Turgenev

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*rattles J's cage*

Wake up, I wanna make sure you see this. I'm at the O's game this Saturday, need to reschedule.

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Isn't that the farm team for the Yankees or something? I seem to remember some exhibition games against 'em when I lived in the area.

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Heh, yep. Whenever the Yanks are in town, it packs the stadium with all the local dispossessed NYers. Sadly, the last time I saw them at Camden, they got trounced by the O's.

...I usually don't give a fig about baseball anyway, but I love going to Camden for the ballpark food.

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Heya, J-Man:

I'm saddled with club seats at this Saturday's Orioles/Braves game, which sets me square in the middle of our scheduled run. How's next Saturday? I'm wide open that day.

I'm like a bad date, aren't I?

-T.

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*rattles J's cage*

Wake up, I wanna make sure you see this. I'm at the O's game this Saturday, need to reschedule.

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I am now posting expect deletion tomorrow when Mod 08 gets in unless he checks tonight. Thank you that is all.

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Yawp.

*munch munch munch*

Heya, J-Man:

I'm saddled with club seats at this Saturday's Orioles/Braves game, which sets me square in the middle of our scheduled run. How's next Saturday? I'm wide open that day.

I'm like a bad date, aren't I?

-T.

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How hard is it to find Rularuu brutes red-side? They hit with one massive attack with about a 10 second recharge. They're what I used for all the damage badges (blue-side, where you can get infinite repeatable missions with them).

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Any specific brutes? I just ran the entirety of Alone in the Darque and they all killed this character. *sigh*

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Depends on your build. I used to use a lvl 51 brute minion for my controller while resting; I'd just finish healing the damage when he'd do another strike. If you have an outside healing source, you can of course ramp that up.

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It should be noted that Turg did /not/ show at the time he set up and gave us no notice

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Nor did I have notice myself at the time. I already explained this to J, who understood the circumstances and offered a reschedule for next week.

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dont doooo eeeettttt!!!
really. its impossible.
seriously.
ow.

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I have a foolproof plan. Just watch.

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It should be noted that Turg did /not/ show at the time he set up and gave us no notice

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Nor did I have notice myself at the time. I already explained this to J, who understood the circumstances and offered a reschedule for next week.

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Removing Speech Recognition didn't do the trick, but I also removed Handwriting Recognition (which I'd read caused problems with Office 2003 too), and the error's gone now. Thanks!

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This worked for me, had to remove HR as well before the app would start. Good call, HG and JT!

Castle, any ideas on this? Will XP users have to forgo speech recognition for the latest build?

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Mac or PC?

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PC, XP Professional 32-bit. Not sure it's universal though, cuz I was able to get into Test on my laptop (XP/32) from work just fine earlier today.

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I've never been on a Hamidon raid, but isn't there an exploration badge under him too?

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, but Hami doesn't have to even be spawned for you to go get it. It's always there.

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That's a behavior specific to Issue 9 onwards. Previous to that, Hami would always be "spawned", which made getting the badge difficult but not impossible (easiest way when he was there was to suicide right above the spot, fall on it, and get it that way, or use Phase Shift - again, pre-I9).

(You youngin's have it easy.)

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Gratz! and hopefully losing the 89+ MA badges won't set you back too far on getting back into the 600 club when i15 launches

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The I15 changes pulls me back 20 badges, so that's not too bad. Post I15, I should be back in the 600 Club soon. One badge title I'll miss is "Do Gooder".

[/ QUOTE ] Set your badge title now, and you might still have it after the wipe. (as long as you don't ever change it) lol

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Up until someone asks how you got that title, you tell them, and they report it to the devs as "unfair"

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Let 'em.

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Just checked Test 2 and it still has the Test Server arcs too. Like I said, the MA arc copy from Live to Test did NOT happen as planned. Both Test Servers still have the original Test Server arc database.

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Taking your word on it then. Debugging my system now...

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I think it still has 19 play runs on Test actually.

[/ QUOTE ] The Live AE was copied to Test recently..

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Just to Training 2. Training 1 still has the old DB.

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Is that what happened? According to Avatea here , the MA arc database copy didn't happen at all.

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All I know is that on Training 1, I'm able to see the old Test arcs, instead of the newer ones. Now, I'm trying to login to Test again to verify, but I'm getting an odd CiceroUIWndFrame error...

Anyone seen this before? I just started getting this tonight just by trying to go through the COHUpdater startup (clicked on Next twice, then got the error). Text follows:

Window box title:
CiceroUIWndFrame: CohUpdater.exe - Application Error

Box msg:

The instruction at "0x74736c57" referenced memory at "0x5c2c3b7c". The memory could not be "read".

Click on OK to terminate the program
Click on CANCEL to debuf the program

Haven't seen this error window come up before, so wanted to post it here. I was last on Test this Sunday, and that was fine for access.

Thoughts?

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I think it still has 19 play runs on Test actually.

[/ QUOTE ] The Live AE was copied to Test recently..

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Just to Training 2. Training 1 still has the old DB.

...and get back to your TF, you. *whipcrack*

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PvP badges were put in when the Tyrant was in charge, Posi has taken his position now. They have the power to change the PvP badges, but it might make some of the people who worked their butts off getting them mad. Plus they do have better thing to attend to, AE badges needed a fix because they "promoted farming".

PvE badges are obtainable by everyone, everyone can die, thanks to pool powers everyone can heal, everyone can take damage, everyone can be held, everyone can gain influence, everyone can do the achievements without spending hours on end trying to make a mission that people want to play.

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Everything in the game promotes farming. Inventions. PVP. Defeats. Accolades. Leveling. Base building. Events. EVERYTHING. How can I say this? Because when you give the player something they want, the question comes up, "How can I get this efficiently?" That train of thought leads to farming. EVERYTHING in the game is farmable.

The question is, does the fact that it's FARMABLE mean that the INTENT of the badge is flawed?

That's the blurred line here on the authorship badges that people refuse to discuss candidly. You take someone who earned their badges honestly, and then "take from them" those marks of effort because a section of the community was able to "farm" for the same reward. Some people took the time to earn the 400 reputation badge for PVP, and had a long, hard road about it. Others farmed it. Why should a Dev come along and remove that badge, because other people found a way to get it "faster"?

Which hurts more? A badge that some people can get honestly, but others have to farm? Or removing badges entirely because people learned to farm them so obscenely that they're punishing everyone by removing them, instead of punishing the malefactors? (Which, I know, is excruciatingly hard to do unless you go utter Gestapo from a CSR point of view, but it begs to be asked.)

I bring up the PVP badges because they represent a section of the community that prides itself on combat skill - a very easy thing to get into, but a very HARD thing to master, and I'm in awe of some of the PVPers I've had to dance around while working my other badges. The arguments made against MA can easily be made against them.

And I bring up the PVE badges because, seriously, they are most certainly NOT "obtainable by everyone". If you really need examples because you're incapable of seeing what's pretty obvious, say so and I'll rattle off a bunch that will nullify your argument completely. But the bottom line: Not everyone is created equally in this game. From AT to powersets to PVP to Architect, there is no one facet where we are all equally matched. Where some use skill, others resort to farming. It's been this way for half a decade.

Again, why make the distinction with the authorship badges being farmable, when everything ELSE in the game is equally farmable? Is it because, in MA, it's not JUST a numbers game, but rather a creative expression for everyone? And, when people's expressions are rejected, or others are artificially inflated, it's taken far more personally than, say, failing to get Empath or Fabricator?

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The problem is that a lot of those badges were partially based on luck more than anything.

The only way you could've got a dev choice badge was to be part of the voting cartels so your arc stayed near the top all the time.

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That's hilarious. My Dev Choice arc, published towards the end of Open Beta (I wasn't in Closed Beta), had very, very few plays on Test before Pohsyb gave it the DC and of course it got transferred over to Live with Issue 14. Even with the DC it has less than 30 plays on Test. No voting cartel was involved in my case, just like probably most of the DCs.

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Same here. I think it still has 19 play runs on Test actually. I'd JUST published it (and intentionally made an arc with absolutely no unlocks, to prove a point about what MA was rolling out to any user) about six hours before a Dev walked into it (pohsyb) by recommendation on one of the global channels, saw it, and then stamped it. I think it had maybe SIX views when he'd seen it. This was about 10 days before Issue 14 went live, and I'd worked on the arc for about two weeks beforehand.

No voting cartel. No inside help. And from the chats with some of the other DC people (from Test and Live) on their experiences, their stories are pretty much the same.

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I think the reason why the author badges were removed besides the obvious vote cartels is they were unobtainable for a ton of people. Some people can make really fun and interesting arcs while others are limited to their mediocre skills in creativity.

If the devs were just concerned about vote cartels, then they could have just reset the AE arcs that are the worst offenders, then make it so that a person needs to play through the whole thing before they can vote on it.

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So you're saying there shouldnt be awards for creative writers?

right. lemme call up a few book organizations. and tell the oscars to stop existing. Its not fair that johnny the homeless movie writer doesnt have as many awards as a top director or writer, after all.

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Uhmmm....this is a game.

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And? There are badges for PVP and for PVE achievements. Why not for in-game creative efforts? All of these are farmable, and all of these lend to a "he's great" or "he'll never get it without farming" judgment.

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I didn't even realize they were regularly purging the "normal" threads now. How often does that happen?

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Usually every few months. Any thread with no post within a few weeks will get deleted, unless it's flagged "do not purge" or if a redname posted in it. Keeps the forums fresh.

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I'd feel cheesy starting a whole new thread for the same ol' arc, but... I've seen worse in this section.

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Kinda makes me wonder if the "community designed" approach we currently use is the most efficient one. Right now, we put up a thread for each arc. Maybe we should have one thread for each player, and just use the subject field to denote Arc references?

There's a certain logic to this; the boards respect responses that are "linked" to a certain title, so it's almost like having a miniforum setup that way.

I was toying with this idea, as I really didn't want to make a new thread for my next arc, but wanted to rehash the discussion material from the previous arc. Setting it up this way might be the most efficient way to go, for board efficiency and ease of searching.


Thoughts? Think of it this way, if you're always using the same thread to update your stuff, then you're ensuring your older stuff is retained vs forum purges. Less clutter on the boards (everyone gets their own thread, instead of the prolific "I AM UBAR AUTOR I MAEK OVER 9000 ARCS!!!" and spamming the place to heck).

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...Why have an anniversary badge then if you're going to water down its intent so much?

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And we come back to what the intent of the badges should be. Should they be a marker that shows that the character has been around for a given period of time, or should they show how long the account (player) has been around? If it's the latter, then why do we need both an anniversary badge and veteran badges? Don't they say the same thing?

If it's the former, then we need to decide whether they should be like the vet badges, which award the first time you log in after the proper time rolls over (or even during the current game session, if you happened to be logged in at the time), or if it should be as it is now, where you have to treat your characters as separate entities that have to earn the badge individually by logging each one in during the actual anniversary period. I view the anniversary badges as a keepsake for attending the big party, basically. A party-favor, or a door prize that everyone who comes gets to take home with them. If you hand out these favors to people that never attended the party, then their value cheapens. But unlike just going to a one-day event, the Devs are gracious enough hosts to allow us to claim the prize for a full month after the physical anniversary day. I'm not sure there's more than a couple of people that have sooo many alts that they'd never be able to log them all in during the course of said month, and even then, do they really need to have that badge on every single character?


The Devs need to decide what their intent for the Anniversary badges should be, and stick to it, whatever it is. I have a feeling they've already made up their minds, though, and it's what we have now.

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This sums it up pretty explicitly for me, at least. This isn't a game breaker issue by any means, because it's working "by design". If you missed the anniversary, then you missed the badge, c'est la vie. IMO, the current rewarding mechanism doesn't need to be changed.

Someone DID bring up an interesting take on it, however, using the Flashback system; where a similar badge could be awarded to indicate it was a Time Travel anniversary badge, but the counts remain the same (similar to the mechanism of X Times the Victor or the Patron badges villside). This sounds like an amenable solution to me; the original badges stay the same, but johnny-come-lately's can get similar badges without impacting their overall total (and therefore unlock the 5th Col gladiator, so they get that additional schwag).

I could stand behind a system like the one I described above (will have to scroll back and see who to give proper credit to ).

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The second one of these I've attended. Thank you both for putting these together.

I'm really enjoying my return to the game here on Freedom and hope to participate more.

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Luna and E both captain very solid ships for forum-organized event runs. If you're not having a good time on these runs, there's something seriously wrong with the "good times" part of your brain.

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This forum recently got purged of old threads, I think that should not have happened, what do you think?

Both the Screenshots & Fan Art and Roleplaying forums are marked "Do not purge". I believe this is to prevent getting rid of player's creative works. Do you feel that this forum is in the same category as those two? While there is typically no specific creative works in this thread, there are links to creative works in the form of mission arc advertisements and the link is the arc ID#. There are also reviews of mission arcs which are creative works in and of themselves. There is also a sticky thread where you can advertise your arc and link to it, which may now be a dead link.

The only downside is that there are some people who take down their arcs for whatever reason, and there are a few pointless discussions or questions here or there, but that holds true for the Screenshots & Fan Art section as well.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

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Group should be set to "do not purge", agreed. This forum is a creative process, from inception to execution to revision. Losing valuable discussions on arcs is a loss for the author, and for the community trying to build from worthwhile examples.

So yeah, I'm for the "do not purge" flag on this board.

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Are we talking about LaserCthulhu?

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Sorry, just needed to fix that.

*goes back to his home server*

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Well, that's just terrific. Way to go, man. You just doomed us all to unimaginable horrors.

I hope you are satisfied.

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You bet your Cthulhu fhtagn I'm satisfied.

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You take your Dev's Choice arc and go back to the hellhole server from whence ye came, vile beast!

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You will be remembered fondly as Cthulhu devours your continent. If you like, I can forward some prayer missives to you via PM. ...won't help, but they certainly do have rhythm.

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The winner is ....


Mr. E. Man


PM me the times when you are available to get your billion.

JFS
Trix

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*thinks fast*