And some of us in Achaea have so much fun, we would vote anyhow, just to help out a company that provides endless hours of entertainment. If I added up what I have spent on Achaea, I spend far far more on other activities and don't spend nearly as much time doing them.

Keturah

I feel I need to comment on this, and that too will be my conclusion:

It is true that I am no big fan of Matt Mihaly. I am not alone in this sentiment, and it is based on a long number of events over the years, where he in my opinion has acted inflammatory and/or unethically. Some things that come to mind are the cheesy ads he used to run, where certain fictive persons voted Achaea the #1 mud in the world, some very inflammatory remarks about builders, and above all the thread he started and very actively carried out, where he urged everybody to break the Diku licence by going commercial, because according to him the wording in the licence was not strong enough to stand up in court and the 'intent' was nothing people needed to worry about.

When I read something on the boards that I don't like, I usually react and reply to it in some way. That's what discussion boards are for, I thought. If he wants to call this 'totally unprovoked attacks ' that is his interpretation. He is very apt at interpreting other people's posts in ways they were never intended. If I 'attacked' him more than others on the board it is because he has managed to post more things that annoyed me over the years than any other poster. Plain and simple.

Since he brought up the pedophile story again, I suggest that you all go back and check out WHO brought that pedophile into a totally unrelated discussion, and who said what and when. What  I did was comment on his own exact words. I didn't think his raccount of how he handled the situation was appropriate, and that is also what I said.

For the record, I have never even visited Achaea, which is probably a good mud, it's the owner and his actions I have a problem with. I also find his pun about me not liking Hungarians pretty insulting, but that is no more than I expected from him.

I am not going to apologise to the board, because I don't feel that I have anything to apologise for. I posted a true story of an incident that happened on my own Mud, as an illustration of how easy it would be to cheat with the votes. He took it up from there, and yet he claims I attacked first?

I'll end this with a quote from a note he sent to me by Messenger (no, not the one where he threatened to sue me, if I didn't hold my tongue):

I think there's a saying (at least in my part of the world) that says bad publicity is publicity too. So I am certain Matt is happy with this thread, or any other threads where people complain about Achaea.

That said, I think this thread is really over the top anyway. There is someone who claims he gets bugged on a mud about voting (so what, go away) and there is someone who is claiming nothing happened. Then several other people claim nothing happens etc. In the end, this thread is only in favor of the already big mud.

In regard to the real topic: should muds be allowed to pester people to vote? Sure, you scare your people away if you want to, your decision. Could you do something about hidden incentives (as mentioned by Kavir)? I don't think so.

Automatic voting? No, that should be prohibited, and could possibly be found out, if there was some more interaction needed on TMS (like the pictures with letters you have to fill in). However if it's worth the hassle, I am not sure.

Greetings,

Dre

Well yes, you could - simply by preventing mud owners from being able to determine who has voted.

I don't think you need to be that drastic. The type of people who are voting can be very informative. Are only old players voting? Do players tend to vote a lot before stopping? You could then work out why this is so.

I think a simple "don't treat voters and non-voters" differently is all that's needed.

Yeah, I licensed it and there was no mind control library. I was very disappointed. All these nasty things that IRE supposedly does that you troll about on this forum we'll need to develop ourselves!

Leigh
CTO
Persistent Realms LLC

Hardestadt/Leigh:
Excuse me?

Would you care to back up that accusation?

Stilton

Not you Stilton, I don't consider you a troll. I should amend what I said to say "All these nasty things that IRE supposedly does that you all troll about on this forum we'll need to develop ourselves!"

There we go. No longer a specific, just a gross generalization.

You are living proof that the mind control library works perfectly.