It happened AGAIN.

Let's see. They had existing PvE content in pre-beta that testers could interact with. They were actively trying to figure out what was wrong with it and how to make it work. They were making changes trying to fix what they percieved to be the biggest problems. (The well-documented whole-system overhaul that introduced Archetypes and such.)

Did they have any existing PvP content that testers could interact with? Were they actively trying to figure out how to make it work, and were they making changes to fix the problems they could see? There's not a lot of evidence (as Arcanaville noted, mostly in the fact that they were already pressed for time working on the PvE stuff) but what little there is points to the fact that no, they did not.

So from this we can in fact conclude that "The amount of 'planning' that went into 'planning on including PvP' was considerably smaller than the amount of 'planning' that went into 'planning on including PvE'."

Now, the original debate was on whether "they only bolted on PvP in response to every other MMO having it" or "they had been planning on including PvP all along". It would seem in this case, the truth is somewhere in the middle - "they had given some thought to including PvP in the game all along - but not very much thought."

Which, really, is a good summary of how PvP has been treated throughout the course of this game.

Very interesting. Please remind me again how this is related to that villain stories are non-villainous too often.

He does come off as having an ego but the point of his assertion is that adding repeatable missions that involve proactive villainy instead of reactive villainy would be something that he would be willing to pay for. Really that one example he made could just be added to the newspaper missions rotation. Basically instead of seeing that some other villain has done something and being opportunistic it would be nice to occasionally be the villain who is doing something first and have someone else react to your actions.

If the point of destroying the Freedom Phalanx in the SSAs is to bring the player characters into the spotlight then it certainly won't hurt to have some more proactive villainy in the Rogue Isles.

I didn't ask the devs to seek my approval. I made a suggestion relating to the villainside content.

Is this really that hard to understand or is everyone just looking for a reason to puff up their chests in an argument? I'm not freaking asking the devs to drop everything and cater to me, I'm not asking to destroy the world and I'm sure as hell not asking for my signature to be required for every game change.

Don't have something productive to suggest? Hit the back button and find another thread to argue in.


Well folks, the thread has reached a milestone: someone used the term 'ad hominem' in relation to a petty argument. Anyone else want to Godwin the thread for us while we're at it?

Or to eliminate outside threats to my own plans.

Or to prevent some random schmoe from altering my time-line.

Or to enhance/expand my personal power.

Or to crush potential competition for my domination of this dimension.

Or because I wouldn't have a place to keep all my stuff.

I stopped reading much of the in-game rationale for everything, on both sides, a long time ago. The development resources simply don't exist to cater to the moral "angle" of every character in the game. I play "the story in my head" now, and have done so for a long time here.

Have we had anyone compare anything to nazism, fascism or "the 1%" yet?

AAAAAAND... we're done here.


GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!!

Agreed completely for the main part. My only reason for pointing out that PVP was originally intended, is that many people tend to say it wasn't as a means to justify the devs largely ignoring it post I13. Something which I take to be absolutely ridiculous.

This thread has veered off topic though. Assuming Arcanaville doesn't write me another short story, I'll happily bow out.

I don't really care about the argument that's going on, but I would like to confirm that everything said by Xanatos there is correct in every way that matters.

I find it odd that so many people seem to be disagreeing with it, because it is a pretty basic part of logical discourse.

His usage of a word "negative" was referring to negative statements as in formal logic. It was not referring to any statement that included a "no" or "not".

Yeah? Which part? The bit about making up better Villain content, or the bit about what Marcellus Wallace looks like?

Actually it isn't. There is no "rule" against proving a negative. There had better not be, since any positive statement ("All humans are mortal") can be rewritten as a negative one ("No humans are immortal"). The false perception that "you can't prove a negative" is actually due to the universal/particular distinction. I could explain that at the risk of slaying the entire marketing department, but suffice it to say that if you can't prove a negative you can't prove anything else, either.

As for the actual points, Arcanaville has (as usual) provided more than a sufficient preponderance of evidence to support hers. The complaint against villain content has been hammered to death already; people need to either accept what they're getting or find another way to spend their free time.

Modus ponens: If the game's original devs had planned for PvP balance from the game's inception, the differences between the archetypes when played against each other would not have been so grossly unbalanced when the Arena was finally implemented and tested. This has nothing to say about their stated intentions, only their actions. They may have wanted to balance out the ATs against each other when they started coding, but likely lacked the time, money and resources to give it any priority. At least not until Issue 4.

On the more general topic of the ability or inability to prove negatives, look up philosopher Steven Hales vs. James Randi.

This pretty much sums it up for the entirety of the gaming experience, not just redside. You either accept what's given to you, completely ignore it (without cherry-picking the bits that make sense. You can't accept some of it without accepting all of it), or you go find another game that suits your sensibilities.

What exactly does this thread seek to prove except to say that the OP doesn't like the story? Why should any of us care, especially those of us that do like it, or at least tolerate it? Changing the way the story is written may satisfy you, but it just pisses off a different corner of the community, and what has been accomplished?

The problem is that the objection to the state of villain content is not a story objection, no matter how much the complainants may claim or even believe it is. It's a mechanical one. The game is simply not built to deliver what they want, and it can't be changed at this point. It would be easier to create a new game.

Compare and contrast to the Well material, which could (and should) be excised at a moment's notice.

They both have the burden of proof. If someone said either statement to me, my response would be the same: "Why?"

The latter statement has no burden of proof because it asserts or denies nothing. The speaker is simply withholding provisional consent to an existential claim. The former statement, by contrast, is asserting that within the relevant domain of discourse there does not exist any entity that would satisfy the demands of being a member of the specified set. Given the domain of discourse, that's a pretty big claim.

Yes, I agree entirely with your clarification there.

Any particular link or book you could recommend? Or should I just Google their names and read each result that comes up one by one?

Actually both those claims are about the speaker's state of mind. If I hold a belief that say, Superman is a fictional character who has no power to act on the real world, I could say either "I believe Superman does not exist" or "I do not believe Superman exists" and be correct.

They're not ignoring it! They're still giving PvP just as much thought as they always have been.

I understand what you're asking for but I also think your standards are... higher than this game can provide?

C'mon, you're saying that another villain group drawing your character's attention to something valuable by stealing it makes your character's subsequent stealing the thing from them be "reactive" villainy? You're saying that if Wade is specifically trying to kill your villain character and also coincidentally planing on doing something bad for the whole world, then beating him is your character being conned into "doing the right thing"?

Sure, villainside and co-op content both have their problems, but I don't think you'd be satisfied until the writers went above and beyond to cater to you, specifically.

Yes, if "I believe Superman does not exist" is true, then it is necessarily the case that "I do not believe Superman exists" is true too.
But, if "I do not believe Superman exists" is true, then it is not necessarily the case that "I believe Superman does not exist" is true as-well.

There-in lies the distinction between those two statements.