"It's something that goes far beyond the "professor researching human behaviour" angle that he is using to publicise his work. "
Which is why I never read the garbage he published but learned about it awhile ago. I really think he used the paper/prof angle later in the game, not a planned out thing. He was waaaay to close to his subjects for any serious research. He needed to observe someone like him interacting, not be the force and observe. Such crap.
"Over time I learned how to push his buttons in the same way that he was pushing mine. Certain things I could say would trigger responses form him and break the usual silence. I knew how to make him break out into his rather bizarre "poetry" in the zone, or start with his "ho ho ho" and "base is safe" quotes."
Again great minds think alike. I loved pushin his buttons. Was easy to do.
Btw Droid Rage here, so I was there alot during the time you specify. I leveled up a few toons in RV.
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I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
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Don't you feel a bit silly about this part?
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I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
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his actions over the six months or so we saw each other almost every day have affected me three years later.
[/ QUOTE ]
I bet Twixt would get a real kick out of reading these two quotes. Honestly. This is how you know that you probably just should have let him win and go somewhere else to lvl.
One final point I wanted to make is that as usual my conclusion regarding his study is in complete opposition with David Myers' own.
He seems to believe that Twixt's exploits show that even in an "artificial environment", medieval and barbaric practices emerge to re-create pecking orders and enforce "norms" on those who deviate.
If there is anything I have taken away from my experience of this game, it is that no matter how anonymous people are or how free they are to break social norms in the name of "following the rules", basic human decency shines through and we treat each other with respect regardless of appearance or background.
Even online, the vast majority of people can recognise a fool or a mean-spirited person and react to them in precisely the way that such people should be reacted to in order to promote our species' survival and development.
Twixt went beyond griefing and harassed, bullied, stalked and abused players up and down the CoX servers. His notoriety was well earned and it should rightly extend beyond the small pixellated character to the man and his motives which, as far as I can see, serve only to paint him as an even stranger and meaner person than I thought before all these articles appeared.
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
Champion Server
Tee Hee!
Many of the things you describe do not sound very "heroic" and far outside of "playing the game as intended". I strongly believe his "research" was nothing more than getting paid to be the jerk he relished being.
Hater
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I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
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his actions over the six months or so we saw each other almost every day have affected me three years later.
[/ QUOTE ]
I bet Twixt would get a real kick out of reading these two quotes. Honestly. This is how you know that you probably just should have let him win and go somewhere else to lvl.
[/ QUOTE ]
I agree. And I can live with someone who was that much of a nasty person, which is what I thought he was. It's all these claims where he feigns shock at the responses to what he did that confuses me.
If his technique had been to play as a character who constantly did things wrong in missions and pretended to be a bit "slow", then his conclusions (i.e. a sad story of how a misfit is rejected by his peers because he "behaves differently") would have made sense.
Instead, what he did was act as THE force of the norm - policing play by the rules in the strictest sense, displacing and exiling the minority loners and outliers who wanted to do something different with the environment. He was the champion for normality who attempted to stamp out deviation of any kind in RV. I just find it so disturbing that his paper attempts to twist the whole thing around against those he abused, like a school bully appealing to teachers about how other students don't like him because he beats them up every day.
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
Champion Server
Tee Hee!
He's objectively sitting back and saying, 'look at how crazy these players were for making death threats to me', while selectively disincluding the taunting and the nasty pleasure he got out of frustrating others through web anonymity.
Me and Solun agree on something. Word.
That is what i call a wall of text! Time to read it 
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I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't you feel a bit silly about this part?
[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't read the wall of text but this part caught my eye. I don't find anything silly about it at all. This may just be a game but people have feelings, people get attached. People make friends.
This game is an investment of time. I remember back in the day when I invested so much hard work, planning, and time in to hami raids and a certain individual seemed hellbent on making that experience suck, while I never actually cried tears I can remember being extremely upset several times , about a video game. Emotions don't go away when you log in. People are people regardless.
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Me and Solun agree on something. Word.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hey, I'm not a complete [censored], I just play one on the interwebz.
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[ QUOTE ]
I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't you feel a bit silly about this part?
[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't read the wall of text but this part caught my eye. I don't find anything silly about it at all. This may just be a game but people have feelings, people get attached. People make friends.
This game is an investment of time. I remember back in the day when I invested so much hard work, planning, and time in to hami raids and a certain individual seemed hellbent on making that experience suck, while I never actually cried tears I can remember being extremely upset several times , about a video game. Emotions don't go away when you log in. People are people regardless.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hobbies are always an investment of time. One you are supposed to enjoy. When your hobby has you crying real life tears, it may be time to take a step back and assess what is really important in life.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't you feel a bit silly about this part?
[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't read the wall of text but this part caught my eye. I don't find anything silly about it at all. This may just be a game but people have feelings, people get attached. People make friends.
This game is an investment of time. I remember back in the day when I invested so much hard work, planning, and time in to hami raids and a certain individual seemed hellbent on making that experience suck, while I never actually cried tears I can remember being extremely upset several times , about a video game. Emotions don't go away when you log in. People are people regardless.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hobbies are always an investment of time. One you are supposed to enjoy. When your hobby has you crying real life tears, it may be time to take a step back and assess what is really important in life.
[/ QUOTE ]
And that doesn't change the facts of the issue, which were that Twixt was, for lack of a better word, stalking her. How she feels about it are irrelevant. You're actually defending his actions because "it's just a game"?
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
Are you lord helmot?
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I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't you feel a bit silly about this part?
[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't read the wall of text but this part caught my eye. I don't find anything silly about it at all. This may just be a game but people have feelings, people get attached. People make friends.
This game is an investment of time. I remember back in the day when I invested so much hard work, planning, and time in to hami raids and a certain individual seemed hellbent on making that experience suck, while I never actually cried tears I can remember being extremely upset several times , about a video game. Emotions don't go away when you log in. People are people regardless.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hobbies are always an investment of time. One you are supposed to enjoy. When your hobby has you crying real life tears, it may be time to take a step back and assess what is really important in life.
[/ QUOTE ]
And that doesn't change the facts of the issue, which were that Twixt was, for lack of a better word, stalking her. How she feels about it are irrelevant. You're actually defending his actions because "it's just a game"?
[/ QUOTE ]
Twixt was definitely stalking her. He was definitely not being a nice person. Never once did I defend his actions.
And having stated that, I still stand behind what I said. It IS just a game and if you are crying real tears over it, you need to make some changes.
Dollymistress-
More than a few folks are somewhat less than amused by Myers so-called research. VickiVee even set a letter to his university asking them to review his study, which was forwarded to the head of his IRB committee. I posted a reply that he was most likely going to be on safe ground in terms of informed consent unless his Institutional Review Board decided his methods were excessive.
After reading your post, it certainly sounds like you found them excessive. If you feel that Prof. Myers did indeed go too far and should answer for it, you should consider sending the letter you posted here to the Chair of the IRB for his university. If no one comes forward saying, Yeah, he went over the top. I know because I was the one he went over the top on, he'll have an easier time justifying the methods he used.
The address for sending such a letter is on pages 11 and 12 of the Blow Your Mind Twixt thread, at least on my browser. If you dont want to dig through all that, just send me a PM through the forums and Ill send you the information.
Another fine PSA from Night Mission Enterprises. Dont call us, we wont call you.
---
I've been told that sometimes my lucidity is frightening.
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Your logic is no match for concentrated stupid. - Organica
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Current MAs:
Stop the catgirl rampage! #66361
Show us on the doll where TWIXT touched you...
TAXEE-Freedom's Original "fun ride"!
QUARX-45 to Fiddy Hami-Only XP! 993 hours!
"If yah want we can take this to the arena. No insps, max end, no travel powers, no temp powers, no accolades, no observers, unrated just one on one."
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Show us on the doll where TWIXT touched you...
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I lol'd IRL.
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Show us on the doll where TWIXT touched you...
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Too much ?
CHAMPION!
makes me wish I could of fought this guy at least once...since I heard he moved to Infinity, oh well...though I hear he left the game because of the i13 changes, guess that's where his "research" ended, since he couldn't pull off his usual tricks w/ such ease. I'm pretty sure he would rage in the zones w/ how Phase Shift works now. Always fun killing a runner after they Phased.
I can certainly understand your emotions. Twixt didn't just go beyond the normal human boundaries in killing you. He shattered them, apparently with a relish and zeal that is rather frightening.
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[ QUOTE ]
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[ QUOTE ]
I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't you feel a bit silly about this part?
[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't read the wall of text but this part caught my eye. I don't find anything silly about it at all. This may just be a game but people have feelings, people get attached. People make friends.
This game is an investment of time. I remember back in the day when I invested so much hard work, planning, and time in to hami raids and a certain individual seemed hellbent on making that experience suck, while I never actually cried tears I can remember being extremely upset several times , about a video game. Emotions don't go away when you log in. People are people regardless.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hobbies are always an investment of time. One you are supposed to enjoy. When your hobby has you crying real life tears, it may be time to take a step back and assess what is really important in life.
[/ QUOTE ]
And that doesn't change the facts of the issue, which were that Twixt was, for lack of a better word, stalking her. How she feels about it are irrelevant. You're actually defending his actions because "it's just a game"?
[/ QUOTE ]
Twixt was not stalking her. Twixt was killing people in a PvP zone. Like it or not, that's what they are there for. All she had to do was go to a different zone. Twixt can't kill her in missions. Twixt can't kill her in Grandville. Twixt can't kill her in RWZ. The only places Twixt could kill her is in the PvP zones.
I'm not approving of the way Twixt handled himself, but instead of fueling the insanity she could have removed herself from the situation. It was stated that RV was a great place to level up from 40-50, and that it could be done really fast. If that aspect of the zone is taken away because someone keeps killing you, the advantage of going to that zone is gone. It would only be logical to go somewhere else.
That, and I totally agree with the idea that when the fun stops is when you should be doing something else. This isn't your job, this isn't something that's going to set up your children for success, this isn't something that will help you get into college or the military. Being that it's a totally fictional world that we play in, there is literally NO usefulness to this game other than escapism. When the place you escape to causes you to shed tears, escape somewhere else.
"this isn't something that will help you get into college or the military."
Ummm didnt you read. Twixt got PAID to do this, and its part of his college experience... So clearly if twixt has taught us anything, and he hasnt, its that playing games makes us mad money and smrt!
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When the place you escape to causes you to shed tears, escape somewhere else.
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We're playing a game that i fundamentally about crime and punishment, and the rule of law. So I sympathize with people who have a problem with the idea that someone can come into the game, work at making other unhappy in their experience, and then skip off and write a paper that justifies diminishing someone else's escape.
My experience with PvP was that when I got over the idea that I was gonna be l33tness, I had fun just accepting that I was low on the totem pole and enjoying the experience, no matter what came. I got picked on... but it wasn't the same as what Twixt was doing. I got some great pointers from folks considered to be nearly as mean as Twixt.
Twixt wrote about the community failing to rise above common social paradigms, but that's a bit like a flasher denouncing the police and the district attorney for putting him in jail with violent offenders. Yes, real-life death threats do take it too far, and yes, those should be petitioned and dealt with. And yeah, it IS only a game, just an escape. But no one should go to my vacation spot and attempt to pass gas constantly in my direction, and then ask why I'm upset and don't go somewhere else... who's to say when I go somewhere else, someone won't do the same thing? Is the solution to my problems always going to be 'go somewhere else', or can I hope to stand up for myself, and can I expect the community to rally for me when they see behavior that does not conform to standards?
Maybe I'm a bit of a crank, but I don't believe having an avatar means having no responsibility for the ideas and interactions a person presents over the Internet. His idea was to make Dolly unhappy in her escape. While he didn't stalk only Dolly, I do believe that if she asked him nicely to stop, that would only encourage Twixt to work harder at frustrating her.
I believe he should be held responsible for that behavior, especially when he repackages the time he spent doing it as a science experiment. (Which, granted, he probably did as more of a last ****-you to the community than actual science.)
Since I "officially" quit a few weeks back, it's taken me a while to find out about the story behind Twixt and the papers/news articles that have been written about his exploits.
It's difficult for me to organise a coherent response to these events, due to a lot of factors but I'm going to go ahead anyway because I really think people need to know more about the other side of the story.
By the "other side", I don't mean the CoX of MMO community in general. I'm talking as someone who has been very personally and seriously affected by what Twixt did in the past - a topic that hasn't been touched upon as much as the more diffuse response to his overall actions.
What I really need to explain before adding more is that I feel very confident in claiming that between late 2006 and early 2007, I was easily Twixt's most frequent opponent and victim (I hope that term doesn't sound too emotive). In fact, I think that during the latter months of 2006, I was probably the most killed player in RV on Champion, with over 90% of those defeats being at Twixt's hands. He killed my various character hundreds upon hundreds of times, and that really is not an exaggeration. I'll explain a bit more about why this happened below.
One contributing factor is that back then in 2006, fewer people knew that (particularly for villains) RV was one of fastest and most predictable ways to level from 40 to 50 if you weren't particularly interested in teaming and didn't mind grinding away in the face of occasional PvP danger from heroes.
As a lot of old friends in CoV on Champion will know, I was very fast at levelling up in RV. I knew some neat tricks and during late 2006 I levelled most of my 14 villains to 50 in that zone. Once a character I owned hit level 40, I would travel to RV, grab a villain Heavy, and defeat Longbow with it until I was roughly 47-50, depending on whether anyone I knew needed a 47 to lackey their friends.
A short time after I started using these methods to level up, I ran into Twixt/David Myers.
I'm having trouble continuing this post. What I would like to get across to people more than anything is the sheer relish that this person showed in the days/weeks/months that followed our first encounter. It's something that goes far beyond the "professor researching human behaviour" angle that he is using to publicise his work.
You see, both he and I are incredibly bloody-minded, and we were in the PvP zone for diametrically opposed reasons. I was there purely to gain XP from exploiting the fact that a player could use a heavy to defeat powerful NPCs with little or no risk.
I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in PvP, and when I used to be attacked in the zone I would either retreat or just stand still and let myself be killed. I would then immediately return to a Heavy, grab it again, and carry on.
The vast majority of Heroes who defeated me would kill me once or twice, and then get bored. If they did it repeatedly, I would ask them not to keep doing it and almost all would be very nice and leave me alone after that point.
Some ignored me, or took my request as an invitation to keep attacking. I would then get upset or angry if they continued for long enough. Some would continue for dozens of kills before getting bored, making me very upset indeed but very rarely did I find someone who had the patience to keep attacking and defeating me to the point that I would be the one who gave up and left the zone.
Now, I'm not trying to defend my actions here. I know that it was I who was mis-using the zone and that players who attacked me were perfectly within their rights to do so. I'm also not claiming that I didn't say things to people that were designed to offend them, in my efforts to make them go away and stop attacking.
Twixt was not like other players. Either due to his research intentions, or his own deeper motivations, he and I became the immovable force and irresistible object.
He never, ever, left me alone.
For several months during late 2006, I played CoV almost every day. I had a lot more free time back then. A large chunk of this time was spent in RV.
I would go to the zone, and most of the time, Twixt would be there.
The moment that he realised I was in RV, he would abandon what he was doing and single me out as his prime target. He would kill me by droning, TPing into other NPCs, fearing and Tping, all sorts of ways, and then I would respawn and carry on with what I was doing.
Unlike other players, no matter where I resumed my NPC hunting, he would find me, attack me, and kill me again. If I retreated to a turret he would wait me out, sometimes for over an hour and then if neither of us budged he would find friends and heavies to get me despite my defensive position.
I can remember times when I would get so angry and upset that Twixt and I would become locked in a battle of wills, where for hours (literally hours) we would go through a ten minute routine where he would kill me, hunt for me, find me again, and kill me again while I was going through the equivalent process of dying, getting a Heavy back, returning to kill Longbow, then dying again.
In Twixt's various articles and the stories about him, everything he does is portrayed as someone following the rules of the game in some sort of objective sense that made him surprised at the response of CoV players.
This appearance is a complete sham. When I was in RV with Twixt, he would abandon his routine project of capturing pillboxes and hunt me exclusively. This happened to such an extent that a lot of other villains (mostly Stalkers) at the time even used me as BAIT for him, so that they could ambush Twixt while he was attacking me.
There were times when he would chain-teleport me across the full length of the zone from just outside the villain base all the way to the Hero base, so he could drone me. When I found ways to nullify his tactics or had friends to back me up his behaviour showed a true sense of frustration and rage at what I had accomplished, such that he would find even more mean ways of getting his revenge.
There were times when he would fear me in a group of NPCs and then manipulate the situation so that it took as long as possible for me to die, as if he was torturing my character.
This is why I really feel I need to write this response. During the months that we encountered each other in RV, this Myers person became as morbidly fascinating to me as he claims villain PvPers in general were to him. Over time I learned how to push his buttons in the same way that he was pushing mine. Certain things I could say would trigger responses form him and break the usual silence. I knew how to make him break out into his rather bizarre "poetry" in the zone, or start with his "ho ho ho" and "base is safe" quotes.
This is the side that the articles don't seem to be getting to the heart of. There were times when Twixt would follow up defeating me by making up a rhyme about how bad a player I was, or how stupid all villains were. He would engage in very well-timed, enraging taunts that were specifically aimed not only to "breach the social norms" of the game but actually to target specific individuals and ridicule them with boasts about what he was doing.
None of this reflects a reasonable, objective person attempting to study an online phenomenon or cultural sphere. In the same way that Mr. Myers has rather oddly defended his "successes" by posting kill lists in recent comments to his articles (is he genuinely proud of them? How does that make sense?), a lot of what he used to *say* in RV on Champion indicates a real life sociopath who truly delighted in the sort of harm he used to deal out to players like me.
There were a few other points I wanted to add. The first one is that the comments he writes show that he wants to have things both ways. On the one hand, he writes about online games as if their norms and customs are "artificial", as if when people expect courtesy and respect in a game (or on a forum) they are taking things too seriously, like someone who would be offended if he cussed at one of their Chess pieces while playing a game of Chess with him.
However, in the same paragraphs where he attempts to press this point of view, he also writes about his genuine shock and sadness at the reactions he received. This is a contradiction - either what gets said and done in a game is artificial and outside the scope of usual social norms, or it isn't. It can't be both. He plays up the death threat he received as something that worried and harmed him (implying the player involved might be dangerous) but he also mentions nothing of the real life upset that he caused to others.
I spent more than a couple of nights during later 2006 in real tears over some of the things that Twixt did to me. Like when my SG tried to organise AV-hunts in RV or spend double-XP weekends earning XP, only to be thwarted by his actions. There were times when I had planned to spend my only free evening in a week levelling a character and no matter how much I attempted to debate, reason or plead with Twixt my actions would simply make him even more determined to push my buttons and ruin my day. Perhaps he thought I was a particularly interesting subject, and would respond with more useful material for his paper and book?
I'm already quoted twice in the short paper on the internet - I believe it was me who likened Twixt to an NPC and wrote about his seeming incapability to see players as real people (my search-fu isn't good enough to confirm this for certain but I'm almost 100% sure that paragraph he quotes in the paper is mine).
So anyway, this is me reacting to what he's written. It all feels a bit surreal really. I think I should contact him directly, he will probably be ever so fascinated by how his actions over the six months or so we saw each other almost every day have affected me three years later.
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
Champion Server
Tee Hee!