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

--matt

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

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

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

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

--matt

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

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

This is now defined as against the rules.

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

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

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

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

What this results in is that is:

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

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

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

Thanks to Matt for the wording and input.

Adam

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

Adam

I wanna say just two things now:

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

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

Wow I was reading through this drama..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, I had the same problem.

And uh, something ever so slightly on topic:

That's a terribly tempting offer.

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

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

Just my $0.02 worth.

-- Silver

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

--matt

Testing. Please ignore.

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

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

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

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