SilverAgeFan

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Oh, for a little irony, when I was looking up Goodspeed I ran across this:


This is someone that Myers accused of being a griefer for apparently playing a game differently than others.

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Glad someone else came across that as well. Gave me a chuckle. Pot meet kettle, perhaps?

Earlier in this thread I was interested in engaging his scholarship seriously. At this point, I'm unable to do anything but write the man off as a fairly articulate, mildly sociopathic, game addicted hack of a scholar. *yawn*

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Okay a bit of SearchFu turns up the Forums user Fasque as Twixt's player.

Sending a PM to The Ocho to see if we can get his posts locked and saved for a bit. Apparently there's going to be a counterpoint response to the article by some of the players here.

Note: This is NOT something that's going to be "Oh he was a [censored] + character assasination + rant" thing. We do not, however, want someone reactivating their account and deleting some of the dirty little tracks that point to their research method being slightly less clean and forthright than they intimated.

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Read through some of his posts. I don't think the man's research persona was as carefully crafted as his academic paper asserts. He repeatedly expresses interest in and engagement with other MMOs, wavers between being articulate, speaking in txt type and then writing weak limericks. I think he was playing as he preferred in earnest and then asking questions later. Again, much more art than science.

Also, he seems obsessed about both the intentions and rules of i13 PvP and comes off as MUCH more engaged in (and enraged by) the subject than the cool, aloof stance he describes in his paper when he discusses the "natural laws" provided by the game universe.

I'm left wondering if the shifting rules of PvP were a "breach" upon the order he expected and required for his "research." Doesn't the formal modification of the rules to support more "sportsmanly" behaviour than he displayed indicate that though tactics he was using were for a time "legal," that after data mining they were deemed an "exploit"? His actions contributed to actions by the developers to change PvP. Isn't THAT in itself as significant as the rage he evoked from fellow players in RV? Not much time is given to that in his analysis.

If anything, there is perhaps a MUCH more interesting analysis hiding behind this narrative of a triad of realms: natural law (which I still think is NOT what Myers asserts it is, but closer to the root of cybernetics and electronic computation), social law (the informal mores and norms which he does fairly accurately recognize), and legislation (the ever evolving rules set by the governing authority of the realm, in our case the devs and publisher. this is the stuff he grossly misidentified IMO as "natural law".) In some ways, his actions are more akin to wallstreeters and banksters ripping us all off for nearly 30 years in manners that often were within the law but may have violated what is sometimes referred to as "the spirit of the law." In other words, an exploit. And just like those power tie wearing con artists, Dr. Myers cries foul when the laws of the land are modified to cinch up a few loopholes he actively exploited. So yeah, after reading his paper last night and digesting it while I slept, I've solidified my own opinions that this is a very poor excuse for scholarship indeed.

(And to the small minority in here coming in to LOL at folks getting worked up, note that I'm not really offended by the PvP stuff. Not my concern. But I do appreciate good, insightful research when I read it. And if I'm worked up about anything here, it's his tremendously sloppy work that bothers me! And if you get LULZ from seeing someone have interests and values beyond the narrow confines of this game and a desire to sometimes engage others in earnest discussion of those interests, LOL away folks at what you misidentify as "forum drama.")

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Never heard of him, some of the stuff in this article about the guy is pretty stupid, but still, what some people did to him was TOTALY uncalled for. He actualy PvPed in a PvP zone. ZOMG NO WAI!!! I gotta agree, teleporting them infront of the malta bots is pretty cheap, but hey, the goal is to defeat the enemy no matter the cost, so I really cant fault him there.

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Actually, PvP zones have goals, having a drone/npc defeat someone doesn't meet a single one of them. Moreover, the Devs have stated that intentionally causing xp debt is harassment and against the TOS. Doesn't engaging in an "illegal" activity negate the entire point of his 'paper'?

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I've been wondering that as well. Still trying to think of an analogy.

Maybe it's like playing a board game with a child who insists that they get to do whatever they want with the game pieces in order to achieve arrangement that constitutes a "win" for them. He writes about natural law versus social law. The natural law for a board game and the marbles, chits and any other pieces involved would be physics. Where can matter move? The social laws would be both the universally accepted rules of the game as well as any subsets of "house rules" folks already play by.

Who wants to keep playing checkers with a seven year old who keeps insisting, "On my fifth turn, I get two turns. And on my sixth turn all my normal checkers are kings, okay?" As the psychologist above points out: the fact that breaching antagonizes people is nothing new.

I'm not convinced that his interpretation of natural versus social law as they metaphorically manifest in CoH/V is entirely accurate. i.e. Isn't the EULA just a deeper extension of social law? If he could write a virus that blows up his opponents mother boards and also tells the servers to give him a zillion points, wouldn't that still be within the limits of natural law for PvP? But instead he followed the EULA, he didn't seek out any additional programs to help him "cheat" even further according to the predominant set of social laws.

Lastly, his record of the social phenomenon that seem to be at the heart of his research is very fragmentary. One can much more easily record chat logs. Why the highly selective citation of crescendo moments of folks ganging up on him? Why not share with his colleagues the full pattern of emergence of these relationships? The full chat transcripts? Could it be that there are chat lines in there that go against the thesis he works to prove? Or perhaps they just reflect poorly on him as a person so he prefers to leave those bits out.

And again, when folks take this gonzo immersive approach to investigating life, IMO it crosses the line from science into art as the observer becomes an instigator inseparable from the observed. And if he's making art, then let it all out man. Incriminate yourself. Leave nothing behind and go for broke. "My two years as a PvP griefer" may have been a much more interesting read to be honest!

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autistics thrive while psycho-normals struggle in computer driven environments where social cues are massively truncated to text and a few rigid emotes.


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Have you been reading my diary???

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I only look at the pictures on account of my own disorders. Hope you don't mind. You're a good drawer. I mean with a ballpoint pen. Not with socks and briefs stuffed in you.

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O RLY?

u liek mai drawringz?

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Yes. They bring me a strangely sublime inner peace.

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autistics thrive while psycho-normals struggle in computer driven environments where social cues are massively truncated to text and a few rigid emotes.


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Have you been reading my diary???

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I only look at the pictures on account of my own disorders. Hope you don't mind. You're a good drawer. I mean with a ballpoint pen. Not with socks and briefs stuffed in you.

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I befriended him. He was hilarious on teams.

"Hey, watch this."

Then the 10 minute [censored] storm comes up. We lol and repeat it. God I love people who love to get rises out of people.

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Don't have a dog in this fight (rarely PvP and these days only Arena stuff with friends and never was on any of the three servers mentioned in his paper), but quoting page 9 from the professors paper:

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These three sets of behaviors – rigidly competitive pvp tactics (e. g., droning), steadfastly uncooperative social play outside the game context (e. g., refusing to cooperate with zone farmers), and steadfastly uncooperative social play within the game context (e. g., [color= orange]playing solo and refusing team invitations[/color]) – marked Twixt’s play from the play of all others within RV.

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If the quote from Yosef_Vanya is truthful and as it implies Twixt actually did team with other heroes while engaging in "competitive play," does that mean he cherry picked and falsified his research?

When one conducts experiments like this, as they perfect their methods and evolve their "persona", when do you start the data recording device? To me, this seems more like a bit of social sculpture and performative conceptual art ala the early work of Vito Acconci rather than scientific documentation of the "griefing phenomenon." Both have their merits... but they rarely are ever one in the same.

To be honest, I find this work much less insightful than another forumites link to what I think was their own undergraduate level work hypothesizing that autistics thrive while psycho-normals struggle in computer driven environments where social cues are massively truncated to text and a few rigid emotes.

There is something familiar about the questionable nature of his research and even how he went about getting into the subject. I had several profs both in grad and undergrad that were total hacks, even with tenure, doing half-finished work in meager attempts to validate their position. This sloppy work usually seemed to happen after their passion for either teaching or their own work had faded and been transposed by another obsession. For one it was wood bottom boats, for another it was getting bit parts in bad indie films, and yet another simply got into being a parent. At the time, as a passionate and dedicated student, I couldn't understand how someone lucky enough to be a professor could "lose their way." Now with a decade or two more under my belt, I have a bit more compassion for those whose interests have waxed and waned.

But then there were other professors at university who would get lost in addictive and compulsive behaviours and struggle to find some means to justify the hours they spent engaging things like pornography, psychoactive drugs or violent imagery. Labeling this behaviour as "study," "work," and "research" is one short route to justification for less than ethical academes. For this professor, his passion seems to have been, for at least a time, actively griefing others in a game he had become bored with. (He indicates how boring he found PvE in his paper a couple times.) Mostly, this academic work feels a little like a rationalization for indulging his own antisocial impulses with abandon. That doesn't say that valuable knowledge never comes from looking closely at topics many of us find unworthy of serious or costly investigation, but this doesn't seem like one such breakthru moment. (Hunter S. Thompson you are not, sir!) More of a scholastic belly flop if you ask me.

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Does anyone have a link to this press release? I can't find it.

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First link that showed up in google after entering the terms "Going, Rogue, Press and Release." Imagine that!

Press Release

From the third paragraph:

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Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game's lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed. (emphasis added)

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[*]You can sommon demons. [*]You can dual-wield pistols.


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Where exactly was this confirmed? I see people say it all the time, and I would like it, but I have never seen any official confirmation of these, or any other new powersets in Going Rogue.

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Positron mentioned it during some sort of event around the 5th ani. State of the game, it was semi-confirmed with the trailer for GR/I believe a dev post has pretty much stated it but I dont remember who made it.

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During a fifth anniversary chat session whose transcript appeared via a fan posting on the euro boards, someone had asked about new powersets. Positron made a remark saying something to the effect "I thought I'd already mentioned Demon Summoning and Dual Pistols."

Then the GR trailer went live. And a week later the press release stated that the two characters in the trailer are a pistols blaster and a demon summoning MM, both with shades of grey morality.

Take what you will from that, but it sounds like a pretty solid couple of hints that both pistols and demon summoning are all but confirmed elements of GR.

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<ul type="square">[*]You can use your fame and over-the-top personality to garner the attention of millions. You know, like Liberace, Prince, or the [color= orange]Sham-Wow guy[/color].[/list]
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Do you mean Vince... from Slap Chop?

I'm one that will forego an APP if one doesn't fit in favor of more primaries, secondaries or another power pool.

It's how I roll. Do I gimp myself? I guess. But at the same time with IO's, I can usually strategically pick a pool power or a main power and compensate a little with those late game power choices.

As it is, by that time on most characters I already have 3 and a half power trays filled with powers I can activate.

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I do find maxed-out boob sliders with Eden tops a bit distasteful - sue me. Whatever gets your thrills...

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Technical question: I've got an older computer and a less powerful video card. My settings are kept on the low end. At higher video settings, do these maxed out racks still go all Buckminster Fuller?

Honestly, that is the part I find most distasteful of all. Without vertex shading it just looks corny. Nevermind trying someone trying to look like Powergirl.

It is very true. Some women do on occasion get nekkid. I've seen this with mine own eyes.

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Interesting, but it might ask for a lot of the ark available space...

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The ark had more than enough room for two of every animal! Surely a few extra colors won't sink it.

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I honestly can not figure out if that was supposed to be taken seriously or not...

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It's even worse when it shows up on a menu.

Progenitor lichen and sweetbreads. *sigh* Looks like I'll picking out all those pituitary bits again.

I just can't pass on the stuff. No matter what it's paired with.

I like most of them. But the door sound clips kind of funny. And the basic black tarmac sound is really off. Some folks have described it as "horse hooves" and others as "bare feet slapping blacktop." Whatever the association, it doesn't feel right and is out of sync to boot.

Hopefully whomever is doing sound engineering will get another go at it. Suggestion to that dev: go lease/rent/buy yourself a decent PZM mic on a company credit card. It will make all the difference when capturing source material for these sorts of SFX.

Dang it! Now I need to shell out fifty bucks for this expansion. I was going to pass on the expansion, but I'm such a sucker for progenitor lichen. The devs sure know how to hit us where it hurts and then bleed us.

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I've seen an awful lot of Banished Pantheon guys banging on drums this evening. (Not sure if that's a new thing, or not, since I'm pretty new around here.... )

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Depends where you are. I remember a bunch of them in Dark Astoria doing that. They all drum because they worship Buddy Rich. true story.

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This is all new because folks are referring to what they now do in instanced door missions.

I too have seen the Lost sleeping while a boss gives a sermon and the BP playing drums and bongos or mining with pick axes whilst Shaman cast green empathy like rings.

Funny thing is, we encountered those "sleeping" lost inside of a police station on a Kings Row radio mission. It was very weird to go into the police station expecting to see guns blazing and instead its filled with strung out Lost laying on any flat surface they could find!

To the OP I am very sorry for your loss.

I understand it was posted as a first person account in rebuttal to the thread already linked, a thread where I already said my piece on the subject. But I am ambivalent regarding the appropriateness of this thread in this forum due to a similar line of thinking as Aisynia has already expressed. I suppose that is a question ultimately left to the moderators judgment.

In any case, again so deeply sorry for the loss you and all her friends and family have suffered.

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I wonder what the OP's views on Global Warming are ?

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"LOL! We puk'd the claimet. I'm on vent rite now lmao cuz you are all some dum posting here. so predictable. ur all jus made becuse in pvp forum way we pwnd the wether."

Or something like that?

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Boomtown: How expansive is the feature – can you take a brute, convert him to hero and then play in the actual hero zones like Atlas Park – including all your enhancements, powers and infamy?

Matt Miller: Again, I don’t want to get too deep into the specifics of Going Rogue just yet, but the short answer is yes, you can be a Heroic Brute. More details forthcoming.


That alone gives me the impression you will not see a villain turned hero in Atlas park (the true atlas park).

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I think you're barking up the wrong tree on this interpretation. Enhancements and Infamy are the two things that are more likely to be limited. It simply does not make sense to be able to "go rogue" but not actually team with "native" heroes or villains.

They will likely be staying very tight lipped for a number of reasons regarding whether GR = merged markets or a means to "work around" the segregated markets.

Having a bit of trouble on a troller at 39 against the Envoy of Shadows. Suppose I could "auto complete" those missions, but I'd rather team and do it right. Always feels good to kick the Envoy in the teeth IMO.

But like everyone says, if you are selective (i.e. know the material) you can successfully solo all the way to 50. But this is hard the first go round since you often can unwittingly accept a mission with a really nasty AV/EB in it that may not be soloable for your particular build or AT.

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Usually whoever is closest.

Only on my first 50, Justice Girl (Claws/Rergen) as the daughter of Ms. Liberty (through stolen dna), I made it a point to go to her every level.

That said, I still don't think of them as actually training any of my characters. It really just doesn't make sense to me, that they could.

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Yup. A lot of game mechanics that need to be simply "pretended" around IMO. I know folks who will RP in certain things like security levels as it's explained in the original manual. I just find that too restrictive. So I simply ignore what gets in the way.

So for me it is whomever is closest.

As far as starting zones, I tend to choose Galaxy and BABs though. For two reasons. BABs on the boards is cool as sin and Galaxy is free of AE spam.

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Misleading title was misleading.

I thought Posi confirmed in an interview they were FINALLY going to give Boomtown the Faultline makeover. It's been being rebuilt ever since CoV launched, according to the mission arc redside!

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Heh. I had a similar momentary reaction but when I tried to conceive of a thread title that was more clear, nothing came to mind other than not including the website name!

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Best part of this thread for me was the community as a whole. Coming out and rallying around a lifestyle that for the most part they do not agree with or partake in. However they defended its rights over sheer stupidity.

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From looking at these threads, I'm not sure people understand exactly how large a part of this community the LGBT is...it's share is far larger than many seem to realize...

...maybe it's the fact that it's NOT flawnted (sp?) all about like so many seem to expect it to be.

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More than just the LGBT community, the 'Deviant' society as a whole is, well, large enough that it probably no longer deserves to be considered abnormal.

Were a poll to go out, I think you'd be surprised how many people on the forums identify as something other than a vanilla heterosexual.

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Then there are those of us that are straight and fairly vanilla but who have watched the lives of LGBT friends be derailed and in some cases utterly destroyed by the sort of intolerance our friendly OP was tapping into.

If that person is indeed a parent, can you imagine what a transgendered child in that house would go through as they came of age? There's a good chance they wouldn't make it to 25. And if the OP is reading and is in fact a parent I'd like them to think about that: your intolerant abusive attitudes ("LOL I trold j00" or not) could kill your child. I have as little patience for someone like that as I do for someone who hits their children. Period.

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Yes but according to the REAL dictionary, we already know what it meant... yet more slang use in a post which already was demeaning and trolling doesn't help, did it?

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To be fair, I've heard salty used in that manner for over 15 years. Proper or not, it is accepted slang in some parts of the U.S.

Edit: I can haz spellign?