I'm not against farming as long as it's not using exploits.
That said, the argument that "X is good because it led me to the virtuous end of Y" is the classic "ends justifying the means" argument.
To use an exaggerated version: "All my human experiments that left thousands maimed and dead was a good thing because it got me into field of legal medicine."
The merits or demerits of farming need other justifications beside where it may lead some people or not.
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The merits or demerits of farming need other justifications beside where it may lead some people or not.
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That's fair. I guess it seemed clear-cut to me because I don't see farming as a great evil, so my perspective is not that it's an bad thing that leads to a good thing, but rather an...at worst perhaps slightly unsavory thing that's worth putting up with. I'm fine with farming personally. I don't engage in it for the most part because I get bored quickly, but for those who enjoy it, more power to 'em.
My "farming" currently is playtesting my own published arcs. It keeps my interest because I'm seeing how things play out and looking for things I can improve. That I'm racking up a bunch of tickets along the way is very nice too. 8)
My only issue with the overly-prevalent farming activity is that it may end with the MA being eviscerated because the Devs didn't want us throwing away their content for a cheap knockoff created using a BETTER version of their tools.
You know, kind of like using the Rolex watchmaking equipment and training to manufacture imitations in China or someplace. Kind of insulting, when you think about it.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Give a man a car & he'll strap a rocket engine to it.
Teach a man to build a car, and he'll open a rocketcar factory.
Meditate on this.
Why do I do do do things I do
Nobody was ever there for me to talk to
Once I was youngster, pure and true
Now I'm running with a sick, sick crew.
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That said, the argument that "X is good because it led me to the virtuous end of Y" is the classic "ends justifying the means" argument.
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The ends always justify the means. Whenever someone trots out that cliche it means they don't understand what they are talking about, or are using examples when the ends were undesirable in themselves and the means were moreso.
To use your example
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To use an exaggerated version: "All my human experiments that left thousands maimed and dead was a good thing because it got me into field of legal medicine."
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Net result overall negative. The means as always are part of the ends.
Now going into the more typical usage.
"Our heartvalve cured 95% of the people it was implanted in but 5% suffered significant side effects and there was 1% death rate associated with its use"
Ends/Means.
Farmers want to do things with the game, farming is their means. Its about time that farming got recognized outright as a legitimate part of the game.
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Teach a man to build a car,And he will curse you for not sending him to law school instead
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Fixt
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Give a man a car & he'll strap a rocket engine to it.
Teach a man to build a car, and he'll open a rocketcar factory.
Meditate on this.
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@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
Heh, another thread with the word farming in it. If all these farmers were really farming they wouldnt have time to play the game 
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My only issue with the overly-prevalent farming activity is that it may end with the MA being eviscerated because the Devs didn't want us throwing away their content for a cheap knockoff created using a BETTER version of their tools.
You know, kind of like using the Rolex watchmaking equipment and training to manufacture imitations in China or someplace. Kind of insulting, when you think about it.
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Meh if they want works of art remove the rewards from MA. Real artists don't create for profit.
I think they realize that only a tiny number of people would even use MA then and it would be a gigantic failure.
They want MA to be a major success, so it has to appeal to the average player. The average player in this game has probably read less than 2% of the stories in vanilla and will continue to ignore stories in MA.
Embrace CoX as what it is - a really fun hack n slash/action game. The depth really doesn't go much beyond that.
If you do that and then look at that genre it becomes really easy to understand exactly why MA is being used the way MA is being used.
Creating a more powerful search function is probably the best thing they can do. Right now it is very difficult to browse through the content because it is just one big mess. If I could find rp/story stuff easier without having to wade through farm arcs I'd be happy. Conversely, if I want to play for character progression and don't want to learn about Harcore RP'ers character backstory I can find an more xp driven arc.
The search function blows and it is mashing everyone together, but everyone wants different things.
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The ends always justify the means. Whenever someone trots out that cliche it means they don't understand what they are talking about, or are using examples when the ends were undesirable in themselves and the means were moreso.
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Sorry, but gotta point out that this is as much utter BS as saying that the ends never justify the means. The reality is that sometimes the ends justify the means and sometimes they don't. To judge whether something is justified or not is partly personal and largely societal. That's why ethics and morality exist and that's why we have legal systems, especially ones that differ from country to country, culture to culture.
Anyway, I could go on, but it's really off-topic. Back to the OP, I'm glad you've started to enjoy what the MA can offer you. I'm not a big fan of farming, mainly because it bores me to death but different strokes for different folks. It's more like working a part-time job--it seems like work more than fun--and I'm not paying money to do that. The MA lets us stretch our creative wings a bit if we choose to do so, while giving more content to play. I think it's been a really great addition overall. It's right up my alley.
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Heh, another thread with the word farming in it. If all these farmers were really farming they wouldnt have time to play the game
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Farmers are uber efficient, they can post and farm at the same time because they are so ebil and must be stopped at all costs.
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Net result overall negative. The means as always are part of the ends.
Now going into the more typical usage.
"Our heartvalve cured 95% of the people it was implanted in but 5% suffered significant side effects and there was 1% death rate associated with its use"
Ends/Means.
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Actually the whole "End justify the means" thing is an informal logical fallacy.
This particular one is used by politicians to sway public opinion ALL the time. That doesn't make it right, or even a strong arguement by the way.
Please allow me to cite:
In argumentation, formal fallacies are unsound arguments that occur as a result of errors in form. Informal fallacies occur, not as a result of the form of the argument, but because the content produces an unsound argument. Examples of content producing an unsound argument would be a false premise, a circular argument, or an irrelevant argument. Following are selected informal fallacies taken from a classification scheme developed by Alex C. Michalos in Improving Your Reasoning (Prentice-Hall, 1986).
Here is the selection:
36. End justifies the means
To argue that a goal or objective justifies the use of any particular means is fallacious.
You can find more information on the Arizona State University website located here: ASU Logic Excerpt
My take on farming?
I don't do it.
I don't mind if others do it provided it doesn't impact me.
Premise: Farmers generate more in game currency because they prioritize speed of accumulation of currency over content most farmers will make more than I do.
This causes market inflation as everyone attempts to outbid one another on popular recipes. My self imposed limited income (don't crucify me for enjoying the game content and play nuances) makes it harder for me to obtain recipes that both the farmer and I want.
Therefore, to me farming is a bad thing.
The ticket system has allowed people that are interested in exploring the content a vehicle for getting some of the juicy recipes we want without having to compete with the farming income generation machine.
<edited for clarity>
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The ends always justify the means. Whenever someone trots out that cliche it means they don't understand what they are talking about, or are using examples when the ends were undesirable in themselves and the means were moreso.
To use your example
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To use an exaggerated version: "All my human experiments that left thousands maimed and dead was a good thing because it got me into field of legal medicine."
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Net result overall negative. The means as always are part of the ends.
Now going into the more typical usage.
"Our heartvalve cured 95% of the people it was implanted in but 5% suffered significant side effects and there was 1% death rate associated with its use"
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The ends do not always justify the means. To justify something means "to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable". Continuing Zombie's example, the result (me getting into health care) is not worth the cost (maiming or torturing thousands). It may lead to me becoming a good doctor, but that is not worth the intentional pain to others. It is not just, right, or reasonable. The two would be interlinked, yes, but the end result does not outweigh the things that got me there.
Your example doesn't apply, because each person would have the choice to undergo the surgery or not. If the choice was involuntary, then it becomes a question of ends and means. And ultimately, that's a question of ethics.
Bringing this threadjack back on track, I'm all for farming as long as it doesn't lead to negative effects on the rest of the game. Farmers help keep the market flowing as they create excess salvage and recipes they don't need. They add necessary influence to keep the wheel of commerce turning. Farming is a good thing, as long as it doesn't lead to nerfing.
Shortspark: 50 Fire/Fire tanker
Emberblast: 50 Fire/Fire blaster
Jessie Inferno: 50 Fire/SD scrapper
a wizard: 50 Rad/Sonic defender
The Nemesis Plothole: 50 StJ/Reg scrapper
Jessie Inferno: 50 Fire/SD scrapper
a wizard: 50 Rad/Sonic defender
The Nemesis Plothole: 50 StJ/Reg scrapper
Issue with Farming, and more so giving the power to design Farming content to a games community:
MMOs are designed to keep people playing (and paying) by making it time consuming to proceed with progressing characters.
Since the launch of i14, I have been able to level a character from 1-50 in 2-12 hour sessions. How is this a bad thing? People can/will get bored of the game much faster due to being able to hit the max so fast.
The good news. CoX has never been the take very long to get to 50 kind of MMO. Yes i14 takes it to the extreme and speeding things up from pre i14 by I would guess 25x but hopefully the CoX community wont be too affected by the increase in level time (and we wont see a mass of bored players leave over the next few months).
(QR)
Farming is a means to an end, and as such, can be neither good, nor bad. The question is, once that 'end' is reached, then what?
MMO's are essentially a business. In general, Software Development teams are populated with people who like to get paid for creating things. Software Development teams would rather have the things they create be put to good use by the intended users.
So... if Farming, as a means to an end, eventually leads to people getting bored or frustrated with the game sooner than the Software Development team deems reasonable, then the Software Development team will see Farming as bad, because it's bad for their business. It truly is that simple, and requires no more clarifications!
I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
tl;dr version: Farming got me interested in MA, and from there I expanded into other areas.
MA didn't interest me at the start. I didn't touch it during open beta, or even when it first went live. I just kept playing the game like it didn't exist. Then I read some posts from people about how great the bronze rolls were treating them, and how fast they were racking up tickets, and I got curious.
So I gave it a try. I just wanted to get some tickets fast so I could try out some rolls, so I searched for farm missions. Tried a few, but none were quite what I was looking for, so I made my own. Very basic at first, but then I tried adding a little story to spice it up. It was kind of fun.
Now I'm working on a "real" arc, not geared towards farming in the least. If I hadn't gotten my foot in the door of the AE building from the start, that never would have happened.
I may be in the minority here, but I'm sure I'm not alone. Then there are the people who will never create their own missions, but will play others'. Many people are technophobes, and getting them started on anything new like the MA can be difficult. Farming in MA is popular now. It may die down over time, it may not. I'm sure some of the people will get bored of it after a while and will start poking around to see what else they can find.
So it seems to me that it's getting more people to use this new feature than would have otherwise.