'Twixt'? Anyone remember this guy?
By
7thCynic,
Posted on: 2009-07-06 16:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I have said this before in threads about him. He did an extremely poorly designed experiment with a unknown population that is too small of a sample. He had no IRB review or approval and no informed consent. His work was unethical and worthless. I won't even get into the points on ethics of human test subjects in regards to minors which some of his population was most likely.
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Okay a bit of SearchFu turns up the Forums user Fasque as Twixt's player.
Sending a PM to The Ocho to see if we can get his posts locked and saved for a bit. Apparently there's going to be a counterpoint response to the article by some of the players here.
Note: This is NOT something that's going to be "Oh he was a [censored] + character assasination + rant" thing. We do not, however, want someone reactivating their account and deleting some of the dirty little tracks that point to their research method being slightly less clean and forthright than they intimated.
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Read through some of his posts. I don't think the man's research persona was as carefully crafted as his academic paper asserts. He repeatedly expresses interest in and engagement with other MMOs, wavers between being articulate, speaking in txt type and then writing weak limericks. I think he was playing as he preferred in earnest and then asking questions later. Again, much more art than science.
Also, he seems obsessed about both the intentions and rules of i13 PvP and comes off as MUCH more engaged in (and enraged by) the subject than the cool, aloof stance he describes in his paper when he discusses the "natural laws" provided by the game universe.
I'm left wondering if the shifting rules of PvP were a "breach" upon the order he expected and required for his "research." Doesn't the formal modification of the rules to support more "sportsmanly" behaviour than he displayed indicate that though tactics he was using were for a time "legal," that after data mining they were deemed an "exploit"? His actions contributed to actions by the developers to change PvP. Isn't THAT in itself as significant as the rage he evoked from fellow players in RV? Not much time is given to that in his analysis.
If anything, there is perhaps a MUCH more interesting analysis hiding behind this narrative of a triad of realms: natural law (which I still think is NOT what Myers asserts it is, but closer to the root of cybernetics and electronic computation), social law (the informal mores and norms which he does fairly accurately recognize), and legislation (the ever evolving rules set by the governing authority of the realm, in our case the devs and publisher. this is the stuff he grossly misidentified IMO as "natural law".) In some ways, his actions are more akin to wallstreeters and banksters ripping us all off for nearly 30 years in manners that often were within the law but may have violated what is sometimes referred to as "the spirit of the law." In other words, an exploit. And just like those power tie wearing con artists, Dr. Myers cries foul when the laws of the land are modified to cinch up a few loopholes he actively exploited. So yeah, after reading his paper last night and digesting it while I slept, I've solidified my own opinions that this is a very poor excuse for scholarship indeed. 
(And to the small minority in here coming in to LOL at folks getting worked up, note that I'm not really offended by the PvP stuff. Not my concern. But I do appreciate good, insightful research when I read it. And if I'm worked up about anything here, it's his tremendously sloppy work that bothers me! And if you get LULZ from seeing someone have interests and values beyond the narrow confines of this game and a desire to sometimes engage others in earnest discussion of those interests, LOL away folks at what you misidentify as "forum drama.")
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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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I'm working on a thesis that cookies are delicious...still gathering evidence though...*nom*
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
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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
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Holy crap! Those are some mean people!
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
PvP Guide to Guides
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Q. Is X cheating?
A. While there are many different things that X can be, generally speaking the answer is no. TPing people into holes in the geometry in PvP zones is a petitionable offense, as is the use of language that breaks the EULA, but other than that, everything goes in a PvP zone. Trailing NPCs to another player is perfectly legal, as is killing someone repeatedly, popping lots of inspirations, interrupting duels and rep farms, stopping someone from getting nukes, using your tier 9 before you go into sirens, or really anything else you can think of.
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Now let me clarify because apparently you don't know the truth.
Twixt killed players, took over pill boxes to win the zone, droned campers (legal tactic), TPed enemies into mobs, heavies and pill boxes then killed them (legal tactic), always ran at 400 rep on his LOLmelee, trash talked the trash talkers, riled up the noobs and farmers, followed the rules and was never banned, and was an amazing PvPer at the top of the list with people like the Renegades, M3z and a handful of others.
QQ less and get your facts straight or QQ more and make this even more epic.
A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670
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Originally Posted by Black_Barrier
Guess it's hard to click while actively trying to keep the drool away from the keyboard...
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PvP Guide to Guides
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Q. Is X cheating?
A. While there are many different things that X can be, generally speaking the answer is no. TPing people into holes in the geometry in PvP zones is a petitionable offense, as is the use of language that breaks the EULA, but other than that, everything goes in a PvP zone. Trailing NPCs to another player is perfectly legal, as is killing someone repeatedly, popping lots of inspirations, interrupting duels and rep farms, stopping someone from getting nukes, using your tier 9 before you go into sirens, or really anything else you can think of.
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Now let me clarify because apparently you don't know the truth.
Twixt killed players, took over pill boxes to win the zone, droned campers (legal tactic), TPed enemies into mobs, heavies and pill boxes then killed them (legal tactic), always ran at 400 rep on his LOLmelee, trash talked the trash talkers, riled up the noobs and farmers, followed the rules and was never banned, and was an amazing PvPer at the top of the list with people like the Renegades, M3z and a handful of others.
QQ less and get your facts straight or QQ more and make this even more epic.
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment? His rep? He never fought in the Arena (to my knowledge), he was never associated in any other high-end PvP besides RV, and while in RV, he never varied from his tactic of TP Foe into other sources of damage.
This is like saying Chris Davis is one of the most amazing baseball players ever because he hit a bunch of home runs this year. Specializing in one tactic does not show skill, it shows that you can specialize in one tactic. The fact that his methods were legal isn't being disputed at all. The idea that he was good requires some proof, not just your CAPSLOCKISCOOL word.
- 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.
Yeah.
I PvPed in zone with Twitx for over a year, I know exactly what occured and also have had the record chat feature on to verify any broadcast chat. FYI the arena is not the only test of PvP skill LOL.
Get a clue because apparently you do not have one on this subject.
A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670
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Originally Posted by Black_Barrier
Guess it's hard to click while actively trying to keep the drool away from the keyboard...
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k
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k
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but I am like who cares... ????
really.
who cares about his guy?
he is NOBODY?
Twixt was/is bad at CoH PvP. Yes his tactics were legal, but he lacks the skill to use anything else. The fact that he prided himself on his kills is the main reason I think people disliked him so.
I found mildly amusing, I figured he was a 7 or 8 year old kid (My Guildmates youngest son has more skill than twixt). I find it very funny that this guy was an older man...it makes the story all the more sad
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he is NOBODY?
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That looks like a question rather than a statement.
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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he is NOBODY?
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That looks like a question rather than a statement.
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none the less... 16 pages of discussion about lonely old man who pvp like a [censored]?
WWWWWHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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some people are just padding their post count... theres only 1 person in here who is all this serious buissness >.> i wont say who.
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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That really only shows what should be obvious: if you annoy people, they react to you.
It says nothing about his PvP skill or lack thereof.
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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Funny, I only see three pages. 
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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Funny, I only see three pages.
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Sixty Trillion
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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Funny, I only see three pages.
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Sixty Trillion
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Googleplex I WINZDAINTERWEBZ
u all fail
"If you aren't a member of the tribe, you get whacked with a stick," he said. "I look at social groups with dismay."
Looks like Twixt came into PvP with a preconceived mindset, looked to do whatever he could to negatively affect the playerbase so he could support the conclusion he had already made.
For someone who is studying social conventions and social conflict to ONLY act in a socially negative way isn't academically honest, even if it is within the "rules of the game."
A more balanced approach would have been to have a Twixt character and one that would have been the exact opposite, and one that was neutral, and to chart the resulting interactions with all three.
Plus in his paper he said he had been playing for almost 2 years, logging "thousands of hours."
I think someone got caught playing during work time by a higher power and had to figure out a way to turn his play into work.
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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Funny, I only see three pages.
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Sixty Trillion
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Googleplex I WINZDAINTERWEBZ
u all fail
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Graham's Number
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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some people are just padding their post count... theres only 1 person in here who is all this serious buissness >.> i wont say who.
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old is old pwnz is old.
far as my post count yup it goes to show i have better things to do than spend all day on the forums.
i rarely visit these forums because mainly people write the dumbest stuff or just complain all the time .
only thing worth reading are the guides and that's a stretch.
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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some people are just padding their post count... theres only 1 person in here who is all this serious buissness >.> i wont say who.
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old is old pwnz is old.
far as my post count yup it goes to show i have better things to do than spend all day on the forums.
i rarely visit these forums because mainly people write the dumbest stuff or just complain all the time .
only thing worth reading are the guides and that's a stretch.
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prime example of post padding right there
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An amazing PvPer based on what assessment?
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twixt's original thread at the time received well over 300 pages ...
this one has gotten up too around 12 and twixt has been gone for at least a year .
that basically speaks for it self.
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That only shows he was a footnote among numerous other points of interest in the realm of here; akin to tabloid fodder. Nothing more.
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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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He would also tp foe someone into the pillbox turrets and fear them and let the guns mow them down. If the hero base was camped by reds he would also tp foe reds into the drones as well. His bile was also used against heroes and not just villains.
As I stated in one of my previous posts he also noticed me one day farming in RV with a hero heavy and herded up 3-4 mobs of Arachnos and dragged them to where I was at to try and intentionally get me killed. When that failed he then started telling every villain in the zone what my toon name was, where I was at and also that I was insulting them and whatnot.
A true impartial sociologist would view events from a distance and record what they see. They don't instigate fights, arguments or negative behaviour themselves and then step back and watch the carnage they created. Any data they might collect would be invalid because he artificially created it himself.
I don't know if he sold his account or just reactivated it but about a month ago on Infinity I was farming in RV on my blue toon and he showed up (same global name and badges) the same as when he was on Freedom so either he has an exact toon with the exact badges and IO bonuses on Infinity as he did on Freedom or he did a server swap.
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