Sayer

I8 is up!!!

P.S. Read the title of this post

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36 pages? My goodness, we've beat this horse to death. Thankfully the thread growwth has slowed down!

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The horse was dead when the beating started.

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i seriously cant believe this is a multi page thread .

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Just wait till I start the latest iteration of "punctuation in name" threads.

My cosmic law is better.

Actually, I'm poking fun at his thread and others of the type. They're really quite pointless. Ptently ludicrous is the dictionary-fu that always crops up in these; "well this is what the word means" which if carried to its logical conclusion in an environment such as this (an MMO and gamer-centric specifically) would render us all buffoons with no grasp of the language whatever. "Because everyone else is doing it" isn't a brilliant justification either, but the overarching point is that it just doesn't matter. It's a videogame and none of us need any real documented justification for making up and using arbitrary slang in an environment that is rife with it anyway.

I wonder now, if I should start a thread discussing at length the terms, "training", "kiting" citing the many ways the gamer usage deviates from the literal definition. I wonder if I can then affix certain traits to those who use the words and hold fast to my point of view as though it were cosmic law?

Would posters identify it as trivia and let it fall to page 2, or would they apply increasingly complex layers of emotional logic in the attempt to prove the merit of their arbitray opinion?

These conversations always turn out to be very much the same as the "punctuation in player name" debate.

By this I mean it's a topic that largely doesn't matter, yet people will cite extremes to bolster the rightness of their opinion. Player xXW01v3rineXx will be used as an excuse for player Razerbolt. to be viewed unilaterally as an idiot. Likewise, someone who is somehow unable to conduct any sort of coherent correspondence without using shorthand or l33t will be used to prove the silly-ness of the player wo occasionally says "toon" or "lol" during an otherwise coherent /tell.

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All kidding aside, it baffles me every time I see someone refer to their character as their "toon"... Maybe it's because I'm a P&P RPGer and not a video gamer, but where in the heck did that originate? I think it sounds pretty silly.

Thanks

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The first place I heard 'Toon' used was on The Realm many years back, where it was common. Apparently, the 'toon' vs. 'character' thing largely depends on what your introduction to online gaming culture was. There isn't really much of a difference.

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No difference you say?

No, no, no. This will never work. We need a difinitive decision on which is wrong and which is right! Otherwise what will we use to call other players silly?! The very forums will come crashing down about our ears!11one1youknowtherest....

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Sounds like we just earned 1mil prestige!

Woo hoo, now I can buy a teleporter AND a toilet!

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And your team will no longer have to avoid 'that corner' in the base.....

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Technically, if you have a teleporter, you don't really need a toilet

Devs: Double XP for everyone!
Players: DOOOOM!

I still don't get it.

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Here's a fun thing to try... any time you see the word 'nerf' substitute the word 'balance'. It works!

"Man! They really balanced that power this time!"
"Oh No! They balanced me!"
"I sure hope they don't try and balance <insert power here>."
"My fire tank was uber until the devs balanced him."
"They've balanced us one too many times! I'm quitting!"
...

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But then, in a demonstrably large number of circumstances, you'd be disseminating falsehoods.

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In addition, the word "balance" would be stricken from the developer vocabulary for fear of its newly aquired stigma, still failing to fool, placate or even impress the players who have issues with the action it describes.

It's not the use of the word "nerf" that anyone gives a rat's [censored] about, it's the actual changes that swirl the playerbase into a frenzy. Just take a look at Enhancement diversification. The word "nerf" appears nowhere in its description, and yet explosions still ensued.

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I wonder if this is why Dev's don't post as much as they used to.

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It's starting to put me off of the concept, I'll give you that.

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Horror stories about Devs being torn limb from limb by their playerbase notwithstanding, I haven't seen an instance in this thread where a Dev has been treated any worse (or better) than any other poster saying the same things. Deciding not to post based on this instance, I find unjustifiable.

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I think the thread would have remained on the discussion of the origin of Nerf meaning "power downgrade," with a couple of side comments about how nerfing here and there, had Positron remained silent. As soon as he posted, particularly about this topic, the whole "burn is broken" and "when are you going to fix global chat" posse arrived.

I'm not commenting on either issue, but I believe we would've avoided the griping and negativity had Positron not commented.

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Hmmmm. You're probably right.

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I wonder if this is why Dev's don't post as much as they used to.

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It's starting to put me off of the concept, I'll give you that.

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Horror stories about Devs being torn limb from limb by their playerbase notwithstanding, I haven't seen an instance in this thread where a Dev has been treated any worse (or better) than any other poster saying the same things. Deciding not to post based on this instance, I find unjustifiable.

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Changing the power to match it's description

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I fear for Temporary Invulnerability.

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I believe it stems from fantasy MMORPGs (or MUDs even) when a player's weapon would be reduced in effectiveness in an effort to balance the game.

It comes from the phrase "You turned my sword into a nerf bat".

Thus "nerfing" something became synonymous with making something weaker.

"Hit with the nerf bat" is a derivitive, but still sees its origin in the original 'sword' phrase, and can be applied to systems outside of the normal weapon and loot ones.

Personally, I hate the word, and try never to use it when talking about the game to players. It carries a very negative stigma that I like to avoid whenever possible.

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You forgive me for using 'nerf' and I'll forgive you and yours for using the term 'diversification'

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Indeed. Avoiding particular words because of their associated stigma means nothing to those who have issues with the actual changes and not the words.

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I wonder how many attorneys got screwed by entering the profession after watching LA Law or Law & Order, but *not* Court TV.


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I have heard of prosecutors complaining that CSI has caused some jurors to demand slam-dunk evidence that is sometimes impossible to get.

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That ones very much true. When I was on Jury Duty last year, the prosecutor went on a 2 minute explentation to remind the jury that "This is NOT CSI. There's not going to be precise DNA Evidence or open-and-shut stuff like on that show. This is real life. You just need 'beyond a reasonable doubt' to convict him." which he made sure to mention a number of times so that it sunk in. Luckily the entire jury was made up of reasonable people and were able to look at the case and evidence that way and didn't need reminding.
(The case was a stolen gun from a neighbor. THere was a broken window, trail of blood from the back door/window to the bedroom where the missing gun was, and the trail of blood led back to the guy's appartment, where the cop found him asleep on the couch, hand still bleeding and poorly bandaged. . . it took us all of 15 minutes to descide the guy was guilty. The judge told us after the case that we were the fasted jury to go to deliberation that she's ever had! XD)

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LOL. So after being warned against expecting "open and shut stuff", you were presented with "open and shut stuff"? The scenario you describe sounds exactly like a CSI case.

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Now that they've buffed his AI and powers, where is the increased reward to match the increased risk?

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That logic is only used as justification when they're reducing our ability to do something easily.

Thread Necromancy.

!!!!!!!!!!!
THUNDARR!!!!!!

*needs to change shorts*

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I guess this would be a good day to roll my magical girl, too, so it can be the first badge she earns.

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I wonder if I should finish off designing that schoolgirl fire/mace tanker I keep saying would be fun to do.....

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Keep putting it off. Ashley hates competition.

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Because it causes Dev Teams to switch into Rabid Hunter-Seeker Mode as they exhaust every possible resource in a useless, self-defeating operation to stop powergamers in their tracks. They can't win this battle and they can't stand the fact that they can't----but like moths to a gas lamp, they nevertheless keep circling, waiting to pounce on them again.


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Perhaps it is the obsessive compulsive nature of the devs regarding a futile endeavor that actually hurts the playerbase.

I don't PL personally, but I can never get behind the belief that it's ok to blame everyone under the sun except those directly implimenting the offending changes.

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Can someone rationalize the 'chat spam ban' stuff for me? I mean I'm just not getting the reason for wasting resources and programming time on something /ignore can fix instantaneously.

Or, are they suggesting that the problem is so prevalent that ignore lists cannot handle it?

Because I rarely see any kind of spamming on Virtue other than combat spam. Sure, now and then some idiot will try to take over broadcast or local in AP or some such, but I find the solution is just to /ignore and continue on my way.

Later, I clear the list if I need to.

So, why all the drama on chatspam all of a sudden?

Cal2

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Furthermore, I don't see how this even solves the problem, since a message every "second" is still annoying spam and still allowed under the new system. The previous existence of "/ignore" essentially makes this fix (with the new emote issues) more trouble than it's worth.

Did you know that at one time certain board members decried the addition of asian costume elements as the certain downfall of the game?

Thanks for taking the statements in the light they were intended. You could have quite easily burned the thread to the ground with irate flames.

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For what it's worth, I agree completely. It's almost the default character creator male model. I suspect the story may have had the lions share of influence when this choice was made.

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And there's honestly nothing wrong with that.

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As an ultimately subjective choice, there can be nothing proven to be quantitatively wrong with that. Though it does cause some of us to scratch our heads.

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'No offense, but [insert offensive statement].'

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Since when is making a negative comment about someones style of character intended to be personal attack? I don't know the guy, nor do I have any intention to make personal insults. But I'm shocked that a costume that just black stone with arm and foot wraps and a belt which doesn't fit the theme (in my opinion) was seen as better than other entries. If that costume was in a costume contest in Atlas Park it'd certainly not stand out in the slightest.

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For what it's worth, I agree completely. It's almost the default character creator male model. I suspect the story may have had the lions share of influence when this choice was made.