Hi everyone,

It has come to our attention that a recent update to the Firefox extension AdBlock Plus has caused off-site links on MMORPG.com to cease displaying. We first want to take this opportunity to reassure you that nothing has been done (or changed) on our end here at MMORPG.com to reduce site functionality for users who make use of this add-on. What appears to have occurred is that the add-on is now looking for the target="_blank" string at the end of our off-site links (this opens up off-site links in a new window/tab, something we have been doing for years). Off-site links are formatted this way to reduce the likelihood of readers clicking away from our site and not returning. Unfortunately, we cannot at this present time do anything regarding this issue without dropping the link formatting for off-site links which is not an option for us, but I can assure you our tech team is investigating possible alternatives.

In the interim, we ask that you please add MMORPG.com as an exception (white list) to AdBlock Plus in order to maintain off-site link functionality on our site. In order to do this, you can simply click the ABP button drop-down on Firefox (it should be red) and click Disable on MMORPG.com and reload the site (the button should now be green).

If you are experiencing this issue with the site already white-listed in AdBlock Plus, please delete the exception by clicking the drop-down on your ABP button in Firefox and clicking Preferences and then right clicking the exception "@@||mmorpg.com^$document" under My Exception Rules and hitting delete, then return to Firefox and uncheck Disable on MMORPG.com in the ABP dropdown (the button should be red now). Finally, click the ABP button drop-down once more and check Disable on MMORPG.com again (the button should return to green) and reload the page.

At MMORPG.com we hold ourselves to high-standards in advertising, and our policies are designed to ensure that ads on the site are relative and non-disruptive to your browsing experience. We’d like to take this opportunity to provide you with a few examples of how we do this:

• We do not allow "road block" ads (ads that bar your entry into the site without waiting or clicking to proceed)
• We do not allow pop-up ads
• We only allow gaming related advertising
• We do not allow our ads to expand outside the assigned ad space/size
• We do not allow audio ads
• We do not allow contextual ads (words highlighted in articles that pop up ads)

Advertisements keep this site going so that we can provide you all with the experience you expect, and while we promise to you that we won’t ever deliberately make it harder for you to enjoy our site while running ad-blocking programs or add-ons we hope that you will white-list our site to show your support.

If you are still having issues please let us know by contacting us at support@mmorpg.com or community@mmorpg.com. 

We appreciate your understanding in this matter.

UPDATE: The EasyList developers have contacted us to inform us that the target=blank check (which was what was messing up off-site links) is being removed from the EasyList subscription for AdBlock Plus in an update that should go out to users within the next five days. This issue should now be considered resolved.

Thanks for your continued support and patience.

should add

• We do not allow Flash ads

to that list, then the ads here would be at least tolerable

Just want to throw this thought out there. If you're visiting a site you like regularily, you really should disable your adblocker. Come on, for many sites, it's their main source of income. It's not THAT bad. There are sites with irritating advertising, but this site is pretty tame and their advertising rules keep the ads pretty low impact, visually.

Anyway, that's all. Just wanted to plant the idea in your head to consider helping out those sites you visit regularily by actually NOT blocking their ads.

it works great for me.. its just MMORPG does not have ads like other sites do.. like op said. One of the few sites I dont mind clicking on ..

I hate ads no matter what excuse you have for it. So I love adblock, never let me down sofar. There are other ways to get cash (reall work for instance?) maintaining a site like this should be a hobby of some persons and never a cashcow. I hosted many sites and gameservers non profit and only asked for donations if it was really needed. If MMORPG.com is lacking funds you should be open about how much you need and a 5$ donation button via paypal, I supported tons of sites that way.

Wow waxmask, let me know when you have a nice hosting contract with massive bandwidth allowed and tons of space and in-roads to gaming companies to get interviews, etc. I'll visit your free-from-ads site!

Donations are nice and all, but ad revenue is much more constant (and when you have people getting paychecks, that's a nice thing to have).

Isn't it interesting that ads are almost universally hated by consumers.  Producers continue to spend big bucks to spew Ads out across our landscapes, TVs, and browsers with no regard for the negative feelings they inspire.

I support MMORPG.com and it's use of ads. This is an appropriate venue for them. They also have established what type of ad they will display.  My only annoyance with ads here are the one's that flash and strobe without stop. That isn't exclusive to MMORPG.com though. Those I never click on.

I still despise ads and "product placement" within games.

I use ABP, and simply opened the preferences and did Edit > Find >  searched for mmorpg and cycled through until the I found the exact filter rule that had the ="_blank" entry, and disabled it just to see if it would make any difference. So far, no problems. I found a link to another website in one of the news articles and was able to click it with no problem. That being said, I agree with their ad policies, and am going to disable ABP for this site now.

Anyone remember the fake Rogaine (a hair groth supplement) ad for Gnomegain on the  EQ1 site? I think this was the firs thilarious fake ad I ever saw.

Originally posted by mxmissile

should add

• We do not allow Flash ads

to that list, then the ads here would be at least tolerable

 

This is my issue as well. We know that MMORPG.com cannot control which ads are used by their advertisers, but while I have NO problem with static advertising, and if I ever click though on an ad, it's only on the ones which DON'T flash at me. The blinking, flashing ads are the ones I want to block. Actually, if they just run through their animation one time, then hold stationary on the last frame, that's also OK.

Thanks everyone for the mostly positive support here.  I really don't think at this time we could support this site any other way.  We have 7 full time employees plus lots of paid moderators and writers, over 15 rack mounted machines (not including firewalls and load balancers) and a scary hosting/bandwidth bill...while it would be a neat idea - i really, strongly doubt that we could get by with a "donate please" button. But, I would like to know what makes what we do here at MMORPG.com not "real work" - this team works night and day to make this site possible and we all work very hard and sacrifice most of our lives doing it.

Since day #1 it has always been my goal to keep the ads here relevant to the site and as much as possible a non-intrusive and non-annoying as we could.  While I know flash ads can get a bit heavy this is pretty much the standard for banner ads (I hope this changes in time since the truth is we usually get better results from still JPG banners, but advertisers don't seem to care, lol)

Anyways, thanks again!

Originally posted by eric_w66

Wow waxmask, let me know when you have a nice hosting contract with massive bandwidth allowed and tons of space and in-roads to gaming companies to get interviews, etc. I'll visit your free-from-ads site!

Donations are nice and all, but ad revenue is much more constant (and when you have people getting paychecks, that's a nice thing to have).

You 're totally correct on a level. But fact is that most visitors , me including, aren't happy the way ads come in our face and ABP is such a tool that forces marketing to come up with better and hopefully less irritating techniques. They now see that stalking a possible consumer isn't working that well. It would be sad indeed that good sites like MMORPG.com have to suffer due to this. But key-function of this site is a ad in itself and hence something should be worked out between the two parties.

Developers of MMORPG's should know how it works or someone please tell them. If MMORPG.com would drown I hardly would play another upcomming game in this genre, for MMORPG.com is my main info gather site when it comes to choosing a game that suits my style and intrests. There for alone it should be inclined a reward or a little space in bandwith by developers currently being advertised on this side. In marketing everyone knows that even bad news is still good for income.

As you can see at my postcount I never debated before on this site while I visit it almost daily over 5 years. I don't like most discussions in the fora and most are not info at all, there for it could leave the stage on the left, or be a sister-site. Reason because I react to this topic on FP is cause I'm all for a new way of marketing, one that doesn't irritate me or makes me not want a product very badly.

Originally posted by Admin

Thanks everyone for the mostly positive support here.  I really don't think at this time we could support this site any other way.  We have 7 full time employees plus lots of paid moderators and writers, over 15 rack mounted machines (not including firewalls and load balancers) and a scary hosting/bandwidth bill...while it would be a neat idea - i really, strongly doubt that we could get by with a "donate please" button. But, I would like to know what makes what we do here at MMORPG.com not "real work" - this team works night and day to make this site possible and we all work very hard and sacrifice most of our lives doing it.

Since day #1 it has always been my goal to keep the ads here relevant to the site and as much as possible a non-intrusive and non-annoying as we could.  While I know flash ads can get a bit heavy this is pretty much the standard for banner ads (I hope this changes in time since the truth is we usually get better results from still JPG banners, but advertisers don't seem to care, lol)

Anyways, thanks again!

OMG, never realised that this site was a venture like this. Impressive to say the least! And I'm all for feeding families in these hard time, everyone deserves a good job. But there are sites out there with other intrests but just as big, with the same tools and they don't have a staff like this to run there domain. And your talking games, while some may disagree here, it's not food or even anything tangible. Ya your gonna say that my ingame assets aren't either, but I feel a little different about those. 

Still all kuddos to you, I don't want to sound harsh cause MMORPG.com is indeed a great site and I'm sure you need a steady cash income to keep it running like it is. Every friend I got/get hooked on a MMORPG is instantly sended to this site for the info and eyeopeners to other games in this genre. I know for sure  they're not all using APB/firefox so hope I dropped my dimes this way. Make a paypal button and hopefully I'll be FP on a donation!

Don't thank us, let us thank and praise you!!!

I for one don't care about flashing ads. As long as they are quiet and don't explode all over the screen every time I accidently let my mouse wander over one I'm fine. I'm usually watching a dvd on the second monitor whenever I'm online so the loud ones are just irritating. If I'm not watching anything, even the loud ones don't bother me. I don't understand how anyone can be offended by the flashing ones though. They're not interfering with anything you're doing and unless you simply freak out when everything isn't completely serene, why would their existence even register on your radar? 

Hell, on this site, I've ended up trying 3 different games from seeing them advertised. Don't play them now, but still looked interesting enough to download.

Never had a problem with any ad on this site.  One of the best run sites that I have found.

I am al for supporting the site you visit, but a lot of the Flash ads here (and elsewhere) are just getting rediculous, when the process responsible for Flash takes up 45-85% processor time something is just structurally wrong with the whole adsystem. When my whole system (Q6600, 4GB) hangs because some Flash ad my patience runs out. Here (and elsewhere) Flash ads have hindered the behaviour of my webbrowsing experience by not working nicely with the scroll button on my mouse (Logitech G5), had to use the scroll bar at the side of the browser to actually get past the offensive ad.

If you use Fanboy's List Subscription instead of EasyList Subscription you can see the links, but it'll also display the banner adds on top of the page.

On the topic of making money I assume your ad revenue is based on:

1. ad space sales, this denpends on the number of unique daily visitors, so if you have more visitors you can demand a higher price for your ad space
2. clicks-on-ads, you get a few cents for every person that you "refer" to the ads' destination

LOL, I just turned off ABP plus for this site and realized I still do not see 95% of your ads. Flashblock has them all killed.... Sorry guys I am not shutting that mod off.

Originally posted by waxmask

OMG, never realised that this site was a venture like this. Impressive to say the least! And I'm all for feeding families in these hard time, everyone deserves a good job. But there are sites out there with other intrests but just as big, with the same tools and they don't have a staff like this to run there domain. And your talking games, while some may disagree here, it's not food or even anything tangible. Ya your gonna say that my ingame assets aren't either, but I feel a little different about those. 

Still all kuddos to you, I don't want to sound harsh cause MMORPG.com is indeed a great site and I'm sure you need a steady cash income to keep it running like it is. Every friend I got/get hooked on a MMORPG is instantly sended to this site for the info and eyeopeners to other games in this genre. I know for sure  they're not all using APB/firefox so hope I dropped my dimes this way. Make a paypal button and hopefully I'll be FP on a donation!

Don't thank us, let us thank and praise you!!!

 

Wow. I can't really believe you thought this was anything other than a commercial site. The number of man-hours it takes to keep this site up and running probably is more than the number of paid employee work hours. (i'm sure several people put in quite a bit of overtime. The question is is it paid overtime or salary overtime.) That's true for so many other sites, too.

Maybe you think all sites need to go to a subscription based model? The community support to keep a site open works for some (such as wikipedia and small community sites), but not for anything that needs more than one or two people with volunteer time to keep running. For some reason, the internet just doesn't seem to work that way. Professional sites (and a few other sites we won't mention) not included, if it's not 'free', it gets ignored. Do you think facebook would have 300+ million users if they had to pay a monthly fee, even just a few dollars? Would Google be the number one search engine if there was a per search fee? Really, we have the broadcast model to thank for that. It just proved how much advertising people would tolerate in their programming.

In regards to the Flash ads: so many of them used canned scripts that run poorly. A lot of advertisers don't have programmers on staff to optimize the code, so what comes out drags even the newest of computers down. I say it's up to the sites the ads run on to mandate quality standards. I know it cuts into the site's revenue, but if an advertiser can't get quality sites, they lose money, too.