SilverAgeFan

It wasn't this kid, was it?

If you like Nash, you should look up some lesser known but still interesting work with population drift in iterated games of prisoners dilemma. Rick Riolo's work in particular comes to mind. Though his work in no way accounts for internal motivations of these modeled agents, it demonstrates dynamics that support the existence of mixed populations of altruistic agents and selfish agents. Even more interesting are the quasi-cyclical chaotic oscillations in the breakdown of those populations from generation to generation. The patterns his very simple models lead to do appear to echo many real world anecdotes. Neat stuff.

For the internal motivations, you could look perhaps to primatologists like Franz DeWaal and his peers. Interesting research there though some of his popular science survey books tend to paint with the broader strokes of a poet rather than a scientist.

Anyways, it's the collective of stuff like this that I've encountered over the years as well as my own internal life experiences that ultimately blows Rand out of the water. Though others' obviously get a lot out of her work, I think she misses the mark in terms of effectively and fully describing the human experience and our tendencies. And here I find myself at a similar place as Castle. To me, the humanity she describes so often sounds more like the clinical description of sociopathic personality disorders than a broad philosophy of man.

All for a beastly feral run power, even if it seems entirely redundant with the natural booster's ninja run.

That's a good name.

And I hope I didn't sound too dismissive of your helpful suggestion. I can tell from the activity on the name thread that it's quite useful to others and I appreciate the suggestion.

I've seen that and browsed it, but it's frankly a bit too tumbling like a multipaged run-on-sentence to be of much use to me. Were I rolling new alts, I might get much more use out of it. But at this point, my older characters are as much their names as they are their costumes and powers.

So as much as I hate to, I'll likely go with appended versions of their original names with a period or underscore or losing a space in some of the two word names. I've already been told quite curtly during one application "interview" with an SG that "we look down upon names with that sort of treatment, if you can't get an unadulterated version of the name go find a new one." Again, applied to new alts, I agree. But the remark came across as having zero sensitivity to what it might actually feel like to be considering such a move this late in one's history with a game. Felt like salt in the wound.

These characters are private five year legacies. A week ago, another player recounted being mugged then using CoH as an escape while cooling down from that crappy experience. In similar ways over the years, these characters in my game and in my head have been there when I needed them. I suppose I'm a bit like an author in the degree of connection I feel to them. And as I said, to me they are their names and their names are them. Compromising with an appended tail on the original name feels less heartbreaking than totally retconning the character into oblivion because the unadulterated version of the name is unavailable. This is of course my very personal take. And others' mileage may vary.

I'm sure this sounds all too emo to a few folks out there. But I'm just being honest with myself. And what I'm about to write may not be understood by everyone reading, but I'm sure a few out there get me here: Somewhere deep in me I'm kind of aware that if I botch how I handle this server jump, it will probably sever my deep sense of attachment to CoH that keeps me here.

I've known other folks, both in this game and others, who've reached states of being ready to leave game. To seal the deal, they'd delete their mains. Invariably, that seems to do the trick. I've no desire to inadvertently do the same to myself via a mass server transfer here. But I can't help but feel that risk. This game is old and my time with it has been long. There are other options out there and this may or may not be what pushes me to move on once and for all. Strange but true.

Prices got really wonky this holiday season. I'm hoping things make a bit more sense in the wake of the holiday season. But as it stands, even now those 5750's and 5770's are pretty affordable. But availability is currently spotty an all the ATI 5xxx's. Since I plan on giving some of the upcoming DX11 games a go, that hardware tessellation is pretty key IMO. AvP 2010 I'm looking at you, buddy!

Definitely a good solution to the logistic issues that the DA faced. Funnel all interested parties from either side into a single instance.

And since most of my characters have the coop zone dialogue box on perma-hide, it took me a while as well to notice this.

Thanks for responding.

And I saw that about the applications on a couple of the sites.

Most of my characters are bright and sunny and solidly in the SA or maybe late GA heroic tradition. But I have one currently named Ashen Princess, who's costumes look a bit like early takes on the Scarlet Witch plus flaming eyes. She's half daemon, works days as Lawyer specializing in Transdimensional Immigration and Existential Law. I know there are tons of daemon type groups out there, but IMO she's an SA take on this stereotype of a cold human struggling with a wicked half. Her character gets a boost from being cast as a troubled entry in the classic spandex setting. But she is by no means and has never been played as a murderous diamond age character. In your personal estimation, is there room within any of these groups for that sort of character? I'd just hate to move her, give up the name and end up being told, "No. Demon freaks play over there, lady."

Of my "original 7"--all created in the first three months CoH went live--I'll be losing 4 names. (Surprised that I'd actually keep 3 even though.) At the moment that's actually my biggest concern: jumping, surrendering names and then not finding a fitting home. 1 of the 4 I'll lose could be renamed quite easily. But Ashen Princess, Amethyst Avenger and Subatomic are all gonna sting mighty awful to let go. Those names have been pretty integral to my CoH experience for 5 years now. But as it stands, I really do miss playing on teams that play in character. Just not easy to find on Triumph any more. Some good folks there but not much RP these days.

Heh. Cute. I see what you did there.

I actually appreciate the shameless plug. This is why I made a post here. I'm trying to gauge the current energy level I might find for my style of RP. If I may ask, what is the activity level in warm bodies at any given hour (all the groups I was involved with are down to just me and the occasional rotating vet for a 1 month re-up every 3 months or so )? Are these static teams (which I don't mesh well with due to a shifting schedule) or more of an open set up with rolling SG pick ups?

As far as the going to pocket D, don't worry, you won't find me doing the logout of shame. I was going there more because it is the holidays and we've got coop missions of all levels. But like I said, rather than the catgirls, my big problem is I let my characters write themselves and my villains all have antisocial streaks and are starkly different from the heroes I'd consider transferring.

Also, another ping to any members of S.C.O.R.P.I.O. reading. Are you guys still out there and active? I've got 4 all natural super spies I might be moving.

And in addition to the silver age and super spies, I have a couple pulp era heroes, so if anyone reading has some right retro rocketeering RP going on, please speak up. May be looking for a home for them too.

Searching level range by level range is often more telling, as it shows folks who are in unique event based zones as well as on mission maps or SG bases. As long as they are not hidden from searches.

And then you always need to check to make sure you didn't get a search truncation message in your search.

Not saying Triumph wasn't relatively empty or not when you did your search, just saying that there are better methods with the tools we currently have for getting an estimate of current server population than doing open zone searches.

I thought he was actually trying to demonstrate your last point rather than further the direct discussion of natural vs. tech origins. Anyways, his list of alternative explanations inspired me just to throw out my own random idea as it came to me half-formed.

What about a sentient assault rifle that you have some sort of spirit connection with? At least on paper, that sounds pretty cool to me...

I think at that point it's just referred to as phone sex.

Versions of those as taunts would be funny. But bringit is a bit long... /e whistle would be a hoot as a taunt animation as well. But for totally different reasons.

Great. Then for three months we'll have City of Banksters.

No thank you! I play this game to get away from RL!







/jk squid faces are cool. especially if they come with special emotes.

You're kidding, right? We have no prerogative that they respond to this question. And anyways, isn't it obvious? So much in the game from SG bases to instance maps is comprised of modular components and repurposed and reskinned assets. Heck, take a good look at how boulders and rocky outcroppings inside cave maps are placed. Compare this to how often even now with a larger staff that we actually get original art for any release, from costume pieces to power animations to tile sets.

Original art elements require many more hours to produce and require much more experienced/skilled/talented labor. This has always been the case and is not isolated to just digital media. All this translates into $$$, budgets and deadlines. Arranging and essentially "decorating" maps with pre-made, pre-approved elements from a set of items can be done much more quickly by a larger number of workers from interns to folks crossing boundaries from other departments. i.e. (and this is only a hypothetical pulled out of my hat) even though War Witch MOSTLY does copy and zone spawn stuff (IIRC), I could see her quickly getting up to speed on a proprietary map editing/decorating tool set and filling in in a pinch. But could she transition even half as quickly into a full fledged digital sculptor creating entirely original maps readily and efficiently while staying within the boundaries of already established art direction? Unlikely. (And that is no jab at her or any other developer. Just trying to underscore the reality that it takes time to become fully adept in the basic skills of a profession and even longer to gain the myriad experiences that makes one a highly flexible and efficient expert. She, like much of the dev team, have spent their years doing things OTHER THAN 3d modeling or directly related trades.)

I dunno about your work experiences, but every sort of production team workflow I've ever worked in has to cut corners somewhere to meet deadlines and budgets. In so many production settings, volume, time and consistency sit at odds with excellence. Compromises get made. It's pretty much a no brainer as to why these maps are the way they are. Without huge, massive, expensive production teams (which only HUGE developers seem to be able to afford--such as Blizzard or Rockstar--how 'bout that Red Dead Redemption title, hey?), the only way we'll see totally original artwork in large vast virtual worlds is with further advancements in procedural generation tools (either on the fly in game or more likely as proprietary development software) that saves time, limits the need for corrections (including removing redundant architecture) and then allows the limited number of artists on the production to focus on refinement, exceptions and hand touches.