Caleb_Nokama

I hopped on Test today to roll a quick-and-dirty fire/rad corr, for future I16 testing, seemed to be running fine. Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

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Too many rules takes the fun out of the event JK. Which defeats the purpose of it also.

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Too lax as well takes the fun out of it.

Point here is to have a STRUCTURE. This is the first inception of this. Of course rules will be in place that will seem restrictive. We don't have the same resources Freedom does.

Like seriously....there aren't that many rules. It's simple. Nothing TOO complicated.

1. make a team
2. one member can't make it, reschedule or grab someone from a sub pool.

See? Simple.

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Kwervo,

I don't understand what're doing, you're supposed to try and make things difficult. Distancing the community and making things hard is what this game is all about!

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He isn't telling you about the stipulation that players must wear a rabid badger tied to their heads during matches.

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I'm teamed with Caleb and someone else that Caleb found. You'd have to ask them >.>

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Gah, sorry about that WW! I nodded off and didn't notice the time, meant to post this before I passed out lol.

Right, team name has not yet been decided, but is currently comprised of:

<ul type="square">[*]@Caleb Nokama[*]@Weatherwoman[*]@Moldylunchboxx[/list]
Will update with name once it is decided.

I'll sign up if there's a team opening, or if anyone cares to join mine, with the clear understanding that:

<ul type="square">[*]I play extremely aggressively, regardless of AT [*]I take team organization VERY seriously in competitions [/list]

Sure, what the hell. Just pm me somewhere when you plan on starting, got a few toons that could probably hold in there.

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A player commented "Couldn't solo on Invincable with my Defender, People like you are ruining MA. 1 Star."

in the description there's a warning stating that this is a Team Story arch, with multiple AV's at higher difficulties...

My fault for assuming people can read...

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That is just pure gold. I lol'd irl at that, trying to see some guy, red-faced and smashing his keyboard with his palms, screaming barely coherent gibberish about how the MA (and game, and players, etc) are broken/out to get him/wrong/etc.

Only thing I could think to respond to that would be "...wait...are you ****ing SERIOUS?"

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One positive? In I15, DC arcs will let you pick between normal drops and ticket drops. I know I for one prefer ticket drops; I'm in an SG with five-year vets sitting on vast piles of inf, and we rarely really IO the hell out, so we have low operating costs for our alts. Being able to snag exactly the items I want instead of money+shopping is terrific.

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Ah, I had misread the "Selectable rewards" part to mean that DC authors would have a selectable reward of some sort for having their arc tagged as such. That's...disappointing. More incentive for the runners of the arcs I suppose, but not really any for the writers. It's funny, I was beginning to think that there would be a silver lining to all this negative flak business in the form of said reward, figuring that I'd maybe get a silly custom pet or something along those lines.

To the question about DC arcs getting feedback/ratings; True, feedback doesn't really help us in the sense that we cannot do much about an arc that's broken, or seems short in some places, but the ratings provide a steady (if small) trickle of tickets to the writers of the arcs. For me, it's been the one saving grace of the whole debacle.

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- I don't know how to make bullet points in HTML, so I use hyphens. ...this isn't a direct corollary to the end per se, but it IS important, because it is

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<ul type="square">[*]It's a good thing these forums don't USE HTML.[/list]

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My point EXACTLY. If I don't know how to make HTML bullet points...and they don't USE HTML bullet points...how am I supposed to make bullet points?! Although now, thanks to my surreptious use of quotes, I know your dirty secret! The day is mine!

DOOOOOM!

Highly incompetent reader, I have for you the answers to the End-Times, or DOOOOOM™, as it's more commonly known. Now, I suppose it could be said that I will be shedding the light of wisdom and perfection on you because I am a generous, kind person. The truth of the matter is, I hate you. I hate you a lot. Because I hate you, I will show you the signs of the end, because it will make you angry, and lament! To summarize, the end is coming for the following reasons:

- A piece of Numina's Convalescence dropped for me yesterday, the Regen/Recovery piece no less. This never happens, and is a major sign of the end

- New stuff is coming out for this game faster than I can blink. Newness? Innovation?! CARING ABOUT THE PLAYERBASE?!? Heresy this is, a direct violation of the trust between Tyrant (dev) and oppressed civilians (you)! The minute they put away the lash and picked up an iota of compassion for the players was a sure sign if ever there was one

- I don't know how to make bullet points in HTML, so I use hyphens. ...this isn't a direct corollary to the end per se, but it IS important, because it is

Now, I mentioned in a previous installment a list of demands for the devs to meet (in 20 seconds, if you recall), which they did not. Since then, I have made good on my threat, and have been playing 14+ hours a day. You see, they are beginning to buckle under the pressure! My increased playtime adds stress to the servers see, building up like a weight on the spine. Soon, my home server of Pinnacle will crash, and everyone there will be forced to play on Freedom! Oh, the humanity!

Since we're on the topic of servers (and you are unable to change this topic, because you are not me), I'd like to mention in passing a minor...flaw in my home server, something I've noticed for years, but never got around to bring up. ...or doing anything about. You see, in all the time I've been on Pinnacle, I've seen over time a steady increase of happy, well-adjusted players. This is a problem! It is a problem, because for every single normal, well-spoken decent person that comes to Pinnacle, the number of people who can be made fun of for rampant misuse of the English language, ATs or any other number of things diminishes significantly. This is unacceptable! Who am I supposed to make fun of?! A crisis, to be sure.

In a week or so, I will be hosting an event for you, the unwashed masses, to boost your spirits and strengthen your resolve! At that time, I will expect the throngs of ignorant pleebs to show immense interest and intent to participate. Failure to participate will result in numerous empty threats and meaningless insults, most of which will make little to no sense. Keep an eye out, or you may miss:

THE GREATEST....okay, not quite greatest...

THE ALMOST GREAT...no...

THE MARGINALLY TOLERABLE EVENT OF THE YEAR!

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As each of these blathering walls of text comes into existence, I feel the need to remind newcomers that it is satire. I do this because I am a &lt;censored&gt; who has little faith in people, or their reading comprehension. Being that it is satire, it should be regarded, at best, as complete nonsense and falsehood. The author has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is likely insane, with little regard for the impact of his writing on others. You may flame the author incessantly. You may participate in any discussions that result from the aforementioned flaming. Flaming is a good way to start a barbeque, particularly if you use mesquite. Mesquite is not a "trash" tree, they are beautiful in the summer, and make great grilling wood. Grilling while reading this thread is not advised, as injury may result. Anything grilled while reading this thread becomes the exclusive property of the thread's author, and must be mailed to him, preferably in a ziplock baggie, to preserve freshness.

So begins another week, enjoy your game!

&lt;qr&gt;

Have her restart the Steam client. Most of the time, that fixes the "unavailable" issue, but if for some reason it doesn't, she should be contacting Steam customer support, as not many here will know what to do about that.

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It's a difficult enough subject to discuss with straight talk in the context of the forum. Adding a layer of satire, obfuscation or false modesty would seem to me to have an effect opposite of promoting "healthy discussion".

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and

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"The healthy exchange of ideas" necessarily includes ones that you may disagree with. If it's just praise you want, not discussion...

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Absolutely correct. I made the mistake of interjecting satire to soften the somewhat serious nature of the thread, which was probably a mistake. In retrospect, I regret that.

To disagreement; well, yes. Although, as I've mentioned before here, there is a distinct difference between disagreement or discourse (say, criticism of an arc or a thread's topic), and unfounded hostility (PMs containing profanity and insults with no inherent point other than to offend, etc). The former I have no problem with, and gladly encourage. The latter is, unfortunately, a truth of the internet as a whole. People say what they want to say here with no regard to their target audience, because there are no discernable repercussions for doing so.

I do not want praise for my work. What I want is for people to at least pretend to be civil. See, I'm schizophrenic. Among the many problems I struggle with in that is unusually high levels of aggression, and the occasional inability to discern certain things, which can obviously cause issues. Still, I work very,very hard to be civil both here on the forums, and in-game. It's something I struggle with in everything I write and do. From where I sit, many take the ability to be civil for granted, trading a little bit of courtesy with scathing derision for no apparent reason but that they can. I've never understood this about people, and it's a little frustrating.

At any rate, I've probably done enough damage here. I say sincerely that I am sorry for dragging this topic up from the depths, and whatever follows I probably deserve.

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I think you are being a bit over the top with the whole 'no one likes my arc!' I mean, you got Dev Choiced! Someone obviously liked it! How many plays has it had? What is its star rating after all those plays?

I bet its more than most of us have.

As for meeting and interacting with more people, well thats gonna be hard to do if you are on global hide all the time! Could that have something to do with the not getting feedback? Have you bugged that you are not getting any?

Don't mean to sound harsh but come on!

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Bugged it, yes, weeks ago. Global hide is to cut down on the PM trolling and such, got tired of that. Got sick and [censored] tired of people sending hate mails and tells for reasons far beyond my comprehension, unprovoked, got tired of all the "omfg you dont deserve that badge/rating/whatever" messages. Maybe I'm not making myself clear as to whether or not I give a rat's [censored] whether people like the arc itself or not.

I don't give a rat's [censored] whether people like the arc or not.

I saw an opportunity for healthy exchange of ideas which has fallen grossly short of my hopes for the system, nothing more. I don't want a confrontation with other players, here or in-game. I hoped I could get some feedback on something that had been bothering me, and in some of the responses I have.

That being said, I'm sorry I've intruded on the forums to voice a concern, I shall quietly remove myself from this discussion, and trouble you no further.

MrCaptainMan:

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I've given feedback to 'unknowns' plenty of times and had 'cheers v much! You have an arc I could play?' as a response. As far as I'm aware, none of the DC authors who I've sent feedback to have played my arc.

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This has been something of a point of contention for me, as I cannot (due to some as-yet-unexplained bug) get feedback on the arc. I'd have gladly looked into others' stories via their globals with this method, but at the present, I have absolutely zero way of knowing who, if anyone, has sent anything at all. Not much can be done about that, I suppose.

Also,

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Man, no offense, but remind me not to ever ask you for the time... you'd probably respond with detailed instructions on how to make a clock.

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The flavor of the post (as I was writing it, anyway) was half-satirical in nature. This wasn't a rant as much as a random musing, and though I realize it's difficult to convey things like sarcasm in text, it wasn't meant to be some kind of hyper-analysis of anything, just a block of nonsense. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone responded to any of this. I wouldn't have. ^_^

As an aside; even more than critique, positive or otherwise on the arc that I made (something that folks continue to avoid...), what I'd hoped would result from this was exchanges of ideas and stories. I read what MCM said, and it makes me think "Hey, I would've loved to see this guy's work, offer my thoughts on it, etc". I've always been an unknown in this game, with no established running mates or friends to speak of. I'll get the occasional teams, chats and all that good stuff, but there's not really anyone here I'd say I interact with on a regular basis. I saw in the MA an opportunity to have a common ground with other players, a chance to do the proverbial "Hey, I'll run your arc, check out Arc ID xxx in the meantime, see what you think!" routine, which is quite common nowadays. I was disappointed and a little disheartened to have instead my list of interactable people shrink exponentially, as more and more people became alarmingly hostile, to the point where I'm not exactly comfortable coming off of global hide anymore. See, that's the thing.

It's quite obvious to me that no one liked the arc I made, and I am not at all bothered by that. Truly, I'm not. This is discerned from a pointed lack of feedback of any kind, and a sort of dodging anytime it's brought up anywhere, which is read to mean "Your arc was [censored], but I'm a nice enough guy not to say that right to your face." The problem I have with this isn't others' views on the arc itself, but rather that it seems to shut the door on creative interplay, exchange of stories and ideas, and the opportunity to meet some new people in the game who share, even if only somewhat, a common interest in the MA.

I don't know how many people are aware of the fact that I cannot receive MA feedback on that arc, or how many give a [censored] about it. Maybe they HAVE been sending feedback, and think I'm some sort of jaded pleeb for not responding, or running their stories and offering feedback as well. It's a shame, it really is. Id've liked that opportunity.

In short, it's nice to see that people are enjoying the MA...I think...but I am a little down on how little it's opened the door for me to others as an avenue of mutual interest, rather slamming that door.

Regardless, thanks to everyone to took the time to respond to this rather off-putting thread. I may not agree with everything written, but I appreciate that you stopped to give me your views on things, it was actually very enlightening.

Hi there!

I'm Caleb Nokama, although most of you know me as "...wait...who the &lt;censored&gt; is THIS &lt;censored&gt;, and why is he posting &lt;censored&gt;?" As one writer among many others who enjoys writing SFMA content, I've noticed something that keeps coming up in various boards that's led me into something of a conundrum, and I'm looking for some outside observations on the matter. Since you're reading this, I figure you'll do, so here it goes.

There have been numerous posts and threads asking if anyone is doing story-driven content (also commonly tagged as SFMA), and and an equally large number of folks claiming that every single story they've come across (farms and such notwithstanding) has been, at best, comparable to the fetid waste product of something recently deceased, which, upon expulsion, proceeded to rip one in a very disturbing manner. On the same token, I haven't seen many threads or posts which praise stories found by folks. This isn't to say they don't exist, but it certainly seems they are grossly outnumbered. Now, as it's quite evident that stories do exist within the MA, I can't help but take "does anyone actually write stories" to mean "everything everyone has written so far is &lt;abrasive expletive of choice&gt;, can anyone actually WRITE here?!". This is likely an incorrect assumption on my part, but such is my flawed view on things.

One thing I know any writer likes is having their work appreciated. It's like anything we do really, it's just nice to think that others like something we feel we do well as much as we do, regardless of what it might be. Now, there are many incredible writers amongst us, all far better than I. My grasp of elaborate prose and eloquent expression is more akin to assailing one's own nether regions with a blunt object than anything approaching the literary, and even I like to think that someone, somewhere out there, thinks something I've written is passably enjoyable. ...at least, to the point of not causing them actual, physical pain from experiencing. I think it's safe to say then that the aforementioned writers (better than I, if you recall) should be lavished with praise and adoration for pouring their love and creativity into something for others to enjoy.

The only story I've written so far is a somewhat skewed bit of flotsam, ID 1002, "Falling Though the Void". It is (from my best recollection) one of 17 or so Dev's Choice stories up in the MA at present. I don't bring this up in the hopes that others will run the story (I really wish you wouldn't, actually...it's horrible), but because it goes in line with what started this barely tolerable wall of text in the first place: does anyone out there actually LIKE any of the DC arcs?

I ask not because I think they deserve praise, or because I think I am entitled to anything more than a badge. Rather, I ask because it seems as though any time a DC arc specifically is brought up somewhere, either here on the boards or in-game, all I ever hear about is how terrible they all are, how a retarded chimpanzee could fling fecal matter at a tarp with better end results, and so on. While I've yet to be assailed directly with these soiled bits of color commentary, I can't help but wonder if any of the other DC authors have. I can't help but wonder if people who are looking for SFMAs ran any or all of these, and thought to themselves "Well, if THIS is the so-called cream of the crop, this whole MA thing is &lt;indelicate reference to carnal activities, forceful and unpleasant&gt;."

I'm not going to lie, it would have been nice to have been approached by even one person, any single person, and be told they enjoyed my story. No one has, of course, and I do hear no-so-subtle rumblings all the time about how...well, "not spectacular" it is. As I've not spoken with any of the other DC writers, I can't say how their experience with this parallels with mine, if at all, so I won't comment on that. Being said though, I use the DC arcs as the example because they're clearly well known, and even being known as they are, seem to generate more animosity than encouragement. For the many writers trying to achieve Hall of Fame or Dev's Choice themselves, are they encouraged and praised for their literary work, and if so, would they still be if they achieved their goal of HoF/DC? Or would they end up in this same ambiguous grey zone I seem to have found myself in?

No doubt you're quite confused, and likely a bit upset at this point. This is arrogant and assumptive on my part, but that's because I'm a bad person with poor judgment and questionable character. This has been a sea of letters and barely coherent babble, and there are better things to spend one's time on. Truth be told, I'm not sure what I'm getting at here, and am quite a bit confused myself. I should add though that I am not angry at anyone, nor upset about anything in particular. I suppose I just felt this needed to be written, and what, if anything comes of it, will do so regardless of my intentions (or lack thereof).

On a parting note, I'd like to say that there have been numerous stories written in the MA that I've loved to run and read through (far too many to list here), and look forward to running and reading through many more. There have been so many genres, themes, characters and canons that it's almost impossible to pick a favorite. For what it's worth, I think everyone writes a good story, as everyone writes what they love. Every single author I've talked to adores their story, and with good reason, it's their own creation, something built from their interests and passions. Sometimes, it's interesting to step outside one's self (or character, for avid RPers) and see the world through another perspective, in the form of created content.

Right, endless rant/wall/thing is over, nothing left to see here. Enjoy your &lt;insert day of week here&gt;, and see you in-game!

PS. plz dont gank meh in RV anymoar, kthx.

Chicken pancakes. Eat them. They are packed full of vitamins, and good for you.

While I'm on that topic, I'd just like to say that penguins are evil, and must be destroyed.

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It's not an exaggeration. It's just 1 example of how people may react to MA. That's all, you can read in to it all you want.

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It's no different than saying "Oh, you're at the tailor/market/SG Base/already in a full team? I'm leaving to play something else." Sure, it's feasible that a few people may have such a ridiculous reaction to the MA, but let's face it,

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I'm gonna log and play a game where there's actually people playing.

Eventually, something will go wrong with the MA...

BTW - I find it funny that, while we get to create our own missions, it doesn't belong to us. Remember to re-read your ToS. (yea, no kidding. No different than when you make a product for a company you work for...)

Could the MA be the last big disappointment

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There's not much to read into, you've spelled it out for me. DOOOOOOOOOOM!

EDIT- "DOOOOOM" didn't have enough 'o's, issue corrected with the addition of 5 extra 'o's to emphasize said calamity.