I do want to thank everyone: your voting kept us at #1 for many months now!
Since I’ve stopped reminding everyone, our votes have dropped from about 40-50/day to around 10/day. (I’m just too busy at work :( )
Voting really is a big thing players can do to help the game they enjoy playing. It seems like everyone wants to help, but many just need to be reminded.
Here’s an idea. When you cast your daily vote, take the opportunity to ask a few friends to vote too. :) Wheeee, chain voting!
Thanks,
Jake
I hate to say this, and I know it won’t matter a hill of beans,
but I believe a lot of people stopped voting right around the same
time that the alignment was ‘fixed’ as well.
Speaking of which, I’m probably going to have to start experimenting with the evil supplicants. I’m just reaching 40 cleric, and have 25 or so in my next class.
So I think I should be able to summon Xegs soon as a 40/25 critter, and cacodaemon at 40/36. 1x40 ones are manes, fiend and imp?
Any suggestions on which are good for what?
I hate to say this, and I know it won’t matter a hill of beans,
but I believe a lot of people stopped voting right around the same
time that the alignment was ‘fixed’ as well.[/quote:1mo0ainh]
Actually there was no correlation, at least in total number of votes. Maybe some people stopped voting and others started voting to make up for it.
Like Jake said, people stopped voting when he stopped reminding them.
Ok, by ‘a lot of people’ I really meant me :)
You could add me to that list too. But I’m still a noob so I don’t count for much.
Actually there was no correlation, at least in total number of votes. Maybe some people stopped voting and others started voting to make up for it.
Like Jake said, people stopped voting when he stopped reminding them.[/quote:3fyyurw0]
Could you provide the data from your detailed correlational analysis? Was that a chi square test that you ran? Did you run that on SPSS? Seriously, Kjartan, it’s pretty obvious that votes started dropping off when crappy change after crappy change was implemented. Jake not being on to remind people [i:3fyyurw0]ad nauseum[/i:3fyyurw0] to vote Vote VOte VOTe VOTE! only added to a situation that was already developing. And 13 and Nothing aren’t the first to mention on the boards that they stopped voting then. While I don’t advocate vote blackmail (yes, I understand the implications with TMC vote policies), I think it’s obvious that the players are speaking to you with their votes. They’re saying very clearly that they don’t believe Sloth is the #1 mud out there anymore. Yes, it was at one time. But now?
ouch, at the current rate we’re going to drop to 3rd soon.. :evil:
Voting… yeah.
Personally, the only reason I was voting to start was because of Jake. I happen to like the guy, he likes votes, and it’s not too hard.
What is hard was the endless Barney-style voting spam. I’d type ‘who’ and see vote stuff. I’d die and see vote stuff. I’d see it spam across gossip, echoes and pretty much anywhere else you could think to put it. You could poke Jake in the stomache and he’d say ‘Vote for Sloth!’ I think Jake has better things to do with his time than be a Tickle-Me-Elmo.
I don’t mind being reminded, but change the topic once in a while. I don’t know how else you can get your point across, but you need to find one. Even if it’s as silly as a little mail fairy that shows up after I’ve been on 30 minutes and asks me to vote and then doesn’t show up again until tomorrow. Then at least I can kill it and get some minor enjoyment out of it.
Hmm, OK…
KJ says “Actually there was no correlation, at least in total number of votes. Maybe some people stopped voting and others started voting to make up for it.”.
Well I may be being silly here, but if the total number of votes is the same then why is our ranking dropping? Unless you are saying the dropoff occurred at some other time and not when alligment was changed, in which case I’d be curious to see those numbers.
Here are some facts:
a) Changes were made to allignment that were pretty much universally disliked by the player base and still are.
b) Before the changes were made we were getting 70 to 75 players online, remember how excited we all were. There was talk about when Sloth had queues to get in?
c) Based on those changes a number of people have stated they will no longer vote.
d) Jake has not been online to prompt us to vote.
e) We lost our number one slot, which either means fewer people are voting or other MUDS are getting more to vote. Fact is the number of daily votes has dropped.
f) We are not getting the same number of people online, even though Sloth has only just dropped to #2. I have not seen more than 50 people on for weeks.
So 70 to 50 players online.
Loses #1 position
Fewer votes for Sloth
One could argue that is beacuse Jake has not been around, but it is just sticking your head ion the sand KJ, it would not explain the drop-off again in player base. Sorry, I really don’t mind the changes becuause they don’t affect me, but the truth is fewer people are online at one time, we are getting fewer votes, and a lot of folks have said they won’t vote again. You makes your choices, you gets the results. I don’t think the changes just resulted in fewer votes, I believe they have eroded the online player base.
Maybe I’m logging on at the wrong time, but I’m more worried by the loss in concurrent users than losing #1 on TMC. That HAS been noticeable to me. With luck we get back what we lost with new or returning playesr, but I actually think it was am unneccesary thing to do given the impact. It bought us almost nothing in playablity for a lot of unheppy folks.
I think it’s pretty clear that this is a more complex question than “eh, they changed something so people refuse to vote and left sloth”. If you’ve been here any number of years I think there is a noticable swing in the mud “who” lists depending on time of year. In the middle of summer a lot of people are out doing stuff (and meeting chicks, yay!). Also, summer months mean the younger crowd is going to be on summer break - away from the dorms and computer labs.
So, that’s my input.
Actually, for my input #2 I’d like to say that players trying to exercise their vote or lack of voting as some sort of method to influence the admin are quite silly. Are they going to whine and quit voting every time some minor change to the mud annoys them? Wait…I think I know the answer to that. That behaviour closely resembles a 4-year old getting angry and taking their ball and going home. That’s not behaviour that should be reinforced, those kids need to learn how to live with other people.
Actually, for my input #2 I’d like to say that players trying to exercise their vote or lack of voting as some sort of method to influence the admin are quite silly.[/quote:vofwf6eu]
I think this falls into the category of the chicken and the egg. Players are in no way obliged to vote. In fact, there are several rules in place to make sure it stays that way. If the person doesn’t feel the mud deserves a vote, that’s entirely their perogative. Since every player is continually reminded to vote, it becomes a focal point that they’re not voting.
Repeatedly asking someone to vote when they’re not inclined to is just as childish as what you’re suggesting. As they demonstrated before, they’ll vote when they feel the mud deserves it. I think folks have forgotten that we actually had to earn the #1 slot on the mudconnector, it’s not just handed out because you happen to want it.
And before you mention it, I still vote when I’m online at home, though my firewall at work now prevents me from voting.
I disagree with Grue about our playerbase shrinking– I think it is far from the truth….
We were breaking 60 and 70 people at the very end of the school year(college and HS). SlothMUD and most likely the majority of muds lose players during the summers and their numbers fall. This was the first summer in a long time that we broke 50 players daily. I cant even think back at the last time this occured. The previous two summers we would be lucky to break 30-35 players a day.
The schools are back in session and this week we nearly broke 70 players again. I am pretty confident our numbers will get back where they were last year and hopefully continue to rise.
The fact is the majority of us enjoy our summers, We go surfing, partying, skating, work longer hours, etc. So while we may still log in, it definately isnt the long hours we put in when there are three feet of snow on the ground.
Enjoy,
Splork
Comes back from the dead
Hi all!
I got the new job, so no more mudding at work.
Anyways … I would say another reason why ppl don’t vote anymore is
because of all the stupid ass newbies we got. When we were #1, we had
a BUNCH of newbies doing stupid stuff. So my main reason for not voting
was to make sure we stopped getting newbies. So what if we only had
like +35 player base. At least these are ppl u know, and can relate too.
Ppl u can have fun, and relax too. Not like now a days…
PS. PEACE TO MY DRAGONSWORN & DOW HOMIES!!!
Will
Hello everyone.
There is my 10 bucks.
Sloth should evolve or die. So Sloth needs to put changes in. Changes could be nice or ugly, it could make life of players easier or harder – that is matter of discussion, but it isn’t matter of voting.
“Players come and players go and Sloth last forever†– that is something like Enea have said. Old players will stop to play due to usual reasons – new job, getting married, born of child, bored, retired etc, etc… (Is there a Game after life?). So Sloth needs more new players, not only alter chars of old players. That is the reason why we have to vote. One of the way to remind for voting is to put reminder in logging screen (before or just after the password ;) )
When new players come to Sloth they need some time to learn how to play. Valk is good place to hit some exp for new players but they won’t learn there how to group and how to live in this world. And then - after they got 4x20 on Valk - they haughtily think “how could those ‘Shivals’ and ‘Dejus’ teach me what I have to do or not to do?â€. There are some unwritten rules in Sloth but they couldn’t learn it just running Circus or Blaster’s Temple. And even those unwritten rules change from time to time (did u remember times when ppl donate old piece of eq to group after they popped something they have called in eq groups? – it is unusual nowadays, eh?). What we really can do is pay attention for new players (but don’t mort for them and/or donate eq, it’s way to teach them how to whine, nothing more ;) ). I know, lot of players do it… so, please, do it more and more and again.
I think the reason of pwiping of Saraen and Co. was formal, but it was the only right and fair way for all (as for Saraen - now he/she could start again with new reputation in this world). But I don’t understand why to stop voting due to “stupid newbies joining Slothâ€. This is really unconcerned things.
Well, enough.
Vixn.
+++ wah, are u still reading it?+++
Myself personally… I’m a stubborn bastard, and dislike being told what to do. I stopped voting BECAUSE jake and others where constantly harping on it. Since that has stopped, I’ve started voting again.
I totally, totally, TOTALLY agree with Leaf and Alb.
hey, if we always remember to vote, Jake wont need to remind us :)
Myself personally… I’m a stubborn bastard, and dislike being told what to do. I stopped voting BECAUSE jake and others where constantly harping on it.[/quote:1klu8oro]
While I completely respect this opinion, and in a some respects, agree with it, obviously jake’s efforts worked. Whether you agreed with him doing it or not, it got votes. Jake’s begging/harping/whatever was never something I really liked, but I couldn’t argue with the results, so I was willing to accept it.
As for newbies, I’m not sure it’s even worth responding to those posts. At one time, I’d log on when I got into work and there’d be < 20 people. It’s now where it’s rarely under 30. Sloth doesn’t exist solely for the entertainment of those of us who played 5 years ago. To claim you think sloth should fade into oblivion just because you don’t like newbies who are either stupid, obnoxious or just plain clueless is having too high of an opinion of your own importance to the existance of sloth.
Blackmore’s right, Jake’s efforts were effective. I was one of the people that typically only voted when Jake (or someone else) mentioned it in-game. I don’t know why that is, really, it just is.
So, I agree with 12345 (or whatever his char name is these days). I like Jake, and have a lot of respect for him (and the other imms). When he asked in-game I definitely make it a point to pause what I was doing and switch windows to vote.
I also get frustrated at times with changes / decisions / actions whatever. Still, I think Sloth is the best mud around, it’s still #1 in my opinion. No other mud has this combination of features, fun, and cool people.
Charles
PS. I haven’t been voting (or online) for the past several weeks. It may be another couple before I’m around again.
I certainly agree with Avatar since I make it a point to vote when reminded as well. I certainly appreciate Jake’s efforts as well. It’s not easy reminding everyone every day for what? A year straight now? More? As it stands now, the first thing everyone thinks of when they see Jake’s name is voting, and he kinda needs to get out of the vote whore spotlight.
If we’re going to devote this kind of time to voting, I’d almost say someone needs to build a feature for it. Most games would use the MOTD at login, but I can’t remember the last time I looked at Sloth’s. Overall, it seems very few mind voting, we just get frustrated with Jake’s efforts to squeeze out every last vote.
Of course newbies are a pain, but does it even need to be said that everybody was one once? I’ve heard people say that they don’t like children and wish there were none. This is the same logic. Eventually attrition eats away at the numbers (as was said: new job, baby, marriage, school) and if the membership isn’t replensihed, the mud will dwindle. How much fun would it be if there were only five or six players on at a time?
I see both sides, however. Players can’t be expected to vote simply because they are told to. The point of the voting process is that peole vote for their [u:on9jxqy7]favorite[/u:on9jxqy7] Mud or the one they [u:on9jxqy7]like most.[/u:on9jxqy7] If people no longer think Sloth is the best, they shouldn’t vote. Perhaps we should try to find out why people are not voting rather than accusing everyone who doesn’t of “blackmail.” Holding out for a single issue is petty and in my opinion falls under the definition of vote blackmail. Saying you no longer vote because you don’t like the mud anymore does not.
By the way, I (like everyone) think that the constant reminders are an annoyance, but I would hardly say I’ve been made to vote. I understand not doing something simply because you’re forced to but no one has [i:on9jxqy7]forced[/i:on9jxqy7] anyone to vote. I think Jake has been quite polite despite his ridiculous incessance. Think for a minute, though. If it were [i:on9jxqy7]your[/i:on9jxqy7] responsibility to promote the Mud, what would [i:on9jxqy7]you[/i:on9jxqy7] do?
The immorts should listen to whatever answers are given to that question
I must admit, it irks me when I hear people have stopped voting over this or that. But then again what doesnt irk me :twisted:
SlothMUD should mean much more to all of us then a recent change that people dislike etc. We have survived for almost 15 years and yet, we still continue to grow.
I vote for Sloth for two reasons 1) Jake-if he wants me to vote, I am voting(he has earned that respect) 2) voting for SlothMUD is a vote to keep the game alive and to have continued success( sorry, but when we were avg less than 25-20 players a day-we were close to closing).
Enjoy,
Splork
2 things
I think i have mostly stopped mudding on Sloth for 2 reasons
1 is party poker dot com ..enough said
the other is with my mudding time a low as it was i found i simply could not keep up with the changes anymore … i mean .. wtf is a nightmare and how do you send it after someone??? and now you have to find liars to pop eq now? no just kill the mob? while some of these changes sound cool and otheres stupid, i just do not have the time or desire to learn them anymore ..if i need to satisfy my mudding fixation, i’d rather just start a newbie and play to lvl 20 or so
Voting
i have to agree with Alberich the more someone persters me to do something, the less likely i am to do it. No offense meant to Jake but his vote drives come across like unwanted spam mail or anoying telemarketer calls after a short time
Maybe KJ can code a toggle flag to gag vote promos
What I meant about newbies..
Of course, we all were silly noobs once. But most of us didn’t have newbie school, newbie channel, helpful mobs in Valkyre who can guide you through and all that stuff. But from what I see now, people just don’t like to use the help or think a little. Seems like that easy life removed someone’s ability to use brains. Shrugs. Damn, and if any other 3x40 asks where to buy recalls on Lyme… :)
Another point. Our playerbase grows a looot, but some of the old skilful players quit playing because of changes, for example, yes, it’s silly, but they still do. And 5 newbs can’t substitute us 1 good tard.
Anyways, I help newbies. I make crs, explain them some stuff, hoping someday they will grow in someone, who we call power player. I just don’t like some of the newbies’ helplessness.
PS Splork appealed to my conscience, I gotta vote. :)
I hate to say this, and I know it won’t matter a hill of beans,
but I believe a lot of people stopped voting right around the same
time that the alignment was ‘fixed’ as well.[/quote:1c6jhngt]
Because I kept extremely good statistics on voting, I can answer this definitively.
When we made the changes you mentioned which affected the two supplicant forms, we had a short-term drop in voting (we’re talking 10-15%). It didn’t register that much in the totals, especially when the voting could already fluctuate over 30% by itself on a daily basis.
The biggest drop is when I’m not able to remind everyone. When I am not around for a few days reminding people to vote, we lose about 80% of our votes.
The biggest increase we’ve ever had was when we had other muds posting here, harassing us. It was kinda cool to see everyone taking pride in this place. We could hit 80 votes/day around that time. :)
Shadis: No offense taken. From a vote reminder perspective, I had [b:1c6jhngt]mostly[/b:1c6jhngt] changed to using tells to keep from annoying people (I did use other means at times, like near the end of the day). Those that expressed a dislike towards me reminding them to vote would go onto a “no-remind” list and wouldn’t be sent tells. My intention wasn’t to annoy people.
When I had people say: “I already voted. or I remember to vote every day” I’d ask them if they wanted me to stop reminding them. I don’t think I had a single one in this category who said “Yes, please stop reminding me”. The vast majority of the people I asked about it said they actually liked the reminders because sometimes they forget. And many enjoyed chatting too (I know I did).
I ended up with 3 people on my “no-remind” list after many months of reminding people to vote.
–
Jake
Since I share Grue with someone I work with I just wanted to post my own opinions on this so people don’t think Grue’s post was mine. (BTW I share Grue and most of my other chars with another Pete (Peter Byrd) and my son Ben. If you see them on don’t assume they are me, the only one I don’t share is Riurik).
Player bases will increase and wain, that’s the nature of them. I had noticed the decrease, although we have been back up to 55 or 60 lately. It’s the start of a new term, some students are back in dorm and don’t have access yet, others are too busy. I suspect that’s what that is and the reason is I see all the older names there still.
I must confess I don’t vote much (blush) but the site is blocked by Internet filtering at work, and frankly if Jake (or someone) does not remind me when I log on from home I simply forget. Don’t offended by the reminders, just assume Jake suspects others are like me.
If you have genuine complaints or concerns voice them to admin privately first. Every immort has an email, and there is always mudmail. Open discussion is one thing, but think of this like work. If I get an email sent to God and country at work about my performance without first talking with me I tend to get pissed off. At least give admin that courtesy and get their opinions. If after that you still think you have a valid point you want discussed publicly I would be the last to censor, but at least give that courtesy.
Pete
Shadis: No offense taken. From a vote reminder perspective, I had [b:2kqgput5]mostly[/b:2kqgput5] changed to using tells to keep from annoying people (I did use other means at times, like near the end of the day). Those that expressed a dislike towards me reminding them to vote would go onto a “no-remind” list and wouldn’t be sent tells. My intention wasn’t to annoy people.[/quote:2kqgput5]
It’s a shitty job, I’m surprised you’ve done as well with it as you have. I just don’t see anyone running around the mud saying ‘I hope Jake asks me to vote!’ In fact, the only way I could see people doing that is if you did it with a god-rain. Before you get into the whole “I can’t reward people for voting” thing, you wouldn’t be. They’d get the benefit if they voted or not. Remember, you can get a lot farther with a kind word and a godsanc than a kind word alone.
And for a change of pace, people might actually start ASKING you to remind them to vote.
Ok here’s my perspective on voting…. I vote before I log on as I haven’t been playing much lately do to work constraints I haven’t been voting as regularly as usual. Yes I’ve been ticked off about a lot of the changes implemented some less than others mostly I think they are heading in the right direction just need to be tweaked a bit (slow down alignment swings). But holding back your votes as a strong arm tactic is just plain wrong if the immortals were to give into this type of tactic pretty soon it would be a mud where everyone runs with 3000 HP’s and -27 AC. If you really want to picket a change stop playing … obviously if you enjoy playing the mud enough to continue when things have pissed you off this much then it’s worth voting for no?
As for the excuse of the floods of noobs that are running around the mud. I can count on one hand all the ones that have really been a problem (most are gone now) and quite a few that I have enjoyed talking with. As for the rest just #gag em…. a mud really needs fresh blood and the only way to get this is to advertise and what better way than being #1 on one of the biggest mud lists out there. With out this new blood sloth with shrivel up and die trust me I coded on a mud that ran for 4 yrs had a solid 30-40 players but didn’t do anything to bring in new blood.. over the course of a year through standard attrition there were under 10 of us logging in and then poof gone and a very fun mud was no more. If you want to help aliviate some of these problems just make a valk char and greet the noobies and explain a few thing to them if more people would take an hour or so a week out of their mudding lives to do this we would have a lot more informed bunch of lowbies.
And lastly the main reason for me to vote is respect for the immortals and admins who have asked us to.
If you don’t like Jake asking you to vote he usually uses the same lines when asking people to vote so you can #gag them if you don’t like it or even easier vote and he wouldn’t have to ask ;).
Blastem
While refusing to vote is probably not an effective tactic to use to get things that you may want, I don’t think you should call it childish. Most people that do that have been doing it (I believe) are trying to get modifications on recent changes, which isn’t “godsanc me or I won’t vote,” it’s “listen to my input or I won’t recognize this as the best mud.”
In regards to me, I took a week off on vacation back in July. When I returned, I found that what I had tried to do to fix my alignment and supplication issues was compounded by the addition of lairs and several other foreign ideas. I tested them for a few days, and it was frustrating that I couldn’t play the mud that I’ve enjoyed for several years. With that, I stopped playing until the mud stabilizes, and I don’t think that it deserves my vote as the best mud. Once huge changes stop in favor of tweakings I’ll probably return, but it’s just really annoying to have the things that you work towards thrown in your face and desecrated on when they aren’t just ripped to shreds.
Some words about no-remind list. Once upon a time Jake asked me if I had voted today or not. After some answer I aksed him to include me into no-remind list? since I vote every time I can and do not if I can not… he agreed, smiled at me and I continued my bot-session… next day I’ve heard Jake’s quastion about my voting again…
So… please, add Pendalf, Pendy, Gnu, Mnu, Pnu, Badguy, Arachna and Fik to no-remind list, sincerely yours, ME!
We are not even on the list of “Top Mud Site”!!! I remember when we were
like 8th and 9th place. OOooo how we have fallen :)
We are not even on the list of “Top Mud Site”!!! I remember when we were
like 8th and 9th place. OOooo how we have fallen :)[/quote:30dihmbe]
From the looks of it, the imms are highly inactive lately. The live wholist page isn’t working, the top 20 lists haven’t been updated in months and the telnet link so people can actually play the mud is broken. All that and I rarely see any imms bother logging on or updates being posted. So what the hell is the sense in voting for the game when the imms aren’t even around to appreciate it? I never thought I’d see the day SlothMUD transformed into a massive hamster wheel. Time to rebuild, people.
Interesting and rather rediculous last post.
In the last month alone we have added caches & lairs, new thief-bard skills, new continent boards, added support for clans, added a few new spells, resectored close to 15k rooms(still have 9k to go), etc.
The link to connect to slothmud works fine, its at the bottom-center of the connect to slothmud page. We redid that last week so that we could inform new players about clients,etc…
The top 10 lists will be updated as soon as one of us gets the pw we need to do it that was changed last month by jake.
The live who list will be working shortly, we are working on both of those links-they have only been down today.
Quite a hamster wheel, I agree…
Enjoy,
Splork
Yo, Blackraindrops….
Playerstats are now up-to-date…
We are finished working on the live who and group lists, the links are now working again…
Enjoy,
Splork
thanks
ouch.. we’ve dropped to 3rd now.. by a long way. :oops:
I’ve heard resectoring mentioned a lot lately, which is a lot of work with as many rooms as Sloth has. I was kinda hoping someone had some more details on this since it seems to be a relatively large project and I haven’t heard much about it yet. Anyone have info?
On a side note, there’s a slight problem with the Who is grouping? list.
[code:czjlcthe]Adventuring Parties
Warning: fopen("/home/httpd/vhosts/slothmud.org/httpdocs/modules/Gwho_List/gwho_list.txt", “r”) - Permission denied in /home/httpd/vhosts/slothmud.org/httpdocs/modules/Gwho_List/index.php on line 20
Error accessing data … please, contact an administrator …[/code:czjlcthe]
Resectoring isn’t by itself going to produce any immediate game changes, but it will make lots of nice stuff possible. Previously we were using the stock dikumud list of room types, plus a couple that had been added. There were about 10. We have made a more detailed list, which is up to about 70, and we are reclassifying all the rooms as one of the new types. (Many of the old types are still in the list, actually.)
The immediate use is for caches: we can randomly generate mob lairs better if we know better what sort of room it is. Some other things we might do:
if a room is cemetery, tomb, or charnel house, give necros some sort of bonus there for creating undead
if a room is stairway and you get tripped, have a chance of falling down the stairs
a quest/forge/etc could require that you find a certain type of room, e.g. a volcano
etc.
We did something similar with mob species about a year ago and I have found a number of places where that was useful. They’re mostly minor effects; things like not letting you trip mobs that don’t have legs.
Sounds cool. Thanks for the info. :)
Live group lists are back online…
New clan channel called ktalk is now ingame, Ill add the helps once I can I get a chance…
Ultimate guide to avatarhood has been updated to include the last year+ of additions….
Enjoy,
Splork
New clan channel called ktalk is now ingame, Ill add the helps once I can I get a chance…
[/quote:21qfih4f]
Sweet Big Thanks!!!!
Although now Brady is going to be miss channelling more than ever with another channel to worry about
:P
Blastem
I actually have a request on this… would it be possible to see when people join and leave the channel like ctalk does? Since folks automatically join when logging on, I guess this would work kinda like friends does. At the moment though, I’m using both ktalk and ctalk, even though it’s basically the same people on both channels.
What is going on with this? Come on people start voting and quit whining, we need some more player base rolling in here. This is probably the best mud out there and our votes aren’t showing it. Do we need Jake to come and poke us again? Hell if it was working bring it on!