Once again, I fail to understand why you're equating votes with quality. I don't do it, anywhere, and I'm not sure where you think you saw it being done by me, or by anyone else in the Achaean administration.

Clearly Simutronics could send more traffic to the list if they offered an incentive to vote. Would that change their quality (or, if you don't like their games, lack thereof) one bit? Of course not.

It seems to me that for many posters this is just a childish ego issue, and a refusal or inability to recognize the rankings list for what it is: A variation on banner exchanges.

--matt

None of which, of course, gives you any clue as to whether or not the quote is real. It is, and Gamespy has no problem with us using it.

I repeat: You have no idea what you're talking about.

--matt

Did I mention that we are engaged in white slavery, anti-trust violations, and puppy-kicking as well? It'd probably be good if we were taken to task for that. I'm sure some of you out there have a few hundred posts to write slamming us for it. Please?

--matt

I'm sorry to hear you say we're not a part of the community.  Personally, I have always felt distinctly unwelcome ... as if our success somehow made us dirty.

Which is sad, because I feel that we're all very much alike.  We all want to design entertaining and fun worlds for many people to enjoy.  

There isn't a single GM on my staff that doesn't do what they do because they love the game.  I know that I could certainly make more money doing other things with my time ... but I love gaming.  Specifically, I love text-based gaming.  I don't think that anything else in the world can come close to the all-consuming experience available in a MUD game.

I have to assume that everyone else who builds MUDs feels the same.  So how am I not a member of this community?

Can't we all appreciate the art of our work together?

Melissa Meyer
Producer, GemStone III

If you weren't so busy trying to be a smart-ass, you have noticed that I prefaced my original statement by saying that if the quote did not come from its claimed source that you may find yourself on the end of a lawsuit. This is an entirely true statement and you may respond to it accordingly. However, your crude and dismissive statements do nothing to enhance your already deteriorating reputation.

Moreover, I have come across information that the quote in question was merely a posting on a board and that it was never authored by any member of the staff or editorial board. Attributing the quote to them is, at best, deceitful and misleading and, at worst, an outright lie.

What a wonderful reputation you are building for yourself!

I am new to the list, and only found out about it, because of people posting on the boards in DragonRealms. Back when DragonRealms was on AOL, I played multiple muds through the AOL links, because they were all located in 1 place so it didn't cost me 1000s of hours trying to find a new one to try.

So what if 1 mud is p2p and 1 is free, why should it matter, I don't see how it would detract from this community, (granted I haven't been here but 8 hours or so) but, I feel that everyone who plays a mud are part of the mudding community, having input from people who play all kinds of muds, can only help the community in general. To shutout a whole section of the community simply because thier community is willing to pay in order to play a game they enjoy playing, would IMHO damage this list more than having them on here. Certainly the integrity of the list would need to be questioned if it claims to be the topmudsite listing(as url states), but has a condition on what muds can actually be in that list.

While it could be true that none of the p2p developers care about the mudding community,(which I don't believe) and only want to make large sums of money, that doesn't mean that those people playing those games don't care about the community. All shutting people out does, is deny them of the chance of experience other muds with relative ease. I have visited a few different muds since I got linked to this page, and if anyone else who came from DR is like me, it can only benefit the rest of the muds on here, to have another mud linking to this list, to bring their players in here and allow them the chance to try something new.

Kore

As for the #1 on the list etc... I admit I did try Achaea simply because it was above DR on the list. I won't go into my likes and dislikes of the game. While I don't care for the way they are getting their votes, it is getting them what they want, attention. So if this list wants a more representative view of what muds are so good that their players want to vote for it, than perhaps the actual voting needs to be a little more difficult.

Require an actual account for 1. It is simply too easy for someone to skew the results simply by voting with a couple clicks of a mouse. And it also makes it really easy for games to offer incentives to their players for voting, since it requires little effort from the players. If they were forced to fill out an extensive list just to be able to vote, and log in everytime that might serve as a deturrent from that sort of practice.

Additionally adding a listing for players over 100 perhaps in 100 player intervals, and then using percentages rather than sheer numbers would make the listing more representative of player views rather than population sizes. In addition to allowing only 1 vote per account per day, at the maximum.

Unfortunatly this would probably detract from this sites profitability, and from the hits that everyone enjoys due to the large number of people voting over and over to make their mud win.

Kore

My man, what you think of me is entirely irrelevant. Success is the universal balm. You carry right on with your mean-spirited attacks. It only gets us more business.

--matt

You are truly amazing. Just because you give yourself such an arrogant name does not bestow upon you the ethos of infallibility.

My original statement was to let you know that you are susceptible to a possible civil lawsuit. You responded by telling me, twice, that I had no idea what I was talking about. Your definition of what is mean-spirited is quite different than mine.

You also serve as a shining example of my previous statement that p2p muds rarely care about the community, and are merely only concerned about their own success. In fact, you explicitly stated as much.

The childish rage many people show towards pay-to-play MUDs has died down over time ("It's so unfair to have to pay for something! I deserve it for free! You must be evil!" (standard misspellings and poor grammar not included)), but there's still definitely some of that there.

Really though, who cares? There's no such thing as "The MUD community" in any meaningful way. There are a few forums, frequented by far less than 1/2% of people playing MUDs, that are not at all representative of MUDers generally, no matter how much some participants would like to believe they are.

Despite that, it still used to bother me some, but then I realized, "Hey, you know what? Screw them. Our games rock. We are way more fastidious about proper in-game management than 99% of free MUDs, we have a large playerbase who loves us, we donate to charity, and we take some of our dedicated volunteers on vacations they could not otherwise afford. If anyone has a problem with any of that, that person is unlikely to be someone whose opinion is worth anything to me."

I'm not at all ashamed of being financially successful. Everytime a player spends money on us, it makes me proud that they love our world enough to do that, and when we get the occasional player that spends in the thousands, I just marvel that we've created something so compelling that someone would pay that much for it, despite thousands of MUDs they could be playing for free.

Rock on, Melissa.

--matt

That's ridiculous. I'm wearing a Ring of Infallibility as we speak. (My handle is just my suffix in Achaea: Sarapis, the Logos.)

As for communities, there's no such thing as the mud community. There are communities built around individual sites and individual games, but none of these communities have any claim at all to representing MUDers generally.

I would like to see text games generally succeed, because a rising tide raises all ships, but I find it difficult to care about a non-existent community. The mere existence of a number of people independently engaged in an activity does not make a community in any meaningful way. It's akin to claiming that there is a general "computer-using community" just because a relative handful of computer users participate in some forums on using computers.

--matt

While it might be true that those posting on this forum do not properly represent all of those who play muds. That does not mean that there is not a mudding community. The very definition of a community is a group of people who share a common interest, so by definition there is indeed a mudding community. In addition, that does not mean that those posting on this forum are not also a community.

Just as those who live in a community, try to get rid of the bad seeds who go against the norms of said community, this community here is policing its self and get rid of those who generally detract from the community.

While this communities views might not reflect the views of the mudding community, it is the community that everyone who posts here is a part of.

Going against the good of the community, simply for personal gain, when most the community is against it, and find it potentially damaging to the community, when one has knowledge of that damage, potentially makes one a criminal in that community.

Continuing to act like a criminal when a large portion of the community that you are a part of speaks out against you, not only speaks volumes about your personal characters, it also puts the product that you are represting in a bad light.

Again, your arrogance astounds me. In response to the accusations that your actions disharmonize the community, you merely claim there is no community so as to give yourself immunity from any responsibility of your actions. If you are as arrogant, condescending, and dismissive to your players as you are to the boards, then I feel sorry for them. If not, then I'll just assume you only consider it a community if people pay to talk to each other.

I've been thinking about your mean-spirited comment. I just thought I would let you know that if I were truly mean-spirited, I would have merely reported you to the Federal Trade Commission or your state regulatory body alleging violations of the consumer fraud acts. Which, by the way, anyone on this board could do.

Thank you for your response. Actually, as evident by my late replies to this current thread, prior to coming to this site I was unaware of the vast multitude of games now out there.

Apparently this site is accomplishing its intended purpose as I have been actively checking out other games. <g>

:whistles at Koreberg:

Couldn't have said it better.  Heck I am a happy camper at the moment been browsing this site and other games for days.

So, it also proves the claim that any publicity, positive or negative, is publicity period.

I also took slight offense at that thought that we who play DR as 'pay to players' weren't part of 'this' community. I am a gamer.  I love to play RPG's of all sorts, including video games. I particularly enjoy text based multiplayer games.  Sounds like I'm a member to me... <g>

Maybe my generalization was a bit unfair. Yet, at the same, people such as the_logos give p2p'ers a bad name. Maybe you should, as Koreberg suggested, engage in some self-policing, as he is single-handedly continuing to give you all a bad name.

The people railing against Achaea have just given me a severe case of naseau. Your whining is not only transparent, but it's unsettling, as it casts SERIOUS doubt on the intelligence of the "MUD Community" you claim to represent.

If it's not against the rules, shut the hell up. If you think it does violate a rule, or you think it should, complain to the topmudsites administrator. Don't bring your feeble whining to a message board as some lameass topic entitled "Achaea's latest attempt to claim #1" - guess what? They ARE #1, at least at the time of this post.

I find it odd that every thread Sarapis aka The Logos aka Matt Mihaly replies to almost instantly stops the topic, and spawns a new one: how many inane and disagreeable things did he say in his reply.

Between calling everything stupid (his main arguement in most discussions), saying that he's successful, and thus we should all listen to him, repeatedly quoting rules and regulations that he is not breaking while skirting the issue that has little or nothing to do with rules, and in most cases arguing like a two year old with his mother about having dessert instead of supper.

Well, instead of trying to get us back on track, again, I guess I'm going to join in, see if maybe that gets us back, though I highly doubt it. In any event, its still fun counting up all the little inanities:

"there's no such thing as the mud community."

Anyone in the mudding community knows that there is.  The fact that numerous people have mentioned it during there posts only backs this up.  The fact that you don't know about it because you are not a part of it, doesn't make this line any more valid.

"If anyone has a problem with any of that, that person is unlikely to be someone whose opinion is worth anything to me."

If our opinions don't matter, then stop responding.  Adults know to ignore a two year old, because they will stop once they get bored, only other two year olds get upset and retaliate claiming it doesn't bother them.

"My man, what you think of me is entirely irrelevant. Success is the universal balm. You carry right on with your mean-spirited attacks. It only gets us more business."

Nearly the same thing, if you don't care, shut up.  Also, this seems to be a reacurring theme in many of your posts, be they here or on other sites and forums: I'm a success, so I'm better than you, and thus you should listen to me.  I will admit, Achaea is a success, but in my opinion, you are not.

"Did I mention that we are engaged in white slavery, anti-trust violations, and puppy-kicking as well? It'd probably be good if we were taken to task for that. I'm sure some of you out there have a few hundred posts to write slamming us for it. Please?"

Don't post stupid inane things like this.  We don't care a wit that you can be sarcastic, and it has no bearing.  If your upset, tell us your upset, don't throw a tantrum.

"I repeat: You have no idea what you're talking about."

Another common phrase.  I really don't think he even reads the posts, someone just tells them they're saying bad things about your game, and he just picks a bunch of phrases from a hat.

"Once again, I fail to understand why you're equating votes with quality. I don't do it, anywhere, and I'm not sure where you think you saw it being done by me, or by anyone else in the Achaean administration."

What the hell are you talking about?? I quote: "Voted the #1 MUD on Earth." This is from MudConnector.com's ads.  This specifically says you are the #1 mud.  Now, most of us know you don't have the largest player base (by far), you probably don't have the most profitable MUD either, and I happen to know for a fact that a good deal of your player base is only there because there friends are, most of them hate Achaea and expect it to be run into the ground.

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

Oh look, there it is again.

"Quality is subjective, and no doubt most of our players think Achaea is a far better game, and most of DR and Gemstone's players think those games are far better games."

I doubt that highly.  Most of your players think you have a good playerbase.  End of thought.

"Are you accusing us of lying, cheating, and stealing? I really hope not. "

Lying? YES, Cheating? YES.  Read the damn posts, I thought it was quite obvious what we were accusing you off.  As for stealing, no, but it wouldn't suprise me in the least.

"Dare, challenge, whatever. You used the words, "I dare you" but you could replace them with "I challenge you""

I've never heard "I dare you to a duel."  Think before you speak would you?  The only people I hear say dare are preteens playing truth or dare, or perhaps two year olds daring each other to go draw on the walls.

"Well, you might be seriously daring me, but I grew out of that years ago, my friend."

I don't think you have.

"My responsibility is to my investors and partners, my players, and my employees, in that order."

You forgot one:  Your customers.  Which, I might add, he holds higher than any other group put together.  Those who have played Achaea know that credits are the almighty ruling system.  If you have bought credits (the more, the better) You can get away with anything, and everything.  Now, it is true that he has made some token punishments of those who have bought credits, but I'm sure it was not before he found out they were never going to buy again.

"I also notice your quote doesn't say, "World leader in text-based multplayer gaming." It says, "leader in online games" which is blatantly false."

How can you even bring this up?!? You yourself claim that you are the best MUD out there, which has already earned you the seat of the "mudding communities" village idiot.  But now you say noone else has to right to make as blatantly false lies?  *You hear a whisper from the judges table, "Can we get a dictionary definition of hypocracy?"*

"And as for losing players to us, you might ask some of your ex-GMs who play Achaea now."

Who the hell cares.  I'm sure many of your players have gone and played there.  The fact that later on you can't even back up this quote makes it even more laughable.  For that matter, I have many of your players that say my MUD (only in alpha) is already better than Achaea.

"You claim people wouldn't vote as much if we didn't reward them."

Not claim, telling you.  Its quite obvious from recent history.  Week 1, Achaea is #1000, week 2, Achaea bribes its players, its #1.  Its not that hard to follow the line of thought here Sherlock.

"If we're engaged in bribery, then this entire site is, and every MUD listed on it is participating in bribing topmudsites to give them exposure."

No comment, just wanted to add another inane quote.

"And you know, I'm a little sick of the childish insults I'm seeing from you guys."

This is amazing, cause its pretty much exactly what he does in response.  Anyone find the irony?  Free xp on my game if you do (You also have to vote for us.) P.S. We don't have xp in yet.

"Is it tacky? Maybe, but I really don't care. I read the topmudsites rules, and if any of you can point out which rule we're breaking, I'd be gratified. Otherwise, you're just wasting your breath as I'm only interested in the rules, not your opinion on what the rules should be."

Here we have a textbook example of an evil-lawful character.  One who has little care of good will for the community/mankind, only in furthuring his own little kingdom.  But, on the flip side, he wants everyone to believe he is doing it for the good of the community (which if you read above, he doesn't believe exists)/mankind.  Its true he didn't break any rule, but he cares little for what the rules are really there for: to promote a healthy, friendly and ETHICALLY SOUND base for competition between MUDs.

In any event, I hope you all found this entertaining, and enlightening.  As for you Matt, please, if your going to attempt to be part of the "mudding community" that you don't believe exists, bring some more wit, and preferably an adult to proofread your posts and stop you from saying the things you should know by now not to.  Cause right now, you don't seem to have a very high standing in it.  Plus the constant reminder that you think your better than you are (IE, your #1 ads all over the place) are just plain annoying.

P.S. If anyone wants to copy this to the MUD Humour board, be my guest.

Ugh. I didn't particularly want to take part in this conversation again, due to a conversation I had with Bubba, however, I must now.

Players of DR/GSIII: The MUDding community has a (fairly long) standing viewpoint of P2P MUDs being trash. Our experience with P2P MUDs have not been with "legitimate" (So to speak) MUDs like DR or GSIII. Rather, they have been with MUDs like Medthievia and Achaea.

Read Vry...err, Mihaly's posts on this thread. Our experience with representitives of P2P MUDs are mostly with people like Mihaly/GenmaC/Qwave. Our generalizations of P2P MUDs come from long experience with trash. Please do not take any generalized insults personally - they are directed at MUDs like Achaea. Not at your MUDs. This Achaea flamewar has been bubbling for awhile, and jumping in yourselves on either side will likely get you burnt if you are not careful - even if the generalizations are untrue, they do exist. They exist simply because of people like Mihaly and Qwave.

-D

Thanks for that post, Dulan.

It definitely means a lot to me and I'm also sure it means a lot to our players to hear that.

I don't pay to play anything. I code on my own MUD, and I'm a builder/imm on Cities of Glory (a free Swedish MUD). I've played several of the MUDs on the top 20 list. I've contributed in my own small way to several code snippet sites, and helped quite a few people get polymorphs working in SMAUG (as an example). I don't pay hundreds, tens, or even a single dollar to ANY MUD that I play, ever, nor do I plan to (I don't play any online game that requires monthly payment either - if it's not free to play online, I don't buy it).

So take it from someone in the "MUD Community" - shut up. You are making those of us who don't have jealousy issues look very very bad.

And, yeah, a lot of the people here might be bigger figures in the "MUD community" than I am, which is fine. Some might be better coders than I am. Some might run a bigger MUD than Cities of Glory. The point is, if it's against the rules, report it. If you just can't stand Achaea, say so, but please, don't claim to represent the "MUD Community", or give arbitrary decisions on which MUDs qualify to be part of the "MUD Community" and which do not.

So, GenmaC, you are claiming to defend a MUD you know absolutely nothing about, and an administration you have no clue about?

Here's a buck. Go get a clue.

"Trash" is not the word I was looking for with you. "Newbie" fits better. Jumping on a bandwagon with no real information....Ugh.

-D

Here's a needle. Go stab yourself in the eye.

Reading the mindless ranting about Achaea is enough information for me (I do have a character on Achaea, btw...haven't yet found any need to spend on money on it).

The issue is simple. Is giving the 10% XP bonus, which is broadcast once every 24 hours, against topmudsites rules? If yes, then the listing is removed. Otherwise, what are you complaining about?

Is it ethical? I don't know, but that's not what the Administration forum is for, is it? The way you people go on, it's as if Achaea just committed a sin against humanity, and MUST BE BANNED/BAN ALL P2P.

I've only been MUDding for around 8 years, but in that time, I've sampled a fair number of codebases, administrations, and so forth. Saying that I have no clue as to what I'm talking about reveals the fact that you are, in fact, the one with no clue.

Just drop it, guys.

.....

And around and around the mullberry bush he goes. Where he stops, nobody knows.

GenmaC: Whether you spent money or not on Achaea is irrelevant. It is a P2P game. Just not run professionally like GSIII or DR. Now, the point of this is not the exp reward. It's the total lack of regard Mihaly has shown for the MUDding community. He has lied. He has cheated. He has shown a total lack of ethics. He has acted like a ****ing two year old, throwing tantrums and insults every which way, and completely ignoring the points of countless posts in his responses of drivel. Regardless of what you may say, Mihaly is appearing very reminescent of Vryce right now, except for one key difference. (I hope that) He does not use a Diku-derived codebase. His tactics are the same. His attitude is the same. Even the damn "donation"/P2P systems are the same.

Now, if you want to argue with me, gladly. But, please argue against my points. Don't use the strawman tactic. I am not interested in flaming right now.

-D

[Edit: Nobody. Not no one.]

I don't care what you said to Bubba. What you said to -ME- was that I had no right, effectively, to state my opinio because I was a new user. As in neener neener I've been her longer so you don't get to disagree. Well I'm glad I came to this forum to be educated. Your law school education and years of experience have taught me well why I play Achaea. Clearly you do not. Let me vote for it again, with that as today's reason.

LOL. Then why don't you and the rest of the pricks who decide who the "MUDding Community" is throw him out, take him off the little lists you keep in your bathroom cabinets, and be done with it?

Jesus. I don't know why I'm posting here. It's your wasted effort.

Zzzzzzzz.

In the loosest definition of community, that is, a group of people who share a common interest, there is a MUD community. However, I did include 'meaningful community' for a reason. Humanity as a whole is also a community, insofar as nearly everyone shares (or at least professes to share), an interest in continuing to live. So what? Where you draw y our 'community' line is pretty arbitrary. You could decide your community-of-concern is humanity, a country, people who play MUDs, people with blue skin, the population of a specific MUD, only your close friends, etc. You may live in multiple communities, but no one concerns themselves with all of them individually. I like hiking, for example, but don't give a damn about any community of hikers that may exist. I just want to go out, and hike.

Myself, I care about communities that I have an active interest and participation in. For instance, I care very much about Achaea's community, because I'm a part of it. I care about the community of Achaean Gods, because we're friends and I'm a very active part of it. I care about the community of the mailing list mud-dev, because I'm an active member of it, am friends with a number of the other posters, and have been in it a long time.

On the other hand, in my attempt to join this community, I broke no rules. We simply attained the #1 spot by driving more traffic to the site, and this the fact that we did it in a more organized way than others had before sparked what looks to me like just a massive case of sour grapes. (When you should be thinking, "How can I grab some of his players that are dissatisfied with his game?") The next thing I see is a bunch of MUDs being attacked, including mine. The first post I make, describing our plans for our housing system, was summarily moved to some other board, and accused of being posted for the purpose of advertising (as if advertising to the couple hundred people who may have read the post is worth the time it takes to write the post.) Real nice way to welcome people to a community.

As for hurting the community, I fail to see how. I'm the one being attacked, not vice-versa. I throw a jab back now and then, but frankly, I've shown a lot of restraint given the absolute crap being posted by certain members of the community.

Communities thrive on disparity of viewpoints, not patting each other on the back and telling each other the same thing just because that's the majority viewpoint. A criminal is someone who breaks a law. The 'laws' of the rankings are clearly posted.

As for my character, the fact that multiple people on the list see fit to attack me personally says volumes about their character, if you ask me. I hope, and suspect, that it's not indicative of the nature of the community generally, because I'll tell you, this is one mean-spirited community if it is.

--matt

Wow, this is an interesting group of personalities.

<gets out her Supersize Popcorn of Doom +3>

Mihaly, trash is trash. Regardless of how much the trash may try to perfume itself and make itself look appealing, anyone with eyes can see that it is trash.

-D

Trash, newbies, wannabes...

'Newbies' - Someone with a shield of protection vs. flames +5. They are either weak at flaming or arguing, or they are simply new.
'Wannabe' - Someone who should have a clue, but doesn't.
'Trash' - Someone who has a clue, but chooses not to exercise it.

Now go away, GenmaC. You fit under the 'Newbie' category - I'm not interested in arguing with you. Your arguments are not strong enough to make it interesting.

-D

I think the biggest issue at hand here is this:

The people voting for Achaea aren't (necessarily) voting becuse they think Achaea is #1. Many of them (I guarantee) are voting because they're getting something out of it.

This (from my talks with various people in the TMS cummunity) is what has people upset.

Many of the admins and ops and imms who are on this list feel that the simple fact that your numbers are inflated with people who probably couldn't care less about the rankings, the exposure, the traffic sent here, or even the community on TMS basically cheapens the whole rankings system. The rankings list is now not about who the community feels is number one, but rather who can dangle enough carrots in front of their players noses to make the little numbers get bigger.

Personally, I think someone somewhere (be it with or without Achaea's admin's knowledge) is up to something hokey, since in the past few days, with a playerbase that's a mere fraction of ours, Achaea has STILL been able to maintain a lead of around 600 votes on DR. At some point, even with your players voting every 12 hours, you simply are going to run out of players left to vote. Instead, you continue to pull away.

So something is wonky in Happyville and according to the listed rules, its on Achaea's shoulders to find out what's going on, not simply to say "Oh well...we just are better at marketing and driving people to this site and you're just all jealous.".

If there exists a MUD community, how could I -possibly- be disharmonizing it when only a couple hundred people are reading any of this? There's hundreds of thousands of text MUDers.

These forums are a community, there's no question about it. I, however, didn't do anything to disrupt it, and didn't violate any of its rules. It's you and a couple others who decided to begin attacking us, despite the fact that none of the objects of your attack attacked anyone else first.

Your comment about the FTC is just another example of your character. We've never had any problems with them, and don't expect to, as Achaea runs an ethical business, whatever you may think.

--matt

Ah. "Now go away". How cute is that. You're telling me to leave a discussion because you deem me unfit to discuss it with you. My arguements aren't strong enough. Wow. Cry me a ****ing river.

I judge people all the time. You seem to have the same habit.

However.

I sneer at your pathetic attempt to place me in your nice little categories. Anyone toting a signature like yours is marked as a complete and utter ****wit in any intelligent community.

So...get back to the middle school and finish up that match of "Yu-gi-oh" or whatever it is you kids play these days.

P.S. I'm not interested in arguing with you. You don't have a point. Instead, the_logos is evil, I'm a "newbie", and the MUDding world is overrun by "wannabes". Heh.

Think about this (really, do): If they are taking the effort to VOTE to get a bonus on the MUD they are playing, then they are interested in building their character. If they are bothering to play so much, then they obviously don't hate Achaea.

I mean, if they didn't like it, they wouldn't play it. If they didn't play, they wouldn't vote. Simple as that.

Wow, my signature is still there?

I put it up there one day as a joke. I never realized that I didn't remove it. Thanks for the heads up, GenmaC.

-D

I have plenty of customers who are VERY interested in building their characters who don't necessarily think we're the best game out there. Heck, some of them hate every single thing we do, but they're hooked on "something" about the game, be it the community or the emotional investment or whatever.

As you can see a couple of the negative reviews about DR in the review section...I doubt these people are voting, but I can promise you they'd do everything in their power to vote if I gave them an EXP bonus.

I see your point...I just don't necessarily think it's living up to the spirit of the rankings to buy votes. Let the merits of the game speak for themselves. Seems like everyone else is willing to let their own games be evaluated without bias.

Just because you haven't had any problems yet with the FTC doesn't mean you aren't in violation of any consumer fraud regulations. If you are attributing a quote to a source fraudulently in order to attract customers, that is a clear violation.

I am curious as to how the fact that you may be breaking a law is an example of my character?

That "something", if it causes them to spend hours on your MUD, in my opinion, could probably be counted as a vote without much grief happening.

So, even if they hate achaea, they do spend hours on it (it takes several hours just to get familiar with the world, so if they play long enough to get that message, they've been playing for quite a bit).

I'm not arguing with you about the "spirit" of it - that's more up to the TMS admins. Several MUDs on the top 20 have global/imm announcements giving the link to "vote for us on topmudsites!". I think that's a little whack too. But if it's really getting to the point where it's a problem, the administrator will add that to the rules...

That's just my opinion on this.

Once again, someone decides to get personal. It's getting very tiring.

In reply to your various 'points': Mentioning something doesn't make it exist, and in any case, while it's the word 'meaningful' in 'meaningful community' (read the whole post) that I'm concerned with. There's a MUD community in the same sense that there's a community of PC users. It possesses very little community consciousness. This SITE has a community, as I've mentioned, and it's a meaningful one, but is a miniscule percentage of MUDers.

I didn't say your opinions don't matter, unless you hold the opinion that you have some right to a free MUDing experience, in which case yes, your opinion doesn't matter to me (even if you can play my games for free, which is a privilege, not a right.)

I don't think I'm better than anyone else as a person. I don't even believe in the idea of being "better" than someone, as that makes no sense to me. I do think I'm better at running a
text MUD than many, but not all, people, and I think the evidence bears that out. Does that mean, or even imply, that I'm better than you? Of course not. Does it mean that my opinions on the subject of running a text MUD are likely to contain some validity? Probably, but that's no different from the validity that Kavir's or David Bennet's (Discworld)'s opinions carry as a result of their success.

<not responding to a couple of your comments, as they're content-less>

The ad on Mudconnector has nothing to do with the rankings at this site, which you'd know if you weren't in such a hurry to attack us. In July 2000, we were voted #1 by the users of gamers.com. That ad has been running there far longer than we've been listed here.

As for people hating Achaea, well, if they hate it, I hope they continue to, because our growth has recently really picked up, particularly in the last 3 months.

As for our playerbase, I can see how you're in a position to know a lot more than me about it. Clearly.

As for my responsibility, all my players are customers in my mind, whether they have bought anything yet or not. You sound like quite a bitter person. Did you get banned for misbehaving?

The -only- reason I brought up the 'leader in online games' thing, is because you had poked at us about it first. Shrug. Again, just keep in mind that all these attacks have been started by you and a few others. Stop making me out to be the asshole here.

Finally, if you find our ads annoying, don't click on them. It's pretty simple really. I find a lot of ads annoying. I just don't buy their product. Anyone can claim he or she was voted #1 you know. I'm sure some group of people somewhere can be polled that will vote you #1 if that's what you need to do. The job of our advertising isn't to make you happy. It's to get people to play Achaea, and the ads work.

--matt

Many people, probably most, who vote for a MUD do so to support the MUD, not necessarily because they see it as the best MUD. Those may often be one and the same, but certainly not always.

The rankings list has always been about who can drive the most traffic here. Do you really think no one has done this before? I've heard lots of (admittedly second-hand) stories about MUDs rewarding everyone online if their votes on this site could be increased by X amount in the next hour. We just got more organized about it, that's all.

And I promise you no one is up to anything hokey, or at least, to my knowledge. It's simply that we're giving them a reason to vote. We were listed on here a few days before we started incentivizing voting, and though we got to #3 quickly. Your player base is huge, but judging by the number of votes you have, few of your players are voting regularly. You guys must have what, 10,000 subscribers, at least, I'd think, but over the space of a few days, you've 'only' gotten 1500 votes. That's a very small percentage of your population voting. The percentage of our population that is voting is quite a lot bigger. Most of our players only vote every 24 hours, incidentally, or at least, only some of our players know. We only give the reward every 24 hours in any case. I mean, this current round of voting has been going for a number of days now. If it's been going for 5 days, we only needed slightly over 400 players to vote, each once a day.

--matt

It's an example of your willingness to slander someone. You've got no proof whatsoever (there exists none), but you're happy to throw around things in the spirit of "Well, maybe you're breaking the law. I'm not SAYING you are, but you know, you're an asshole, so you probably are."

--matt

No, I have never been banned by your game, and in fact have played for a few years, including a lengthy stint as a guide.  As I said, I have absolutely nothing against your code, nor its players, nor even most of its administration.  Infact, one of your gods I count a good aquaintance.  But after playing there for so long, ones eyes begin to open to how it is run at the upper levels.

For most muds, the number one concern is (and most mud admin will agree with this I'm sure) the players and they're enjoyment.  Pure and simple.  At Achaea, it seems to be, the players and how much money I can get from them before they find out what we're like.

Did you ever stop to wonder why the "mudding community" has always attacked your MUD?  You may think its because your pay to play, but its not.  You may think its because you claim to not be pay to play, but you are, but its not.  Its because of how you run it, plain and simple.

If it was just one thing, I'm sure noone would bother, but it seems to be many.  And is this personal, yes, because it is how YOU run Achaea, not what Achaea has done as a whole.  This is the administrators forum.

That is why this thread is called Achaea's LATEST attempt to claim #1.  It is not the first.  I think your quotes on your page are, which, although they may or may not be false, are just without any real bearing.  I don't post on my site that my sister says my MUD is the best, because as nice is it is for me to hear it, no else really cares. Second is your absurd post on MudConnector.com.  The fact that you have the odacity to proclaim yourself as the #1, but then, to switch it over to Aetolia with no explaination (not that it matters cause its baseless) is just ludicrous. Finally, after years(?) of people saying you shouldn't be doing this because your not, you finally devise a scheme which, for some idiotice reason, you think will make everything alright.  But, many of us feel it violates the SPIRIT of the votes.  THIS is the problem that we are addressing in this thread. Not that its illegal, because its obviously not, but that we feel, and I think our feelings are valid, the fact that there have been an insane number of posts on this topic shows this, that it is in violation of a higher rule, that of ethics.

In any event, I did try to stop it from being personal, but I feel you threw the first stone there.  As with children, you cannot argue rationally until they get it out of there system, and I am as much a child as you are, I will admit to that.  Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of the hand of a parent to guide us here, forcefully or otherwise.

Now, I hope we have gotten our ranting and raving our of our system, and we can continue like the adults we pretend to be.

[You're correct, of course. Other than one initial in-game announcement in DR, there's been no notification to players that the voting button is there on the website (and that one announcement crashed this site with people rushing to vote all at once). No notification was made in GS3, period. The only mention of TMS (other than the vote button itself) has been in player threads on the forums for those games (and the forum regulars account for maybe 10% of the total game population). I think the lack of publicity can be attributed to Simutronics being polite and not wanting to overload the system. Since players don't need to go to the website to play the game, voting promotion is mostly word-of-mouth.

I'm not trying to make excuses for why DR and GS3 are #'s 2 and 3 while your product is #1. I think it's great that you've managed to foster a sense of pride and togetherness by encouraging your players to vote. I'm just saying that you can attribute the difference in population percentages voting to the fact that you DO actively promote voting while Simutronics has not. Any hype on our side is due to the 'newness' and player enthusiasm.

BTW, am I committing a faux pas in posting on this forum even though I am not an admin or builder, but rather an enthusiastic player?

Alicia,
DragonRealms player