'Twixt'? Anyone remember this guy?

Son, have someone waste a bunch of YOUR time and see how kindly disposed YOU are to them.

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I have to say, if the I13 changes drove out this guy, maybe it was a serious step in the right direction.

I get a kick out of this, isn't this guy essentially saying: "I13 is making it harder for me to tele-gank and grief other players, so I'm quitting"

Or as his blog puts it: "It’s my last paid subscription day, after canceling my account ahead of some disappointing game designer decisions and because I’ve really more or less run the course of what I find interesting inside the game"

Funny, why does an unbiased writer of a thesis on social interaction care about "disappointing game designer decisions" and "run the course of what I find interesting".

At this stage, I don't care how he tries to intellectualize it, there were only 2 reasons to quit at the I13 changes.

1) It was too hard to grief players with his chosen tactics, and his opinion of I13 had nothing to do with leaving, or 2) For some paradoxical reason he was so disappointed with the changes that he decided he no longer wanted to grief other players in the name of "unbiased research".

The second seems more likely. This was a person who had their tactic down solid, and would have continued griefing other players if he could. Actions speak louder then words here. Quitting over "disappointing designer changes" is pretty telling.

In the long run, this is another disenfranchised PVPr who lost their favorite "I win" button. Apparently he took it even farther and deliberately provoked players. I wonder if his "statistical sample" includes the players that he may have driven away from PVP.

However, his loss is apparently the community at large's gain. If his only way to enjoy PVP was to make others angry, then he really needed to go away for the sake of everyone else. Perhaps if the I13 changes were making this cheap trick harder to pull off and driving out players who abused the system, then maybe the dev's really are moving in the right direction.


I may take a look at this book, but not for any literary content. This book will go down as the most intellectualized example of abusive sadism I can imagine, and all over what is ultimately an insignificant game. This is someone who deliberately abused their fellow players, and enjoyed creating anger and frustration amongst their fellow players.

At the same time, I pity this guy. Apparently his favorite form of entertainment really did include upsetting people and creating frustration. Ultimately, this is a very bitter person, who really enjoyed every angry reaction as a reaffirmation of other's powerlessness to do anything about it. Sadly, this "Unbiased Thesis" is only another intellectual con game following the same pattern. Something tells me this person may not be able to escape this cycle for a long time.

The final irony of the whole situation, if he was really interested in the unbiased social dynamics of the situation, he would have spent more time studying the reactions of the different segments of the game population towards the PVP changes. Between the anger of the PVP players and the confrontations between the Casual and hardcore PVPers, the dynamics would have made for a much more userful study.

If he really wants to tick people off, maybe he should take up a job as a PVP dev on some other game next. I'd be sure to stay far away from it though.

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LOL

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A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670

[ QUOTE ]
Twixt didn't actually leave after I13 (or if he did, someone else was playing his account). I've killed him (Party, his BS/Regen) a few times in Freedom RV.

[/ QUOTE ]

According to his blog, he was due to leave right around the advent of i13. He'd put a stop on his account and was playing the last few days/weeks.

Now I wouldn't be surprised if he was lying about that too.
Though there was some intimation elsewhere that he'd actually sold the account, but I take that with a grain of salt.

If you've killed him recently, he's apparently back on. Or was on for an activation weekend or something.

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[ QUOTE ]
This book will go down as the most intellectualized example of abusive sadism I can imagine

[/ QUOTE ]

OMG Keep it coming. LOL

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A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670

[ QUOTE ]
LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if he's shifted his target to forum PVP once he tired of the in-game variety?

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i just thought of something, the dev's should hire twixt .

then maybe people will start going back into the zones

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if he's shifted his target to forum PVP once he tired of the in-game variety?

[/ QUOTE ]

If he did he's very bad at it. He isn't even trying to POE or thread jack. Any trolling I've seen in this thread isn't even grade school level.

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Nice, cogent reply there.

*Sigh*

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Never heard of Twixt.

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@Demobot

Also on Steam

HYPOTHESIS: If exposed to appropriate amounts of thermal energy, paper will combust.

EXPERIMENT: Expose paper to a significant source of thermal energy. For this experiment, an open flame on a burner will be used.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: The paper combusted upon exposure to the open flame. I did not measure the temperature of either the open flame or the paper at any point throughout the test.

CONCLUSION: My original hypothesis was correct. In simple terms, it can be said that paper burns if you set fire to it.


Where's my PhD for this important work?

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Yeah or:

Hypothesis: Water is wet.
Experiment: Will enter a body of water.
Analysis and results: Got wet
Conclusion: I wuz rite! GIMME MY Ph....uh, how do you spell PhD?

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To me just sounds like someone who liked to annoy people and managed to get a PhD out of it.

Oh crap!!! I have been playing CoH this whole time when I should have been writing my thesis..... what to write, what to write?

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When i saw it was a troll, i had thought of someone entirely different, never heard of this fellow, I am surprised he used coh for his paper, rather than a larger game.

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[ QUOTE ]
Hmmmmm... not being into PvP, nope, can't say I know who he is. Although if I'd known that MMO research would get me my PhD, I'd have done it a lot sooner. Something tells me I could probably write one hell of a sociology paper on this game, on topics far less controversial.

These could include:
1) Which gender do men play vs women play?
2) Are heroes or villains more prevalent?
3) Are players more likely to get a hero to 50 or a villain to 50?
4) For those players in serious, commited relationships, how has the game affected the relationship? For those players who are in relationships with other players, is the game a 'bonding' experience or does its competition foster resentment in the relationship?
5) What are the three predominant reasons that players play CoH/CoV?

Hmmmmmmm... well, if I do end up going back to school in 2010 (and yes, it IS for my PhD), I may use CoH as my research ground...

I'll be at the University, working on my Professor day job badge.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[/ QUOTE ]check out nick yee and . he studies a wide range of things relating to online gaming communities, and they all tned to be a great deal more constructive than this fellow. daedalus project

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(QR)

You have to admit, he had a well thought out and meticulous plan to both grief and troll the PvPers and the players of this game in general. He actually spent years in school just to earn a PhD, so he could be in the proper position to "write a psychology/sociology paper" about a certain PvP subgame on a certain MMO.

I mean, this needed years of planning. Decades. Who goes through all the trouble of earning a doctorate and waiting for just the right MMO to launch, just to rub their nose at a few PvPers, some of whom might not have even been alive when he first started college? Nemesis himself could not have plotted a craftier plan. Its very design is Kaufmanian. In a dryly humorous sort of way, at least.

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(QR)

More than likely, this study was a very easy way for the professor to secure grants and possibly even use in a P&T document or merit committee. For a very small investment, the professor could get himself published in a journal, which often leads to raises in salary and recognition within academia.

Sometimes the 'splash' of a controversial article helps with job hunting, advancement, and hosting conferences. Take my field, for example:

A recent PhD in Musicology wrote her doctoral thesis on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Unlike previous papers which may study thematic or harmonic content, she made an assertion that made a few waves: the opening four tones of Beethoven's Fifth intone the assault of a sexual predator. (as delicate as I could put it)

The entire purpose of this was to generate discussion to get her name out there. She made a name for herself and secured a very lucrative job.

In other words, a lot of times, research in academia isn't done for knowledge, but for personal advancement. This is how I view this Twixt experiment.

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Just for clarification of a few peoples' replies:

- Twixt started on Champion server, then moved to Freedom. He may have moved after that, but I'm not aware of it. If you never heard of him, cool. If you supported him, cool. If you hated him, that's cool too. He was, to say the least, a polarizing figure to those of us who knew him.

- He was originally a nice guy that many people teamed with. Once his "study" began in PvP zones, it was widely thought that his account had been sold because it seemed like an entirely different individual.

- His method was not droning. It was TP Foeing opponents into PvE mobs (Longbow), fearing them, and keeping up this combination until they were killed by the mobs. This resulted in debt for those individuals. This is the main reason he received so much vitriol. He played a DM/Regen Scrapper that specialized in TP Foe, Touch of Fear, and TPing away. It was not a revolutionary tactic, and the "skill" associated with it is debatable. He simply applied the tactic with the intention of giving the other players debt.

- He worked hard to develop the anger that was directed at him. He talked trash, he posted kill-logs, and he specifically harassed those who expressed the most outrage. He portrays himself as some victim who doesn't understand the anger directed at him, but it simply wasn't the case.

- I've been in contact with the author of the article (wasn't hard, just shot an email asking if he had thought of actually researching the story instead of just taking Twixt's word as truth), and I'll be writing and submitting a Letter to the Editor tomorrow. The author didn't seem all that pleased with how the article turned out. Apparently, he wanted to provide a more in-depth description of what Twixt had actually done, but the piece was intended to be a human interest piece on Twixt's player, not a focus on the research itself. Someone quoted my "comment" toward the beginning of this thread, and as a Champion player, I'll be posting my letter in the Champion thread on this topic. Feel free to swing by there to check it out. I never personally held any contempt towards Twixt, but I would like to at least set the record straight as to exactly what took place.

Note: There's no excuse for the threats that were thrown at Twixt. He didn't deserve such things, but he also is nowhere near the altar boy he's presenting himself to be.

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- Ping (@iltat, @Pinghole)

Don't take it personally if you think I was mean to you. I'm an ******* to everyone.

It's a penguin thing. Pingu FTW.

I prefer to think he's a dadaistic professor who managed to predict that games like this one would exist by the time he earned his doctorate, and decided a long time ago that he was going to pick on a few select people who didn't even exist when he was making said decision.

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Because... it's a very rare thing when you witness someone being such a creative jerk. There's certainly creative people out there, and there's certainly lots of jerks out there. And some creative people are jerks. But it's rare to see someone employ their creativity in such a well planned and meticulous fashion... for the sheer purpose of being a jerk.

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QR: Someone linked to these pages in the commentary following the article in the original post:

http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm

....truly, what the hell..? Are Twixt and Fansy the same guy? ROTFL

[and the graphics in Everquest really, really suck going by what is in those screenies...]

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Never heard of him, but if you can get a PhD for griefing, I might just start doing that.

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PhD was written in crayon *nod*

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[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

The two things he forgot to comment on.

ONE: His findings contain NO new information. It is not just in video games that everyone loses their manners and says the most awful things. This occurs in all aspects of the web- live chat, forums postings, etc., etc. It is sad but true. Many papers have been written on this already.

TWO: He was a total [censored] and deserved it. Who would not want the idiot's <paraphrasing his video interview> mom to get cancer and his execution. Life is too short to make it suck for others. He was 'griefing'. Griefing is for the weak AND forbidden via the rules of the game. Perhaps he should have read the 'other guys' paper on griefing before wasting time on his 'study'. What a d-monger...

Indig , leader of the City of Gaymers

Indig

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City of Gaymers on Guildportal.com
http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.asp...3&TabID=295104

Though this is a good example of why giving debt in a pvp zone isn't a good idea.



I met twixt once or twice. Pop oranges and he was no big deal.

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