, which now read:

What this results in is that is:

- Allows global messages (a shout from an admin, or whatever).

- Prohibits systems that force players to see vote messages that are dependent on whether they’ve voted.

- Allows the sort of system that Aardwolf employs, which is a completely voluntary system.

Thanks to Matt for the wording and input.

Adam

So as long as this system is off by default, then it should be perfectly fine.

Adam

I wanna say just two things now:

1) Adam/Synozeer is super-cool for clarifying the rule and adding the clarification to the stated policy so quickly.

2) I don't like Medievia, it isn't a game I would play even if they got their start ethically. HOWEVER...Soleil is to be commended for changing her game's voting system promptly to accommodate Adam's clarification.

Wow I was reading through this drama..

Players:"This Medievia is breaking the rules!"
Medievia:"Oh thanks! Free attention for us, lovely! Aardwolf cheats too. BTW, check out this WEBCAM of Vryce's wife! LOL she's bigger and complex than other mud wives"
Logos: "Hmm. Technically this isn't illegal.. but if I could have things my way, this would be. The WEBCAM, of course. But on the other hand if they want to scare off players its their business."
Aardwolf: "We're opt-in only non-pestering reminders or some #### like that! Its fine really! Our players support this."
Players: (cheerleads)
Synozeer: "I made the rules different so now it is illegal unless its opt-in."
Everyone: "ERK"
Synozeer: "OK there, Logos dumbed it down for you."
Everyone: "Lets hear it for clear rules and clean games, YAY!"

Oh the hilarity. All jokes aside, I don't want to pee on anyone's parade here but I'd like to point out that the voting site wouldn't NEED extra rule addendums/changes if it didn't have muds trolling the list to begin with. So I'm going to post something constructive in the hope that it will do some good here:

Medievia you deliberately do a very good job of setting everyone against you, for all your complaining everyone hates you ... I've actually heard you call small muds worthless now. I read that post and I just felt an overwhelming rage wash over me. And thats rational anger. Things like this is only solidfying people's allegiance against you - you're making the enemy bigger. Maybe its fun for you and the people who like fighting you back but this isn't productive for our community (which is how Synozeer justified Medievia being re-instated in the list, so something you need to pay attention to). Everyone lost here, there were no winners. Its just.... dumb.

I don't think breaking the rules with nagware, threatening your players if they don't vote, getting caught, and having to make Synozeer spend time revising rules just to make things clear for you... then stopping when the site admin directly tells you to... is praise-worthy behavior.

After Synozeer says "These are the rules of the site.  You need to change your model."... what is the alternative?  Tell him to stick it on the website he's providing for your use?

They did the bare minimum.  Let's not get carried away.  The praiseworthy behavior is being done by the majority of games that don't threaten their players with consequences if they don't come here and vote.

Soleil, I used to be the biggest fan of Medievia. I sent in hundreds of dollars to support you. However lately, it seems that the Med Gods could care less what players' opinions are, even callously and publicly disreguarding them in some cases. I have heard of quite a few instances of players getting purged for merely asking too many questions, and while I don't know the whole story, merely the suggestion that this is taking place appals me. I have also noticed an increasing imbalance in the game toward the power clans, and the heros that send in their $300 for a full set of donation eq. I have watched Vryce become horribly pompous and insulting on the immortal channel. And finally, I logged on to see that now, if it is suspected that I am not voting for Medievia every day, there can be negative repercussions in game for me.

Frankly, I do not think I need this much drama, when my real life stresses me out enough as it is. I am seeking an escape from drama in my online gaming choices.

And as to why I still log on? I promised a friend that I would hero a bloodline character for him, and I keep my promises.

Test. (Sorry, just trying to figure out why betrayed-by-gods shows as the last poster on the front page, but no such post is to be found in the thread itself.)

Edit: As soon as I posted, betrayed-by-gods post showed up here in the thread itself. Is anyone else having this problem?

Yes, I had the same problem.

And uh, something ever so slightly on topic:

That's a terribly tempting offer.

Honestly, I think the best option to see about enforcing the top list voting rule is to actually have a committee on here that logs in to each game (maybe once a month or so) and looks over their help files or in-game channel chat to see any directed reference for voting here and other sites as well.

Having a set aside committee (i.e. moderators) to do a little extra governing for enforcing the rules should put a quick stop to the violators. It also gives Adam a bit more room and time to focus on other aspects of the site rather than having to govern each game here if they are following the rules or not.

Just my $0.02 worth.

-- Silver

Just a point: Cut and paste text logs have, to me at least, zero credibility, given that it's trivial to fake them and there is no way to distinguish between a faked and real log. That's not to say the logs supposedly from Medievia that have been posted here are fake, but it is to say there's no way to ascertain whether they are legitimate or not.

--matt

Testing. Please ignore.

Let me assure you all that those quotes are real. I had witnessed them myself along with the rest of the heroes on Medievia who had IMM channel turned on.

Besides, why in the world would we want to fake quotes of this man? With the mud community's opinion of V as a whole, that'd be rather silly and a waste of time. We can't possibly do any further damage than he's done himself already.

This flame war is still going on?  I get home from work to 3 more pages!  What's the big deal here?  We implemented something that another game had already implemented, disgruntled Medievia players brought it up here, rules were changed to clarify, we change Medievia's programming to fit the rules, end of story.  Why keep on and on and on and on?  

It's really quite hilarious, and this may sound pompous and all, but we have had triple the amount of new player creations from "Mud Portals" yesterday and today than previously.  Sure, a lot of those creations will be people just logging in to see the hubbub, but ANY player we get from this is one more player we didn't have yesterday.  So, as I said before, continue the thread, you are just sending more and more players our way.

Just for TMS's edification: Medievia now allows players to opt out but by default they get the prompt change. Also, when you choose to opt out, your status is changed publically, so any player who uses playerinfo to find out your level/etc will see that you choose to opt out of the spam.

WWW Voting: TURNED OFF
[in red, at the bottom of your profile]

vs.

WWW Voting: On
[in green]

I guess they're hoping to shame people who dislike spam. Maybe it will work. Neat stuff.

*sigh* Test.

If I'm reading this correctly, then I have three points to make about the Medievia situation:

1 - The system is on by default as gameover mentioned, which is against the new clarified rule.
2 - Allowing people to see who turned off the vote reminders could well produce a tangible negative effect in said players being treated differently by other players and possibly Immortals, regardless of the best intentions.
3 - The very command, "idonotvote" is a little insulting. What if I do vote when I feel like it, but don't want to be spammed with messages?

Quick Edit - I also agree with the point made by Davairus about trolling, it doesn't help.

It's nice to see that some things never change.

Mudsites come and go, but the whiners are here to stay.
People play med because it is one of the best muds out there for variety of play and pvp.  Things are nice and simple and easy to figure out unlike many of these so called _new_ muds.  Many people do not wish for roleplaying.  Many people do not wish for muds that have great zones, but a lack of sufficient easy to play gameplay.  Med happens to have both.

Here are some of the things I enjoy about med, and if any other mud in existence has it.  I would be glad to try your game out.  Trading -- Trading is my favorite thing about med.  I can buy a covered wagon, and load it with freight from one of the many tradeposts.  I can then journey the roads within the multimillion room wilderness, protect my freight from roving mobfactions such as lions, wolves and pigs. hopefully making a profit in the process.  Does your game offer that?  I also like Shipping.  I can join a ship, shoot guns to kill serpents or destroy other clanships, kill other mobfactions such as aquoderms or krakens for fae.

I used to be an xper, and I have many heroes to show for that, but because of Vryce and his vision of what a game should be I now enjoy a much wider variety of med.  I may still dislike cpking, but there are many more things about the game I happen to enjoy much more.  Every mud owner has a vision of what his/her game should be.  I just happen to prefer Vryce's vision because so far I have not seen one that compares.

Sincerely,

4000
Go Clan67 Emperium Glacialis  
Donator and Damn Proud of it.

Ok so, this thread was almost entirely about the new voting prompt and helpfile in Medievia. For a bit it was also about Soleil trying to compare Medievia's new voting thing to Aardwolf's.

And Tyreblood is talking about what Medievia has to offer.

...

What a nice plug. Which is perfectly alright of course. If you believe in it, then you should back it. And I haven't heard one single person deny that Medievia has plenty to do, because it does have a lot to do. But that's a bit off topic don't you think?

I'm a whiner because I've seen and heard too much? Well so be it. I'll wear the title proudly, since it means I'm not naive enough to believe everything I'm told.

Tyreblood, the Advertising Forum is over there. *points* You seem to be confused.

I've always thought this was one of the most overused expressions on TopMud.  EVERYONE has said this at some point or other.  Not that there's anything wrong with the reasoning, I'm just saying...  There's not much publicity to really be gotten in this forum.

I love MUD controversy, it's really where TopMud shines.  Otherwise, it get's kind of slow and dull.

Why people put up with this from a mud they play is beyond me. In the meantime I do not appreciate Medievia saying they implemented the same feature as Aardwolf. Nope, you defaulted it to on and you threatened players that turned it off.

Now you claim to have modified that helpfile, but it really doesn't matter. You posted a helpfile telling players that if they did not vote they would be thought of negatively by the administration, would not be helped if they needed it and would not be considered for "avatar". Now you removed the helpfile not because you had a change of heart but because you were forced to. Your players know this, they know how you feel, they don't need the helpfile to feel pressure to vote .. the fact that it ever existed at all is pressure enough.

Now a question for Synozeer - is it legal to have it publicly (or to certain players) visible whether or not other players have voted / opted in to a voting feature? To me the peer pressure is pressure enough for people to vote, more so than any automated reminder. I know Medievia is not the only mud to do this. Some even track the ip logs from their website and compare those to online players in an attempt to see who actually clicked the vote link. The irony is that one of the holier-than-though posters throwing around "Aardwolf is cheating" crap yesterday has been doing this for years.

Just a few cents to toss in here, now that the crap has flown for a few hours again...as a sidenote, I am amazed by the petty behaviour from all sides.

First, the modification made to the rules, seems to be serving to JUST FIT what Aardwolf chooses to do. Is it because they did it first? I seriously doubt that it can be that they have a better game, and because if it, I'd like to call on Synozeer to ask him what game(s) HE plays, and perhaps what levels of characters he has on them...not to cry Conspiracy Theory, or anything. Back to the system, it is, regardless of opt-in/opt-out, a canvass of the game. Without any game having a system of this nature, would the votes still break down the way they do? THAT QUESTION has yet to be asked.

Second, as far as the opt-in/opt-out status being shown on a Medievia player's playerinfo? So what! If a player within the game chooses to treat another player differently because of that, that is THEIR option, what PLAYERS choose to do based on ANY flag of another is NOT under this site's jurisdiction. And as far as the Gods go? I'll put it quite simply: GODS HAVE RULES TOO. If they're told not to put any heed to it, they won't. Enough said.

Personally, I feel this is getting ridiculous. People are just slinging #### back at one another over one petty game change. gameover, I seriously believe you have absolutely NO LIFE, for bringing this into a global forum. If you have problems with a game, ANY GAME, it would be reasonable to take it up with those that you have issues with. It doesn't need to be trotted out like this.

As far as what is/is not said, and forging logs of a channel, whomever said that if it were a fake log, it would have included such heartbreaking events as a character being purged, etc..., you are blind. Yes, most fake logs are private logs, because those are a) harder to prove without bringing system-generated logs into the picture, and b) more believable to the controversy-inclined public. But, a few things need to be brought up that, sadly, have not been yet. The time stamped on that first post was Monday, 12-December, at 6:12 AM...this would have been within 10 minutes of a game restart. Not many people are in very quickly after a restart, especially at that time of day. I personally went to bed after that restart. A restart is a break in all progress, and a good stopping point for a few minutes to go get something to eat, run to the bathroom, etc...it does not, therefore, surprise me that there aren't many able to say whether or not that statement was real, or a fabrication. I don't feel that Medievia's staff should have to trot out system logs for you all to see to refute that comment, simply because it is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO ANYTHING. It just started the whole controversy, which seems to be what everyone wanted here.

The help file actually said that if the player ran a script to get rid of the prompt that it would mark their history. Having anything negative in your history could always affect decisions made about your character. There are many things that players can do on the game to have their history marked, running scripts included. In no way does it say that if they dont vote they would not get our help.

People read that as a threat, but running scripts is illegal for the most part on Medievia. We changed the text when we added the opted out code last night.

Yes we are being asked to change the system, but as long as we are all on the same playing field with this voting stuff, the better off we all are. Medievia has a large playerbase, it should be reflected here at this site. We have a good game, more of the world should know about it.

I'm curious: What MUD was the "holier-than-thou" poster from in which players can see which players have and haven't voted? That would be against TMS rules it seems to me, since it displays a different message based on whether or not you've voted.

--matt

That's nonsense. I essentially wrote the text for the rule change, as Synozeer mentioned, and my biggest mud is often #2 to Aardwolf. What reason would there possibly be for me to write the rule change so as to specifically permit Aardwolf's system just because it's Aardwolf's? If anything, there would be a reason for me to write it to prohibit it.

The rule clarification is as it is because it fits with the spirit that Adam had wanted to enshrine in the rules in the first place. That's it, and that's all. In Aardwolf's case, although the letter of the law seemed to be being violated (though technically wasn't), the system was completely opt-in. It serves merely as a handy way for players who want to vote to keep track of when they want to vote. Medievia's system, as implemented, was not only not opt-in, but you couldn't opt-out. It was not just a handy reminder. It was coercion. Adam clarified the rules because there's no reason something like Aardwolf's system shouldn't be permitted and there's no reason both the spirit AND letter of the rules shouldn't reflect that.

--matt

You guys make my brain hurt.

Such complexity about the voting script on here.

No, that would not be legal, as it can act as a reward/punishment in many cases.

Since you asked, I don't play any muds, and I haven't for a few years. I log into only one mud, Abandoned Realms, once every 1-2 months, just to keep my character from being deleted and to chat every so often. And as you can see, Abandoned Realms gets no special favors on the list.

Now, I'll just clarify a few things:

Voting reminders and the like must be OFF by default and stay OFF unless the player turns it on themselves.

Lists showing who has or has not voted (or uses a voting reminder tool or the like) also violates the rules.

Displaying different messages to other players based on whether you voted/didn't vote or use a voting reminder tool/don't use the tool violates the rules.

ADam

So basically you're going to rewrite the rules as Medievia rewrites its code.

Gotcha.

As I see it, voting is meant to be something a player does because they think their MUD is excellent. It should be IN NO WAY pressured by the MUD. It shouldn't even need to be suggested by the MUD, other than providing some possible websites at which to vote!

That's the spirit of the rules of this site, as I see it, and if you can't tell that Medievia's system, even as they changed it twice, was breaking the spirit of the rules, then you are blind.

This voting system is not intended to be some kind of free advertisement service. Just because the Medievia staff is frustrated because they sunk their money into a PC Gamer advertising scheme that has failed to net any new players doesn't mean that they should be allowed to abuse a free service put here to allow the PLAYERS to give their opinions to the world.

Incidentally, Soleil failed to mention that "vote idonotvote" will only pause spam for a month, which is worse than an opt-out system, in my opinion. It's not even close to opt-in!

Come on man. Out of probably everyone prominent on this site besides Synozeer, I'm one of the only ones to have welcomed Medievia to Topmudsites with open arms, and have gotten myself flamed more than once for supporting them, even if I disagree with some of the things they do.

I'm sorry if you can't understand why this change makes sense, but there is is a consistent rationale behind it that is, I think, pretty obvious, and has nothing to do, per se, with Medievia.

--matt

You say it yourself, gameover, the one who started this BS, that the MUD should not even suggest the idea of voting.