Emgro

Weird. I've always prioritized blasters and defenders, then tanks, then controllers, and scrappers last.

Mostly because scrapper have this odd habit of being on the other side of the rainbow from me, and I don't offer delivery.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the flip side, against AVs in the endgage, a lot of controller tools are irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please elaborate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, purple triangles are a big deal. If you build for hard control, most controllers are going to be less relevant than they'd like to be against these guys... I think a lot of people estimate the impact of a controller on an AV fight as somewhat low. Generally this is wrong, but there it is.

The fact that you can shut down the AV 1/3 of the time (when the PTODs drop) may not be interesting to them. The potential use of Immobs and sleeps might seem limited to most, and...

well...

We're talking about earth, one of the few sets that actually CAN still control an AV through a very tough taunting stoney, especially if you throw some shields on him and have a set with a heal...

Those unique res IOs are so very very inexpensive after all...

[/ QUOTE ]

Being able to control an AV about a third of the time is meaningless if the team can't survive the other two-thirds of the time, and if they can survive that, they can probably survive the whole time.

So you're looking at a control set that now offers only a handful of things. Limited damage, very limited debuffs (due to resistances), and a pet that may be useful, but is as likely not to be.

But what about their secondary? Their secondary is irrelevant to this comparison, because by definition, defenders do it better and have better base numbers than trollers.

To me, the value of trollers/doms to a team is being able to steamroll through mobs without fear of full-power alphas or obnoxious singles like Sappers or many Bosses.

I do find teaming with a blobs of Fire/Kins who rarely show any interest in locking anything down extremely annoying.

[ QUOTE ]
If I'm ever around, I'm good for the Rookery Reserve. Is there a Rookery global channel?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, Rookery.
As in "Rookery." with a period at the end of it.

Rookery.

Honestly? Collaborative fiction and fan fiction always make my teeth ache. That going away doesn't sadden me in the least.

Frankly, the content of the forum will shift over time, and probably go full circle in time.

*wanders in, freshly shaved and suited up for formality, then sets up an easel with slides on it, going through them laboriously*

Yar, and such, and so forth.

*shifts to the next slide*

I'm in the mood for a lil' pouncin' myself, if'n you catch my drift.

Emmi - Tabby Steele inv/DB tank
Pulc - Nurse Delight, empathy/energy defender
Wendy - Mai"Kesh Gysse -Arch/MM Blaster
Neko - Iron Kitteh - Force Field/Energy Defender
Emgro - Genshiro - Illusion/Radiation Controller
Brutus
Painful
Pogo

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think we are all better off, however, keeping things like this out of the Rookery. That's not what this place is about. Let's start with a clean slate tomorrow and leave seriousness at the door.

[/ QUOTE ]


If I had made any attempt to accurately characterize what I think of GW denialism, this thread would have been mod-whacked posthaste, so I think Fedor's got the right idea. Leave this sort of thing elsewhere. Rookery threads are for a different kind of silliness.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to point out that your argument that you cannot control yourself is just as silly as someone claiming that because Rookery conversations get slightly racy, they cannot restrain themselves from making obscene comments. A lack of self-control is a personal problem, not a societal one.

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, y'know what? We get these threads periodically complaining about how there's nothing of substance on this board. How about you guys who like to complain actually try posting something of substance? Rather than posting QQ about it, put your money where your mouth is and actually contribute positively to the community, with something other than complaints. Because y'know, this past week we've seen two event postings (the Dawn Patrol anniversary shindig and the SG recruitment fair) that none of the usual complainers posted anything to, despite these clearly being content posts that contributed something to the community. You want to complain? Step up and be part of the solution.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, we had some substance in the Rookery today. Don't go knockin' my attempts to proselytize.

I'm going to have to agree with the growing sense of people don't realize what controllers do. I love Earth as a set, rolled my Earth dominator the day it was proliferated. But these days, it's all about steamrolling specially picked wimpy mobs. People want their farms, and you don't need lots of hard control to take down weak enemies. On the flip side, against AVs in the endgage, a lot of controller tools are irrelevant.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
First post but who said I'm new, not my fault every time I stop playing to go do something else in my life they delete my old account.

Thanks for the oh so friendly return to the forums and try to help out dig tho, gee what a guy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meant no harm by it. And that really sucks they deleted your old account I thought they kept it forever?

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh.. no! As an old UO veteran (I still play, actually) I used to assume that all gaming companies are as accomoidating as EA. But no such luck. My own account was once inactive for a time, and when I came back it was gone. Woe to we who let our account lapse for more than a month or two, for our veteran rewards are in serious jeaperdy!

[/ QUOTE ]

I've only subscribed for 24 months since shortly after launch... still no account deletion. Did you do something weird with it?

[ QUOTE ]
I made rice krispies treats enjoy!

[/ QUOTE ]

I hereby posit that rice krispies cause cancer, and therefore, for the good of the Rookery, I will eat them all.

And that's totally legit. Go look it up on the internets yourself, cuz I'm too busy chewin'.

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah as the director of energy research. He works in atomic physics. He freely admits in his own work he is not a climatologist. Can you come up with someone that actually studies the field?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, and I'll get to that in a second.

[ QUOTE ]
Right because 1) there are no websites that do the same for the deniers point of view and 2) the existence of the website has ANYTHING to do with the science of the debate.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, but it has everything to do with why most of those involved don't like putting their names out there.

Take Nils-Axel Morner, who I've mentioned a few times I think. Check the discussion part of his wikipedia bio if you don't believe me. I'll leave you to find your own sources on him, since Google is easy enough to use, and I'd rather not be accused of "cherry-picking" references that favor my claims.

In fact, Google "Global Warming Hoax," "Global Warming skeptics", "Global Warming Denial," and some similar terms, visit every one of the first 100 hits, read them, check all their links, read those too, and then discuss what you find with a battery of policists, scientists, and laypeople. That's more or less what I've been doing, albeit for several years now, all while attending lectures, seminars, and classes presenting the opposite perspective.

I am a skeptic, not a denier, of global warming. It is the duty of a scientist, or any educated person, or any thinking person at all, to believe the truth, know the untrue and disbelieve it, and most of all, question the unproven and seek to find it true or false. As far as I can see, global warming, AGW, abnormal climate change, and so forth are unproven, and should be researched more.

Or to make Pogo happy and bring a little Milton into this: "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary."

Like the virtue mentioned in the Areopagitica, there is no value in merely accepting global warming as truth without first seeking to understand it. To believe blindly the words of anyone, scientist or no, is to be led into folly, because everyone makes mistakes.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think we are all better off, however, keeping things like this out of the Rookery. That's not what this place is about. Let's start with a clean slate tomorrow and leave seriousness at the door.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. This is one of the few times I've actually be interested in what goes on in here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with both of you. I like this discussion, and I'd enjoy continuing it and having more like it, but the Rookery might not the best place to do it. That being said, nobody else seems to be doing a lot of business here today.

[ QUOTE ]
See that's exactly my point. I never held up Gore as a reliable source, I said his movie had some facts in it. I used the national science academies as sources. And instead of discussing that Emgro, you choose to go into some tangent about academies vs the people in them. The published opinion of those organizations stands as a matter of record. So where are these dissenting scientists?

I always hear claims they exist, who are they? How many nobel prizes do they have in the fields of hard science?

[/ QUOTE ]

Gore trusted this guy enough to hire him

And here's a website politely dedicated to smearing the reputation of anyone who openly opposes global warming.

How very %#$@ professional

[ QUOTE ]
I was taking issue with the statement that there are "no facts" in the movie. That is completely not the case. Typical of the denial gambit is to grab one flaw and then say "See it's all lies because there is one thing that is not correct."

[/ QUOTE ]

I said there was no truth, not no facts. A fact wrapped in hyberbole and rhetoric is still a fact, but not in the least truthful.

Saying /Willpower is the best defensive set may (or may not, just using it as an example) be a fact. Saying that the superiority of /Willpower renders all other defensive sets obsolete is not true just because of that fact, however.

[ QUOTE ]
So now you are denying that polar bears are in danger? Who are you sarah palin's press agent Emgro? Seriously that is some incredible denial you are in over the reality of pollution and it's effects on the world. Keep drinking the kool aid though it you like it that much.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seriously, dude. Polar bears aren't even an endangered species. They aren't now, and I've been in rooms where people make comments like, "Polar bears are the next headliner species, we need to get them labeled endangered to get more attention."

Seriously. They are vulnerable, not endangered.

[ QUOTE ]
There are no fact in Gore's movie? So those glaciers are all still there, they just don't show up on film now? Is that what you are saying.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, some of them shrinking. Some of them are gone. Some of them are growing, and there's new ones too. Glaciers shrank until the 1940s or so, and grew back a lot in the 1960s. They are a changing thing, and wanting them to stay the same is like expecting volcanoes not to erupt.

[ QUOTE ]
Every national academy of science in the industrialized world has has accepted the reality of climate change. But no, the guy that wrote jurassic park is who we should be listening to.

[/ QUOTE ]
Academies have no opinions. They are groups of people, with individual opinions. Many of those people disagree with the common popular view on global warming. Such is my experience at the universities I've attended and visited, and the people I've spoken and communicated with.

And the guy that wrote Jurassic Park actually has a scientific education, unlike say, Al Gore, who you are holding up as reliable. As for the rest of why I like Crichton, I already answered it. He has no qualms about taking what a scientist says and making it more readable for the rest of us. However, he is careful to provide his sources, allowing the curious to further pursue those lines of inquiry and satisfy their desire to know the fact behind the fiction.

This is called transparency, something notably absent from the people who aggressively re-edit certain wiki articles, tore down Nils-Axel Morner's tree, and used footage from sci-fi disaster movies in a so-called documentary that listed no sources.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I want conservation to be an efficiently executed science that leads us to a better, more sustainable society.

[/ QUOTE ]
A noble goal; unfortunately, to get to that point, one would also have to educate society at large in what science actually entails~

[/ QUOTE ]

And that's why I'm going to probably end up getting a PhD in English and split hairs over the meaning of Bottom's Dream and whether dot.Hack qualifies as a multimedia epic, instead of changing the world.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We need dramatic changes, and dithering over polar bears that aren't in danger weakens our case when we have something valid and helpful, like more efficient washing machines.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an extraordinarily valid point. Things like efficient water machines, properly pressurized tires, better eating habits, more reliance on walking, biking, and mass transit, are all minor things that add up to major benefits.

Unfortunately, they're just not as cute and upsetting as seeing a picture of a polar bear stranded on a small block of ice.

Put another way, the small changes actually require sacrifice of a mild sort, and aren't a visible, free way of demonstrating concern. (There's a reason why the (RED) campaign is so successful, even if it hasn't actually helped many people.)

I mean, the thought of mass transit makes my skin crawl (the only reason I use it is because I detest driving), but it's very easy to go kawaii over a sad polar bear covering its nose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Coincidentally, it's really hard to "strand" a polar bear. They can swim around 100 miles between things, and contrary to popular belief, they don't all live on icebergs, but on islands.

Also, the damn things will eat people. I have a dim view of creatures that will eat me, such as mosquitoes, polar bears, and house cats.

[ QUOTE ]
I say, if we pave it all, there will be less dust and dirt to clean up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Impervious surfaces contribute to non-point source pollution, erosion, and flooding.

[ QUOTE ]
Stopping Deforestation and replanting trees is actually one of the best ways to go. Trees can cut down on the CO2 in the air dramatically plus give us a better quality of air.

Just my $.02. Course noone listens to me anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, I was listening, but I couldn't hear you over the LVL 1 HEALOR LFAEFARM spam.

[ QUOTE ]
Fair enough. I just don't think it really helps anyone trying to suggest conservation when they bring it up just to tear it down.

[/ QUOTE ]
I want conservation to be an efficiently executed science that leads us to a better, more sustainable society. We need dramatic changes, and dithering over polar bears that aren't in danger weakens our case when we have something valid and helpful, like more efficient washing machines.

Coincidentally, making your washing machine 5% more efficient reduces the emissions caused by your clothes more than reducing the manufacturing efficiency by 50%. Generally speaking at least, in terms of water and energy use.

[ QUOTE ]
Besides, dramatic efforts to cool the planet will fail, if only because one of those [censored] (Chairman Shen-ji Yang, Sister Miriam Webster, or Colonel Corazon Santiago) will always vote against launching the solar shades.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's why those commies are the first to go. While those free Perimeter defenses are annoying, if a city is too tough to crack, I just drag it underwater with the 'formers. Environment is a great weapon.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
*shrugs* There's less debate on climate change than you think. What's at question is actually whether humans have anything to do with it or not.

You're perfectly justified in continuing as is, to be honest, but I'd rather be more cautious; after all, generating renewable energy, relying more on mass transit, buying produce locally, eating less meat, all of these lessen the impact one has on the environment--and, in many cases, can actually boost the local economy, always a good thing.

It's not like Earths are a dime a dozen. Why take the chance?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, there's a crapload of debate on whether there is global warming. Much like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, one only is familiar with the activity if you're involved in it. There's debate if its occuring, debate if it is anthropogenic, and debate if carbon emission is related to it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm familiar with the debate on the last two. As far as the first one, it's my understanding that the general debate is that the climate is changing--not necessarily warming, mind you.

[ QUOTE ]
Engaging in large-scale campaigns of deception and propaganda is not right.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ends do not justify the means, then?

Even setting the issues aside, none of the solutions I've suggested really do fall into the category of deception, propaganda, or even ethically dubious. Buying local produce helps stimulate the local economy--note that I did not stipulate that it had to be organic. Reducing meat consumption (but not necessarily becoming vegetarian) will reduce our reliance on industrial livestock, which will reduce the toxic runoff from the waste lagoons and lower methane emissions. Finding sources of renewable energy will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels from political instable regions in the world (though, admittedly, it will increase our reliance on rare elements).

[ QUOTE ]
And if you think propaganda is a strong world, that's what the British public education system calls Gore's "Inconvenient Truth." And they're right. Regardless of whether the AGW is a valid theory, nothing in that film resembles the truth.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, please continue to attack An Inconvenient Truth. Because that's clearly the only argument anyone has when speaking of climate change. And yes, continue to attack it, because even if it does heinously distort the truth, destroying it will really make people more inclined to conserve.

If anything, it makes more sense to take propaganda like that, smile, and then shove it into the back room where it can be forgotten.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nothing you suggested qualified as deception, those accusations were in relation to things like Gore's AIT. Hence me bringing it up.

There's a big difference between changing and warming, especially in view of the articles in the WSJ today calling for dramatic efforts to cool the planet. Y'know, like the Everglades which have dropped an average of 3 degrees F since 1880. Gotta freeze out them gators.

In other news, Genshiro, the Nuclear Ninja and erstwhile Emp/Rad defender, has been reborn as an Ill/Rad Controller.

[ QUOTE ]
As far as Crichton goes, he's all right, but I'd no sooner place much value on his scientific expertise than I would Robin Cook's medical knowledge.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't place much on his scientific expertise, but I place a good bit more on his sources. And in the case of State of Fear, I've read nearly every single one. That material is written by scientists, not writers, and usually, you can tell. The advantage of Crichton is that whether or not he's your favorite writer, he generates material that is relatively easy to read. Unlike Nils-Axel Mörner, one might add.

[ QUOTE ]
*shrugs* There's less debate on climate change than you think. What's at question is actually whether humans have anything to do with it or not.

You're perfectly justified in continuing as is, to be honest, but I'd rather be more cautious; after all, generating renewable energy, relying more on mass transit, buying produce locally, eating less meat, all of these lessen the impact one has on the environment--and, in many cases, can actually boost the local economy, always a good thing.

It's not like Earths are a dime a dozen. Why take the chance?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, there's a crapload of debate on whether there is global warming. Much like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, one only is familiar with the activity if you're involved in it. There's debate if its occuring, debate if it is anthropogenic, and debate if carbon emission is related to it.

I'm all in favor of conservation, reducing pollution, and protecting the environment. That's why I have a career in that field, and spend a lot of my time researching it. But these things must be done efficiently and ethically. Engaging in large-scale campaigns of deception and propaganda is not right.

And if you think propaganda is a strong world, that's what the British public education system calls Gore's "Inconvenient Truth." And they're right. Regardless of whether the AGW is a valid theory, nothing in that film resembles the truth.

[ QUOTE ]
Since when is michael crichton anything but a hack author?

[/ QUOTE ]

I dunno, since he wrote his way through medical school and starting writing books with longer lists of references and sources than most people's theses?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
G'morning all. The Wall Street Journal ran a hideous article on global warming today, full of wild generalizations and prophecies of doom. The thing is full of lines like "as the effects of global warming have worsened" and similar. As a result, I'll be spending my free time today writing up a well-reasoned and scientifically backed attack on it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummmm, somehow I'm dubious, but if you can, it may well be a first, so good luck with that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's an easily read one by scientists

Michael Crichton's better known argument for skepticism

Normally I'd provide a balancing point, but those are fairly easy to find, including today's WSJ articles.

Considering that nearly half of relevant scientists at my university view AGW as dubious at best, it's hardly a rare view. The media would have you believe otherwise. As for relevant science, I mean geologists, meteorologists, paleobiologists, and so forth. Among policy people and liberal arts, it's pretty much taken for granted.

Anyway, I'll probably roll up some kind of controller for the static team. I'll post the name when I get a chance to make the character.

G'morning all. The Wall Street Journal ran a hideous article on global warming today, full of wild generalizations and prophecies of doom. The thing is full of lines like "as the effects of global warming have worsened" and similar. As a result, I'll be spending my free time today writing up a well-reasoned and scientifically backed attack on it.

*stops and takes a deep breath*

Anyway, has anyone rolled an Plant or Illusion Troller for that group yet? I've a few (dozen) characters ready to be made for it.