Bret_Cath

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Okay not only am I convinced this Optical Illusion guy is Twixt on an alt account but does anybody understand just what the heck he's talking about with this response?

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I'll take a crack at...not like I'll see his response or anything. Besides, I'm about to go to bed so I might say something funny.

TWIXT is uber and "someone" sucks (I think there's a subject confusion in the farmer/fight club section).

The person he quoted is a hypocrite, griefer, liar, story teller.

People hate TWIXT because of the incorrect and uneducated things other people are saying, despite the fact that there is no 'real' knowledge about the situation.

TWIXT can do no wrong (even when he's being investigated).

I...I can't even begin to decipher this last statement since it's based on assumptions that just aren't true. O_I, the reason they're saying the 'above' isn't true is, well, because it's not. The basic premise of the 'experiment' is mostly sound (based off the information I know). However, his actual experiment tried to prove something else...Okay, I will give one example of faulty logic within the paper just for the purposes of my argument.

What are these 'core rules' that he keeps talking about?

In real life he claims that there are no 'core rules' like there are in a game. I would argue that this is a fallacy on his part. In real life I cannot jump to the moon, the 'rule' or law of gravity prevents me from doing that. I cannot breath in a vacuum. I would die at a certain velocity. All of these things are the 'rules' of the world.

Similarly there are 'core rules' in CoH and any MMO. I cannot jump to the moon because the in-game 'gravity' does not allow it. I cannot fly to the moon because there is a ceiling that similarly does not allow it. I cannot run faster than a certain speed because the developers have put limits on how fast I can run. The consequences of my actions are different, but there are still limits and rules in place. "RV is there for heroes or villains to win the zone" is not one of these rules. It is a suggested activity and is one of the things a player can do in RV, but it is not one of these 'core rules' (I.E. I am not prevented from or forced to engage in this activity).

I hope that clears things up a bit, and I hope it calms O_I down from his own form of nerdrage. As for me? It's time for bed.

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For the aggresion/testosterone one did you sign a new consent at the end? I would think that they would have to allow you to opt out once you knew the true nature of the study.


I understand the need for "blinding" but in your examples there was no harm or stress. IMO it isn't really like what Myers did at all, he purposly stressed these people.

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No I did not sign a waiver at the end. There was no need as the study has already been administered (there was, however, a need to debrief in this case). The only thing that I would be doing by opting out is lowering the number of participants in the final examination of that data, my data would still be there just excluded (the exclusion would likely be mentioned in the body of the paper).

Many times you can't predict a participant's reaction. A study on death (another one I participated in), for example, might increase a participant's thoughts on suicide. TWIXT's experiment was mostly 'if you piss people off they will get pissed off...even in an MMO environment'. A person who actively contradicts social norms is going to receive negative responses, it has been documented in experimental and other venues. How strong those negative responses are is unpredictable and can be based on so many factors regarding the situation the 'anti-social' behavior was presented in (people in this thread have wondered what this experiment would by like in WoW for example) as well as the people involved, their culture, and their upbringing (cultural difference have been discussed) that one cannot even begin to plan for the variety of consequences (positive and negative). It becomes 'assuming normalcy, are the consequences of this experiment within reason'.

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The other problem is that there can be no "misrepresentation" of the purpose of a study when there is no knowledge of being part of a study. So the entire parallel to the taste bud study fails to hold up.

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However, my example regarding the study in the library fits within the realm of TWIXTs study (regarding, specifically, the misinterpretation prior to the explanation/debriefing). There was no waiver prior to the administering of the experiment (which is why the one lady ran out of the library...she didn't know she was a part of a study and came to different, more frightening, conclusion). In this way the misrepresentation is the failure to mention that an experiment is taking place, most people assume they are not participating in experiments during everyday life. Again, though, I must re-iterate that I don't know if said experiment would be permissible today.

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Speaking purely as someone who teaches psychology in a university setting, and who has taught graduate research methods, and is awaiting an appointment to my university's institutional review board, of course.

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I agree, I would love to hear your interpretation of the ethics question. If you have never been on a board that would approve these kinds of things you certainly work with and have studied under professors who have and do.

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He already admits that himself
"Hi Lisa,

I agree, this study is not really an experiment. I label it as a “breaching experiment” in reference to analogous methods of Garfinkel, but, in fact, neither his nor my methods are experimental in any truly scientific sense. This should be obvious in that experimental methods require some sort of control group and there was none in this case. Likewise, experimental methods are characterized by the manipulation of a treatment variable and, likewise, there was none in this case. This is, of course, explained in the paper in the following paragraph…."

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I will agree with you to this extent: not all Psychology is based on experiments. The same holds true for Sociology (there was this interesting study on suicide I read once...).

However, he was actively involved which made it an experiment (by definition). This, however, is a credibility issue, not an ethics issue (it could, however, bleed into ethics if he didn't take the appropriate actions because of the erroneous claim on 'not an experiment').

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You can ask your friend if this is true because i am not in the social sciences I am a biologist for us informed consent is first. In a field study they would as you said debrief the subjects and at that time get informed consent. If they were unable to get the consent i believe that subject needs not be included in the research.

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I think this is the difference. I'm not a Biologist (of the four science wings at my college Biology's was the only one I never entered) so I don't know much about the scientific process of a Biologist. However, I would suspect that the bio field requires access to the physical body of the subject to study (whatever that means). Such a study is much more intrusive and direct compared to a Psych experiment (on average) and would need informed consent (I can't stick a needle into you without you agreeing to it). Likely, if a bio subject signs a waiver they are told exactly what is going to happen to them before the procedure even begins (and possibly why).

In every single Psych experiment I knew about and was involved in (as a participant, I never ran any myself) the participant was either told very little about the procedure, or were misdirected in some way (okay, there may have one or two that told me up front). This was to keep the participant from 'guessing' what the experiment was about and adjusting their answers to 'help' or 'harm' the results. (NOTE: there are disciplines within Pscyh that are more associated with my bio example. This is just would could happen in a psych experiment, not what will...each experiment is different).

For example: I participated in an aggression study. The participant was told flat out that it was a taste test, aggression was never mentioned. I signed the waiver with the assumption that my taste buds were being tested when, in reality, my testosterone was being tested based on the saliva samples they took (I was informed of the process of the experiment before hand, so there were no surprises). There was a debriefing session afterward that explained more about the experiment and my prof talked about it during one of my classes (it got national attention and was referenced in our textbook...he was very proud).

This isn't exactly like TWIXT's experiment, but the basic idea is the same. On some level there was a misrepresentation and the people involved couldn't predict the way they were 'supposed' to act and adjust accordingly. Again, though, it's up to an Ethics Board to make the final call (and even they could be wrong).

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A few comments: field (or observational) studies don't usually require consent, but when a researcher actively takes part, it's no longer a field study. It's an experiment.

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Which is why it's presented to an Ethics Board...maybe that wasn't the best quote (but it was easily available and allowed for me to still be lazy!)

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Also, I'd be careful about the use of character names as identifiers, since they can still be linked to individuals and their use could lead to a person being harassed, embarrassed, whatever, even if just in-game. Identifiers are not limited to real life names, and the consistent use of essentially a nickname could be considered personal information.

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Also, this is why Ethics Boards exist. If TWIXT had presented his study to an Ethics Board prior to his experiment (we have no idea if he did or not at this point) and the Ethics Board decided that he could present his article with the avatar's name rather than placeholders the paper is legit (to the extent, as Dollhouse has pointed out, that the Ethics Board could have made a faulty decision).

All I'm saying is that it is allowable not that it is right. I am not in the position to be able to decide whether or not this paper with ethically sound and I would argue that no one else is on this board (so far as I have seen). Did the paper have faults? YES, huge ones, but that is a different argument all together.

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I would imagine that any actual ethical scientist wouldn't NEED to ask a board. They wouldn't have DONE it this way.

He's not a scientist.

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Untrue, absolutely untrue. Sometimes a scientist NEEDS to experiment on subjects that DON'T KNOW they are the subject of an experiment. The very moment a subject signs a waiver their reactions to stimulus will change. They know they are a part of an experiment and, even if they don't intend to change, they invariably do. Even if there's a handful of people who don't change they are outliers and aren't representative of 'normal' people (the subject of most papers).

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Not necessarily. The Ethics board could be wrong. Their determination could have been flawed (and if it authorized non-consensual experimentation on individuals, some of whom were minors, then I think a very good case could be made that they were wrong, assuming they did in fact rule).

In any case, University authorities are very much involved in this matter, and at least one minor has come forward. This is going to get interesting...

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Good point. I also think experiments that don't require signed waivers before at the very least have debriefing sessions that explain to the participant what just happened. I'm not sure is that's required or not, or if TWIXT did this (I doubt it) however.

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I posted most of this on the Justice board

Please note below the governmets guide lines for IRB approval there is a mention of both informed consent and privacy.

*SNIP*

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You also posted it here once before, which was then replied to by MrQuizzles with the following quote (and link).

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Requiring forms of consent is a restriction that can be waived by a university's IRB. In this case, it is very likely that the requirement would be waived.

Here, URI has a nice and informative IRB page: http://www.uri.edu/research/tro/NewS...IRB/index.html

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To quote a friend of mine who knows more about this subject that I:

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In the field type studies do not need explicit consent of the people involved. They do need to pass the ethics board for not causing lasting harm to those who are involved without their knowledge.

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She also has informed me that internet alias' count as this sort of coding you refer to (since no personal information is given).

If you would like to continue this argument I can actually do some research myself...but I've been lazy so far.


Edit: Doh! Wrong quote!

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Credible researchers use knowing test subjects, subjects they can see what background they have and can monitor other influences that may result in that behavior, also in a closed lab setting it can be accurately monitored how many people are not noticeably affected by the stimulus. In this case that was not maintained ... all this research proved is if you push a random person one or more may lash out ... did that need proving to anyone? Now why was this unethical, many people in game have crappy lives, hard lives, stressful lives ... there are kids who may be frequently abused in game, other people who may rely on this outlet. Pushing these people is NOT SAFE!!! it is dangerous and in an attempt to prove an idiotic point this person put people at risk because he applied a stimulus where it could be harmful all because of ignorance.

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I, once again, point out that a researcher can get away with knowing diddly about a potential test subject as long as an Ethics Board approves the experiment prior to the start of the experiment. One of my profs used to tell a tale of an experiment that involved usurping a person's chair in a library. They'd effectively move someone else's stuff without prior knowledge of the person or their lives. Did it backfire? Yes. In one case the participant ran out of the library thinking their ex-husband was stalking her. Was it unethical? At the time no, it had been approved by an Ethics Board and the experiment was completely legit. Would it be okay to do that experiment today? I dunno, I'm not on an Ethics Board, but it might (and it might not).

Assuming TWIXT approached an Ethics Board before starting the experiment (and they approved the experiment) and assuming he stayed within the limits of what he presented to said Ethics Board TWIXT did nothing unethical. Yes, these are big assumptions, but they are not things that we can make judgment calls on (to my knowledge...if someone is a part of an Ethics Board somewhere I'd like to hear their thoughts) and must assume he did (otherwise we are making faulty claims as well).

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griefing players is illegal blah blah blah, against the game rules, can get you banned, or perma banned ya know.



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Show me where it says griefing someone is illegal?

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From the Rules of Conduct for City of Heroes:

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1. While playing City of Heroes , you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players.

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From UrbanDictionary.com (not the most reputable source, but it's accurate enough for my current purposes)

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1. Purposefully shooting or otherwise sabotaging your teammates in an online game.

2. In online gaming where one repeatedly killing the same individual or individuals over and over again, or camping their corpse to prevent them from retrieving it, or otherwise performing actions in a game to prevent the player from enjoying the game.

3. In online gaming, someone who takes pleasure in creating grief for an opponent via various "cheap" tactics.

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Notice a similar phrase in each quote? Specifically the part where a player isn't supposed to actively prevent a player from having fun? Now, there are a lot of loose words in these definitions...what is 'fun', what does 'prevent' mean, etc. but that's why the GMs exist. Clearly the GMs didn't think TWIXT was doing anything so over the top that he needed to be banned or something, but I'm sure there are examples of lesser infringements that resulted in a player's banning.

In short: it IS illegal to grief, but the conditions under which a player is considered a griefer by the GMs is...fluid and likely changes from GM to GM and certainly changes from situation to situation.

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So, yesterday you were fanning the flames and trying to spur on the riot with two and three word post

Now today you are suddenly an intellectual who can see the vast reasoning behind the research and paper and who believes that socially developed laws have no weight when held against hard coded restrictions?


Please pick one internet persona and stick too it. You are messing up my bingo card. :P

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The whole point of my un-intellectual post was because the paper is so incredibly faulty that I didn't know where to begin. If you will notice, my intellectual posts are directly quoting faulty logic within the forums that don't directly involve the study. My post responding to MrQuizzles had to do with NA internet chivalry, not the study, and my response to Grizzle_Bok (what is it with Zs?) had to do with ethics violations, not the study. I did mention the study to the extent that it is the focus of the thread, but that wasn't the reason behind my posts. I'm still of the opinion the study isn't worth the Word document it was written on and if I wanted to try and dissect the faulty logic within the paper I could (I really really don't want to, but I can).

*Looks at who Calash was responding too.*
*Realizes O_I is still ignored.*

Ah crap...Sorry

I won't delete the above post 'cause people don't like that apparently. However, I'm sorry Calash for misinterpreting your post and you may ignore it if you like.

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How do you respond to the issue of ethics violations in Dr. Myers research. Permission is required from any test subject in a Scociology investigation, and no where in his paper does he mention seeking any form of permission( by individuals or by NCSoft). It is also possible that the people that were effected by Twixt's activities were minors, and without actualy conduction interviews, it would be inpossible to know. If Dr. Myers research is unethical, does it invalidate his conclutions?

Furthermore, under no circumstance are you allowed to harm or distress, (physically or psychologically) your research subjects, without their approval and impartial supervision. Dr. Myers had to understand that Twixt's activities would cause harm. Again, how does this effect his conclusion?

Dr. Myers was not an observer to the events that happened in his research. He was the instigator, and his impartiality is questionable. Therefore, his conclusions must also suspect.

As Ive said earlier in this thread, I believe that his research was sloppy and unethical. I think that there were better research opportunities that could have been explored. Opportunities that could have been far more interesting, and more approprate for a Doctoral level investigation.

Grizz

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While I won't disagree that his methods were sloppy I will point out, as it has already been stated in this thread, that permission is not needed under certain circumstances as long as an ethics board has approved the experiment. Did he get permission from an ethics board to run this experiment? I dunno, and I would certainly suspect the validity and adherence to whatever he did submit to them, but that doesn't mean he didn't have permission to run these experiments without the participants' consent.

As for NCSoft, I can see ToS conflicts throughout this. For example: why did he have to call out players by their names? Couldn't have have blocked out the names and/or replaced them with generic identifiers?

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For completeness on the STF:

Link to thread #1 the penultimate post mentions an in game discussion with a GM

Who gave the Cimerorans Coffee ? Thread which could be related to the issue. Mobs being 'active' when spawned. If the Repairmen are spwaning 'aware' there first heal will fire before they can be hit.

Players have bugged it in game, I personally haven't because why start a TF when you know there is a bug that stops you finishing it ?

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It is beatable...if you have bubbler that has Force Bubble. We could have actually attempted a MoSTF that run it went so smoothly (two deaths...both completely random). It was even tanked by an Ice Armor tank (the bubbles helped with that one too). I actually don't know if they managed to heal any of the towers...

But, yeah, it should be fixed. Force Bubble shouldn't be necessary for...anything really.

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It's not quite like that, it's just that Twixt's actions are generally viewed as dishonorable. You see, a more useful and interesting study would have been about these unwritten rules that players create and how they differ from game to game and culture to culture.

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This is probably the only thing I agree with in this entire post

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Here in the US and Europe, playing "honorably" is a big deal. We generally discourage the use of bugged or overpowered methods in favor of a more balanced playing field. We frown upon farming and exploiting. We like a good fight to be had by all, and we want to be able to respect the person we lost to.

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The only reason we favor a balanced system is because, if the bug/exploit is not to our advantage, we are at a disadvantage (shocking, I know). Simply put, we don't want to feel like we are at a disadvantage because of things that are out of our control. However, we would welcome with open arms advantages that allow us to 'skip steps' and would make things easier on us. Say a bug allows for a significant benefit to the Paladin class (just to avoid a CoH analogy). The Paladins aren't going to complain about it, though everyone else will. The only real exception to this is if the person knows the exploit/whatever is so far above the norm that they will be caught if they use it or that the 'fix' is near at hand (just because I'm aware of it, the current PvP Dom numbers come to mind). It's the reason why ToS agreements have disclaimers like 'don't use exploits or you might get punished' in them...because otherwise players would and there would be nothing the devs could say or do about until a fix comes.

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In games with a microtransaction system allowing you to purchase gear, this takes on further meaning. We generally feel that the best items should be earned by playing the game (IE- purchasable only with the in-game currency) rather than bought with real money. We feel that those who pay real money should not have an advantage over those who don't.

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That is debatable at best. There are a lot of proponents out there of the microtransaction system. Some people even prefer it to the Pay2Play systems like CoH. It's how the system impacts the game that matters...again, people who feel like they can get away with 'skipping steps' will do so without a second thought.

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Put simply: Chivalry is not dead, it's merely in online games.

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What Nethergoat said.

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Contrast this with other parts of the world. Asia's (China and Korea specifically, I don't know how Japan does it) view on the items discussed in the last paragraph differ wildly from ours. They generally have no qualms about giving the best stuff to those who paid the most real money. They also seem to have no objection to getting ahead in any way possible, being it through exploit, farm, or other methods we generally frown upon.

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You mention farm in you post...and I point you to the entire drama surrounding AE. CoH is largely based in North America and, to a lesser extent, Europe and Australia (I think?). There is also a small presence of legitimate Asian players, but no where near the number of NA, EU, and Australian players.

I wasn't playing when I14 was released...but I was following the threads and I must say...it was epic (and it was what kept me from getting too bored for about a week). Stating that Asians are the ones who prefer to participate in these kinds of activities while NA and EU players are chivalrous is not only wrong but edges into stereotype and possibly more.

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If you explore different parts of the world, you will find that each has its own unwritten rules. That's not to say there's a 100% conformity with them in their respective regions, but there is definitely a general consensus.

In games that span multiple regions, you can definitely see the differing systems of values clash with each other. It's very interesting.

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This is true...to an extent. Without much background in cross-cultural studies I can't say much about this. However, within these cultural rules there are also universal rules. There are very very few cultures out there that engage in incest for example, it's called the incest taboo (I would use a different example, but this always the one that sticks with me for some reason). I'm sure that it would be interesting and informative to see how hiding behind an avatar that masks gender/race/culture/etc could change these unwritten rules, but that isn't the issue at hand since he didn't account for this condition and assumed it didn't exist (since he never menitoned it in any context).

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*** You are ignoring this user ***

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Thank you for becoming my first ignored user! I felt...incomplete without it.



As for the paper...where to begin?

How about the...

Or maybe the part...

What about...

No, I just can't. Save for the fact that he played (as has been corroborated by other players) and that the basic Psychological correlation of 'piss someone off and they will be pissed off' exists (which is corroborated by common sense and probably a few actual studies ) I can't find him to be reliable at all. He even references his own work (which are some of his strongest citations)...when did that become okay?

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You have trouble crafting the Lost Cure wand?

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If I'm on a team there's a chance that one of the necessary salvage pieces will not drop. I've had it happen...three time now? Possibly more.

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List the bugs pls.

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How about the memory leak that popped up again with the pre-Double XP weekend patch (that nerfed the Reformed badge and brainstorms/crafting)? It doesn't hit everyone, but it's nailing me hard every time I play. Tonight my memory usage hit 1.44 gb of RAM.

And the mission selection bug.

The emote bugs also recently introduced (boombox, slap, etc).

There are so many, many, many bugs that BABs himself said it's not possible to track and create an accurate, up-to-date document of a known issues list for us.

linky

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It can't ever be the "Here are all of the bugs we know about" list because our bug tracking database literally has tens of thousands of 'known issues'. Some have been fixed, some aren't actually bugs, many are duplicates of bugs, etc. There's no reasonable way anyone could parse through our bug database and condense it into a list on a regular basis. Even updating it with a list of things that we know about and have already fixed is problematic and requires the people who fix things to manually tell someone to update the list. So the likeliehood of the known issues list ever being up to the minute and comprehensive is slim to none. It can certainly be more comprehensive and up to the date that it currently is, but it'll always be something that's managed ad hoc.

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Edited for format, to include BABs' quote, and remove snarky comment.

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Adding more to my list, in case you are unfamiliar with these known bugs/issues:

The chat bug where /tells and /help send broken portions of the name and nothing of the text. In tells the only way to respond is to type /r hitting backspace does not work. In help there is no way to know who send the message. This has been going on for months now.

Global chat connectivity. On most servers this is not a big problem most of the time, however on Virtue is a huge problem all of the time. Global channels reset, or become inoperative entirely for a time, and when they come back up they must be readded to chat tabs. This happens so much I have to readd them to my tabs several times an hour during peak times, and constantly during very busy times like double xp weekend. This has been going on so long I don't even remember when it started.

Mapservers. Disconnects. Crashes. Again, it's a lot worse on Virtue and has been going on so long I don't remember when it started, it has been several issues. It's not uncommon, when playing on Virtue, for an entire zone to crash, several times in a row. I've been there. It is very common, even in instanced missions, for the entire team to mapserver and freeze up, if you are unlucky you DC.

Zone in and freeze. When you zone into a mission or your base, you're frozen for several seconds.

These are the ones that really grate on my nerves the most. I'm sure others can add to the list.

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OH! OH! I know some of the answers to this one!

Not to mention the fact that global chat colors are still changing when I zone. I want to stop MTing because the colors aren't what I expect them to be.

Or the Montague Castonella train wreck of an arc. It was a nice try, but I still want to be able to drop the craft the Lost Cure wand mission...since that's the whole point of the mission drop feature.

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We really are a spoiled playerbase. It's either a sign of a good Dev team.. or of entitled players.

The idea that every decision made by the Devs has to please everyone is pure foolishness. Just as the idea that the Devs don't care is also pure foolishness.

The fact that a change to a game causes this much animosity is either amusing or troubeling.

In the end, the ONLY response that will really get the Devs attention is to cancle your subscription. If you're still paying them $15 a month while [censored] up a storm, why should they bother?

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Because in spite of all of the problems, it is still the best game I have ever played!

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Thinking the only response that should get the Devs' attention is the loss of a subscription is absolutely false. Not only is it incorrect to think that the devs should be thinking of the players individually it is the potential loss of a player that matters as well as the desire to bring back previous players and new players. In this way the developers care about introducing content that appeals to three audiences that all have varying degrees of interest. In the end they have to decide who they are most interested in developing for. Most people think that it is always the players who are already subscribed, and in many cases that’s true, but not always.

At the end of the day the basic job the devs have is to create content that will keep players entertained (and subbed) for as long as possible and interest potential players. It is the developers to decide what can and cannot be done, what should and should not be done, it's true. The only exception is when enough people are unhappy with the decision the developers have made. If a handful people decide that they don't like a feature, but the majority of the playerbase, potential or not, is either indifferent or for the changes then the devs don't have to listen to them regarding that one feature. If, however, a large number of players are against the feature, they have very realistic reasons for their dislike, and there is minimal positive interest in the feature, it is at this point that the devs should take a step back and reexamine their decision.

Everything in and around the game increases or decreases a player's interest in the game. Nothing is going to please everyone, that is also true, but any feature that might decrease a player's interest in the game ideally should have another feature that increases a player's interest. In this way the player continues with the game. ‘Ideally’ is almost impossible and the devs, past and present, have done a good job of balancing the features as best they can. Subs have gone down over time, but they always will (theoretically even WoW will begin its decent in player statistics).

When the devs, as I've heard it, not only make decisions that a large portion of the player base disagrees with or is indifferent to, but do so in a manner that is more tight lipped than usual, there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Some recent changes are being removed and some aren’t (as far as we know), but saying that the players shouldn’t say anything or have differences of opinion and argue/discuss is simply wrong.

It’s when these arguments become insulting or personal that the discussion has gone too far. So far (no, I don’t read it all) but so far I’ve seen heated debates and frustrations presented in the forums and there have been a few instances where people step over the line, but that’ll happen and then the Mods like Niv and Moderator8 will come in and break up the argument with warnings or lock the thread. My issue is when people are told to shut up because the discussion is ‘dumb’ or ‘ridiculous’ in their eyes. That just breaks the system and is neither helpful or constructive. We play the game to have fun and we each have our own opinions of what 'fun' is. We want the developers to agree with our opinions and present reasons for said opinions in the best way we can. Others will agree and disagree as they like, that's the way of the world. It keeps the game moving forward and keeps the people entertained and allows the developers to keep doing what they love for the people who they, theoretically, at least like a little bit.

…wow that became a lot longer than I had thought it would… /rant?

A further confirmation that day job icons seemingly appear out of no where. I had 12 stacked and two extra at one point while I was no where near a day job site, but I couldn't click fast enough to see what they were. I DID notice that even though my team of four villains on Sharkhead were scattered all over the map we would all receive the same number of day job icons next to our names, so it seems to be a 'zone event' sort of bug.

Additionally the Inf Bonus for mission completes since I believe inf is doubled during this time period as well.

Edit: the Prestige bonus for mission completes as well...forgot about that one.

Objective: There were no hints towards the Coming Storm in the new Cimerora arcs (the arcs that included time-travel).

Additionally, at no point did two of the major magical enemy groups (CoT and BP) make an appearance. The Tsoo only had a minimal presence which makes The Warriors the only magically 'inclined' group to drive the plot (hero side).

Subjective: While there was nothing that said there HAD to be clues in these arcs it feels like it was a wasted opportunity to further hint at the Coming Storm, especially since I'm not seeing any further time travel in I14 (and so no further opportunities for hints).

The new Cimerora arcs didn't really seem to make Cimerora any more interesting. Sister Airlia's second arc was the only one that made the area seem three dimensional. Though, I did like the way Daedalus' and Sister Airlia's first arcs intertwined.

Though I did like how her speech pattern changed ever so slightly depending on if she was talking to a hero or villain Mercedes Sheldon's arcs failed to forward any of the Midnight Club 'lore.' Heck, there are already two established members of the Midnight Club that have an interesting background: Kadabra Kill and Sigil. It seems like this magically focused group is more concerned with non-magical groups. While, in reality, all of Sheldon's arcs were because of magical artifacts (is Azuria's inability to keep track of anything catching?) that the villain groups involved have consistently been non-magical (including I12's arcs) makes it seem like we're just as much 'a part of' the Midnight club as we are 'a part of' Ouroboros.

The Carnival was a perfect choice villain side and I think that that one was the most enjoyable arc for me (continuity issues aside ).

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After doing several arcs on my brute today & getting my 3 merits for each i have reached a conclusion. The Dev's are nuts. Assume i did 67 arcs, which is what it would take to get 1 high end reciepe at 200 merits. I think its absolutly absurd.

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Previously, doing arcs would have gotten you ZERO pool C and pool D recipes. Now, after getting 20 merits, you can get a random roll. You are getting something where you previously got NOTHING.

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That isn't exactly true, many arcs ended with the choice of a DO or SO enhancement. If he's getting 3 merits per arc then the amount of return he is getting per story arc has decrease by more than 50% (SOs are 8).

Though, of course, some arcs give significantly more...

(QR)

Objective: Since I13 went live (and speed TFs extended to TFs other than Katie) I've done an ITF in 41 minutes and 44 minutes...and those were slow runs apparently.

The system of rewarding merits-per-time ignores the difficulty of TFs. The LRSF rewards the player with the same amount of merits as Moonfire's, Manticore, Imperious, etc. all of which are significantly easier TFs imo.

Subjective: While I personally have no problems running speed TFs and such, I wish there was a way to encourage players to actually play the TFs rather than Farm them. (Easier said than done, I understand).

My 'main,' Bret, is by far not an 'optimal' character while D-Mint is. To that extent it's already more difficult to get teams to desire Bret over D-Mint, but I was always able to convince people that Bret would be an asset to the team. Since I13 I've actually been told flat out that I was not wanted if I was bringing Bret. Something that was unheard of before I12.

I find myself desiring D-Mint over Bret because she is more likely to get Merits. Additionally, because they are non-transferable I have to ask myself: why would I play Bret when that LoTG would come faster if I play D-Mint all the time?

I wonder what other pre-I13 statistics could be looked at to figure out how difficult a given TF is. For example, the number of failed attempts or actual runs. The mission types could also be a factor. TFs with a bunch of defeat alls will make it harder to cut corners.

It feels like Merits are being used as a treat being waved in front of my nose to entice me to play TFs that I don't like. I've played all the hero side TFs and Trials except Dr. Q, Sara Moore, and half of Justin Augustine (I was doing homework ). That said, there are some TFs that I like, some that I don't, and some that I'll only run with friends. I realize that, on some level, DR is necessary to protect against farming. As it stands though, it feels (to me) more like you're trying to get us to play the content that's gathering cobwebs rather than the content we want to play. This, of course, doesn't address the reason why we didn't' want to play the content in the first place.

I just did this (and had the same problem). I don't know if this is what fixed it or not, but the time it worked I found a glowie and typed in /sync. Additionally I waited a bit before clicking any of the glowies (I was on my ill/FF so stealthing glowies is really easy). Again, I don't know if that's what fixed it but you might try it the next time to see if it does anything for you.

Server: Triumph
Zone: Talos Island
Character name: Double Mint
Time: (sorry, wasn't paying attention)
Location: Talos WW
Mission: n/a
Mission Contact: n/a
Bug Description: Was using the WW as usual when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a trunk collide with a fellow hero. I turn around to find a Tuatha de Dannon boss inside the WW attacking said character (I assumed it was an ambush). The police drones were taking care of his friends, but the auto-kill surrounding the WW didn't seem to be kicking in and taking this one out (I and a third hero took care of him). It's the only time I've seen this.

Edit: I'm not actually sure if this is what to OP wants, but I thought I'd put it here on the off chance that something accidentally got changed when Day Jobs were introduced.

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While I be not able to git prizes an' booty an' such, I still wan' t'be sharin' in th' spirit of the day. So's, just fer you scallywags and scoundrels, here be me portrait fer yer amusement!

Click me!

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It's seem Castle's found himself a wench. I wonder if States knows Miss Liberty has skipped out on her trainer duties to be with Castle the scoundrel.

Furthermore, I've got to wonder if she went willingly.

Yay! New people!

Are you interested in working on game lore that will appear outside the game proper? I'm thinking of something along the lines of the Paragon Times on the CoH website.

If there was one thing that you could take from a previous experience (PnP, MMO, etc) and implement into the game what would it be?

Will you be working on helping Hero1 develop the game's story (things like the coming storm) or will you be working on stuff that is 'separate' from his work that will concentrate on different level ranges or parts of the game?

Will you be investing time in updating current content (I'm thinking Angus McQueen specifically but I'm sure there's other contacts that could use an update...or five )