Sacosphilz

Thanks for your feedback. Just for reference, my latest result is: White = -6 Blue = 299 Black = -171 Red = -116 Green = -6 I took it again right away and my positive values broke 350, not a good sign. >_> You can try taking it again if you have time. I'm sure the results will change for most people, but they won't change much. @Lulu: Oh, so they're called 'adverbs of frequency', thanks. Now that I've read and taken the test again, I think removing some of those words might be better. Also in need of revision are words like 'every', 'any', 'no', 'all', etc. I guess another change is called for. Those 25 or so articles may not be so interesting to write. >_> I have more fun when I can compare different philosophies in the same context, seeing what they have in common, where they conflict, etc. The problematic scenario that occurred when I tried to write a separate article for each philosophy was like: - I began drafting the structure for each article. - I drafted 1-2 articles and left them for review later. - I drafted a few more articles, found myself unhappy with the format and had to rework the older ones again, so they're never finished. So I'm thinking - What if instead of writing the article for each color or color combination separately, how about one article for each aspect of ALL philosophies? So far I've only detailed the colors' values and ideals, but many parts are still missing, to name a few: - The colors' preferred methods for achieving their goals. - The colors' strengths and weaknesses. (People's own weaknesses are the hardest thing to accept, and if the test tries to tell it to their faces, it can provoke negative feedbacks. But that is also the reason I find it one of the more interesting parts. I would consider this test a success only if it can also nail down people's weaknesses accurately and make them accept.) - For the two- or three- color combinations, why do I think they exclusively share the values I say they do and why the other colors don't? @Glaistig: The 90-question version isn't as refined as this one. It's more like a less pruned version with yet-to-be-dropped quotes included. It also requires almost twice the effort for relatively the same results, so I would rather not bother with it again. There isn't much difference between a value being positive or negative, really. Those numbers are arbitrary anyway - earlier versions have all the numbers in the positive, for example. But since I wanted to create a referencing point of balance, the graph has been changed to the current version instead. The most important features of the results are: 1. What colors come 1st, 2nd, 3nd, 4th and 5th. 2. How far apart they are, compared among themselves and compared to other people of interest. For instance, with the result you posted earlier, Blue and Green obviously were first and second, but since Red and White were quite close, I would imply that the outlooks of Blue-Green-Red and Green-White-Blue are equally agreeable to you. As for the sections that haven't been expanded enough yet, which one do you think I should work on first? My ideas for now are as mentioned in the reply to Lulu. And yes, the characteristics will be included too.

No, don't flatter me. I don't feel comfortable with too much flattery. They come with the undesired byproduct known as high expectations. It used to be on purpose. Now it's automatic. Thanks for the revelation.

Ugh, the weight of responsibility...... >_>; It's not that the second part isn't completed yet, but there was barely any progress to it, only failed attempts. Maybe I should just wing it and compile later? Maybe it should just be left open for discussion and never fully concluded like my theory was absolute truth when it really isn't. Let me put the simpler things out of the way first: (this might end up way longer than I expect) (EDIT: right, it did) 1. If you can go through the trouble of reading all those articles and you either understand the heavy references to the game or you can grasp the other concepts past those references, you will pretty much understand what the colors represent. Whatever explanations I give won't be contradicting much with those articles, if any at all. But hopefully I could add something to it. 2. Here is how I usually read the test results: (From this point on, I mainly use my own presumptions to analyze. I have absolutely no proof about the reliability of my method should you question it, but I felt it was quite right and people were saying it was quite accurate, so why not? ) 2.1. I first look at the 5 values individually without combining them. Each of these represent how you prioritize the 5 'ideals' of the 5 colors: White - Peace (for everyone to be able to live in peace) Blue - Omniscience (to know everything) Black - Omnipotence (the power to do everything) Red - Freedom (for everyone to be able to express themselves unrestricted) Green - Nature (to preserve nature, life, and to maintain the status quo) 2.2. Then I look at the two highest values. They represent your priority of what I nickname 'secondary values'. While they're not your highest ideal, they're usually less abstract and much more attainable, concepts which guide your actions or the tools that help you do so: White/Blue - Structure, Organization Blue/Black - Secrecy, Deception, Manipulation Black/Red - Individuality (one decides for oneself), Hedonism (having fun) Red/Green - Simplicity (dirt simple), Spontaneity (following one's impulses) Green/White - Community, Cooperation, Interdependence White/Black - Pride, "Always means business" Blue/Red - Creativity, Freethinking Black/Green - Survival of the Fittest, Personal growth Red/White - Justice, Righteousness Green/Blue - Potential realization, Neutrality in perspective 2.3. Finally I look at the three highest values. They're usually too vague to represent tight concepts, but they can tell a bit about your outlook of the world: (These are a bit longer than the previous two sections because they can't be found anywhere else. For the other two sections, please help yourself with MaRo's articles for now. >_> ) Green/White/Blue - Believes in harmony. Believes that everything has something to be appreciated and they can all fit together somehow without anything being left out. Hates discord brought about by Black and Red. White/Blue/Black - Believes in subtlety. Believes that the best way to accomplish things is to plan and talk it over in civilized manner and bend the deal in your favor. Hates Red's and Green's wild, barbaric and unnegotiable nature. Blue/Black/Red - Believes in one's own excellence. Is out there to show the world that it's different and better than everyone else, to show who's the boss. Hates Green's and White's tendency to destroy individuality and force everyone into conformity. Black/Red/Green - Believes in one's own liberty. Believes that everyone should be left on their own accord and make their own choices, no matter what those choices are. Hates White and Blue for trying to put restrictions on everything. Red/Green/White - Believes in honesty. Believes that everything is more easily managed when all facts are made clear. Hates Blue and Black for their deceptions and lies. White/Black/Red - Believes in the power of conviction. Will not give up if it sets a target on something and will do everything imaginable and more to achieve its goals. Hates Green's and Blue's indifferent nature. Blue/Red/Green - Believes in the joy of living life. Believes that the best goal in life is just to live it and treasure the experience, discoveries and/or memories, without tying oneself down with any rigid agenda. Hates White's and Black's way of being too serious and losing their souls in their 'businesses'. Black/Green/White - Believes in life's purpose. Believes that it was born to fulfill an important role or mission and will not yield until that role or mission has been completed. Hates Blue and Red for experimenting and playing around too much without settling for any real goal in particular. Red/White/Blue - Believes in a better world. Optimistically believes that what it does can make the world a better place somehow, no matter if it really has a plan or not. Hates Black and Green for refusing to change the world but exploiting it further. Green/Blue/Black - Believes in self-improvement. Has a disillusioned perspective of the world and sees it as a cruel place in which one should stay strong and smart in order to improve the chance of survival. Hates Red and White for disrupting everything with their false sense of 'freedom', 'justice' and 'righteousness'. (Up to this point I've just touched the tip of the iceberg. Did you see the potential for 25 more articles? I do, and I'm despairing over it now. >_<" ) I'll leave the 'description' of the colors and color combinations at this for today. Let me know which part you want to hear more of. Better yet, let me know if you wish to help. >_<; Other tidbits: 3. While the graph's scale may extend quite high (and low), most people won't get such extreme scores. One of the things I do is summing up all positive scores (or all negative scores - they all add up to zero if you haven't realized already) and look at its absolute value. Here's my rough categorization: (subject to possible major changes later) 0 to 50 - You're normal. Period. Too normal, in fact, that I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you. You can blend in with most people of any nature, and any of the colors' philosophies will sound agreeable and to you and kind of works for you, though none may hit the spot. 50 to 100 - You have a slight character. People still don't see anything special about your priorities, but you do have some of them set. 100 to 200 - You have some character. You display some qualities (other than your looks, performance, grades, wealth) that make you stand out a bit. People still regard you as perfectly sane and normal, but with a slight but distinctly interesting and/or annoying personality (depending on their preferences). At this level, the 'philosophies' of you colors will likely click to you, while some others start to seem questionable. 200 to 350 - Strong character. You and other people both notice the difference in your distinct attitude and theirs. You take your colors' philosophies (or a similar version) to heart and live it. 350 to 500 - Pretty extreme. You may often get into conflict with other people because of your character. 500 or more - You're probably insane, an avatar of extreme ideal(s). >_>; (I tried putting on fictional characters' mindsets and took the test as well, and it was fun experiment. For example, Kamina got about +500 on the Red scale. No, I don't have a point in particular. Just wanted to make that reference. >_> ) 4. It was fun working on the 'first half' of this test, and I must've edited the 'messages' at least a few dozen times already. The funny thing is, sometimes I came across new realizations on some particular color combination or I though I had found serious flaws and my list of 'messages' and promptly corrected and re-tested it, only to discover that the test results never seemed to change in any significant manner at all. Never. 5. During the first tryouts of the test among my friends and acquaintances, I found that most of them scored highest in Red and Green, and it seemed like I was the only one in Blue. For MagicDuel community, however, I expect the majority of us to be in Blue, but we shall see...... @Lulu: Thanks for finding the error(s). I do notice the problems with frequency words such as 'always', 'never', 'usually' but I really don't know what to do with them. I did try to take them out whenever possible because I knew it might screw up with the scoring otherwise, but some lines just sound better or more right with them in. Since most people seem to get it and learn to look pass those words anyway I don't worry much about them. (with the exception of one of my friends who literally only gave 0's and 5's) But if you have any suggestions on how to make them better, please let me know.

Before you go download the attachment right away, here's some background: (Ok, a lot of background) Enclosed in the zip file is an excel file which contains only the first half of the "questionnaire" - the questions and the resulting graph which tells you the composition of your "colors". The second half - which should contain detailed explanations - is currently non-existent except in my head, so I'm sorry for any confusion it may cause, and please don't expect it to be completed soon. But if you all keep bugging me to work on it, and possibly with some help, it should finish... eventually. If you can't open an excel file, please let me know so I'll post a plain text version. However, a plain text version would have no calculations built in and you will have to send the filled out text file back to me for analysis. Now what is this "color test" all about? If you don't already know Magic: The Gathering (MTG for short) is, please look it up because I don't want to advertise for it here. Anyway, you don't really need to know the game to understand this questionnaire, but it helps a lot. MTG categorizes the forces in its many universes into 5 colors: White, Blue, Black, Red, Green. Each color has its ideal, values and characteristics different from 4 others', and has its unique set of strengths and weaknesses. I personally like the concepts of these "colors", especially their outlook on the world, their values, and how they naturally support or conflict with each other. Mark Rosewater, currently Head Designer of the game, has written great articles on the philosophies of each color and each of the 10 possible 2-color combinations. The last of those series and the links to the other 14 articles can be found >here<. For a quicker look at how the colors oppose each other, read >here<. I love those articles, especially the ones on each of the 5 colors, but I felt there was something missing from the articles: 1. While his articles give very good explanation about the colors' philosophies, they openly make references to the game, which is fine for regular readers of that site, but I feel that those philosophies are interesting enough to be used in real world context as well. Those references also alienate non-MTG players from grasping the concepts which, in my opinion, are too cool to pass. 2. In his 10 articles on the two-color combinations, he mainly focused on what each two colors combined could mean without going into much detail, but I also want to know in more detail what the intersection of each two colors mean. The same is true for intersections in 3-color combinations, which never got their own articles at all. In a way, I wanted to rewrite those articles and try to apply them in the real world, but I am in no way close to a good writer that he is, so I just settled with this questionnaire for now, with the following assumptions: - Each (sane) person is composed of all 5 colors, but with different amounts of them, representing our different priorities. - Not only your primary color can tell what you're like. I believe that the 2nd and 3rd colors, as well as any variation in your color composition, matter. But for now, I'll focus on what each possible combination of dominant 1-, 2- or 3- colors mean. The "messages" in the "test" comes from various places. Some are classic or famous quotes. Some are excerpts from people and places I've come across. (which I couldn't remember, shame on me) Some are personally crafted by me. While I try to make them all sound convincing, there is no right or wrong way to judge them. Just give the scores according to how you think or feel. There would be longer explanations but this is already long enough. Thank you if you've read it this far. If there are any more questions please ask away. I'm sure there will be. Disclaimer: - Results' explanations currently not available. They may or may not be given and/or compiled later at my own whim. (But hopefully I'll work on it. ) So unless you have a pretty good idea what these colors represent, you may be left confused and unsatisfied. Please channel your frustration to good use, like forcing me to work on those explanations. - May contain difficult and/or broken English. Simple English version may be provided later on request, but not promised. - Due to lack of test subjects, result accuracy is currently guaranteed for only straight male test takers. EDIT: A new version has been posted >here< colortest_v10_locked.zip

Aww...... Glai, why so bitter? I know all of this because of your help as well, and I still owe you the explanations to help you understand these related game mechanics

Heh, my guess hasn't been confirmed yet. I could be wrong, you know?

Yes..... that should be 1 Tree, 1 or more Archer, and 1 or more Grasan. My guess is 1 Tree, 2 Archers, and 1 Grasan. B)

Wow, thanks a lot, people. I think I have some will to work on it again, sorta. Currently I'm dusting up my old Excel and making some adjustments, so I could share it here. Be warned though, that as I stated before, only the questions and calculations are available, but not the result summaries. They might just leaving you wondering even more what the five numbers you will get mean. I still have to figure out how I'm going to get up from this hole after that.

Does this remind us of a few things?

About two years ago I started a little personal project inspired by MTG's Ravnica set - a questionnaire to find out people's color alignment in a very comprehensive manner. The effort went rigorously for a while, but there were a few problems: 1. While test results showed that the questionnaire was very accurate and detailed that it made WotC's official simple one looks like a joke, the joke's actually on me - I couldn't find many people who are willing to read through 50 philosophical lines of text and give 50 scores. (One version of it had 90 lines, and it had been scrapped very quickly.) I was disheartened, but I might have more hope in the quality of MagicDuel community. 2. Although I can give a pretty good explanations about what each different result means off the top of my head, I am too lazy to write them all down in nicely organized articles. According to my plans, they would consist of at least 25 articles, and I couldn't decide on the right format which would fit them all, much less writing them. 3. Some other minor and trivial issues, like how I would publish it in a format other than Excel, or if I had to start writing a website/blog just for it, or if someone will ask for proof of the questionnaire's integrity when I just wanted to do it for fun, or if WotC is going to sue me, etc. which only made me lazier. (Long story short, I am lazy. >_>; ) To this day the project is still on hiatus. All I want to ask is: If you're interested and want to have a taste of it or want to see it comes to fruition, please let me know and keep bugging me about it. Thanks. Thank you for reading. (I wrote that in depressed mode but it got better, so don't worry about me or flame me for it. ^-^; ) By the way, my primary color was blue, with green and white virtually tied at 2nd an 3rd.

I think they're just discussing the fact that since Glaistig is half-human, half-goat, she's a satire...... Um, I mean satyr...... yeah.

I think this would be an interesting addition to strategy IF the balance system is already working properly as intended. However, as it stands, this offers very little in solving the balance system's issues because 1. It is still not practical for everyone to stay close to balance. 2. The incentive to stay imbalanced still far outweighs the incentive to stay balanced. Until the issues with the system are solved first, this suggestion would just change the usefulness of some creatures. It would add some strategic depth to the game, but it would not offer any means for players to execute those strategies. EDIT: This idea reminds me of when I first started the game and acquired my first creatures: The Aramor's (and later Heretic Archer's) description hint at the possibility that some creatures might be more or less willing to serve you depending on your "alignment". For example, I have the impression that Aramors and Elementals are willing to serve anyone regardless of their temperaments. Barren Souls and Trees might be unwilling to serve advocates of darkness, while Heretic Archers might favor the warmongers, etc. I think there is a possibility that we might see the game develops in this direction (but we'd first need more creature choices), but it will probably tie to more than the honor system.

I could be wrong, but as far as this anime freak knows, there are a dozen different characters that can be pronounced Ren, and it can be a boy's or a girl's name. I've seen both. And it's "rei" that means zero, not "ren".

I see your point now. I have to admit that for a lot of players, they only have to rely on the forums to express their questions and be heard, and I have nothing against that, but I have an issue against posting too much spoilers in the forums, with the reasons stated earlier. I can't offer much advice other than asking around, in the game, in the forums, via PMs, etc. It's not like I know a lot of what's going on behind the scene either, but I do have my little share of secrets, and I have my own way of keeping or spilling it. About that underground gazebo, nice observation. Have you noticed as well? I get the chills every time I see Ren being called by that name, much more so when he seems to like it. He has no idea......

Faraday, I understand your curiosity, but there is a point to leaving these information out of the forums and leaving the players to do their own discoveries - to keep the game interesting. Imagine if all the 'Legends' were detailed out here in the open, including updates of current events, leaving you nothing more to figure out and only a few things to speculate further, could they still be considered 'Legends'? Would they be any interesting? If a new player with a curiosity like ours were to join this game and found the forums full of all the information he'll ever want, what would the game experience be like for him? If the stories are interesting, he might have to spend a few weeks reading through all of them to keep up, but then what? When nothing is secret, knowing everything would not make him special - he would have merely passed the prerequisite for joining the game. There is no further challenge but to do what everyone else has already achieved. If that was me, I would quit right then and there. But this game is not like that. MagicDuel lets you know only the least you need to know when you begin, then it purposefully leaves you in the dark ( ) so that you may find the fun of discovery by yourself. And since no one sees the whole picture, there is a chance that you might be the first to discover something not known to anyone else before, a chance for you to be special to the game.

While I do find the process of viewing info of multiple creatures a bit slow, it's not totally unbearable, but with a slow connection it can indeed be a pain. I agree with Manu that a pair of Next/Previous buttons would only serve to facilitate one situation and is not worth the trouble. However, I think there's a different way that might save the serverload. The current problem is that each time you want to move from one creature info page to another, two pages have to be loaded - the main creatures page and the individual creature's info page. So it might save some serverload if the creature info page is changed to load separately from the main creature page, in other words, when a player is browsing his creatures page, let the main creature page remain static, and each time he clicks to view a single creature's information, change it so that the information page loads on a different frame/window/layer, retaining the main creatures page and eliminating the need to reload it.

Which xp values are you referring to? There is the total creature xp (available by clicking on player names in the navigation page) and the 'real' total xp (available in the MD Shop page). The game only looks at the latter value when determining xp limits and advancing MP levels. I agree that the xp limit is quite low compared to the target number of wins for MP3, even if you haven't learned a lot about the game and just fooling around. However, I don't agree that you get punished because you've learned too much. You might get punished for having learned some, but if you have really learned about all there is to know, you will know how to play best in this situation without frustrating yourself.

Sounds like your problem is that your battle reports load very slowly and you have problem viewing them all before going 'idle'. Here's a method I know to help with this problem a bit: 1. No need to read the whole report right after you attack. You can close it right away and you won't miss anything. 2. Open the battle logs page and then open a report you wish to read in a different window or in a different tab, and just let the fight progress, even if you can't read them fast enough. If you click on the link to view the summary page before the first page finishes loading, it will stop loading, so you should just wait until it ends (saying how much xp each creature gains and all that) 3. Go back to your main game page and play or do something to kill time while your battle report loads, in order not to go idle. 4. After the battle report finishes loading... 4.1. Go to the summary page 4.2. Use 'Select All' command or press Ctrl+A, then 'Copy' or Ctrl+C 4.3. Open Notepad or a text program and Paste (Ctrl+V) the whole thing into it. The creature actions which were too fast to read will also be there. 5. Read, and take what you can. I'm not sure what to do when Healing actions make the reports stop loading though. I've never had that exact same problem, but I've noticed that certain actions make the reports load more slowly, they might be due to the same cause.

Sorry to trouble you again, Ren, but it still isn't working for me...

Thailand (GMT+7) Come on, my fellow Asians.

I too was born in a Buddhist country and was taught its concepts. I could be mistaken about a few things, but here is how I understand it: The concept of reincarnation didn't originally exist in Buddhism when the religion first emerged. However, it was later included in order to make it more popular among the locals who used to hold their beliefs in Hinduism, the origin of the concept of reincarnation. The concept plays well into Buddhism's teaching of causes and effects, so the inclusion felt natural. As far as I know, this happened during the early ages of Buddhism, so the reincarnation concept probably exists in most or every branch of Buddhism now. The general idea about karma and reincarnation is that you have to pay for your actions, whether they are good or bad deeds. (Sometimes the law says threefold or tenfold, etc.) So for example, if you eat beef, you'll have to be reborn as cattle and get eaten. If you swat a mosquito, you'll have to be reborn as one and get swatted. Etc. The 'repercussions' can also happen later in the current life, e.g. if you punch someone in the face you'll get hit back similarly later in your life, maybe right then and there or much later, or even in your next life. Some teachings of the laws of karma don't go into such specifics, while others go into gory details with the complexity akin to tax laws. Personally, I don't buy into the specifics of the concept. I see it as a ploy to get people to do good deeds and avoid evil, with a simple set of rules that doesn't require a gifted mind to understand. It's a noble ploy, but the concept shouldn't be taken too literally or it will become misleading. Buddhism also speaks of the three great truths which is the governing nature of the universe. One of the three is that nothing in this universe is certain, and I personally believe this to be the most true of all. So if nothing is certain, who is to say that the karma-enforcing mechanism of the universe should be so? Note that I am in no way bashing Buddhism here. I have learned a lot from it and it is still the religion I like the most. However, almost every religion has its flaws. Most religions have grand concepts, breathtaking tales and elegant rites to attract, please, teach and control their followers, and that is understandable, but those facades are not the cores of the religions and are often full of contradictions. The more awesome the tale, the more plot holes it contains. If you have a learned mind to question a certain aspect of a religion's teaching, then go further and try to understand what it is that the religion really wants to teach you. You might come to see that the different religions are all very similar in their essence, but with different schemes to decorate and mask their real cores.

WINNER 0% vs 0% Combat details (under construction). 'A' is you, 'E' is enemy Honor reward for this battle: 276 Loyalty reward for this battle: 0 Enemy was penalised with 5 honor for loosing this fight *** todo help after fight Casualties: Enemy:0%, You:0% heat You: 4075, Enemy: 0 logsize:2951 usevitality:0 strategy:280564 looser:E actionnr:120 rounds:12 E lost: -356800vit; A lost: vit; Array ( [vars] => Array ( [statsVp] => -356802 [statsXpl] => 0 [statsAct] => 0 ) [character] => Array ( [regeneration] => 0 [energeticimmun] => 0 [tradesense] => 0 [briskness] => 0 [initiative] => 0 [defence] => 0 [attack] => 0 ) [something] => 1 ) ... ... ... Sacosphilz WINS! 0% vs 0% Creature Experience reward for Sacosphilz - Winning player Grasan Huvourer gaines -118933 Xp and a won battle Grasan Huvourer gaines -118933 Xp and a won battle Grasan Huvourer gaines -118933 Xp and a won battle Creature Experience reward for dst - Losing player No creatures survived the fight for this player, no xp reward Winner does not get a won fight point. Looser does not get a lost fight point. Thanks to dst for the testing of my theory, and the execution. I didn't remember the exact number, but here's my (backward calculated) player xp before and after the battle: Before: 13072541 After: 12002141

?

In my opinion, nothing is a truly repeating cycle, because no iteration is really identical to the next. When a 'cycle' repeats itself, not everything stays the same. Places may change, characters may change, other circumstances may change, temporal location most certainly changes, but there must be some things in a chain of reoccurring events which do not differ. Even if an object repeats its movement in the same pattern (e.g. a circle) for all eternity, each iteration is still different because it happens at a different time from others. The spatial movement trail may be a perfect circle for all we care, but if we include the temporal axis, the trail of movement appears as a spiral. On the other hand, if we take any chain of repeating events and exclude the non-cyclic patterns from our planes of observation, the chain can also be seen as cycles, though not as 'rich' as chains with less non-cyclic elements. Since no 'perfect cycles' exist, I don't think the Principle of Cyclicity only refers to such cycles. Anything which appears as repeating events with consistent elements through multiple iterations can be considered a 'cycle'. Life is, under this point of view, most certainly a cycle, because it keeps repeating itself between states of Life and Death, but with different elements, times and places. Sometimes the physical elements of life regroups into another life, making the cycles seem more connected. The concept of reincarnation also speaks of a more connected kind of cycles of life where the souls stay intact through episodes of lives. Depending on what you believe in, you might see the cycles of life with more or less persisting elements than the next person, but it is definitely a cycle. Cycles are powerful because they have a tendency to repeat themselves, though I would not argue whether they repeat because their cyclic nature is the cause or because external retaining forces have always been at work. Since no cycles are self-perfect, each iteration always gives off a positive or negative byproduct to its surroundings. Thus the Principle of Cyclicity is, in my opinion, about understanding the nature of cycles in general and each cycle in our perceived universe, including their effects on the universe, how they might be maintained, reinforced, exploited, empowered, diminished or broken. </random rant>