Judgement_Dave

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We already have a few (sort of) non-humanoids.


[/ QUOTE ]We've got the spider rig, I think that's all? Our other non-humanoids tend to just be floating spheres.

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Snakes?

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Models with more, or less, than two legs.

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Actually I'm pretty sure bipedal refers to having 2 feet - the legs are but an accompanying feature for most bipeds.

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Why, it's easy to test, all we need is to get 4 people, one with unused MA slot. They set up a "guinea pig" arc, and rate it certain way, say, 5,4,4 should be 5 stars if it's rounding up and 4 if it's down or nearest int. if it's 4 then we remove the arc, republiish it and rate it 5,5,4 it would be 4 stars if rounding down and 5 if nearest.

Of course, it would work only if rating is based on arithmetic mean, but that's a rather good bet.

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I can now state that: if the ratings badges are working correctly then the 'average rating' shown when browsing must be rounding up.

The last badge for ratings is for 2500 rating stars given to a single arc you published.

Today, The foul-mouthed Handyman! (arc id: 1076) finally hit went from 998 ratings to at least 1000 (I kept an eye on new ratings for an extra one past when I noticed that the count showed 999+).

So I know an arc has just hit 1000+ ratings, but I have not yet received the badge for an arc receiving 2500 rating stars so the total number of stars for this arc is <2500. This all means that the mean average star rating is <2.5 as 2.5 > (less than 2500)/(1000 or more).

But since not long after I14 went live, this arc has consistently shown as a 3 star rating on the browser screen. Therefore a rounded mean average of <2.5 is being shown as 3. Therefore the mean average must be rounded up, as nearest integer and rounding down would show the arc to be a 2-star.

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Ahh, 8pm UK time - *noted, Thanks.

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Hard to interpret what the smiley means...

I was saying it should have been 8pm UK IMO.. as it is we're looking at 1am.

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Nothing could make me happier than be proven wrong at Positron's address... But I flatly refuse to raise my hopes, they've been crushed once too many times.

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So your skin must be thick by now - raise them once more for old times' sake!

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Usually when special events occur and give a time at 10/11 am it's because they follow a maintenance donwtime...

So I'm guessing that there may be a maintenance downtime tomorrow... on a Wednesday...

Maybe just to turn off the CHAOS, but then again, that should stop at midnight BST tonight...

So...

Any chance that Posi may be announcing something tonight that goes live tomorrow morning??

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Surprised I've not had any comment on this - not even a "JD you're being a fool"...

But wondering further on this...

I've been wondering why Posi is doing the address when he is.

I'd guess that making an announcement at noon PST would have made more sense to me... that'd be noon in California, 5pm in NY, 8pm in UK, 9pm in central Europe.... much more hospitable...

So I'm wondering if it's either:
* CoH was originally 'switched on' at 8pm EST (the address time);
* Posi wants to announce something at the evening that goes live the next morning.

I don't know exactly when CoH went live, but 8pm EST seems very odd so I'm discounting that. But the latter interests me...

Ok - foolish optimism maybe. But I can still optimistically wonder...

Until then: anyone think of any reason why Posi is doing it at the time he is? Or is it just to let the West coast get home from work and logon?

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IIRC all devs bar one who were working on CoX moved to NC when it bought the IP (announced 6/11/07). Ok - Cryptic still has STatesman, but most other devs who created the early content moved to NC and produced the more recent content.

[/ QUOTE ]Nope. The people working on CoH at that time did move to NC, but that was a team of, what, 15 or so? Many of whom (possibly almost all, not sure) had NOT been with CoH from the start.

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Why I threw in the 'most other devs' bit - I'm not sure about earlier changes in personnel. I thought that most of the team of 15 had been in since pretty much the start though, but happy to be told I'm wrong.

EU announcement:
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We want everyone to benefit from our anniversary, so from April 28th until 11:59pm BST on Sunday, May 3rd (00:59am CEST on Monday, 4th May), all expired retail and trial accounts in good standing will be able to access the live servers.

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US announcement:
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We want everyone to benefit from our anniversary, so from April 28th until 11:59pm EST on Sunday, May 3rd, all expired retail and trial accounts that are in good standing will be able to access the live servers.

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The devs keep tweaking old content because most of it was poorly designed in the beginning (y'all can thank the folks over at Cryptic for that when you migrate to CO).

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Col, whilst I think you're right that part of this is veteran burnout, this last quoted sentence is misleading.

IIRC all devs bar one who were working on CoX moved to NC when it bought the IP (announced 6/11/07). Ok - Cryptic still has STatesman, but most other devs who created the early content moved to NC and produced the more recent content. Effectively Cryptic developed CoX and then the development team left Cryptic to continue developing CoX.

Admittedly, States may have been a big contributing factor to any design choices/standards implemented in early CoX. The biggest changes (from player visibility) may have come when States stepped down from the helm of CoH and Posi took over, rather than when NC bought the IP.

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The Nemesis Plot is a cake!

Happy Birthday CoX!

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Nemesis or not, it's good advice to avoid any cakes spewing clouds of steam and volleys of bullets.

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"CHAOS is going to break loose in-game on our anniversary date"

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Cripes! Haven't Any Original Selebrations!


Ok - it wasn't "Cripes!" originally...

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Did I win the acronym competition?

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Anyone know when that there 5th anniversary badge starts being awarded?

Logged in on JD and no sign of it.

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OK - so I check the announcement and realise that:
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Beginning at 11am BST (noon CEST) on Wednesday, April 29th and continuing until 11:59pm BST on Sunday, May 31st (00:59am CEST on Monday, 1st June), we will be issuing each individual character you log into the game with, the following 5 Year Anniversary badge

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Now I may be very wrong on this... but...

Usually when special events occur and give a time at 10/11 am it's because they follow a maintenance donwtime...

So I'm guessing that there may be a maintenance downtime tomorrow... on a Wednesday...

Maybe just to turn off the CHAOS, but then again, that should stop at midnight BST tonight...

So...

Any chance that Posi may be announcing something tonight that goes live tomorrow morning??

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And as someone said (think it was JD) Posi needs something to tells us in the announcement.

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It was me. But then, I'm still pretty sure (as always) that those devs really mean well for the game. I'm just a bit pee'd off recently at a ham-fisted method of approaching exploits/bugs and the lack of communication during recent months (when the game and companies involved have been going through some big changes).

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They've never held back anything big either, though.

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Wait until Posi's address and see if that does say anything more. Holding back something for c.15 hours does not really mean anything.

Though IMO if Posi does add anything then it was somewhat misguided to release the I15 information before his address.

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And I'm sure if someone on test was to ask the guests if i15 will be bigger then what we have seen so far they will say YES!

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My guess is they'd be more likely to say "I can't tell you yet, but I can say that I can't answer with a 'NO'".

If they said yes then they just get pestered like hell for info - and I'm assuming that the devs on test will be before Posi's address. It doesn't go down well if you leak any big news mere hours before the boss makes his big address.

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I've not seen any notice of when the rednames may be on test.. but I've been thinking for the past hour or so that the board (or is that bored?) response to the event and I15 announcement will hardly act as an incentive for them to race on and meet their fans/customers/critics...

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But wouldn't they have to read our forums to know that....

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But I'd imagine that today of all days GR and Avatea may be communicating with the devs (when they're in work) to organise the test server appearance - so it's not even required that the devs themselves read the boards.

I'd guess it's more than likely that War Witch will be one of the 'couple of devs' anyway - and she appears to have a better record than most for reading/posting on the EU boards. You gotta love Canadians.

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I'm the only person on test at the moment and there's no familiar faces to be seen.... Though if i'm honest, i'm the last person they'll want to say "happy CoX birthday" too cause i'll tell them what i think.


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I've not seen any notice of when the rednames may be on test.. but I've been thinking for the past hour or so that the board (or is that bored?) response to the event and I15 announcement will hardly act as an incentive for them to race on and meet their fans/customers/critics...

I15 (née I14) doesn't appear to be 'mostly a fix for MA' - but so far I'd hope it's not most of what has been planned for I15 either.

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Disappointed to be honest. Waiting to hear what Positron has to say at 14:00hrs.

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I suspect your right and it will 2pm as usual but the website does say 2am (9 hours ago) so Posi's announcement could just be issue 15

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AFAIK The Posi address is a worldwide address - and the US announcement states 8pm EST today.

The EU announcement made an error in stating that the announcement is 'on our anniversary day' when for the intended audience (i.e. the EU) it isn't.

BTW - My bet is that they make this anniversary super special by awarding the equivalent of birthday honours... the devs will have picked a few more Dev's Choice arcs (and possible even a new MA reward) to announce today.

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The festivities will be more fun than you can shake a stick at


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Surely there has got to be more. I've had great fun shaking my stick - far more fun than a simple rehash of reheated past-event leftovers.

I'm guessing either:

* Lots more not yet announced (hey - Posi needs something to announce at 02:00)
or
* Lots bumped to I16 in order to:
--- launch I15 close to the CoH anniversary date;
--- come out closer to the competition's stated launch date.

Me wants Elizabethan bardy-bacon arc nowz - geif plz

Anyone know when that there 5th anniversary badge starts being awarded?

Logged in on JD and no sign of it.

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folios were compiled long after plays themselves were written and played, with who-knows-what alterations inbetween performances

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Yeah - I knew when I picked the Bard that arguments like this may come up. But Eco/Shakespeare still provide a decent general point regarding the fallacy of older stories being better due to a long history of improvements and updates.

At least Bacon hasn't been mentioned yet - phew!

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Dinging 50 has no value at all anymore.

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Don't farm and that 50 ding means as much as it used to.



Ok - the lessening of debt, patrol xp, a smoothed xp curve etc may mean it doesn't mean quite as much as it used to.. but it's certainly not devalued as you say if you play the game rather than take the PL-express to 50.

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I dont agree on your oppinion that it still means as much as it used to to ding 50. I just cant stop myself from thinking when looking at a lvl 50 now "Did he/she take the long or short road. And does he/she think the same of me, while looking at my lvl 50"


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I don't claim that all 50 dings mean as much as they used to. I said: "Don't farm and that 50 ding means as much as it used to."

i.e. If you do not farm then getting to 50 is as important and as great an achievement as it ever was.

You can look at other 50s and wonder. But if they didn't farm and did things the old-school way then they should hopefully get as much satisfaction from reaching 50 as any of us ever did.

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You can say that it doesnt matter what other people think, which is prolly true. But you cant deny that the game has changed.


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So what? Best bet is to judge people on how they team and how they play.

Are they fun to play/team with, do they play reasonably well? Good - I don't really give a damn how long they took getting to 50 or even if they don't have any 50s and only started playing yesterday.

Or are they the type that never speaks except to order others about on the authority granted by their 20 lvl50s that they boast about? Or do they keep causing team wipes and adopting a I'm-all-right-Jack attitude? Kick them or leave the team.

Length of time to 50 and length of time playing don't really come into it. The game, whilst teamed is still the same, but there's now an odd sidegame of xp-as-fast-as-possible farming.

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"BTW - Is Shakespeare's work considered great because it was written well when first published or because it's had hundreds of years of tinkering to improve it?"

Wait, what? I know there've been some slight tweaks — notably converting archaic to modern English, depending which version you read — but there haven't been *that* many changes since the early folios.

Something like the OED or any other non-fiction book that *does* get updated a lot might've been a better example :P

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Ah - even with a prepostorous claim and a hinting smiley (i.e. ) you misunderstood. We hit the sarchasm.

It was the counterpoint (to the idea that works all improve over time) that some works are great from the off - and so some arcs (both newly published and from beta) would be great because they were made great by the author.