Two words:  Free press.

The stack of dead horses grows with each passing month, yet the beatings continue unabated.  Each time a message is posted in response to one of the never-ending threads, the author's name gains yet another tick of exposure, as does his or her game.

The number of pages increases, as does the time it takes to sift through the rapidly growing stack of indented quotes in an attempt to follow the stream of consciousness. Reading them becomes a game unto itself.  We laugh, we cry; we read more and then, like those who park on freeways and stand on the side of the road unable to turn from a bad car wreck, we watch and shake our heads helplessly...

And then repeat in a few months' time, sometimes under the guise of another entirely unrelated topic, which will quite likely eventually turn back around to the stable of dead horses being beaten by the primary stablemasters.

Even dead horses, however well beaten, must be fed.

But you have yourself repeated exactly what Matt said. Almost word for word: CF is run by "amateurs" but would never want to advertise as such, since most people get the entirely wrong idea when they see the word "amateur".

I believe that CF's admin also tried to state that his entire staff is not fully amateur. He has several professional coders who are kind enough to volunteer their professional services to the MUD.

Not every staff member of IRE gets paid, do they? Does that mean that they are amateurs, even if they are professional gamers in other venues/etc?

You can't call CF any more amateurly staffed than IRE - it is simply not a commercial product, like IRE. The difference is huge, and the inference of it being otherwise is insulting, at best.

While I disagree with many of the_logos' points, I think his analogy in this case was spot-on. Imagine if there were only two ways listed that a mud could be run: "run by professionals who operate and develop muds for a living" and "run by unskilled amateurs who operate and develop muds as a hobby". Only a few muds would fall into the first category, but I can't see many people willingly listing themselves in the latter.

If such a categorisation were made, I would propose that either (1) it were expanded to take into account other options, or (2) the categorisation be removed entirely.

Unsurprisingly, that's also the exact same proposal I made for the current free/pay-per-play categorisation.

Terms of Professional and Amateur to differentiate MUDs is and can serve as a loaded-attempt to institute positive and negative association on the MUDs, and individuals associated with them, subjected to such terms.  Professional, due to people's incorrect understanding of the full definition of the word, is associated with a positive image while amateur is not.  Professional doesn't really mean quality in every context, though many assume as much.

Likewise, the definition of a professional is highly questionable when it comes to games of all sorts, not just MUDs.  The most skilled professional I know in the computer industry had no degree in the field (well, actually, he just graduated so now he does have the degree) yet had the capabilities and skills to an extent that made them more proficient than the entire computing department at the University he was getting his degree from (he dropped out of college, his degree program at the time was also non-computer-related, and started working professionally doing daily what a team of six people normally did and doing it in half the time they would have taken).  Even before he was hired, he had a greater skill than those who were both "qualified" and already working in the field.

And there's more to a MUD than just the code. Do all the commercial MUDs out there employ professional economists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, architects, linguists, etc. to design their world?  Unlikely they employ even one, much less all.  So, they're only professional so far as they're paid.  Outside of a paycheck (or whatever substitute they receive), they're just as, if not more, unqualified as anyone else working on any other MUD when it comes to those aspects of the game.

And besides, if I were to pay my staff $0.01, would they suddenly become professionals and not amateurs, even if they were so incompetant that they couldn't spell their own name correctly 3 out of 5 times? (fortunately, they all can spell their name correctly 5 out of 5 times...I tested them!  *grin*)

However, commercial denotes something's relation to the purpose of commerce, ie. the buying and selling of commodities.  In other words, it's about the money.  The use of the term commercial to denote any MUD which is operating for that purpose would therefore be accurate.

Now, to differentiate different commercial models would also be nice, as it would offer those visiting the site a greater idea of what they're looking at.  But the use of "professional" and "amateur" would just serve as an attempt to denigrate those MUDs, and those who create and run them, that operate for the love of the medium, not the love of money.

Take care,

Jason

For someone like me, who has been away on vacation over the holidays, it’s interesting to be met by a mega thread (34 pages) and new-started thread (6 pages and still growing), which both mainly circle around the definition of the word ‘FREE’ in the Mud community, and whether or not it is acceptable for a commercial company like IRE to advertise their muds as ‘free to play’. I wish I could also say that reading through the threads was entertaining, but that would not have been true, since wading through the same arguments, repeated over and over again with small variations to apparently totally deaf ears on both sides, soon became really boring.

But interesting, yes. In particularly three things were interesting:

1. The relatively new poster PinkFloyd, who only appeared in the first thread after the_logos had announced his withdrawal, and who seemed amazingly familiar with the IRE helpfiles and advertising strategy, although I believe he claimed somewhere, (correct me if I am wrong, I really don’t feel like wading through it all again), that he never even played an IRE game, much less has got anything to do with the administration.

2. The fact that the two main combatants (The_logos and Donathin Frye both made claims about speaking on behalf of the ‘Mud community’).

Comment: In a way both claims could be said to be justified. The IRE games certainly have lots of players. On the other hand there are 1817 muds listed on TMC right now. (I don’t know how many are listed on TMS, since the list only goes to the first 100). A very large majority of those muds are free, because they are running on some kind of DIKU derivate, meaning that according to the licence (which they all, except apparent rogues like Vryce, honour). The licence explicitly states that you are not allowed to make any money from selling in-game benefits to the players. It could be assumed that a majority of the owners of those muds are against IRE marketing itself as free. I would also have assumed that most OTHER commercial mud owners would be against it, since it gives IRE a business advantage at their expense, but that seems to be contradicted by some posts from the Threshold administration. (And by the way, Matt, ‘a handful of forum posters’ is hardly accurate, since to a very large amount of mud owners, who were brought up to honour the DIKU licence, FREE means something very specific. But you probably wouldn’t understand that, since you don’t honour the licence. I have even seen you actively supporting Medievia’s breach of it and encouraging other administrators to do the same).

3. Even more interesting, but also a bit disturbing, is the fact that the_logos also claims to be speaking on behalf of the List owner Synozeer, and also is rewriting the voting rules to fit his own system as closely as possible.  This claim seems to be supported by the fact that Synozeer, at least so far has been very silent, even though he at some time announced that he was following the debate. On a side-note I also find the veiled threats about large subscribers retiring if the list were to be change distasteful, to say the least.

Comment: There is a saying: ‘Money speaks’. I really hope that isn’t true in this case. Commercial muds buy advertising space on various Mudsites. For this they should get exactly what they pay for and no more; namely banners in prominent places to advertise their gamers. I really hope that is all they get. Because, (as the_logos arrogant posts and Synozeer’s silence seem to implicate), if they also get any more influence on the policy decisions on the site than members that don’t pay for banners, then it would be really grave. I sure hope this is not the case here, and that the reason why Synozeer himself has not yet commented on the issue yet is simply because he hasn’t yet made up his mind about what course to take.

Finally. DonathinFry very commendable asked for the opinions of other mud administrators and players. That would of course be the best way to settle the question in my point 2 that is if they really came forward in large numbers. But I doubt it will happen. Most mud admins and players are very silent on these Forums. Probably for two reasons. The first is that they really don’t care, most of them even bother to read the forums. The second, more grave one, is that they  feel their opinions don’t matter, because decisions will be taken over their head anyhow.

My opinion probably don’t matter either, but I still am going to give it.

1. I think Jazuela’s suggestion of dividing between commercial and non-commercial muds is excellent, because in one stroke that makes the entire haggling about how the word ‘free’ should be interpreted redundant. Commercial or not commercial is a real divider among mudders, even more so than PK or RP-enforced, and it is worthy of its own tag.

2. If that cannot be implemented, I second the suggestion to implement 3 or possibly 4 categories of commercial muds, that I think first was proposed by Valg. The only reason why I don’t put that as my first choice is that it obviously demands a lot more work on the side of the Site owner than any of the other 2.
  1) 100% free.  Non-commercial.  RL money cannot alter gameplay.
  2) May pay for perks.  Optional fees may change gameplay.
  3) Pay-to-play: Fees are required for gameplay.

3. If that still cannot be implemented, I second KaVir’s suggestion that the current division between ‘free’ and ‘pay-to-play’ gets removed completely, since it only leads to confusion and opens for misleading advertising.

If this site really is a Resource site, and not just a ‘traffic exchange hub’ as some posters (but not Synozeer, I hope) keep claiming, then some care should be put into making the listings as useful and accurate as possible to the audience. The present system is misleading, and should be changed. The length of the discussion threads shows that there is a real concern about it among the members.

I think you are on to something with the idea of just removing the distinction entirely.

Threshold has been listed here as pay-per-play since either when we created our listing, or when pay-per-play was added as an option: whichever came first (I don't remember if the option has always been there). I am fine with it being there, because I'd rather newbies who come to Threshold *know* there is a cost involved, so they won't have a spaz when they find out "Hey, not everything in life is free. This is BS! YOU SUXOR!"

But these ridiculous arguments that crop up every few months about who is free and who is pay-to-play are asinine. Nobody is ever going to be totally happy with the way their competitors advertise, and if it is going to create these kinds of arguments then it would probably be best if there was no pay-per-play (or not) check option in the listings anyway. Then people wouldn't have anything to gripe about.

If you have the check-box of pay-per-play (or any other set of choices) you will always have people who feel someone else is "gaming the system" by not answering that question in the way THEY think is appropriate. On an issue as contentious as this, the only way to really level the playing field is remove it as an official check-option and then suck it up if someone says they are free in their marketing blurb.

I really don't care what is done: more options, color coded dots, less options, no options related to payment status, etc. I'd just be happy if this issue could die for good.

The *site* is not just a traffic exchange, but the front page ranking list most definitely IS a traffic exchange.


Actually, it is a terrible suggestion. Why should muds that send a miniscule percentage of the traffic to the front page/traffic exchange portion of the site get the same benefit as the muds that send 70-80% of the traffic?

Are you suggesting that TMS should be turned into a charity site, where commercial muds send the majority of the traffic (not to mention pay the bills by purchasing ads) so non-commercial muds can share equally in the benefits? That's patently unfair and utterly outrageous.


I think that is the only way to make the bickering stop and level the playing field.

And the problem with that is the word "amateur" means different things to different people, which would be confusing to players using the site.

Much like how IRE uses the word "free", yet obviously has a very different business model and financial goal from us. I'd object to the term "amateur" because it's ambiguous as to whether or not the user means "not for profit" or "unskilled". In an identical fashion, I object to the current use of the word "Free" to describe both Carrion Fields and IRE, and I'd like another category or two created to alleviate this ambiguity.

The words ‘amateur’ – ‘professional’ can probably be interpreted in as many ways as ‘free’. To some they give a negative signal, to others a positive.

The original meaning of the word ‘amateur’ is ‘someone who loves what they are doing’, which of course would be positive. Over the time it has often come to imply the not-so-positive meaning of ‘blundering incompetent’. And even the word ‘professional’ is not totally positive to all people. In some countries ‘professional’ is synonym to ‘hooker’ (someone who sells their body for money).

In my country there is a Society called ‘The Garden Amateurs’. In spite of the name that society contains some of the most ‘professional’ gardeners I’ve ever seen (in the positive meaning of the word of course). They know the Latin names and growing conditions of every conceivable garden plant, even some that ordinary people haven’t even heard of, much less seen. And the reason why they are so knowledgeable is that they truly love what they are doing and spend all their spare time on their hobby.

‘Hobbyist’ mud administrators are a bit like that. They develop their muds out of sheer love for what they are doing and spend all their spare time doing it. As a consequence there are several hobbyist muds out there that are quite as good, or even better than the big commercials, but they don’t have as many players and aren’t nearly as well known, because they don’t have the funds to advertise.

I play three muds regularly myself. Two of the three are commercial and one is free. The free one is the one I like best, and it is in any way as good as the two commercial ones. The staff there, although all ‘hobbyists’, are professional in the best meaning of the word, and most of them have academic degrees. The head coder is a qualified programmer, with a very well paid RL job in a big software firm. One of the head builders is an architect, another is a language teacher, a third a history major and a fourth a professional writer in RL. No wonder that the zones and features in that small free mud excel most things I’ve seen elsewhere.

So are these people ‘amateurs’?
Yes, in the sense that they love what they are doing and do it out of love.
No, in the sense that they most definitely know what they are doing and that they do an extremely competent job.

Not all hobbyist muds are good of course. In fact there are lots of totally crappy ones out there, run by immature kids. But to say that all hobbyist muds are inferior to the commercial ones, as some posters have done,  is not only insulting, it also shows a vast ignorance.

Because of the ambiguity about the words ‘free’ and ‘amateur’-‘professional’ it’s probably much better to use the word ‘commercial’ as a distinction. That is a pretty straightforward description, that shouldn’t send out any other signals than the obvious one; that the game is expected to yield a profit to the owner, sooner or later.

I was actually about ready to agree that labelling IRE as "pay-for-perks" would be accurate and agreeable, but actually as I read Matt's post I realised the intrinsic problem with all these things, which this thread itself is testament to. All these snappy, soundbite-like and truly quite vague expressions such as "pay-for-perks", "free to play", "hobbyist", "RPI", "hack 'n' slash", etc. actually mean very little, and can be debated endlessly, as we see in this thread.

This thread even began to argue the definition of a fairly common word in "free", not even going into the dangerous territory of trying to debate these terms that we've come up with ourselves in the MUD community. I think trying to correctly describe all these games with these very narrow and hamfisted categories is very foolish of us. The reason I think this is because I know how much work I have put into the game I am an administrator and coder of, Lusternia, and I know it chafes me whenever someone incorrectly categorises my game and shaves off some of its complexity and variety to make it fit into their grouping. I know many of you debating here are administrators yourselves, or have been at one time, and so I know you must all feel the same about your own games. Even players can feel this, their chosen game can be a thing they are loyal to and will defend if its honour is questioned or it is being underrated, they can often feel just as attached to the game they play as those of us who create the game for them to play.

For this reason I can only think of two solutions that I believe might work:

1) All the games are simply allowed to describe what their MUD is about as specifically and fully as they like, only using the connotation-burdened phrases such as "amateur", "pay for play", etc. if they wish to.

2) Get rid of all the categories. This has been suggested by others in this thread, and though it would make things a tad more difficult for players just scanning through games looking for what they want, it would certainly cut down on any confusion about what a game is, as they'd have to try it/go to their website and read about it to find out what it was about.

You might notice Lusternia has no assertions of any kind about being free or able to pay or anything like that in our information, and our out score isn't that bad.

I have three children and I've been a full time at home mother for 16 years. I'd be highly insulted if someone called me an amatuer child carer while referring to a 16year old with a baby sitting job as professional.

Which is better qualified to take care of a child? Now technically I suppose in some ways that labelling it could be right depending on which definition of the terms and where you are looking at it all from.

Anyway this topic is beginning to bore me, it's like a rerun from some bad 80's courtroom drama with the suits arguing whether the sky is cyan or cobalt it's going nowhere and will never have a clear answer. And so I depart

Anything that requires you to give your credit card number can't be considered free in my book, I.E. Second Life.

I also don't think the "pay game" and the "bastardized version" can be considered the same game for anything.  For instance, cart racer and most free MMO's.

Also, "Habbo Hotel" is a chat room.

It's not that these games are not free, it's just that the average American isn't going to pay for these.  Sure, some Koreans will play these but between pay games and mind-numbing shoe-factory job there's not much else to do.  I don't want a free tissue if you charge me every time I blow my nose, or clean something with it.  I'd rather just buy a box of tissues.

I also disagree with what Matt said about an online search for free games. Many sites, such as have a huge number of links to free games. There are LOTS of completely free games on the internet. And LOTS of completely free MUDs.

Though I don't want to make too big a deal of this and send the thread off track, I'd appreciate it if you could keep those kind of bull**** statements off the forums entirely - I happen to know a number of people in Korea and that arrogant, sweeping generalisation based on an idiotic stereotype is pretty offensive. South Korea is now more technologically advanced than some Western countries, has entire cities that are wireless zones, and has one of the highest percentages of population with internet access in the world. The day when most online gaming is centred in places like Korea isn't that far off.

I am going to toss my two cents in here and say that I tend to agree, as a player and currently *only* a player, that I think some statement of the commercial nature of a mud is a necessity. I can say for an absolute fact that my reaction to logging in some place, then finding out I need to, or even would be massively advantaged, by shelling out money, is roughly the same reaction as I get everything time I see an email in my box that says, "Your free XBox is ready!" Yep, free, as long as you go to 10 other web sites and sign up for stuff that costs you 50% more than the price of the original free gift. Oops! Or even more accurately, what you see with some Shareware offerings, where its free to play the first 2 levels (a lot of games), use it free on one email address (mailwasher), free to check for **some** problems on your system (some registry cleaner), just not the ones you need fixed, etc. Free, free, free, as long as you ignore the **reality** that you eventually have to pay for the product, if you want to have every feature, or use it the same way as everyone else, or want to keep using it, in cases where you have to a) upgrade, b) subscribe or c) only get X-days to use it.

NONE of those things are "free" and I get ****ed off by claims that they are, since it makes finding what I am looking for like trying to find a single brain cell in the mush inside Bush's head. It absolutely guarrentees that I will *never* play at one of the muds that pulls that crap and undermines my ability to find legitimate MUDs that don't feel the need to lie about their commercial nature to trick me into playing, because, "Gasp!", they are telling the truth when they say they don't require people to pay for "anything".

Maybe we need a poll, just to clear up what the "community" thinks free is supposed to mean?

It seems like everyone who makes a humble post on this site is flamed, or at least given a very condescending rebuttal.  I have read many threads here for quite some time and only now decided to post, however quiet I can hope to remain.

The play for perks and free debate, I have my opinions over, but I won't address here since I cannot possibly add something new and insightful.  I do want to possibly try to answer the "professional" versus "amateur" labelling.

There are a number of dictionaries we could consult, although I know we all have our personal definitions and understanding of what those two words mean.  I'll happen to quote dictionary.com because it is accessible by anyone reading what I'm writing now, and it happens to load quicker for me than most online dictionaries.

professional: adj.
Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people.
Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football.
Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.

amateur: adj.
Of or performed by an amateur.
Made up of amateurs: an amateur cast.
Not professional; unskillful.

The source is The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

I think these definitions, in their lot, convey the sort of meaning I think most people, (at least in the US, I don't mean to know what anyone else thinks, US or any other nation, that is), but I would like to offer two examples.

First, in porn videos, there are categories.  There is an amateur section and there are porn stars, like Jenna Jameson.  While I cannot prove this remark, in my personal experience, I've heard people mention Jenna Jameson, (who may be the number one demanded search for porn stars on most search engines, I would bet 10 to 1), far more than they'd say something about amateur videos.

Second is the issue of professional sports.  It may not be true for all sports, but in ones I've participated in, including tennis and golf, generally, receiving cash prizes is not permitted for anyone that hasn't "turned pro".  (You can receive trophies and insignificant free prizes.)  Therefore, a professional tennis player who merely receives cash is not always going to be more skilled or athletic than an amateur tennis player.

However, while there may be some hermit, living in a cave, who has some incredible talent in the sport never seen in any player, past or present, it is generally accepted that professionals ARE BETTER than amateurs.  There may be not be a clear borderline between amateurs who only recently turned professional and amateurs who are considering changing, but have decided, for some reason, not to at this point, or ever.

Therefore, professionals could not merely have the rough, generally accepted definition of being merely paid while their counterpart amateurs are not.  Through the invitation of more money and more marketing, perhaps, far more people watch the self-qualified expertise of professional athletes and, um, maybe other people.

The implication behind this is that, while this is not any logically rigourous proof, still, it would not be fair to say that anyone claiming that "Hey, don't say that amateurs suck!  That's just what you think!", buttonholing people for being small-minded, are necessarily right.  While professionals do sometimes invite notoriety in many ways, including the issue of the salaries certain athletes make, still, those athletes who are not professional could not be those who are the most expert in the nation.

If you are talking about the use of "free" in advertising (such as IRE's "free to play" claim), why not just use the word as it is understood in honest and ethical advertising?  Accept "free to play" as a promise of just that and move on.

If you are talking about the use of "free" as a means of categorizing muds based on business models or whether or not they are commercial, then maybe just ditch the use of "free" altogether since it probably isn't going to be as informative as anyone would want such categories to be.  Personally, I'd just be happy with a commercial/non-commercial distinction (though even that distinction would probably generate complaints about, say, clearly non-commercial muds that decide to hand out magic swords in exchange for donations for their next server payment).

What you're failing to take into account is that many "amateur" mud developers work as programmers or software engineers in the real world (some of them even working for high-profile computer game companies). Equally, there are "amateur" mud builders who work as professional writers in the real world.

The professional/amateur thing was originally brought up (I believe) as a demonstration of how pointless it is to have overly broad categories. Listing a mud created by professional writers and games programmers as "amateur", simply because they created it as a hobby, is no more informative than listing a mud created by a highschool drop-out as "professional" because he pays his rent by selling powerful items to the playerbase, having failed to keep his job at McDonalds.

Well, I agree with you. Commercial vs. Non-commercial would be helpful. It does however create an additional problem, in that it confuses the, "You must pay", and, "You can pay for extras", as essentially identical. They are not. My point in suggesting a poll was to resolve the goofy argument about just what "free" meant and who was making a valid claim about what people thought it meant.

I do generally agree though. "Free" by itself is a useless category, as anyone that has tried to find a mud client through Google can attest to when using that term, and getting zMud's "Free Trial". The meaning of the word is so distorted by shareware people offering trial version that its worthless. But it doesn't mean defintions don't exist that specify "how" free something is. For instance, is Mushclient "free" or "commercial"? Obviously the later, but that implies you can't use it without paying, when in reality you can use it indefinitely, with some minor irritation when it first loads. So its not "non-free" to *use*. It is an important distinction. One that "free" as its used for muds on here can't and doesn't make. Eliminating it doesn't fix the problem, it just shifts the burden to people like me, that already dislike the idea of having to guess what "free" really means in context of a mud. I think we generally agree on that, just not in what a useful solution is.

There is a third and even more grave reason.  Some of us don't post much here, if only to avoid fueling highly predictable flamewars and beatings (see dead horses above) that frequently arise when anyone with fewer than a certain number of posts expresses an opinion.

I'll be glad to express an opinion by voting in a poll on the topic of free vs pay for [pick a term here: play, perk, prefs].  If someone sets up polls, I'll be near the front of the line to register my vote for or against separating the postings.  If that someone happens to be the person who would make the decision to change or not change the way that TMS handles its listings, all the better.

KaVir, I did not fail to take that into account -- that is exactly what I intended to address. Labelling something as amateur does not necessarily mean "not professional" using the definition of "unskillful".

What I intended in the verbose clarification of the two words was merely to advance a clearer understanding of how MUDs could be labelled using those words. I believe that on the subject of labelling, altogether, we have the same philosophy: not naming something for what it isn't. The consequences of not heeding that point would be visitors to the site, using what I imagine are the generally accepted definitions of the words "amateur" and "professional", will see the labels and make judgments, filtering out criteria in searching for MUDs, for example.

That, of course, has an implication on the real issue at hand, over the term "free". I'm still thinking about that and might eventually add something worthwhile.

Threshold @ Jan. 11 2006,09:49

Simmer down. There is no need to get aggressive. I am not advocating ‘parallel voting lists’ if that is what you are so afraid of. All I am saying is that the definitions ‘non-commercial’ and ‘commercial’ are better than the currently used ‘free’ and ‘pay-to-play’, since they don’t give as much room for individual interpretation and misrepresentation. The ‘commercial’ muds could then be broken down further by their business method into the 3-4 categories already suggested to give more accurate info, but the big divider for most mudders goes at commercial or not.

If you weren’t so blinded by your own prejudices, you would realise that I am actually fighting your battle too here. If certain commercial Muds use the ambiguity of the word ‘free’ to misrepresent themselves purposefully to gain more new players at the expense of others, that is negative not only to all the really ‘free’ muds, but also to other commercial muds, like yourself, who represent themselves correctly. I am surprised that you cannot see that.

For the moment the only ones I am aware of doing it are the IRE games, (with the exception of Lusternia), and (of course) Medievia, but there might be more. It gives an unfair advantage to those that practice the misrepresentation, and that should be corrected.

That said, I think that there should also be two lists, but certainly not parallel ones.
However there should be a way to draw out a list of all non-commercial muds by using the search engine. I don’t really care if that list is based on alphabetical order or most votes, but the option should exist, and it currently doesn’t. As it is you can only list commercial muds with the search engine, and when you do, you get an incomplete list, because of the above mentioned misrepresentation. But there should also be a similar search option for the players who actively seek a non-commercial mud.

It would be fair to everybody, give accurate info to all mudders in search for a new game to play, and consequently make this resource site a lot better.

But whatever will we do with the non-profit muds and the not-for-profit muds? Shouldn't Goodwill have equal access to mudding without the stigma of commercialization?

Oh what a sad day indeed!

Belakai @ Jan. 12 2006,09:39
The non-profit muds will fit in very nicely with the non-commercial category. The dividing line would be whether or not you get any in-game benefits for RL money.
Selling t-shirts and mousepads on the Website is fine. So is accepting donations to pay for the server, as long as it doesn’t affect the gameplay in any way.
Selling beefed up Swords-of-doom or practice points in the game is not.

Since there still seems to be some confusion here, allow me to sum up the proposition such as it stands:

1. The listed muds get divided in two main categories; Commercial and Non-commercial.
(A game is commercial if you need to pay to play it after an initial free trial period, or if you can buy any type of in-game benefits, otherwise not).

2.  Within the Commercial category there are 3 sub-categories, based on the business idea:
   A. Pay-to-play
   (You have to pay an initial or periodic fee to play the game, after a free trial period)
   B. Pay-for-perks
   (You may play for free, but can buy different in-game benefits to advance your character for real money)
   C. Both pay-to-play and pay-for-perks
   (You need to pay both to access the game and to get in-game benefits to advance your character)

There should be a different colour code for the two main categories, and then you could attach the letter A, B or C to the commercial ones.

It should be up to the Mudowners to list their game in the correct category. After that, the members of the lists should be relied on to report any irregularities to the List Admin. No policing would be required by the List Admin, except possibly to review some dubious cases. Mud owners listing their games in the wrong category should first get a warning, and a week’s time to correct their input. If they fail to comply, they should be removed from both the list and database, until they are willing to adhere to the rules.

The search engine should also provide lists of both commercial and non-commercial muds, not just of the pay-to-play ones like it does now. It should also provide lists of the three commercial categories.

Of course I know that, which is why I used it as an example. You are an amateur. You yourself said this. The problem with that is that it's an unfairly loaded term. I brought up that entire example solely to point that out, you know. I typically use hobbyist rather than amateur for precisely that reason.
--matt

Cynicism may suggest that we should have no label whatsoever, because intelligent MUD shoppers will ultimately find out how free or "free" a MUD is. However, in my opinion, this makes a list rather stupid. If we couldn't settle the issue to some degree, we may have to concede the battle on MUDlibs and genres who will point to this decision. When I search for a new MUD to play, now and then, I'd like to see things by categories, but if those categories didn't exist, I would most likely go to a site that did have categories, including the free category.

Anitra's proposal is elegant. There is a label for each group of MUDs. It's not extremely simple as black and white, but this is as simple as it gets, for now.

Perks include anything from restringing to increased practises and stats. Restringing does not let you kill an ogre or a player faster -- practises and stats do. Therefore, might I submit that play-for-perks should mean a material gaming advantage, not a role-playing advantage? I'm sure someone might be able to word it better than me.

And for once, Kavir, you and I are on entirely the same page. I don't understand how a couple people managed to get worked up about an analogy demonstrating what's wrong with exactly what they're getting worked up about.
--matt

I make no claims to represent the mud community as a whole. I merely claim that my organization represents more players than other developer in the text MUD community aside from Simutronics.

Edit: Actually, I retract even that claim, insofar as it's unfair to assume that I represent the views of other players, just as it'd be unfair for Bill Gates to claim he represents me because I use Windows software.

What I do claim is that most of the rest of the world accepts our definition of free, from the Federal Trade Commission to Google.

--matt

What if they accept donations in excess of server costs and use it to advertise or buy themselves meals? There's effecitvely no way to tell where the money being sent to a MUD is going. They might say they're using it to pay for the server, but there's no public accounting available.


This doesn't fit any standard definition of a non-commercial enterprise. There's absolutely no reason a non-commercial enterprise couldn't offer in-game benefits for money if they're not doing it to make a profit but just to stay afloat on server costs and whatnot. What makes an enterprise non-commercial isn't how they obtain money to stay afloat, it's the idea that the money is not being used to realize a profit for anyone.

And there's the problem. How are you going to demonstrate that a MUD is or isn't trying to turn a profit? Again, no public accounting. I mean, I happily proclaim that IRE muds are commercial, but there are definitely MUDs out there that are taking in more than they need to stay afloat while maintaining the illusion of being non-commercial.

--matt

Having to give up information makes something not free? Weird. I wonder if there's anyone else in the world that shares your view.

I'm pretty sure that the internet reaches the whole world and given that some frequent posters here (like Kavir) are not American, who cares whether the average American will pay for those or not? The average American wouldn't ever play a text MUD. And?

Your attack on Koreans is incredibly ignorant and mildly racist. South Korea is a highly developed, highly educated, highly "wired" country.

This is what I said: - Google (Go ahead and search for 'free game' for instance and note the ads that come up for games that are free to play but offer the opportunity to pay extra for whatever. Google ads are patrolled, incidentally, and they shut down ads that make false claims.)

There is not an intelligent way to disagree with that, because searching for 'free games' on google brings up RealArcade. Real Arcade is one of the top games sites on the internet, and it operates a business model whereby you can play for free, but can pay to gain access to more options.

If you don't believe me, just google up "free games" and watch Real Arcade's ad come up. That there are other games that advertise themselves as free and use a different business model doesn't change the fact that Google, which moderates its ads, recognizes that RealArcade can validly claim to offer free games, even though you have the opportunity to pay for more options.

--matt

Glad to see legitimate points like my own and a few others' are tossed out the window by people like the_logos in favor of perpetuating the argument. Just goes to show how much more some people favor the fight rather than the end of the battle.

No player has time to try every game. Accurate labeling of business models would help a player narrow down which ones to try.

It's not calling players stupid. It's respecting their time.

the_logos @ Jan. 12 2006,19:18
That is exactly why the definition is set as 'in game benefits', and not 'making a profit'. Additionally it is how the DIKU licence, which, whether you like it or not, still governs the largest part of mud owners, makes the distinction. And this is a website for muds.

As you say, it is impossible to establish whether a company makes a profit or not, or even if they are aiming at a profit or not. No doubt gameowners like Vryce would lie through their teeeth about that part, if it gained them any advantages.

However, I doubt that anyone would get very rich by selling a couple of t-shirts or mousepads with their game logo from their website. The real big money, as you well know, you'll get from selling the in-game benefits, because that is what players will keep paying for.

Again, the definition is specifically chosen because it is practical, easy to track and also makes good sense.

And again, an easy way to separate 'free' muds from 'commercial' ones is what a lot of people would like to see, whether you like it or not.

I still don't understand why you are so against this. A lot of players obviously love your system. So what is wrong with showing up front which system you use?

I'm not against being labeled commercial. We're commercial, and we make no bones about it. But, if there's to be a commercial label, then I want distinctions made. Not just "commercial" but, for instance, "commercial and free-to-play". I'd imagine that's no different than someone wanting his/her MUD to be listed as "Bashing with PK" rather than just "Bashing", for instance.

I'm against being forced to put a feature of our MUD in our marketing blurb on the front page, as I view it as no more relevant than a host of other factors. Other people may view it as irrelevant or highly relevant. If players are so interested in specific features, they can search for them.

I tend to agree with Kavir in any case and say just get rid of any labels regarding business model though to just avoid the problem altogether. As many posters have pointed out, players are not dumb sheep that need coddling.

--matt

No, I think specifying is useful for the average player. As Valg says, their time deserves to be respected.

Matt, you want to have your little blurb and still be categorized with the "free-to-play" MUDs(which are largely, 100% free and not skirting around the edge)? I would not be against a specific system, like this one.

Examples:
Achaea["Free-to-Play, Pay-for-Perks"]
Legends of Karinth["Free-to-Play, Donations Accepted"]
Threshold["Pay-for-Registration"]
Dragonrealms["Pay Monthly, Pay-for-Perks"]

It would take an hour to come up with 4-6 terms that every MUD could find its way into. Then, a simple tag or color-code could be added, with a key/etc for the player to use. It is being made out to seem like drawing the lines in the sand is too difficult a task to be undertaken.

It is not. I agree that the economic-model should either be removed or specified further and made easier to access for the users of the site. I prefer the latter by about 200x more than the former, however. No player is going to feel cheated if you give them more knowledge at their disposal.

Achaea["Free-to-Play, Pay-for-Perks"]

Makes sense to me. Does it not to anyone else?

DonathinFrye @ Jan. 13 2006,06:42
It makes sense to me too.
As long as we are still in agreement that the main dividing line between commercial and non-commersial still goes at anything that affects the actual gameplay.

If a mud wants to accept 'donations' to pay for the server, they should keep any rewards to out-of-game things, like mousepads. In fact I don't think there should be any rewards at all, apart from a simple 'thank you'. A donation by nature is a gift. If you expect, or get, anything in return, it's not a donation, it's either a bribe or a purchase, depending on the circumstances.

If any of the so-called 'donation muds' are in the habit of giving in game benefits in return for the donations, they should change that habit, if they want to be labelled as non-commercial.

I am EXTREMELY insulted by your implications that Koreans are a bunch of unskilled people working in a shoe factory. I'm an American that has lived in Korea for the past three years and have a Korean wife, have you ever been here or even met someone from Korea? Korea and Japan are right next to each other in economics and technology, both are far more technicalogical than America. Korea is the most wired country in the world. 75% of Korean homes have DSL or better, where America around 30% of homes have dial-up or better. A lot of the technology you use every day, expecially cellphones, was invented in Korea or Japan. Learn what you speak about before you throw out racist comment.

As for the topic on hand, half of you are argueing about the word "free" while the other half are argueing about the phrase "free to play" those are different. IRE games are not free, but they are free to play.

EDIT: I know quite a few Americans, that have never been outside of America, that play Korean games such as Kart Rider, Lineage and Maple Story, all three fall into the category of graphical mud.

While I can respect wanting to make it easier for potential players to find games that fit their criteria, somehow you just can't convince me that this is your motivation behind arguing this topic.

After all, I don't see a 9 page thread about the subtle differences between and inbetween 'unrestricted PK' and 'restricted PK', and believe me, there are just as many models when it comes to this aspect of a MUD as there are in the commercial aspect. It stands to reason that providing more choices for models in this aspect (or several others that don't seem to be argued here... gee, I wonder why) would save a player just as much time as the one you're all bickering about.

Personally I think I hit the nail on the head. Some of you feel threatened by the fact that there is a large commercial entity with 4 top 10 MUDs advertising to the same demographic (players looking for 'free' muds) as you are.

Hi, I'm extremely insulted by your implication that it takes unskilled people to work in a shoe factory.
Wrong. And even if it was right, just look at the majority of what kind of 'technology' both of these countries boast: American.
Again, wrong. As with 99.9% of statistics spewed forth by forum posters, yours was made up on the spot with no factual information backing it. Check out the real statistics , as reported by the CIA and other sources. South Korea only has ~2.7% higher internet usage per capita than the United States. Both of which are hovering around 65% of total population (where on Earth did you get your 30% figure?). As far as broadband usage goes, ~50% of Americans have broadband. About ~60% of Koreans have broadband, however, this is largely due to the population density in Korea. They provide all this connectivity with just 13,760 miles of fiber optic cabling throughout the entire country. By comparison, Verizon laid over 20,000 miles of fiber optic cabling in West Virginia alone.
Wrong. Last I checked, Martin Cooper, Rudy Krolopp, and John Mitchell were all Americans.
The same could be said about you throwing around your anti-American ignorance.

Now, this didn't take long to go from a terminology discussion to figuring out which country is more leet.

As for who invented the cellphone, TV, radio, hellicopter, the bicycle and the wheel... I am amazed that there is any confusion - as all those inventions are patently and unmistakebly Russian.

I only read the first page, because I have things to do.

Sooo... why all the debate? All the IRE games are free to play. How can you argue that? You can PLAY them without spending any money. You can't get all the 1337 skillz and l00t, but nowhere are any of their games labled as 'Free to get all the skillz and l00t'. Not only is there no legal argument to be had, there's no linguistic one.

I'm guessing by this point the discussion has gone totally off-topic and I'm making an idiot of myself. Meh.

Gorgulu @ on Jan. 13 2006,21:20
You are correct abouth both things. Entering a discussion without reading through the entire thread is usually not a wise thing to do.
And yes, the discussion has been thrown off-topic, as usual.

In case you or anyone else are interested, the most valid parts can be found on the pages 8 and 9.

Ah, nothing like off-topic US vs. Them rubbish to start the day...

Did you just cite Wired as a source? ... Man.

FWIW, 42% of the total US population (61% of US Internet users) has broadband, as of September 2005. And as far as I know, Sweden and Hong Kong are still kicking everyone's ass, South Korea included.

The point Hajamin was making was that Ilkidarios was engaging in completely ignorant cultural slandering with his dig at South Koreans as having nothing to do but work in shoe factories.

And Hajamin is also correct about South Korea leading the world in broadband penetration. Here's another link:


1. South Korea
2. Hong Kong
3. Netherlands


--matt

While I understand that is it not generally considered a good idea to post without reading the entire topic, I grow tired of wading through semantics and mudslinging (pun intended), and thus have only read about half of the ten pages here.

That said, I do believe it would be wonderful for a deeper classification system to be created for the MUDs listed on TMS. However, if that is going to happen, it should at least be accurate. My experience with MUDs have largely been with IRE games, and they are indeed free to play. Some characters in Aetolia that I've had, have never once purchased credits, and one or both have gotten to be publically known during their day and age. I was a decent fighter (in comparison to people with as much MUDding experience as I, I didn't expect to be a top ten fighter when I started MUDding), I was well known in the circles I ran in, and most of all I enjoyed playing for free.

Now, in Lusternia, I'm regarding as someone with extraordinary wealth, primarily due to the fact that I finally have a decent job. But could those things that I've purchased be gained without credits? Indeed they could! In fact, as I've stated in the past here and elsewhere, there's a fantastic example of a player that rose to lv100, had many sets of skills fully learned, and the only time she got credits from outside the game, was when someone purchased a small amount on her, to make sure that if she ever went inactive, she wouldn't eventually be wiped.

I've seen an heard about other MUDs that advertise free to play, but are not. These are the ones that require you to pay a fee up front, and then the rest of your gaming experience is "free". Now, is making you pay to play free? Er, no. Is IRE falsely advertising because it says it is free to play. No! Just because you can accelerate your character's growth with the possibility to purchase credits does not mean that the game is not free, because I know there are hundreds of Lusternians that have never purchased credits.

So, in summary, there's no reason why we could not have a more in-depth system, but it should accurately reflect what the game really is.

I am aware of this. He also claimed that 30% of US homes have dialup or better, which is complete nonsense (see ).

Equating Korea to Japan economically was pretty silly too, considering that Japan's economy is roughly 4 times as large as South Korea's. I'm not saying that justifies Ilkidarios's comment, but come on. Ignorance does not justify further ignorance.