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Ok, let's stop it there a sec and clear something up:
"Ultra rare" items are fine.
Hysterical pricing of "ultra rare" items is not fine.
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Just out of curiosity, do you understand the meaning of "ultra rare"? They would, by definition, be rarely supplied and highly demanded, so they're guaranteed to have a massive price, like a Lamborghini. What number takes a price from "ultra rare" to "hysterical"? It seems like it would just be some random subjective number you're setting as compared to the one I'm setting or any other person is setting, no?
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Yeah, the TF farmer puts in extra time to earn these drops but a casual player has as much right and opportunity as a hardcore TF farmer to earn a rare purple drop and strike "auction house gold" even if they only run a TF once (I had it happen a couple of times during the few times I've run TF's in the past year) -- so let's stop slinging these back-handed "entitlement" persnicketies starting now and try conversing like mature, rational adults.
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Whaaaaa?
You feel that the person who runs more TFs and dedicates more time to playing doesn't deserve a greater opportunity to get something that is ultra rare than someone who rarely plays? You both have the same PERCENT chance of getting the item, the other person just buys more lottery tickets than you. That's the definition of entitlement, whether you like the word or not.
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Gang, I honestly can't tell you why it's insane to pay this much for *anything* in-game (either common or ultra rare) - but if you think its fine, great. If you don't, that's fine too. If TF farmers insist on putting the extra time in to loot ultra rare items (not that anybody asked them to do so), then of course they should be compensated appropriately. But when we start talking about spending "millions" or even "billions" of inf. for an ultra rare item...
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So what? Does influence equate to real-world dollars? Or pennies? Or buttons? Or rubles? It sou nds like you're considering it to be dollars. Thus, you're going to think a billion dollars is MASSIVE. However, if it's equivalent to a Zimbabwean dollar, then a billion inf equals approximately 1/1000th of a US penny. So, what comparison are you using to determine that spending "millions" or "billions" of inf on a single item is anything other than normal?
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Well, IMHO, that's just narrow-minded crazy talk.
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Or it's just a subjective view of numbers.
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Collecting ultra rares should not be the highest priority for playing this game. Hell, becoming a TF farmer should not be a high priority for playing this game - but it is.... and that priority evolved in the absence of new content and folks struggling to find something else to keep their time occupied.
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Huh? How do you determine what should be *my* highest priority when I play the game? Do I get a say in the matter, or is there a rulebook somewhere that defines how I'm "supposed" to be using my time in an MMO?
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Well, guess what: there's new content coming.
A lot of new and returning players are going to come back to COX when Going Rogue goes live - and they are not going to touch this in-game economy with a ten-foot pool if it keeps looking like this. But they will play around it - and they will trade around it if the new content is good enough - and eventually future supplies of ultra rare items are going to dwarf anything we're seeing now -
And prices will drop.
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Ignoring the fact that touching anything with a ten foot "pool" would be difficult, every new issue since the introduction of the market has caused overall market prices to rise. The addition of new and returning players brings new life into both supply and demand, and this won't be any different. New content will be run quickly, and we may actually see purple prices drop initially (depending on the specifics of GR), but with time, people will take their newfound wealth and start applying it to the end-game accomplishments of their choice, including ultra rare IOs. When that happens, plenty of folks will be more than willing to part with them for the nice, new, higher price.
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For this reason alone, try looking ahead to GR and see that there's absolutely no reason to pay 9-digit millions or even billions for an ultra rare item *right this second.* Farm all you want if that's how you want to pass your time, but try to keep the pricing realistic in the meanwhile.
That's all I'm saying - no harm done, no offense meant.
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Again, what numbers are "realistic"? Maybe folks should start raising their prices so we can compare to the Zimbabweans better... -
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Purples are very rare recipe drops.
People have been farming MA maps which have no chance of purple recipe drops. Only a few people still do TV or BM farms.
Nobody but flippers or people that buy money from RMTers have the influence to buy purple sets anymore. (coincidentally, it's probably RMTers getting the purples that do drop. I'm sure they still have some employee farming for them.)
Meh. Don't care too much about the purples myself. They're probably still less rare drops than those PvP IOs, too.
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lol
Got hyperbole? -
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-Buy Recipes, not crafted Purples.
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I never buy purple recipes, and I spend a lot less because of it.
Crafted IOs are much easier to lowball. -
Another new definition for me that I didn't know before.
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1) For all we know, the seller of that WAS a casual player.
2) It's a breeze to make billions of inf in this game. So easy, it's silly. Hell, I'm out of town for 5 days, and I guarantee I'll have made over 500 million inf by the time I get home. Without playing a single minute.
3) Why is 280 mil outrageous? How much SHOULD a purple be? Another player said it should be 280 mil. Why should your opinion (OP) outweigh that player's? -
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Tried that and looked like an [censored].... and guys dont really take a liking to girls doing the picking up as a general rule ive found!
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And every single time a guy gets shot down, he feels the exact same way.
You want the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Then try, try, try, try, try again. If you want to be a brain surgeon, truly want it more than anything, you have to put in 13 years of dedicated work of 12-16 hours a day flat broke before you'll even get the opportunity to start practicing for the big dance. Along the way, you'll spend hours reading, writing, and hearing some of the most boring stuff imaginable. If you truly want to find that person, think of it like a job. It takes a little bit of effort every single day.
BA mentioned not being able to find how to segue into a date from a new conversation. Practice. Strike up a new conversation every single day with a pretty girl. Hell, do it with girls that are completely out of your league. The more you get in the situation, the more comfortable you'll feel. Once you reach that comfort level, the segue will become natural. Seriously.
Girls, ask guys out. So what if you feel like an [censored] because some dude said no? You obviously didn't know him very well before hand, so who cares what he thinks of you now? Imagine if you were traveling in Europe when you happened to meet Random Dude in a grocery store/book store/coffee shop/estate sale/whatever. Would you care what he thought of you if you were leaving town the very next day and were sure to never see him again?
If you're a person who freezes when that hottie looks at you, try coping mechanisms to relax. Nervous to talk to this person who obviously is better than you in every way, shape, or form (in your opinion)? They do stupid stuff too. The gorgeous girl who should be in movies has spilled a cup of juice down her shirt, walked into a wall, and clogged up a toilet before. The buff piece of manmeat in front of you in line works out 4 hours a day because he's as insecure about his body as you are and could identify just as many things wrong about himself as you can about yourself. In all honesty, he probably actually thinks he's fat and looks at his butt in the mirror every day and thinks it looks big in certain pairs of jeans. Think about your most mortifying moment, and realize that this person that is currently causing you to sweat in inappropriate places has a memory just as bad. Just before you walk up to talk to them, think about how mortified they must have been and how you would have laughed at the dumb thing just like all the other witnesses did.
Then, just say hi, and ask them a question. Ask them where they got their glasses, shoes, broccoli, Dostoyevsky. When they name a place or point at the bin next to them that you just retardedly didn't notice before you asked (read the signs, people), ask a follow up question of whether they liked the doctor, selection, how to tell which head of broccoli will taste best (even if you know, duh), or how to pronounce Dostoyevsky. If they're answering questions, they'll engage in the conversation, and that can lead to the swapping of stories. If you reach that point, you're golden. Simply say you've got to run, give them your number, and say you enjoyed talking with them and would like to continue this conversation sometime later. Thank them and move on with your day. Now, it doesn't matter if they call or not. Do the same thing the next day. With time, someone will call. You'll also get better at handling the situation because your stories will become practiced. You'll know that talking about broccoli inevitably leads to a comparison to hemorrhoids and should be avoided in the future. Dostoyevsky can be great if you actually can hold your own when it turns out the person specializes in classical Russian literature. The more practiced you become, the better your response rate will become. From there, dates will bloom and you'll get practice at first/second/third dates.
The myth, the real conspiracy theory, is that people find their special someone by being suave and smooth. That's not the real you, and the person you're with will see through that quite quickly. James Bond does not actually exist. Instead, realize that everyone is a dork. Everyone. Whether they're obsessed with guns, comic books, fish, motorcycles, high fashion, purple, or broccoli that looks like hemorrhoids, they're a total dork about something. Find it and let them talk about it for hours. They'll love that you listen so well, you'll really learn something about them, and your nerd obsession will now be comparable to some embarrassing obsession of theirs.
Also, I do not play WoW. My Little Pony all the way. -
This week's niche will not show up until the end of this coming week. I'm out of town.
Ya'll stick BotZ's in the meantime. -
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Prof. David Myers has been presenting this paper at conferences for the last two years:
http://www.digra.org/dl/db/07312.58121.pdf
He may have copied chatlogs with your unchanged user name on it. You might want to check. I think this might be a EULA violation, since the names might be those of minors and there was no way for him to know.
(As for "15 minutes of fame for reporting an ethics violation"....uh, check your local Barnes and Noble, m'kay? Or Amazon. "Mercedes Lackey" This isn't even a blip on my radar.)
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A quick once over allowed me to find Silent Spy and Wildstar's names in the paper. Silent Spy's quote is from the forums, Wildstar's is in-game.
I also noticed an amazingly obvious typo in the heading of a section. That's kind of sad. -
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Next year's our 5th year, so I'm thinking I'm going to shoot for 50 billion.
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What server do you play on? And what sort of events do you have?
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champion. costume contests, random giveaways etc.
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Pretty much. Basically, in order to give away multiple billions of influence in a short period of time, we give it away in every way we can think of. We try to make sure no one goes away empty-handed. -
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Maybe, but then if that's the case, why do you care what this guy does with his research? It's not like the results impact your life in some way.....
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Because I feel it's wrong of him to depict our community as a whole in such a negative manner. I'm not going to earn any fame out of the fact that I'm sending a letter to the editor of a newspaper in a city 1000 miles away from where I live. I could care less about how much he makes or if it will somehow lead to some personal gain of my own. I simply feel it's not appropriate for him to present our entire community in such an extreme light without providing the entire story.
It's not logical for me to stand up against someone painting myself and my friends in a negative light without cause? -
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I think I'll craft a rebuttal of his paper. For a scientist to publish and then publicize a defense of griefing... yeah. That needs a proper answer.
Anyone know what the best, science-based approach to disproving a science paper (mass media or sociology) would be? Are there standards to apply or a template to use?
Would anyone like to collaborate?
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I just got done reading the article and the whole paper he wrote. I also forwarded the link to a Psychology Major friend of mine. She wants to use his paper and experiances as resource material for a paper she's writing on Divergent Anti-Social Disorders. And. She's. 100%. Serious.
I Couldn't stop laughing for almost 5 minutes.
Ping, if you could, please forward me a copy of the response letter you write, and let me know if she can use it in her paper as well.
I'll be writing a retort that she may use, but I think multiple responses would do better.
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Will do. -
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Twixt PvP'd. People cried.
But submitting videogame PvP as a formal research project? That's one of the dumbest things I heard in my life. Twixt may be a G, but he's about to lose his job.
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I seriously doubt anyone is about to lose their job....
lol......
I think more than anything, people are madadadadadad at getting ganked by a 55 year old professor while PvPing.
HAHAHAHAHA!
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Or all those formally responding never actually got ganked by Twixt. You know, whichever is actually true. -
I really enjoy numbers. I love doing math, finding patterns in numbers, and analyzing where I think numbers will go. Along with these numbers, I get to analyze one of the other things I enjoy the most, other people. These numbers tell me about how other people act, so I get the best of both worlds as two of my favorite interests collide. That's why I like to play the market.
The money I make funds a couple of my super-builds, but the vast majority of it goes to pay for my annual SG anniversary party. My folks hold a mass of contests over the course of 3-4 hours, and we give away all our money. This past May, we gave away just north of 12 billion inf. Next year's our 5th year, so I'm thinking I'm going to shoot for 50 billion. I'll know better once the time gets closer. I'm already at about 1.5 billion again. -
If you check out the thread on the Champion forums, someone posted the response they received from the university. If Pown has contacted that university as well, then at least 2 individuals from these boards have been in contact with the university.
For others still interested, my letter to the editor is being sent off today, another individual has requested the email addresses the reporter recommended so they can send their own letter, another individual has privately contacted me to offer to send the parts of my original letter that had to be cut out due to wordcount confinement as a separate letter, and I've been offered the chance to post a reply post on the founder of CNet's blog (which I'll be doing today also). -
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If you can find a way to put back in the care about newborns, going off to war, and the part about our friend winning Who wants to be a super hero....
Other than that, I'm sorry we had to see it so pared down, but I believe it covers the essential important points.
Perhaps you want to contact the reporter himself and see if he'd like to do a followup piece instead of relying solely on the letter to the editor?
We might get more than 200-250 words that way.
Just a thought.
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The part about babies and going off to war is in there. Unfortunately, to do Detective's accomplishment justice, it takes a whole lot of words.
As for the idea of contacting the reporter, I already did. He told me that he was sure they wouldn't do a follow-up. However, after the storm that this has caused, they might be interested in it. -
Those of you who edited the letter for me, thank you for the input. Here's my pared down version as of now:
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Re: City of Heroes character Twixt becomes games most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor , Local News, July 6.
For over four years, I have been an active participant in the City of Heroes community, and I would consider myself to be a decent judge of this 100,000 person community.
Myers portrayed our community as one filled with anger and hate, but a minimal amount of research would quickly find the error in this assessment. Our community includes a player-founded taxi service and emergency medical technicians who voluntarily help new players. Our forums include well-wishes for players who have babies, get married, or go off to war. We have sponsored charities, conventions, and even a few weddings. None of these made it into Myers paper.
Myers presented the extreme negatives of our community as the standard. No one condones the threats that were directed towards Myers, but he leaves out that he verbally attacked, insulted, harassed, and stalked many of these same individuals. Some of his harassments are still present on our forums. He insulted and harassed as many players as he possibly could. Similar to someone who drives 45 MPH in the fast lane on the highway, he followed the letter of the law but disregarded common decency along the way.
Judging our community based entirely on Myers piece is downright offensive. There are always two sides to a story. Just because we get labeled with the term gamers doesnt mean were not people.
NAME NAME
Davis, California
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Let me know what you think and any changes you think ought to be made. I would like to send this off by tomorrow morning, if possible. -
Yes, he played on Champion.
As for the consent issue, it's debatable. No matter what, it seems CoH would have to have given him consent to perform the research, as they are officially owners of everything in the game, including our characters. Using their property for research or profit should require their consent, so it seems like they could just quash the entire situation with a giant legal thumb (and for all we know, they may be preparing to do such a thing). -
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Twixt did not use foul or offensive language.
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Not according to many reports from other players. How are you so sure?
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Twixt followed the EULA.
Players have /ignore options at their disposal.
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This does not relieve him of the fact that he harassed people and misrepresented how the community reacted.
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If Twixt was as exploiter and was this major harassing player as others portray him, why was he never perma banned? Hmmm? Well??????????????????? He was petitioned a lot so why was he still allowed to play?
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You claim he followed the EULA. Just because the developers allowed it to happen doesn't mean it wasn't harassment. This is where definitions and the difference between video games and real life become important. Twixt took his research and applied it to a real life set of conclusions and judgments. Thus, the description of what he did must also be applied to a real life set of conclusions and judgments.
Exploit: In game, developers deem this as using loopholes in the game's coding to allow one to receive greater than intended rewards without the appropriate amount of risk or time involved. In real life, exploiting is using something selfishly or unethically for profit. Twixt was not an exploiter in the video game, but he is exploiting the players and the game in real life. Such exploitation (RL) is not a crime itself, but when people are unhappy with how they've been treated, you can expect there to be consequences. His research methods are being called into question, possible legal ramifications regarding subjects' permission and the game as a research tool have been raised.
Harassing and exploiting a group of people without their permission or knowledge simply isn't a smart thing to do. The video game world may not have had any repercussions for his actions, but he's no longer in the video game world. Real life may prove a tad harsher.
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Twixt using TP Foe was the top harassment complaint.
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As you know from having read the actual petitions. No? Oh, well then you must have counted up all the complaints that occurred on the forums and in the zones and mapped out a graph that compared them. No? Huh.
Exactly how did you determine this?
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Twixt provided the proper and appropriate information needed to discuss the core of his paper. I'm sure when he writes his book there will be more included.
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By only presenting an extreme minority's reaction as the community's standard reaction? No, sorry, that's not proper or appropriate. That's a gross misrepresentation that possibly violates numerous different legal and academic standards. In the video game world, no punishment could be applied to Twixt. In the real life world, the same loopholes don't exist. He chose to take the issue there, it's now appropriate and proper for those directly affected to address the issue there as well. -
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You expect that a community of 150,000 would accomodate a guy who went out of his way to harass others
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Here lies one of the fundamental problem with most of you here. Please write down exactly what PvP methods Twixt used to "harass" people in the game. Anybody?
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The definition of the word harass:
1. to disturb persistently; torment, as with troubles or cares; bother continually; pester; persecute.
2. to trouble by repeated attacks, incursions, etc., as in war or hostilities; harry; raid.
Torment:
1. to afflict with great bodily or mental suffering; pain.
2. to worry or annoy excessively.
3. to throw into commotion; stir up; disturb.
Twixt's kill-logs show that he killed the same people time after time after time. Taken alone, that's part of PvP. However, charge those victims with threatening him (and claims that it was unprovoked besides through gameplay, leaving out the fact that he would verbally attack and harass these people as well), and the component that he leaves out becomes the definition of harassment. He focused on individuals, bother them continuously, pestered them, attacked them repeatedly in a hostile setting, and annoyed them excessively. Simply put, everything that he leaves out of his "research" constitutes harassment. By definition.
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then trash talked them in an attempt to get a sexy response for his paper
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Here is the second fundemental problem. The majority of the time after Twixt would attack or TP someone into critters or drones, the players on the recieving end would complain in broadcast then Twixt would respond. Yes Twixt would use broadcast PvP as a method but many of you are making it sound like others were merely innocent, respectful and honorable players who ran around saying GF, GG and nothing else.
I have a few more things to add but I'll hold off until I get some responses to these areas.
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People have pointed out that those who responded in such a manner were definitely in the wrong. However, not everyone responded that way. The vast majority of people didn't respond that way. They appear to have fallen through the cracks in Twixt's "research". There's no mention of them. No numbers about how often he received death threats and how often he received perfectly civil messages. No actual data to back up his presentation of the community. Simply his word. Unfortunately, since he misrepresented what took place to minimize his culpability, why would anyone believe his word after that? His chat logs are not comprehensive, otherwise they would include the harassing he did, which would instantly discount his "evidence" because he was personally goading his "victims" by attacking them verbally. Unless he presents all the data that goes along with research, he is misrepresenting his findings and demonizing a community based on nothing more than anecdotes. -
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Its been fun to watch the answer appear after so many years. Can any one remember the question? Whats going to happen because of this Read about 5 post down and you'll see why I applaud twixt. He did what I wanted to.
You guys need to get over it. Half of you don't know what you're mad about just that someone said something bad about the game or something *twirl hair* Its not about the game or your community. Its things we need to look at.
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Unfortunately, just because something is legal in-game doesn't make it right. Goes back to the 45 MPH in the fast lane idea. Nobody's disputing that what he did was actually within the rules of the game, initially. There may be other issues, like the fact that he performed research without the consent of his subjects or that he may profit from this research without the consent of his subjects or City of Heroes, but no one is disputing that the things he did were within the letter of the law in the game. Just because they're within the law doesn't mean they're the correct thing to do, and it doesn't make his research any less skewed.
Just because one has the ABILITY to do something doesn't mean it should be done. Most importantly, just because one has the ability to do something doesn't mean they should be surprised/shocked when other people won't agree with the law. Twixt's research has nothing to do with the fact that what he did was within the restrictions of the game. It has everything to do with the fact that he misrepresented the community's actual reaction to his playstyle by not playing an observer role and by specifically encouraging the reactions he claims to have received unexpectedly while also only reporting on a portion of the data he collected, not the entire dataset gained during the research. This misrepresentation is not appropriate. -
From revealing the niche, the prediction should be that the price of crafteds overall should go down and the price of recipes should go up. These two would occur because, hopefully, a run of people would attempt to list theirs lowest to sell first until people started settling for less profit by listing below another common bid point, such as 55M even. If the run continued, people would continue to settle for less profit, thus resulting in the prices of recipes and crafteds arriving at an equilibrium that made the profit minuscule for awhile. Instead, it appears almost no one is heeding my advice.
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Current last 5:
[u]Crafted[u]
59,999,999
60,000,000
25,220,000
60,000,000
60,000,000
[u]Recipe[u]
45,000,000
34,000,000
34,000,000
34,000,000
34,000,000
Wow, for so many thankful people, nobody seems to be capitalizing on the crafteds. That's actually a lower price point than the one in my original post. Recipes are bumping up though, so hopefully those are some of ya'lls bids. -
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I'm wondering why nobody has been spamming his Twitter page. After all it's within the rules.
Also, Prof. Myers made a post on his blog about this, sort of. Some of his replies to comments below the post are more intriguing than the actual post.
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Hmm, someone named Paul G copied my comment and Myers responded by...calling me names?
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Confirming that he is, in fact, reading these threads - since I have to assume the penguin jokes referenced your avatar.
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The penguin thing is just part of me, and as I said in my original comment, I've had limited interactions with Twixt before. He just remembers me, I would believe.
However, it does mean something else. Namely, he's reading either the paper's comments section (where I posted my comment with my username) or these boards. I don't know who Paul G is, but it certainly isn't me, and Twixt sure knew who wrote the comment.
I'm surprised any university would be accepting of one of their professors participating in what amounts to a flame war with people responding to their work. -
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I'm wondering why nobody has been spamming his Twitter page. After all it's within the rules.
Also, Prof. Myers made a post on his blog about this, sort of. Some of his replies to comments below the post are more intriguing than the actual post.
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Hmm, someone named Paul G copied my comment and Myers responded by...calling me names? -
My current draft of my Letter to the Editor.
Note: Unfortunately, according to their editorial desk, this letter is FAR too long. The woman I spoke with recommended 200-250 words, and this is 542 words. That's just not gonna cut it. So, give me tips on what I should pare down that won't rob the letter of the point it is trying to make, which is basically that our community is almost entirely good while Twixt was simply being dishonest about the validity of his findings. The author of the original article (who I spoke with yesterday) encouraged that I play up the good stuff the community does. I also have to avoid any "gamer terms" to allow maximum understanding. So, here's it so far:
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Re: City of Heroes character Twixt becomes games most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor , Local News, July 6.
Over the course of the last 4 years, Ive been a part of the City of Heroes (CoH) community. I have posted regularly on their official forums, Ive regularly played and interacted with other players in the game, and Ive come to know a wide variety of people through that online world. I would consider myself to be a decent judge of our little online community of approximately 100,000 people.
This all contributes to the shock I received when I read the Times-Picayunes story about David Myers study of our community. The shock did not come from the fact that Myers had done such a study. Myers himself actually posted a link on the CoH forums to his paper last year. The shock came from the fact that Myers was not only (apparently) turning his paper into a book, but that he was being featured in an article that did not properly research what Myers wrote about.
Myers portrayed our community as one filled with anger, hate, and cliquish behaviors. He portrayed us as a group who made their own rules and would abusively attack anyone who questioned these subjective guidelines. His entire paper hinges on this demonization of our community as a whole. The problem is that in order to demonize all of us, he had to present himself as an innocent victim. A small amount of research would find that the dishonesty of this assessment is obvious.
Our community includes a player-founded and supported taxi service of experienced players who shuttle new players around to save them time. We have our own player-founded and supported emergency medical technicians who dedicate their time to helping heal and assist hurt players. Our forums include well-wishes for players who have new babies, get married, or go off to war. We have watched community members accomplish their dreams, including fellow player Jarrett Crippens win on the TV show, Who Wants to be a Superhero. We have sponsored charities, conventions, meet-and-greets, and have even had a few weddings. Somehow, none of these things made it into Myers paper.
Myers presented the extreme negatives of our community as the standard. I dont know a single individual in the community who condones what some individuals said in response to Myers actions. However, Myers leaves out that he verbally attacked, insulted, harassed, stalked, and goaded many more individuals than he noted. Some of his verbal attacks are still present on our forums. He did more than just use a loophole in the rules, he specifically went out of his way to insult and harass as many players as he possibly could. Similar to someone who drives 45 MPH in the fast lane on the highway, he followed the letter of the law, but he worked hard to disregard common decency in every way possible.
Supporting such actions is ridiculous, and portraying Myers words as fact by judging our community on what he said alone is downright offensive. In the future, I hope that both sides of stories are actually presented. Just because we get labeled with the term gamers doesnt mean were not people.
NAME NAME
Davis, California
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