June Vote-Palooza

[ShaLeah]

Do it!

Topmudsites
The MUD Connector


Let's take the lead early!

[Lizzie]

A dozen will get us to #2 and ahead for at least a few minutes on TMS (before the usual suspects mass-click).

[path]

One of these Mud Connector facts does not seem all the way honest to me. See if you can spot it.

Location: USA
Primary Language: English
Minimum Players: 74 - 99
Multi-Play: No
Player-Kill: Yes

[ShaLeah]

Bump!
There was thirty people on when I logged off. Why can't everyone that's on vote!
We're down to 9th!

[Zoan]

I refuse to vote until they balance merchant haggle, it's too OP and staff, I believe I speak for the majority (read: not the merchants) that you have earned an embargo on this until you correct this irresponsible oversight to everyone's gaming experience.

[FreeRangeVestric]

Out of the top 10...For shame, people! Vote!

[tortall]

TMS: 3 votes a day(2 at home, 1 at work)
TMC: 1 vote a day(since they make you create a login now)

[Lizzie]

TMS: 3 votes a day(2 at home, 1 at work)
TMC: 1 vote a day(since they make you create a login now)

Encouraging people to cheat is probably not a good idea. I'd like to think our playerbase has higher standards than that. The rule is two votes per 24 hours per *person* on Topmudsites. Not 2 votes per IP address.

If we have to cheat to get to the top 10 list, then we are doing something wrong.

[Barsook]

Agreed, cheating will make us look bad.

[Malken]

Cheated. Er, I mean, voted.

Remember that good guys finish last, or, well, they finish out of the top 10.

[ShaLeah]

Voting everywhere there's an internet connection is cheating?

Goddamn, how would we look if we didn't do that? Hell we're 14th!

[Lizzie]

Voting everywhere there's an internet connection is cheating?

Goddamn, how would we look if we didn't do that? Hell we're 14th!

From the TopMudsites Rules:
How often can I vote?
Your vote will count only once every 12 hours. For the most part, the script will stop someone from inflating their votes. If I catch you cheating such as using open proxies, I'll give you a warning, then suspend you, then ban you from the list. The integrity of this site is based on the fact that cheating will not get you to the top, and that the rankings are as fair as they can be.

Players from my site are trying to cheat. I can't control their actions
Much like a parent, you are responsible for what your little ones do. Make it well-known on your site/game that you will take measures against any player who is trying to cheat this system, and that it can only end up hurting the mud instead of helping it.

---

Also previous threads in their forum about this topic have been pretty explanatory. There's no difference between 10 of us each using 5 different IP addresses to vote, and 1 of us using 50 proxies to vote. It's cheating. It is against the spirit of voting. It'd be like in real life, in real voting for real officers of the country, if one guy had access to an unlimited number of fake IDs and used each one to successfully vote for the new president, even if no one else wanted him to win.

It's dirty, it smells bad, it's underhanded, and it makes -us- look bad if we get caught, and it is also grounds for the admin on TMS to remove us from the rankings completely.

Just don't do it. Or, if you're going to do it, don't be stupid enough to post your intention to do it on a forum.

[long live miley cyrus]

Remember, Lizzie will eat anyone who breaks these rules, so at least be quiet while you're hacking the system.

[ShaLeah]

I vote every time I'm somewhere with an internet connection outside of my home which is every day. Then I vote at home once because that's all I have time for. I never vote more than twice a day but I never saw those rules before. Heh.

Remember, Lizzie will eat anyone who breaks these rules, so at least be quiet while you're hacking the system.

Soooooooooooooo scared!

[manonfire]

It's only wrong if you get caught.

[Harmless]

HI

VOTE

Do it!

Topmudsites
The MUD Connector


Let's take the lead early!

[Reiloth]

Not to mention the MUDs consistently in the top three offer voting incentives, like EXP and COINS to their PCs.

I don't think adding a vote here and there is 'cheating'. It's bending. I think what those MUDs do is much more wrong and icky than tossing an extra vote in when you can.

[Ghaati111]

Not to mention the MUDs consistently in the top three offer voting incentives, like EXP and COINS to their PCs.

I don't think adding a vote here and there is 'cheating'. It's bending. I think what those MUDs do is much more wrong and icky than tossing an extra vote in when you can.

If you have evidence that those muds are offering incentives to vote, report them. It's against their rules.

[Desertman]

I voted.

I also got a guy from League of Legends I was playing with last night to create a user account for Arm.

Who did you recruit today?

GET ON MY LEVEL!

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I wish the game had in game voting reminders.

>OOC note: You do not appear to have voted today. Type 'vote TMC' or 'vote TMS' to sumbit votes for those respective ranking sites. You may turn off these messages by typing 'change oocnotes off'.

>vote TMS

>OOC note: You have voted for Armageddon MUD on TMS, and will not see this message for another 12 hours. Thank you. You may turn off these messages by typing 'change oocnotes off'.

[Lizzie]

I wish the game had in game voting reminders.

>OOC note: You do not appear to have voted today. Type 'vote TMC' or 'vote TMS' to sumbit votes for those respective ranking sites. You may turn off these messages by typing 'change oocnotes off'.

>vote TMS

>OOC note: You have voted for Armageddon MUD on TMS, and will not see this message for another 12 hours. Thank you. You may turn off these messages by typing 'change oocnotes off'.

Oh hell no. I can't stand nag screens for anything else, I can't stand the nag popups on the Arm website. I shouldn't have to "opt out" of being nagged to do things. I do things because I want to do them, not because I want someone to STFU and stop nagging me about it already.

[Cale_Knight]

Maybe there could be an option to opt INTO a nag system? Especially if I could vote via game input.

I'd be down with that.

[Zoan]

I can code one and put the script up if you REALLY want.

[The Warshaper]

I certainly would not mind a helpful reminder to vote in game. Once every 12 hours isnt really nagging. Being in the top 10 for TMS also can go a long ways for exposure to new players, like myself.

[Nyr]

Unstickied/locked the other one and sticked this one.

[Kol]

I wish the game had in game voting reminders.

>OOC note: You do not appear to have voted today. Type 'vote TMC' or 'vote TMS' to sumbit votes for those respective ranking sites. You may turn off these messages by typing 'change oocnotes off'.

>vote TMS

>OOC note: You have voted for Armageddon MUD on TMS, and will not see this message for another 12 hours. Thank you. You may turn off these messages by typing 'change oocnotes off'.

This. a big ass +1. I think we'll easily make top 5 if we had this.

[Barsook]

I love that idea.

[path]

My knee jerk reaction was no. No alerts. Seems so cheesy but..after watching our sorry spot in the polls I started to think..as long as we could opt out or even better, toggle them on ourselves, I guess it would be okay. We could try it for a few months and see if it had a positive impact.

[Lizzie]

I think it's kind of sad with such a devoted, small playerbase, that players feel they need to be reminded to vote beyond reading a post here on the GDB and having the buttons whenever they link to the GDB.

Don't you all think that if Armageddon is worth voting for, it's also worth remembering to vote for? Voting should be a habit for most of you by now, not something you need someone to remind you about.

I use the TMS vote link several times every day, because I check the GDB several times every day. Before I go to any of my other bookmarked websites, I click that vote button.

[RogueGunslinger]

You use the GDB to help you remember. Not everyone checks the GDB.

Don't you all think that if Armageddon is worth voting for, it's also worth remembering to vote for? Voting should be a habit for most of you by now, not something you need someone to remind you about.

And yet you use the GDB to remind yourself. We all forget things. I don't see why you have such an issue with a feature that you would never see or notice unless you opted to.

[Lizzie]

I don't use the GDB to remind me of anything. I use the link button because it's the most convenient way for me to read the TMS forums. It's one less bookmark I have to deal with.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I don't quite understand such a adamant reaction to a thing you can turn off forever with a simple command, Lizzie.  It would affect one time if it were an automatic on feature, and never if it were something you could turn on by choice. This seems a bit of a petty thing to be so opposed to.

[Lizzie]

The only opposition I have is if the staff forced a nag screen on me, whether in the game, or on the GDB, and I had to opt out of it, rather than have an option to toggle it on. I also don't like the nag pop-ups whenever I go to the main Arm website, constantly telling me that I have replies to my requests, which I've already seen in my e-mail. And the "Welcome back!" popup. I don't like popups, and have them shut off on my browser, but these popups somehow bypass the browser setting. I can't opt out of seeing those, and it bothers me that I can't opt out of seeing those.

My most recent post was in response to someone who assumed that I use the GDB to remind me of the voting link. His assumption was incorrect, and I corrected it.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Even if it were something you opted out of once just by typing a command once, I don't get why it would bother you. But fair enough.

[Nyr]

Not to worry, Lizzie.  The kind of system you hate is something that is against the rules of TMS.

Can I offer rewards for voting?
You CANNOT offer incentives or rewards to players for voting. That means you cannot give players items, experience, or anything else in return for votes. You cannot display different messages based on whether someone voted or not, or reward a player for voting by not showing messages. You cannot have a system that 'nags' a player about voting in response to whether they've voted or not unless participation in the system is totally voluntary with no tangible positive or negative effects for a player choosing to use or not use such a system. Such a system must also allow a player to easily opt out of it at any time, also with no positive or negative effect, and it must be off by default.

[The Warshaper]

So you're saying we -can- have a voting reminder in game as long as it's off by default and offers no in-game rewards. Schweet. 

[Malken]

The thing I'd really love is not so much a voting reminder but exactly when it is I last voted, like a timer. The problem is that I sometime vote at, let's say, 10:30am, then I know I can vote again at 10:30pm, but if I vote at 10:29:55, the vote won't count because I'll have voted 5 seconds too early, then the next day I vote again at 10:30am and this one might count or not.

It'd be great to have a timer of sort that tells me like "It's been 8 hours and 55 minutes since you've last voted", or "You can now vote again for us if you'd like, it'd be much appreciated!"..

But I don't know how Armageddon could grab that information from the voting page and pass it back live to me.

Maybe I'll just program myself a small web widget.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Interesting,  Nyr. I wasn't aware it had to be off by default. Either way that timer would be totes mcgotes.

[Reiloth]

That must be a relatively new rule on TMS (like the last 10 years, heh) -- I distinctly remember being turned off by Achaea because it reminded me to vote IG, and offered me either EXP or Gold for voting.

Anyways, if a reminder can be used, and it's default is off, I don't see what the problem is. Some people need a nudge (I know that every time I go on the GDB, I just vote at the top right), and some people forget.

I personally won't use it because 'mai immersions' would be pretty much ruined by an automated 'vote' nag. When I log on, I try to not have many distractions/surf the internet, and if I find i'm getting bored in the game, I log off. OOC's tossed around glibly usually result in me OOCing to cut it out, unless it's asking for playtimes/RPT dates. I just wouldn't use it, but that doesn't mean others couldn't benefit from it existing.

[Lizzie]

That must be a relatively new rule on TMS (like the last 10 years, heh) -- I distinctly remember being turned off by Achaea because it reminded me to vote IG, and offered me either EXP or Gold for voting.

Anyways, if a reminder can be used, and it's default is off, I don't see what the problem is. Some people need a nudge (I know that every time I go on the GDB, I just vote at the top right), and some people forget.

I personally won't use it because 'mai immersions' would be pretty much ruined by an automated 'vote' nag. When I log on, I try to not have many distractions/surf the internet, and if I find i'm getting bored in the game, I log off. OOC's tossed around glibly usually result in me OOCing to cut it out, unless it's asking for playtimes/RPT dates. I just wouldn't use it, but that doesn't mean others couldn't benefit from it existing.

It dates back to some point prior to May 29, 2007 (seven years ago). That's when Lasher posted this: http://www.topmudsites.com/forums/tms-announcements-feedback/4339-reminder-voting-rules.html

in which he summarized the then-existing rule:

The short version - rewards for voting are not allowed, whether a personal reward or a global MUD event because a MUD reached a certain voting position. You can have code in your MUD to help players track voting time / reminders as long as it is 100% opt-in and there is no in-game benefit to using it.

(bold emphasis mine)

[Reiloth]

Ah, that makes sense. This is a memory from before I played Armageddon, so it must be at least 10-12 years ago. Maybe they were bending/breaking the rule, and then told to cut it out or they wouldn't be listed on TMS.

[Reiloth]

We're up to #10 from #12! Keep voting!

[Reiloth]

Is it possible to add a little Armageddon symbol next to the name on the TMS listing? Seems to separate the little leaguers from the big.

[Nyr]

Is it possible to add a little Armageddon symbol next to the name on the TMS listing? Seems to separate the little leaguers from the big.

For, like, five bucks a month.  I think.

[Barzalene]

Is it possible to add a little Armageddon symbol next to the name on the TMS listing? Seems to separate the little leaguers from the big.

For, like, five bucks a month.  I think.

Any rule against player donation for icon?

[Desertman]

Hey guys, we jumped into the top ten on TMS. The other's are falling off!

Bwahhaah.

[Lizzie]

Is it possible to add a little Armageddon symbol next to the name on the TMS listing? Seems to separate the little leaguers from the big.

Out of the current top 10 list, only 6 have icons. Fourth, sevenths, and eighth place do not have one, and four out of the 6 that have one, are all owned by one company. What separates them from us is that they have several hundred active members each (many of whom are paid subscribers, since those are all commercial games).

Discworld and Carrion Fields are often in the top 10 list, and neither of them have icons. But they do have a bigger active player base than we have. That's the biggest difference.

[The Warshaper]

Currently in 10th, creeping up on 9th! 

Let's do this and make up for a sloppy early start!

[Reiloth]

Yeah, I mean, it's speculation all around. I just know that any flash or bang that draws attention is probably worth it. Whatever gets people in the door.

I know that when I looked at the list , I looked at the purty little icons before I looked at the number listing actually. That could also be because I've looked at the page 100000 times.