Redbone

I have a sneaky suspicion that "Power Customization" is goign to end up a jazzed up version of "Costume Change Emotes."

Open the power Info Tab, select one of 3 or 4 preset "emotes" and then that emote replaces the power animation up to the point where it "fires."

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What is that glowy red ball? It looks like a nazi mito.

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That is the much requested "Big Red Ball" from which we will get the also-much requested Pony Perma-Temp Travel Power.

Yes, this issue has everything.

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Why not a giant robot running around on the loose *on* a secret Moon Base Underwater Zone?

[/ QUOTE ]Don't be silly, Giant Robots don't work well in Lunar Water.

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They do if they're piloted by sharks with lasers on their heads.

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Just to add to the "don't raise the level cap" debate. Really, if they did raise the level cap all it'd be is more slots because at this point all my 50s have every power I could ever possibly use and some I never use but just has because I still had power options. If anything the level cap is too high as it is. I wouldn't want it lowered either but really what do you exspect to gain from haveing more powers that you'll probly never even use?

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Just to clarify a little, the "Raise the Cap" bit is coming from the same survey that "revealed" Going Rogue some time back (last year). In it, there was a proposed way of raisign the level cap without raising the level cap. In the survey, they proposed a system of "Continued Advancement" rather than continued leveling. When you met the requirements you earned a new "Universal Enhancement Slot" which could be slotted for an effect that effected the entire character (rather like an IO Set bonus) and you could earn up to 10 of them. Your level never went past 50 but you continued to advance for 10 more "levels." It had the virtue of not wiping out all the current high level content/raids/IOs but allowing continued character development (and, naturally, more time until you ran out of things to do to "level").

I'm of two minds about the whole thing. More to do on my mains, especially 10 more "levels" of advancement is appealing as is the idea of being able to furthur customize them with Universal Enhancement Slots. At the same time though, it won't be long until the "new" maximum advancement has been reached and I'm right bakc where I am, just with a more advanced/customized/powerful character. Personally, I think I'd like to see them do it but at the same time, I can see why they wouldn't.

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To anyone who thinks there will be or wants a new "Spy" archetype... please, elaborate, what would this archetype actually DO?

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Follow you back and forth from your dayjob badge sites. Call you contantly via cellphone emote, offer you a pact, and such. Oh wait, that's a jilted ex not a spy.

Indig , leader of the City of Gaymers

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The Spy AT, from what i hear, will have their own Story Arcs from 1-50. unfortunately, only the 1-10 Arcs are in Paragon and the Rogue Isles, and the rest take place in other parts of the world and are, thus, not in the game. Upon reaching 50, you can "Go Rogue" like everyone else, but that results in you being "burned" and being sent to Miami, which is also not oint he game, where your mother lives and you have to take jobs from normal, everyday folks to make ends meet while trying to find out who burned you. On the up side, you get to hang out with a former IRA operative who you were once involved with and Bruce Campbell. Also, on the up side (or down side) it always turns out your were burned by Frasier's Dad.

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CoV when released had 2 different versions and a Pre-order. The Preorder was 10 bucks, the Standard Edition was $50 (minus the preorder if you had one) and the Collector's Edition was $80 (again, minus the preorder if you had one).

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Wrong. CoV did have a pre-order bonus, obtained when you put down an initial amount towards a version (regular or CE) of the game. It did not entitle you to any discounts.

When I got mine, I paid five bucks towards the regular edition at Software Etc. (Owned by Gamestop). It was the receipt that was important.

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So let's see, you're saying: "CoV when released had 2 different versions and a Pre-order. The Preorder was 10 bucks, the Standard Edition was $50 (minus the preorder if you had one) and the Collector's Edition was $80 (again, minus the preorder if you had one)."

I didn't go into the gory details of the preorder system because it was immaterial to the discussion. If you bought a preorder, thye amount you paid for the preorder was prepaid to the copy you bought. Yes, it had to be at the same store, but that was neither here nor there to the point I was making.

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I think people read too much into that one scene. To me, it was It was just symbolic are being able to crossover back and forth.

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Sure, if its only this symbolism you were basing it off. But what abt the 'survey' that mentioned Going Rogue would have power customization? Yeah. Id bet on it. And I bet on it coming with the PAID part of the expansion, not on the free issue (i16) thats attatched.

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While i agree with the stance that a paid espansion would be the best bet for Power Customization, I don't think we'd be wise to expect everything from the surver to be folded into one expansion. For one thing, the survey was broken down into several distinct sections and "Going Rogue" was just one of them. For another getting ones hopes up for a major upgrade like Power Customization based on what is very likely a symbolic piece of animation (the character is talking about it not being as easy to see the clear cut line between being good or evil while the power color changes) is a recipe for disappointment if it doesn't materalize.

In my view, its best to take the information we have at face value and speculate (and we will) on it rather than attempting to mind read the devs based on one symbolic scene in one trailer.

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Is this a paid expansion? How much do these usually cost?

(I hope it's free... )

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It won't be free this is intended as a paid expansion to put a box on the shelves (likely to combat DCUO and CO.

That said, it's hard to say what it will cost. CoV when released had 2 different versions and a Pre-order. The Preorder was 10 bucks, the Standard Edition was $50 (minus the preorder if you had one) and the Collector's Edition was $80 (again, minus the preorder if you had one). however, GvE Edition and AE edition both ran at 19.99 for the combined game.

At the moment, I'm taking a "worst case" approach and assuming it will be priced like CoV was, a $10 Pre-order, a $50 Basic Set and an $80 Collector's Edition. Odds are, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong in the "higher price" direction and will be very happy about paying a lower price. If I'm right, It costs around my expectation (and thus the money I've set aside to get it). If I've shot too low (which is doubtful) at least I've got a large portion of the price set aside.

I am also assuming, for the moment, that there will be Pre-orders and the "pre-order goodies" will be broken down like CoV was with specific outlets getting specific "exclusive (to them)" preorder goodies. One thing is for sure, Circuit City won't be one of the Pre-order holders this time around.

WooHoo, we can switch back and forth!

I'm still curious how they'll handle things like SG/VG membership, Influence to Infamy conversion (same thing data, but not economically at the moment), Market Slots, Badges crossing over and, of course, the penality for crossing over (I honestly hope there isn't one, and no advantage for never crossing over since it discourages using the system somewhat).

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I'd guess the rating badges would be the ones to go if they wanted to prevent people from creating "5-star cartels". I personally wouldn't be sad to see them go.

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While removing rating badges would remove one reason for "5 Star Cartels" there's more than just that reason to have a 5 Star Cartel. HoF requires 1000 ratings over 4 (or 4.5) stars, so a cartel would work for that. The apparent lack of Dev/GM control/concern over rating griefers would be another reason to "buddy up" in rating cartels to offset low star drive bys. Getting one's arc higher up on the listings so it sees more plays would also be facilitated by a "cartel." Raising the Arc profile so MAYBE a Dev notices it, plays it and DCs it would be another function of a rating "cartel."

Thanks to the way the Devs designed the rating system, they made it almost inevitable someone would form voting blocks because of all the advantages a "cartel" brings with it and all of the "problems" (like griefing) it offsets quickly and efficently.

Removing the badges alone won't kill off the voting blocks, it just makes them harder for casual observers to notice. Only thing that will minimize Voting Blocks is to completely revamp the rating system into something that has no advantage to being upvoted in blocks or remove it entirely AND removing all rewards (including list placement) associated with ratings (HoF in particular, DC could arguably be one as well since visibility is a factor).

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I'm at the point where I think it's better to let the unplayable arcs languish among the mass of the unrated, just to close the door to griefers. Besides, if you give somebody a legitimate 1-star rating they can just unpublish and republish with a clean slate. Somebody targeted by a griefer can't do that without wiping out their legitimate high ratings.

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Let me lay out a few basic assumptions right off the bat: First, I assume that the rating system rounds in a logical way (for instance, a star rating of 3.51 to 4.49 shows as a 4 star rating one from 4.5 and up shows as a 5). Second, I assume the Devs are not using a system where they "throw away" the outlers for display purposes, but keeps them to determing what an outler is (if a arc is rated consistently at 4-5 stars and someone drops in a 1 it ignores it for the purposes of the rating, but if the arc consistently rates 4-5 stars with 5 ratings, and suddenly gets deluged with 20 1-2 star ratings it shifts and considers the higher ratigns to be outlers now).

With those assumptions in mind it becomes obvious the weaknesses of the current rating system.

If an arc is performing well (4-5 stars registering as 5 stars) and has a nice number of ratings (not huge, say soemthign in the 50-150 range) it is very easy to knock it down with just a few people posting 0 stars. There are several reasons for 0 staring a "good" arc, but the one that most catches my eye is the straight up advantage 0 staring an arc gives.

If you have an arc that you want people to play, and it's been performing moderately (again in the 4-5 star range) but isn't being played a lot, you languish near the bottom of the list as a single low rating knocks you down by 2 hundred or so pages. As well all know, gettign into the 1-5th pages is a major advantage, so it is in yoru best interest to 0 Star anything above you to knock them out of their spot and below you thus moving you up. If you have friends willing to help or multiple accounts then you're golden. For every 0 star rating given the creator now needs 10(!) 5 star ratings to pull them back up to near where they were before you hit them with a few 0s. You just countered 10 voters with your one vote to get what you wanted and it took you less than 10 seconds to do it.

That is a seriously flawed system especially since you can, with little effort drop an arc with 100 5 star ratings to an overall 4 star rating (4.46 and thus under the assumed 4.5+ range for a 5 star display and that's assume all of the 100 votes it had was 5 stars, any 4s in there knocks off the number of 0s you need at a rate of about one 0 less per four 4 star votes) with 12 votes. You just dropped that arc down over 200 pages on the list (and moved yours up until someone does it to you) until they get 10 times the number of ratings (all 5 star, more if you toss in some 4s which don't really help the overall rating but does harm your griefing attempt slightly) you gave them.

While I like the "more refined" tuning of the 5 star system, it does lead to problems. I'd like to see a different system in place, a four tiered system: No Vote, Up Vote, Star Vote and CNC (Could Not Complete) with each being scored sperately. It would break down for display something like this:

Number Of Plays: ---- Up Votes: ---- Star Vote: ---- CNC: ----

Number of Plays is the number of people who started the arc (just started it at all, even if they didn't run a signle mission or ran it end to end). They cannot vote instantly either way.

Up Votes are basic "Thumbs Up" votes mentioned earlier inthe thread. There are used in part to determine HoF Status. This vote is only avaliable at the close of the arc.

Star Votes are a single "Star" indicating it was an "excellent or very good arc." These are used in part to determine HoF status. This option is only avaliable at the end of the arc.

CNC is just that a notation the arc couldn't be completed, it is available at the close of the first mission.

HoF statue is determined by weighting Up Votes and Star Votes (for example, you need 2,000 Up votes or 1,000 Star Votes for HoF but a combination of the two, say, 1,000 Ups and 500 Stars would do the trick).

Yes, it's more complex, but it eliminates instant griefing, takes care of many complaints about the current system and is more simple than most other methods that do the same. You have na option to not vote, to vote, to rate excellent or to put a notation that it's difficult (or impossible) to complete, giving players more nformation and making it so the downvoters can't do anything to hurt good arcs.

And yes, it's not perfect, but it is the best I've thought of so far.

I think what bothers me most about the HoF requirements isn't the requirement itself, it's trouble with some members of the playerbase and how they rate.

For instance, I received feedback on an arc that was floating in the 4-5 star range that consisted of "too hard, team kept dying." Since I was online I asked what specificaly was too hard and was informed "it was too stupid hard all the way through." Now, mind you this arc has exactly 3 custom bad guys (all end bosses/ebs) and the rest are regular baddies, so I was curious what exactly had happened. I pressed a bit for more details. Turns out they had a team of 7, one 50 who was getting the missions and six 46 to 48s and were running at the highest difficulty. That means the baddies were +3 to +7 to the majority of the team. Yeah, of course it was "too hard." His parting comment was, "it sux, one star from everyone" and sure enough, in a few moments, I got 5 new ratings and the rating of the arc dropped from showing 5 stars to 4.

If people are going to rate not based on the content itself, but their own poor playing or their own poor choices in building a team or worse, that it was "too hard" to run at +7 then the rating system becomes a joke.

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Right now, the numbers for the five badges are 50, 100, 500, 1000, 10000. Change them to 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000. Yeah, some people who spent the time getting the badges in the hold system will be better off. So? Your future is in the new characters being created now. Don't screw them over out of fear that someone might get a badge they didn't "earn". Even if it might help them avoid a step or two in a future dialog tree.

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I think what floored me on the top tier crafting badge was the sheer size of it. With every currently possible power (including the four CoH beta sprints and the CoH special edition power glide) on a standard AT at level 50 (Warshades and PBs being excluded) you have 99 slots plus 10 inventory slots (Kelds have, IIRC, 8 more than that). If you assume a massive amount of base crafting (working from the assumption they made nothing but base items/costumes/temp powers to get Master Craftsman, so 1,000 non-enhancement items crafted) you can still completely outfit 82 characters with crafted IOs including their 10 on-hand storage slots and still have enough left over to fill over half the slots on another 50. If you ignore the 10 "on-hand" storage slots, that number jumps to just 10 slots short of 91 level 50s completely outfitted. And that's just for one character to get the top badge (and again, assuming a TON of crafting for the base/costumes/temp powers, more than I think most people will ever do). One guy with Fabricator can outfit almost 2/3rds of an entire SG (assuming 150 members) as well as outfit the entire base with 1,000 crafted base items (or have every craftable temp power and costume item and still have hundreds of base items crafted).

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Or they may have tweaked something, added bugs, and in the process, broke stuff, so it might all be a bug. Wish we could get an official answer on at least how it's supposed to now work.

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We are currently investigating this issue. It does look like a patch note was missed in regards to brainstorm ideas not translating to badge counts. We are looking further at whether the overall badges have been affected by this change.

I'll keep you updated.

Ex

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Patch note missed sounds like "working as intended". And let me guess, the devs will not choose to comment on this either.

Do the devs think that they've got a big bunch of new people coming in so they don't need the old players?

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Apparently, they've grown bored of making the PvPers mad/running them off and are testing the waters to see if badgers will be fun to get peeved.

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Now that i think about it. I don't have ANY character who will benefit from this... lol. All of my Heroes and Villains have Hover/Fly, CJ/SJ/ Acro built into their builds and they're NECESSARY. i couldn't drop Hover or CJ for the risk of gimping myself. Even my Empath Defender NEED's Recall Friend AND Teleport...lol. Man, this isn't as useful as i thought it would be for me.... Even if i took Fly at lvl 6, I'll still have to get Hover for my +Stealth IO and my LotG +Recharge...lol.

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Well, it's not that it isn't useful in your situation, just a different kind of utility. Now you take your travel power at 6 (rather than say Hover) and put off Recall Friend until later opting for more utility powers in between.

In that situation, it's useful in two ways, it allows you to have you Travel Power early and allows you better power selection options in the lower levels where it really really counts rather than burning a power on a power that will be very useful later (especially in the case of IO slotting) but has less utility early on.

Nore directly to the topic of the thread, I don't see this as that out of balance. It could possibly make a very slight difference in PvP seeing as you could have one more attack/mez/defense than a non-vet by skipping the pre-req and a practically ignorable effect in PvE where you can get a "one-power-more" attack chain or defensive set up going a little easier by the same system and get to missions faster than non-vets.

Basically, it's desirable enough I want it, but not so desirable I'm put out by having to wait a bit to get it.

Beyond the amount of time needed to get one, I have one very minor "gripe' about the Day Jobs. While we don't know a lot about the rewards, the main example they use seems strange:

"After an extended log out period, the Professor Day Job will grant you a random piece of tech salvage upon mission completion. This bonus will take 10 days of log out time to earn 2 hours worth of this bonus. However, once you earn the Professor badge you only need to be logged out 8 days to earn the 2 hour benefit instead of 10."

There just feels like there's something "off" intuitively about 8 Days = 2 hour reward. it's not that the reward time is small, it should be for the system, it just feels like a strange "exchange rate" for lack of a better term. If it was something like "10 days offline = 10 hours ability/power" it would make more intuitive sense (though I think the ability might be "overly strong" at that rate, but as an example, it will have to suffice).

It's 3 AM so I hope that makes some sort of sense.

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I think people need to wait and see how the implementation of this is done. I really don't think that you have to have 30 uninterrupted days of not logging in your character to earn the badge. In fact, I doubt that you have to have 30 single 24-hour consecutive periods where you don't log in the character, based on the wording of the announcement.


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I just hope these things don't have the same problem the time badges in PvP zones had, where they'd wipe if you logged out (or left the zone) and reset to zero.

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Double XP does a level 50 how much good?

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Quite a bit. 50s still accumulate debt, and have to work that debt off before they can gain influence while exemplared down (such as during flashback missions).

Honestly, I think that's obvious enough that it must have been a rhetorical queston.

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Not as obvious as one might think since the announcement states:
"One thing to note is that if a player has any experience debt, the debt will be removed first before any double experience is applied"

Now, that's open to interpretation (debt is removed at 2X the rate without XP growth being earned, debt must be removed normally "saving" the double XP until you're debt free again, and so on and so forth). So, it may well be that 2xXP doesn't apply to debt and would, in that capacity, be useless to a 50 or it may be that a 50's debt is exempt from that statement.

That said, I have enough faith in the devs that they thought about this before anyone here mentioned it. I admit, I may be wrong about that, they do kinda have their hands full with 2 issues.

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Nope, it isn't. In fact, it's has a major, glaring flaw. Limiting Double XP Weekends to just three states would be too many people for the comparison to be correct. For it to be correct, the devs would have to select fewer than 1,000 people IN those three states. Otherwise, it's spot on.

It merely shows the absurdity of the argument it was a reply to. That you can spot that the argument is nonsensical is excellent, it shows you recognize that the argument it’s derived from is also nonsensical unless one has some emotional attachment to the argument it's derived from and is ignoring that fact.

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Nice try, but your example is nonsensical because you're sandbagging. You've selected an example in which there is no credible marketting purpose either stated or implied, and therefore obscuring the issue by changing the perspective of the problem to one of suggesting the PAX giveaways have no purpose.

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Actually, the example was YOURS, I merely extended it to the point in contention to show the absurdity of your argument. And it worked, even you see it a foolish argument to use. but you can't apply that to your own argument because of an emotional attachment to it.

I have also never said the giveaways were without purpose. That is your strawman to beat up on. I have said their purpose is an unnecessary one that the powers that be knew would cause some anger.

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A better example in the same vein would be to redraft your doubleXP example in a way that at least grants a legitimate marketting purpose to a restricted doubleXP period. Suppose NCsoft decides to open a new set of servers in India, because market research suggests that there are lots of Indian players that would want to play on regional servers. To promote the launch of the India servers, they offer any players that want to transfer to them a one-time free transfer of their characters, and for one week after launch, all players on the Indian servers will have doubleXP rewards in effect.

Here, there is a specific marketting purpose to a restricted doubleXP period, and its targetted at a relatively small subset of the player population. But I don't think its some unfair exclusionary reward that unjustly benefits Indians at my expense: in my opinion, that's an impractically narrow perspective.

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Except there IS a marketing purpose for my draft of the arguent, to assist the local economy of the NCNC HQ and to bump up property values. Therefore, my example stands. It's just as good of a marketign reason as the con giveaways have (and in fact is a better once since it has a direct benefit to NCNC).

[qupte]This version of your otherwise broken analogy now correctly proposes the same (or at least as similar as the analogy allows) question: is it automatically bad for NCsoft to grant an exclusive reward to a subset of the player population, even if there is a legitimate marketting purpose to that reward.

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My original version servered it's purpose. you have admitted it is a bad argument. Since it was YOUR argument with a bit of alteration from "Con giveaway" to "doube XP weekend" it shows you can assess your own argument was poorly done. That was it's entire purpose, and you have accepted that your argument was wrong, just not admitted it thanks to that emotional attachment.

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Redbone,

I'm sorry you're so displeased with the decision NCSoft has made in offering an in-game power as a promotional item at PAX that makes the recipients characters look like a PPD Hardsuit.

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Actually, I take neither pleasure or displeasure at the giveaway. I am a mostly neutral party, simple because I don't allow my personal feelings either way interfer with a rational reason to take either stance. NC will do as they will do and nothing I or you or anyone says will change that. As individuals we cannot encourage or discourage any action from NC, only in large numbers (thousands) will that take any notice, and even then it's not a guarantee.

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The fact of the matter is, this is the second such item offered at a similar event and apparently, as there was no actual fallout from the initial offering, they have deemed it a useful and worthwhile thing. Personally, I happen to agree, and not just because I work next door to the Convention Center in Downtown Seattle.

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We don't know if there was any direct or indirect fallout (or benefit) from the giveaways. We do know what is said here on the boards, and thus far, it's been negative for parts of the community. However, we have no idea if anyone quit or joined or decided to stay longer because of one of these giveaways. The numbers simply don't exist for anyone to make a claim either way. We're also incapable of saying what the cumulative effect of the giveaways will be, positive or negative. It's distinctly possible that once enough of the items are given out a largish number of peope will give up and quit the game since they don't have an even chance at all the content or even use it as part of their decision making to leave for other reasons ("this was a great game until 'laundry list of things' and the con giveaways...."). It's just as likely that the few who did get one will decide to stay on longer because of it. Again, the numbers do not exist for us to assess.

What we do know is, NC will do as NC will do.

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I'd like to think that if the company continues to hold these sorts of gatherings in various parts of the country, that more people would have access to a similar, yet different in-game item. As this is the second of such offerings, perhaps a patient, wait-and-see attitude would serve some folks better. Or as we have seen in the past, perhaps there will be a universal offering of these sorts of things at a later date. Assuredly, I would love to have an actual costume set of the PPD Hardsuit that could be mixed and matched with other costume items. I'm guessing you would too.

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As a Point of Information: Earlier, it was stated by a redname that they wouldn't be going far past the West Coast of the US because "we're located on the West Coast." That position may have changed, but until it actually shows that change, there is a question of equal access.

More content (assuming it's good content from a quality standpoint) is always a good thing, but it is not up to you or I to tell someone thair feelings on the matter are wrong. We can attack their reasoning, we can attack their stance, we can critique the way they go about it, but we cannot tell them their feeling on the matter is wrong, no more than someone can tell you it's wrong to play because you like badges or PvP or soloing rather than teaming. People play and enjoy the game for different reasons. Anything that detracts from that can be called negative.

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It is a shame that some people have valued this giveaway so highly that it fetches more than a year's subscription to the game on a well known auction site. In my estimation, this is a gross over-estimation of the value of these sorts of things. And yet, I am unsurprised by this, as we live in an instant gratification society whose members, in general, have a major sense of entitlement.

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I predicted the auctions the moment I heard about the SDCC giveaway, and even got fairly close on the price. Yes, that's a foolish amount for the average person to pay, but then again, it's their money, and if they can afford it, more power to them. I would prefer to know that NC intends to eventually release a "powers pack" with all the temp costumes in it for a lower price (20 or 30 bucks for the whole set or some such) but without that, the marketers are going to have a field day making money off NC's players without NC acting to protect their customers (and with no real legal obligation to do so even if one believes they have a moral obligation to do so).

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To close, while I can empathize with your desire to have this in-game item, at the end of the day, it is NCSoft's game and decision. You and I only pay to play their game.

My advice to you : If you feel this strongly about it, vote with your wallet and unsub.

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Again, I personally don't care. If they offered them on the store at a reasonable price, I may well buy them, but beyond that, it's just one more thing I won't have in the game and I'm fine with that. I will however, defend either side against unfair and irrational attacks and call both sides on the problems with their arguments. It just so happens that the "pro" side is using such tactics the most.

I have also suggested that if anyone doesn't like the decision so much, that voting with the wallet is the best option, if enough do so, NC will listen simply because companies want to know why 1 or 2% of their cash flow suddenly vanished all at once.

So, in short, your entire post directed at me, is way off the mark as a reply to me. It's not a reply to me, but a reply to what you hope I was thinking. It may well be a reply to some of the "no" side, and as such has value, but I respectfully suggest you read over my posts in thie thread before replying directly to me trying to ascribe a stance I do not have to me. To do otherwise makes a good post less inpactful since some can read it and dismiss it as being completely uninformed simply because it was uninformed about the stance of the person it's a reply to.

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Just would like to point out that most if not all of the people that don't have a problem with the in-game freebie that NC is giving away to people that attend PAX are also people that are going or think they may go to PAX.

I just wanted to point that out.

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I'm not sure you can go that far. You may be able to make that statement about the people in this thread though I'm not 100% sure it's defensable; IIR several "pro" people aren't going like LiquidX and are arguing from the stance of "I like it" rather than the lesser "I like it because I get to go."

I think you might be able to get away with "many of the people" who are going, but I don't think "most" is something that can be easily backed. You could also likely defend "anyone who gets one via the correct channels is for it" since if you're not for it and you have one, you're not strongly against them (else you would have turned it down on principle).

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You can always tell when one side has taken a position they can't defend.

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Pretty much. So why do you continue to take that side?

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What we have here is an example of what's known as "quotemining." It's a well known tactic used by dishonest people who know their argument is false.

Quite telling of just how bad of a time the side using it is having and that the person using it knows they don't have a leg to stand on with their argument.

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Oh the irony.

It hurtsess!

It hurtsess us!

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Let's see, I've quoted posts in full. i have allowed for context, I have replied to those quotes. No quotemining. But the dishonest implication in your post does lend more weight to my statements about the "pro" side lacking arguments they can back and resorting to outright dishonesty.

Again, thank you for proving my points.

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Uhm...

You seem mighty free with throwing the word "dishonest" at anyone who says anything about your responses that are not in full agreement with them. Dishonest?!? Snarky and lighthearted... sure. But I challenge you to find a single dishonest thing about anything I've said.

Go ahead...

Go back and read what I've actually said.

Then point out a dishonest statement on my part.

Then, when you fail in that, I'll be waiting for an apology... in vain I'm sure, but feel free to surprise me.

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The post in question was dishonest. Sorry, that's the truth. If it wasn't I wouldn't have refered to it as such. Agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with it. You called my post irony, it wasn't, it was a direct quote, in context. Therefore your assessment was dishonest or ignorant, I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you wouldn't post on a subject you were clueless about so it had to be dishonesty. If it was ignorance of the meaning of "irony" I do apologize.

So, which was it, did you do something dishonest or were you merely shooting your mouth off in ignorance?

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You can always tell when one side has taken a position they can't defend.

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Pretty much. So why do you continue to take that side?

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What we have here is an example of what's known as "quotemining." It's a well known tactic used by dishonest people who know their argument is false.

Quite telling of just how bad of a time the side using it is having and that the person using it knows they don't have a leg to stand on with their argument.

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Oh the irony.

It hurtsess!

It hurtsess us!

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Let's see, I've quoted posts in full. i have allowed for context, I have replied to those quotes. No quotemining. But the dishonest implication in your post does lend more weight to my statements about the "pro" side lacking arguments they can back and resorting to outright dishonesty.

Again, thank you for proving my points.

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I generally have a lot of respect for your opinions, but implying that anyone who dislikes the decision made by marketing in this instance is somehow being unreasonable is simply something I can't agree with.

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I never said that. I said I believe (and still believe) that the majority of reasonable players don't begrudge NC for creating exclusive marketing giveaways.

There are lots of decisions that either the dev team or NCsoft in general make that I either disagree with, or which go against my personal preferences (which are two different things). But thats not the same thing as saying I believe they are idiotic, incompetent, ignorant, unresponsive, or poor decision-makers every time they make a decision I disagree with.

I'm disappointed I missed the last double XP weekend. I do not believe NCsoft had an obligation to check with my schedule first. I can be disappointed in something without thinking that that fact alone makes the source of my disappointment deficient.

I also stand by my assertion that it is unreasonable to presume that being disappointed in a circumstance carries with it the presumption that someone made an error to create that circumstance. If I end up not getting the costume option, I'll be disappointed. It won't change my mind that NCsoft is being completely reasonable in its approach to marketing exclusives. I'm saying that with the full knowledge that there is very little probability of NCsoft being at a public venue anywhere within two thousand miles of me.

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Alright, lets run with your example. Let's say, for the sake of argument, NCSoft decides for marketing reasons to only have Double XP Weekends for logins from the states of California, Oregon and Washington.

So, if you want to experience a Double XP Weekend, from here on out you have to either live in one of those three states or plan a vacation around being in one of those three (along with all the associated expenses) during the Double XP Weekend. And for extra fun, they'll only announce them a few weeks in advance.

If you don't like it, tough. Life's not fair and you have no reasonable reason to complain because it rewards people who are helping the economy close to their HQ (which is good for the HQ) and shows "love" for the people who choose to live close by. You have just as much opportunity to move to one of those three states or make sure you're in one at the exact right time as anyone else so, by the definaition of those for these con giveaways, it's completely an utterly fair.

Should NC actually make such a marketing decision, I predict widespread fallout, which is why they won't do it. It would anger to many people. However, the costume/temp power crowd, we'll they're expendable, too small to matter. NC knows this move angers and disappoints part of their population, they just flat out don't care, that part is too small to worry over.

Is that how things should be? Who knows. NC is a business. They do what they do to make money (preferably lots of it). They don't care if what they do is fair until enough people decide it isn't and it starts to hurt their bottom line. Then they care, but only then. Everything else is just background noise they can ignore. That's not evil, it's just business as usual.

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I think that may just be the best worded, utterly nonsensical argument I've ever read.

Not the same.

Not even remotely the same.

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Nope, it isn't. In fact, it's has a major, glaring flaw. Limiting Double XP Weekends to just three states would be too many people for the comparison to be correct. For it to be correct, the devs would have to select fewer than 1,000 people IN those three states. Otherwise, it's spot on.

It merely shows the absurdity of the argument it was a reply to. That you can spot that the argument is nonsensical is excellent, it shows you recognize that the argument it’s derived from is also nonsensical unless one has some emotional attachment to the argument it's derived from and is ignoring that fact.

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You can always tell when one side has taken a position they can't defend.

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Pretty much. So why do you continue to take that side?

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What we have here is an example of what's known as "quotemining." It's a well known tactic used by dishonest people who know their argument is false.

Quite telling of just how bad of a time the side using it is having and that the person using it knows they don't have a leg to stand on with their argument.

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Really now? How am I dishonest? Oh wait, that's right... it's because you don't agree with my opinion. So, rather then, y'know, actually taking into consideration my stance you look for ways to just blow me off. What's next, going to go for my post count or my Registration date?

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Yes,the post I quoted was dishonest. I rather hope you can see that. You quotemined to stip off context, which is dishonest, then tried to twist the now contextless quote, which is dishonest.

Now you make claims about me that are also false. I have considered your stance, I have also considered your attitude and posts. All are lacking.

But don't let that stop another dishonest tirade. I'm rather enjoying you self-destructing again.

One the up side, you did prove my point for me, you lumped me into some big faceless "anti" side. One I'm not in. I frankly don't care outside of any future ramifications to the game and community. I am interested in seeing how the discussion plays out though, especially since you're being so helpful in illustrating the points in my posts.

I will say, however, that the "pro" side is swaying me. Their hostility and attitude are slowly making me think these giveaways are a bad idea and need to be halted for the sake of the community we have here.