hedgehog_NA

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Only stupid griefers brag about doing it. So if even if they get banned, it doesn't make much of a dent in the jerk population.

They need to go a step further, do some datamining, and ban anyone who habitually 1 or 0 stars arcs they haven't even started.

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as long as they do the same to people that habitually give 4 and 5 star ratings. After all, we are supposed to be inflating peoples ego's, not giving our opinions.

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Are the people running your arc from page 1 hitting the easy targets and not getting what they want, while those that find you on page 43 reading your description and liking it?

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There's some of that going on, but really, the griefing is happening.

Dozens of people have the exact same story.

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I think enough of both behaviors is giong on to muddy up the water. And people voting high if they are in a good mood or low if they are mad about something.

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could you be looking at it wrong? How many people see your arc if it isnt on the first page? If you are on page 43, does anyone even try your arc?

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I've gotten hundreds of my ratings while not on the front page and they've almost exclusively been 4 and 5 stars. This is both from feedback and dividing tickets earned by ratings. Front page? About half 0's or 1's. These instantly stop once the average hits 4.

This has happened to at least a dozen or so people I know personally. Exactly the same thing.

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Are the people running your arc from page 1 hitting the easy targets and not getting what they want, while those that find you on page 43 reading your description and liking it?

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I hope you're wrong here. I have given out 1-star ratings, 2-star ratings, 3, 4 and 5. Given that each account holder can only rate an arc once, regardless of how many alts they play, I refuse to believe we have more spiteful griefers playing CoX than players who give out 1-star ratings just thinking that they deserve them.

At least, I sure hope we don't.

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I wish he was wrong.

The fact is that most people who have seen their arcs hit with 0 or 1 star votes (assuming of course we're talking about working missions with something attempting proper english, etc) have only seen them when they have hit the first page or two of search by ratings. Even our one Hall of Fame arc gains and loses the status over and over because as soon as he gets it, there are a flood of 0's and 1's coming in. As soon as the arc gets lost in the glut of 4 star arcs? They stop.

It's been seen by too many people on too many arcs with too many people saying "Hey, I downvote stuff on the front page because I want to be on the front page and they're taking up the space I should be filling with my Naruto fanfic" to pretend it doesn't happen.

I might have exaggerated slightly on the Naruto fanfic. There's probably also some Sephiroth loves my CoH character stuff, too.

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could you be looking at it wrong? How many people see your arc if it isnt on the first page? If you are on page 43, does anyone even try your arc?

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One of the original farms using the comm officers had "Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow....." in the description I think. And from there I'm pretty sure people started calling it the "Meow Farm" Just because at the time the way it was set up was unique to many other farms (Before it caught on)

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Yeah, I heard that explanation too. But I *PREFER* one of the other explanations I heard: The levels were coming so fast it was like a sports car going by... MMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!"

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Then shouldnt it be ZOOOMMMMM?? I mean cars go zoom. I never hear a car go meow.. but I have heard a car go PURRRRR

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caterpillar tractors go meow

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I'm not saying I am in favor of you getting your account banned. I'm only saying that from what I've seen you had to be going pedal to the metal to get a character deleted, so I can only infer you had to be in full-frenzy mass PL mode to get your account banned. If you weren't farming that map heavily then I'd say you have good grounds to appeal the punishment and get it overturned.

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So, if someone created a character and sped their way to 50 through normal content, say Task Forces, and got from 1 to 50 in say 12 hours, wouldn't that be pedal to the metal? Should those characters also get deleted?

This is the underlying problem with that rationale.

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Exactly. If your SOLE metric is time... then you're simply trying to cover bad game design. You create something that specifically allows your players to do things you don't want them to, (level quicly) and instead of making changes to your product, you put some threat to those that might use your product to it's fullest and retroactively ban accounts for doing just that.

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It is an extension of the school of thought that brought us merits. Faster is badder. 1 merit for x min. This is the same thing applied to xp/leveling. And the devs will not consider they might be wrong. When they finally do, COX may just be too far gone.

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Also, money's tight for me on Freedom. Do you take I.O.U.'s, Smurphy?

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I think it'd be funny if Smurph accepted indentured servitude in lieu of payment- labor in his farms until your drops pay off your debt.

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For a minute there, I thought indentured servitude was something graphic and explicit and not something I could post about ... until I looked it up. Sorry, the mind wanders.

Hrm. Dear Devs: New market object: Indentured Servant.

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I thought it was maids with false teeth...

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*Post deleted by TonyV*

Meh, I changed my mind. I don't even want to dignify your post with a response.

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funny thing is, I have bridged for taxibots being PL'd.

damn shame that they are pl'ers too.

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You would *have* to pay me to eat there. Did your meal come with insurance?

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one heart attack in bad enough..dont need more

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I'm having yummy cake and you are not.

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you are having urinal cake???? ill pass

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I miss my open letter thread.

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You miss your open sweater thread??? We all do

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I think the gripe about having broken missions clogging the search results is valid.

My own mission is broken, and will remain listed but unplayable until I have a chance to to do a significant rewrite (as it used not just one but both of the maps that got yanked last patch). I'd prefer to pull it down until I can fix it, but the way the system works, there's no way to do that without killing the accumulated plays and ratings.

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I'm in this boat as well. I've had to redo multiple items in each of my 4 arcs (2 accounts) with each patch that came out, whether it was maps that were taken away or custom factions that were needed to be adjusted. I've had to make new custom units to replace ones that became unbalanced and nigh-unplayable by solo players or lowbies that weren't totally tricked out with IOs. And half the time that friends have tried to run my arcs, they wouldn't load.

Seriously, this fiasco got real old, real fast. If/when they ever figure out what they really want from this system and if it becomes a more stable platform for storytelling as a result, I'll go back in, line-by-line and figure it out yet again. I'm done redoing my arcs for now though.

Yes the gripe is valid, but I don't see it being resolved until the devs give us a stable platform to work on, which should have done from the start.

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Never before done? lol

meet my dark elf conjuror in EQ2

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No, under that system - with the '5 star cartels' - it just means the mediocre and what remains of the explotive farms will float to, and STAY at the top; and with just a 'thumbs up' to go by; yoiu'll sift through more pages than you do now.

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Which is why there should only be "thumbs up" and the number of "thumbs up" a single player can give should be very limited.

I really hate the star system. But if it's going to stay, I'd want to at least see the removal of the 0-Star, see arcs ranked by the total number of stars they've earned, and see a breakdown like Dark_Aspect has suggested.

But, really, I just want to see the star system removed entirely, and I want any ratings system used to play second fiddle to robust search functionality. Give us the means to find what we want, and there'll be much less concern over ratings.

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Not sure about this.. I think it would be better to require a comment for 0 and 1 star ratings.

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Problem with this:

If someone's rated an arc 1 or 0 stars, I don't think they're going to want their time wasted any further by being forced to comment.

Thus, comments would commonly be things like "no comment", "it sucked", or "hurilvijdvlknjeu"... which aren't comments at all.

On a related note, there seems to be a growing perception that giving feedback is somehow an obligation. It's not. And I think it's unrealistic to expect anyone to make some sort of investment in the work of a total stranger. Especially if that work is considered bad or even mediocre by the person being asked to make the investment.

If you want feedback, actively solicit it. Ask friends to run through your arc with you and/or solo it, and do the same for them in return. You can actually gain insight about your own stuff in a dialogue about someone else's stuff. Get a little writer's circle going. I'm sure there are a lot of people around here that'd be into that. I'm not, but that's only because I already have one. If I didn't, I'd be real interested in the idea of some sort of "Test Night" with some other authors on my server.

Bottom line, feedback from random plays shouldn't be expected. People are in MA to play, and writing feedback--no matter how brief--is taking time out from that. If they're on a team, they're even less likely to stop and write, unless everyone they're with is doing it as well. Any player feedback you get should be gravy. It should not be depended upon for your arc's improvement.

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Or like we saw with the "jranger" period. people make a prepared text file that they cut and paste that meets or exceeds any requirement, yet says nothing.

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The funniest grief I had (zero stars) was the comment - "Your arc is bad and you should feel bad."

Now, while I can certainly believe someone would not like that arc (although up until that point, all feedback has been positive; or actually constructive) enough to give it a zero star rating; it does come across to me as a grief by someone who somehow believes someone's ego is so 'fragile' they'd be upset over this.

Like any other system in any MMO that allows for direct player input; ANY public player ratings system they impliment will be griefable; and there will be people who enjoy griefing just for the sake of it.

So, never take anything personally, know when to accept good critisim, when to ignore bad criticism; and realize that nothing you create will ever be universally liked by anyone, and you won't always get a 'fair shake'; and their's nothing you can do to change any of that.

(Funny thing was - it was the 25th rating, so it got me a badge, and it's still at 4 stars overall )
It amazes me people bother

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What is amazing is the different ways people look at the world around them. What is very funny to me, may be offensive to you. What may make me smile, may leave you feeling depressed. Dont discount some one because they rate an arc using different criteria than you do. Face it, humans are plain wierd.

Its not my damn planet monkey boy....


extra credit if you know what movie that came from.

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Soul, HA asked Geek to post it. And also decided to come out and identify himself when Geek was polite enough to keep him nameless. It's his bed and he made it.

Basically, there is a critique and a non critique. A critique is something like "this is how you can improve your arc" or "here are some things you may want to change." It's polite, has a good delivery, doesn't step on any toes.

The other one, which HA has decided he wanted to start, is basically, your arc sucks because I don't like it. It's rude, it doesn't do anything to help the arc and is basically a troll. And this some how proves that everyone will rate Geeks arc as 1 star? How does anyone think this is a nice, respectful, and reasonable critique.

How would you have reacted if someone came up to you and said "Hey about your art, I don't like it. It's highly flawed" and then listed things that basically amounted to: start over. It's insulting really.

If HA really wanted Geek to respect his critique, he might have started with, "I rated your arc a one, but I think it could get better if you made these adjustments. I'm more than willing to rerate if you decide to make these changes."

See the difference?

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The rating system is strictly how the rater likes or dislikes the arc. That is all. It is a beauty contest and we all have different standards. If we were rating a eating establishment and they served liver and onions. You, liking l&o, might give them 5 stars. I hate the stuff, give it 0 or 1 star. I am not griefing, but I very much did not like the offering. Now if you feel your writing is so awesome, you might want to quit the day job to pursue that. I mean, Tolkien's first story was a hit.

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seriously, can we stop with the labeling and at least try to be civil?
Even with my disquiet about the past couple of weeks, I am looking forewards to both the new tf's and going rogue.

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Why, so you can find new exploits to exploit, Mr. Exploiter!?

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and we know all rpers are just looking for hot cat girl erp. I dont exploit get that through your thick head. It is easy to label people that we absolutely no knowledge of. Everytime you accuse some one of being a exploiter, you help the terrorists win.

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1) MA - 100% cool!

2) Dev handling of problems with it - 100% overreacted to.

I figure there's probably one other important percentage to go here:

3) Player Base Upset about #2 - .5%

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proof? or do you just pull numbers out of your [censored]?

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After that MA debacle, its not like a bug on test for a few days matters, to be honest.

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What debacle? Many of us are enjoying the MA immensly. No issues there. MA is tremendous fun.

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The "MA debacle" line is something I've heard a lot of; the farmers have been trying to spread panic and outrage since they got their exploits nerfed.

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and the idiots that have no idea what they are talking about are trying to label anyone not on their bandwagon exploiters. Even the people that did not pl and had pacted toons deleted.


seriously, can we stop with the labeling and at least try to be civil? Yes, Posi screwed up with the tone of his post and his inability to find a keyboard to at lest damp down the fires. CS should be flogged for not making fixing the unjust bannings first priority. A post should have been made in general about the issue and ensuring the player base that it is being dealt with. Very simple customer relations. I have owned businesses before and have had to deal with problems both my fault and not my fault. You deal with them in a timely manner, not ignore them and hope they go away.
Even with my disquiet about the past couple of weeks, I am looking forewards to both the new tf's and going rogue.

tf'er enjoys task forces, knows them like the back of his hand

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...players that did not pl or use any exploit have gotten 72hr bans and toons deleted.

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I'm officially calling BS on that claim.

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and you would be wrong. Some of those have already had their accounts reactivated and the toons restored. CS was not doing a very good job of damage control.

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I've said this so many times that I should just make a cut and paste for it: A rising tide lifts all boats.

Back in the day when Everquest ruled the waves, new games were coming online every year and the same people were always crying "This new game is where it's at. EQ is dead. Anybody who disagrees is just a blind fanboi."

Lo, all these years later, EQ is still around. Ultima Online is even still around.

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quoted for saying what I was thinking

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wanna play tabula rasa? Ncsoft has a track record of dumping bad performers.

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I am now figuring that I will need to just ignore all mission arcs with custom critters in it, something I really didn't want to have to do.

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This is probably the biggest tragedy to the buffs of custom mobs--they wound up so strong that players are getting turned away. I really hope that I15 successfully gives better tools for making unique mobs that aren't overpowered.

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Unfortunately, I15 will probably be too late. People are already forming their opinions on AE and some of them are not good.

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Let's see:


I've had level 50's ask me the following:

* Where is City Hall? (I was standing under the atlas statue at the time).

* How do I buy a cape? (NCsoft Store, same as everything else you buy)

* Who gives quests? (Well, let's see, you've outleveled nearly everyone, I'd suggest that Selnum guy in PI, or Levantra in the RWZ...)

* How do I get to the Hollows? (*facepalm* You're not serious... oh snap! you are serious!)

* Where are the Lost? (uhhh... if we knew that, they wouldn't be Lost... oh, wait you want to hang out with them cos YOU'RE lost, riiight. Skyway, "Land of the Lost" neighborhood. No really, don't mention it.)

* How do I get into City Hall? (by... opening the door, same as everything else you enter and exit in the game?)

* Where is the mailbox? (it gets delivered electronically, just click the word Email above your chat area. Oh yeah, when that guy advertises a great rate on gold? it's a really lowball figure. Stand firm, you'll profit.)

* NED TEAM PLZ - INVITE NAO? ( uhhh... I'm busy erp'ing with this hawt vampire catgirl FBI agent, shoo! )

The answers have been changed to protect the humor, but, yes, the questions are all direct from game chat, folks.

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Maybe it is a good thing I've been avioding Atlas as much as I have been.

Yesh...

Thank you for the time...

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nah, its great fun to send messages like that to sg members to hear them complain in vent about it. Not knowing its you doing it as a practical joke.

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Yeah, perish the thought they should stop the huge exploit. I really think I should be able to get from 1 to 50 in 5 minutes. And by the way, please note the sarcasm.

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It could be that players that did not pl or use any exploit have gotten 72hr bans and toons deleted. Nah, couldnt be that. Using the level pact system is not an exploit, please let CS know that

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