Is PLing a Form of Cheating?
By
Agrippa_CoH,
Posted on: 2004-09-09 12:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
The folks speaking out against the stand-inna-tram-and-level activity aren't upset at the reward, they're upset at the method used to obtain the reward.
No envy or jealousy. Envy and jealousy require a wanting to have the same thing, which isn't the case here.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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As for jealousy, being annoyed at freeloaders isn't jealously, it's annoyance.
Analogy: I work at a job. I enjoy it for the most part and for my work I get paid.
If the guy in the next cubicle can sit there and do nothing and get paid even more than me because a higher up in the company is looking out for him, damn straight I'm going to be upset about it.
No, I don't want what he has - that would be jealousy. I want him to work for his pay like everyone else.
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Poor analogy. The unstated presumption in your workplace scenario is that you don't have the right to do nothing and get ahead like the other guy. That doesn't compare to the game situation where you can be powerlevelled if you choose and there are no sanctions against you if you do.
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Actually, that isn't it at all. The point is that the guy in the cubicle next to him IS getting the work done that he is given. In fact, he is getting more work done in the same amount of time. It's just that he isn't the one doing it.
A better analogy would be to say the boss doesn't care how the work gets done as long as he has it in his hands the next day. Well, in this case, the cubicle neighbor takes all his work home and has his wife and older children get it all done for him. He brings it in to his boss each morning all completed. His boss is very happy with his work. In fact, he has noted that on many occasions, Mr Cubicle has actually taken on extra work assignments. These, of course, are also taken care of by his family when he takes the stuff home.
This is a very important point to understand. The actual "work" is getting done. In CoH terms, villians ARE getting arrested. That is the point that the analogy you were responding to completely misses. It really doesn't matter that he lounges around. Goes to sleep. Chats with the secretaries during "scheduled" off times. The key is that his work is getting done.
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There is no envy involved in my opposition to PLing, so you can try and come up with a new theory. I oppose it just because it is wrong. Envy has nothing to do with it.
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Its not a theory, its an observation. Why are you upset? Because you didn't do it that way for whatever reason and you don't like that they got something you didn't. That is envy.
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Players are taking unintended short cuts, taking advantage of bugs, or outright exploiting/cheating. Anyone who thinks the later is wrong is wrong.
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That is known as argument by assertion and generally considered an invalid argument technique.
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Let me put it this way...I could care less if someone plays hardcore and gets to 40 in a few days. I DO care if they use what I consider a cheat/exploit to do so. So wrong again on the envy theory...
As for arguement techniques...I wasn't aware there were any, and I find the idea of it to be silly. They may have a place in a formal debate but not here.
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Let me put it this way...I could care less if someone plays hardcore and gets to 40 in a few days. I DO care if they use what I consider a cheat/exploit to do so. So wrong again on the envy theory...
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Your caring and attempting to distinguish it as something bad are indicative of envy. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be posting about it.
Now I don't really care. I don't engage in the practice but I don't really have a problem with those who do so. They miss out on elements of the game that I enjoy.
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As for arguement techniques...I wasn't aware there were any, and I find the idea of it to be silly. They may have a place in a formal debate but not here.
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Here, let me help you out. As to not engaging in fallacious argument approaches, that has a place in any argument otherwise you're just wasting time.
Under construction
If you have an alt, and do not want to grind the low to mid levels.....then whats wrong with some pling? Youve already done it with your main, why should you HAVE to play through the game the same way, do every mission, every arc, all over again? Why? More power to pling! (mostly talking about alts)
P.S. Id really like to know how many would honestly turn down an invite to great pling xp for a great amount of time.....i dont think to many 
Ok back to work...
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Kazarak, NinjaPirate, Thanks for the support. However, we are now seeing the lying/denial side of the cheaters. This could go on forever and I hope that it does because maybe the designers will see the post and think about it.
To those out there if you did cheat thats OK, because what can you do about it now. Im more concerned about stopping it than making people feel badly about what they did in the past. Lets look toward the future.
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Let me put it this way...I could care less if someone plays hardcore and gets to 40 in a few days. I DO care if they use what I consider a cheat/exploit to do so. So wrong again on the envy theory...
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Your caring and attempting to distinguish it as something bad are indicative of envy. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be posting about it.
Now I don't really care. I don't engage in the practice but I don't really have a problem with those who do so. They miss out on elements of the game that I enjoy.
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As for arguement techniques...I wasn't aware there were any, and I find the idea of it to be silly. They may have a place in a formal debate but not here.
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Here, let me help you out. As to not engaging in fallacious argument approaches, that has a place in any argument otherwise you're just wasting time.
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oh please get rid of that link.
i think we are already enduring a high enough level of middle school debate club monkey wannabes on this here forum.
besides .. logic systems, fallacies and all, have no place on these forums. these forums are about a game which is being developed with pretty much no logic .... we must argue as such.
*sigh*
This is almost more frustrating than its worth.
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Your caring and attempting to distinguish it as something bad are indicative of envy. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be posting about it.
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Lets get something straight. I am not posting about people who get to 40 legitimately. In my previous post I said "I could care less if someone plays hardcore and gets to 40 in a few days. I DO care if they use what I consider a cheat/exploit to do so". I'm not posting about people getting there using non-exploitive means. I'm posting about people getting there using what I consider an exploit. Try to understand that....
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Here, let me help you out. As to not engaging in fallacious argument approaches, that has a place in any argument otherwise you're just wasting time.
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While I appreciate the thought, there are no arguement police who will come and take me away for making what you believe is a poor arguement. If I am wasting your time then move on. If I am wasting my own time, then that is my business.
Since i was one of the people in reference to "cheating" last night because i was PLing with a bunch of friends in brickstown i thought i would post on this. What our good friend and "saint" of player TheAdlerian doesnt tell you is that he also begged to be PLed while we were doing it, so the act that he now hates and talks down on, is exactly what he was begging for last night. What it boils down to is, if you have the ability to do it, by all means do it, for whatever reason you want. We have alot of friends that play and we work together to keep everyone at same levels. We have the machines and accounts, we paid for them, we have the right to play the game in our own way. We have all leveled characters up to high levels the "legit" way that you speak of, we dont want to grind through 30 levels of the near same stuff, so we PL past that and enjoy the higher levels with fresh classes. Im sorry that you cannot do that, or if you can you feel bad for asking.
If you are high level now (which i dont think mid 30s is bad at all) and you are complaining about PLing, thats sad. Now if you start a new character and complain, well.. enjoy the low levels, cause we dont wanna grind them again.
As for fixing PLing, well whatever is done isnt going to stop us, nor will it anyone that knows how to play this great game. Make us move around? ok thats fine, make me follow the SK guy, sure, no problem. You are under the assumption that we are just rooted at the trainer and not at the pc, when at most times someone is always there at the pc moving around and chatting (and sometimes telling beggers to move along, this isnt a gravy train)
To finish, TheAdlerian im sorry you cant PL yourself. Im sorry that you dont have the ability. Pay the cost per month and play the game to what makes you happy, you get out what you put in. Crying on the boards isnt going to make someone care more.
p.s. Please quit begging for PLing, its not "proper" =P
I don't care so much about the powerlevelling in terms of people getting to level X or level Y. In a certain sense, who cares?
HOWEVER here is no question that such procedures are going to make a mess of the devs' attempts to datamine and find out whether the game is too easy in some spots or too hard in others. Especially for a game with as many problems in these areas (e.g., level 30-34 missions are a complete JOKE in terms of difficulty), anything that throws their datamining off is going to make it take that much longer for them to fix REAL problems in the game.
Let's just take controllers for an example. A normal controller who levels up the "old fashioned way" is going to have a damn hard time soloing until the 30s (pets at 32 for most of them). A PLed controller's player would never see any of that, and would start out with pets at level 32. This leads to two audiences or camps in the controller boards -- the camp that thinks controllers are soloing gods (most of whom PLed their way to pets and never experienced the level 1-32 game), and the camp that complains that controllers are too hard to solo (those who have been slowly levelling up the old fashioned way). Who do the devs listen to? How do they know which poster was PLed and which one wasn't?
The PLing makes the devs' balancing jobs harder because there's no way for them to know which characters were PLed and which weren't, and thus it throws off the datamining. If this weren't the case I'd have no problem with it, but as it is, if the PLing is going to make, say, my levelling slower because XP was changed as a result of people levelling too fast using PL methods, now I have a problem with it.
F
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Your caring and attempting to distinguish it as something bad are indicative of envy.
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Envy
1) A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
Jealous:
1) Fearful or wary of being supplanted; apprehensive of losing affection or position.
2) Resentful or bitter in rivalry; envious: jealous of the success of others.
Nope, don't see either of them here.
However...
Indignation
1) Anger aroused by something unjust, mean, or unworthy.
I'll accept being called indignant. Though I'm not actually angry, just annoyed.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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Since i was one of the people in reference to "cheating" last night because i was PLing with a bunch of friends in brickstown i thought i would post on this. What our good friend and "saint" of player TheAdlerian doesnt tell you is that he also begged to be PLed while we were doing it, so the act that he now hates and talks down on, is exactly what he was begging for last night. What it boils down to is, if you have the ability to do it, by all means do it, for whatever reason you want. We have alot of friends that play and we work together to keep everyone at same levels. We have the machines and accounts, we paid for them, we have the right to play the game in our own way. We have all leveled characters up to high levels the "legit" way that you speak of, we dont want to grind through 30 levels of the near same stuff, so we PL past that and enjoy the higher levels with fresh classes. Im sorry that you cannot do that, or if you can you feel bad for asking.
If you are high level now (which i dont think mid 30s is bad at all) and you are complaining about PLing, thats sad. Now if you start a new character and complain, well.. enjoy the low levels, cause we dont wanna grind them again.
As for fixing PLing, well whatever is done isnt going to stop us, nor will it anyone that knows how to play this great game. Make us move around? ok thats fine, make me follow the SK guy, sure, no problem. You are under the assumption that we are just rooted at the trainer and not at the pc, when at most times someone is always there at the pc moving around and chatting (and sometimes telling beggers to move along, this isnt a gravy train)
To finish, TheAdlerian im sorry you cant PL yourself. Im sorry that you dont have the ability. Pay the cost per month and play the game to what makes you happy, you get out what you put in. Crying on the boards isnt going to make someone care more.
p.s. Please quit begging for PLing, its not "proper" =P
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Wow. So this is the kinda guy the pro-PL'ers are defending. I am speechless. An anti PL point made by a PL'er. I love it.
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Lets get something straight. I am not posting about people who get to 40 legitimately.
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Who are you to determine what is legitimate? I believe that falls to the developers to determine.
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While I appreciate the thought, there are no arguement police who will come and take me away for making what you believe is a poor arguement.
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No, people will recognize that your argument is poor and ignore it.
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If I am wasting your time then move on. If I am wasting my own time, then that is my business.
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Its not a waste of my time to point out why your argument is poor. It keeps people from agreeing with you. As to you wasting your time. . .feel free. I've got all day.
Under construction
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Your caring and attempting to distinguish it as something bad are indicative of envy.
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Envy
1) A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
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Discontent? Check.
Resentment? Check.
Desire for possessions or qualities of other? Hmmm. . .wants to play the game to get ahead but doesn't like that others get ahead doing so in a different manner that she qualifies as "easy". Check.
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Wonderful sophistry there.
The award isn't the issue at all. It's the method used to obtain it.
Ergo, envy does not apply.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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Who are you to determine what is legitimate? I believe that falls to the developers to determine.
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When it comes to my own beliefs, I am the ONLY person who determines it.
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No, people will recognize that your argument is poor and ignore it.
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I read some of that link you sent. If being ignored is the price I pay, then so be it. At least my arguement will be my own. Honestly, if I were in a debate club, or in a court room, I would pay much more careful attention to advice on arguing. However, on a message board about a video game? Come on. Get real!
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HOWEVER here is no question that such procedures are going to make a mess of the devs' attempts to datamine and find out whether the game is too easy in some spots or too hard in others. Especially for a game with as many problems in these areas (e.g., level 30-34 missions are a complete JOKE in terms of difficulty), anything that throws their datamining off is going to make it take that much longer for them to fix REAL problems in the game.
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This is the only problem I have w/ PL. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter. What's the diff if someone spends 48 hours straight streethunting, or sits in a tram and sucks XP? Eitehr way, they're advancing faster than me. And I don't care, as long as the dev's don't use that data to determine that levelling is fast enough on average.
Alderian/anti-plvlers,
Until you state a concrete reason why powerleveling affects you and your life and your goals, then you dont have much for argument. So far you have never provided concrete evidence other than envy. You are envious of people doing it because they are doing it with less work.. otherwise you wouldnt be concerned about it. Envy can be seen as a sub emotion of hate... it can stem from it. Now you can be naive and use the dictionary meaning for it, but if you open your eyes to human feelings that's just the way it goes. Obviously it's your choice that you want to hate it. If you feel it's unjust , then all of us must be thieves and evil people lol.
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The award isn't the issue at all. It's the method used to obtain it.
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Correction: The award is both the level advancement and the means of getting there.
Envy most assuredly does apply.
Under construction
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Wow. So this is the kinda guy the pro-PL'ers are defending. I am speechless. An anti PL point made by a PL'er. I love it.
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I don't see that he made an anti-PL point. He explained that he was PLing his friends, who have leveled other characters to high levels (beyond 30 at least from what I gathered) and didn't want to bother with the lower levels on their alts. I think that is the situation for many or most PLers.
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Your caring and attempting to distinguish it as something bad are indicative of envy.
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Envy
1) A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
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Discontent? Check.
Resentment? Check.
Desire for possessions or qualities of other? Hmmm. . .wants to play the game to get ahead but doesn't like that others get ahead doing so in a different manner that she qualifies as "easy". Check.
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buzz, wrong. I play to have fun, not to level. Take your self reflective opinions of envy elsewhere. Period. End of discussion.
You are defending cheaters/exploiters, and you are accusing us of a sin? You should be in politics.
I couldn't agree more with your post. I could also see TheAdlerian be a beggar since his mentality dictates the type of person to be childish enough to beg and throw a tantrum after getting turned down.
Everyone just assumes if you're pl'ing it's the worst case of it like parking a character at a tram. If anyone has played EQ before you would know this was a common practice. Most would call it 2-boxing where you use a program called EQW to run two instances of EQ on the same computer. Or, use two computers to control two characters and level up together or pl the other.
Anyone with a decent processor could run two instances of CoH on the same computer. I do it all of the time, whether to help a friend get a level he's having trouble with, level a character of my own or help out on a TF with running a healer on the side.
All you have to do is choose Windowed mode in the resolution section. Have two City of Heroes installed. Nice thing about CoH is it's setup is much easier than EQ is to do this.
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Let me put it this way...I could care less if someone plays hardcore and gets to 40 in a few days. I DO care if they use what I consider a cheat/exploit to do so. So wrong again on the envy theory...
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Your caring and attempting to distinguish it as something bad are indicative of envy. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be posting about it.
Now I don't really care. I don't engage in the practice but I don't really have a problem with those who do so. They miss out on elements of the game that I enjoy.
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As for arguement techniques...I wasn't aware there were any, and I find the idea of it to be silly. They may have a place in a formal debate but not here.
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Here, let me help you out. As to not engaging in fallacious argument approaches, that has a place in any argument otherwise you're just wasting time.
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oh please get rid of that link.
i think we are already enduring a high enough level of middle school debate club monkey wannabes on this here forum.
besides .. logic systems, fallacies and all, have no place on these forums. these forums are about a game which is being developed with pretty much no logic .... we must argue as such.
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Actually, let's not get rid of the link. The purpose of any message board is to discuss the issues at hand. In some cases, some of us will attempt to convince others that our opinions have some validity. If we fall into *known* fallacies, we are miscommunicating, either purposely or in ignorance, and basically wasting each others' time (except for comedic effect or fanboi/troll conversations.)
One of the reasons that discourse on the 'Net and in other media has become so shrill is that folks cannot distinguish between valid arguments and logical fallacies.
5 stars to the person who posted the link for helping to educate.
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."
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The award isn't the issue at all. It's the method used to obtain it.
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Correction: The award is both the level advancement and the means of getting there.
Envy most assuredly does apply.
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I'll get the level advancement anyway without using the method at issue here, so no.
And the means of getting there is not something I want for myself either.
No on both counts.
But you seem to deliberately like to twist meanings and intents around so Im done speaking to you about it.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
Erratic you implied that my post was sinful. So, you got some back momma!