Title says it all, triple exp for today only. If you want to try us out, now would be a good day.



Nass

Well, first, that script in the thread you linked to is different, Angie. It just takes you to the intermediate page where the user has to then click 'confirm' and then close the window. At least, I think that's what it does. In other words, it just brings up the voting page, and the user still has to vote. The script continually crashes Zmud on me and I'm not quite sure what it's doing.

The WoT script actually does everything for you: It opens a window, votes/confirms the vote for you, then closes that window. In any case, my point was that there's nothing anyone can do about this kind of script, which is a bit of a problem.

I'm going to talk to Adam today about this and see what his opinion on it is, given that there's no way for him to stop it without implementing confirmation codes or whatnot.

--matt

In the link Angie provided, you stated "Yep, that's exactly what the script does. It opens, votes, and closes. It's completely undetectable and completely outside the control of anyone but the end user."

In other words, the script you provided does exactly what the WoT script does.

For some reason this reminds me of the whole Iraq situation - give them WMD, then a few years later attack them for having WMD!

Well he already told you, in the link the Angie provided: "If it's entirely an end-user thing and independant of the mud, there's no problem with it, since a user can choose to vote how they would like to, as long as they don't try to get around the once every 12 hours rule."

I was incorrect in stating that's what the script does. The person who had tested it for me had assumed that just being taken to the TMS 'confirm you want to vote' page counts as a vote, but it doesn't. It just opens that page for you and requires the user to then manually vote. The WoT script does it all for you with no action needed on the part of the end user beyond dropping the dll into the zmud directory once.

--matt

I haven't tested either, but if yours does not do the same as the WoT one, it's not for lack of trying.

It occured to me that there may be a way to stop this from working, but it depends on what the DLL looks for when it clicks through the confirm vote page. It's probably reasonably possible for Adam to change the confirm graphic and click-space every few days, forcing this kind of script to be updated often to maintain compatibility. Without the source to the DLL though, I'm not sure how easy it'll be to tell.

--matt

So what happens to muds such as this who are found to be breaking the TMS voting rules?

Triple exp was not given out for any voting done on TMC. It was given for another reason.

Well, in the past, cheaters have typically been kicked off. The script thing, incidentally, doesn't appear to be cheating, though the rewarding-for-voting is definitely cheating. Given, though, that they are fairly rare for muds using other peoples' fictions in that they do the ethical thing and get permission to use Wheel of Time before using it, I, at least, am willing to give Nass the benefit of the doubt and assume he thought it was legal. The muds that have been kicked off definitely had admins who knew they were breaking the rules.

--matt

I couldn't comment on TMC, but we're talking about TMS, and I included screenshots showing Nass specifically stating that they'll be giving rewards for voting. He might not have known that it was against the rules (I really don't know), but that it was done is pretty manifestly obvious.

--matt

This explains their rapid rise through the voting ranks in the last few days. All of our MUDs could skyrocket our number of votes if we started bribing our players to do it.

Come on, play fair. If this isn't cracked down on, then we're just all going to have to end up doing the exact same thing to compete, and the only ones that will suffer in the end are people who think they're coming to TMS to see an accurate list of popular MUDs.

To be fair, TMS isn't at all an accurate list of the most popular MUDs or even the most popular text MUDs. A lot of the MUDs in the top 10 list now wouldn't be there if it was. Carrion Fields, Aetolia, Lusternia, Imperian, Armaggedon would definitely not be in the top 10, and I'm unsure about Threshold and Discworld's playerbase size. Batmud, Shangri-la, Gemstone IV, Dragonrealms would certainly be in there, along, no doubt, with some others.

But yes, I completely agree that a rules violation so blatant can't be allowed to continue. I have faith that Nass will cease the practice as soon as he sees this thread though.

--matt

Heh. Its just one scandal after another at this site.

defines traffic as the measurement of users that visit a website. So I don't think any autovoter.dll counts as "traffic" if nobody actually views the site.

Nice catch the_logos.

Well, I'm sure people could debate whether it's traffic or not, but it's certainly not USEFUL traffic. Again though, the real issue is that presently on TMS, there is -no way- to either detect its use or stop it from being used. I don't know what Adam can do about that. It seems like the kind of thing that is guaranteed to spread too, if only because it's genuinely easier for the end user, and the end user is always going to gravitate towards lower effort, all other things being equal.

--matt

This triple exp was _not_ given for voting on neither TMC nor TMS, as far as I know. Originally, yes, Nass said we would get double exp for being in the top #'s, but then, if you go back and read this thread again


The next to last post on the first page Nass says that he was notified that rewards for voting was a no-no, and he complied.

The triple exp from this topic comes from this


It was supposed to just be double exp...but it got upgraded to triple, apparently on a (most appreciated) whim.

Ahh! It seems he's been told it's illegal. That's good. It was definitely done though. If you go back and look at the dates of the screenshots I posted, he was offering to reward players for voting as far back as December.

--matt

IMHO, the voting for this site has come down to not who can send the most players here to vote for their game, but who can come up with a script, code, scheme etc to get the most votes out of their players. The MUDs who can think up ways to almost 'get around' the rules win. Of course the MUDs at the top have larger playerbases than the ones at the bottom, but it just seems to me that to be at the top of the list on this site you have to either cheat to get ahead or just almost cheat the rules.

Personally, I'm happy we no longer care about voting here.. it's a lot of stress off of us to keep finding ways to get our players to vote without bribes, cheating, scheming, etc. We've decided to focus on TMC where the rules are not so strict and detailed.

And btw, if WOTmud is bribing and cheating, they should be removed of course. That would be only fair.

You mean "got banned for repeatedly cheating".

Gimme a break.. again I ask, why does EVERY post from me have to result in flames?  If you must know, which it seems you do, Vryce and Synozeer did not agree on the rules of this site. Yes our ivote code went against the rules of this site, but it's the code we wished to use. They agreed to disagree and Vryce asked for Medievia to be removed from the voting list.  Because this IS indeed Synozeer's site and his rules, Medievia was removed.    Therefore, Medievia is no longer listed on the voting list.  And as I stated before, I'm so glad for it.  

Our ivote system is still being used for Mudconnector and our players are thankful for it because there is no more spam at all about voting.  They have the prompt turned on or off, they vote if they want to, and no one is sending global echos anymore.  Only the people who want to be reminded are reminded.  The result has been a consistent #2 or 3 spot at Mudconnector and very few complaints from our players.  No more spam or stress!

(Added this as an afterthought)
Of course you all are going to stick to your "Medievia was removed for cheating" stance and that is fine.  I developed a thick skin to all this long ago and I know that the name Medievia is synonymous will all things bad on these sites.  I just figured I'd finally tell you all how it really happened.  Vryce and Synozeer shared several emails before our removal and again I will tell you that it was US who asked to be removed.  We were not removed against our will etc etc.  In the end, Synozeer is a pretty fair guy and gave us many chances to change our system.  Vryce believes that to turn the ivote off by default would lead to even MORE spam to our players than just the ivote itself gives and we didn't want to have to spam echos AND have the ivote prompt to compete here.  The result has been happier Medievia players and imms overall and to tell you the truth, although being at the top of the voting list here did send more players our way, we have not seen that much of a difference in new player creations since we removed ourselves.  In fact, it seems that being at the top of TMC has had more of an affect than being at the top here.

So you just didn't agree with the site owners rules, and as a result decided to keep doing what you were doing?

Could you please explain how that's different from cheating?

This is how it went down...

1.  We found out Aardwolf had a voting prompt, we thought "cool we can do that."  We finally found out what they were doing to get their players reminded/motivated to vote.  Sounded like a good idea and worth our while to get to the top of the list.

2.  We coded ivote.  Other MUD admins found out about it, posted about it.  We said "Hey, Aardwolf is doing it, why can't we?"

3.  After debate on these very forums, Matt and Synozeer rewrote the rules of this site to state "off by default".  One could say that they were written specifically against Medievia's new ivote code, but we won't go there.  However, no one gave a crap about anyone else's voting code until we created it.

4.  Synozeer wrote to Vryce and I with a warning that if we didn't change or remove our code we would be removed.  We didn't agree with the new rules, we asked to be removed.

5.  No more voting spam or stress at Medievia!

Nods, definately Mud Jokes and Humor.

Good Stuff...

The only site that seems to have a reasonably cheatproof system for voting is Mudmagic.com.

To vote there you need to submit your e-mail, and also match a 5-letter code. Then the voting code checks your e-mail against the isp. You can vote once a day there, and any attempts of excessive votes are simply disabled by the code. It also sends a message about the failure, which is a good service, in case someone mistakenly tries to vote an hour early.

If TMS were to implement a similar system, it would probably stop most of the cheating. But then again it would also make it at least a bit harder to get the click-cattle to vote, so most likely the total number of votes would drop drastically. But at least it would be more like real traffic then, and not just script-induced vote-spam.

No - actually this triple exp has nothing to do with votes here. I _used_ to have it that if we finished in the top 5 I'd put out double exp for a while. I exchanged some emails with Synozeer a couple of weeks ago who put me right about this, so since then top 5 hasn't even been mentioned anywhere by me.

ok?

Wow, having a shot at the zmud plugin too. Well that's been around for what, about 2 years now, I know plenty of other muds have copied it. I've also certainly never seen that described anywhere as illegal.

ok?

By the way, you're probably not aware logos, but it was actually one of your Lusternia players that went to the admin here about our double exp stuff, after which the admin popped me a mail. There was a thread about it on one of your IRE boards, just do a search for wotmud. Personally I think it reeks a bit of jealousy and sour grapes but hey, whatever.

My misunderstanding, as I explained to him, was this: I didn't reward the voters in-game over-and-beyond anyone else. Ie, everyone got double exp, regardless of if they voted or not. Anyhow that's, I gather, also not allowed, hence you'll find no mention of it by me at all since. Feel free to look.

Anyhow - I definitely do agree with some of the posters here, being high on the list is nothing to do with quality whatsoever. All it measures is the ability to get high on this list, ie popularity. Anyone who claims otherwise is fooling themselves. Now some may say that popularity actually means quality, I'd submit "macdonalds" in rebuttal.

Have a nice day.

I saw it mentioned in another double xp post but it was by an admin from Aetolia... same thing though, heh.

oops my, bad, Aetolia, Lusternia, I get them mixed up

I will keeeeel you!

Lusternia is much sexier than Aetolia!

Logos - go and read  and Then, check the dates of the posts, how it's clearly all about that social bookmarking. Personally I believe the classy thing to do would be to make an apology.

Also, in the future, since you're a moderator and represent this place here now, I do think you need to act more professionally and set a better example. Ie, take some steps and allow some time to get the full picture about things before accusing people on the boards.

Thanks.

Just because you and your oh-so-ethical husband cheated (and got banned), doesn't mean everyone else cheats. Feel free to sniff around us, and you'll see that we don't interrupt gameplay, offer incentives, distribute bots/scripts, or do anything remotely against the rules of the site. Yet we're pretty consistently in the #3-#5 spot.

We run a clean ship. Don't try to smear us with the filth you swim in.

Excuse me, but many MUDs in the top 10 do -not- cheat. Iron Realms MUDs are among those. We follow the rules to the letter, and if you'd like to accuse us of doing otherwise, please post your evidence.
--matt

Wow, that is some gall. You get caught cheating and claim that turning you in for cheating is "jealousy" and "sour grapes?" You want me to apologize for pointing out that you guys were cheating? I think not.

It's you who owes everyone else an apology. Whether you knew it or not, you were breaking the rules. There's no denying that really, whether it was innocent or not.


--matt

Whoa- Defensive defensive.  Again I was merely making an observation, no evidence of anything at all.  Maybe my choice of words were not the best so let me try and rephrase what I was thinking...

It seems that most games, to stay at the top of the list, have had to come up with some additional code, scripts, motivational schemes, etc to get their players to vote.  Some of these ways, including the ivote code that Medievia uses, do go against the rules.  Other ways, such as the zmud script mentioned, don't seem to specifically go against the rules, but seem to be a bit 'shady' since the user has to do nothing at all except open up their MUD client.  

Maybe it would be worth starting up a new thread on this topic... "How do YOU get your players to vote?"

Everyone is so testy today....  Am I not allowed to post my opinions without everyone jumping down my throat?

Sure you are. But when you make accusations, I think it's reasonable to expect that you back them up with evidence. Your system is against the rules here. Ours isn't.
--matt

Fair enough.  My original intention was not to accuse anyone of anything really, just stating an observation.   I apologize to those MUDs who do play by the rules and who were offended by my first post.  My comments were mostly in response to the zmud script that was mentioned as I certainly think that goes against the spirit of the rules here since the people voting aren't even clicking anything or giving any effort at all to their votes.  Hell, if that kind of thing IS acceptable, why don't all the MUDs here use it?

You'd never understand.

I'd never understand, why?  Because you also think it's a shady thing to do and you always associate Medievia with cheating and all-around shadiness?  I'm sure you and GodWars II would never ever stoop to that kind of level to gain votes.  But, where are you on the voting list?  

If that's not the reason, please enlighten me.  If it is the reason, it proves my observations exactly... MUDs who want to get to the top of this list, especially those with smaller playerbases, seem to have to take certain measures (such as this zmud script) to get there.  (Again, no accusations being made at all, please don't jump on me about that again)

I think the thread litmus test is now off the charts, you guys don't need to be so hostile. I mean, I understand your MUDs are being insulted, but God damn.

Closed the topic to prevent imminent flamewar! I think everything that needs saying has been said in any case. If anyone wants to start a new thread about getting votes, or about cheating via rewarding, or about the Zmud DLL, please feel free.

Thanks!
--matt