New efforts!

[Aggelakis]

Arcana was in the closed beta testing, MM3....that thread she linked was copy-pasted from the CB forums.... -_-

[MM3squints]

Arcana was in the closed beta testing, MM3....that thread she linked was copy-pasted from the CB forums.... -_-

I'm not saying she wasn't (the thread dose say its was from closed beta) What I'm saying is the other wealth of information was there showing the mechanics of DR, numbers wasn't just solely made by Arcana, there was others that used hard numbers combined it with others factors in PvP to prove the i13 was a bad idea. Those post were just never posted outside of closed beta forums because they stopped caring after it was a definite i13 will proceed or they ended up in flame wars and threads got killed or large portions of just got deleted.

[Jim Justice]

Just so ya know I already did the math on this one.

City of Heroes = FUN

                   :roll:

[Felderburg]

...as evil as human centipede

I have not seen the movie, but I did read an interview with the creator who said it was more about really grossing people out - making a spectacle of it so much that people would be uncomfortable to the extreme (something along those lines - nowhere near those exact words). So when I saw Arcana say she compared CoV to Human Centipede, given the fact that most of the storylines in CoV were largely criticized due to making the character "just a thug" (other than Westin Phipps) I got from the phrase that the more evil storylines were spectacles, rather than inhumanely evil, or something like that.

[Vee]

Was Westin Phipps the one where you got to punch the reforming freakshow's books to death? That was one of my favorites.

[Arcana]

I'm not saying she wasn't (the thread dose say its was from closed beta) What I'm saying is the other wealth of information was there showing the mechanics of DR, numbers wasn't just solely made by Arcana, there was others that used hard numbers combined it with others factors in PvP to prove the i13 was a bad idea. Those post were just never posted outside of closed beta forums because they stopped caring after it was a definite i13 will proceed or they ended up in flame wars and threads got killed or large portions of just got deleted.

As I mentioned originally, I did not intend to say I was the only person posting any information on DR.  Within the context of the question "is it possible to prove I had direct contact with the devs" the fact I was able to post the precise DR formula when no one before or after was able to derive it from testing would suggest that I got that information directly from the devs.

[Arcana]

I have not seen the movie, but I did read an interview with the creator who said it was more about really grossing people out - making a spectacle of it so much that people would be uncomfortable to the extreme (something along those lines - nowhere near those exact words). So when I saw Arcana say she compared CoV to Human Centipede, given the fact that most of the storylines in CoV were largely criticized due to making the character "just a thug" (other than Westin Phipps) I got from the phrase that the more evil storylines were spectacles, rather than inhumanely evil, or something like that.

Kinda the opposite, actually.  The point I was trying to make at the time was that while some players might revel in expressing their dark sides, most CoH players I believed were less likely to enjoy that experience except as a novelty.  If the devs intended to make the red side as popular as the blue side, they needed, in my opinion, to make the red side not only just as interesting as the blue side but also much more rewarding on a visceral level.  Phipps is *excruciatingly* evil, to the point of being uncomfortably so.  Requiem for a Dream might be a great movie, but its not exactly entertaining.  I thought there needed to be more opportunities to be, say, Magneto in the first X-Men movie.  He's the bad guy, but he's not cartoonishly evil and actually quite relateable.  If you could be Erik Lensherr and win that would be an interesting red side.  Or, even better today, if you could be the Erik Lensherr we see in First Class, hunting down the former Nazis that he held responsible for his mother's death, that would be extremely rewarding.

To me, there wasn't anything wrong with the puppy-kicking evil of Phipps or the banal evil of Pither.  The problem was that good can be reactive, but evil needs agency.  Which is to say, Superman can wait for Brainiac to show up and try to destroy Metropolis.  But Magneto can't wait around for an opportunity to be evil.  He has to proactively do what the good guys don't want him to do to be interesting.  The devs had tools to make us "feel good" and "feel evil" but the "feel evil" toolbox too often tried to make us feel bad about what we were doing.  That's counter to the whole point of wanting to play a villain in my opinion.

There's a place for letting us be psychotic monsters.  But that's just as interesting in the long run as playing UPS missions as heroes.

I wish there was less symmetry between the blue side stories and the red side stories, and more duality.  Which is to say, I wish the red side stories were about making bad things happen that the blue side had to fix and vice versa, and less about the red side and the blue side being ships that passed in the night.

[MM3squints]

As I mentioned originally, I did not intend to say I was the only person posting any information on DR.  Within the context of the question "is it possible to prove I had direct contact with the devs" the fact I was able to post the precise DR formula when no one before or after was able to derive it from testing would suggest that I got that information directly from the devs.

I'm literally the only person that posted information about how PvP diminishing returns worked, because I had direct knowledge about how that worked (the devs never actually released the specifics).  Those kinds of things were obviously things I was involved with at the time because of my knowledge of them. 

Although many players tested DR in a variety of ways, so far as I know I'm the only person to have posted a guide to it with the actual explicit mechanics (wayback link courtesy of paragonwiki).  I did that because I was pretty sure it was highly unlikely a tester was going to derive that formula through testing.  There are few players that I believe could have eventually reverse engineered that formula, and I didn't believe any of them were collecting the data necessary to do so at the time.  At the time, I felt the PvP players deserved to know the details of what they were testing.

The statements listed above are not the same. Going from "Literally only one" to "Although many players tested DR in a variety of ways, so far as I know I'm the only person to have posted " to "I did not intend to say I was the only person posting any information on DR." The wording when you use  "Literally only one" is a stretch. I don't know if you said it like that to make your clout bigger or you thought you were literally the only one.  Not until I pointed out you were not the "Literally only one" it seems you had to revise your statement and walk it back. The PvP community have been testing the changes since April 08, 8 months before the official i13 release. It's not so much questioning that if you had any contact with the dev, it's a credibility with your statement. You even stated:

I actually agree with you here: taking people's word without any good reason to do so can be and has often been dangerous.  It comes down to credibility: I believe I was able to build credibility with people in a number of ways.  By showing my work on analyses rather than just conclusions (which allowed people to spot errors and correct them). 

Again, I am not saying you didn't have access to data many people didn't have including the PvP community, what my gripe is how you phrased your first statement. Probably you thought no one will challenge your assertion or you were boxed in a corner not paying attention to Test PvP forms constantly blowing up so you thought you were the only one looking into it, who knows. Mistakes can happen, but how you respond once someone challenge your claim and you had to walk it back and still go out saying "well I meant this" tell me something there too. If you meant what your last post was, then it would have been your first post. If it was a misunderstanding, you would have squashed it by clarifying, not go on a defensive posture saying "Although many players tested DR in a variety of ways, so far as I know I'm the only person to have posted a guide to it" It's not like it matters because people I mentioned from the old PvP community wouldn't care if they got credit or not, but still it seems shaddy to me when the perception of putting one over on someone else to prove a point.

[Brigadine]

It's 50/50 but only 10% of the time.

Works 70% of the time everytime.
5 out of 4 people have trouble with statistics...

[Arcana]

Literally only one" is a stretch.

"Literally only one" is literally true, provided you read the entire sentence.  I am, as far as I'm aware, the only person that posted how DR worked.  I am, of course, not the only person that was aware it existed at all, or posted measurements about what it did.  Although I elected to add, as I often did back then, the not-supposed-to-be-necessary-but-always-seemed-to-be-for-me disclaimer that stating what I did factually should not be interpreted to mean I'm implying I did anything else except what I stated, since you decided to characterize that as being "walking back" I'm compelled to revoke that statement completely and stand behind the original statement as posted.  I'm prepared to be literally proven wrong, if you can provide any literal evidence of someone else literally posting about how DR literally worked, and not just what it literally did.

[Aggelakis]

And now 'literally' no longer looks like a word.

[ivanhedgehog]

Kinda the opposite, actually.  The point I was trying to make at the time was that while some players might revel in expressing their dark sides, most CoH players I believed were less likely to enjoy that experience except as a novelty.  If the devs intended to make the red side as popular as the blue side, they needed, in my opinion, to make the red side not only just as interesting as the blue side but also much more rewarding on a visceral level.  Phipps is *excruciatingly* evil, to the point of being uncomfortably so.  Requiem for a Dream might be a great movie, but its not exactly entertaining.  I thought there needed to be more opportunities to be, say, Magneto in the first X-Men movie.  He's the bad guy, but he's not cartoonishly evil and actually quite relateable.  If you could be Erik Lensherr and win that would be an interesting red side.  Or, even better today, if you could be the Erik Lensherr we see in First Class, hunting down the former Nazis that he held responsible for his mother's death, that would be extremely rewarding.

To me, there wasn't anything wrong with the puppy-kicking evil of Phipps or the banal evil of Pither.  The problem was that good can be reactive, but evil needs agency.  Which is to say, Superman can wait for Brainiac to show up and try to destroy Metropolis.  But Magneto can't wait around for an opportunity to be evil.  He has to proactively do what the good guys don't want him to do to be interesting.  The devs had tools to make us "feel good" and "feel evil" but the "feel evil" toolbox too often tried to make us feel bad about what we were doing.  That's counter to the whole point of wanting to play a villain in my opinion.

There's a place for letting us be psychotic monsters.  But that's just as interesting in the long run as playing UPS missions as heroes.

I wish there was less symmetry between the blue side stories and the red side stories, and more duality.  Which is to say, I wish the red side stories were about making bad things happen that the blue side had to fix and vice versa, and less about the red side and the blue side being ships that passed in the night.

I have always had a problem with badguys doing gratuitous evil. whats in it for them? whats the point? I cant remember what book it was in, but there was an assassin that wouldnt kill people unless he got paid for it or it was life or death. he made a point of not causing collateral damage. or the stainless steel rat..he was a con artist, thief burglar you name it but he tried to never take a life. bad guys dont have to run around slaughtering nuns. there is no profit in it and it is bad publicity.

[ivanhedgehog]

And now 'literally' no longer looks like a word.

that word you used..I do not think it means what you think it means...




do you have six fingers on your right hand?

[MM3squints]

"Literally only one" is literally true, provided you read the entire sentence.  I am, as far as I'm aware, the only person that posted how DR worked.  I am, of course, not the only person that was aware it existed at all, or posted measurements about what it did.  Although I elected to add, as I often did back then, the not-supposed-to-be-necessary-but-always-seemed-to-be-for-me disclaimer that stating what I did factually should not be interpreted to mean I'm implying I did anything else except what I stated, since you decided to characterize that as being "walking back" I'm compelled to revoke that statement completely and stand behind the original statement as posted.  I'm prepared to be literally proven wrong, if you can provide any literal evidence of someone else literally posting about how DR literally worked, and not just what it literally did.

I read the sentence that this discussion was based on. If it was literally true then why did you go from "Literally only one" to "Although many players tested DR in a variety of ways, so far as I know I'm the only person to have posted " to "I did not intend to say I was the only person posting any information on DR." You don't see the inconstancy? Then now you go full circle to "Literally only one" is literally true", provided you read the entire sentence." Full paragraph the original sentence was:

I'm literally the only person that posted information about how PvP diminishing returns worked, because I had direct knowledge about how that worked (the devs never actually released the specifics).  Those kinds of things were obviously things I was involved with at the time because of my knowledge of them. 

Again you're not literally the only one that posted about i13 changes specifically DR. So basically the information can't be retrieved because they were on the i13 Test forum (would nice if someone had it) the information was posted 3-6 month prior and if they were leaked prior to end of close Beta, they would have been deleted (which is evident in the archived PvP Fourms in threads with months separation from on post to another due to post deletions) That would make what any analysis prior to people your post null? No evidence mean no answer right? If you want to write the story in that light who am I to stop you? If people want to believe what you state is true, I really can't stop that either. For me though (any anyone who was involved i13 PvP) we know what really went down.

Earlier in this thread, you have shown that you were only gave antidotes about PvP, but really never went into details. For some reason then too, you tried to make yourself more knowledgeable about PvP when I saw you really didn't understand the details of PvP. You may know the stats to make a PvP toon, but the actual PvP knowledge was not there. I don't understand, why do you need to front? Do you think the more credit you will receive in CoX, more people will give you admiration or something? The knowledge base you already establish should be enough to feel like you contributed to the community, I really don't see the reason to take all credit for something you did not do alone. The only reason why I even brought this topic up was because you were lecturing someone else how to build creditability. I think it's pretty ironic. I don't think they are any old PvPers still lingering around, so probably I'm just barking at shadows at this point. If you want to not give credit to the community and just take the credit for yourself, more power to you.

[Aggelakis]

Arcana never said she's the only one that posted about how DR works. Arcana is saying she's the only one that posted the formula for it (in closed beta or otherwise). Which as far as I can recall, she's telling the truth and either you're misreading what she's saying or being deliberately obtuse.

[Twisted Toon]

I read the sentence that this discussion was based on. If it was literally true then why did you go from "Literally only one" to "Although many players tested DR in a variety of ways, so far as I know I'm the only person to have posted " to "I did not intend to say I was the only person posting any information on DR." You don't see the inconstancy? Then now you go full circle to "Literally only one" is literally true", provided you read the entire sentence." Full paragraph the original sentence was:

I think you are misconstruing "This is what happened when I used x power in y situation" with "This is the formula showing what exactly happens when someone uses x power in y situation." There is a difference between the two. Most people (by most, I mean everyone but Arcana) testing the PvP changes for i13 were in the former category. Arana was in the later category. This is exactly what Arcana has been attempting to tell you the last several times she has posted. She never said that no one else posted anything at all about the DR changes. All she said was that she was the only one to post exactly how the DR changes functioned. Not just the end results of the changes, which everyone else was posting about.

[MM3squints]

Arcana never said she's the only one that posted about how DR works. Arcana is saying she's the only one that posted the formula for it (in closed beta or otherwise). Which as far as I can recall, she's telling the truth and either you're misreading what she's saying or being deliberately obtuse.

Not misread or being obtuse. Her original statement before saying anything about the formula was:

I'm literally the only person that posted information about how PvP diminishing returns worked, because I had direct knowledge about how that worked (the devs never actually released the specifics).  Those kinds of things were obviously things I was involved with at the time because of my knowledge of them. 

If that was left unchecked that would be taken as "Literally, one person posted how DR worked" Nothing in her original statement even mentioned the formula just a general blanket of one person is basically cracked how DR worked. After I prodded it was walked back to the just a specific formula not that she was the only person what looked into, but basically because there is no other known evidence for other people work and only an archived forum post she made, she said:

I am, as far as I'm aware, the only person that posted how DR worked.  I am, of course, not the only person that was aware it existed at all, or posted measurements about what it did.

There were posts in the Test PvP forum actually showing with not just numbers, but with actual measurement and hits for spike dmg DR had. (People did post about DR and went in depth) But that evidence can't be retrieved because it was not saved. The following statement was:

I'm compelled to revoke that statement completely and stand behind the original statement as posted.  I'm prepared to be literally proven wrong, if you can provide any literal evidence of someone else literally posting about how DR literally worked, and not just what it literally did.

I stated over again that information is not saved. Logically this means with the absent of evidence, she is saying she is taking credit for DR as per her original comment because there is no archived evidence to refute it. The only evidence I would have is hours of being a beta tester with other PvP teams to see the full extent effects of DR in combat, log them in the test PvP form, then make a case. But since there is no documentation that exists, Aracna can claim her original statement that "literally she was the only one that posted information about how PvP diminishing returns worked. By her definition, she is saying basically she is the only one who worked on DR. By your interpretation, you are saying she is just saying she posted the formula (which she did and that credit is hers) That's a huge gap just posting a formula explaining how DR works and "literally being the only one that knew how DR worked" A task that actually took lots of man hours and the will of a community to prove DR did not work (Concept on paper, terrible in practice) How about this, can Aracna give a clarification if she believes she is the only one that is responsible for understanding how DR worked, or is responsible for showing the actual formula and the credit to understand DR was not just her's alone. If she says while the PvP community did contribute to understanding DR, but she was the one to discover the exact formula, that would be a correct statement in my eye. If she says she is basically the reason DR understanding exist, well you know...

[Solitaire]

Just so ya know I already did the math on this one.

City of Heroes = FUN

                   :roll:

+1  :D That's all the maths I need!

[Aggelakis]

Not misread or being obtuse. Her original statement before saying anything about the formula was:

Posting "information about how PvP diminishing returns worked", which is what Arcanaville did, does not equal posting about cataloging and analyzing the results of diminishing returns, which is what everyone else was doing.

Post A: "X works this way" <-- Arcana's posts
Post B-Z: "the results of X look like YZ so I posit X" <-- everyone else's posts

Also: she didn't "crack" how DR worked - the devs gave her the information/she worked with the devs on the information. She's not taking credit for DR. She's taking credit for being the only person who posted about how it worked, versus what the end results made it look like how it worked (two very different things).

[MM3squints]

Posting "information about how PvP diminishing returns worked", which is what Arcanaville did, does not equal posting about cataloging and analyzing the results of diminishing returns, which is what everyone else was doing.

Post A: "X works this way" <-- Arcana's posts
Post B-Z: "the results of X look like YZ so I posit X" <-- everyone else's posts

Also: she didn't "crack" how DR worked - the devs gave her the information/she worked with the devs on the information. She's not taking credit for DR. She's taking credit for being the only person who posted about how it worked, versus what the end results made it look like how it worked (two very different things).

That's where the confusion is I think. Posting "information about how PvP diminishing returns worked" is posting about cataloging and analyzing the results of diminishing returns. By the very definition if you analyze DR and post the findings about DR, you are posting information how PvP DR works. (Kind of funny that I can use use this line. I guess it's what your definition of "is" is)  I'll stop going on about this subject till Aracna to clarify her original statement. Because to me it dose sound like she is taking credit for DR analysis (not just the formula) due to the wording of her original statement.