SpaceNut

I love your new sig.

Think back to when there was no timer on halloween costume changes. People were intentionally flipping costumes back and forth to increase the amount of rendering other players had to do and caused them to crash out of the game. These limitations are in the game for a good reason.

Most likely not.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/PPD_Hardsuit_Costume

OR

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/PPD_Ha..._Costume_(PAX)

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I could go for...I dunno...a subterranian race of bug people or something. Aliens have been done enough already, let's get freakish and bizzare!

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I'd love to see ATs connected to the great ancient civilizations of the world: Oranbegans, Mu and Coralax.

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The use of words expressing something other than their literal intention.

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Now THAT is irony!

(I can pretty much sing the entire opera scene.)

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That is one of the most bizarre "academic" papers I have ever read. I'm an engineer, so I guess I'm just accustomed to a bit more rigor in papers -- you know, data to support your conclusions, detail of experimental methods, control groups, stuff like that. Judging by this paper, "social science" is a gross abuse of the word "science".

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As an engineer who minored in Anthropology, I can assure you that this does not even meet the standards of a paper published in the social sciences. Check out my posts in the thread on the topic in general discussion - I've linked to his list of publications. The specific journals he's been published in are very telling.

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Mr Meyers

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Ahhhh, please spell his name right... I don't like to see my good name sullied.

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Galaxy City

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That's Freedom Corps.

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I'm wondering why nobody has been spamming his Twitter page. After all it's within the rules.

Also, Prof. Myers made a post on his blog about this, sort of. Some of his replies to comments below the post are more intriguing than the actual post.

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I like how the longer he talks the more he goes from academic-speak into PvP-speak. Definitely a gamer caught playing on university dollar.

Edit: A little bit more about the guy...

His only degree appears to be an SJ, which is "Society of Jesus".

Here's his homepage: http://www.masscomm.loyno.edu/~dmyers/

Check out his seemingly impressive list of publications: http://www.masscomm.loyno.edu/~dmyer...rch_goals.html

This guy's a game addict who holds down a professorship in communications at a private religious university by combining technobabble and psychobabble.

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An aesthetics of anti-aesthetics does not imply a negation of aesthetics. Rather, it is intended to refer to negation itself and an accompanying aesthetics of negation, or, alternatively, an aesthetics of opposition, or, alternatively, an aesthetics of the anti. Bolter and Grusin (2000) have popularized the notion of remediation as fundamental to the function of digital media, and here the emphasis is similar. I wish to consider the origin, nature, and pleasures of digital game representations and the resulting anti-ness of
digital game forms.

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http://www.masscomm.loyno.edu/~dmyer..._MYERS_v1a.pdf

Clearly has no background in sociology or anthropology, or he would have noticed the huge errors in research and data collection he's made. (I minored in anthropology and recognized his errors immediately.)

http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/ethstmnt.htm

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In research, anthropologists' paramount responsibility is to those they study. When there is a conflict of interest, these individuals must come first. Anthropologists must do everything in their power to protect the physical, social, and psychological welfare and to honor the dignity and privacy of those studied.

a. Where research involves the acquisition of material and information transferred on the assumption of trust between persons, it is axiomatic that the rights, interests, and sensitivities of those studied must be safeguarded.

b. The aims of the investigation should be communicated as well as possible to the informant.

c. Informants have a right to remain anonymous. This right should be respected both where it has been promised explicitly and where no clear understanding to the contrary has been reached. These strictures apply to the collection of data by means of cameras, tape recorders, and other data-gathering devices, as well as to data collected in face-to-face interviews or in participant observation. Those being studied should understand the capacities of such devices; they should be free to reject them if they wish; and if they accept them, the results obtained should be consonant with the informant's right to welfare, dignity and privacy.

(1) Despite every effort being made to preserve anonymity, it should be made clear to informants that such anonymity may be compromised unintentionally.

(2) When professionals or others have used pseudonyms to maintain anonymity, others should respect this decision and the reasons for it by not revealing indiscriminately the true identity of such committees, persons or other data.

d. There should be no exploitation of individual informants for personal gain. Fair return should be given them for all services.

e. There is an obligation to reflect on the foreseeable repercussions of research and publication on the general population being studied.

f. The anticipated consequences of research should be communicated as fully as possible to the individuals and groups likely to be affected.

g. In accordance with the Association's general position on clandestine and secret research, no reports should be provided to sponsors that are not also available to the general public and, where practicable, to the population studied.

h. Every effort should be exerted to cooperate with members of the host society in the planning and execution of research projects.

i. All of the above points should be acted upon in full recognition of the social and cultural pluralism of host societies and the consequent plurality of values, interests and demands in those societies. This diversity complicates choice making in research, but ignoring it leads to irresponsible decisions.

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And from his students:

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Ugh, I just didn't like that he brought this "gaming" into the classroom. His class was a complete waste of time for me. I felt deprived of a real communications course in a school where all of my other courses were wonderful.

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He thinks he tries to help you but in actuality, he doesn't.

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Follow-up article: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2...web_sound.html

It appears that Mr. Chuck Cook is as lazy as the good professor when it comes to writing. He links to this thread in his article, yet makes no mention of all the legitimate ethics issues and continues to treat the professor's word as truth. He also repeats the worst examples of the out-of-game abuses from his first article and cherry-picks responses to make it sound like all gamers respond that way.

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I decided to register on the site to post a response, since they linked to this thread and I'm the OP.

First, the writer is Mr. Vargas, not Mr. Cook. I accidentally snagged the name of the picture, not the byline. Here's my response:

Mr. Vargas, your follow-up article continues to be painfully slanted and biased towards Prof. Myers. You continue to write about the scholarly professor vs. the vindictive PvPers, yet you completely ignore the points in the thread on the official forums to which you link in this article. (Full discosure: I am the original poster of that thread.)

Nowhere in your articles do you address the ethics issues of the professor performing ethnographic research on unwilling and unknowing subjects (and most likely, minors). He acted as an instigator to the events and was in no way an impartial observer, which fatally taints his research. Folks who were impacted by his actions have been urged to begin an ethics complaint against the professor.

Nor do you address the professor's attitude towards those defeated. Your writing, most likely paraphrased from the professor's paper, makes it appear that the professor would perform legal but looked down upon acts, and then soak up the vitriol. However, if you had read the thread, you would see that he "talked trash, he posted kill-logs, and he specifically harassed those who expressed the most outrage. He portrays himself as some victim who doesn't understand the anger directed at him, but it simply wasn't the case." To expect for the most competitive portion of the gaming population to be unresponsive to such blatant taunts and insults is naive at best.

Finally, the general consensus in that thread is that the professor was someone who got caught playing City of Heroes on university time and had to somehow make it research to avoid sanctions. Note he started playing not long after the game launched in 2004, yet did not start his "research" until 2006, and only stopped it when certain changes were made to the PvP system that minimized the effects of his actions.

Professor Myers' blanket portrayal of the community is highly inaccurate considering that he "played" on 3 of 11 servers, and focused his actions solely in PvP zones, something which perhaps 10% of the population participate in. If you'd like to get a better feel for the kind of people who play City of Heroes, I can direct you to a thread about a dad and his young daughter playing the game together, the story of a server community adopting a puma at a zoological park, and a previous news article written about how the game allows family members separated by vast distances to interact despite being oceans apart.

In short, Professor Myers' paper is horrible piece of "research" and both articles on nola.com are incredibly biased towards the professor and his unethical research methodology.

Follow-up article: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2...web_sound.html

It appears that Mr. Chuck Cook is as lazy as the good professor when it comes to writing. He links to this thread in his article, yet makes no mention of all the legitimate ethics issues and continues to treat the professor's word as truth. He also repeats the worst examples of the out-of-game abuses from his first article and cherry-picks responses to make it sound like all gamers respond that way.

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Thanks for posting yet another thread on this subject

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Forgive me, good sir, for not checking the forums of every server on which I do not play and which were not mentioned in the article before posting a thread for discussion in general discussion so that it may be discussed by the general discussion community.

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As part of his experiment, Myers decided to play the game by the designers' rules -- disregarding any customs set by the players. His character soon became very unpopular.

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http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2...fessor_be.html

*chips in with the plug for his arc as well*

*points to sig*

So, I came up with a concept I really liked - name, powersets, etc. - but I'm failing miserably at the costume. Here's the concept and a little backstory:

Name: The Butcher of Aldebaran
AT:Brute
Origin: Technology
Primary: Battle Axe
Secondary: Energy Aura

The basic idea for his story is that he was part of a military squadron on one of the planets of Aldebaran that was putting down a rebellion. The leaders of the rebellion surrendered, but in a fit of rage, the character left his unit and slaughtered the families of the rebellion's leaders. When he was discovered, he was given the choice between execution and exile, and chose exile. The ship he was exiled in passed reasonably close to Earth, but Earth's use of interdimensional portals screwed up the ship's propulsion system and he crash-landed on Earth.

So, my idea for the costume is a combination of two looks: technically advanced astronaut and horror film axe murderer. I want to use white, maybe some solar colors (yellow/orange/blue) and of course, blood red.

I'm offering 5 MILLION INFLUENCE on Champion, Liberty, Pinnacle, Triumph, or Virtue, or 5 MILLION INFAMY on Infinity to whoever's design I use (or base my final costume on the most).

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your designs!

Rutger has lots of Heroes, if you like that kind of mission. The other two have some excellent writing.

Just a reminder! If you feel like fireworks today, but don't have any to go to, play this arc!

I'll be updating it with a map change and some more plot after the holiday weekend. (Didn't want to edit it while people may be playing it.)

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How about crazed lobbyists instead of Congressional pages? Also, the Majority Whip (the tier 3 pet) would need a Moment of Glory type power called Fillibuster.

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I made a scrapper named Filibuster for the Capitol Offense SG, which was spawned from the first DC Meet and Greet (see the events forum for the date of the 2nd!) and just last night I made a necro MM named Habeas Corpses.

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They supposedly fixed the MM bot/seeker drone problem too - but I haven't had a chance to check it yet.

[/ QUOTE ]Thought that was i14? Well, anyway - they finally just gt rid of collusion with them (for the whole sub-pet class, I think) so they have no actual "physical" presence.

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Heehee. Collusion.

Sometimes there just isn't a good APP to take. Obviously this wasn't the case with your example, but I'm often frustrated with scrappers only having 3 APPs to choose from. (I'm tired of Body Mastery, dang it!)

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Was it fluffy and creamy too?

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I Can't Believe It's Not an Issue!

Basically it occurs because the server and client get unsynced as you exit the mission, and it thinks you've been offline for a substantial amount of time and turns off your toggles. If you check your XP bar when it happens, you'll see you got a little chunk of patrol XP, even though you never actually logged off.

Cap Au Diable 82 (-1)
Sharkhead Isle 30
St. Martial 31 (+1)

I'll go ahead and link you to ParagonWiki right now. It's a great resource and its constantly being updated.


Welcome to the City!