seebs

The issue here is the higher-level things; I don't know which of the sub-categories to open to look at their recipes, because those aren't getting highlighted.

Thousands of people will die every day until we get it*.
[*] And after we get it.

It's power sets that explicitly refer to the video game context and take advantage of the fact that they are in a video game. Essentially, it's power sets that work at the level of "beating someone's head against the side of the comic panel"; they work in a way that requires the person using them to be fully aware that this is a video game.

Having watched this project for some time, it started with intent to burn inf; Virtue was picked because it would be funny there, but the primary intent had to do with burning inf, the lulz were secondary.

Your speculations as to other peoples' motives are not "facts".

Well, that is ultimately the point. It's fine for you to think it isn't funny; no one expects you to share my sense of humor. But if you then reason from not thinking it funny to the assertion that I'm not doing it because I think it's funny, that's different.

I have spent a fair amount of time talking to many of the participants. I consistently find that they find it amusing and that they think it is a good thing to destroy inf. I would also point out that there is a reason other than "causing grief" to do this in a public way: It induces other people to burn inf to "compete", and thus multiplies the amount of inf burned.

Given that, I don't see any basis for claiming that people are lying about their motivations. Different people have different reasons, ranging from "want to get back at that annoying guy who spammed me with SG invites every day for a month" to "because it was there". But I don't think any of the people doing this have been lying about their motivations.

Language doesn't work that way. The word "illegitimate" has a very strong connotation of impropriety, not merely irregularity. Bowing to people when introduced to them is certainly "departing from the regular" in our society, but no one would ever call it "illegitimate". The connotation of moral wrongness or violation of rules, not merely being unusual, is inescapable; whatever you may or may not mean, if you say "illegitimate", and people react as though you said "objectively immoral and worthy of blame and censure", you can't complain that they're being unreasonable.

I don't think it represents anything. One of the larger supergroups I know of has a ton of prestige because they force people to run in SG mode and badger them into levelling multiple 50s in SG mode. That strikes me as a much worse way to generate prestige than actually playing the game in order to have fun.

I do not agree. This is an MMO. The economy is by design controlled by player decisions. In short, we get to decide what we think things "should" be worth, and act to bring it about.

Hmm. See, I'm not sure about that, but I guess I sort of see it. It's just... If I come into something knowing that it is by design structured so that there are multiple ways to raise your "score" in some kind of minigame or competition, I'm not going to assign meaning to it as though there were only one way. I am pretty sure the system is not intended to be used in any specific manner. I dunno, maybe we could get a red name to come in and say what they "intended". I will say, though, that I think they're probably more bothered by groups that pressure people into prestige-farming than by groups that bypass the entire concept.

Sure. And indeed, so far as I can tell, it's still really not worth it -- and I say this with a straight face despite having just spent 300M so a one-toon vanity group can have a suitably dank lair.

No, in that I'm not at all sure there was an original intent. It's true that, when it came out, it was too expensive to use for much of anything, but that now it's not. However, it's just as possible (from my point of view) that it was intended to be used as an inf sink, but that they set the conversion rate too steep, such that people weren't actually using it as an inf sink the way they were intended to.

Honestly, if there were to be an original intent, I would guess that it was intended as an inf sink -- simply because MMO economies are nearly always built around their money sinks. This is by far the largest inf sink in the game except for maybe market fees right now; the money I just blew getting a big workshop for my personal use is more than I would have spent in the entire lifespan of this character keeping two full builds with ++SOs in every single slot, plus changing every costume slot I have at every single level. A lot more.

So if I were to bet, I'd bet that the "inf sink" functionality is intended as such -- it's there as a way to take inf out of the market, and I suspect that, had they thought it through a little better, they would have set the conversion rate enough lower to make it more attractive to people, so we'd have had less inflation all along.

I assume they intended SGs to compete for prestige, although I don't know. But consider: If everyone viewed "buying prestige" as a part of that competition, wouldn't the economy be a lot nicer?

Anyway, I guess in the absence of a clear statement from the devs on the topic, I wouldn't feel comfortable asserting that something is or isn't the intent of the devs as to how the inf->prestige conversion is supposed to work. If I were absolutely forced to guess, though, I'd guess that it had been intended as an inf sink.

Keep in mind that, back when this stuff started, SG prestige costs were a LOT higher than they are now. As your base grew, the upkeep costs grew with it, so you were burning a fairly large amount of prestige -- meaning you had to work to keep up with it. In that context, the conversion might have been intended to fund that upkeep. Of course, the conversion rate being so steep, people just failed to pay upkeep and complained about it being too hard.

YMMV.

I gotta say, though, I really respect the way you're handling this; you're actually supporting your points, you're being polite, and so on. No matter how much "prestige" your SG has, you seem to be running a class act.

Yup. Or Quinch, who regularly advertises "any level, any AT", and produces awesome fun.

I've done that a couple of times (only occasionally, I can't hack many-people social interaction most of the time), and I've never, ever, had a problem. Usually all that happens is we have to raise the difficulty. I don't even ask what people are, I just take the first 7 invites.

I should totally write a guide to starting and running an effective team:

1. Announce your team and what you plan to run.
2. Invite people who contact you until team is full.
3. Whenever anyone asks whether they can do something, say "fine by me". Then go on doing whatever you planned to do.

So far, I've had basically no trouble with this. "Can I swap to my blaster?" "Fine by me." "Can we up the difficulty?" "Fine by me." "Can we clear the whole map?" "Fine by me." "Can we try to stealth this one?" "Fine by me." "Are you some kind of badly-written chat AI that doesn't even look at what we say?" "Fine by me."

No one seems to notice or mind.

That sounds fun! Crazy 88s peaked at what, 140 billion in one day?

I would have a hard time viewing anyone who brands other people "illegitimate" as "legitimate". The only way to be legitimate in a video game is to be, you know, more relaxed about it.

Why not just compete both ways? Have your "punching dudes for prestige" super group, and then have a separate "burning inf" supergroup. Your "punching dudes" super group can compete with all the other "punching dudes" supergroups, and your "burning inf" supergroup can compete with all the "burning inf" supergroups. Then you can win both competitions -- and the market will be much improved by the process.

That is regrettable. Mental flexibility is a hugely desireable trait.

Sentences that start out "If <target> really wanted to <verb>" are, in English, nearly always attacks; they're a way of asserting that you have the ability to perceive other peoples' desires better than they do, or that they're lying. Either assertion is insulting on the face of it.

If you can only see it that way, that is your problem, not the problem of the people whose actions you can only see one way.

I don't see any aggrandizement going on. As to stirring up drama... If someone is gonna find "we have lots of fake fame that we bought with our fake money, lol" as offensive, there's really no need to go "stirring up" drama, they'll make it with or without your involvement.

You can believe whatever you want. When I burn inf to make prestige, I'm doing it because I think it's funny, and because I think the economy is improved by the massive destruction of inf. I'm playing the game in a way I enjoy playing the game, breaking no rules, and not real fond of being accused of malicious intent by someone who's never met me, talked to me, or in any other way developed a qualification to speak as to my motives.

This makes no sense. The proper way to play the game is to be having fun. If they're having fun buying prestige, they are playing the game properly.

Prestige doesn't represent anything except accumulation of prestige, which could come from punching dudes or from marketeering or whatever else.

I think you guys are clearly doing an awesome thing with this celebration, but I also quite approve of the 88s efforts to battle the ceaseless inflation that this game's market suffers from. The implication that they're not doing it "properly" makes no sense; if it were intended to be used only to obtain those things, there would be a cap at enough prestige to buy absolutely everything you could possibly put in a base, but there isn't.