Decorum

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- The existence of so many "Meow-50s" is really bothersome at higher levels as experienced teams must either tutor these inexperienced players, or the inexperienced players can make the difficult, higher level game content even more difficult by making "newbie" mistkes.

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I find I care less about the existence of these farms and spend more and more time having bizarre fantasies about slowly choking the life from the person who came up with such an irritatingly stupid name.

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Best reason:

I have 12,542 arcs I could make. Seriously. They wouldn't be any good, but I could do it.

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I hear ya. I'm an altaholic. If I could publish stuff featuring all the stories in my head (good, bad and terribly ugly) just featuring them, I'd do it. And that wouldn't be good for anyone.

I do hope for either a slot or two upgrade or purchasable slots, though.

I will give Hero Therapy! (TM) a try, but it may take a couple of days to get to. Feel free o wait to do mine until I post a review, if you like.

One man's "spite" is another man's "illustration".

And just for the record, going off on a Mary Sue rant isn't "writing a guide". It WAS however, quite amusing.

Ai c wut u did ther.

Trying to keep your four digit number is like paying attention to your post count on the boards. It's ultimately meaningless.

Ooo, you're at 1400! Which means...nothing at all, really.

I'm sure it's your bosses.

"FASTER! FASTER! I DON'T CARE IF THE CODE LOOKS LIKE IT WAS WRITTEN BY A DYSLEXIC HYPERACTIVE FOUR YEAR OLD!"

**whip cracking noises**

Keep your fingers crossed for I15. Many search changes a-comin'!

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The thing is, sometimes I make pretty big changes in one session and in the end of a session, I may find I simply want to rollback all the changes I've made. With the CVS I've put in place, all I need is to simply right-click the .storyarc file and select "Revert Modifications". Another feature that the CVS allows for, is line-by-line comparison between versions of the file. Not many will need that, but as a Software Developer myself, I've grown used to it.

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Cain't walk wit'out yer crutch, eh?

I'm just kidding! Put down the whacking stick!

I think a lot of the "legality" would come down to "intent". As far as I can see, I personally don't think you're so much subverting the system as getting creative with it. I would hazard a guess that the authorities wouldn't have a problem with it.

And I personally think the idea is really cool. Like you say, just a lot of work coming up with good stories.

I have a total of 43 plays on my arc in about two weeks. I think I've done pretty well. Of course, I didn't just throw it out there and assume everyone would rush to it, either.

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The problem being, those of us who *don't* like AE farming are paying our $15 a month and are having our fun impacted by you having yours.

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Myself, I'm no farmer. I find it boring. But I don't see farmers impacting your game, at least not any more than a million other things are, which goes along with playing a game with thousands of other people. I see you LETTING farmers impact your game. Farmer spam in broadcast is annoying, but only if you pay attention to it. Many and varied ways to form teams other than just yelling in broadcast (actually, the LEAST efficient way of forming teams). Exploits are being taken out, then fixed and put back. Lag? That's not just farmers. That's everyone in the MA, farmers or story runners.

What are farmers doing to you again?

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I'm a bit curious as to why people are considering cut-and-paste such a monumental hurdle.

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I can't describe it well, but it tends to drop itself not exactly where I had the cursor, but say five spaces over in the middle of a word. It also sometimes comes up with some gobbledygook that looks like html formatting tags that did not exist in the original text.

I love using cut and paste, being as lazy as I am, and still make use of it, but like one out of three times I end up having to edit and correct the resulting errors by hand.

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Thing is, in this case, you wouldn't even be dropping something "in" somewhere. You're just pasting it into a blank field.

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The text-editing tools in CoH were never up to par with what's excepted in applications that are geared towards editing text. Entering your character's biography has always made me want to throw my keyboard through the screen directly at the programmers/designers who decided it was ok to release a text-editing system where the cursor doesn't even behave according to widely accepted concepts. On top of that system, putting another system which completely relies on us being able to edit our text... that's very frustrating. For crying out loud, last night I saw some custom critters with   in their names!!!

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I...guess. I've never had the least bit of cursor trouble in the MA. I DID find it helps if I delete first instead of pasting over, but that's just learning how this software works. The few   kind of things I run into, I've already edited in the local file first.

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Also, what is a "content version control system"?

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Subversion is an example for a version control system made for managing Software, but also natural text files. The widely accepted term for this is CVS or Concurrent Versions System.

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Eh. I suppose. Myself, I see no use for that for me. Looks more like over-complicating a system for my uses. I'm a pretty K.I.S.S. principle guy. I won't even use web site building software. I just write my own code.

But your complaint was not being able to use that or spell-check, but, if you build it in the MA local, there's nothing stopping you from using them, as far as I can see.

Everyone has their own glitch responses, I suppose.

I'm a bit curious as to why people are considering cut-and-paste such a monumental hurdle. It's tough for ME, but that's because I have a weak machine that locks up about every fourth or fifth time I cut and paste (so I save in between each one). But if you have a decent machine that can handle going back and forth, it's a tad more time consuming, but not prohibitively so. At least I don't think so.

Also, what is a "content version control system"?

**crosses fingers**

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One thing that's different about AE is that it the interior is above ground -- you can see outside. This is a neat feature, which I like a lot. From my experiments it doesn't seem like you can see inside from the outside: the windows are gray or reflective. This means that the interior is essentially the same as a store interior that is far below the surface.

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No, it just means the windows are grayed out or reflective. The easy way to tell? Team with someone. Click on their name. The green reticle is up in the building, not down below like it is if you go into a store. Seems to be set up very similarly to WW.

I test initially on my 50 tank at Heroic (that's who I'm building the arcs with). Then I push it up a notch or two. Then full on Invincible. Then I'll use some squishies on heroic (most of mine are from 15-30, except my 50 blaster). If need be, I'll up the limit on some of them, but really, if you're soloing on a squishy in the MA, you'd probably better have it on Heroic.

Team stuff can be...problematic. I try to get some SG mates to help, but mostly I'm on in the wee small hours EDT and it's sometimes hard to get help. I do what I can, even if it's getting a group together to actually play it post-publishing.

"'E's restin'!"

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So if you want to be very technical, the rule is farming is allowed if it's undetected and unreported.

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That's No Rule. That is a complete and total disregard for any existing standard of ethics or values. Under that, any crime, sin, or violation is justified as being "OK", no matter how ugly, abhorrent, disrespectful, or cruel, as long as no one of any consequence finds out about it.

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Actually, that's pretty much how the laws in the United States work.

Yes, it is. I think it's a "later" map than the actual Breakout (I don't know enough about redside to confirm, but I read that), but it's still the Zig prison map.

/signed

It's a good backup idea and the file is tiny (100k or so text file), so the space considerations are nil.

I'd name it something other than "autosave" though.

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Very cute, but there's a huge difference between using one's characters' stories for an arc and Mary Suing them.

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Yes, but, I think the point trying to be made is that very few MA authors (at least that I've seen to date) have figured out that difference. And of those who have, a large number of them haven't figured out that most people don't care about your character's story if the arc doesn't make their character feel like an active participant in it.

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Oh, understood, but that's a flaw in execution, not in concept. Nothing wrong with telling one of your characters' stories in and of itself. In fact, done right, you won't even know it's one of of the author's player characters, just one created for the MA.

It's like when my college writing professor told the class to not use the word "hopefully" at all, because so many people don't know how to use it. I deliberately used it in my next paper...correctly, of course.

I concur. No one's really going around memorizing arc numbers except the terminally anal retentive (or those lucky people with fabulous memories, but they're just remembering, not trying to). Titles are far more important.

Not as such, no. They'll spawn too far apart for it to look like that.