Days_

to be fair, they call quavers eighth notes which is very silly if you ask me as they are an eighth of a half of a half but I shall quieten the music geek in me for a moment.

I am fortunately still @Days but my second account has to be renamed.

I wish my marriage was like a levelling pact... it would give me another 17 years before I hit my 40th birthday!

The reason for not just having shards is that some people have amassed a vast stock of shards (I haven't been trying and I have almost 200 on one character) so if shards were to be used for these next tiers then the cost would either be staggering (putting more casual players off) or people would immediately be able to 'complete' these new slots (putting the hoarders off as they have done it all already).

It would have been better (and probably more consistent) to have only one form of shard/thread but because of the staggered implementation there has to be two (and I wouldn't be surprised if a third came along for the next block of slots made available to us)

I agree totally. I was not saying that your belief was wrong, I was mis-attributing to you a quote from the original post which I had quoted. It was my mistake which I freely admit to.

With the CEO example I would respect the CEO. However I would not respect him more than I would respect any other person just because of his job. Depending on the CEO's actions he may gain greater respect but then so may the random other unnamed person with whom I have made a comparison.

It does seem to be two slightly different definitions of respect. Where my stance comes from is looking at the negative connotations of the phrase 'having no respect for'. To me, someone who has no respect whatsoever must have done something terribly unpleasant to deserve such a status rather than a person who I have yet to encounter.

And yes, respect is more than just being polite but being polite to someone is a sign of respect.

What about a Freespec?

And yet with your statement (you'r belief is wrong) you do expect to be respected. If you, and therefore your opinion, is not to be respected until such a time as you have proven yourself worthy or respect then what is the point of voicing an opinion?

I think the conflict here may just be a different idea of what 'respect' entails. For me being courteous and polite is a part of being respectful and, from what you say, you are respectful when interacting with strangers. What differs is possibly the level of respect. If someone has done something that raises them in your eyes you gain more respect for them and that is good. What I argue is that if you say all respect has to be earned then, until that respect is earned, you have no respect for a person. And, as a corollary you expect no respect from anybody until you have proven yourselves to them.

I don't think that respect is either fully there or non-existent but nor can I quantify a sliding scale of respect. What I do think is that a certain level of respect should automatically be shared rather than the very arrogant sounding argument of 'you must earn my respect'.

A semantic argument, yes, but it is important to me.

I know this is totally at a tangent, but I am not convinced that this particular belief is so wrong. I used to be of the opinion that respect had to be earned until someone pointed out something very simple.

The idea that your respect is so valuable that other people have to earn it suggests two things. One; that you think a great deal of yourself and Two; that other people should respect you instantly in order to want to gain your respect.

In my opinion respect should be a given. Yes, it is very easily lost and very hard to win back but to think less of someone because they haven't yet proven something to you seems rather... disrespectful?

What about the future possibility of cross server teaming? We get to stay on our own 'home' server yet have the opportunity of teaming with a far greater number of people for a specific task.

No I don't know how it would work and I would presume that you still have some control over who you would team with but if cross-server teaming came into place then the chances of not finding a team for a specific task would be far smaller after a server-list merge.

I never knew you were posh, Damz! Only posh people can use random words to mean intoxicated e.g. trousered, gazeboed, artichoked and (apparently) carparked...

Nah, Cricket is easy to explain. It goes like this;

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

Simples

I am almost inspired to create a new character; Good Kin Wenceslas...