Let's resolve to stay in the top five this year.

http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

Vote for DragonRealms on Top MUD Sites: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

Is Vote!

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"I think anything that forces you to do something no sane adventurer would do just in order to train is ridiculous."
DR-SOCHARIS

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Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

>If you are going to post stuff like this, post the link for us lazy folks so I can just click on it when I read the forums.

http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

We're 20 votes behind 4th.

By the way, it seems that little image next to our name is gone. Didn't there used to be one? That little tiny thing next to the name...

What are the 'in/out' numbers indicating?

Ah, thanks

This is not a suggestion just an obscure question; is there such a thing as a piece of code that one can put on their computer that directs the computer to browse to a website like the vote for dr web page and then click the vote button on a particular schedule? ?

Obviously it exists but does anyone other than the nsa or anonymous know how to do that?

>>This is not a suggestion just an obscure question...

The implications of your obscure questions are getting a touch asinine.

If I develop a good reason to believe that our players are cheating the TMS system, I will personally report DR for cheating the rankings. If we cannot act in good faith we do not deserve any additional exposure in the MUD community.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

Exhale

It was a technology question. The tms example may have been an unfortunate distraction.

>>You mean like the other muds who spam in-game and offer in-game incentives to vote, and do everything short of say 'by logging in you just voted! Congrats!'?

Are any muds actually doing this? Looking at Aarwolf, their Flash client has a vote button, but that's it. Any game-wide benefits they give seem to be based on players collectively donating to the game, not voting at TMS.

Aarwolf also has an in-game tracker to show when you last voted, if you want an in-game reminder to vote again.

When you type IVOTED you get:

Thanks for helping Aarwolf by voting!

You will receive a reminder in around 13 hours.

Remember, you can vote at [url]

When you type it again before the timer expires, you get:

It has been only [time] since you last typed 'ivoted'

Use 'ivoted !' to override the timer and reset anyway.

Remember, you can vote at [url]

I mean, if anything, DR is just kinda notoriously reserved when it comes to promoting voting on TMS.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I'd like anything I can get to help me out.

---
"I think anything that forces you to do something no sane adventurer would do just in order to train is ridiculous."
DR-SOCHARIS

---
Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

Does Genie have persistent global variables and a system timer in seconds?

I tried writing a script in Yasse but the system seconds variable mentioned in the documentation isn't implemented.

If %totaltime (supposed to be total seconds since the beginning of the reference date) was implemented in Yasse, this script would prompt you to vote every 12 hours. If similar commands/variables exist for Genie, you could probably modify this script easily to work with that. Then you could set it to auto-run on startup.

set trigger on
action "I voted for DR" gosub I_Voted

ifexists vote_time goto loop_start

setglobalvariable vote_time 0

loop_start:
setvariable seconds_since_vote %totaltime
calculate seconds_since_vote sub $vote_time$

if $seconds_since_vote$ > 43200
boxmessage Vote for DR! http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html\n\n Enter "I voted for DR" to reset message timer.

pause 30

goto loop_start

I_Voted:
setglobalvariable vote_time %totaltime
return

aardwulf or whatever the crap its called.... cheats.

I know it, you know it, we all know it.

>>There are several muds that award in-game gifts for clicking the links to vote.

I keep hearing that there are several muds cheating, but never how. I feel like it's always just a smokescreen for why DR is losing that blames everyone but DR.

The reason DR isn't doing better is because enough people who play DR just aren't voting. If DR had 120 players vote each day, it would be winning by over 200 votes right now. That's all there is to it.

>>I am surprised mudding has not picked up in popularity among text gamers like the roguelikes and especially IF.

The return of mobile roguelikes is because it's something that is short-term and plays well on a mobile device. MUDs don't tend to work out that well due to the amount of typing/scroll. It would also require a constant internet connection, which is spotty for those who take public transportation. Most modern roguelikes are also more visually upgraded than how older roguelikes looked, so it's not like people are explicitly playing them for the retro aspect of it (hell, the Diablo series is essentially a roguelike).

That said, the whole DR 3.0 thing and making the game more robust through crafts is one way to modernize it for current audiences. But you'd also have to have enough people who want a traditional MUD to join in. It might be interesting to see if you could reach the audience of 20 somethings and up who used to tabletop but now are too busy working to really have the time to sit down with local friends and play a game of whatever. I know the thing that made DR appealing to me in the late 90s was that I just didn't have a big group of people who could just agree to meet up at X and play D&D or whatever, but a few of us were able to occasionally hang out in DR and RP.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>Especially if a clickthrough gave you 1 scrip a day or 1 simucoin or whatever your choice of currency that's worth actually giving out, per voting period.

This would explicitly be against the rules. You can't specifically reward people for voting.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>It's difficult to believe Aardvark keeps its spot without something less than sterling honesty

It certainly is quite odd. I think someone mentioned they were on right when the counts rolled over for a month and Aardwolf got a whole bunch of clicks right away. Someone test that end of the month if anyone remembers - just for curiosity sake. I mean, you can see how DR fluctuates votes back and forth, like we went down to 7th and up to 5th and is dependent on a group of players. Aardwolf is just top, consistently with X votes each month, statistically isn't that odd?

The other question, is that according the charts on Top Mud Sites, Aardwolf has a larger population than DR now. Not by a lot, but larger. But I know a ton of people with multiple accounts in DR, so I know DRs population is skewed so it's actually less players than what is reported. Does Aardwolf have the same multiple account thing going on? If not, than they are solidly in the 'more players' lead.

Just some thoughts.

Codiax.
Forged Weapons:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Codiax#Codiax-Forged-Weapons

>>From my time evaluating Aardwolf I didn't notice a higher population than DR, not even close. Maybe 150 people online peak. Could have changed, but the owner published a graph of subs at one point and it was dropping quite steadily over time. Hard to say...

Yeah they were definitely lower for almost the entire life-time of the games - it's only in the past couple years I think - Here's the graphs I was looking at. I have no idea how accurate they are of course.

The graphs are neat to look at:

http://mudstats.com/World/DragonRealms

http://mudstats.com/World/AardwolfMUD

You can see the players connected, currently saying 257 for DR and 333 for Aardwolf.

If you click the charts tab you can see a graph over time of the population of the two. In Summer 2011 is when Aardwolf seemed to take off, while DR had it's usual slow slow decline.


Codiax.
Forged Weapons:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Codiax#Codiax-Forged-Weapons

dont forget to vote

http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

>>Aardwolf is just top, consistently with X votes each month, statistically isn't that odd?

It would certainly be suspect if they had the exact same number of votes per month. But I doubt they do.

Them being on top each month isn't suspect in and of itself. It could just mean that they have a) more players, b) some strategy that regularly engages a greater percentage of the player-base to vote, or a combination of (a) and (b).

Just because we can't figure out what their strategy is or how it works so well for them does not mean that they are cheating.

Also just as an aside, I've been managing to vote about once per day lately, in large part thanks to vote reminders in posts and signatures. If I had a 12 hour in-game reminder I might do better -- but then again after a while I might become annoyed with it. Still, I hope it comes around (with a toggle option) when the GMs have time for it.

P.S. If you're going to do a signature, please put a line break above it. Use four dashes (-) to make one.


-- Player of Eyuve

You probably just got them 20 votes posting that here hahaha
(I didn't click it but if it votes for Aardwolf then it prob will get clicked by some here)

[00:15] Chatter[Uzmam] Damian just wants to beat up dancers, what a bully
[00:15] Chatter[Morpion] Wait for them outside the club at 3 am?
[00:15] Chatter[Damian] i enjoy making them scream with pure terror