Sure, but there's a difference between misquoting a stat (even though the fact that he was using the stat to demonstrate - that the US trails South Korea in broadband penetration - is true) and saying, effectively, "Koreans are morons who have nothing better to do but work in shoe factories and play Kart rider."

--matt

Japan's economy is almost four times that of ROK because Japan's population is almost three times that of ROK. It doesn't mean that ROK is uncomparable economically with Japan, the two are pretty much on the same level of economic development, which is evident from GDP per capita of both countries: ~ 19,000 US$ for ROK and ~29,000 US$ for Japan.

To illustrate, the US GDP was 11.75 trln US$ in 2004, while that of Japan in the same year - 3.75 trln, which is over 3x difference. GDP per capita in the US was almost twice that in Japan. Yet the two countries' economies are perfectly comparable, and both of them are classified as "developed". For further illustrations you can compare the economies of Japan and Switzerland, or the US and Luxembourg.

Furthermore, in specialized studies on the economy of Northeast Asia, bundling ROK and Japan economically had become a custom that doesn't even require a justification anymore. Especially when talking about capital and technology sources in the region.

P.S. All data - CIA purchasing power parity estimates.

 Be a little more realistic Richter. YOU do not have to buy credits to succeed in an IRE game but somebody does. All those credits on the credit market didn't appear out of thin air. Someone bought them. The rare exception is someone who manages to win a large amount of bardic competitions

Well, here's something I said back on Page 9;




I believe your defense of IRE only supports my own idea(that somehow got lost and undiscussed amongst more flaming posts).

Wow, please tell me you didn't just cite references pertaining to internet technology that are blatantly dated 3.5 years ago? In any case, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the CIA is a tad more credible than "Spero News".

Oh, and just as a side note, not a single one of your sources claimed the same thing you claimed. One of them even agreed with me *boggle*...


Edit: Just thought I should also point out that nation vs nation internet penetration comparison isn't fair unless you also take into account population and geographic size. If all ~300 million Americans lived in the state of West Virginia, I can guarantee over 75% of them would have broadband too. It wouldn't be too hard to get that kind of penetration if it only costed us the same to wire the U.S. as it did South Korea (probably roughly 1/100th the cost). And if you'd like to compare strictly numbers, the U.S. wins hands down regardless.

This thread has almost as much comic value as former President Clinton asking whoever was grilling him on the stand "Well that depends on what you definition of 'is' is".

Look the word free up in the dictionary and leave it at that.

And that is the point Richter. AnyONE can but not EVERYone cane. If every player of an IRE game tried to advance solely by subsiisting off the credit market or winning bardics there would be no IRE games because there would be no credit market.

Of ourse it is comical it was probably intended to be. It is well known and even stated by admins of his games that Matt enjoys arguing and starting flame contests here.

So, it would be fair to say that for as long as there is a credit market, these games are indeed "free to play". But, if for some reason everybody at once decided they hated the idea of buying credits and everybody stopped buying credits at once and there was no credit market, well, no problem there either, the game would still be "free to play" (for as long as it remained open).

There is a problem with using words to differenciate games on this site by using meanings to those words that are different from the common usage, or that had added meaning to them. We have all seen 20+ pages discussions on the DIKU license, its poor wording vs what it means in a moral sense, why would we want to adopt as a standard a distinction between commercial and non-commercial given by an endlessly challenged license?

What this creates though, is misinformation to those potential players who are not familiar with this site in particular, they would be forced to research among hundreds of discussion pages what do we actually mean by commercial if they wanted accurate information, and at the end, nobody would probably care to find out if TMS-commercial differs on anything from <myworld>-commercial. Does this seem familiar? oh yeah, it is the same problem we are suposedly having now, with the definition of free.

I know admins of a couple of MUDs that are free to play, but they allow players to donate money for maintenance costs. Both of them, when faced with the end of the fiscal year, declare the donations as income, and pay taxes on them. Not being a lawyer or accountant I would fail to explain you why it has to be so, but what I understood is that it would probably be more expensive to try to present the MUD as a non-lucrative entity. So, at the end, they are, legally, getting money for keeping a service open, they go and spend this money on hardware, connection fees, etc, but, so, are they trully a non-commercial enterprice? what difference does it make if they did or did not give their players a pin saying "! 83 1337 |)0n470r"

I'm feeling unflamed and unimportant with nobody responding to my straight-forward fix-it approach to the issue at hand. :-/ I guess I didn't sneak in a subtle flame comment somewhere in there and do my forum-posting job well.

*sniff*

I totally support your suggestion Donathin, and would really love to see some input from Synozeer about it.

It's really hard to come up with an analogy that works here, because the IRE games have a fairly complex scheme that seems rather unique.

Like I said elsewhere, I can fly airplanes for free by earning miles using credit-cards and frequenting non-airline vendors. In fact, I do this enough to earn the equivalent of at least one if not two flights per year. Anyone want to suggest to the airlines that they should advertise as "free to fly"?

No? OK maybe the analogy is bad. But the essence is that "truth" is not necessarily enough in my eyes--if someone is being "deceptively true" it gets me on my soapbox (maybe that's why I enjoy subscribing to Consumer Reports, because it is not always possible for the consumer to do the research to tell the difference).

So, here is my case that the IRE games are being "deceptively true."

1) They list themselves with the tag "Free to Play", without describing what that means. Given that "free" has a much different meaning to most of the MU*s on the site, this at least warrants one of those dreaded asterisks you see on ads.

2) They refuse player reviews, making it harder for prospective players to read independent opinions about the game, which in this case would likely be about the fee structure.

3) Their web site and their in-game help give you no clue that you will need to get credits for over 90% of the lessons you need to play the game at your character's potential. This is done by never stating how many lessons are required to get to the various skill levels, and by not even allowing a character to see how many lessons they've spent (meaning laborious OOC tracking is needed to figure it out by yourself).

4) They offer a newbie credit bonus, giving you about 30-40% extra lessons on your first credit purchase within 21 days. OK, this is somewhat iffy as "deceptive", but given #1-3 above and the "21-day" requirement, this can be viewed as an attempt to rope someone into spending money quickly before they actually figure out the system and decide to walk away.

As far as I'm concerned, fixing #2 and #3 would put the entire "ethical" question to rest. While I still would like to see some better classification systems on this site, at least the tools are there for someone to do their own evaluation. And please, before anyone says, "You could always ask other players", the point is that you don't know what you don't know. In an XP-levelling MUD, does anybody think they'd think to question an unstated requirement that OOC credits are needed to advance skillsets?

OK, now if you want me to discuss the meaning of "free", I'll simply ask: what percentage of players at level 50 and above have never bought credits? If the answer is 20%, or heck, even 10 or 15%, I'll relent and say it has practical free option.

The most straightforward way of getting credits without money is the credit market. If the answer to the previous paragraph is that there aren't that many really trying to play free, I would question the ability of the market to provide credits at a in-game gold cost that free players could tolerate, if more tried. I'm curious what would happen to the market if 10 or even 5 players started characters with the intent to play "free". It seems like there are usually only between 300-400 credits available this way. To trans 8 skills plus a smattering of mini-skills takes on the order of 2400 credits or 200 credits per month if you wanted to do it in a year. I'm not sure that's realistic as I haven't tried to play at that level. Can the market support a demand of say 1000 credits/month? And if so, what would the price be?

I believe they are employing the two most common methods of suppressing a message that you don’t like. The first is to completely ignore it. The second is to drown it in a flood of unrelated messages. In an attempt to thwart both methods, here is the suggestion of an addition to the search engine again, with thee definitions  proposed earlier by DonathinFry and others:

1. Non-commercial (free-to-play)
Definition: No in-game benefits in any form can be achieved by paying real money.
2. Commercial
Definition: The gameplay will be affected by paying or not paying real money.
A. Paying real money for in-game things allows you to advance your char in various ways. (free-to-play, pay-for perks)
B. Initial fee, free to play after that (pay-to-access)
C. Monthly fee, but no initial fee (pay-to-play)
D. Initial fee, monthly fee after that (pay-to-access and pay-to-play)
E. Time-based fee, based on time spent logged on to the game (pay-for-time) *)
F. Combinations of A+B, A+C, A+D or A+E
*) (not sure if this model exists among muds)


Examples:
Carrion Fields, 1
Threshold 2A+2B
Achaea 2A

This should effectively cover all business methods used by muds. In case I missed some valid category, it could easily be added. (Feel free to suggest additions to the list). The main idea is to keep the categories clean, well-defined, and easy to understand for the user.

And several of us think this would be a great addition to the site, one that would be very appreciated by most people in search of a new mud to play.
We would also like to hear Synozeer’s opinions on the system proposed.
But from himself, not from the_logos.

I was a little worried about going to more than 3 categories, but I think as long as each one is a link or rollover to a definition, that's a pretty inclusive and clear list. Certainly an improvement on just a "Pay-to-play?" checkbox, which means different things to different readers.

Your definition of "non-commercial" is not used anywhere, by anyone else. Talk about confusing to potential players! Commercial or non-commercial has nothing to do with whether in-game benefits can be achieved by paying real money. A game can offer in-game benefits and be non-commercial, for instance. A product/company can offer no opportunity to pay real money at all and still be commercial (see network TV).


--matt

Umm.. First sentence there makes no sense to me. How?!? If you get in game benefits for paying money, how the %@$%# is that not commercial?

The second one makes even less sense, because a) most places are ending free broadcasting, if not already, then soon, and some of the money you pay to the cable company goes to the networks and b) the networks never the less recieve money from *someone* to keep running, even if it doesn't come out of my own personal pocket (though it does, since the advertising is designed to make me buy stuff I didn't previously know about, from companies I would have never otherwise done business with). I seriously doubt anyone anyplace agrees that TV networks are not commercial entities, or that 90% of the people that watch them can or do get them for free. But even if you stretched it to that extreme, how the heck does sponsorship even equate to pay-to-play? Never mind the obvious question of just how many major corporations you are going to find giving money to MU*s to sell cans of fake Pepsi in the game or place billboard on the roads between the cities. Well? Which ones do that, so we know which category to put them in? lol This is at best a strawman argument against doing anything, not a valid example of what anyone is going to see some place. At worst, it would require category 1 to become:

1. Non-Commerical
A. Completely free to play.
B. Completely free to play. Corporate sponsered.

Its obsurd.

Now, had you suggested that someone might run a pay-to-play mud as a charity, with all except basic maintainence costs going to that, then you might have a point, and would have to add "C. Charity based, may require some payment to play. See sub-category", to the 1 class. Or in other words, something like, "1CA". Gosh! That was just too hard to figure out....

A non-profit entity may happily sell things in-game while remaining a non-commercial entity. Do you understand what it means to be a commercial entity?

That is why I said "networks" not "cable companies." Plop an antenna on your tv. You can then watch tv free as long as you want without ever shelling out a dime.

You may also want to consider that more than one MUD makes use of advertising as a revenue generation tool already.
--matt

The point, I think, is that numerous such examples can be made, further splitting the hairs of the system until you're rivaling hex code for letter/number combinations. The proposed "improvements" have been little more than attempts to redefine things in a way that best serves a vocal minority. In the end, the only suitable change (not that I believe one is necessary to begin with) would be to just remove all attempts at classification whatsoever.

1. If someone wishes to know how many lessons it takes to advance to the next skill all they need do is ask.

2. One doesnt NEED credits to realize one's potential. Credits are simply the way a way to attain a certain skill level faster. You can use the lessons they give you and be decent at fighting and such.

3. Free to play means at no point before, during, or after game play are you REQUIRED to pay any money for services rendered. Just because there is an option does not mean it is any less free.

There's that "vocal minority" marginalization attempt again.

I don't think "numerous" examples can be made.  I proposed two checkboxes, and I haven't seen a counterexample that doesn't fit into that scheme.  Please provide one if you're aware of one.

( ) Optional payments may alter gameplay.
( ) One or more mandatory payments are required for continuous gameplay.

Carrion fields, Armageddon, etc.: n/n.
IRE: y/n.
Threshold: y/y.

If you want to get really fancy, it goes all the way up to three checkboxes:

( ) A recurring fee is required for gameplay.

IRE: n.
Threshold: n.
Gemstone: y.

But that's what you are. There are thousands of users of TMS, and all we hear are the same few people, complaining vocally. That's the very definition of a vocal minority. It'd be one thing if TMS users were rising up en masse to demand some redefinition, but the fact is, it's just a handful of people out of thousands of users. You are asking Adam to make a change to the site based on the desires of a very small percentage of the sites' users.

I propose two categories, and I haven't seen a counter-example that doesn't fit into that scheme:

() Command & control ultimately by a hobbyist mud admin.
() Command & control ultimately by a professional mud admin.

Are you ok with this as well?

--matt

The converse argument would be that only the same few people oppose this change, who have a vested financial interest in obfuscating clear disclosure of their business models. This handful of people (out of TMS's thousands of users) is complaining vocally, trying to quash a reasonable suggestion and leaving players in the dark.

Oh noes! Valg can play the "invisible masses all agree with me by their silence" card too.

You might recall that you recently suggested a change to Adam about the voting rules. People discuss things. That's why the website has a forum. I'm sorry that you feel it necessary to cloak your business model, but I don't have to sit quietly in the corner because you told me to.

Come back when you have a more substantial reason why users of this resource shouldn't be able to see your business model up front. Invisible friends don't count.

I'm not saying that the TMS users support my side or not. I am saying that TMS has been functioning quite well as is and that the only voices we're hearing clamoring for a change are a small handful out of thousands. I'm not arguing for change here: You are.

No, you don't have to sit quietly. You can ask Adam to make whatever changes he wants. I'm going to pipe up when you do, however, and point out that there's no reason to kowtow to the wishes of such a small minority.

Come back when you have a substantial reason why users of this resource shouldn't be able to see if they're going to be receiving a hobbyist or a professional experience up front.

(Note: I think both of those suggestions have equal value, which is to say, a lot or none depending on your point of view. Very little in mine.)

--matt

Art is subjective, and there is no a priori reason to claim a superior experience based on how the MUD's owner derives their income. That said, I'm not opposed to disclosing that status, and never have been-- I didn't like the loaded word "amateur" because of its (intentionally) ambiguous meaning.

However, there is an a priori reason to know the business model-- everyone has a budget (even if it is thousands of dollars), and if you can't afford a game where money matters, you won't be able to play it. Everyone knows their budget, and a good MUD resource would let them know what they are in for.

Conversely, you've argued that some players prefer a pay-for-perks model because it allows them to make a trade (RL money for in-game time) that another game might offer. They might actively search out a game with that criteria. More power to them. I just don't like hiding the information from them.

I made no claim that hobbyist is inferior to professional. That said, I'm sure at least some percentage of the potential MUD playing population would like to know.

Then why is there a problem? There's already a pay to play checkbox. If it costs money to play, that box is checked. If not, it's not, and there's no issue. In our games, for instance, players can play for free, forever.


Not listing is hiding? Interesting. We're hiding that we have geomancers I guess.

I have no problem with listing our business model, as long as it is described in full and as long as nobody is being forced to advertise certain features on the front page. See other recent posts for what acceptably in full means.

--matt

Isn't that accurately conveyed by a "yes" to "optional fees may effect gameplay" and a "no" to the question(s) regarding mandatory fees? I felt like we were in agreement there for a while, but your recent posts veered off in a new direction.

No, I feel that it also requires an explicit distinction between games in which you can acquire everything for free and games in which some things are reserved only for paying customers.

--matt

I am a professional, and I am a mud admin, but I do not make a living from running a mud, do I qualify as a professional mud admin?.

Your proposal DOES imply that the professional muds are somehow better, and it DOES come across as insulting if you are an admin on a "hobbyist mud".

The initial 2 suggestions from valg do not come across the same way. They do cover the various payment models.

After the first time I looked for a mud on here and tried some of the top ranking muds, I stopped mudding for quite a while (in ignorance, thinking that it seemed muds were based on the dodgy pron site model of claiming to be free but needing money), being able to see the type of payment model would have meant I probably would have gone to my current MUD first off.

And as for the "silent masses" some will be silent because they feel that it is pointless to try and make a comment that will be taken with any weight, unless you somehow have lots of posts in hour history. I myself, frequently swallow my comments because they have already been voiced by others (KaVir, Valg, Molly at times), and the last thing I want to do is increase the noise to signal ratio of these forums.

No. If I go skiing, I'm not a professional skiier just because I'm a professional <something else>. I think you missed the point of my post though.

And if you'd read what I'd written, you'd note that I see no value in labeling with such a distinction because it doesn't tell the whole story and implies things that may or may not be true. Most muds ARE hobbies and the admins on them are hobbyist admins. "Do you have a problem with being accurately labeled?" That's the accusation being leveled against me in my resistance to an overly simplistic labeling of business model, and objecting to being labeled a hobbyist (when by every definition of the word, most MUDs are hobbyist enterprises) seems like exactly the same thing. I would not support a "hobbyist" and "professional" distinction not because it's not true (it is) but because it doesn't tell the full story that I, at least, view as relevant.

You mean, they don't come across the same way to you. That's your opinion and you represent yourself. To me, the payment model one comes across as being precisely the same as the professional/hobbyist distinction. That's my opinion, and I represent myself.


So you're in the small minority too. I'm not sure what your point is.

--matt

Careful. The "small minority" hasn't been staying so small in these threads!

Again, remind me how you know the proposed labeling is supported by only a "small minority" of TMS users? By my rough count, more people have posted in support of it in the two threads than against it(*). How are you able to speak for all of the people who haven't posted?

You might be right for all I know. But you might also be wrong.... and you're definitely wrong to presume you can speak for those people.

(*): A number of the antis are IRE employees... and a little birdie told me you've made it clear to your staff in the past about how you feel about being contradicted here. That's understandable, as your position allows you to speak for your company as a whole, but their positions are hardly independent of what you are writing.

I wouldn't publically contradict my day-job boss either, but it wouldn't be meaningful for him to say "And Valg agrees with me 100%!" given that.

Matt - there haven't been any threads, or even any posts supporting your Professional versus Hobbyist counter-suggestion.

Matt - the majority of the posters in these threads come from a wide variety of MUDs and have very little relation to each other(and no contact, mostly), and are here doing what forums are meant to do... bring lots of voices together to discuss a single topic.

Matt - the minority of the posters in these threads who argue against these suggestions come from IRE MUDs. As a matter of fact, I've asked for non-IRE counter-arguments several times and I've only received the response of one person(Spoke). And Spoke didn't suggest a Professional vs. Hobbyist MUD either. Also of note is that most of the arguers(most, not all) seem to have very few posts, inferring that they are relatively new posters. Lots of relatively new posters that are either IRE Staff(and a few players)... hmm - I'm not against hearing new forum-users voices at all(I'm new myself), but I didn't come here just to go punch-to-earbite with you on this subject.

You are not the voice of the majority of MUDers, Matt. Neither am I. However, the group of MUDers who are vocal about this topic come from a variety of MUDs(and yes, combining the "hobbyist MUDs" together makes that group larger than the combined "professional MUD" group). The group of MUDers who are vocally against this topic all seem to be from Professional/Commercial(specifically, IRE) MUDs.

Propagandic word-twisting rhetoric has been used in social communities for thousands of years. Being that most of us are at least semi-well educated and intelligent/intuitive, I'd hope that we'd be able to see that Matt is doing it now. Who benefits from keeping players in the dark about objective qualities of a MUD(especially ones that affect cost)? Well, I would too, and yet I still argue the other side of the fence. IRE is obviously tilted on this argument, and I've yet to see one counter-argument to my last suggest(made back on Page 9 of this thread) because the counters have fallen down to word-twisting, name-calling, and selective quote-arguing.

Reader's Digest Version: Don't call us the minority - we come from a variety of games, and not all of them are "hobbyist" to use one of your propagandic terms. Don't call yourself majority - your supporters are almost entirely from YOUR MUD. I'm not negating anyone's point of view, but you are being ridiculous and I hope that the majority of the users here can see that.

I'd be careful of the direction you're going in, Matt - more and more people are beginning to compare you to Vryce, and I'm sure that you(and IRE) won't like or benefit from that in the end. Take that or leave it, as you will.

I am a professional sysadmin, and I do run a mud, and I am fairly confidant I can say I run it in a professional manner, so I AM a professional mud admin, just not a commercial one. It is very frustrating to hear non commercial MU*'s equated with being non professional.


I think you missed the point here, you or valg cannot assume that the lack of response from masses agrees or disagrees, but I have seen in a few threads, you and others assume that lack of comment == support

You don't even read entire posts do you? The entire point of that post was to demonstrate how a distinction, though true, may not contain all the information one feels needs to be given.

So, in other words, if someone is actually familiar with our business model through extensive experience, their opinion is invalidated. That's certainly one way to "win" an argument: simply tell the other side that their opinions have no validity.

I fail to see the relevance. Most users on TMS don't have forum accounts. That doesn't change the value of their opinions at all when they choose to create an account to post.

No, I'm not the voice of anyone but me, but then, I'm not the one telling Adam he should make changes to his site to satisfy me. All we have seen are a handful of TMS users asking for this change. That's it. Whether you come from hobbyist MUDs or PK MUDs or RPI muds is irrelevant. We have heard from whom we have heard from, and that's a handful of users out of thousands of TMS users, all of whom are visiting and using TMS despite this apparent huge sin of only listing whether a game is "pay-to-play" or not in terms of business models.


Whether you come from a variety of games or not doesn't change anything. You don't represent anyone but yourselves and that's just a few people. As I've said over and over, there are thousands of TMS users. Do you have a single whit of evidence to demonstrate that your view represents the majority of them? No.


I didn't call myself the majority. I did say that TMS has thousands of users and only a few of them seem to care about having this change made.


Chuckle.

--matt

So what you're saying then is that there are multiple valid definitions of the word 'professional.' Interesting, as that's exactly what I constantly point out in regards to the word 'free.' Please keep in mind that I'm not insulting anyone. I'm just pointing out that the reaction you have to the professional/hobbyist divide because you don't feel it fully represents what you do and what you are applies to other things as well, including business models. I've no objection to listing business models in the database. I've an objection to listing them incompletely.



Listen, where's what we know: We know that TMS has thousands of users coming here. Obviously a lot of users find TMS valuable as it is or they wouldn't come here. Is it reasonable to assume some of them could find it better with certain changes? Yes, of course. Do we have any evidence or any way of really objectively telling what specific changes those might be? Nope.

What I assume isn't so much an assumption as just pointing out that there is evidence that TMS users find value in TMS as it is (in that they visit it frequently), but there is no evidence that they want this proposed change.

--matt

the_logos:

As far as I'm aware, of all these thousands of people that come through TMS, only a small percentage has a TMS forum account, and even smaller percentage cares enough to use their account actively. Myself for example.

Most of players come here to look for a game, or to support the game they play already; I can't imagine why would an average player start reading through all the threads in the forums and "voicing their opinion" on how this site should be ran. If they don't like the site, they'll simply stop using it as much, or stop using the particular feature they dislike, or whatever.

Imagine a person new to mudding come to this site. Do you think they'd immediately start "voicing their concerns" with the rules of the site and the way it's ran? I don't think so.

Saying something like, "only few speak up on the matter, so this means no one else would like to see the changes you suggest" is simply ignorant and absurd.


Now this...
What is your definition of a "professional"? Someone who makes money off doing something? Or someone who does something well and is experienced in the field, no matter if they get paid for it or not? I think an Immortal who had been running a successful MUD for years and years deserves the title of a "professional", and money has nothing to do with it. If anything, a person that runs their MUD WITHOUT getting anything but personal satisfaction out of it, deserves more praise than any of the "professionals" who do it for cash.


And as far as your objections go against this suggested addition of 'business model listings' ... Why are you so concerned? Let's not add any "counter-proporsals", just tell us why are you so firmly disagreeing with having your business model listed ACCURATELY on the site?

It's a simple question, let's see a simple answer!

I don't see what the problem here is. Iron Realms' business model kind of relies on people figuring out that they can spend money in the game. Within five minutes of playing one of their games, you've learnt about the existence of credits and the advantages that they provide, and you are more than free to leave. With any other MUD, within five minutes you learn about the existence of certain attributes that are not listed on their info page.

Here's what I don't understand: what is the ultimate goal of requiring a MUD to state whether or not one can pay for certain perks within the game? More votes for Iron Realms, because people think that paid development results in a higher quality MUD? Fewer votes for Iron Realms, because nobody likes the big corporate types? Just discrimination because someone's figured out how to make money from the MUD world?

Although I have no actual numbers for this, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of votes come from people who are actually already playing a game. Of these people, I'd say almost all of them are aware of the existence of these infamous credits.

By the way, the definition of professional, according to Google: engaged in a profession or engaging in as a profession or means of livelihood; "the professional man or woman possesses distinctive qualifications"; "began her professional career after the Olympics"; "professional theater"; "professional football"; "a professional cook"; "professional actors and athletes"

But it's all just semantics, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it.

Your selective quoting and empty arguments require a lot of energy from me at 4:30am to respond to, Matt.

I have stated, several times, that I appreciate everyone's opinions, and that they are all valid. You even quoted me saying so later on in your argument(I guess you copy-pasted wrong there). I simply would like to know if anyone besides IRE is against trying any our proposed ideas, and if their reasons are different than IRE's predictable ones. You say that we are a minority because most of TMS users don't argue in the forums(or in this thread). I say you are acting insanely to use that as an argument for your case, against mine, as your side of the argument has even fewer users(and they are from YOUR MUDs).

If we required a TMS majority to change something, things would never get changed - because the forum users here are a minority. Are you alienating us for having opinions that we express, while others do not? Do you realize you've placed yourself in the same minority group as us?

Do you realize that the relevance of my new poster comment was the insinuation that IRE players appear to be coming out of the woodworks to defend your side of the case, because nobody else seems eager to?

Do you realize you are arguing against being called "free-to-play, pay-for-perks", something which you obviously are? You can use whatever phraseology you want on your own website, but what the majority of users in THIS thread are asking for is a system for which TMS can easily show all players which MUDs fall into which business category. This is, obviously, an important change wanted by -many- players.

You're defending your company with as many teeth as you possibly can, Matt, but I'm not after your company in particular. I'm defending Valg's original suggestion to support an idea that is right for players who come through here looking for a certain kind of game. I've stated before(though you didn't quote that post, I suppose it was too objective for you to argue with) that it would take an hour or two at most to come up with a half-dozen or so terms to describe every business model out there for text MUDs. If an issue arose, it could be dealt with at that time, but it would really be very simple.

Anyone in this forum can see that you are only arguing to defend your game, Matt. If you really wanted to treat your potential players with respect, you wouldn't fight a resource site listing it as "free-to-play, pay-for-perks", because that is knowledge that should be given upfront to a player by the resource site.

I've still yet to see a) responses to my direct solution post, b) more than one response from either Syno or a non-IRE player/admin. So far, I've mostly seen c) flame-wars and d) Matt selectively quoting and condescending other players and MUDs.

Are we e) wasting our time, because Syno isn't going to make a change due to Matt's earlier threats of not sending as much traffic to TMS?

Let's try to deal with (A), (B), and (E) - they are things that interest me, and may produce positive results for the community. &copy; and (D), we've had enough of.

Well, there is overwhelming evidence that people like fast food as it is (what's McDonalds up to now? 8 billion or so served?), however, I can say with 110% confidence that people would like it even more if it were healthier - a change for which there is no tangible evidence. But you and I and everyone else knows it's true, regardless - just like the TMS situation.

Anyways, the real reason you have a problem with informing potential players that your games are 'pay-for-perks' is because (as it's universally known in the world of advertising) it's bad for business to reveal your 'catches' before the players have time to get addicted first. It would net you less profit because this feature is generally considered undesirable, and without pre-existing addiction a good portion of MUD players won't dish out the money.

Whether or not this is morally right or wrong isn't up to me or anyone but yourself to decide. But for you to be publically opposed to an addition to this site that would only make it more user friendly and helpful for thousands of people, just because you stand to lose a little potential profit seems incredibly selfish to me.

It’s rather interesting to watch the_logos employing every known dirty trick in the debate technique to defend his right to present his game in a misleading way on this list.

So far we have seen the following techniques, all well know to politicians and lobbyists:
1. Avoiding the issue by ignoring certain uncomfortable facts and pretending they don’t exist
2. Applying pressure on the list owner by veiled threats of withdrawing financial support if the change should get implemented
3. Making statements on behalf of the list owner (who’s opinion has yet to be heard)
4. Drowning the issue by diverting the discussion in other directions and enlisting support from followers (generally known as SPAM)
5. Obscuring the issue, by turning it into a haggling over semantics
6. Distorting the issue by suggesting ridiculous and/or downgrading alternatives to the proposed definitions
7. Degrading the opposition by declaring them a minority, without presenting any valid proof of representing a majority himself.
8. Declaring the change unnecessary, by claiming that the system works well as it is, so there is no need for any changes

What will it be next? Discrediting specific posters by downgrading or patronising statements about themselves or their games? (He has been known to do that in the past).

I find point 8 on the list above particularly ludicrous. By the same logic every progress and improvement in this world could be prevented.

The following facts remain:

A substantial number of posters support the proposition made by Valg, DonFry and others. We think that this would be a substantial improvement to the search engine, and that it would be an easy task to find valid definitions for every game on the list. It’s pretty safe to also assume that the change, if implemented, would be appreciated by a majority of the people that currently use the list to search for a mud to play (including the ones in search of a play-for-perks game).

We also think that we have the same right as the_logos to prose changes and get those propositions listened to and discussed.

What we ask from the readers of the thread is that you try to see through the smokescreens, regard the proposition in an unbiased way, and draw your own conclusions. I would also suggest that you think a bit extra about what motives the_logos may have for opposing a proposition that logic should tell you is a good one.

This issue is not a new one. It keeps popping up from time to time on this and other discussion boards, which indicates at least that there is a substantial interest for the change. The discussion, in one form or another will go on until there is a decision from Synozeer in one direction or the other, preferably also with a logic explanation to why the decision was made.

When we recently proposed changing the rules for voting, didn't it begin with the opinion of a few forum voters? You were active in that-- you even proposed language. So was I, both on these forums and with a private email to Synozeer.

Why were you OK with changing those rules but not this one? Surely, in the former case, you did not carefully obtain the opinion of each of TMS's thousands of users to ascertain that your suggestion was the majority opinion. Would it have been right for someone to deride you and I as an insignificant minority then?

Or would it have beeen proper for them to discuss the issue at hand, instead of dodging it and claiming to speak for thousands of others? Why does the opinion of forum users only count when it agrees with you?

You're a lot more transparent than you'd like to believe, Matt.

Ultimately, in a free market, quality rises to the top. There are a thousand people who think they can download a stock MUD codebase. Sooner or later, there's going to be at least one person who looks at this site and thinks: I could do most of the cool things TMS does, but add easy/clear searching options for the degrees of free vs. pay, RP enforcement, PK permissiveness, theme, etc.* (This someone will not be me.) If it comes to that point, I have to believe that the traffic will go where the quality is.

*No, such a list would not include such ridiculous qualifications as whether a given game has geomancers or not. Pretending that you can't tell the difference between the things a player might legitimately care about and the things they won't degrades both you and us.

It would be helpful to your cause to provide arguments that actually address the issues Matt has brought up. When he offered the Professional v. Amateur/Hobbyist standard as a poor method of distinction, many of you jumped on him for implying that they were somehow inferior because they weren't commercial. Oddly enough, that was entirely his point. Such subjective language as "professional" or "amateur" is as loaded with potentially confusing alternate meanings as the word "free" which, you may recall, is the entire premise of this thread.

It may serve your purposes to attack Matt as a person rather than his arguments, but I imagine it does little to affect the considerations of that silent majority who, as of yet and by all indications, feels no need to support a change of any kind.

Matt has repeatedly stated that he would support a classification system as has been suggested, if the classifications were specific enough so as to treat with equal concern the differences between types of commercial MUDs as it does between hobbyist MUDs and commercial MUDs. If the noble intent of the esteemed forum patrons that grace this thread is marked true, working towards such a concept should not be out of reach, and, I imagine, would go a long way towards dispelling the unfortunate image cast upon them by what has so far been an ill-managed campaign to discredit a large part of their own community.

Accurate disclosure and labeling of games. TMS is a better resource for MUD players if it provides that information than if it doesn't. More information is more gooder.

Any claims of "discrimination because someone's figured out how to make money" are based on nothing I've said. I'm not some "money is bad" commune-dweller. For example, I've had nothing but positive things to say in these threads about Threshold's business model (which has a mandatory fee as well as a pay-for-perks system), because they accurately label it for what it is.

I've also stated up front that I have a vested interest in this: I help run a 100% free game. Currently, TMS only allows games to self-identify as "Pay To Play" or the absence thereof. That means a lot of commercial games get lumped in with our nonprofit enterprise, which dilutes the effectiveness of us telling people we're "free". IRE's business model is very different from ours, but TMS doesn't display that information.

We'd like a system that tells players the truth: Playing some games doesn't involve money (Carrion Fields). Playing other games often involves money (IRE). Playing still other games always involves money (Threshold).

How do you know that a silent majority of TMS's thousands of users agree with you and Matt?  Please elaborate.

Specifically, expand on what the purpose of the forums are if you assume anyone who doesn't post on a thread disagrees with it.

I agree that this would be a good change. I also think that it does appear very weak that Logos is so opposed to the change and can't just admit the true reasoning why. It is very obvious -why- he is opposing it. There is only one logical answer.

Like someone else said, it is a typical sales technique. Get them hooked and then reveal the catch.

Me personally, I can't afford to spend extra money on games and I like to play a game where the playing field is equal. As one who cannot spend the extra money, playing a "payforperks" game isn't a level playing field for me. Sure, I can earn all the same things (supposedly) through hard work. But IMO, it's unfair to me that others can get the same simply because they have the money to spend RL. I would like to know before I get into a game and "get hooked" if that is the type of environment I'm getting into so that I can continue looking for one more suitable. Since I cannot afford to buy my way I'd rather be playing a game where noone can.
I know for certain that there are many others who feel this way.

I'm not saying they do agree with us at all. I'm simply saying that, if they felt a change was in order, it's very easy for them to post in support of that, while if they saw no reason for a change, they'd have no reason to bother either way. Given that most people aren't clamoring for a change, it stands to reason that there isn't any particularly strong community sentiment against the way things are currently being handled.

The purpose of the forum is to allow for discussion. I think that's happened and that the forum has served well in this respect.

So, by that logic, no one has ever wanted change from TMS, because I've never seen a thread with posts from thousands of its users. TMS was born perfect from the womb, I guess.

Except when enough people complained about IRE abusing the voting rules, and change happened. Except when enough people complained about Medievia abusing the voting rules, which led to Medievia eventually being shown the door. In the latter case, you and the_logos used these forums as part of your attempt to have change made. Where was the "consensus of thousands" then?

These threads have been unusually active for TMS, and they involve a lot of different participants. If anything, there's glaring evidence that it's a hot button issue for the community here. People do have strong opinions about it, which is exactly the situation where Synozeer should look into a change.

I recognize you can't publically disagree with the_logos, because you're an employee of IRE/Aetolia. But you could at least avoid parroting his weakest points.

I say there is no evidence you are anything but a minority. If you have it, use it. Otherwise, you're just engaging in conjecture.

How many times do you need something repeated to you? As I've stated, at least twice previously, my point is that I don't feel that accurately describes the whole of our business model any more than "amateur" accurately describes the whole of Carrion Fields, for instance.

--matt