Shut Up And Fight

Your mother was a hamster

2004-11-19T01:00:00.000-05:00

In any game of a competitive nature there will always be some level of intimidation and taunting. This is perfectly fine. Psyching out your opponent is a long accepted tactic. It is ok to be upset when you lose and excited when you win. All of this in moderation though because when it becomes overused it falls squarely into the realm of Trash Talking.

What exactly is trash talking? Basically it is when another player has become annoyed with you for whatever reason and sends you messages to insult you. The reason could be any number of things. He could have just lost to you in a fight, been chased out of his hunting area, or maybe you simply did something he doesn’t like. Next thing you know you get this in your message box:

Rex tells you “man your such a loser”
Rex tells you “whats the matter cant beat me without a friend”
Rex tells you “I could have taken all of you out if i was buffed”
Rex tells you “hiding behind a tree is cheap”
Rex tells you “hey idiot im talking to you”
Rex tells you “hey idiot im talking to you”
Rex tells you “hey idiot im talking to you”
Rex tells you “hey idiot im talking to you”

Typical trash talk, complete with grammatical and spelling errors galore. Not all trash talk is going to look exactly like that. Sometimes it might be a lot worse and other times it might only be a single message. The universal concept is the same though. They feel bad about something and want to insult you.

If you trash talk, you are a loser, plain and simple. If you lost or got kicked out of an area then too bad, get over it. If you spam a bunch of insults it only makes you look like more of an idiot stick. Why don’t you instead turn that energy toward getting better so next time it won’t happen.

In the midst of a fight if you want to taunt your opponent then go right ahead. I personally don’t for a simple reason. The time spent typing a taunt or a response you should be using to attack or evade. I have gotten many kills because someone was typing when they should have been fighting. Ironically they will then trash talk you for killing them while they were typing because you know, I have a webcam on their desk that shows me when they are typing. A lot of the time people will trash talk about things they think are cheap mid fight. In AC, if you were to use a tree to deflect a War Magic Bolt and your opponent stops to call you a “tree whore” or any other random insult then that’s just trash talk.

Yes, I said tree whore. In fact in Asheron’s Call there is a great number of whore related trash talk. AC whores come in all varieties from gem whore to jumping whore to potion whore. I had one loser actually call me a healing whore. He was complaining that I was using health kits to heal myself. Later in the fight I was called a dodge whore because I was evading his war magic. I know it sounds ridiculous but there are players that do this.

A lot of misconception about trash talk is that it only occurs during or because of PvP and only from player killers. Much to my dismay I will admit that a fairly decent amount of PKs trash talk but it is definitely not restricted to only PKs. I have seen a great many carebears that trash talk quite a bit. Carebears will trash talk about a lot of different things. Mostly it will be because of kill stealing accusations or maybe doing something stupid in a group that got someone killed. But it really could be anything. Fact is though that carebears do there fair share of trash talk. Like it or not it is also safe to say they do more trash talking than the PK crowd does. Most people don’t notice when carebears trash talk because they themselves do it and don’t even realize it. When that noob pulls a con purple mob into your group and you start yelling at him. Guess what? That’s trash talk. As opposed to simply saying “Hey man please be more careful”.

The absolute worst kind of trash talk is the gloating trash talk. When you win a PvP battle or some other competition and you continually make fun of the other person. It’s not because of some inane sense of honor but for the simple reason that it makes you look like an idiot. If you win great, you got his items, gave him VP or whatever other reward there is. You just make your self look like an asshat if you have to send him a bunch of tells saying how bad he sucks. In certain situations I will say something like “Owned”, but when I say it I’m not sending that tell to the guy I just beat. Usually I will say it in local text (where he won’t see it because he just died) or as a tell to my friend to let him know what the outcome was. I won’t ever send a tell to the guy I just beat. I got his stuff, that’s enough for me.

How should you react when someone trash talks to you. Well there are really four ways you can react.

First is to report the person to the game’s moderators. This is the absolute worst thing you could ever do. It is the sign of a very weak player when he must resort to using GMs to solve a player-player interaction problem. As far as I’m concerned GMs should only be there to get you unstuck from places and take reports of bugged areas or features. Reporting someone is the epitome of carebearness.

Second is almost as bad. Responding to the trash talk. The guy sending you the messages is obviously an idiot. It is highly unlikely you can convince him to change his point of view or opinion of the situation. Have you ever heard the phrase “Arguing on the internet is like the special Olympics, even if you win you’re still retarded”? It applies to this option 100%.

Third is using the /ignore command. Most games have a built in ignore system. You usually type in something like “/ignore Rex” and you don’t have to worry about the guy anymore. This solves the problem for the most part unless he has friends. You may start getting tells from a few new people now trash talking you for using the /ignore command. You can now use /ignore on them but most MMOs have a limit to how many people you can have in your /ignore list.

The fourth and last option is to ignore them the old fashioned way. When they send you the messages don’t respond to them. It might be hard to resist the urge to reply and tell them how stupid they sound but this is by far the best option. Basically by not /ignoring them but not responding either you will actually beat them at their own game. They will keep sending you messages but since you are not replying the only thing they will accomplish is aggravating themselves. You aren’t giving them the reward of letting them antagonize you. They will probably pester you for a minute or two but will eventually stop when they get mad enough. Not only did you get them to stop but you pissed them off more in the process. Two birds with one stone.

Not replying to trash talk is actually a lot harder than some might think. I am pretty good at it but I will give in every now and again. Dread Lord Bill on the other hand is a master at that. Someone could trash talk like crazy and he won’t ever respond. If he does the entire response will be something like “meh” and that’s it. Another variation I do of option four is to reply to everything they send but only with something like this “…”. Just three periods and nothing else. That’s a good way to annoy them into stopping as well.

To sum up if you trash talk you are a loser. There are a few ways to get back at trash talkers and beat them at their own game. The misconception that only PKs are trash talkers is indisputably false.

Just remember:

Shut Up And Fight

Color me red

2004-11-12T17:40:00.000-05:00

Well, I am no longer able to view sites that are game related. A not so cool web filter is now preventing me from viewing any and all gaming sites. I can still manage to get tidbits of information from other sites but I am going to miss out on alot of things.

One thing I did read about though is how Marvel is sueing NCSoft and Cryptic over the game City of Heroes. They claim that it allows players to to closely create copyrighted characters from the Marvel world. PvP Online makes a pretty good arguement about the whole subject. www.PvPOnline.com

Basically Marvel is going into buisness with those fucking morons at Vivendi and SOE. Despite the popularity of EQ, it is still a total POS game. Not to mention that Vivendi and SOE are the two worst companies in customer service to ever exist.

Marvel is trying to finacially hurt Cryptic and NCSoft so that when thier game comes out the competition will be alot weaker. COH just won game of the year and is still dominating in sales. It was number one in sales until it was dethroned by Doom 3. The new DVD edition is expected to do quite well.

I don't have much time to write but I will end on this note. I hope that when Marvel gets its game on the market, DC Comics sues the pants off of them the first time someone makes a DC clone character.

Shut Up And Fight

Dr. Strangelag Or: How I learned to Start Bitching and Hate my Computer

2004-11-10T22:55:00.000-05:00

I bought my current PC back in April 2001. Now, granted it wasn't top of the line even then. It's a 1.2 GHz Athlon Thunderbird, and currently has 256 MB of PC-133 RAM and a GeForce3 Ti500. I know, the RAM is especially low, but for whatever reason, even with the latest motherboard BIOS loaded, I have strange lockup issues with sticks of 512. I can't even use one slot due to a strange problem I had over a year ago. I had one RAM module short out, and since then any module in that slot isn't recognized. Blah.

Anyway, as a college student working part time - I don't have the cash to upgrade. I could probably finagle something, but I'm a cheap bastard. So I've decided to bitch about something I'm greatly annoyed with.

I started playing Asheron's Call in 2000, but it was released in 1999. The original system specs for it was a Pentium 166 (or 133, not entirely sure but its not fast either way,) 32 MB RAM and optional 3D card. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't my computer STILL way above the system reqs? I know they've added a lot of content and made the game much larger, but the graphics engine hasn't really changed.

I have incredible video lag issues on Singularity Caul. I guess it's because there's so many textures and particle effects there. If I go into the central volcano, it becomes an unplayable slideshow. Even staying out of there, in some parts I can barely move. Since this happens to a lot of people, it's not a big issue.

But now when I go onto, say the Obsidian Plains, or even into the Sclavus Temple, I have to turn the graphics settings down to prevent the video lag. It gets infuriating to play a game from 1999 with a system much higher than the reqs and have such issues. Note that I can play some much more curremt games such as WarCraft III (I know it's two years old) with nary a hitch.

I guess it's just that Turbine has a really system intensive graphics engine, and doesn't know how to compress their textures very well. Maybe if anyone was left of the original team who had the slightest clue of how to use the code this wouldn't be such an issue. Then maybe I wouldn't have to turn the damn game on wireframe mode to play it decently (slight exaggeration). Then again, being the ignorant fuck that I am about programming maybe I should just shut the hell up. I'm just pissed.

Then there's those odd occasions (more and more common, though) where my computer refuses to load the operating system on bootup, and tells me that the "Operating System is not found." Yet if I hit the reset button, it loads without a problem. Ugh.

Somebody buy me a computer.

Support John Kerry?!

2004-11-02T16:32:00.000-05:00

I understand that the main purpose of this blog is the concern of state of the MMOG. However, I find it difficult to simply stand by during this day of election. I have seen a good number of people concerned of the economy, at the hands of George W. Bush.

I admit that the current condition of the economy is not good. The major corporations are not willing to spend their money on the workers, thus vastly decreasing the purchasing power of the working and middle class. As a member of the working class, I greatly feel for those effected. I personally have virtually no savings for the future. Are the conservatives at fault? Absolutely not.

Witness NAFTA! Supported by Democrats, NAFTA allows corporations to send their work overseas, at the cost of the American workforce. The cost is cheaper for corporations to spend their money in the international market.

Kerry is not concerned for the American worker. He represents a force which is more concerned with the state of the world. Invade Iraq with a supposed "World Coalition?" Shouldn't we be more concerned with the state of our own nation?

Bush is concerned with tax cuts to the rich? News flash, people. The rich already pay most our our taxes. Tax cuts benefit everybody, from our richest to our poorest, who barely pay taxes as it is.

Kerry has promised NOTHING. His statements land on boths sides of every issue. He is afraid to take a stand on ANYTHING where the results have yet to be seen through.

The main issue here is with the economy. Blame Bush for the current recession, and you refuse to recognize the past. Our mid-nineties boon was based primarily upon tech stocks. Love or hate Microsoft - Clinton's lawsuit against them (Damn Janet Reno!) had a HUGE impact upon tech stocks. When Microsoft's stock went down, so did virtually every tech stock connected to it. Thus our economy declined. Was this Bush's fault? A resounding NO! Clinton begain this behavior, while the shortsighted American public blamed it on Bush's administration.

The economy of US is more reponsive upon actions of the Federal Reserve. Blame Greenspan before you blame Bush. But even Greenspan has a number of years before his policy has an impact upon the American economy.

If you are voting on the basis of the Iraq war, note that Kerry is not going to end it- rather to continue the campaign as he sees fit. You want our boys/girls home? Better to stick with someone willing to give our soldiers the means to survive, rather than Kerry's vote to deprive them of $87 billion to survive and continue.

Let it also be noted that Clinton began a campaign against Hussein, a campaign that would have ended in war - since Hussein decided to oppose every UN resolution upon his regime. Essentially, the US was going to be forced to take this type of action regardless of Republican/Democratic leadership. Kerry is not our way "Out." He doesn't even claim to be.

As such, I'd like to exclaim my support for our troops. Their bravery has surpassed mine or anyone else who inhabits this country without being in the military.

Dread Lord Bill.

Clap On, Clap Off: The Complete Guide To Toggles 1.0

2004-10-29T11:29:00.001-04:00

Introduction

In City of Heroes there are three different kinds of powers, click powers, static powers and toggle powers. This guide will be addressing the toggle powers. As of 28-Oct-04 all the data in this guide is correct. However be aware that Cryptic might change some of the values in future patches. I will try to update this guide as new information becomes available.

I have never played CoH as the situation I am in prevents that. However I will buy it and play it feverously when I get back to the good ol’ U S of A. The math used to calculate the power functionality and the hidden complexity of the character creation and template design is what draws me to CoH. I have made dozens of templates for my future characters. To maximize the potential of my characters I needed to know how to calculate toggle costs. After a week or so of research I found all the information I needed. I now present that information for others to use.

What is a toggle
Managing your toggles
Combat support
Toggle power and recovery numbers

What is a toggle

Toggle - A power that does not have a duration time. It will continually drain a small amount of endurance until it is shut off. A toggle may be shut off manually or will shut of automatically if the player runs out of endurance, is hit with a toggle stopping status effect (Hold, Disorient, Sleep), or the target mob is killed. The cost of a toggle is measured in an endurance per second drain.

Endurance Per Second (EPS) – Amount of endurance lost or gained on a by second basis.

Managing your toggles

A toggle is nothing more than a power that stays on. Instead of draining a certain amount of endurance when used, it slowly drains endurance while it is activated. You can run many toggles at once but doing so may cause a hindrance to your EPS gain. In fact if you run to many you won’t gain any endurance at all and will lose endurance. The combined EPS loss of all your toggles will be referred to as total drain.

The natural recovery rate for all players is 1.67 EPS. There are several powers that can increase your EPS gain. Stamina, Quick Recovery, and Accelerate Metabolism are just a few. The combined effects of these power and natural recovery will be referred to as total recovery.

You find your total recovery by adding all the powers that increase your EPS gain to your natural recovery rate. Since you can add recovery enhancements to certain powers you will have to use the enhancement equation to find the exact amount that each power will give. There is a list of the toggle power costs and endurance recovering powers at the end of this guide.

The equation for endurance recovery gain is:
Base Gain * (1 + Number of Enhancements * Enhancement Modifier)

Stamina has a base gain of 0.42 EPS, so slotted with 3 even SO enhancements will look like this:
0.42 * (1 + 3 * 0.333) = 0.90

If you only had Stamina 3 slotted then your total recovery would be 0.90 + 1.67 = 2.57 EPS

After you find the total recovery you need to find the total drain. Because toggle powers accept endurance reductions you will need to figure out the adjusted cost for each power after the enhancements.

The equation for calculating toggle cost with enhancements is:
Base Cost / (1 + Number of Enhancements * Enhancement Modifier)

Stealth has a base cost of 0.38 EPS, so 3 slotted with even SO enhancements will look like this:
0.38 / (1 + 3 * 0.333) = 0.19

Super Speed has a base cost of 0.54 EPS, so 3 slotted with even SO enhancements will look like this:
0.54 / (1 + 3 * 0.333) = 0.27

Total drain is 0.19 + 0.27 = 0.46

To find your net EPS rate subtract the total drain from the total recovery.
2.57 – 0.46 = 2.11 EPS

If you have Super Speed and Stealth running permanently you will have a constant gain of 2.11 EPS.

I created an excel spreadsheet that will calculate all of this for you. It might not be the best design but it is functional and I included a lot of other very useful information in it as well. It can be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/laportejd/CoH.xls

Combat Support

I like the idea of creating a character that only runs permanent toggles. I don’t want to turn them on or off any more than necessary. To do this you must pick a group of toggles that you can run at the same time and still maintain a combat reliable amount of EPS gain. I consider anything greater than 2 EPS acceptable but depending on how costly your character is you may need more. If you know what the endurance cost, activation and recharge times of your powers you can figure out how combat effective your setup will be.

During combat you will use the most endurance. By calculating your net EPS gain you can figure out how many attacks you can do before pausing. Remember even though you can string powers together you must still wait the activation times. During this time you will still gain endurance. If a power has an activation of 4 and your net gain is 2 then by the time the power is done you have lost the endurance for using the power but gained 8 endurance from recovery.

Follow the example:

Your net recovery after stamina and toggles is +2 EPS

You use the following 3 attacks

Power	Cost	Activation
Punch	8	2
Kick	10	3
Throw	14	2

Starting with 100 endurance

You throw a punch:
This will reduce your endurance by 8 or 100 - 8 = 92
The activation time is 2 so by the time punch is done you gain 2 * 2 = 4 endurance
The new total is 96 (92 + 4)

Then you immediately do a kick reducing your endurance by 10 or 96 - 10 = 86
The activation time is 3 so when the kick is done you gain 3 * 2 = 6 endurance
The new total is 92 (86 + 6)

Then you immediately do a throw reducing your endurance by 14 or 92 - 14 = 78
The activation time is 2 so when the throw is done you gain 2 * 2 = 4 endurance
The new total is 82 (78 + 4)

Assuming that all the recharge timers are now done you can start the combo again. You would look at a drain of 18 for every 3 hit combo. This would allow you to perform 5 combos continuously without stopping. Fill in your attack powers, their activation times and costs and you can figure how much you will lose and gain in combat.

Toggle power and recovery numbers

Below is a list of all known toggle power costs. Most of this information was taken from a thread on the main CoH boards located here.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1139647

There is some data missing. If you would like to help in finding this information go to the official thread on it, follow the directions for testing toggle cost and make a post with the data you get.

Endurance Recovery Powers

Natural Recovery	1.67
Stamina	0.42
Quick Recovery	0.56
Accelerate Metabolism	?

Toggle Power Costs

Inherent
Sprint	0.35

Concealment Pool
Stealth	0.38
Invisibility	1.51
Phase Shift	2.98

Fighting Pool
Tough	0.22
Weave	0.20

Flight Pool
Hover	0.22
Flight	2.03
Group Fly	?

Leadership Pool
Maneuvers	0.45
Assault	0.45
Tactics	0.45

Leaping Pool
Combat Jumping	0.08
Super Jump	0.54
Acrobatics	0.32

Speed Pool
Super Speed	0.54
Whirlwind	1.15

Devices
Targeting Drone	0.35
Cloaking Device	0.29

Electricity Manipulation
Lightning Field	?

Fire Manipulation
Hot Feet	?
Blazing Aura	0.75

Ice Manipulation
Chilling Embrace	?

Fiery Aura
Blazing Aura	?
Fire Shield	0.38
Plasma Shield	?

Ice Armor
Frozen Armor	?
Chilling Embrace	?
Wet Ice	?
Icicles	?
Glacial Armor	?
Hibernate	?

Invulnerability
Temp Invulnerability	?
Unyielding Stance	0.28
Invincibility	0.28

Stone Armor
Rock Armor	0.35
Mud Pots	1.13
Rooted	?
Brimstone Armor	?
Mineral Armor	?
Crystal Armor	?
Granite Armor	?

Force Field
Personal Force Field	0.38
Dispersion Bubble	0.75
Repulsion Field	?
Force Bubble	4.59

Storm Summoning
Snow Storm	0.76
Steamy Mist	0.76
Hurricane	0.94

Kinetics
Repel	?

Radiation Emission
Radiation Infection	0.58
Enervating Field	1.48
Choking Cloud	1.21

Dark Miasma
Darkest Night	?
Shadow Fall	0.75

Ice Control
Arctic Air	1.46

Fire Control
Hot Feet	?

Illusion Control
Superior Invisibility	1.42

Mind Control
Telekinesis	?

Spines
Quills	0.73

Regeneration
Integration	0.77
Instant Healing	1.54

Super Reflexes
Focused Fighting	0.38
Focused Senses	0.38
Evasion	?

Dark Armor
Dark Embrace	0.39
Death Shroud	0.71
Murky Cloud	?
Obsidian Shield	?
Cloak of Darkness	0.39
Cloak of Fear	?
Oppressive Gloom	0.12

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my guide. I hope it was useful to you. I would also like to thank everyone who provided me with the hard data for this guide including everyone on the Official toggle cost thread. In the event I get a copy of Visual Basic, I plan on making a program dedicated to managing toggles. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions then feel free to contact me at:

Xidrablog@yahoo.com

The adoring fans

2004-10-28T05:42:00.000-04:00

I recently posted links to my article on the VN boards. There were quite a few asshats that started flaming my thread and berating the article. They are entitled to their opinion or something to that effect right? Well, did I mention these morons hadn't even read the article yet. They had no idea what the contents of it were, they just made some assumptions and started posting away. In the future if you are going to send me hate mail, make stupid comments, or flame on the boards do me a favor. READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE FIRST, IDIOT STICK. Yet, people wonder why I hate carebears.

I made posts on 2 boards. The CoH general board and the AC general board. I am an active member of both communities. There is no reason why I can’t post a link to my article on both boards.

So I go and check on my threads this morning to see lots of (expected) flames on the CoH one and it was locked because of it. Then I go and check the AC one and what do I see. The AC (drag)queen carebear herself Paraduck. So this little fucker locks my thread and says it’s under review. What it is under review for I have no idea, maybe she was thought there would be swears or naughty pictures that I could get banned for. The fairy sends me a PM and asks me why I used 2 different VN names and even states in the PM that having multiple is not against the rules. I write a reply and when I click send I get the nice little “You have been banned” sign.

I sent an unban request, I’m certain I won’t get a response for several days. When I do it will be some pathetic reason. I could make a complaint about that faggot Paraduck but she would just get away with it. At least it wasn’t Yrsa.

Regardless, it doesn’t matter how many times I get banned. I will continue to write articles and I will continue to post links to them. SUAF had over 100 hits yesterday alone. I will win.

Shut Up And Fight

It’s mine and you can’t have it

2004-10-27T10:51:00.000-04:00

I decided to begin this article with the basic definition of the MMO problem it will be addressing.

Kill Stealing

Attacking or killing
- a mob already engaged by another player
- a mob when it spawns that another player was waiting for
- any mobs in an area where another player has claimed ownership

Now contrary to popular belief the problem isn’t because people do this. The problem is that there is a skewed notion that doing this is wrong, a sort of virtual crime if you will. In fact although the term kill stealing exists, the actual act or crime does not. It is simply not possible to do.

I can almost hear the carebears yelling at their monitor and running to the message boards to flame me. “Kill stealing is wrong, this guy is an idiot, blah blah”. Well, when you finish feel free to come back and read the rest of the article and I will explain it for you.

The reason why kill stealing simply is not possible is because there is nothing to steal. This relates to the same reason I used in my You’re not allowed to play that way article. Everyone pays the same $14.95 a month. Everyone is equally entitled to all the content of the game. No one player can ever claim ownership of a mob, dungeon or zone. There is an exception to this. In a FFA world you can claim ownership but only if you have the skill and numbers to defend it. If you don’t then it won’t be yours for very long.

No player’s monthly payment is worth any more than the next guy. Just because you started attacking it first is irrelevant. The way XP and loot is rewarded is that each player gets out exactly what they put in. If you do 80% of the damage you will get 80% of the XP, they other guy who only did 20% will get 20% of the XP. He didn’t steal anything he did his percentage of the damage and was rewarded correctly by the game for it. Who ever does the most damage will get the loot. If you want 100% of the XP then you need to kill it faster.

Now it could be argued that the second guy stole the 20% of the XP. Well how do you figure that? He did his attacks and got his portion. The first player doesn’t own the mob. He has no right to claim it. Once again how is his $14.95 any better than the second guy’s $14.95. Now if you want to have mobs that only you can attack then you can go into an Instanced area. Since no one can get into that area the mobs are yours by technicality.

Most MMOs don’t acknowledge kill stealing but they do acknowledge harassment. They can be confused but are definitely 2 different animals. I think EQ does have a policy but since SOE is by far the worst MMO related company in existence, I’m going to ignore them. In fact if you try to make a kill stealing complaint in CoH, this is what you will get.

Thank you for contacting the City of Heroes support team. We understand that kill stealing can be a very frustrating issue. Our design team has worked very hard to come up with a resolution to reduce the effect of kill stealing as much as possible and will continue to monitor the effects of kills being shared between players.

In City of Heroes, the act of "Kill Stealing" is if a player of a significant higher level than your hero continues to follow you defeating mobs preventing you from gaining any XP or Influence for an extended period of time.

In City of Heroes, Heroes do not "own" any mobs. If you are attacking a mob, and another Hero jumps in to help, this is not kill stealing as they are receiving a small share of XP for helping in the defeat as you are gaining XP as well.

Here is how our XP/Influence system works:

If you are soloing, XP is handled by your current level, the type of mob you are fighting (minion, LT, boss, etc), mob level, and how much Damage you inflict upon this mob.

So if you do about 3/4th damage on a mob, and someone comes by and gets the defeat on a mob, you will get more XP than the person who dealt the final blow.

Also, if the person who deals the defeating blow is a higher level than the mob you are fighting, chances are they will receive no XP at all.

If you think someone is trying to "Kill Steal" from your Hero, try to do an indoor mission to allow the other player time to go to a different location or you can take a Tram to a different zone. However, if you find that a player is intentionally following you from zone to zone to harass you, please let us know. The COH support team will take the necessary actions to resolve the incident.

Please let us know if you have any further issues.

CoH considers a single incident of kill stealing a non-issue. Repeated acts are treated as if it is harassment (although they call it kill stealing). That only happens if someone follows you around for a prolonged period of time and continually kills mobs you are trying to hunt. At that point they aren’t doing it strictly for the XP reward from the mob they are doing it to intentionally harass the other player.

That means that if someone runs by and fires a few shots at the group of mobs you are fighting, its not kill stealing. If they see you and fire off a few shots then follow you around attacking the same mobs as you for the next 10 minutes, they still aren’t kill stealing because the other player doesn’t own the mobs. What they are doing is harassing the other player. I personally would never make a harassment complaint about someone in game. To me it just seems like a weak thing to do.

Intermission

Part 2
Well what about the human factor on the effects of kill stealing? Even though no player owns any mob and everyone is equally entitled, people still have this notion that it is bad to attack a mob someone else is already fighting. Sometimes the player is a nice person and thinks he is legitimately trying to help another player is distress. This is actually a common occurrence.

Blaster Bob runs by and sees Controller Charlie with a very low amount of health with 2 mobs beating on him. Bob tries to be helpful and launches a fireball killing the 2 mobs. Sometimes Charlie will be thankful but more often than not he will berate Bob for kill stealing. Bob was trying to be the Good Samaritan and got insults for it. He will be less likely to help someone else in the future, all because Charlie plays by scrub rules. Another point to make is that even if Defender Dan had run over to heal Charlie or use a non damage debuff to the mobs, Charlie might still have accused Dan of kill stealing.

A scrub is a player that creates and applies additional unnecessary rules to the inherent rules of a game. Anyone who breaks this additional rule is labeled cheap. Easiest example is in Street Fighter. You can throw someone to do damage, throwing someone once is ok. Throwing them 5 times in a row is considered cheap, a scrub rule. For more information and a more accurate explanation of scrub mentality. I strongly recommend reading this article Playing to Win by Sirlin.

Kill stealing is a scrub rule by definition. It is an additional rule created by gamers that is not validated by game policy. Players are willfully hindering their performance by adhering to these ridiculous rules.

Here is a perfect example. I am running by an area. I see the Mega-Xp Monster but someone is already fighting it. Now these Mega-XP Monsters are incredibly rare. I might not see another for a week or a month. It gives a mega amount of XP even if I only do a fraction of the damage. By scrub mentality I shouldn’t fight it because someone else already is even though I am equally entitled to attack that mob as much as the guy already fighting it.

Now lets say I attack it and get my damage equivalent portion of the XP. Then I leave the area. I’m not following the guy around so its not harassment. I saw an opportunity and took it.

Instead of a large amount of XP maybe it drops a rare item. Everyone is equally entitled to the reward, if I can do the most damage I get it. If not the other guy does. Since he got the head start he has a better chance than me. Should I somehow get it he has no right to complain. I did more damage and got the reward, it was completely fair. Does it matter if he was waiting 2 hours for the mob to spawn? No, it doesn’t.

Some people will actually wait in lines to kill a static spawn mob that drops a quest item. The respawn time could be 30 seconds, 1 minute or even 15 minutes plus. These scrubs will waste hours and hours waiting in line to get the item. There is no way in hell I am going to sit in a virtual line for hours to get that item. I am going to jump to the front of the line and hit the mob will everything I have. You might laugh at the idea of people waiting in long lines like that but it happens a lot.

Worst thing you can say is I’m a line jumper or just plain rude and inconsiderate. Last I checked those things were not against the rules. If I continually do it, I might get black listed and not allowed in certain guilds or teams, but that is something I can deal with. I don’t care about making friends in an MMO. I have my real life friends that play the game with me. I’m not even going to start on the whole “honor” thing. I will leave that for another article. Doesn’t matter to me what other players in a game think about me, if it does matter to you then you might have some issues. Keep playing by the scrub rules if you want but don’t complain about someone stealing something that was never yours in the first place.

Shut Up And Fight

Nay to PeeKay?!

2004-10-25T22:35:00.000-04:00

During the Asheron's Call October Event, Turbine released the Fifth part of its series of Blackmire quests. Shortly after its unveiling, an addtional event added to the quest - where the Burun ruler Reeshan was attempting to break down a door separating Dereth from his homeworld. The players had two choices - allow Reeshan to knock down the door and stave off the threat, or work against Dereth and aid in destroying the door.

But the content of the quest is not the issue here. What is at the crux of this discussion is the backlash against how Turbine implemented this event. This thread begins with some players' discontent over the apparent requirement to go PK in order to enter the portal leading to Reeshan. After Ibn informs the players that you may also be PKL, many of the players are satiated. Sadly, some are not.

Shortly after Ibn's post, you can find this gem: "Being forced to go pk or pkl for a quest stinks to the highest. I am very close to closing my turbine accounts. I am so sick of the pk/pkl cr__ being rammed in on me."

Being rammed in on you? I don't recall Turbine requiring you to be a part of this event at all. But now you are feeling left out of a major story arc event, and you don't want to be? Then go PKL and get your ass in there. In this event, you can't have it both ways. This is ONE event in the total of three that required players to be PK (this is the first that allowed PKL). The point of the quest was to create a bit of player conflict over whether or not Reeshan was to be allowed to overrun Dereth. If this event did not involved PvP, how would you make your choice? Would you @tell spam your enemies? I think not. In the case of this even, PvP is the only option that makes sense for it to proceed in the ways the developers designed it to.

I can understand to a degree that you wouldn't want to go PK for fear of losing your items. But when the consequences are so minimal with PKL, complaining is simply ridiculous. In a little over a minute, you can replace your lost creature/life magic buffs, and carry on.

This whole issue hearkens back to the discussions over "town control" in the upcoming AC expansion. There were some players who felt it was unfair that "control" could only be achieved through PvP combat. How you could implement "town control," in a fantasy setting, without any PvP conflict and not have it be stupid is unfathomable, but there you have it.

I believe Turbine really likes PvP. They created a PK system on all worlds, and a purely PK server from day one. The freedom of character movement and quick-paced fighting is very conducive to an excellent PvP environment. The recent "neutering" of DDO and apparent lack of PvP in upcoming MEO is the result of an increasing player base that wishes for their MMOs to be a glorified chat room. Go ahead and chat, and then throw your tantrum if the developers implement a quest that requires some sort of PvP. The rest of us are going to shut up and fight.

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy

2004-10-21T05:04:00.000-04:00

So yesterday was my first attempt at getting a large amount of people to read my article. I made posts on several of the VN boards. Then got banned for it because my article has “Bad Words”. Oh well at least I succeeded in getting people to read it. Only 2 people made comments on this page, most just went back to VN and tried to be cool with their cyber carebear friends. I read the responses but didn’t feel a need to argue with any of them. Eventually the threads got locked anyways.

Most of the posts were just personal attacks toward me. Now don’t get me wrong, they certainly don’t hurt my feelings. Maybe the ones about my gold chain stung a little, then again maybe not. Now while I don’t mind these kinds of responses because any publicity is good publicity, it doesn’t help me much. I was hoping for actual constructive responses. Guess that was too much to ask.

Some of the responses were so spun by the carebear mentality that they aren’t even worth addressing. Others accused me of being hypocritical in my gaming. Saying that I don’t want others to tell me how I want to play yet I will tell others how they can play. Now that’s funny to me because if you read the last few paragraphs in the Grumpy article then you would have seen me clearly state I will not try to force anyone else to play a certain way. While I would certainly like more people to PvP and think that those that don’t are pretty much pansies, I won’t force them to.

I anticipated a lot of the responses so I can’t say I’m heartbroken, I would hope that as I continue to write that more people make an attempt to let go their carebear mentality and possibly make a constructive comment or 2.

I did get at least one constructive email though. While I don’t agree with it entirely I can completely understand the motivation behind it.

Also I spelled Grumpys that way intentionally. I am aware that plural y turns into ie and the spell checker picked it up every time I typed it. However Grumpies just didn’t look right to me. I didn’t want to change the spelling of it since it is part of the Grumpy Bear phrase. Deal with it.(Ironically Grumpies pops up in spell checker as well.)

One last thing: Princess Tomato on the VN boards is a fucking carebear. That is all.

Shut Up And Fight

You’re not allowed to play that way

2004-10-20T14:39:00.000-04:00

You’ve seen these guys in game and on the boards.
Maybe you level to fast.
Maybe your name doesn’t fit their idea of a good name.
Maybe your costume looks too much like a Comic hero’s costume.
It could be any number of things. For some reason these guys feel as though they have the authority to say what you can and can’t do. Their approval is required for you to continue to play.

This is a serious issue in gaming that has always been present but due to the increasing popularity of MMORPGs in the last several years it has become even worse. These high-horsed players feel that they are so much better than others that they can dictate how the game should be played.

While in game I will only talk to a select few people so I personally don’t see a lot of this type of whining. However, I do read various forums everyday. I see these posts all the time. The posts are complaints to the other players, devs, and anyone who will listen. The posts consist of “such and such” should be banned and anyone doing it should not be allowed to play. Now bare in mind that the “such and such” is not a cheat, it is probably just someone who named their character D00dimus MaXimuS. Their complaint being that it “ruins their game” and shouldn’t be allowed.

Whoa there Sally. Who are you to dictate what other people can name their characters? For what honor were you appointed character name authority? I’m going to refer to these guys as Grumpy Bears from now on.

I’m going to clue a few people in here.
1. You are just a player. Everyone else pays the same $14.95 a month as you. You are in no position to tell any other player what they can or can’t do.
2. Every game has a set of rules. If in the rules, using l33t speak is allowed when naming your character then shut up. The Devs say they don’t care so you are shit out of luck. If you want a game with a Nazi naming policy then go play WoW.

The biggest argument is that the actions of another are “ruining my game experience”. Wait, so let me get this strait. You see a guy named L33t3r and it ruins you game experience? Excuse while I laugh at your stupidity. Grumpys will argue that it ruins the immersion factor. Please. Unless you are a hardcore role-player you can’t use that as an excuse because the first time you mention anything OOC it negates the “immersion factor” excuse.

Jealousy plays a big part in the complaint of how fast others should be allowed to level. Grumpys tend to be slow levelers. They are either bad at the game or just simply don’t have the motivation to level as quickly as others. They will complain that another player made it to X level way to fast. They will often accuse the fast levelers of cheating and sometimes request that these people be de-leveled or out right banned. The audacity is amazing. Basically what happens is you have a few power gamers who will level very fast. The Grumpys don’t and get jealous or for some bizarre reason feel that everyone should be required to stay low level or level at a slower pace. Grumpys can’t fathom how it could be fun to level fast, collect all the items, and do all the quests. They want to go at their own slow pace and force everyone else to as well.

City of Heroes has its own unique problem. Since it is the first MMO based on Comic heroes it finally gives people the chance to live as their favorite hero. Now because of certain (ridiculous) copyright laws. Players can’t name their character and make him look exactly like their favorite hero. They are allowed to make their character look like the hero but can’t use the same name. These characters are referred to as clones. Never one to let someone actually have fun the Grumpys speak out about this too. Common theme seems to be “Why can’t you just be original?”. Well, why do they HAVE to be original? When they purchased the game it wasn’t a requirement that the player be original.

Maybe they have been reading X-men comics for the last 10 years and they really like Wolverine. So they make their character look like him. Who are you to say they can’t. Oh, it ruins your game experience huh? Ya, excuse while I laugh at you a bit more. Even if 50 people make their character look like Wolverine. Once again they pay their $14.95 same as you. If they want their character to look like that then they can. If you don’t like it then cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it.

Who the fuck put you in charge of deciding how other can play, name their character, or anything else?

I am very much a power gamer but I will never tell another player how they can or can’t play. I personally do not role-play often, if I do it is very far and few between. I play to max my guys, get the good stuff and win the battles. But I will never try to stop the guy who wants to sit in town all day role-playing and crafting. He paid his money, if that’s what he wants to do then more power to him. I might think it’s a waste of money or even stupid but once more I will never try to stop him from having fun his way. These Grumpys seem bent on ruining other people’s fun. They want to tell you how you can play, how fast you level and what to name your character.

New flash to the Grumpys: You’re in charge of 2 things, Jack and shit and Jack just left town. People are going to level at their pace regardless of what you think. They will name their character how they want, regardless of what you think. They will make their hero look how they want, regardless of what you think. While others will do this because its how they want to have fun, I personally will do all the things you hate just to piss you off.

Shut Up And Fight

DDO has been neutered

2004-10-16T10:28:00.000-04:00

Turbine has decided not to include PvP in Dungeons and Dragons Online. But before I get into all that I just want to clarify some stuff.

This is the first real game related post. I know the previous posts didn't seem like they had anything to do with gaming but there is a method to my madness. I made those posts for a reason. That reason being that I know I am going to get hate mail and hate comments attached to my articles. It would take a lot of my time to make a rebuttal to all of these emails and comments. I don’t feel like doing that. So every time some idiot stick badgers me about swearing or making comments he perceives as being immature all I have to do is point him to those posts I made. Going to save me a lot of time as I anticipate lots of hate mail.

Now back to DDO.

Turbine released a statement on the official DDO webpage about how they decided there will be no PvP at all on initial release. They have also said that there is a possibility of light duel or arena based PvP sometime in the future, but don’t bet on it. You can read the statement here. Official Turbine Statement

D&D is THE role-playing game. Now personally I’m not a huge fan of role-playing but sometimes I will try it. Even though I suck at it. D&D lets you do anything you want, be anything you want, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. D&D was a groundbreaking game. You could argue that it set up the field for all RPGs and MMORPGs.

In case you have been living in a hole for the past 30 years, I’ll give you a brief class on why not having PvP in DDO is flawed.

Alignment: In D&D there is a system in place that determines how a player or NPC should act. What kinds of actions they take, the friends and enemies they have, what they would say. A good player would stay within his character. This means that if you are playing a chaotic evil thief and the barkeep offers you 200 gold pieces to kill the mayor. You will do it. In fact if he asks you to kill the annoying dwarf in your own group, you will do it. Why? Because it fits your character. You are evil. That’s what you do.

DDO had the potential to put RPG back into MMORPG and turbine blew it. How are you going to take the pinnacle of role-playing and pigeonhole all your players into the same alignment of lawful good? Sure someone can claim they are evil but what can they do to show it. They can’t rob the storekeeper, they can’t take on jobs to assassinate people, and they can’t steal from others. A lot of carebears would say that those things are griefing, but that is nonsense at best. Being evil is a long time established alignment in D&D. Lots of people role-play evil in D&D everyday. I’m not talking about power gamers using “I’m role-playing evil” as an excuse to kill people at random, even though I certainly would use that excuse from time to time.

These are actual role-players. They really get into their character and when they play the chaotic evil elf would kills all dwarves on sight. Well that’s what they want to do. You can say that causes people to get upset. Well too bad. D&D is about doing what you want when you want only being limited by your imagination. Obviously an MMO is going to have limitations as you have to program every part of it but still don’t intentionally remove parts of a well-established game. But remember you have to face the consequences for your actions. If you are that thief and you get caught stealing from your party, you are going to be in a world of hurt. But you still get that choice. Turbine has removed that choice.

A few quotes from the statement

“The strongest argument for this decision, in our opinion, is the fact that PnP Dungeons & Dragons has never been a PvP-oriented system”

This is utter garbage. At least half of all D&D game sessions have some kind of in house group conflict. Even if it is just a simple “Lets fight to see who is the leader” or “Both of us can’t have the Ring of Wisdom, a challenge then!”. Simple stuff like that defeat his point.

“But the thing that we kept coming back to was that PvP game play just doesn't fit our idea of D&D, either in a PnP format or a massively-multiplayer format.”

No player conflict in your idea of D&D? What edition are you playing, Carebear 2.0?

DDO had tremendous amounts of potential and Turbine blew it. Is the game going to be good? Yeah maybe, but it could have been so much better.

Shut Up And Fight

What is maturity?

2004-10-15T18:49:00.000-04:00

Webster’s defines Mature as

Suitable or intended for adults: mature subject matter.
Composed of adults: a mature audience.

Maturity is the act of becoming mature

So what does this mean? Well first we need to address the misconception of what being mature is. Some less intelligent people would have you to believe that being mature means not using any “bad words”, being consistently politically correct, and that a certain minimum age is required. All of these are of course false. I put bad words in parenthesis because as I have shown already no such thing as bad words. A word is simply a word. You can read the article that addresses the ridiculous concept of “bad words” here.

Being politically correct is often an excuse to make up for someone else failures or shortcomings. In our current day we can’t readily state that a certain act or style is wrong. So instead we must put on the happy face and pretend as if it is ok. The last thing I mentioned is age. Speaking for myself, I was more intelligent and capable at the age of 16 than most are at the age of 26. Age is an irrelevancy. The only thing your age displays is how long you have existed in your current form while on a giant rock that is orbiting a star. Not a very good estimation of the mental development of an individual. As anyone can attest to there are people over the age of 40 who are useless in society and have the intelligence of a doorknob. While at the same time there are people under 20 years who are very productive and quite intelligent.

So where the hell am I going with all this. Glad you asked. You see people see someone who uses “bad words” and might consider them immature or in online instance like a game or forum, they would accuse them of being a child. This is the antithesis of what maturity really is. In fact the person who is using the so-called “bad words” is actually more mature than the other person making the accusations of immaturity. Being mature means being able to see any visual, hear any sound, or use any words without becoming offended. It is that person who can see hear and do all these things and not be affected by some trivial and ridiculous mentality that certain words are “bad”.

Here is an example proving my point. A child who hears a “bad word” will have a large reaction upon hearing it. The child will make a big deal about it. They see it as being wrong. Enter a mature adult who hears the same words being used. That mature adult knows that they are only words. He knows hat they have no substance and cannot inflict actual physical harm upon him. The same reasoning can be used with name-calling. A child or immature person will become offended by someone calling them names. That immature person is unable to differentiate between things that are capable of doing actual harm and things that cannot. The mature person realizes that the insults are generally not true, they have no substance and as such cannot inflict any real harm to the mature person. The mature person then shrugs it off as nothing because after the words have passed all that remains is how you let them affect you and for a mature person they have no effect and as such nothing remains.

In my articles I do not pull any punches. I will always call it as I see it. I will use adjectives that others perceive as “bad”. I will not cater my articles to the trivial ideals of immature people who allow intangible words to affect their weak minds.

After reading this should you come to the conclusion that you believe in such a thing as “bad words”. If you find that you are offended by those “bad words”. Then you are immature and weak minded. My articles will offer nothing beyond upsetting your sad pathetic weak little mind.

For the rest of you, enjoy.

"Bad Words"

2004-10-15T18:44:00.000-04:00

It is the difference between apples and oranges. Certain ones are considered ok while others are not. Some are heard millions of times a day and no response is given beyond acknowledgement. While still others are received with a sort of revulsion, even when only sparsely used. What is it that causes this differentiation? What makes a word good or bad?

It is really quite simple. There is no such thing as good or bad words. If someone commits an act of violence with a car do we then claim that all cars are bad? Do we instead only label the specific make and model of the car used in the crime as bad? The car is not bad, neither is a gun, a knife, or a spoken word. The person behind the implement of their choosing can be bad, but not the inanimate or even intangible weapon of their aggression.

Words are intangible; they cannot inflict any harm upon you unless you let them. For a young child an insult can be severely damaging. The child has not learned to deal with what they perceive to be very harmful words. As the get older and mature, they will come to realize that they were just words. Nothing more. The insults were probably not even true. Letting someone else hurt you with mere words is a sign of weak mindedness for anyone over the age of 10.

Compounding this is the belief that certain words are bad simply by being spoken, regardless of the context in which they are used. It may not be used in aggression at all. The mere utterance of these bad words causes some to react irrationally. It shows a slow or weak mind in the person that takes offense to a mere word. The word is intangible. It cannot harm you unless you allow it to.

What about certain hate orientated bad words like nigger or cracker? A black person may take great offense to hearing someone call them a nigger. As for me, you can insult me all day long using every insult there is. Call me a honkie, a cracker, what ever you want. It won’t affect me. I am stronger than that. I don’t let it harm me. In the end it is still just a word.

When a word is spoken it only will exist for a few seconds in real time and it will exist in your mind for only as long as you want it to. If you should choose to dwell on it, allow it to affect you then that it your choice.

You will be a weak-minded fool for it though.

City of Heroes Toggle Manager Spreadsheet

2004-10-13T16:04:00.000-04:00

I finished version 1.3 of my toggle manager. I think its a pretty big improvement over 1.2 version. For some reason it sill doesn't look quite right to me though. I would like to see some comments and suggestions about it.

Considering that I have never played CoH, I think I have already starting contributing to the CoH community in a positive way. Despite most of the VN boards hating my guts. I'm not overly concerned with how other see me though. Couldn't care less to be honest. I made the sheet to help in my own character creation and development but if it helps others then why not distribute it.

I would like to thank Waggler of Ears on VN for making a post on the official CoH boards. I've been reading the official boards for a while but never could post since I don't have a CoH account. I wanted to put my spreadsheet on the official toggle cost thread but needed someone to make the post for me. Despite my less than perfect reputation on VN Waggler did the post. So not only am I grateful but anyone who uses it and gets benefit should be as well.

Toggle Manager 1.3

Shut Up And Fight

Feedback

2004-10-13T11:26:00.000-04:00

I decided to enable comments on all my posts. Any and all constructive comments are welcome. If you choose to make an idiotic comment, spam or flames. I will of course delete it. If you fill your comment with nothing but carebear tripe. I will also delete it.

If you would like to see a topic addressed or if you would like to write your own article. Feel free to email it to me at XiDraBlog@yahoo.com

Shut Up And Fight

Welcome To Shut Up And Fight!

2004-10-12T11:44:00.000-04:00

Hello to everyone. Since this is my first post I am going to give a basic outline of who the hell I am and what kind of topics will be discussed on my Blog.

I go by the handle Xi'Dra. I am 23 years old and enlisted in the US Army. I have been playing games since 1984 and MMORPGs for the last 8 years. I consider myself an avid power gamer. I play a wide variety of games but primarily play MMOs. I am very much into Player Vs Player conflict. AI is just not a challenge. Nothing in gaming is better than knowing you just owned someone. I am a very blunt person. I believe that tact is useless and time consuming. Just say what you got to say. No point is dancing around the subject, if something is screwed up then say its screwed up.

What is the reason behind the name? Shut up and fight basically addresses all the carebears and scrubs that play online games. People that complain about griefing, harrassment, "cheapness" and a rediculous sense of honor. The masses of whiners who get thier ass kicked in online games and expect the rules to change so they can win, instead of actually practicing at the game. Heaven forfend right? Shut up and fight is what most Player Killers are thinking when they are in combat with someone who is complaining about cheap tactics, honor, and other moronic ideals. Just shut up and fight. I understand that some might try to be cute and say "Well Xi'Dra aren't you just whining about the whiners? *snort* *snort* " First, Get bent. Second, I more consider it putting the carebears in thier place. If thats not good enough then refer to part one as many times as necessary for you to shut up.

Most of the posts I make on this Blog will be game related. They will be about the gaming community, development and new releases. There will be alot of PvP articles as that is one of my favorite aspects of gaming. However on occasion when something happens in the world that gets me worked up to the point where I want to rant you can expect to see some non gaming articles to appear from time to time.

I will try to add some new posts in the next few days.

Shut Up And Fight