Okay, I am both, but it really bugs me that the game offering incentives is staying so close to us in the ratings. It has been a couple of weeks now and no news from TopMud concerning the acceptability or not of incentives. The default seems to be that it is allowed.
That was the childish part, here comes the greedy part. Lets suggest possible incentives for DR <bounce>
Giving an item or experience every time anyone here votes, with each individual voting twice a day, just would not fly in DR so we need some creativity here.
I propose a series of drawings. Each time you vote you get one chance to win. Once a month a drawing is held and a mystery prize given. The prize can be entry to one of the quests, or an alteration, a rare item (GM choice), or just a free month of play. It would be really cool deliberately involving the player in a small in game rp event too.
The players voting the most, (every 12 hours) would have the greatest chance of winning but anyone who voted even once might win.
Sound fair?
Dellica
SERAPHINA
NORT
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/06/2002 01:36 PM CDT
I wouldn't be adverse to such a thing. I would rather we not have to do that, since being 'number one' isn't as important as being on the list, in the top 5. Obviously not everyone playing DR either feels like DR is the number one mud (wackos...hehe) or they don't know that they CAN vote for it. Like the GMs always way whenever anyone says 'Oh, but everyone on the boards wants it THIS way!', a very small portion of the population visits the boards or the website. With the SGE, they don't even have to go to the website to play.
MIKEM1
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/06/2002 01:37 PM CDT
<<With the SGE, they don't even have to go to the website to play.
Maybe it's time to update the SGE to include a voting button... :::ducks:::
Maybe it's time to update the SGE to include a voting button... :::ducks:::
NORT
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/06/2002 01:42 PM CDT
Hey, as long as they do it for Mac's too, its all good!
BCROC
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/06/2002 05:05 PM CDT
Personally, I'm very much against any sort of IG incentives for voting. I think that DR still being #1 in light of the fact that we're not given any special reason to vote, other than the fact that we truly enjoy DR, says a lot more than DR being #1 because there's some added benefit to us voting.
I also like keeping OCC and IC as far apart as possible, but that's only a small reason why I'm against voting incentives.
-Poshly
I also like keeping OCC and IC as far apart as possible, but that's only a small reason why I'm against voting incentives.
-Poshly
TEVESHSZAT
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/06/2002 05:56 PM CDT
The concept of how to reward DR players for voting for DR is a very hard to manage concept. But, I have the best result.
Solomon buys everyone a round for everyone at Simucon per every 100 people signing up via that website
Solomon buys everyone a round for everyone at Simucon per every 100 people signing up via that website
SERAPHINA
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/06/2002 09:31 PM CDT
>> I also like keeping OCC and IC as far apart as possible, but that's only a small reason why I'm against voting incentives.
I can see your point but we already have a multi-tiered system where we can obtain in game services for real money. So far the fall-out from that has been minimal. We also have incentives offered for referring friends to the game. I am sure that any incentives offered for voting would not be unbalancing or make any significant in game impact.
The official word is in from the owner of TopMudSites. For the moment incentives are sanctioned. I don't see anything inherently wrong with offering incentives that are in keeping with the particular games set up.
I very much doubt that Solomon would hand out experience or items for every vote so I am not worried about that aspect. Something like a chance to win a spot on a quest would be fabulous and it is something players normally pay extra money for anyway.
Synozeer posted the quote that follows:
>> Incentives are officially sanctioned for the time being. Currently, enforcing a system where no incentives are allowed would be too time-consuming and ripe for abuse.
>> Imagine if a group of people report that a mud used incentives to get players to vote, and even doctored up a small log to show this is the case. I can get on that mud, but I won't see anything out of the ordinary unless I stay there for long periods of time and get lucky. And I certainly can't punish a mud for doing this unless I have positive proof, which basically means I need to see it myself. The time I'd need to spend to check every accusation (and there would be many) would be too great, and I would have to check every accusation, or the system fails at this point.
>>In a perfect world, it would be great to have the ranking list show which mud is the best and most liked. To do that, the entire ranking system would need an overhaul. TMS (in its current incarnation) is more akin to a banner exchange, where the more visitors you send, the more you receive. While you may have muds at the top of the list who by far send more visitors than other muds, the fact is, the more traffic sent to TMS, the better chance you'll get a new player, even if that traffic is just from someone who is doing it to get some sort of reward.
In that light I think it would be fine for Simutronics games to offer some form of incentive though I very much doubt they would consider handing us experience or TDPs or anything of that nature.
Dellica
I can see your point but we already have a multi-tiered system where we can obtain in game services for real money. So far the fall-out from that has been minimal. We also have incentives offered for referring friends to the game. I am sure that any incentives offered for voting would not be unbalancing or make any significant in game impact.
The official word is in from the owner of TopMudSites. For the moment incentives are sanctioned. I don't see anything inherently wrong with offering incentives that are in keeping with the particular games set up.
I very much doubt that Solomon would hand out experience or items for every vote so I am not worried about that aspect. Something like a chance to win a spot on a quest would be fabulous and it is something players normally pay extra money for anyway.
Synozeer posted the quote that follows:
>> Incentives are officially sanctioned for the time being. Currently, enforcing a system where no incentives are allowed would be too time-consuming and ripe for abuse.
>> Imagine if a group of people report that a mud used incentives to get players to vote, and even doctored up a small log to show this is the case. I can get on that mud, but I won't see anything out of the ordinary unless I stay there for long periods of time and get lucky. And I certainly can't punish a mud for doing this unless I have positive proof, which basically means I need to see it myself. The time I'd need to spend to check every accusation (and there would be many) would be too great, and I would have to check every accusation, or the system fails at this point.
>>In a perfect world, it would be great to have the ranking list show which mud is the best and most liked. To do that, the entire ranking system would need an overhaul. TMS (in its current incarnation) is more akin to a banner exchange, where the more visitors you send, the more you receive. While you may have muds at the top of the list who by far send more visitors than other muds, the fact is, the more traffic sent to TMS, the better chance you'll get a new player, even if that traffic is just from someone who is doing it to get some sort of reward.
In that light I think it would be fine for Simutronics games to offer some form of incentive though I very much doubt they would consider handing us experience or TDPs or anything of that nature.
Dellica
SOUL-REAVER
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/07/2002 02:27 AM CDT
>Imagine if a group of people report that a mud used incentives to get players to vote, and even doctored up a small log to show this is the case. I can get on that mud, but I won't see anything out of the ordinary unless I stay there for long periods of time and get lucky. And I certainly can't punish a mud for doing this unless I have positive proof, which basically means I need to see it myself. The time I'd need to spend to check every accusation (and there would be many) would be too great, and I would have to check every accusation, or the system fails at this point.
Excuse me for being stupid and naive, but why doesn't he just ask? "Do you give in-game bonuses to players for voting on the site? Yes? Please stop or be removed from the site. Thanks."
So his reasoning is that, since he cannot conceive of stopping every abuse, he will make it policy to stop no abuse. Doesn't make sense. Nor does his underlying reasoning: police do not investigate every tip they get, for the reasons this guy mentioned. But they do investigate those that are important enough. In this case, a game that 'boasts' 300 players at peak getting more votes than that every day, vying for the number one slot, would be "ripe" (to use his word) for investigation.
That's how I would do it, anyway. <shrug>
Excuse me for being stupid and naive, but why doesn't he just ask? "Do you give in-game bonuses to players for voting on the site? Yes? Please stop or be removed from the site. Thanks."
So his reasoning is that, since he cannot conceive of stopping every abuse, he will make it policy to stop no abuse. Doesn't make sense. Nor does his underlying reasoning: police do not investigate every tip they get, for the reasons this guy mentioned. But they do investigate those that are important enough. In this case, a game that 'boasts' 300 players at peak getting more votes than that every day, vying for the number one slot, would be "ripe" (to use his word) for investigation.
That's how I would do it, anyway. <shrug>
SERAPHINA
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/07/2002 04:41 AM CDT
He is making money, or trying to, through banner ads. More traffic, more money. Difficult position.
Dellica
Dellica
NORT
Re: Greedy and Childish
10/07/2002 11:02 AM CDT
>Excuse me for being stupid and naive, but why doesn't he just ask? "Do you give in-game bonuses to players for voting on the site? Yes? Please stop or be removed from the site. Thanks."
"No, of course I don't!"
"No, of course I don't!"
