Zubenelgenubi

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Uhh, I know it's fun to think that everyone agrees with you(I do it too),

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Uhh… I know it’s fun to put thoughts into other people’s heads, but it’s patently obvious that not everyone agrees with me.

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but I have to say Tremere has to this point made many more convincing points than you have, IMO.

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If his arguments are really so convincing then perhaps he should be encouraged to make them without the personal attacks (which only add rancor and heat while making him look really bad)?

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The best argument I've seen for doing this is that it doesn't really matter. I still haven't seen any compelling evidence that it matters enough that it should be implemented despite the fact that it doesn't really matter. I mean, it seems like that argument already precludes it from being worth any dev effort. I'd like to think they're spending their time doing something that does matter enough to do it.

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If this is the best argument you’ve seen, then you haven’t been paying attention. “It doesn’t really matter” is actually such a lame position that holding it up and talking about it borders on the use of a straw man argument.

I and several others have presented much better:

(1) CUSTOMER SERVICE
A large number of people do want this badge on their pre-i2 characters. Allowing us to get this badge will make us happy. Happy customers are loyal customers and more likely to remain customers in the future. The quick growth of threads like this one shows that there is a large demand for the badge.

(2) FAIRNESS
Isolator is unique of all the badges. It is the only badge that has ever been released which could not be obtained by characters in existence at the time it was created. Anyone who entered CoH after i2 can get this badge, but pre-i2 characters cannot. Even those few who actually met the requirements for getting the badge before i2 cannot get the badge.

There are other reasons that have been presented, but these two are the big ones.

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Now lined up on the negative said we have:

(1) TOO DIFFICULT TO IMPLEMENT
“The devs have better things to do with their time. Why bother?”

Well, you bother because it would make your customers happy. In any event, this objection has been answered many times over. It would be dead easy to stick a contaminated spawn in Atlas Park or Galaxy City. Heck, in the Snaptooth missions, up on the northwest part of the map, a group of low level monkeys appear and start fighting among themselves. This appears to have been done simply as a joke. If the mission is being made anyway, and it needs to be populated with villains anyway, and if they have time to put in funny monkeys, they can easily add in one or two contaminated. Problem solved. There will be more temporary Pocket D missions. Throw some in there.


(2) YOU CAN GET ISOLATOR IF YOU WANT
“Nobody is preventing you from getting Isolator. Just roll another toon.”

This one is simplistic almost beyond words. The whole point of the discussion is about getting Isolator on pre-i2 toons. Therefore, the entire “argument” here is totally irrelevant.


(3) IT DOESN’T MATTER
“So what if your character doesn’t have this badge? It doesn’t do anything. Get over it.”

Well, it matters to me, and to many other people by all accounts. Besides, as you pointed out, “it doesn’t matter” can go either way. If it doesn’t matter, then let us earn it. Badge collecting is a part of the game. It’s important to some of us, just like PvP is important to others. Just because it isn’t important to you doesn’t not somehow prove that it is objectively unimportant.


(4) YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE BUT YOU MISSED IT
“I rerolled my main character when badges first came out so that I could get it. You could have done the same, but you missed out.”

This one, in my opinion, is just unreasonable. This position says that you must be willing to just throw away hundreds of hours of progress and advancement for the badge. Furthermore, by now this wouldn’t be useful for badge collectors to do, as all the special event badges would be lost. There was only about a two month window in which this could have been done before the Halloween badges came along. During that period, the devs were talking about implementing a “Flashback System” so that older, outleveled content could be experienced. Thus, there was every reason to expect that eventually our pre-i2 characters could get Isolator without rerolling, if we would just be patient. Since then, the devs have scrapped the parts of the flashback system which would have made this possible. So we should lose out because we trusted the devs?


(5) THE BADGE TEXT WOULD BE MESSED UP
“It says you began your career on a high note. If you get Isolator at lvl 50, it’s not the beginning of your career now, is it?”

With apologies to LiquidX, this one is just a bit silly. It’s easily fixed. Or, like I wrote earlier in this thread, just pretend that you DID kill 100 contaminated right at the start. (The writer of your comic book just glossed over that part to move the plot along.) It’s a role-playing game, isn’t it?


(6) THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
“If you give pre-i2 toons a chance to get Isolator, then to be fair you need to make all special event badges available to everyone, regardless of when they started playing.”

This argument would work if we were talking about Celebrant, the 1-year anniversary badge. But we’re not. As stated above, Isolator is different from any special event badge. Pre-existing characters are able to get any and all special event badges as they come out. But pre-i2 characters are denied Isolator, even though we were there, paying subscription fees, and we’ve been loyal customers ever since.


(7) PERSONAL ATTACKS
“You’re all just a bunch of whiners who want to show off your uber l337 status.” Or “You don’t have it - HA HA get over it!”

An ad hominem can be (and has been) used in all of the objections above. But they’re so common that I thought they deserved their own category. In my opinion, such arguments actually support the other side of the debate. After all, if your position is really so weak that you have to resort to tactics like these, then perhaps the opposing side is right.


Damn. I posted a lot more than I wanted to. In any event, I think that sums up the positions of both sides. I’m sure someone will let me know if I missed anything.

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In your post (#4996818 - 03/12/06 01:53 AM) you stated:
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Get Isolator on your toons or don't. Paint your house blue or don't. It doesn't affect me. I have not, nor will I EVER say that your particular characters should NEVER be allowed to have this badge, that badge, or some other badge.

You, LiquidX, and a couple of others, however, don't seem to want to extend that same courtesy to me.


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I read that last phrase as you saying that LiquidX, myself and some others want to keep you from getting Isolator plus any number of other badges.

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OK, got it now.

I was only speaking to LiquidX, not you or anyone else. Also, the “any number of other badges” is not true, as this discussion is only about Isolator.

LiquidX has indeed flat out stated that he does not think that any one toon should be allowed to experience all the game content. That position is what I was responding to when I posted my story about my old neighbor and the blue house. My point there was that if he feels that way, then he is free to have his toons experience as much or as little content as he may want. But it is not reasonable to say that the way he wants to play his toons should extend to mine as well.

Since then, he is now saying that as long as the badge text is changed, he would accept it.

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This WHOLE thread is nothing but a bunch of whiners who have thier precious badge count posted in their Signature as some sort of "oh look how uber I am".

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So you think that this is reasonable? You think it adds to the discussion? You think this is a valid argument?

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It's not really said in a particularly friendly manner, but it isn't entirely irrelevant.

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Oh, I agree that it's relevant. It shows off the rhetorical and reasoning skills of Tremere and clues everybody in on what sort of quality postings we can expect from him in the future. Looking back on the last few pages, he did not disappoint.

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We are not saying that. You can get the badge, just create another toon. Voila.

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And of course you know this is not what is meant.

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In all honesty, no-where have I stated that I don't think that the people who don't have Isolator shouldn't get any other badges as well, as was implied by Zubenelgenubi.

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Wait… WHAT? What am I implying now?

Usually I don’t like to “imply” anything, I just flat out state my positions. In this case… should I be defending myself or not? Honestly, I can’t decipher your sentence.

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You had that chance ( and heck you STILL DO) just create a new toon... you could have done it then, you can do it now.
SIMPLE AS THAT!!!!!


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You know, there isn’t anything listed on my favorite logical fallacies web site that covers SHOUTING AS A MEANS OF TRYING TO FORCE AN END TO A DISCUSSION. Perhaps there should be.

Whatever.

Tremere, I’m still waiting to hear how creating a new toon will magically allow my main character, my badge collector, my pre-i2 toon, to obtain Isolator. Pray enlighten us. Then all of us “uber whiners” can go away and do it, and this thread can die.

*taps foot expectantly*

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Stop posting the "Ad Hominem" stuff.

This is not a formal debate.

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Just because it’s not a formal debate doesn’t mean that “anything goes.” If a poster has something of substance to say, let him say it. If he just wants to be rude, then he should expect that someone will call him out on it.


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Furthermore, if you are aware of what Logical Fallacies are, surely you are aware that just screaming "Logical Fallacy" does not invalidate the whole argument, it just gives you a place to start in with a rebuttal.

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“screaming?” Huh. Did I type in all caps? No? Was I shouting at my screen as I typed? (How would you know if I were, anyway?)

This is what I was responding to:

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This WHOLE thread is nothing but a bunch of whiners who have thier precious badge count posted in their Signature as some sort of "oh look how uber I am".

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So you think that this is reasonable? You think it adds to the discussion? You think this is a valid argument?

Again, if a poster has something of substance to say, let him say it. If he just wants to be rude, then he should expect that someone will call him out on it.

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This WHOLE thread is nothing but a bunch of whiners who have thier precious badge count posted in their Signature as some sort of "oh look how uber I am".

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Simple ad hominim.

Please look at the bottom of this post. See the sig file? How many badge counts do you see there?

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You missed the point

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Oh, I get the point just fine.

You have nothing of substance to contribute to the thread, so instead you just make totally juvenile and very rude personal attacks. Not only that, but you aren't even any GOOD at it. I have yet to see anyone in this or any similar thread post their total badge counts in their sig files. Therefore, the entire basis of your half-baked ad hominem is completely lacking.

What ARE they teaching kids in school these days anyway??

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Stop telling us what to do, you forum nazi!

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OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

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Zubeen... Zubenelgenaki... Zebalski... that guy

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Sigh.

I keep telling you people... It's spelled EXACTLY like it's pronounced!

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This WHOLE thread is nothing but a bunch of whiners who have thier precious badge count posted in their Signature as some sort of "oh look how uber I am".

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Simple ad hominim.

Please look at the bottom of this post. See the sig file? How many badge counts do you see there?

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Its apparent, that you have not read this entire thread

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no it isnt cause i did read the entire thread.

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Sure you did. You just didn’t understand it.



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We are talking about a badge that pre-i2 players never had the chance to earn as everyone else did.

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you do have a change to earn it. roll another toon.

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REALLY? So you’re saying that my pre-i2 character will get Isolator as soon as I create an alt? Or is there something in addition that the alt needs to do in order for my pre-i2 character to get this badge?

Thank you, and goodnight.

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And it would seem to me that your decision that I cannot state my opinion just because you disagree with it is just as unreasonable as you seem to think I am being.

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Sigh.

Reading comprehension is a wonderful thing. You really should try it sometime.

I'll make a deal with you, Liquid. You go back through this thread and find specific examples where I said you cannot state your opinions. I'll go back and find specific examples where I acknowledge your opinions as credible even though I disagree with them. If you find fewer examples than I do (without any obvious twisting of my words), then you concede the point and withdraw from this thread. If you find more examples than I do, I will leave the thread instead.

Deal?

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Granted, I understand that you are expressing an opinion about the game. I get that. But your opinion has, as its foundation, the idea that you get to decide what is “good” for other players and/or the game as a whole. And that is completely unreasonable.

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Of course you do realize that you are essentially doing the same thing, just from the other side of the point of view.

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Utter nonsense.

Get Isolator on your toons or don't. Paint your house blue or don't. It doesn't affect me. I have not, nor will I EVER say that your particular characters should NEVER be allowed to have this badge, that badge, or some other badge.

You, LiquidX, and a couple of others, however, don't seem to want to extend that same courtesy to me.

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As for WHY I don't like the idea for Flashback, I explained it in another thread but I'll explain it again here... I don't like the idea of people being able to do "everything" with one character. You shouldn't be able to get all the badges, see all the storylines, and all that.

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OK, so then here we come to the crux of the matter. The apparent reason why you are so vocal in all the threads about the Isolator badge. Why you are such a nay-sayer on this issue.

You want to dictate to me (and everyone else) how to play the game.

I personally want my one main character to experience all the content. If he does so (now listen carefully here)… THIS DOES NOT HURT YOU IN ANY WAY! If you don’t want one of your characters to do everything, get every badge, etc., then DON’T do that with YOUR characters! But it is not your place to dictate what is “best” for everyone else in the game or how they play it. And don't tell me that I "shouldn't" do something with Zube.

I once lived in a little cul-de-sac. One day one of our neighbors decided to paint his house blue. None of the other houses were blue, and this really upset a little old lady living next door. She made a HUGE pest of herself demanding that our neighbor stop painting his house in this “offensive” color. When he told her to mind her own business, she went house to house trying to get everyone else to pressure him to stop. Of course, this being a free country (at least it was back then), she had no success.

Now this woman clearly thought that she was the arbiter of what was “correct” and “right” in the area. She even had a tiny justification, because she had to look at the blue house every day. But you, sir, do not even have that. My having all the badges, doing all the task forces, experiencing all the content, does NOT affect you in any way! You don’t have to look at my badges, and you cannot see my souvenirs. You don’t even have any way of knowing how many alts I have, unless I tell you.

If you want replayability, then replay. Your choice. If collecting badges keeps me playing, that’s my choice.

Granted, I understand that you are expressing an opinion about the game. I get that. But your opinion has, as its foundation, the idea that you get to decide what is “good” for other players and/or the game as a whole. And that is completely unreasonable.

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spoiled badgers!
I want I want!

yadda yadda yadda


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ad hominem.

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Flashback will stay dead and buried, as it was a bad idea anyways.

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The current exemplar system is about 90% of what Flashback was originally intended to be (as per statements by Positron in another thread). “Dead and buried.” Yup.

As far as being a "bad idea" is concerned, flashbacks are very common in the comic book world. (As I stated just a page or two ago and you just blew off with some weird Hawkman reference.) As such an integral part of the genre on which this game is based, I believe that flashbacks belong in the game. I think that you have the burden of proof to explain why it is such a “bad idea” to have an important and ubiquitous comic book staple in a comic book inspired game.

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It is only a matter of opinion (yours) that these are "satisfactory justifications." Seriously now, you object to the badge text becoming incorrect??

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Yes. Yes I do. Hell, do you know how much it bugs me that my Hero has Agent Provocateur when the text clearly doesen't fit? The only thing that's kept me from asking a GM to remove it is that there are more important for them to be doing then removing a badge.

I also hate the Gladiator badges on the hero side too, and wish they would either get rid of them, change the descriptions of them, or create new ones.

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Well, fair enough, I guess. I don’t see why that should matter so much to you, but in all fairness some people don’t see why not having Isolator on Zube should bother me. To each his own.

But this is really a minor issue placed next to the main point. Many (most?) of us who have pre-I2 characters feel it is unfair to prevent us from getting this badge. NO OTHER badge is like Isolator, because every other badge could be obtained by any character in existence at the time the badge was created.

The flashback system would have easily taken care of your text objection, also. The flashback is such a staple in the comic book medium that I hardly need to give examples. A writer wants to tell a story about something the Hero did “back in the day,” so he just does it. This story was not part of the character’s history before, but now it is.

FADE UP:
Captain O’Malley is retiring from the PCPD after 30 long and event-filled years on the force. At his retirement dinner, someone asks him, “Hey Brian, what one thing do you remember most about your first year on the force?”

“Well, son, I will never forget the time that Zubenelgenubi almost single-handedly stopped an outbreak of contaminated thugs from overrunning the streets of the 9th District. I was just a beat cop then, two weeks out of the Academy. I’d been assigned to guard the perimeter, little more than a human police drone. Things were looking pretty dicey, when all of a sudden here comes Zube. He was as green as a pine tree in April, but you should have seen the way he hopped that fence and tore into those thugs. Why, it seems like only yesterday…”
CUE MUSIC AND THE WIGGLY LINES

See what I mean? It’s pretty easy to imagine (excuse me, I mean “role play”) the situation in such a way as to remove your objection. As a matter of fact, Zube DID arrest over 100 contaminated thugs! It’s just that the writer of my “first issue” glossed over that part in order to move the narrative along!

And now I want my badge! I want it! I want it! It’s unfair that the devs won’t give it to me!

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It is only a matter of opinion (yours) that these are "unsatisfactory justifications."

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Yup. NOW you get it!

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So it is fine for you to think that his opinions are unsatisfactory, but it is wrong for him to think that yours are.

While that may not be what you think, that is the impression that I got from your posts.

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Sigh.

No, you don't get it after all.

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It is only a matter of opinion (yours) that these are "unsatisfactory justifications."

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Yup. NOW you get it!

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Nor have you been able to justify why you should be able to earn this badge outside of Isolator, other then "I want it! I want it! It's unfair if its not given to me!".

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Nor have you been able to justify why you want to deny pre-I2 characters this badge, other than “I don’t want you to have it! I don’t want you to have it! It’s unfair if the devs give it to you!”

Seriously, lose the ad homonims . They only undercut your position, rather than support it.

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Irony is a person accusing someone of an ad hominem attack using an ad hominem attack to do so.

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It sure is. And when I see it happen, I like to point it out.

But that has nothing to do with my post, of course, as I was clearly just turning LiquidX's "argument" around in order to point out the weakness of it. But of course, you did see that, didn't you?

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Actually, I believe I provided specific and satisfactory justifications in my second post on this page alone.

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It is only a matter of opinion (yours) that these are "satisfactory justifications." Seriously now, you object to the badge text becoming incorrect??

And what about your frequent use of ad homonims to "support" your opinion?

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Nor have you been able to justify why you should be able to earn this badge outside of Isolator, other then "I want it! I want it! It's unfair if its not given to me!".

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Nor have you been able to justify why you want to deny pre-I2 characters this badge, other than “I don’t want you to have it! I don’t want you to have it! It’s unfair if the devs give it to you!”

Seriously, lose the ad homonims . They only undercut your position, rather than support it.

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I said - "I'll never get Celebrant because I wasnt around, & you'll never get Isolator because you weren't around. plain & simple!!!"

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Yes, and what you said was simply and demonstrably wrong. Those of us with pre-I2 characters were around. So your point, such as it is, is based on a completely false premise.

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You state my point for me.
I missed the early event badges because it was IMPOSSIBLE.
You missed Isolator because it was IMPOSSIBLE.

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And why were these two things “IMPOSSIBLE”?

You missed the early event badges because you were not a subscriber at that time. This is perfectly fair.

We missed Isolator even though we were subscribers at the time. This is blatantly unfair.

From the moment you became a subscriber, you had the opportunity to obtain every badge that anyone else was able to get. Our pre-I2 toons have been denied that same opportunity.

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Why cant everybody see that the give Isolator to everyone arguement is just as valid as give ALL badges to everyone arguements!

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Everybody can’t see this because it isn’t true.


I trimmed a lot of ridiculous ad homonims from your post. You also managed to use the straw man, an appeal to emotion, and even a form of the slippery slope. I won’t bother going over them, as none of them were worth the effort to even read, let alone respond to.

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IF we were to ever add a way to get Isolator post-Tutorial, it would most likely be incredibly hard to get. Annoyingly hard. Irritatingly hard. There-would-be-a-zillion-people-asking-to-make-it-easier hard.


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Positron,

Please allow me to add my voice to those crying out for you to make this possible.

The circumstances surrounding THIS badge are truly unique. Those of us who have been here for the longest time are the ones who missed out, simply because the badge did not exist for us at the proper time. By NOT allowing us a means of obtaining this badge, it feels like we are being punished for being the most loyal, long-term subscribers.

Some have said, “You could have re-rolled your toon and gotten the badge when it first came out.” This is a completely unreasonable position, one which would have required the loss of weeks or months of play time and advancement. Others have said, “Just start another character and get it on him. No big deal.” But this ignores the fact that for many of us, our main characters hold special meaning and importance. Still others have said, “If they do this for the pre-I2 characters with Isolator, they MUST do it for every special event badge as well.” Unfortunately, this ignores the simple fact that some missed the Halloween event badges because they were not yet subscribers, while us “old timers” missed Isolator precisely because we were old timers. Another objection has been, “I want the devs to spend time on new content, rather than messing around with this badge.” But seriously, it would be extremely easy to accomplish this. Adding one or two contaminated villains, hidden off in a corner somewhere, to a special mission like Snaptooth, would be dead easy.

In short, I can see no good reasons to deny this badge to your best, most loyal customers. It would really, really please a lot of people. It would show us that you really do care about our play experience. Simply by looking at how quickly threads like this grow, you can see that the demand is there.

Make it as hard as you like. To those of us for whom it matters most, we will be grateful for it nonetheless.

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In response: when I2 came out, "you could have re-rolled your character right away and gotten Isolator. You had an entire month to level such re-rolled charactes up, before the first event even happened. Then you could have had every badge, with ZERO special treatment."

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So, let me see if I understand what you’re saying. You think that it’s reasonable to expect badge hunters to have re-rolled their Main Toons immediately after I2? And if they didn’t want to throw away weeks or months of leveling and mission progress for this one badge, that’s just too bad for them?

Seriously, is that your point?

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I wouln't expect to be just GIVEN the badges, but you have to admit - if "you" (in the sweeping, generalist sense) get a special mission to go back and get Isolator, why shouldn't someone like "us" (also in the generalist sense) get a special mission that provides an opportunity for THOSE badges?

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Because you were not a subscriber at the time those first special event badges were offered.

There is a fundamental difference between Isolator and the special event badges.