CassandraCorte

I just received word that my character Uncle Sam was genericized. Guy I ran into in the game last night got pissed, swore he'd report me, and apparently he did.

So I get the note this morning that my character is a violation of trademark.

Problem: UNCLE SAM IS A PUBLIC DOMAIN CHARACTER. He's been around for nearly 200 years and is not owned by anyone. ANYONE.

So on what basis was I genericized, and how do I reverse it?

I've got Bill O' Rights and Sybill Liberties, both of which are cool. But the coolest name I have is Criminal Master-Mime.

You guys feel free to cry. We won't think less of you.

This entire thread should be a huge honking clue to the Devs that there is something seriously wrong going on.

It is, after all, a solution many people (myself included) have proposed separately.

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It has just come to my attention that any discussion that touches on farming is FORBIDDEN in this forum.

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No, it's not forbidden, it's just that the discussion (like any other discussion here) needs to be restricted to a few threads rather than a gazillion threads.

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Yeah? Which ones? Which ones are the "good threads" that won't have somebody come in at random and shut down?

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Solve the problem in a few easy steps:

1: Create a character.
2: Use search to find people who are not looking to farm.
3: Team with these people and add them to your friends list.
4: Find an active SG that is not focused on farming, or start one yourself.
5: Play the game the way you want.


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Were it so easy...

The number of people who want to do things other than farm has diminished, and I expect will continue to diminish until such time as the dev's take direct action against AE farming.

SGs, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen, and generally worth as much. Its been a long while since I saw an SG with more than three active members, and I've yet to see one that didn't go for farming.

Granted, I'm not everywhere... but your post implies an ease of practice that simply no longer exists.

The mission, mentioned below in my sig, written by my seven year old, is for levels 1 through 10.

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'Not at all. I just can't come up with a solution for you, Doc. Sorry about that. I'd like to get the farmers out of sight, because out of sight equals, well, you know. I can't make everyone happy, so I try to make most people happy. '

You propose a 'solution' to YOUR problem and then say _I_ just have to deal with it.

Maybe your solution isn't a good one?

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Maybe it isn't. I'm trying to solve my problem, not everyone's. My proposal is what I think will help the maximum number of people. I can't help everyone, so somewhere, somehow, someone will lose out. I'm sorry that in this case its you, but nothing personal was meant by it.

Not at all. I just can't come up with a solution for you, Doc. Sorry about that. I'd like to get the farmers out of sight, because out of sight equals, well, you know. I can't make everyone happy, so I try to make most people happy.

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There's one problem I see with this. If the AE is consolidated down to one zone, then there will be no quiet AE buildings for me to just work on my stories and solo-test them. I like being able to go to a less-populated zone and work without too many distractions. This would be impossible if all AE doors led to the same zone. It would also further defeat the purpose of having any other sort of zone-teleporting power, unless they make it function like the SG base entrance where it spits you back out only in the zone that you can from. Although, to do that, I think they might have to set the AE up to be a different kind of zone, similar to missions/bases; I don't know though, maybe it could work.

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I'll give you the same suggestion a pro-farmer gave me: move to a less populated server. I know, I know, you've likely played on the same server for five years now, and all your characters are on your home server, but its only fair that, since you're the one with the complaint, that you're the one who has to move.

<That was meant ironically and tongue in cheek>

No, I'm assuming that the majority of people playing AE are farmers. There is a difference in the two points.

As for your problem, I have no solution. If you want to use AE, you have to put up with the problems caused by the AE farmer.

Why do you monkeys think I was quoting wikipedia?

Many of the complaints against the overwhelming presence of MA farmers would be ameliorated by one action: make the AE center its own zone, along the same lines as Pocket D.

You click on the AE door, and you are taken to another zone entirely.

That ends the lag problem in AP, it ends the farmspam problem that drowns out attempts to put together mission teams, and it allows the farmers to congregate with people of like mind (and gets them out of the sightline of people who really, really dislike the farmers... happiness all around).

Put a trainer in, and there's no reason for a farmer to ever poke his nose out of AE, and he can farm to his little heart's content without once giving an anti-farmer heartburn. Again, happiness all around.

If that's the best you monkeys can come up with, you're boring the hell out of me.

All you've done is convinced me that a) I'm more mature than you are and b) I'm a damned sight smarter than you are.

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The humor boggles the mind. That anyone could consider disagreement and pointing out the obvious flaws in a position, especially when that position is little more than "I don't like it make them stop" as tossing feces.

Now here is some feces that has been tossed

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Despite what the Farmheads keep saying

all the farking farms

To all you hairballs

because you jerks are ruining the server

"just a game" isn't a reason to piss all over other people.

childish buttheads

governed by go-fever and treasure-lust.


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Tu quoque ad hominem: Otherwise known as the "you too" fallacy, a Tu quoque ad hominem is committed when it is concluded that a person's claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions. This type of "argument" has the following form:


1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
3. Therefore X is false.


The fact that a person makes inconsistent claims does not make any particular claim he makes false. Also, the fact that a person's claims are not consistent with his actions might indicate that the person is a hypocrite but this does not prove his claims are false.

Do a google search for the phrase "Xanatos Gambit", then sit back and take notes.

One of the better "succeed while failing" bits I've seen in an AE mission was one where the heroes had a long, mission-to-mission running chase with the mad scientist in question. The final mission was set up to be an ultimate showdown, where the heroes destroyed his superweapons and fought his robot minions... only to find out that in the end the villain was dead already due to radiation poisoning caused by his ultimate weapon.

So they 'failed" to stop the mad scientist, but because they destroyed his megaweapon, they succeeded.

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I found the best formula is to make it for yourself.

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Seeing how its very likely that you, yourself, are going to be one of the few people to play your own missions, this is very good advice.

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Amusingly, people are increasingly trying to dress up their Meow farms in story trappings. I wonder if anyone reads a word of it.

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Of course they don't. The entire point of dressing up your meowfarm in a story is to try to avoid the axe that everyone... EVERYONE... knows is coming by futilely pointing to your own meowfarm and saying "See? Mine has a story! Means its not just a farm!"

Of course, this is fooling no one...

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Probably because you can't discuss culture decline without discussing reasoning behind it. That always leads to a discussion about powergaming and farming. This in turn leads to people defending their chosen method of game play.

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By "defending their chosen method of game play", you mean "igoring the discussion in favor of just tossing insults at people who don't think farming is necessarily a good thing", right? Because I've yet to see a one of you actually engage in defending anything. Tossing fecal material at people you disagree with does not consitute "defending your opinion".

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I made a farming mission with a good story.

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I'm not convinced that such a thing is possible, sorry.

Story, every time, all the time. Farming is boring, and the only reason for farming, when you boil it all down, is laziness and impatience.