'Twixt'? Anyone remember this guy?

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As part of his experiment, Myers decided to play the game by the designers' rules -- disregarding any customs set by the players. His character soon became very unpopular.

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http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2...fessor_be.html

@SpaceNut - My 50s, AE arcs and current projects at ParagonWiki

Beats working for a living, I suppose.

Already ongoing threads here (Champion) and here (Virtue).

From the comments section of the article:
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Posted by StarkFist on 07/06/09 at 3:27PM

I am a COH player and veteran of other online games. I'm not a huge fan of PVP, but even though I rarely go into the PVP zones, I had heard of Twixt through the grapevine. However, contrary to this article, Twixt was never the most reviled person in the game or even on his server, just a minor annoyance to the small PVP community with delusions of grandeur.

In my experience, in game or real life, you get back a lot of what you put out there. If you treat people with kindness and respect, they tend to treat you with respect in return. On the other hand, if you treat everyone you meet with contempt, you should not be surprised when people start to dislike you. Or to put it even more simply, what goes around, comes around.
This rule of "social groups," to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, did not originate with video games.

The article makes it sound like "magically transporting other players to a robot firing squad" takes some kind of skill. It does not- even a non-PVP player like me could sit around and do that all day if I wanted to be as scorned as Twixt. In the game it is generally considered cowardly since there is not any actual fight or skill involved. Yes, it is technically within the "rules" but is not considered sportsmanlike or honorable. If what this article claims is true, it wasn't Twixt's "skill" that kept him alive, it was his ability to hide behind the robotic skirts of the zone drones.

His "experiment" seems to be to test the hypothesis that if you behave like a jerk in a video game, people will treat you like a jerk. Shocking, groundbreaking work there. GG Prof. Myers.

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Posted by mellas on 07/06/09 at 4:31PM

What the professor was doing is known by the colloquialism of "griefing". It comes standard with every online videogame ever created in the history of the internet, and the professor's methods are hardly unique. I think it is strange that he's marketing his methods as simply "playing outside the rules" when he is in fact deliberately enraging other players to see their reactions. There's really no shame in doing that, for research purposes or otherwise, so why try to hide what you're really doing?

As a longtime griefer I can tell you that this man's research on the topic is quite uninspired. From 1999 to 2003, on EverQuest's Rallos Zek server, far more interesting things developed as the result of the interfacing between "honorable" player-killers, griefers, and players called "Antis" who opposed player-killing altogether. Because the rules of the server made it free-for-all (eg. no heroes and villains, you simply kill whoever you want with very few restrictions), cliques were free to develop in a more unstructured way far more representative of raw human nature. This, coupled with the fact that the penalty for dying is increased 1000-fold from City of Heroes (your killer loots all of your money, one piece of your armor, and you lose hours worth of experience) make it a far more ideal setting for observing the rage of online gamers. Here you would see revenge crimes extend into real life, the prime example of which being when a friend of mine had his account hacked and stolen, then used to make threats so that police arrived at his house late in the night to interrogate him. This is interesting; the "research" here is not.

This guy's age shows in how out-of-touch with the online gaming community he is. Perhaps he should have spoken to a *real* gamer about his methods before he conducted this hackneyed, boring "study".

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Posted by iltat on 07/06/09 at 5:09PM

I'm actually a CoH player who PvPed both with and against Twixt (I am not any of the players named, and my verbal interactions with Twixt were quite limited). I'd like to clear up a few things that seem to be missing. Note that I am, in no way, discounting the seriousness of death threats, but maybe a little more understanding of what really took place will allow people to relate better to the frustration.

1) Twixt's actions in PvP translated to an investment of time. By teleporting (the action described) villains into a row of firing squad computer-generated enemies, he would give the other character debt. This debt would impede the character's ability to gain experience by cutting it in half for a certain period of time. Thus, anyone who suffered from what Twixt did would pay for it by having their progress cut in half the next time they got the opportunity to play. A full portion of debt could take upwards of 3 hours of nonstop play to be worked off.

Imagine you go play miniature golf. Directly in front of you is a group of 10 children who have no idea what they're doing. You are unable to skip past them, and as is allowed, they refuse to let you pass. Due to this inconvenience, you only get to play 9 holes (or 4, if you're only on a 9-hole course). Would you be frustrated? I sure would be. They didn't break the rules, but they hurt the fun of my outing by specifically robbing me of the time that I had dedicated to accomplishing my goal. It's not much different than traffic, bowling balls getting stuck in the lanes, people talking during a movie, or any other issue that would rob an individual of their free time. The individuals causing your frustration may not be breaking the rules, but they are affecting your enjoyment.

2) Twixt's account of what took place in the PvP zones he visited just plain isn't accurate.

People did chat because many of the players had played together prior to the release of City of Villains (CoH was released in May of 2004 while CoV in October of 2006). Most of us already knew each other. However, that didn't result in a lack of fighting. Many times, Twixt would simply teleport people from battles already in place to his computer-generated death squads. He's presenting the situation as if he was the only one using the zones correctly when, in actuality, he was just the only one manipulating loopholes to allow him to generally be mean to other players. That's the biggest reason why he was despised.

3) Twixt commonly made fun of players he killed.

He did not simply say random hero-supporting things, he oftentimes bragged openly after using his computer-generated helpers to kill someone. Like any other competitive situation, bragging and talking trash will earn people talking back and becoming more upset. He worked to goad individuals into becoming angrier at what he did.

He mentions the forums as a place where people speculated about parts of his life, but he seems to have left out where he posted kill-logs from his time spent in PvP zones. He posted quite frequently on those boards, and he went out of his way to fuel the hate that developed for him. Professional athletes who do such a thing are widely derided by the media and fans. Twixt worked hard to generate hate, he was not simply an innocent victim.

4) Twixt died. A lot.

Twixt perfected his method of generating debt for other players by dying a whole lot along the way. Statements like, "But no one could stay alive long enough to defeat Twixt..." completely misrepresent what happened.

5) Twixt's research plays a role by examining another realm of society, but his results are predictable.

It's not surprising that people get upset when you're mean to them without reason. On an unmarked curb, it's legal for me to park 5 feet away from the cars in front of and behind me, but it's simply rude to do so. If I did so directly in front of hundreds of different people who were looking for a parking spot, it's not unreasonable to think that these individuals would be angry with me. I would say that's completely predictable. It's also not unheard of for such individuals to threaten others in such a situation. The fact that the anonymity of the internet allows such hotheads to go more extreme with their threats shouldn't exactly come as a shock to anyone either. Thus, while I think research into the societies of online communities can be interesting, I don't think Twixt's can be classified as such.

It's a shame that Twixt is the face of the CoH PvP and gaming community. He presents a very one-sided tale that some folks, such as the writer of this article, have apparently bought into entirely. A whole lot of good takes place in that community, but apparently, writing about that just wouldn't sell a book.

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So..... he's a Professional Griefer? Where do I sign up!?!


EDIT: Actually READING the article.... let me sum this up and see if I understand.

He went into a zone where players are competing against each other, a zone where players are supposed to attack other players. A zone where the purpose is to be "mean" to each other. A zone where aggression is a VIRTUE.

And he's surprised when people get angry and aggressive at him?
Someone needs to take this guy's PhD away. Seriously.

Cool, one less PVP'er.

I think I'll post my comment over there to see what response it gets.

A PhD friend of mine (who plays the game, although he doesn't PvP) mocks his own Ivy league degree by saying it stands for Piled Higher & Deeper.

Yay! I posted! That makes me special!

I love that the PvP forums have completely ignored this.

I still laugh at people who nerd rage over getting beat in a video game (be it by a drone or players).

Thanks for posting yet another thread on this subject

Never heard of him.

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Thanks for posting yet another thread on this subject

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Forgive me, good sir, for not checking the forums of every server on which I do not play and which were not mentioned in the article before posting a thread for discussion in general discussion so that it may be discussed by the general discussion community.

@SpaceNut - My 50s, AE arcs and current projects at ParagonWiki

I believe he was Freedom-only? That may be why people from other servers haven't heard the name.

From what I recall, he spent much of his time droning people, and you know how the PvP community tends to feel about that. Myself, I was amused by his behavior, but I'm rarely in the zones, so I never actually interacted with him.

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I believe he was Freedom-only? That may be why people from other servers haven't heard the name.

From what I recall, he spent much of his time droning people, and you know how the PvP community tends to feel about that. Myself, I was amused by his behavior, but I'm rarely in the zones, so I never actually interacted with him.

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He's moved to Infinity.

Faskinating information, though I find both Professor Myer's position and actions lamentable. Further, in that he presented it in such a subjective fashion (to paint him as more of a martyr for his research), then he did in anything (that I've so far been able to see) close to objectivity.

Research like this is what kills the market for everyone, and I'm extremely disappointed that such a (presumably) educated person could make such errors. :/

I sincerely hope his next research project is himself, as I'm sure he could stand to re-evaluate his own social and psychological abilities.

I think part of the problem may lie in the linked article, too. Who knows? Maybe his published results show a very different picture?

Yeah I never heard of him either. Maybe this "PHd" should have realized that he wasn't playing with the ENTIRE player base, only on one shard? And only with one small group there? What an idiot.

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I believe he was Freedom-only? That may be why people from other servers haven't heard the name.

From what I recall, he spent much of his time droning people, and you know how the PvP community tends to feel about that. Myself, I was amused by his behavior, but I'm rarely in the zones, so I never actually interacted with him.

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He's moved to Infinity.

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and his ego doesn't crash the server?

So he is the most disliked person... and yet, I have never heard of him?

Wow. Maybe that guy should remove his head from his butt and realize, most people dont even know who the Hell he is...

You cant be the most disliked if noone knows who you are. ****ing nobody...

Okay, here's my luddite take on this after reading the article, seeing his "leaving CoH" blog post, and doing a bit of search-fu through what's left of his posts in the board.


He "perfected" a way to abuse one of the mechanics of the game while ignoring several others (such as the reward mechanic).

When confronted by someone for whom his preferred method of assault didn't work effectively enough on, he left the zone.

He claims to have stopped playing due to "upcoming changes in the game made by the developer".

The upcoming changes he mentions were, *TA-DAAAA!*, Issue 13. This issue made drastic changes to PVP and several of these changes HEAVILY impacted on his preferred method of assaulting other players.

What he was doing technically falls under Section 6, Subsection D, item 9.

It's split up, so I'll give you the text in sentence form.

"You agree not to use the service to stalk or otherwise harass another member."

What he was doing qualifies as harassment. Especially if I'm reading a few of the chat/kill logs right.

Granted, there is some leeway in PvP zones about this. The fact that he was never (at least to our knowledge) officially reprimanded for it speaks to how much leeway there is.

His paper is, in essence, "Poke someone enough, even legally, and they're going to get very angry. Even in online games."

He's now done the equivalent of recreating Galileo's apocryphal ball-dropping experiment to reaffirm gravitation.

And ticked some people off in the process.

And if what he was doing was so "okay" by the devs playbook, why were changes to PVP instituted that crippled this sort of "play"?

In short, he has a short paper with an obvious, nearly self-fulfilling hypothesis.

If he's the type of lazy "professional academic" he appears to be, he really has nothing to be proud of. But then again, he's locked into a profession that's "Publish or Perish". Even if his research methods are sloppy and suspect, he's still got to put out an attempt at a paper.

So, for being the sort of researcher he is, having picked the lifestyle he has, and the sort of player he was, he deserves no more than a tiny modicum pity.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I just read through his 26 page "paper". (I'm not sure what to call it, essay?) And I have to say, I'm not impressed.

This man has a doctorate, and I've written more in-depth papers than this one when I was a FRESHMAN.

Wow, just wow. I want to go to the school where he got his doctorate, maybe they'll give me a free one.

He was a large turd in a very small bowl.

That sort of thing tends to skew one's perspective.

Essentially, he got a look at how i13 was going to change things for the worse for him and ran.

I'm sure it wouldn't have been as "educational" a larger portion of the population been resistant (in the game mechanics sense) to his ploy.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

OK gang, I need a slight assist on this theory.

From what I've read about this ...fool...his main trick was to fear people then 'port them into a lethal NPC. Now, I do remember the name from here on the forums. Mainly shouting about how the Dev's nerfed PvP.

Here's where I need the assist; in the great I13 change to PvP wasn't there a change to fear and Teleport Foe?

If so...Hmmm... maybe Twixt was responsible for Nerfing PvP?

This is just a theory, and I won't be too upset if I'm incorrect on this.

Edit: Just saw HS above. That pretty much answered the question.

I wouldn't say Twixt was responsible for it.

I'd say Twixt's methods merely highlighted some of the problems with Old Style PVP.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.