I would equate the Credits of the IRE games to steroids.  Essentially, one could spend a large amount of time practicing and warming up and training in the gym, but then someone just uses their steroids and goes far beyond what you could attain in any amount of free time.  The point is, you can't attain the level of credit owning players with any amount of free time.  It would take you about three months of constant, nonstop play to reach someone who had, maybe, ten credits.  Money is much easier to attain than free time, and you can't go out and work for free time.  And to put out a different idea than most others in this thread, people with lots of free time will amost always be the people with tons of money.  Rarely is there a person with free time but no money, unless they are a teacher or a bum.

Bull****.

Have you even ever played any IRE games? I can point out several examples of people I know that are top 10 ranked in every ranking category, transed out and own multiple artifacts that have not made credit purchases, or have made a single small credit purchase.

-H

Ultimately, the people running a pay-for-perks system have every incentive to make it:

1) Appear to newbies to be irrelevant fluff.
2) Appear to experienced, invested players to be essential.

To draw people in, you want them to believe that they can play forever, never pay, and not be a second-class citizen. However, once players have put in hours, built up characters, and begun to calibrate themselves to what is challenging inside a game, you want them to realize that their credit card can make any of those challenges irrelevant.

If it was so simple to avoid payment and compete on a level playing field, why would anyone buy any of their products? The answer is obvious: RL money buys you advantages you wouldn't otherwise have, and that means that any competitive/merit achievements on the MUD (be it the best equipment, most powerful RP positions, or adventures through the coolest sections) will be slanted towards the players with the biggest pocketbooks.

Now, players can feel free to choose that environment, and administrators can offer anything they want, but:

1) Please stop pretending the spent money is irrelevant. If it was, you couldn't pay salaries.
2) Please stop advertising the game as "free". It's like a "free" chess tournament where the bishops cost you $20 each.

("But I can name a guy who won a game without any bishops! And you can choose to play with no bishops for free! You just need to manage your pawn resources a little more wisely!")

I do like the idea of subscription systems of the kind Traithe proposed, however. You beta the product, and it's clear up front that if you don't pay, your experience is going to be limited in a known fashion. If you do pay, you're on a level playing field.

Sorry I haven't been keeping up on this thread. Been busy. I wanted to comment on something here though:

That's how you view them, at least. I don't view WoW as competitive -at all- for instance. As a player, I absolutely could not have cared less how someone else got to level 60. It's irrelevant to my experience.

Yes, some players will view them as competitive activities. But even there, what's the big deal? There is no difference to you whether someone is PKing you with equipment purchased with time, equipment gotten from their friends, or equipment purchased with money. They have the equipment. How they got it doesn't really matter in terms of their capabilities.

The overwhelming majority of people playing MUDs. They do have budgets. It's just the size of the budget that's the issue. I guarantee you that Rossi's budget for motorcycles is multiple times what some of his competitors can afford to pay.

Is there any difference between an item that lets you fly and a skill that lets you fly? I'd say not. They're both capabilities. Neither are actually items. Both are just database entries giving you the ability to manipulate other data structures in a particular way (in this case, manipulate it such that an avatar is 'flying'.)


Sure, that's cool, but then you're still buying your success with an out-of-game resource: Your personal skill. Don't get me wrong. I, personally, prefer that. Player skill is huge in all of our games, but then, most people aren't that interested in player skill being the dominating factor. That's why they're playing leveling games like WoW where it's mainly just about the time you sink in, the higher level friends you have, and your ability to hit the 'kill monster' buttons efficiently.

--matt

That assumes that the only way to compete is to buy things yourself with real money, which isn't actually the case in any game I'm aware of. Our top players are rarely the ones that have spent the most money, for instance.


That's also not true. It's a simple matter to allow non-paying members to trade the products of their time investment for the products of the money investment of paying players.

For instance, you buy credits in our games, and can put them up for sale on the credit/gold market, where non-buyers can purchase those credits with gold that they got by investing time.

--matt

Typically, that is not true in subscription games. Generally most things are only available to those willing to spend inordinate amounts of time.

--matt

And indeed, they can. They just have to spend time to do it. What's the problem? On most games, that's the -only- way to advance. This model gives a player more options.


Wow, no offence, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Are you even aware of what challenges are available in pay for perks games? Have you played any of them for any length of time? In other words, do you have experiences in a wide variety of pay for perks systems that have given you hard data about them? Or are you just theorizing?


Who has said that? Of course spent money isn't irrelevant in pay for perks any more than it's irrelevant in subscription games (where they just ban you from the game if you don't pay up).

Or better yet, it's like a free MUD that you can play forever and obtain everything in the game without paying a single penny. =)

--matt

Just as the person playing the "free" chess tournament where bishops cost $20 can play forever for free, and can potentially beat everyone else who plays. And you can point to a person who played for free with no bishops and won a game against a weaker player. Or claim that with sufficient skill, one can advance a pawn all the way to the other side of the board and choose to transform it into a bishop if one wanted, thus getting a $20 bishop for free. Or claim that with sufficient time invested, they'll be so skilled that they will be on par with bishop-owning newbies.

In reality, however, eventually the guy with no bishops is going to run into an equally skilled player with two bishops and get pasted in ten moves. (Or four bishops, analogous to the magnitude of advantage possible in many pay-for-perks schemes.) If they want to stay and compete, they're going to need to push that $40 across the giant "Free to play!" banner.

Ahh, I think you're misunderstanding our system then. There are MUDs, I believe, that use pay for perks and don't allow people to attain <whatever> without paying, but in our games, everything is attainable without paying. It just requires spending time or using skill. Every single skill, every single service, every single item, every single quest, every single area, etc etc.

Besides, calling this model free is the industry standard. See Habbo Hotel, Puzzle Pirates, Quiz Quiz, Runescape, etc. All of them advertise themselves as free. You may not like it, but there it is.

--matt

Ilkidarios is pretty much right on this one. Those characters who choose to buy credits, almost always are the more strong people. and just because they didnt buy the most, doesnt mean that they still didnt buy alot!

like i said, ive played for a long time, ive seen novices who i used to teach, skyrocket above me to Dukes of cities just by buying credits. the "limit" on credits convertible, that almost makes me laugh! its soooo hard to get on once every day and type CONVERT 30 CREDITS.... and then go and learn from some mob for a few more minutes... and hey! your skills are now more powerful than a level 50.

Just to drag this out a little more, combined with buying credits, and the neocredits theyll gain from just gaining the first few levels, that makes them as powerful as well, MORE powerful than someone who has put in about four of five days worth of play, compared to the two or three hours credit buyers use.

Think about what you're saying.

Do you honestly expect someone who is paying for a perk to be on par with someone who hasn't?

Isn't it a bit silly to expect instant parity between two players when one has paid and the other has not?

The people on this board have a completely different viewpoint to what I have observed amongst those players who don't buy anything on the IRE games. They're generally not jealous, happy to play at their own pace and are a major part of the community. The people who do pay are happy to have them around, because even if it is possible to view them as 'freeloaders' they make a valuable contribution to the game through their very presence.

The attitude has changed through time. 6 years ago 'credit whore' was a phrase you occasionally heard, which has long disappeared from use. 3-4 years ago you might hear 'artie whore' if someone was exceptionally loaded with artifacts and beat someone.

The point is:

People who play and don't buy perks don't expect to be on parity with those who do. They can, and very commonly do achieve the same level of character skill as those who 'buy' their way, and *gasp* they have fun while doing it.

-Nothing- is fair when it comes to a new player joining a mud. If you join a free one, there will be players who have years of practice, maxed out skills and levels, the best equipment and encyclopedic knowledge of the game. On a pay for perks mud, you can catch up to these people quicker if you want to pay for it, but you'll still be lacking in experience and knowledge when it comes down to it.

I seriously don't see why people are trying to place an expectation of fairness on others, when the same lack of fairness occurs on their own realms.

-H

On a pay-for-perks MUD, the existing players will still have every thing you outline above (practice, skills, equipment, know-how).  The difference between that and a subscription or free MUD is that they can also have additional perks which they bought.  The gap is larger, not smaller.

Now, a new player can try to make up that gap by spending more than the average established player has already spent in their entire careers.  However, new players will be more conservative with money, not less.  They don't know what perks to buy, where the best value is, or how to best exploit what they buy.  They'll thusly get less out of each dollar that an experienced player would, meaning they're falling even further behind even if they spend at the same rate as the average player.  Again, the gap is larger, not smaller.

Xorith:

Just curious if you have ever played Threshold? Perfect example of a mud not to play if pay to advance is not you thing. I can't stand it for that reason. It claims to be an rp intense mud when you can't even join a church to rp unless you have given so much money. Gah, its such a long story of why that is a horrible mud for paying for what you recieve.

You're talking about Threshold RPG, right? Well, I guess there aren't any churches in Threshold Mush so it's kind of a stupid question. At least, I don't THINK there are any churches in Threshold Mush.

Well the only real arguments I've heard for the pay-for-perks model is that some people don't have enough free time to fairly compete with those who have lots of time. If that were the real reason people wanted it, then allowing them to pay for faster exp-gain to compensate for unplayed time (like the example I gave earlier in the thread) would give them everything they required.

However there are always people who will do anything to get ahead. Just as some people will abuse bugs to get an advantage, so there are people who are more than happy to buy something that puts them ahead of everyone else, particularly for competitive activities such as PK, and even more so when the player lacks the skill to compete fairly. Once one person does this, it forces other players to do the same or fall behind - at which point the play goes on to buy something else in order to maintain their advantage.

Such a scenario is still boolean though - either you've got the turbo controller, or you haven't. That's more comparible with the "optional pay-to-play" model.

However pay-for-perks is not boolean, and that's what causes a lot of the problems with undermining playing skill. The more you pay, the better you get - rather than the console equivient, it's more like playing one of those arcade games where every coin you stick in the slot gives you a boost; that little fat kid might be a poor player, but if he's got a pocket full of quarters he's eventually going to grind you down. Is that your idea of fun? It's not mine.

Ok, here are a few more:

* You can play for free in a commercial quality realm if you like.
* You can buy a small amount of credits once and gain a significant bonus in skills, and enjoy that bonus into perpituity. The money paid is invested directly into character improvement, instead of the alternative where typically only time spent grinding is applied.
* The system is more lenient to social players, who can quite happily explore, quest, bash, RP and trade without paying a cent.
* If you're broke for a few months, you can quite happily play worry free. This isn't true for a subscription based system.
* Your level of purchase is completely voluntary, starting from $20 on IRE games, and even lower on some others.

It works for a very large number of people.

-H

But above, the_logos (correctly) points out that it is a commonly-used model in the industry.  It's easily defined, and distinct from "Free" and "Flat Fee" services.  It doesn't only target the company you work for-- Materia Magica and other games use similar models, and they have nothing to do with IRE.

Why the resistance to an honest label?  If it's such a freedom to be able to invest cash instead of time, why not advertise it loud and proud?

Of course that's the way it works. The player who is time-rich but cash poor has to spend the resource he has (time).

Apparently you seem to be repeatedly misunderstanding this, so let me explain again. In many pay-for-perks MUDs, everything is obtainable, completely for free. I'll repeat that: Everything is obtainable completely for free. The players who don't pay have the opportunity to get -anything- simply by putting in time. Huh. Sounds a lot like most MUDs where time is the major factor, doesn't it?


--matt

Sure, and that's your right. Other people don't think it's worth the money to get equal with those who bought success with time. The same thing will have different value to different individuals.

--matt

Nobody. But then, few things on MUDs are actually free. They generally require an expenditure of time, and for many people, time is quite valuable. I'd still be playing City of Heroes if the game let me throw some extra money its way to speed up my progress. My time is worth more than the enjoyment I got progressing at the slow pace I did (due to not being able to play very much).

There is nothing stopping you from making more money, but good luck creating more time.

--matt

No, the only real argument is that some consumers want it, and thus it is worth providing to them. There's an 800 million+ annual market in virtual item trading, and ALL of the biggest MUDs have it going on extensively. Where do you think that 800+ million comes from? Players. Players who want to be able to buy virtual stuff. That is the justification.

--mat

I think you missed the point. The point is that it is standard to say a game is free if you can play it for free.

Hardestat doesn't work for us last time I checked.

Because it's a stronger freedom to be able to play for free in a commercial game, which is precisely what players can do in our games.

--matt

Apparently, you seem to be repeatedly misunderstanding me, so I'll explain again:

New player: Enters with nothing.
Free MUD established player: Has edge in practice, skills, equipment, know-how.
Pay-for-perks MUD established player: Has edge in practice, skills, equipment, know-how, and previously invested money.

The pay-for-perks scheme means the new player has to invest an amount of money (equal to that spent by the average established player) to reduce the gap to the same magnitude encountered in a free game.

This remains true even if your MUD has an implicit rate of dollars-to-time conversion, as you claim IRE does. Example, using arbitrary numbers:

Starting conditions:
1) Average player on Free MUD: 100 hours of experience.
2) Average player on Pay-for-Perks MUD: 100 hours of experience, plus $50 invested.

The new player, in order to be "even" on the Pay-For-Perks MUD cannot do so by only spending 100 hours of play. They either have to spend some combination of:

1) 100 hours and $50, or
2) (100 + X) hours, where X is the amount of hours needed to accumulate perks equivalent to what $50 gets you.

You repeatedly point out that the new player can accelerate their development by spending money, but repeatedly ignore that everyone else has access to that same acceleration (and has had that access for longer), which only means that new players are starting behind faster-moving established players.

No matter how you frame it, a game where (experience + money) determines rate of progress is inherently more difficult on newbies.

1) Hardestadt has previously identified himself as CTO for a Rapture-based MUD, which is a license proprietary to IRE. I don't have your org chart or anything, but he seems like at least a business partner to IRE. Such a connection means a vested interest in defending the Pay-for-Perks model. You can nitpick technicalities, but he's not Joe Citizen either. (Nor am I, but I clearly identify my ties in my sig.)

2) In this thread, you're claiming that Pay-for-Perks is superior to a free or subscription system, precisely because it allows a player a way to accelerate their in-game development without spending time playing the game. More options, therefore more enjoyment. My question stands: If Pay-for-Perks is such a superior model, why denote IRE's MUDs as "free", instead of loudly trumpeting them as "Pay-for-Perks"?

Naah, it's only inherently more difficult on newbies who don't want to spend money. And I'm completely fine with that.

--matt

Uh, ok, I guess if I buy/license (actually license, since you don't really buy software) MS Word I'm an employee of Microsoft? That's pretty odd thinking.... Rapture is a piece of software. That's it. Further, Rapture has nothing to do with "pay for perks" or whatever you want to call it any more than C++ has to do with subscriptions in a C++ coded subscription MUD.

Is it so hard to understand that not everybody thinks there is only one right way to do things? Pay-for-perks is superior for some players. Subscriptions are superior for some players. Non-commercial is superior for some players. PK is superior to non-PK for some players. No RP is superior to RP for some players.I don't believe in 'superior' for something as qualitative as a game when applied universally. I believe there is only "superior in person X's view", and person X's view may differ widely from person Y's view.

--matt

I happen to agree. I'm just curious why you don't label your Pay-for-Perks games as such, given how different they are from free ones. As you've stated above, the learning curve is significantly steeper (compared to the free model) for newbies unless they want to spend money. Shouldn't they be aware from the start that it's part of the equation?

I wanted to quote this, because this is exactly where I disagree.

The major reason I don't go "MUD-hunting" anymore is because I hate being a newbie. No matter what game you go to, unless it's a brand-new one, there are people in the game with an advantage over you. That's the whole point of being a "newbie".

It takes hard work, time, and effort, to get your character up in level and skill. As long as a pay-for-perk system doesn't make the former obsolete, then your argument doesn't have much weight.

I could walk into any free MUD and say the same thing, except replace the $50, with 50 days of play time. If I actually had money to blow on MUDs, no doubt I'd be in a pay for perk, paying for my perks, because I spend so much time outside of MUDs doing things like college, or writing scripts and applications for profit, or even for free.

Because in the minds of most newbies, 'free' as in 'I'm not going to get kicked out for not paying' is the operative word. Our games are free in every way. It's no different from saying "This apple is free. It's at the end of the block. Go get it. I'd be willing to get it for you from the end of the block for $1 though."

And I didn't say the learning curve is significantly steeper. The learning curve is exactly the same. We don't sell 'knowledge.' A newbie not willing to spend money will just have to spend more time playing the game if he wants to have exactly the same set of skills and items that someone who spent $500 has. Such is life.

--matt

The difference is that on the pay-for-perks, you're spending the $50 just to keep up with the Joneses- they've been there for a long time, and bear all the fruits of their previously spent money. In order to be "ahead of the pace", you need to outspend all of the money the median player has ever spent on their character.

The model creates an illusion of progress- you spend $50, and your character develops more rapidly than it would if you spent $0. However, you aren't developing any faster than the other players who spent $50. If spending $50 is common, you effectively get nothing besides the ability to play without a handicap. The arms-race mentality drives both competition and profits.

It's also untrue that total time invested is the only variable in catching up on a free game. All mortal characters in Carrion Fields age, and eventually die to old age or violence. (This is true of many games, most notably RPIs, or various business models. I'm not claiming novelty here.) The most veteran players eventually begin anew, without the accumulated skills, equipment, roleplay rewards, or reputation of their previous character. While they have a significant edge in know-how, this is true of all established games. It's still unquestionably better as a new player than a game where you have to compete against veterans who have that edge in know-how and equipment and skills and previously invested RL dollars.

No it's not. It's better for a certain type of new player, ie those not willing or able to spend money. For those able and willing to spend money, it is not better. I am one of the latter. I won't even play MUDs/MMOs for very long if I can't buy my way out of at least some of the required time investment without breaking the EULA or TOS.

You're also making the assumption that these types of games are inherently competitive for all players. They're not. I know if all I'm interested in is leveling, I don't have to care at all what pace other players are advancing at (especially as I tend to solo, due to time restrictions). What do I care if they have bought their equipment with money and I bought mine with time, or vice-versa? It's the same thing from my point of view. Either way they have the thing and either way it's completely irrelevant to my playing experience.

--matt

Lets just say this, no matter how long this goes on, IRE is still a commercial business. Which means that the_logos and his people at IRE are out to get as much money as they can from as many players as they can. Do you think theyd actually want to tell people that their mud is almost futile to play unless you either have as much time as the laziest person in the world or start handing over cash? You tell me...

We have a new Queen of conspiracies! Molly has abdicated her throne, and now we have an heir! Hail Queen Daedroth!

Heh.

If you think that is what corporations are about then I pity you, your world must be a very scary and paranoid one. When you grow up and get a job(hopefully) you'll learn that companies aren't evil by nature, I expect.

Thats not to say there aren't evil companies out there, hehe.

-H

Only if you compare raw newbies only to the very best players/characters in the game. Ultimately, in an established game newbies will never do well against them.

Have you ever tried playing within the model, Valg? No offence, but your arguments make it seem that you have no experience with it, or you're trying your hardest to make it look bad.

-H

Actually, I'm comparing newbies to the average player, which is the whole point. The argument becomes much stronger if you start thinking about how far behind the "top end" players a newbie is in a pay-for-perks system. My point is that they're extra-far-behind the median player, relative to a subscription or free system.

I looked into playing games of that kind (both as a prospective player and as an administrator seeing what ideas were out there), but ultimately the uneven nature of the playing field kept me from spending a dime, and I found a superior product for my tastes that was both free and fair. I think I understand the nature of the business model very well from browsing the discussion boards of games where it is used.

Ultimately, I'm more concerned with what I see as mislabeling, which you touch on in your other post. If the pay-for-perks games labeled themselves accurately, I could really give a crap what business model they used.

Funny, this is exactly why I don't play WoW. I don't have the extra time needed to come anywhere close to the median players. Let alone the "top end" ones. (Assuming I actually liked WoW that is. I find it pretty boring.)

Also, thought I'd point out this from your earlier post:
Established 'free' mud player: eq/skills/knowhow/etc + >>> TIME INVESTED <<<
Established 'perk' mud player: eq/skills/knowhow/etc + perks bought

You leave out the key part to the whole argument. Time IS money, man. It just is. You can argue about the relative values of them, but the equivalence is still there.

Now, you're going to say "but what about the person who has both time and money?" Heh, well, I'd say the number of people who are independently wealthy in this world is pretty few. Thankfully too, since they can make life feel pretty unfair sometimes, to say nothing of any game they may choose to play.

Carrion Fields advertises itself as having "16 balanced classes." I don't buy that for a second. I've never, ever seen a game of any sort that had 16 balanced classes unless they were all just the same class. And balanced for what? Balanced for combat? Balanced for sneaking? Balanced for earning money? What you view as balanced another person may very legitimately not view as balanced. Do you explain any of that instead of just saying 'balanced?' No. Why? Because it'd be silly to. Balanced is a more powerful way of labeling your game than saying "We have 16 classes that are kind of balanced if you're talking about 1 vs 1 combat, but not so balanced in 3 vs 3, and not at all balanced in terms of ability to sneak."

Now I don't actually see any legitimate argument as to how a service that is provided 100% for free isn't free, but my point is, again, that the world is full of different views and different viewpoints. If you want to look at a service that can be played forever for free and say it's not free, that's fine, but you need to accept that this is your viewpoint and that your viewpoint is contrary to how an ordinary person views the word 'free.' What you seem to want to be saying is that our games are not "equally accessible to those who don't pay and those who do pay." I agree on that. Those who don't pay are going to have to spend a lot more time to get the same stuff. But what the heck does being able to be competitive have to do with free? We've never said, "Play the same amount of hours as anyone who has spent real money and you'll be just as powerful." We've said that our games are free, and they are. Go play them. You'll never be charged for playing them. You'll have access to absolutely every single thing in the game, for free, forever. That's free.

Anyway, if you're looking to distinguish your version of free from our version of free, there's nothing stopping you. Pick a new term to use to describe YOUR game, but we're not going to change the way we do things just because you object.

--matt

I really don't mean any offence by this, but no, you don't understand it very well. You wouldn't have used the chess tournament analogy where the only way to get bishops was to spend $20.

--matt

And the point Valg is making is that if you could buy your way up, so could they. The median player would be even further ahead of you (while others who invested more money that you would overtake you).

For some people, time is money. But we're talking about muds where money replaces skill, and that's a different thing entirely. I enjoy pitting my skills against other players, but not against their wallets.

For many pay-for-perks muds his example is pretty much dead-on - in such muds the only way to earn the top equipment is by spending money.