Hydrophidian

It really isn't. Because, as you know, you also get enhancements, salvage, and recipes to sell. Not to mention the two tier 3 inspirations you can get from doing the tutorial. Defeating minions is not the only source of Inf.

Also, I set my minimum bid at 1k. On several of the items, I could've gone lower.

I mean, honestly, just how much salvage is a low level character going to need, anyway?

In any event, 1-5k != 100k.

Oh, I'm well aware of that.

What I was addressing is the assertion that low level common salvage is prohibitively expensive for low level characters.

I don't consider 1-5k prohibitively expensive.

Of all the bottom tier salvage, Only Blueside Luck Charms were not obtainable at that price range. But that's nothing new. While I was doing this experiment, they were going for 30-75k.

While I didn't want to contribute to a threadjack, misinformation makes me a little twitchy.

It also isn't much of a solution for people who utilize it as one of their primary (only) team-building tools.

Which is why I've often suggested alternatives.

Good point. I think every market enthusiast probably plays with speculation.

Okay, I follow. And I'm kinda the same way.

But, under that thinking, 'Marketeer', as I described it above, would still be a role. It definitely is for me, anyway. I can't maintain that level of overdrive marketing for too long, 'cuz it burns me out. I default to more of a casual crafter/opportunist.

And, hmmm. Maybe what I'm getting at with 'Shifter' and what you were mentioning with 'Performance Artist' could both be placed under a broader 'Experimenter' category?

Basically, some of us use the market, just 'cuz we find it fun. Wealth' isn't necessarily the goal. Sometimes it's just: well, I want to see what happens or I wonder if I can get away with this. We approach the market as a mini-game and experiment with it, sometimes not caring if we lose (considerable) wealth in the process. The market is embraced as part of the game experience rather than just a means to an end, or a chore or 'necessary evil'.

If the goal is "trying to understand how various types of Market-Users affect the Market" I think this needs to be included somehow. People in 'experiment mode' can have all sorts of odd effects on the market, even if those effects tend to be fleeting.

Yes, yes, yes.

If I ever have to go to Atlas (I generally avoid it whenever possible), I always go to Atlas 2 if that's an option. It spawns fairly often, but that's on Virtue. I imagine other servers don't see second instances as frequently. And I rarely see a Cap 2.

So... yes. Lower the numbers needed. I'm all for that.

Sorry, no. MA is intended to be a leveling alternative from 1 to 50. Obviously, it can't be that without XP. Thus, if XP were removed, it would not "be as it was intended".

It's amazing to me how often this point has had to be reiterated.

Tens and hundreds of millions of Inf could be earned daily before MA was introduced. RMT farmers don't "rule" anything.

Please don't conflate RMT farmers with player farmers. They're not the same thing.

Also, power-leveling, while not particularly cared for by the developers, is not a problem in and of itself. It becomes a problem, by the judgment of the developers, when the practice gets out of hand and becomes too wide-spread.

At that point, they take steps to address it.

I16 boasts changes that could impact both farming and power-leveling behaviors significantly.

Neat. I'm going to approach this a different way. I'd be interested to see other people give the same sort of breakdown:

Total Number of Heroes: 14
Originating from...
...Paragon: 2
...Immediate Environs (New England): 2
...Elsewhere in North America: 3
...Elsewhere in the World: 3 (Wales, Egypt, Ukraine)
...An Alternate Reality: 1 (Connecticut)
...Someplace Else (another plane, planet, time, etc.) but still in the City universe: 3
...Another setting entirely: 0

Total Number of Villains: 6
Originating from...
...The Isles: 1
...Paragon: 1
...North America: 1
...Elsewhere in the World: 1 (Britain)
...An Alternate Reality: 1 (West Africa)
...Someplace Else in the City Universe: 1
...Another setting entirely: 0

What's everyone else got?

Okay?

Haven't you now answered your own question?

It seems to be more than just a matter of taste, but a matter of strong preference. You enjoy broad strokes, epic notes of story, thunderous chords of action... but to the point where you've developed a strong distaste for more nuanced setting intricacies and delicate shades of gray in story (intrigue, etc.).

Nothing wrong with that, but yah, you'd have to go off the well-trodden path to get to it in the City universe.

Interesting. I've gone the opposite route and have embraced this aspect of the City Universe in multiple ways...

* The nonprofit humanitarian organization that backs my supergroup is trying to build a global teleportation matrix for the purpose of immediate disaster response. This project has run into all sorts of snafus, some involving limitations of the technology.
* One of my characters believes that all this teleportation, plane-hopping, and dimensional tunneling is damaging the fabric of reality. When he first proposed this theory, organizations like Portal Corp and even Longbow took various steps to discredit his theory... and him.
* Another character is from an alternate reality. In her reality, portals, plane-hopping, and teleportation have all been around for a long, long time (lots of magic), and they've had a cumulative effect that would seem to verify the above character's theory. Due to the barriers between worlds being so riddled with holes, they're falling apart. Her reality is dying, collapsing in on itself.
* Another character comes from that same alternate reality and uses an "eco-friendly" means to get around. Does he continue to keep this knowledge to himself, knowing that this reality seems to be on track to suffer the same fate as his own? His mentality and worldview makes this much more of a conundrum than it would initially appear to be.
* Another character believes that a collapsing reality will be the starting point for the End Times. She has aspects of herself stationed in the most likely realities to host this event... including this one (as well as the dying reality mentioned above and also Praetoria).
* Having two alternate reality analogues in the same reality has started causing problems for those characters. Neither of them has noticed it yet, but the situation will worsen over time. Reality is essentially saying: both of you can't be here. One of you has to leave. GR may provide an unexpected solution to this problem.


I like exploring settings, and I've found the City universe to be full of all sorts of interesting possibilities involving concepts you don't often get to play with elsewhere. The uncharted frontiers are inward, not outward. That's usually not the case. And there's ample opportunity to contrast the mundane with the fantastic, which, to me, just makes the fantastic more pronounced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugly Rumor Again, the purpose of this thread is to find out if there is Forum support for this type of contest.

Bad idea.

Good idea.

Agreed.

Not directly, no, you didn't.

But if you claim you "need" my feedback, and confess to a "problem" with my "attitude", it seems to me that the suggestion of forced feedback can't be too far behind.

Noop.

What I said was: I think it's a good idea to have arcs tested before publishing, so that you're not depending on the general audience to be your play testers. Arcs can certainly be improved after publishing, but I believe they should be fairly well polished at the point of publication.

I do the same thing. The difference seems to be, I'm not depending upon and expecting the general audience to be my play testers. I don't think it's a good idea to do that.

So, again, I will assume my feedback is not needed on a published arc.

If an architect finds themselves entirely dependent on that feedback, I would suggest the architect revise their development process, and get people to test their arcs before publishing.

Because, again, not leaving feedback is a perfectly valid choice.

What direction would that be?

Please support your claim with something more than...

...because that doesn't cut it. There will always be outliers. And...

...is false.

So, the basis for your proposal seems pretty faulty right now.

Especially seeing as one of the primary causes of market inflation on certain items has been: Merits.

A "large group" isn't really required. Two or three people are just fine. Even one is better than none.

It seems to me you're making a lot of assumptions here (none of which I've found to be particularly true) in an attempt to remove responsibility from the architect.

If you want testers to be as objective as possible, you just ask them to try to be so. If your friends aren't mature enough to handle that, find someone who is. If you don't want them to know the story first, don't tell them. And if you don't have a test group... form one. Even if it's a PUG (I've been invited to one of those, and I was happy to help).

In short, if an architect wants feedback, I think it's the architect's responsibility to make the effort to get it. Don't expect others make the effort for you. Don't depend on the audience to be your play testers: that's not their responsibility. Good MA feedback should be a happy bonus, not a necessity.

Then you've put yourself in an impossible situation, because even if I ever played your arcs, I'm not obligated to give feedback on 'em... and not giving feedback is a perfectly valid choice to make. It's not a bad thing. I'm not playing MA arcs to be your play tester, and to expect that of me is, I think, presumptuous and... well... kinda lazy.

If you genuinely want to improve your arcs, my advice would be to find another way to address this need of yours. And preferably before you publish.

I disagree. In my opinion, even the best random feedback is of limited use, due to the lack of an exchange. Testers you can actually have a dialogue with (and preferably while they're actually moving through the content), is, I think, still the best way to polish an arc.

So have I. This isn't really relevant to the point, though. I'm not saying feedback gained through the MA system can't be good. It can be. But it can just as easily be of no practical use at all. And, in my experience, it's much more likely to be the latter. Depending on it as the sole source of critique and quality assurance is, I think, sloppy, inefficient, and a disservice to your audience:

* You can't get this feedback unless you publish. If you're depending on this feedback for your polish, that pretty much means you're publishing an unpolished work. You're expecting random players to serve as your quality assurance. Again, that isn't their responsibility, and it's quite possible they have no interest in serving in that capacity. Even if they're interested, they might not be any good at it. Even if they're good at it, one /tell isn't a lot of space to work with for feedback.

* You may not get this feedback at all. If you do get it, it's very likely not to be constructive. If it is constructive, you may not be able to get a dialogue going with the person who offered it.

Best feedback I've received has been due to having a dialogue, even if that dialogue was initiated through the MA system. I think it's also important to note that the most constructive feedback has come from other authors, whether they were friends or strangers.

As for the forums, yes, they're a very helpful tool. They don't have anything to do with the MA feedback system, though. If anything, they're often employed as an alternative to it (which I'd recommend).

That's great and that's your choice. The key word there being: choice.

I'll be inclined to do the same, but when I do, it'll be when I'm in the mood to do it. Sometimes I'm not, and there's nothing wrong with that.

In the end, if an architect is interested in making a quality work, it remains my advice to cultivate a test group rather than depend on MA feedback. Many authors, including myself, would be happy to serve in this capacity.

Just not as a default and not as an obligation.

Yes.

But he did work on it--I think it's safe to say his vision is part of the foundation--and he's still the High Up at Cryptic.

Also, unless I've heard wrong, Gecko is now the one heading up CO development... which, to me, is just as bad, if not worse.

Edited to add: And I'm very sad for STO as well.

It's awesome for that, isn't it?

As an aside, is Matrix Online actually defunct now?

Well, I'll say this much: Compared to the usual pitches, this is a novel approach. I'm not convinced it'd have all that much of an impact, though. Are you saying that, under this change, tickets would no longer be able to purchase salvage or buy recipe rolls?

One issue I see with this suggestion is that the enhancement system is already getting pretty arcane and convoluted: TOs, DOs, SOs, HOs, Common IOs, Set IOs, Purple IOs, PVP IOs, procs, uniques, what works at any level and what doesn't, and so on. This is potentially daunting to the new player, as well as old ones.

Were it up to me, I'd be twitchy about anything that worsens that situation.

In any event, at this stage I really think we all need to wait and see how the I16 changes play out before picking any further at the MA system.