baron_inferno

WM/SD makes for a very solid and fun brute. Mine just hit 50 two days ago and is completely IO'ed out.

Offensively, WM/SD makes for an AoE machine, to the point that I skipping the Patron Pools because I don't need another AoE attack at all. Both whirling mace and crowd control recharge fast enough that you can just use one after another non-stop if you have hasten or SB on you. If you don't you can always just add shatter to the attack chain to continue the AoE goodness.

Defensively SD isn't quite as strong as some of the other secondaries (obviously) but it's still pretty easy to hit the def softcap. I find myself being the lead brute for 53/54 AE boss farms all the time and don't have much trouble surviving. Of course part of that is due to the damage mitigation capability of WM. Anyways I'll post my build when I get home from work.

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No. If I give a man money, I expect something in return. The man sitting on his [censored] can rot. Just because a man "is trying his hardest to get back on his feet" doesn't mean I should have to risk my money helping him. "Trying" doesn't mean he deserves my money.

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Charity doesn't always involve money. You can give time or advice or really anything else that doesn't have a monetary value. Think volunteer work or social counseling. You can set that man up with a job interview or give him resume tips. Those are charitable actions too.

Anyways, another example of what I'm talking about is natural disaster victims. Those who had their houses leveled by earthquakes or tornadoes deserve charity since well, we can't exactly predict those things within reason. Those who built their house in a middle of a forest fire zone ignoring all fire marshall or government warnings do not. They knew full well what they were getting into and chose the foolish path.

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I never meant to imply that you should invite these people to your teams, I meant to say that you should not try to pass said invitations off as an act of charity. They aren't. It is a business-like trade. They offer you their time and presence in return for your work. Whether or not their time/presence is worth enough is up to you.

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You can't really conduct a business transaction if there nothing of actual monetary value being exchanged whether it is currency, goods or a assumed hourly rate. Otherwise the IRS can tax you for pretty much anything, including time you spent sitting in a community theatre watching a free performance. After all, by giving your time and presence, you are conducting a business like transaction right? Charity can be a business transaction, unpaid free time isn't.

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True, a team full of useless bodies will go slower than a team full of competent and able players. Not true, however, is that you are losing time. If you are the capable farmer that you claim to be, the larger spawns in every mission should still be dropping quite quickly.

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Well, I am a competent farmer with some characters that do very well for farm missions though I have not yet claimed to be the best there is. What you say *used* to be nominally true during the pre-AE days when a brute or perma-dom can clear a TV or Lib farm with little effort (such as 15 secs or less per group). However in the case of AE, I have yet to see a character that can clear a group of 52-54 bosses by himself in under 30 seconds, yet a group of 40's or 50's can achieve that easily. Now in terms of time per run, let's say I have a group of 40-50's doing a 53 boss farm and clears it within 15 mins. Replace 4 of those people in the group with 4 lowbies between the level range of 10-20 and each run now take 30 mins. How is that not losing time?

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Each successive run might take longer, but you will be killing more enemies in each run. With fewer people, you do get more influence/infamy/XP per kill, but also fewer kills.

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Mapping.

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Still cant figure out how farmers ruined it for anyone, but im sure when i become brain damaged i will totally understand.

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You mean you don't know? Farmers are the real cause behind world hunger, poverty, racism, and the global economic de-leveraging. It is only the farmers themselves that don't see that they're the root of all the world's evil.

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Still, as a general rule of thumb, I don't dish out charity to those who do not need or deserve it.

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Sorry, but this bugs me. How exactly does one *deserve* charity? Charity is the act of giving something to someone at the cost of the giver. How, exactly, are you losing anything by having another character--even if they contribute nothing at all--on your team for a MA farm? If anything, you are gaining from their presence, by virtue of having more enemies to defeat.

Words have an exact meaning, I would learn them.

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This isn't astrophysics. Someone who fell upon financial hardship but is trying their hardest to get back on their footing is deserving of charity. Someone who fell upon financial hardship but sits on their [censored] collecting unemployment for 6 months without bothering to seriously look for a job does not deserve it. Is that clear enough?

Translate that to in-game. Lowbies who looks to squeeze their way into a 52-54 AE team and cries when no one invites them is not deserving of charity. Lowbies who invite a few 50's into their farm team hoping that they'll do all the work is not deserving of charity. Not when they could've put in some effort and do some AE missions closer to their level instead of wasting time trying to get other people to power level them for free.

Edit: And yes, you are very much losing something when you have a team full of non-contributers. Time is the first thing that comes to mind. You're simply not going to clear the mission efficiently with only a fraction of the potential damage output. There are also obvious things that you lose such as exp and infamy. Just like in non-AE missions, those scale based on number of people in team. In a mission full of 8 men spawns but only 4 people doing all the work, you'll get far higher share of rewards per kill if you ditch the other 4 deadbeats.

Judging from the responses so far in this thread, it's no wonder this country is heading down the road of bankruptcy within the next 25 years. So many people expecting free handouts and welfare like it's a birthright. I guess there's just no such thing as paying for services rendered anymore. Ah well, I guess I'll just continue following my own principles and not allow lowbies into my AE teams.

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Um... am I missing something here? Why doesn a 20 need to join a team of higher levels when he or she will make exactly the same number of tickets (or more) simply by taking on a farm of their own level?

If someone pays you, they should have their toon head examined.

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What? We're not talking about lowbies getting into low level teams doing LTs or Freakshow farms. We're talking about lowbies trying to get into level 40-50 farm teams that are doing 52-54 boss farms. In those scenerios, they *should* be obligated to pay the people running the teams if asked. Why? Because someone else is doing all the work while they are getting the free benefits. They're only there by the good graces and generosity of the people running the show. AE isn't a welfare program.

Too often one of my level 50 brutes gets invited to a lowbie team with no one higher than 30. They expect me to basically run the mission for them. Naturally when I told them to pay me if I'm the one that's going to be doing the work, they all decline. Why would I do that for a bunch of strangers that I care nothing about? They can try to sucker someone else into that kind of raw deal. I only hand out charity to people that truly need it, not lazy schmucks that can actually get something done if they'd just put in some effort.

Charging a fellow level 50 or even 40+ characters for MA runs is pretty ridiculous given that they could very well contribute to the team. However, I have no qualms about charging lowbies (level 20 and below) for MA runs *if* I even allow them to get on my team in the first place. To put it bluntly, a level 20 character is not going to bring nearly enough to the table to be worth the spot they're occupying. Of course there are exceptions to the rule such as the lowbie is someone's alt or friend and such. Still, as a general rule of thumb, I don't dish out charity to those who do not need or deserve it.

Edit: As a side note, letting lowbies into any AE farm is a privilege, not a right. Too often I see lowbies screaming and moaning on broadcast about how no one is inviting them to their AE farm as if they're somehow entitled. Why should people doing 52+ AE boss invite the lowbies? It's not like they're going to contribute much. They're just there leaching exp/ticket/inf and that's it.

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Once again I find it very interesting that individuals refuse to follow Mod08's request related to ALL of these farm related issues whatever they are disguised as.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....e=0&fpart=1

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First of all, there is *no* farm related issue. It's all a bunch of croc manufactured by some over-zealous players and developers. People have been crying about farming since what, Ultima Online? Yet how many MMO have really been brough down by the proliferation of farming? I can name more MMOs brought down by poor game design or content than by farming.

Secondly, I and anyone else can post their farm related issues anywhere on this forum as they please. That "official" farming thread is nothing short of a 300+ pages long joke. It's little more than a black whole which individual posts will just get swallowed up and disappear. I suspect that was the reason why such a thread was created in the first place. Too bad, I'm not going to be a shill participating in that preposterous game.

Just make your arc the way you want to and don't worry about what other people (including the developers) might think. These days, you can make an AE mission consisting of hundreds of Rikti Monkeys and some idiot will report it for being a farm.

Sadly, when you combine developer fearmongering (mission deletion and suspension) and a small amount of over-zealous (or self righteous) playerbase, this is the kind of paranoia which results. Basically when the system is out of whack, just ignore it and go about your business the way you see fit. Otherwise you'll just keep looking over your shoulder which pretty much takes out of the entertainment value of an MMO game.

Not to mention Build Up allows you to slot some IO sets for the bonuses (5 slotting Adjusted Targetting for the +5% Recharge or 6 slotting Gaussian for +2.5 def to everything).

Agreed. They need to fix this. Frankly, if the devs of an entire MMO can't fix a basic problem like this, their positions need to be re-evaluated. It's like a bank teller that doesn't know how to count beyond 10.

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i suppose Rus stands for russia? just asking.

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It's more likely Thugs-R-Us.

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QR

Farming =/= exploit.
PL =/= exploit.

Anyone who claims otherwise is just an imbecile, no two ways about it. We're not talking about exploiting a bug in the game mechanic (duplicating items comes to mind) or a particular feature that isn't working as intended (the Rikti Comm officer bug is a good example). In reality, the LK system (including the max 5 level difference for maximizing exp) *is* working as intended. Auto-LKing a lowbie to 50 (or any level for that matter) in AE mission *is* working as intended. Being able to repeat an instanced mission (that isn't timed and is resetable) multiple times *is* working as intended. Running the most rewarding missions repeatedly for fictional monetary gain *is* working as intended. If some of you don't feel that those features are working as intended, feel free to point out any dev post which states otherwise. Until then, pardon me for dismissing these contrary "opinions" as inconsequential and invalid.

Lastly, no MMO in history has ever banned someone for just *farming* or *powerleveling*. They've banned people for exploiting bugs or breaking code of conduct rules. That should pretty much tell you whether developers actually considering those things to be exploitation. As much as some of them may dislike those activities, they really can't do a whole lot about it, much less banning/suspending people. If they won't do anything drastically to police those activities, than none of you anti-farmers have the authority nor intelligence to come up with delusional rules of your own. This is why you can never leave the governance of a MMO to its players. There will always be some self righteous nitwit trying to impose their own imaginery rules onto others, thinking they're morally superior or somehow knows better. In truth, they don't know <bleep>.

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OK, that was one of the strangest analogies that I would have ever expected in response to my statement. Since I was referring to another art form ('art' being the key word here) and not a 'hard science' as a reference, your answer is completely irrelevant to anything that I said.

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As I've already explained previously, whether it is "hard science" or "art form", they all share something in common which is technique. Without techniques, you'd be hard pressed to get to results you're looking for. Most professionals go through years of schooling and training to hone their techniques. Not that it is the only way to acquire techniques but it usually is the best way since you're already learning from someone who is already trained instead of trying to figure things out on your own.

Frankly, law and finance can hardly be considered to be hard science in the first place. Law is an extension of the art form that is rhetorics which requires quite a bit of creativity and the ability to think on your feet. Finance is not just about crunching numbers. Geo-political influence, investor psychology, and consumer demand are all factors that financial professionals needs to take into account in their line of work. Those things are all based upon the study of human nature and psychology which relies as much on interpretation or instinct as actual hard facts.

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Since your assumption (Do I need to explain what happens when we assume?) is that someone who gets paid for their work (i.e. is a 'professional' by your definition) and is therefore inherently better at what they do for that simple fact alone, let me give you a few examples to challenge your 'assumption'.

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I think I've already clarified several times in this thread that I believe that your average professional does produce higher quality work than your average amateur hobbyist. I never discounted the fact that some amateurs can attain or even surpass his professional counterpart but that is the exception, not the norm.

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Amateurs: Paul Potts, Susan Boyle (both can be seen on youtube from Britain's Got Talent)

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How many people auditioned for these shows? 100,000? 200,000? A few diamonds in the rough does not disprove the fact that the overwhelming majority of amateur singers can not reach the level of your average professional recording artist. It is an insult to professionals of every conceivable field by claiming otherwise.

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Professionals: Tiny Tim, Bob Dylan (great writer, crappy singer), (random) wedding singers that charge people heaps of cash for their crappy voices to be heard

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Crappy according to whom? You may state that they're crappy as an opinion but let's not mistaken that for a fact. Apparently some people do think there is quality behind the work of Bob Dylan and those crappy wedding singers otherwise they wouldn't have been paid to do what they do. Who are you to tell them that their taste is crap and that Susan Boyle is better?

Plenty of people also think rap is crappy because they feel rappers don't use the enough of the traditional vocal techniques. Yet, there are plenty of others who love them for their improvisation, rhyme/beat scheme, and wordplay. Who's right? No one is.

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In fact, it is. There are countless number of sites where significant numbers of amateurs are routinely making their works available to the public. That clearly demonstrates that a significant number of amateurs are routinely making their works available to the public.

I don't know what else to tell you. It's simply a reality, right there for you to see if you were to bother to look. I'm sorry, but you haven't refuted anything.

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Everything you said here have not refuted my claim that amateur hobbyists don't share their work with the public very often. A significant number do yes but that does not equate to "most" as you are so keen on implying.

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Your "data" has been completely unsupported, so, please, spare me.

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So statistics are irrelevent now. I guess I just pulled those numbers out of my anus even though they are all *real* statistical data. I guess you're just not good with numbers in general. By your logic, economists or scientists shouldn't even bother with using statistical data as the basis for their research since well, they are completely unsupported in your deranged little world. Whatever man, whatever.

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So I explained the situation in greater detail.

And now you're trying to turn that into a debate point to refute and discard, as if I presented it as "evidence"?

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I asked a question. You answered it. I responded with the fact that your clique of associates does not represent a balanced and unbiased sample group because of their pre-existing conditions and interests. Sorry if you can't handle that fact.

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Keep your "statistics". I'll stick with reality.

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Most of the reality which you know of today IS based on statistics, not whatever non-sense you want to conjure up in your mind. Yeah you're right, I'm done with this. There's no point in debating with someone who thinks that being a professional doesn't mean that you're held more accountable for the quality of your work and that amateurs can achieve the same quality and commitment just as easily. Maybe you should revamp our entire education system since apparently, all those specialized professional training and licensing means little in your mind. In fact, why do we even bother to have professionals for anything in the first place since according to you, so many amateurs are capable of doing what they do just as well if not better. Absurdity. You have a nice day too.

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Yes, I did.

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You did? Let's rehash. You used the "phenomenon of internet behavior" as evidence when in fact, it isn't because the statistics behind the most prominent website in that example clearly refutes what you're claiming. That's as close as you ever got when it comes to supplying some statistics to back your claim unless you consider your personal experience is somehow a form of factual evidence. Sorry but the sample size is far too small to qualify. I have personal experiences as well with people in my circle and I don't see what you see.

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Correct. Hence: phenomenon of internet behavior.

Jeezus.

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So it is ok for you to use a "phenomenon of internet behavior" to prove your point but it isn't ok for me to dig deeper into that phenomenon to dispute your so called proof? Sure Youtube is only one website out of many but it also has far more active users than any of the others which coincidentally provides a large enough and diverse enough sample size for me to analyze. I fail to see why you can't comprehend this since it abides by all the requirements behind statistical inference.

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I'm sorry, but just what does stage fright have to do with making your work publicly available if you're an artist, writer or musician? Especially when it comes to the internet?

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Until you provide some data that supports your opinion (as I have), your point regarding sharing over the internet is irrelevent. In terms of people sharing their work with the public in person whether it is giving a speech, singing, acting, dancing or poetry, stage fright is a real deterrance for a lot of people. I don't think you understand just how serious this phobia is for a lot of people.

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I'm a creator. Many of the people interact with are creators. Some are professionals, other are amateurs. All of them are passionate about their art. Of the amateurs, almost all of them have made their work openly available to the public, usually via the internet, as do their fellow enthusiasts. It's become a commonplace practice.

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So you know these people by business association or is it some kind of social networking relationship? If so then this particular evidence isn't particularly compelling. I'm talking about the general populace, not a specific group of people who share a common interest. It's like me saying that most people must enjoy reading books since everyone in my book club loves it. It's a skewed sample group, period.

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And as I have already said, that enjoyment can be derived, in part, from sharing that work publicly. And, in fact, depending on the work, sharing it in such a way is intrinsic to that kind of work. It doesn't make it any less a hobby.

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When public acceptance becomes more of a priority than the pleasure derived from creating the work itself, the hobby starts to lose its value. You start changing your style so it'll suit the public taste since that is more important to you. It will slowly become mainstream in order it'll appeal to more people. So yes, I believe that for a true hobbyist, maintaining that uniqueness even in the face of potential public criticism is very important. Otherwise you're just a sell out who care more about what other people say than the pleasure of creating the work itself.

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No, I'm sorry, it's not.

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Dictionary.com: an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation.
Webster: a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.
Thesaurus.com: leisure activity or pleasurable pastime.
Cambridge: an activity which someone does for pleasure when they are not working.

Note that all of them define hobby as something outside of your profession that you derive pleasure and enjoyment from. If your most important priority lies in whether *other* people accept your work positively, just what part of making it more compliant to the tastes of others is relaxing? Isn't that putting more undue stress on yourself? Hobby isn't suppose to be stressful. It isn't suppose to be work. That's what makes it go against the very definition of hobby.

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While you're referring to your dictionary again, please also look up "degree". The "difference in degree" you've cited more than once would seem to indicate that, yes, you do believe that a professional is, as a default, more serious about what they create than an amateur is.

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In terms of being more serious about the quality of their work and how it will reflect upon them, yes, that is what I'm saying. As I've already mentioned a dozen times, financial consequence is a reality for any professional. If it isn't important than you wouldn't see so many companies and professionals putting special emphasis on customer satisfaction. Can you say the same for amateur hobbyists?

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As far as I can tell, you rather tightly equate some level of commercial success with quality, based on the statement quoted above. That's your option, of course, and I doubt I'll be changing your mind, but I see no basis for the opinion. There are way too many variables that go into what makes one work sell and another not, many of which have nothing to do with the quality of the work. Which is not to say that I think it's all dumb luck, by any means. I very much like to think that quality *does* count; but the sale is not, in and of itself, much of an indicator.

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Well, to me commercial success is a important indicator for one reason alone. If someone is successfully selling his work then it means that he has struck a chord with some of his target audience. Of course there are other methods to judge the quality of one's work such as word of mouth and critical reviews. In the end though, all those other methods do end up contributing to more people flocking to that particular professional which can easily turn into financial success. Here's something else to keep in mind. Negative press is circulated far more frequently than positive ones. If the quality of one's work is sub-standard, the word tends to spread around quickly and potential customers will avoid him like a plague. Few professionals I know are willing to risk that kind of bad publicity and those that do generally do not enjoy financial success.

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Not sure I get that. I suppose I could take their word for it, or I could view/read/hear the work and judge for myself.

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I meant that much of the time, you really don't have any assurances about an amateur's quality of work besides taking his word for it. Generally speaking, professionals have at least some background (licenses, previous works, degree, professional references, reviews) which you can research to gauge whether he is qualified or if he would suit your interest. With most amateurs you don't really know what you're going to get unless you already have references that can provide you with the appropriate information.

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While I still do not believe that there is any right to expectation on the part of the author (artist, singer, etc.), I also think the work should be judged on its own merits, regardless of whether or not it's paying the rent. Do you disagree?

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Yes that's true but judging the quality of any given piece of work is very subjective, heavily based upon the individual. This brings me back to my original assertion that commercial success is a good indicator of whether that author has successfully reached his core audience. If his core audience finds the quality of his work to be acceptable enough to purchase, what you or I think of his work is irrelevent to those people.

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Again, this simply is not true.

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You know, you can say it's not true as many times as you like but you've yet to present a single piece of credible evidence or statistic that suggests otherwise. Why is that?

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No, I used a phenomenon of internet behavior to prove my point. You singled out a single site. That's not "the same reference source" by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how much dancing you do to try to rationalize it.

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That's not what you said and I quote:

Judging by the popularity of sites such as DeviantArt, youtube, and a countless slew of others, I'd say that's a perty big demographic.

It was *you* who lumped all of them into one huge demographic which I assumed to be web users (not an unreasonable assumption since you did say websites). Yet when I used Youtube as the most prominent example of that demographic, it is all the sudden an unacceptable reference source to represent the rest? Have you really explored the depths of Youtube user base? It is literally a microcasm of the society as a whole which includes people of every race, age range, sexual orientation, religious, and political affliation. You do realize that 70% of all Americans use the internet right? If that's not an acceptable sample group to base an argument on, I don't know what is.

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Almost all of them.

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I guess those people around you are just immune to stage fright which affects 40% of the American population. Nevermind the fear of failure. What makes them so special when compared to everyone else I wonder.

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You appear to think that presenting work for public consumption indicates a motive other than personal enjoyment, and therefore, in such a case, the pursuit no longer qualifies as a hobby.

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I said that if opening your work for the public consumption is your primary objective then it goes against the very definition of "hobby". As I've already said, a hobby is something that you do outside of your career and your own enjoyment is the primary motivation behind it. I never said you couldn't have any secondary motivations, only that self gratification is the primary one. This isn't open for interpretation, it is how the word "hobby" is defined by any dictionary you look up. If publishing it for others to evaluate is your primary motive then it would seem to suggest that you are seeking public acceptance. The hobby itself becomes less relevent as a result since frankly, any hobby would do as long as you get your 15 mins of fame.

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Amateur creators are fully capable of being as vested in their work as professional creators are. They can take it just as seriously, they can care about it just as much. Many can, and do, make their work publicly available.

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Once again, the difference is in the degree and form of seriousness. I've already explained the difference no less than 3 to 4 times so I'm not going to repeat myself if you can't seem to comprehend the it.

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Coincidentally, we have very similar backgrounds, at least in this one regard. But I am still struggling to understand your basic premise. By your standard, would a published poet who's primary source of income comes, not from his books, but from teaching, be an 'amateur' or a 'professional?' Would you automatically consider me to be a 'professional' artist simply because I have sold my work, even though I do not make my living that way? If so, would you also automatically assume my work to be superior to that of another artist who has not sold? Would any other criteria come into play there?

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That poet would be a professional because he does recieve income for his work. Once you recieve money for your work, you cease being an amateur. Now, it is possible to have two simultaneous professions at one time, especially in the art world. An painter could also be a sculpter. An actor could also be a singer. So on and so forth. While being a professional does not mean your work is automatically better than that of the majority of amateurs, I do however believe that there's a good chance that it is. After all, you have succeeded in finding an audience to buy your work therefore establishing at least some credential. In contrast, you can only rely on an amateur's word when it comes to the quality behind their work.

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In my opinion, no. And neither does the professional.

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Well, that's where we disagree. I believe a professional has the right to question those who berate their work because it affects their reputation thus their livelihood. Amateurs do not have to deal with that kind of consequences.

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This presumes the notion that "professionalism" is synonymous with "commitment" and that's not automatically true. The issue is the commitment itself, not the amateur or professional status.

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To me, when you're committed to profession, what you're really committing to is a career. It wouldn't be *just* a job. That's not a profession, that's just something to pay the bills.

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Not all hobbies generate less effort and commitment than all professions, even when talking about specific people. I know many people that put more effort and commitment into their hobbies than their professions.

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True but to quantify one's commitment and passion, time is the only measuring stick you can realistically use. Time is finite. If you have a serious profession (or career) that requires full time attention from you, it's pretty difficult to commit the same amount of time to a hobby that you're passionate about, especially if you have a family. Unless of course, you choose to pass on sleeping.

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I believe the answer to that general question is equally applicable to amateurs and professionals alike, in most fields.

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I can think of at least one reason why someone would take a professional more seriously. If they didn't want the professional's advice, they wouldn't have gone into their office or seeked out their assistance in the first place. At least, I certainly don't.

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First of all, we're talking about creative works. Not law, not medicine, not finance.

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Creative works still have a lot of techniques behind it. It's the same for singing, instruments, acting, drawing, painting, or writing. For example, painting requires an understanding of colors (complementary/contrasting), brush stroke techniques and the proper mixture/application of the medium (oil, watercolor, acrylic, etc). Someone who is completely passionate about painting but have no idea how to apply those techniques properly is not going to produce a good painting in the end. These techniques I'm referring to are usually attained by training and repetition which can be said for any profession. That was my point.

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Secondly, we're not comparing people who take X seriously and people who have only a passing interest, or limited experience, in it.

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Of course we are talking about that. A professional does what he does on a daily basis. It is their career. They have a massive vested interest in being good at their job and to produce quality work because otherwise, they'd be out on the streets. Many professionals also spend time outside of work honing their crafts. Would amateur hobbyists with a full time career be as motivated or can afford to spend that much time on their craft? Perhaps a few but definately not all.

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We're talking about people who pursue X avidly for profit and those who pursue it avidly out of passion for it.

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Incorrect. Even if the professionals are getting paid a lot of money, they can still be passionate in their work. The passion depends on the individual, not their chosen line of profession or hobby. The pursuit of financial security and the pursuit of personal passion are not mutually exclusive events.

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Thus, would I take the advice of a doctor who's been doing volunteer work for 30 years over one who's been getting paid for it for 2? Probably, yes.

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And you'd be taking advice from a professional. As you said before, the difference between a professional and amateur is money. In this case, the doctor did get paid at one time during his careers thus qualifying him as a professional. Nextly, to practice on a voluntary basis, the doctor would still need a physician license and be registered with the state medical board. That's a "professional" license and a "professional" regulatory agency.

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As I understand it, the implication of your assertions continues to be that professional work is inherently of a higher quality than amateur work... that an amateur can't possibly be as vested, or more vested, in their work than a professional is (I'm afraid your analogies betray this slanted view).

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Professionals, while not always perfect, generally do perform better than amateurs regardless of line of work. In the field of art and performing, look no further than the dozens of reality talent shows that have popped up everywhere in recent years. How many people audition for these shows? Hundreds of thousands if not millions. Many of them can be very passionate about their hobby/talent but how many actually make it through the cut based on the quality of their performance? Not many. You can't say that "amateurs are often as good as professionals" when in reality one amateur out of thousands may be of actual professional quality.

Do you make it a habit to hire amateurs to do all the work that needs to be done in your life whether it is accounting, home improvement, car maintenance and so on? If you consistantly hire professionals to do those things for you then you've already proven my point yourself.

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And, frankly, you need look no further than MA for evidence of that. I've already played a handful of arcs that were simply better constructed than much of the regular content in the game, which someone was paid to write.

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That's your opinion, not a fact. I could play the same arcs and find it lacking. It does not qualify as evidence because you are a sample size of one.

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No, you claimed that "Amateur hobbyists on the other hand do not publish their work for public evaluation very often," which, frankly, I find to be pretty absurd. They do it all the time. Especially now with the ability to utilize the internet to do so.

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Given that I never used an absolute in my statements, your argument holds no water no matter how many words you try to put into my mouth. Someone who doesn't do something very often does not mean that person never does it.

Let me also clarify something else. Sharing your work with friends, co-workers or family members doesn't really qualify as "public evaluation". To attain an accurate review your work, your audience should be unbiased and those groups I mentioned are anything but.

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If their personal enjoyment comes in part from the public consumption, then yes, it still qualifies as a "hobby". The very point of many creative pursuits is to present them to an audience. That's where a large part of the enjoyment can come from.

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Again, I'm not arguing this point nor do I deny its existance. I myself have published my artwork in college during student exhibits but I did not expect anything out of it. The fact that people were looking at it was good enough for me. If they didn't like it, who cares. I enjoyed the process of creating the work and that was my main goal.

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So, we're back to non-professionals not being as serious. Isn't that what you said you weren't saying earlier?

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I think I already explained quite clearly how a professional being serious with his work is different from an amateur being serious with his work. Both ARE serious, just in different aspects because of the way their life is affected by that work. Never underestimate the power of money and financial reward when it comes to how it affects the way people commit themselves to something.

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Yes. It's also safe to assume that the vast majority of those people aren't pursuing video production (so much for your stats, sorry). It's also safe to assume that a significant number of people--perhaps the majority--who enjoy artistic pursuits, share their creations with others. Evidence of this includes--but is not limited to--the countless number of websites dedicated to that very thing, including--but not limited to--youtube.

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You used a bunch of websites to illustrate your point so I countered using the same reference source. That's the beauty of statistics. As long as the sample size is large enough, you can apply that very formula to the other sample groups belonging to the same category (web users in this case). All those sharing websites out there doesn't mean a thing except to continue to illustrate that only a small percentage of web users publish their work. The only way my Youtube statistical breakdown would be somehow be irrelevent for all those other sharing sites is if the population/demographic that use each site is drastically different from eachother. I doubt that's the case though since the variation of content on Youtube speaks for itself. That is why I chose to use Youtube as an example in the first place since it represents such a large and diverse group of people from all walks of life.

Let me ask you this. How many people in your circle of family and friends actively publish their hobby for the public consumption? I don't mean putting pictures on Picasa to share with your family and friends or singing karaoke at a family reunion. Those are controlled audiences which are not public forums. What I mean is performing at amateur night at a comedy club or putting your artwork in an actual gallery. I live in the bay area which is like open mike central in the U.S. after LA and I don't even see it that much. I can think of at least a few reasons. One being that 40% of Americans suffer from stage fright and possibly even more than that suffer from the fear of failure. No matter how good you may sound while singing in the shower, performing infront of an unfamiliar audience is a completely different story.

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Nor does it preclude it, which was my point. You appear to think it does. It doesn't.

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Again, please quote me as stating that amateurs have *never* shared their work with the open public.

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For example, acting, theatre, performance art, slam poetry, all can be pursued as "hobbies", and public consumption is intrinsic to the personal enjoyment derived from pursuing them.

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As I've said before, I never denied the fact that people can attain joy from performing for others. However, as an unpaid amateur performer of sorts, would you yell and scream at an audience because they're bored with your performance? Would you confront them and berate them because they didn't like it? If someone truly enjoys performing for others, the joy of being in that limelight should already be rewarding enough. Any praise they recieve is just a bonus, not a requirement.

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Because advice from an amateur artist is not very likely to wind up leaving you bankrupt, in prison, and/or dead.

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Nice attempt to use technicalities to detract from the main point of my examples. I'll say it in more plain terms. Professionals generally are held more accountable for their work because it is their livelihood. Their reputation and future business prospects are at stake should they get a negative response from their audience. This is the same in every field whether you are manufacturing, art or retail. Amateurs are not held to the same standards since well, they're not getting paid for it so who cares if the public doesn't like their work? Sigh, everybody thinks they're a superstar when all they are is really Molly Shannon.

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I agree that the only difference between 'professional' & 'amateur' is the cash. I've got a lot of friends that sing and play music as a 'hobby'. A few of them play 'professionally', but when they're not up on that stage, they spend many hours playing for the pure enjoyment of making music with friends. Some of those friends that are only amateurs are as good if not better than some that play professionally. Just because they're not pros, it doesn't mean they are any less talented at what they do. The one thing that they all have in common is their talent and love for music. I don't make a distinction between those that play for money and those that don't. They all love to play music and are very good at what they do for fun.

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I'm not sure just what it is you're suggesting here. Are you really trying to tell me that in general, amateurs and professionals have little difference in terms of the quality of their work?

Hypothetically speaking, do you take law advice from a buddy who read up on some law books instead of an actual lawyer? Do you take medical diagnosis from Yahoo! answers made by some pre-med student instead of an actual doctor? Do you take financial advise from a family member who dabbles in the stock market instead of a fully licensed Financial Advisor? Yet when it comes to the various fields of art, the seperation between professionals and amateurs is all the sudden less relevent? I would certainly hope that's not what you're claiming.

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Yah, that doesn't really interest me. I'm replying to your (continued) implication that not getting paid for something means it's somehow less than and/or not made to share.

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To be fair, I never claimed that hobby work shouldn't be shared. What I did say was that professionals sharing their work with their public has financial consequences. Amateurs do not. In other words, professionals are serious about their work when it comes to how it will be recieved publically because first and foremost, it is their primary source of income. Amateurs being serious about their work is first and foremost, for their own enjoyment and then for public consumption should they choose to share it. If their personal enjoyment isn't their primary objective then it goes against the very definition of "hobby". Anyways, the two types of seriousness aren't the same in terms of degree when you take into consideration that money is involved.

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What separates professionals and "amateurs" is getting paid. That's it.

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See above.

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Don't cruise the web much, huh.

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There are 305 million people in the United States and it is safe to assume that the vast majority of them have some form of hobby yes? To date, Youtube has recieved 79 million video uploads, 34% of which were by Americans (26 million). 80% of all Youtube videos are uploaded by amateurs (21 million). The average Youtube user has 4 uploads to their credit (5 million). So the most popularly used sharing website used in the U.S. today shows that only 2-3% of Americans actively partake in their sharing process. Would Youtube stats be much different than the other sharing websites you listed? Not according to the rules behind which the whole field of statistics is governed since the sample sizes are so large. I think I'll go with my original assertion that only a small percentage of amateur hobbyists share their work. And let's not even get into details about just how many Youtube videos actually qualifies as "art".

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I don't think any creator, professional or otherwise, should have expectations about how their work is going to be received. Hope is fine. But expectation? I'd say that's gunna lead to disappointment, whether you're making an MA arc or publishing a novel.

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Could've fooled me. On this forum alone, the sheer amount of complaints regarding how their arcs are not getting played enough or how their arc is rated unfairly seems to paint a different picture when it comes to expectation. The fact that many people have gone so far as to try to block out any competing types of missions (i.e. farm) so their arcs can get a fair shake only further reinforces my point.

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This whole layer you've put on the subject about professional vs. non-professional is highly subjective, ultimately superfluous, and perhaps a touch derogatory to those who might consider sharing to be part of the pleasure of their "hobby".

Judging by the popularity of sites such as DeviantArt, youtube, and a countless slew of others, I'd say that's a perty big demographic.

Which should more than illustrate that, counter to your claim, 'keeping it to yourself' is not inherent in the concept of a "hobby". In fact, the opposite is probably more often the case.

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Per Webster's definition of hobby:

a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.

Says nothing about sharing their hobbies with others as a requirement for their relaxation. Again, I have not claimed that amateur hobbyists shouldn't share their work with others and one could certainly take pleasure in sharing their work with others. However, to spew venom against those who choose to not to participate or to flat out ignore in their creation is assinine to say the least. If that's not expectation at work then what is it?

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Not pursuing a creative endeavor professionally does not automatically mean it's not being taken seriously by the creator.

This isn't a new debate. O'Keefe used to berate Adams for giving his work away. Kurt Vonnegut had a eye-opening dialogue with his sister about this sort of thing as well, which is related in one of his books. Then, of course, you have the attitude that illustration and commercial art isn't really art at all, and so on down through the ages.

Point is, creators are individuals. Individuals have different views on their creations, the process of creating, and what pursuing it seriously entails. I've known many creators, a good number of them professionals. It's interesting to note that more than a few have viewed their commercial products and their work-for-hire as the less serious end of what they do. They pump out pap to make money in order to finance the "more serious" work that wouldn't sell.

It's all a matter of perspective, which means that you can't put too much stock in the idea that "hobby" = "not serious".

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But you did not answer the questions I posed originially. The issue at hand is not whether the creators take their work seriously. I take my work seriously when I'm really into it, otherwise I would not have spent that much time doing it in the first place. The relevent question here is how seriously should the creators expect *other* people to take their work. By defination, a hobby is something that you do in your own time for the purpose of self gratification. It is not necessarily to be used as a tool to attract public adoration. That's what seperate the professionals and amateurs. Generally speaking, a professional does much of their work for public consumption and in return, public acceptance can literally translate into financial rewards. Amateur hobbyists on the other hand do not publish their work for public evaluation very often. This is not to say that they can't (as many people have side jobs in this day and age) but it is not their primary breadwinner. In anycase, if amateur hobbyists are unhappy about the fact that their work is not publically accepted, then perhaps they should temper their own expectations instead of pointing the fingers at their audience. After all, it is a *hobby* which first and foremost, is suppose to be done for your own pleasure.