I'm just curious how many people feel the muds in the top 20 deserve to be there, ie; haven't cheated in one manner or another.

If muds shouldn't be there which ones, and if your favorite mud isn't in the top 20 why not?

~cayn~

Im glad to consistently see my mud (Avatar MUD) in the top 20's, although I would like to see it rated higher. IMO, the big pay-for-play MUDs should be on a separate list, however. Obviously their size and volume give them a huge advantage over small, homegrown muds. I don't have anything against P2P MUDs, I just think that for the purposes of a rating scheme, they have a bit of an unfair advantage. Just my two cents.

I'm pleased to note that the mud I IMM on (Shattered Kingdoms) has been in the top 20 since we joined TMS in the spring of 2002.  Those votes are entirely player motivated and I am proud of that.  

I do agree that I'm a bit irked when it comes to muds compensating players for voting.  Still, there isn't a way to really enforce a separation between compensating and non-compensating type muds.  In the long run, I guess it doesn't really matter.  Muds that compensate for votes will eventually not be able to afford that compensation to keep their playerbase happy.  If EVERYONE gets the goodie, what value does it have?  

As for the pay-for-play muds, I don't have a problem with their being ranked within the same list.  Their cliental enjoy their mud, think it is a good one, and vote for it just like those who vote for a non-PFP mud.  It would be nice, however, to see some sort of flag by the mud name or description if they are a PFP mud, just to give those who check the rankings looking for a mud a choice before they log on.

My personal opinion is, that muds that blatantly cheat with the votes by abusing jumping isps, or pay their players in-game benefits for voting, do not belong on any top list. I also think that muds that use cheesy and intentionally misleading advertising tricks, (like claiming non-existing awards on their banners and WebPages, or pretending to be non P2P when it is obvious that their main goal is to squeeze as much cash as possible out of their players) do not belong on any top list either.

And yes, I refer to the same mud in both cases. I think most of us know which one that is.

I have discussed this problem with Synozeer, and accept his explanation that it would be impossible for him to 'police' this sort of actions. He has no realistic way of enforcing a rule against it, so therefor he prefers not to set one up. I accept that.

However, it doesn't change my opinion that the behavior is extremely tacky and unethical, and should not be rewarded by a top position on any list.

I agree with you completely on this one Molly.

In particular, the tactic used to generate the obscene amount of votes is particularly sleazy. It seems to combine "nagware" (forcing you to comply by nagging you until you submit) with "crippleware" (cripple the "product" in such a manner that it is effectively unuseable if you do not comply).

Sometimes I get annoyed by it, and often my players will even complain about it. But the way I look at it is in the long run it doesn't really matter all that much. I highly doubt there are many people who come to Top Mud Sites and *only* try out the #1 mud on the list. I expect that most, if not all, folks who come to TMS to find a mud to play try a number of muds before deciding on one they like. So ultimately, all that cheating probably alienates more people that it actually attracts.

I know if I played on a game that used such tactics, I'd be out of there in a heartbeat.

Perhaps there isn't any way to police voting tactics, but little icons could be put up on the list displays to provide certain information to board readers. A little $ could be put up for pay to play muds, and a little donkey could be put in for muds that 'buy votes', for example.

For anyone who hadnt noticed, the Top 20 list has been cleaned up considerably of people that 'shouldnt' be there.

Those two 1000+ character ones... Gemstone, and DragonRealms (owned by the same company) were finally removed because I think they realized they didnt NEED the exposure from a small, free site of more grassroots players. I could understand them vying for spots on the Mudconnector, but here, it was just like stomping down people's confidence.

So I think the top 20 now is pretty fair. Achaea, the other big pay-to-play, is actually only optional. You can play the game fine for free. But many of the characters take pride in spending their cash on OPTIONAL things to benefit their characters, like training sessions, items, houses, etc. Now this does add a realm of seeming unfairness.
-But here's the kicker, unless your a big bad powergamer and have this urge to be stronger and better then everyone so you can eventually kill them all, you will really have no need more then the skills you can get for free. It makes a perfectly strong character.-

Even Dragon's Gate looked to be off the list. It was a smaller pay-to-play, but still didnt belong here. If your going to charge people to play, then advertise on something that charges you. Thats my opinion anyways.

And yes there are a few in the Top 20 that still dont belong. I saw that the Mudconnector website was actually in the MUD listing top 20 last week. Thought that was kinda silly.

thats all
jenred

Achaea gives players who vote a 10% increase in the exp earned, and 10% decrease in exp lost if you die (their voting gateway logs your IP, and gives the bonus to the associated character). The issue of whether or not Achaea should be classified as P2P aside, I feel that this type of behavior negatively impacts whatever integrity and validity the ranking system here might have.

I think it is a catch-22. Most of the people that play on Ages of Despair are so busy playing they forget to vote. Add to that a player base that is probably 50% below many other muds and even when they try to bribe us with something less than 20% of total players actually do vote. Right now we are in the Top 10 and have staid within the top 12 for over a month. We have yet to see any direct benefit from it, but even if we where 100% certain to get something half the people that would vote end up forgeting unless a wiz or player throws out a 'Go vote!' message over channels. Then there are the 'things get crowded already, if I vote then it will be even harder to find things to kill' group as well.

I don't really think that the votes are entirely accurate due to these issues, even when muds leave it to the players to do all the voting without incentive. That said.. I have heard of tactics by some of the ones, that usually get 4-5 times the votes of anyone else, that go way beyond an occational bit of bribery during a period when the admin want to increase the muds profile a bit. Then again, they are only rumors.

This is true for all MUDs,.

It depends on your definition of "accurate" with regards to this subject. If you define accurate as reflecting the size of the pbase of the MUD, then no, the votes definitely are not accurate If, however, all MUDs behave the same way with regards to voting, e.g., no in-game incentives--players must motivate themselves to vote, we do have a consistent system that reflects the number of people who care enough about the MUD, and feel that it could use a few more players (as opposed to people who, while caring for the MUD, do not want more players). It's when some MUDs do things like offer in-game incentives that that last shred of consistency is destroyed, and the list numbers become entirely meaningless.

While I agree that the vote total itself may not be accurate, the actual list is a very good indication of the size of the pbase.  It always has been, and the way it set-up, it always will be.  At the end of the voting process the top 10 muds are always 10 of the largest muds in the database.

IMO the list still does exactly what it was set out to do.  The more people you send to TMS, the more exposure for your mud.

Not to imply that you're being deliberately misleading, but this is patently false. DartMUD, for instance, regularly ranks higher than MUDs that list themselves as 36-50, and occasionally those that list 100+. I've even checked some to verify the listing numbers. By your reasoning, Armageddon also has no business being in the top 10. Truth be told, the percentage of players willing to go through the effort of voting (assuming no in-game incentive) varies greatly from MUD-to-MUD, enough so that while it is true that larger MUDs will tend to have more votes, a given MUD may have more votes than another that has several times the number of players.

When you begin to offer in-game incentives, however, the number of votes will correlate more closely to the total number of players on your MUD. The effect that this has on the ranking system is that some MUDs' vote counts reflect their size of their pbase, while others reflect only the number of players who like the MUD (and want more people to play the MUD) enough to go through the trouble of voting consistently without any direct personal benefit.

As there is no immediately apparent indication as to whether or not a given MUD offers in-game compensation for voting, the usefulness of the list for any purpose is compromised.

Well, this used to be the case, but after being below 20 for a while, that little ticker was removed. At least the one on the main game.org page.

I decided to do abit of checking into the numbers myself considering 1) I am somewhat bored atm  2) This discussion has come up several times before.

DartMUD lists themselves in the 26 - 35 range of players which I will use as the "standard" base.

There are 20 muds that use the list at least somewhat casually which have a larger pbase than 26-35, of those 20, 16 are in the top 25.  8 of the top 10 spots are held by these muds.

As for Muds that list themselves as lower than 26-35, there are 2 in the top 25 and 0 in the top 10.

I am not claiming that the order is simply a list of which mud is the largest, if that were the case votes irrelevant and the list would basically e set in stone.  The actual order is set by either the players of those muds desiring to promote the game they play, or the desire of the admins of those muds to use the listing as a place for free advertisment.  That is the list doing it's job.  Muds that see the listing as a great oppurtnity for free exposure use it, those that don't really feel the need to advertise for more players or see the listing as a waste, simply don't.

The listing still gives free exposure to muds, no matter how the votes are recieved, and people are still coming to TMS when they vote.  It seems to me that the list still serves the same purpose as it did when it was a weekly battle to see who would come in second to RoD.

added - It is still somewhat early in the voting routine so of course the numbers will change, but it still gives a good overall view.

I'd personally be much happier if the TMS administration said "It is not legal to bribe players for voting, whether through in-game (XP bonuses, free stuff, etc.) or out-of-game methods. MUDs who are discovered doing this will be removed from the poll for N weeks. This policy is to ensure the integrity of the voting process."

It should be about which MUDs have players who are sufficiently happy with how the game is run that they want to recommend it to others. Not who thought up the most clever bribe scheme.

I would have to say that giving all players within your mud a general benefit, such as 'double xp days' is by no means a negative to your mud or this site. However, a personal benefit to a specific player as a result of voting is perhaps somewhat like bribery.

We all know that the Top 100 is not a realistic listing of the truly best muds. It does however present muds which are active with goal oriented players. I would certainly be willing to offer up some minor in game benefit if I thought its outcome would generate more traffic to our mud. Webpages and TMS listings do not a great mud make. They do however get folks interested. We all depend to an extent on word of mouth, which to me is the best form of advertisment. I would suggest that the Top 100 is simply a means to this end. Its your players voting (speaking) about your mud.

If your mud is listed in the Top portion of this list it suggests to me that your players are motivated and unified in at least  some way. This is a good thing.

Well said, and I agree completely.

The whole bribery process that some muds engage in is really in poor taste and risks a "race to the bottom" where muds think of increasingly more sleazy and annoying ways to force their players to vote.

On the flipside, I think a mud ultimately hurts itself by using such tactics on their players. People don't like being forced to do things, and in the long run I think those kinds of tactics make players of a game feel like the admins are manipulating them.  This is especially true for commercial games (by that I mean any game that has a payment structure designed to turn a profit in any way). If people are paying for a game they expect to not have to deal with such things. They are already demonstrating their loyalty by forking over their hard earned dollars.

One thing to keep in mind is that there's no way TMS generates enough income to justify Synozeer spending numerous hours every week tracking down and investigating accusations of "bribery" by muds on the lists. As a mud administrator, I am pretty grateful for the work he does here already, and I say that as someone who does pay to support TMS (through advertising), and have done so for at least 2+ years now. I can understand Synozeer not wanting to start down a path of potentially painful "policing" of muds.

I am not saying that I don't think such a policy as mentioned above would be a bad idea. I think it would be a really GOOD thing. I am just saying we certainly could not expect Synozeer to devote a significant amount of time to enforcing it.

It is good, however, that we continue to put PR pressure on the muds that DO use sleazy bribery tactics to bloat their vote numbers. As those players visit this site perhaps they will read about it, see that such tactics are NOT common practice, and re-evaluate their choice of mud.

Every so often I like to try out different muds, just to see what else is out there. Several weeks ago, I decided to try one of the "Top Muds." I wanted to know if there really was very much difference in quality. I browsed through the top 20, and picked one that I wouldn't have to pay for. I won't tell which.

I actually played it for several days. First, because I wanted to know why a fairly small mud would get so many votes. Then later, because I wanted to know why a fairly lame mud would get so many votes. It was pretty mediocre in quality. Nothing too horrible to make me run away screaming, but really nothing to make me want to stay. And people didn't even rp much.

THEN I looked through more of the reviews, and learned that it got votesbecause of incentives. So I did feel a little mislead. I'm not inclined to think the rankings mean much now.

There are some basic problems with ranking muds. I don't know the statistics, but I think most people only regulrly play one mud, often the first mud they ever tried. This is perfectly understandable. You go from being a big shot and knowing everyone and everything on your old mud, to being lost and confused and beaten up by newbiekillers on a new mud; it's hard and most people will just go back to what they know. They are happy there, they like the mud, they vote for it. Then what you have is people voting when they don't really know the competition, and it pretty much boils down to they are voting for the mud where their friends are. So when I'm looking for a mud, do I care where your friends play? Noooo.

I think it would be very useful to have a way to rate your mud in different categories, such as game stability, quality of roleplaying, quality of playerkilling, friendliness of staff, friendliness of players, complexity, interactiveness, exploration, whatever else people look for in games. It would be something you could only do once per isp per mud, perhaps with occassional clearing if the mud went through a major overhaul. All the results for each mud would be compiled and averaged. So then, instead of judging by the rank, or reading through numerous sycophantic reviews, you could just look at the ratings and see oh players of this mud rated it 8.7/10 in pk but 3.5/10 in rp, and then decide if that is what you want. In addition, breaking the ratings into such categories may get people thinking more about what a quality mud is.

I find this endless discussion to be more than a little funny at this point. How many times does it have to be pointed out that TMS is a modified version of a banner exchange? I've pointed it out multiple times, and Synozeer has pointed it out at least once.

To summarize: A banner exchange is an arrangement whereby a bunch of websites get together and display each other's banners on their site. The more impressions (ie a single viewing of a banner) that you deliver to the exchange, the more often your banner will be displayed by other members of the exchange.

That is exactly what TMS is. The more traffic you send here, the more you get back. Some of you seem unable or unwilling to get past the name of the site and your own interpretation of what Top Mud Sites means. In this case, top mud sites means: the top mud-related sites measured by how much traffic they send to TMS.

Once you get that through your head, you'll quickly realize that it is beneficial to everyone concerned (Synozeer and every MUD on the list) if every MUD would reward their players to vote. I know I'd certainly like to see other MUDs throwing up better numbers than ours, as it means that that many more new players are likely to check out Achaea. It's also the thing to do if you give a **** about Synozeer's work on the site. The more traffic that comes here, the more advertising he can sell. I'm sure the amount of work he puts into this site is not adequately compensated, and it's a bit poor of some of you to want to decrease the amount of traffic his site receives by placing inane rules on how traffic may be sent to what is a modified banner exchange. My first concern is certainly not Synozeer, but sheesh, the guy does run the site for next to nothing. Give him a break and get mud-related traffic here anyway you can. (Again, I'm not claiming that helping Synozeer is my primary motivation, but if I can help myself and help him at the same time, great.)

--matt

You felt mislead in what way?  If you thought that the list was a ranking of the which muds are the "best" muds then you were mislead before you even started.  It is a listing of which muds send the most people to this site.

People seem to be under the romantic notion that, before it was common knowledge that people used incentives to garner votes, the listing allowed small muds to get the same attention that the larger muds did, through dedication and the will of the players.  It is somewhat true, but the uprising of muds using incentives has done nothing to change it. It is the case that more larger pbased muds are using the list now which leaves fewer spots that the small muds can sneak into.  

Things that would really skew the results would be when A) players found ways around the 1 vote per 12 hours or B) if the mud recruited votes from outside of the playerbase.

The inherent problem with classifying this site as a device for determining what websites direct the most traffic here is that such a site isn't useful to anyone.  For TMS to thrive and expand its reach, it has to fulfill a purpose.  A site that has a useful ranking system has more content to deliver- people would come here when they want to find a new place to play, and TMS could build a reputation for being the best place to find such recommendations.  On the other hand, if TMS's reputation becomes "a list of MUDs with the most aggressive botting/bribing schemes", then the ranking list is not a draw.  You can whore the rankings out to the best briber for a short term increase in quantity, but you can't let that be your bread and butter, or it will eventually poison you.

(Disclaimer: I think the forums here are an equally important draw, but they're a separate topic, independent from how the ranking list's policies effect site quality.)

As an analogy, think of how search engines like Google have climbed to the top and thrived.  Google isn't kickass because it gets you the most links.  Google is kickass because it is reasonably good at finding the links you want most.

But the site is very useful to basically everyone who wants to be involved  the way it is setup right now.
Players looking for muds get a diverse listing of some of the most popular muds out.
Admins receive a free avenue to advertise their mud.
Players can boast about their favorite mud and increase it's ranking.
Synozeer has an excellent way to draw new people to the website.

If by more content you mean listing in order of how good the games are then it can not be done.  I'm not exactly sure how much content you can put into a ranking system.

Between the listings and the database I still believe that TMS has the most eye-pleasing and user-friendly searching routines compared to any other site.  The number of muds that choose to list here is very comparable as well.  Player reviews, forum advertising, website links, pretty much everything you could want from a site if you were looking for a new place to play.  I fail to see how the order in which the muds are ranked on the list at all takes away from these features.

Unless you have 50 different ranking lists for the various models of muds players look for, the list will NEVER be a good way to find exactly what you want, only a list of some available.   A refined database search would be the equivalent of a Google search and that is readily available to anyone.

No, it is not. People coming here through a voting gateway are the demographic that's least likely to actually use the list. The vast majority of people using the list are those who are coming in from an outside source (TMC, google, etc), or those dissatisfied by their current MUD.

[snip straw man/troll]

Please try to stay on-topic. And no, TMS is not a banner exchange, as I pointed out at length in another post that I'm not about to dig up. In summary, a banner exchange can only occur between sites where shared traffic is beneficial to all. A banner exchange can occur between TMS, TMC, and Kyndig, for instance, but not between TMS and many MUDs, because MUDs supply a service that is not compatible with a banner exchange. MUDs gain the most by monopolizing a person's attention, and nothing by sharing a person's attention with another MUD.

Of course you find it funny. You're the one abusing the system. Since you're getting away with it and benefiting from it financially, I imagine you find it downright hilarious.

I think we are all well aware of what your primary motivation is, matt.

This keeps getting discussed, and I think almost all of us dislike the whole concept of rewarding voters - but the unfortunate fact is, as Synozeer has said in the past, it is very difficult to actually try and prevent such activity.

The reason I object to such tactics is because they severely unbalance the results (by dramatically increasing the percentage of the playerbase who will vote).  However my personal concern at this point is the venom of all the other posters towards this approach - because it's obviously not going to sway Achaea in the slightest, but it is going to discourage other people from following suit.

While I would love to see voting rewards banned, the result of the many length debates on TMS (and my own discussions with Synozeer) has shown that it's simply not feasible.  But I would rather at least see the other muds use the same approach - and thus put them on the same playing field - than let Achaea monopolise such an unfair advantage and make itself look much more popular than it really is in relation to the other muds in the rankings.

We currently send (by far) the most traffic to the list of any MUD on the list. Yet, despite this, we have been gaining a not-insignificant number of players (and customers) who came to us from Top Mud Sites. If we can get a noticeable benefit from the traffic supplied by MUDs that are supplying no more than 20% as much traffic as we are, then the proportional increase that a smaller MUD can get is even greater.

As for your claims, I'd be curious to know where you get those statistics from. Are they facts, or conclusions derived from anecdotal evidence?

--matt

Not really. It's a simple relationship. We bring the most traffic, so we get the most traffic back. Seems fair to me.

--matt

Just in case there is any confusion, it's twofold: making money while making the sort of game I like. Either of them without the other is insufficient. I can't imagine too many careers I'd like better than making games, and while I'm hardly a religious man, I'm quite thankful to live in an age where I can do it.

--matt

Some of you are really great, and I'll probably lose out by not participating, but one of my personal weaknesses is a chronic inability to avoid silly arguments, of which there are many on any unmoderated board. Thus, I'm out of the boards and will stick to the rankings list. Here's hoping some of you wise the heck up and start bringing some decent traffic here. I'd love to see someone else bring more traffic than us.

--matt

Conclusions derived from logs as well as anecdotal evidence gathered by surveying a random sampling of new players.

Of those who come to our MUD through TMS, the majority are people either new to MUDs, dissatisfied with their old MUD, or actively searching for a new MUD for some other reason (e.g., old MUD closed). Many noticed our new banner ad on TMS, but did not come until convinced by word-of-mouth. Very few, if any, came through our site by way of a voting gateway.

Based on my observations and experimentations, it has been most effective to target the demographics of dissatisfied players, and those new to MUDding. This is most likely why TMC is able to generate the amount of banner traffic that it does. Its services are catered quite specifically towards those demographics with which MUD-related advertising is most effective.

Your data does not support that conclusion. Your conclusion relies on the implicit unsupported assumption, that the traffic you're gaining from TMS comes by way of the voting gateways of other MUDs.

As for your numerous attempts to imply that you are benefitting other members of the list by bribing players to vote, let me be the first of those members to say that it's quite insulting. Unless you've been running a net loss of players since becoming a member of the list, your listing has caused a net loss to the rest of the members. We're all here competing for players, no big bad secret there, but I draw the line when someone finds a way to further devalue the system and then tries to tell me that it's good for me everyone else.

the_logos 1:
It figures. When the discussion gets a bit embarrassing, he withdraws from the arena. He never yet gave a straight answer to an embarrassing question – like for instance why he uses those phoney adverts, claiming unexisting awards.
I guess it also illustrates what his only interest in this site is.

the_logos 2:
Not quite. There is a distinct difference between REAL traffic – people who come here to actually view the list and to take active part in the site, and those who just click a vote button to get some extra experience points in a mud. The latter don’t contribute to discussion threads or submit articles. Like the owner of Achaea, they are only interested in one thing – to get immediate advantages for themselves.

This site used to be a great place, with interesting discussions and articles to read. It used to be fun watching the struggle on the list, even if it reflected more the size of the playerbase than the quality of the mud. Now one mud has made a total mockery out of the list. And I think, that regardless of how many hits the site may get from their bloated votes, it still harms it a lot more than it ‘helps’, because it alienates the good people that used to hang out here and make contributions to the community.

I find myself gradually losing interest in the site, and I think the same thing has happened to others. When was the last time there was an interesting thread on the Advanced Mud Concept or Builders’ Forum? How many new articles have been posted in the last months? Coincidence? Maybe, but my personal opinion is that there is a connection.

I respect Synozeer’s assessment that the list cannot be ‘policed’ in any effective way. He is probably right about that.
Still, I don’t think that a mud that so blatantly abuses a system as Achaea should be allowed to continue with it. In this case there is absolutely no doubt about what is going on.

I also respect Synozeer's generosity and civil courage to allow this discussion to go on openly. Free speech is always a good thing.
So now I’ll exercise that freedom of speech and respectfully make a suggestion:

My suggestion would be to post a policy on the boards, that setting up a jumping ip-address and then bribing the players to click the vote button as often as possible is not acceptable. I would then suggest that he politely ask Achaea to stop what they are doing, and if they fail to comply, that he remove the mud from the list for a suitable length of time. Perhaps that would send a message to the owner, who otherwise seems remarkably devoid of shame and deaf to public opinion. Maybe it would also send a message to the rest of the Community.

Gotta agree with Molly here.

Even I've been disappearing from these boards, and the reasoning is not unrelated to Mihaly's little shennanigans.

In fact, Mihaly's a direct cause of my reluctance to add toa ny serious discussion on these boards - TMS used to be a site worth my time. Ever since Mihaly's crap started, however, TMS seems like nothing more than a way for some people to make some cash, and that's it. No community, nothin'.

-D

I'm not so sure that it's a zero-sum game like that =). For a mud on the list to benefit the other muds on this list, I think we can all agree that a player needs to come from that mud and find another mud here. Since some players get their start on a specific mud, players are exposed to other muds through the voting mechanism. One could argue that these players would get their start somewhere else, but this simply isn't true in all cases, and we can't measure every player in existence to prove it as such.

Such a struggle does still exist. It may not be for the #1 spot, and it would be silly of me not to acknowledge that there are less slots to view, but the struggle is very much alive. That is, if you're not hung up about any specific placement.

Just a comment, but unless the rankings where weighted based on the 'real' size of the player base like 'This site has recieved 50 votes from its 500 players' the list will never be accurate. If no muds gave incentives then basic human nature would be for maybe 10% of the players to actively play and 20% of them actually voting at all. The result is the biggest player bases at the top of the list, which makes the whole process sort of pointless, since you could just post the actually number of total players that are over some level and get the same result.

As for the one I play at.. We are under new admin and the results of attempting to get us to vote has been less than impressive. lol Most on AoD are frankly more interested in the next new areas being added, the new changes to the battle arena and the occational invading army that we have to fight off. And frankly.. even if they did give us something like a 200% exp rate for a day, the result would be more like 120% due to all the extra people wandering around trying to kill stuff instead of doing other things. I am sure bribery works in some places, but prior to the server rearrangement that temporarily lost all the links to vote sites (and still isn't completely fixed), we where roughly the same place as now without any promised incentives. However, what I think that means relative to our actual active player base is as good a guess as yours...

I understand that Synozeer doesn't want to mire himself in policing duties, but surely it is not difficult to ban a mud who so BLATANTLY and BRAZENLY abuses the system.

I think Molly makes an excellent point regarding the long term "psychological" effects of Achaea's gross abuse of the system. When people see someone "get away with murder" long enough, eventually they just throw up their hands in disgust and give up.

Lately, there have been numerous threads expressing disgust at what Achaea does. That is indicative of a very serious problem. But the indicator of whem the problem is even worse is when you STOP seeing threads about this. Why? Because that will mean people will no longer care, and when they don't care, they'll just abandon the site entirely.

The lack of quality, substantive discussions in the forums is a very good indicator of this. I hate to see it because I have always enjoyed the TMS forums. The software is vastly superior to what I have seen on other "mud" sites, and Synozeer doesn't allow disgruntled gamers to use the forums as a way to destroy the muds they got kicked from. That combination of factors makes for a good environment.

I think we are nearing the point where despite everything Synozeer has said about policing, he is going to have to make a choice. I think if he doesn't do something about Achaea soon, he will be jeopardizing the long term viability of the entire site as people simply give up.

I would hate to see that because I think Synozeer is a good guy. a good site admin, and deserves to have his site succeed.

As I am sure you all have seen, I have been voicing my displeasure at the monopoly of the top spot here in my latest banner ad for Feudal Realms.  We pay $100 a month to be the sponsor of the site, which I honestly don't mind doing (my wife is another story).  Does it bug the #### out of me, sure.  Did the fake stupid ads on TMC bother me to the point where I blew my own money to call and verify that they weren't true, sure.

I have to agree with a lot of people, my interest (and my players interest) in here is waining.  People don't care as much to vote knowing that there's no way in bloody #### they can compete with large commercial muds with huge playerbases which give in-character incentives for clicking on a few links.  As for added traffic from here, sure we get quite a bit, but we also pay for it.  I don't see ads popping up for all the big ptp muds, I just see them leeching off the traffic here.  And yes, there were veiled comments made months ago about "oh, we're talking about advertising possibilities" and so on, well, I've seen no result of that, just the same folks (and some newer small muds as well) throwing their banners up to try to get something out of the site.

I seriously think Synozeer should just allocate the top spot to Achaea and we just ignore them and have a ranking for "all the rest"...but hey, people have been bitching about this for months now and nothing has changed, so I don't expect anything to happen...

Terloch

I would like to echo the sentiments of those who suggest the community is disappearing.  I always liked this place as a resource and as a vehicle for interesting debates about MUDs.  However, once this place became a mere "banner exchange," I lost most of my respect for this site.

If this place is just a banner exchange, then all Achaea's traffic does is raise the advertising rate for other muds.  But, these is no evidence that the voters from Achaea are actually checking out any other muds.  As such, Muds will see their advertising rate increase but see no noticeable difference.  Eventually, people will stop advertising and the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.

Also important to consider is the_logos' continued denial and resistance to other people's opinions demonstrates that he is only concerned with his own mud - not TMS or anyone else.  And, as Terloch mentioned, I too am still awaiting Achaea's adverts.  

Unless things change, I think we can all expect to see fewer and fewer people actually interested in this site.  And, as a personal note, notwithstanding Synorzeer's inability to police the boards, I"m a liitle disappointed in his failure to address this in a manner that responds to people's concerns.  Though in the short term it may benefit him to have Achaea at the top of the list, in the long term I think it can only do irreparable harm.

I've decided to go ahead and not allow incentives and rewards to be given to players for voting. Here is the new entry in the Rules section:

Obviously, the majority of the community here at TMS is against the idea of offering rewards for voting, and this site is here for what's best for everyone as a whole. While offering rewards might increase traffic to a degree, I think restricting rewards will also increase traffic as more muds will activately try to get a better ranking on the list.

Notice that I still allow awards to ALL players for a goal. For example, you can tell your players that if your mud is in the top 10 at reset time, you'll reward them by opening up a new area, giving them all 1000xp, having a festival day on the mud, etc. This reward must be given to ALL players on the mud - not just the ones that voted.

This rule will begin to be enforced starting Monday, January 16th. Please continue to discuss the issue, your thoughts on this rule change, suggestions, etc. Nothing is ever etched in stone.

Synozeer

It is mostly a zero-sum game, actually. From an economic standpoint, if we view players as units of wealth, the only creation of wealth comes from players new to MUDding. Now, let's say that TMS creates 50 new units of wealth (attracts 50 new people to MUDding) per month. The most any other given MUD can gain per month without drawing directly from another is the amount of wealth created every month. Even this can be viewed as denying income to other MUDs that would otherwise have gotten those players.

It's simple, really. New members to the list do not facilitate more creation of wealth (unless they start buying TMS adspace on mpogd or something), therefore unless they draw exactly 0 players, or run at a net loss, they are further dividing the resources of the site.

Wow.. Thanks Synozeer. I hope that enforcement doesn't place too much of a burden on you.

WOW!

This is excellent news. Thank you Synozeer for being so responsive to the users/readers here!

I can hardly put into words how PLEASANTLY surprised I was when I read this post!

The creation of new units would come by one of two ways:
1) A new player gets his start on a mud.
2) An existing player finds a mud that he likes and plays it in addition to his other muds.

These two factors are both influenced by the muds at which the player is currently playing. I don't know of any existing surveys that can quantify either of these factors enough to make a decision on this matter. While I would agree that there would be some "loss" (where loss is often defined in this case as failure to gain, which is usually something else entirely) to some people, I disagree that there is no benefit as well. I think that deciding either way without much quantitive evidence is unwise =).

This is still zero sum. A player that plays two MUDs is not worth as much as two players who each play one MUD. A player, or, mor specifically, a player's time is a finite resource that does not increase in value when spread across multiple recipients. If the hypothetical player allocates half of his resources to another MUD, the first MUD loses that amount of resources, and the net change is zero.

As for losing wealth vs. not gaining, I agree that they are significantly different. I was merely pointing out that unless Mihaly's MUD was running a net loss, it was having a negative impact on the rest of the list. The only way it could have a positive impact while running a net gain would be if his MUD listing generated more new wealth than it consumed. A new MUD listing, however, has no effect on the amount of new wealth generated by TMS, therefore his MUD listing was most definitely negatively impacting the rest of the list.

Just to preemptively clear up any possible confusion, please note that I'm not saying that a negative impact on the rest of the list is in any way out of line. It is, in fact, the whole point of putting your MUD on the list. I only had a problem with Mihaly trying to claim that his listing was somehow benefitting everyone else, and that his abuses were amplifying said claimed benefits.

I'd just like to thank Synozeer for making that change to the rules. I think it will add a great deal of integrity to the site.

While you are correct in stating that a player's time is a finite resource that does not increase, there is an important implication that does not follow from this fact. This implication is that a player's time allocation is fixed with regards to playing a mud. One can disprove of this fairly easily with a hypothetical situation: If I usually spend one hour a day reading a book, but I find a mud that I enjoy, I may spend that same hour playing the mud instead. In this case the net time allocation overall is zero, but the net time allocation spent playing muds has increased. The same logic applies to new players starting on a mud, only in a more exaggerated manner.

The underlined conditional is a key point, and the assertion following immediately after it is not correct without its truth. Like I said in my last post though, I know of no surveys that can answer this question.