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Posts
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As a singing teacher I don't teach people to sound American.
However, I do usually have to change the vowel sounds produced when singing and speed up the consonants.
Take the simple phrase 'I love you'
If I were to say it like I sing it you would hear ' Islay View' That is Islay as in the Hebridean Island which might not help if you don't already know how to pronounce that... -
Quote:I thought the ref in the first match was actually quite good getting some key decisions spot on. Didn't think much of the France match either so I guess my lack of knowledge about football must be showing.In work i picked out ghana/australia and duras in my sweepstake so i really got no chance of winning the pot money
Watched the france match yesterday and it was pretty goodHeard the ref in the first match was poor and the ref [imo] wasnt of the highest standards in this match either to be fair. Cant believe how easy france were to predict though and how stubborn they are. Looked like they were ready to settle for a draw to be honest, even with an extra man!
Looking forward to the drinking games tonight in town for the england match though
I find myself not actually supporting any one team in particular (and despite my nationality I am not supporting ABE) but rather picking my favourite for each match I happen to watch, usually plumping for the underdog for some reason. So far I have wanted RSA and Uruguay to win... perhaps I should stop even having a favourite if that is what my support does for them!
Today I will probably go for South Korea and... actually I don't know who I want to win the other two matches; probably Argentina and England if I am forced to choose... so much for me picking the underdogs all the time -
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1. Well, I would certainly be interested.
2. I would say at least a base if not a base and a global channel.
3. I would even say both hero and villain (it allows at least 2 people the chance to either lead (if there is that much demand) or be in charge of base construction)
4. Union (just because I happen to play there) but it might be interesting if it were Defiant as I would effectively be starting fresh there.
5.I vote Lady Arete for Supreme Leader
...what do you mean there was no 5? -
Tell you what, you can all join mine seeing as I am now the only one left in it!
I actually like this idea and would suggest that the name/theme would be an out of game reference to the EU. As for magic/tech oriented... why not both? With that many members, as Lady Arete says, it wouldn't take long to get a massive base which would have room for separate tech and magic areas and even *gasp* defined rp room(s)!
Or would the every thing to everyone approach just mean that everyone would end up dissatisfied? -
Ooh, bloodbowl! I love that game!
Used to play the original table-top game in my (much younger) youth.
Oh, wait, yeah. Hawt g/f. Whoot!
Can I get off the naughty step now? -
Yaay.
Now, onto the important things...
1) is she a hero or a villain?
2) is she hawt?
3) do you have any pix?
4) apparently you have to ignore questions 2 and 3 and I have to go sit on the naughty step for a while... -
PPD batons are also wielded in the same way at times
Oh, and I have found that Sands of Mu sometimes animates as brawl -
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Quote:2. Most teams post-I13 are still completing them relatively quickly. Even if that weren't the case, and merits were upped to the point where they'd actually be worth the time to run again, people would go back to running those pieces of content en masse, which is what merits were designed to prevent in the first place.
I agree, but not to the same degree as the reward suffers from (whatever the proper term is that you don't get as large a reward). It may be worth the speeders time to run it once a day but (and here I am making assumptions based upon nothing tangible) it would also encourage more non-speed runs as the reward is no longer 'anaemic' as someone posted earlier. It is to be hoped that this would create a slightly better balance between the runs which are completed in a scarily fast time and those which are more sedate.
The speeders would probably still be disproportionally represented, just not AS disproportionally represented. No? -
Quote:There have been at least two (maybe three?) occasions since I13 where the devs have gone through and rechecked the data to recalculate merit rewards for all tasks, not just specific ones.
Would that data not have included the data from before I13 when activity on (some) SF's was remarkably different? I was asking if it would be an idea to re-calculate based on the data from I13 and excluding data from before that point.
If the previous data is included then it might have had an effect on the end result. I know I am over-using the example of Virgil Tarikoss here but; if it was the habit of some to run that SF repeatedly and quickly multiple times per day then they might have completed [WARNING: ARBITRARILY MADE UP NUMBER] 1000 speed runs. I13 comes in and the reward is not significant enough to carry on that behaviour so less runs are made. The up-dated data would still have a bias towards those 1000 speed runs which are no longer an accurate representation of how that SF is now played.
Or have I missed something pertinent? -
I levelled my latest hero by running all the TF's with the remainder of the levels being completed by running as many story arcs as I could find.
I then ran every arc in Ouroborous.
I am now doing the same with my villain.
And, yes, I am a [insert ridiculous amount of time] vet. -
Quote:That was the aberration in behaviour I was referring to, thank you.I would just like to point out that those 3 TF's, were essentially driven into the ground PRIOR to the introduction of merits by speed teams running them over & over & over again multiple times per day since they gave exactly the same reward as every other TF in the game.
Quote:My personal opinion, is that now that the activities of the speed players are more evenly distributed across a much larger number of tasks, that their overall effect on rewards is going to be negligible. The fact that there have been only minimal reductions to one or two TF's/SF's since merits were introduced backs this up.
I wonder if it would be an idea to re-calculate the merit rewards based on data since merits were released. Might that give a better balance based on how TF's and SF's are being played at this time rather than before the new rewards system? -
Quote:That tells us that the median time for Virgil Tarikoss is 39 minutes. My usual time for completing that SF is c.90 minutes and has been as much as 136 minutes.But it's not fewer Merits: it's the same number of Merits, just fewer SFs to get them with.
Less variety, perhaps, fewer options, but still 1 Merit per 3 minutes.
It certainly doesn't equate to 1 merit per 3 minutes going by MY measure of play. So either I am doing something seriously wrong or circumstances are such that the data is squeued by aberrant behaviour (as was the case for Katie Hannon and the Eden Trial). This was exacerbated red-side due to the comparative lack of SF's meaning that there were less options so the data became further squeued.
Had the Hero TF's been as 'well designed' as the villain SF's then I am sure the hero rewards would have been significantly less but it remains that a non-speed team is 'penalised'* more red-side than blue.
Not sure I quite managed to get my point across clearly there... oh well...
*not my word -
Quote:This doesn't appear to make sense. The time to Merit ratio in either case is 1 Merit per 3 minutes.
I can see where it does make sense if you consider the difference between the fastest possible time 'skipping' a lot of mobs etc. compared to defeating every/most things.
If the TF/SF can be completed by completing a small number of tasks then it can take significantly less time to complete by ignoring everything else and just doing the tasks rather than battling your way across maps. If the former method is used significantly more often than the latter then the rewards are based not on battling your way across maps but doing these specific tasks as quickly as possible.
once this has established itself then the reward ratio is telling those people who do battle across maps that they are 'too slow' which encourages doing it the quick way.
Also people are more likely to do things slower when they receive a reward they don't perceive as being insignificant. I am far more likely to do a TF/SF that awards c.30 merits the 'slow' way than I am to do one that awards 13.
ITF is a nice example. I will take part in speed runs and not complain. I will also take part in runs that aim to kill most of the mobs and not complain because I don't perceive the reward at the end to be tiny. -
The one SF that I have found myself going 'that doesn't feel worth it' is Virgil Tarikos.
Whenever I have taken part in this it has taken 1-2.5 hours and that is with stealthing when practical, most notably using the midnighters visage to click all the glowies to summon old batty.
I am aware that it CAN be speeded however I have never taken part in speed runs (probably because they are far more infrequent now due to the relatively poor rewards) and don't quite see how it could have been done in such a short period of time as I have heard it was/is. I have been on a team where the second mission alone took almost an hour! Yes, that was an abberation but it is experiences like that and the general feeling of lack of reward that has led me to the state where I just don't take part in that SF at all any more (excluding the first time in order to get the badge).
From my own point of view the disparity is only irritating when I want to earn enough merits to purchase a particular recipe red-side as it takes me far longer to earn the required amount without changing the way I enjoy playing fairly dramatically.
After all that I don't have any ideas as to how it should be changed (or even that it definitely should) which leads me to wonder whether I should even bother to post it...
...but I have written it now so why not...
Quote:perhaps there is a factor there then. A vicious circle if you would; speed runs happen often so merit rewards are low; merit rewards are low so speed runs happen more often to make up for it.This is another reason I don't play villainside much, hardly at all in fact. The only SFs I've done have all been "speed" because the merits were so small. Heroside people are usually at least willing to fight on the way and sometimes even defeat all because the merits (except for Katie and Eden) aren't anemic. -
My favourite 'kicked from the team' story was from a long time ago.
Team leader had recruited 2 /kins to aid his recovery. We entered the mission and he demanded that he is kept double speed boosted. any time this double speed boost dropped for even a second he would start berating us. The fact that he continually charged away from the group that the rest of the team was fighting to go aggro a new group that he could then leave for us didn't make this task easy.
It came to a head when he told both kins how terrible we were because we weren't able to do our single job.
'Just keep SBin me'.
So we did.
Constantly.
Repetitively.
Without respite.
He kicked both of us.
We had, however, prepared for this and waited outside the mission for all the rest of our former team-mates to appear after they had quit and invited them to a much more pleasant team where most people were double speed boosted for the vast majority of the time. -
While I have always loved the idea of 'detective missions' there hasn't yet been a suggestion that, to my mind, would be practical in the long-term.
Having clues to mission doors is all well and good, but it doesn't work after the first time and, as people have pointed out, many won't even bother with it that first time and will either skip it or look up the answer. There would have to be so much of it that by the time you have finished it all you are likely to have forgotten previous puzzles and, if there were that much of it, it would likely become more of an irritation that a challenge.
If there could be some kind of variable, repeatable and above all non-tedious way of having some form of detecting or puzzle-solving I would be all for it. For the moment, however, I don't see anything that would be satisfying rather than plain bloody annoying! -
Quote:Ok only read to page 4 of this 21 page saga but 2 words DOCTOR WHO, this would definitely be a good show to target ads during.
That is just for the US now if it works tell your British counterparts and they might start outnumbering us.
That wouldn't work in the UK simply because there are no adverts during, before or after Doctor who. -
An interesting survey; I do wonder about two juxtaposed questions.
Do you think games are getting more violent
followed by
do you think increased violence is caused by greater graphics
(I forget the actual wording)
how can you answer the second question if you don't agree with the premise of the first?
Good luck with the dissertation -
Quote:Q: When was Going Rogue born as a concept?
Jesse: It was originally going to launch with "Issue 6"
Wooooaaaahhhhh... I expect the side switching system to be amazing if they've been working on it for years and years.
I believe that that quote was a mistake by the journalist reporting what was said as, on the website where the blog (or whatever it is called) was appearing there was an introduction saying that City was 6 years old and had had 6 free expansions and was soon to be getting a seventh. This makes me believe that it was originally going to launch with 16 but, due to an earlier error or a misconception it was reported incorrectly. -
Quote:SCOTLAND!! DUM DUM DUM!
The better team won on that night.
Fury
Hmm, any guesses where Fury comes from?
I still don't understand how we managed to beat Ireland yet only draw with England and LOSE to italy!
Oh well, at least we didnt end up with the wooden spoon, I don't think we would have deserved that. -
Quote:Have you taught him to fetch? I used to have a lovely little ginger cat called Jeoffrey that we taught to fetch hair bobbles. It was great fun until Jeoff spotted some hair bobbles round the base of a table lamp which he promptly tried to fetch and ended up smashing the lamp.And then I got my cat, Miko (short for Mikoyan-Gurevich), who is a Russian Blue. Great cat, practically a dog, because he plays "tag", comes when I call him, is insanely athletic (my little Russian Rocket) and other than a penchant for assuming the "king of the castle role" role in my home, seems to be on the up and up.
Hmm, perhaps that isn't the best story to tell to encourage you to try it...