Intrigue

I'll give you the example that hit me today (and from where the whole idea came - No one's post was just the incentive to spill it out - and he also pointed me the link)
magicduel.com/member.php?p=Laphers
 
His Exploring MD thingy. That is what I consider research. How to beat the Loreroot Guards is knowledge imo.
 
Research = bunch of observations and ideas drawn from those observations
Knowledge = facts
 
So I would say that your info Maeb is research.

I can want more ppl in MD but that will never happen because I want to.
Instead I want something that I feel that is missing :
 - more resource location ; I want the ability to "plant" and "grow/increase max value" for resource and I am willing to spend my "fortune" of resources for it.
 - more "permanent" tools ; I know that if ppl would hold a tool in their inventory or if they could hold one that would not disappear every week, they would gather. I want ppl to be able to trade their resources for permanent tools
 - more useful items ; I know that it may be difficult to create the recipes or to find purposes for new items, we need to be able to create & approve & implement recipes faster
 - more flexibility; ppl need to exchange items / resources / creatures in a more dynamic way.
 
 
All in all, ppl need goals, ppl need to create & build stuff and/or experience an adventure, it is in our human nature.
 
 
I am willing to start from 0 (zero) with stats & skills & resources  (no not with creatures :P ) for those abilities to be implemented in MD . It will not matter anymore if all is failing and would disappear in a few years .

Akshan, if you are too lazy to try then be also lazy to mention it. I don't think 3 blades would make a difference anyway
 
yes..doing it slowly requires skill, a skill that can be perfected ... but the actual skill is to sharpen beyond what is normally considered "very sharp"
 
my chrome-vanadium blade gave up eventually :))..who thought a cig could become such a hassle to cut clean. I managed to cut a pencil clean but a cig..its harder :))
 
I picked the winner for now... but i am leaving this topic open till last moment maybe someone does the trick
 
I will help you a bit. a 45deg angle, clean cut till 99% of the cig, then a twist perpendicular on the remaining paper... that does the trick with a razor. Holding the cig vertically also helps, or hold it horizontally but cut from below ..this adds the weight of the cut part to help you cut clean. A rotation move (as i already saw) does the trick if the blade is ultra hollow ground or does not have an angle change. Commercially you will not find any blade sharpened like that, unless very expensive ones that are actually beveled...but its easy to achieve that shape within one day of grinding a blade manually, or a couple of minutes of doing it with an electric tool.
 
For your curiosity, get an old type of razor blade, the big one, is still available to buy at very very cheap prices in malls, or disassamble a 'modern' single use shaving..thing (not sure how its called)... try with that. It will not be valid for this contest, but its for your curiosity to see if you lack the skill or the blade ;)
 
 
 
There are two points in this challenge, one or the other are fine for me. Either learn to sharpen a blade, or learn to use it for delicate stuff.
 
I must say i am not satisfied with the results, but i am satisfied with the amount of effort you put in trying it, in making a movie, and in trying over and over again

:)
 
"soon" is best answer indeed ..
 
its been two years indeed, my past two years where like a marathon, and was NOT work related, in fact, i consider working such a bliss now, like vacation :))
 
I am trying to keep a presence, i am not ignoring MD if that is how it looks like... when i will "return" i will focus on development, but as a player...idk.. "not soon".
 
You are all lucky there is a wookie arround... seriously... md would have been dead by now without him, so stop asking about me and appreciate those arround that do all that they can to be 'alive', not like me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WrbUjRSYA&feature=youtu.be
 
Well, here we go. Tried a good Kiwi kitchen knife (the favorite in my knife drawer), a smaller Korean knife, and a big ol' monster of a knife (some Chinese brand i'm not familiar with from the asian grocer). Nearly got it with the Kiwi, so I'm going to try to finish out the edge a bit more, or improve my technique, one of the two.

for sir blut...http://storenow.net/my/?f=17e1b8b047b0a06381d9a812988fd2f3

Follow me, child, the road is long,
The night seems dark and silent.
And while you walk mumble a song...
For silence makes me violent. 
 
A man once said I'm made of gold, 
His words came like a flood...
I longed to trust in what he told,
But my gold's stained with blood. 
 
So count your steps and follow, child..
For the monsters count them too...
And when I'll welcome death's embrace,
Remember...our only hope is you. 

that second video is the most unexpected way i saw :)) ...sadly no, its not what i had in mind, but i admire the ingenuity :))
 
The first video is what i had in mind, but, sadly the last part is not clean cut
 
 
this is vlid for everybody, don't be shy to post also stranger or more original ways you discovered,...i am looking for a certain thing, but, i might reward somehow also the impressive attempts
 
(ps: Don't try filming slow motion or altering the cig content to better support the slow cut...thats not original but simply rude attempt to cheat, so don;t go that way)

Updated attempts, this time slowly instead of hacking at it. Just to reiterate the last post i made,  this is probably NOT what you had in mind when you said a slow cut since the cigg is not stationary at all, and if so, no worries. Thought I'd just throw it out there anyway just in case it would work as well.
 
First vid is kind of slow at an angle and then the other way I tried to do it from the other day. Neither cut is clean (both have tears).
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5soNJUiHzQ
 
Second vid is another slow with having the cigg spin across the blade, cut was clean so far as the paper, but it looks like the blade didn't reach deep enough to cut the tobacco fully.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ_laLRHmbg
 
And, the last one was the same technique, with more force, which just resulted in bending the cigg right past the filter, and still didn't cut through the tobacco (big twig right there instead of a leaf).
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaRe4Z44UVQ
 
In case this is in fact very wrong, I'm going to keep trying to do the slow angle thing, since i got most of the way through, but the very last part is so tricky! I get down to maybe 3 mm of paper left, and it tears every time :(

Updated attempts, this time slowly instead of hacking at it. Just to reiterate the last post i made,  this is probably NOT what you had in mind when you said a slow cut since the cigg is not stationary at all, and if so, no worries. Thought I'd just throw it out there anyway just in case it would work as well.
 
First vid is kind of slow at an angle and then the other way I tried to do it from the other day. Neither cut is clean (both have tears).
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5soNJUiHzQ
 
Second vid is another slow with having the cigg spin across the blade, cut was clean so far as the paper, but it looks like the blade didn't reach deep enough to cut the tobacco fully.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ_laLRHmbg
 
And, the last one was the same technique, with more force, which just resulted in bending the cigg right past the filter, and still didn't cut through the tobacco (big twig right there instead of a leaf).
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaRe4Z44UVQ
 
In case this is in fact very wrong, I'm going to keep trying to do the slow angle thing, since i got most of the way through, but the very last part is so tricky! I get down to maybe 3 mm of paper left, and it tears every time :(

UPDATE:
i managed to open yoshis videos too
 
 
from what i see now, you all used the fast method...the cleanest cut i saw so far is from Azull, Intrigue and Yoshi achieved similar results..with the very important mention that Yoshi put considerable effort in sharpening the blade (at least from i can tell in the video, Intrigue used already sharpened knives, correct me if not so)
 
I want to see a slow clear cut... but if nobody does it i will select a winner from current entries.
 
I've managed to do it with a shaving blade and a razor, just to test if its possible. There is a little catch to it...especially at the end where there is nothing to hold against the cut cig part that will not cut off completely....unless... (i let you discover unless what)
 
I admit i failed to do it till now with a knife in a slow clean cut. I managed to cut it 95% perfectly, but the last part is so damn tricky.
You can practice on fine paper tubes, much cheaper than cigs.
 
If someone does it, wins, if it will pass too long time and nobody does it I will select winner(s) from the existing entries
 
Thanks for participating in this contest :) 

I don't have a clue how I found MD, especially since it's way different from anything else I was playing at the time i found it.
 
What really kept me here (then) was that I could interact with people so much more easily (i'm a horrible introvert in RL) and if I didn't want to, I didn't have to. It does me a world of good in lots of ways to be able to be social without actually having to be social face-to-face.
 
After my long absence tho, what brought me back was all the friends I made way back then. Granted, there aren't many of them here any more, but those that I can still talk to are valuable to me beyond comparison. :)
 
All the hidden/deeper meaning/make you have to think about it stuff helps keep me here too. It's like a great big puzzle in a way, with lots of little puzzles imbedded in it. Just when you think you have something figured out, you have to go figure out something else instead in order to understand a bit more about whatever it was you were originally trying to figure out... if that makes sense ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WrbUjRSYA&feature=youtu.be
 
Well, here we go. Tried a good Kiwi kitchen knife (the favorite in my knife drawer), a smaller Korean knife, and a big ol' monster of a knife (some Chinese brand i'm not familiar with from the asian grocer). Nearly got it with the Kiwi, so I'm going to try to finish out the edge a bit more, or improve my technique, one of the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WrbUjRSYA&feature=youtu.be
 
Well, here we go. Tried a good Kiwi kitchen knife (the favorite in my knife drawer), a smaller Korean knife, and a big ol' monster of a knife (some Chinese brand i'm not familiar with from the asian grocer). Nearly got it with the Kiwi, so I'm going to try to finish out the edge a bit more, or improve my technique, one of the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WrbUjRSYA&feature=youtu.be
 
Well, here we go. Tried a good Kiwi kitchen knife (the favorite in my knife drawer), a smaller Korean knife, and a big ol' monster of a knife (some Chinese brand i'm not familiar with from the asian grocer). Nearly got it with the Kiwi, so I'm going to try to finish out the edge a bit more, or improve my technique, one of the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WrbUjRSYA&feature=youtu.be
 
Well, here we go. Tried a good Kiwi kitchen knife (the favorite in my knife drawer), a smaller Korean knife, and a big ol' monster of a knife (some Chinese brand i'm not familiar with from the asian grocer). Nearly got it with the Kiwi, so I'm going to try to finish out the edge a bit more, or improve my technique, one of the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WrbUjRSYA&feature=youtu.be
 
Well, here we go. Tried a good Kiwi kitchen knife (the favorite in my knife drawer), a smaller Korean knife, and a big ol' monster of a knife (some Chinese brand i'm not familiar with from the asian grocer). Nearly got it with the Kiwi, so I'm going to try to finish out the edge a bit more, or improve my technique, one of the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WrbUjRSYA&feature=youtu.be
 
Well, here we go. Tried a good Kiwi kitchen knife (the favorite in my knife drawer), a smaller Korean knife, and a big ol' monster of a knife (some Chinese brand i'm not familiar with from the asian grocer). Nearly got it with the Kiwi, so I'm going to try to finish out the edge a bit more, or improve my technique, one of the two.

RP- Roleplaying.... typing out actions and such (like in game)

When I can, and as I can, I make runs along the new-player path. Granted, it's not the whole of it, but I like to think it helps.

Excellent! I'll begin my master plan to move MD outside of MD and the forum immediately! Mwuahahahahahahahahahahaha!
 
[If you don't want to read the whole thing, skip down to the section with the brackets around it]
 
Well, I believe its time for an update as to the Community Quest (please do not refer to it as Jester's Quest, I'm only playing a very small role, its the Community that's going to make it happen, therefore its the Community Quest).
 
The current plan (its very fluid, and liable to change as certain things become concrete and exclude other things, which opens up the possibilities for new things) is to have a coalition of writers all working together on a main story, as well as each of them working on a side story. Hopefully each side story will be able to tie into the main story for the grand, epic, finale. If not, they will still be entertaining, and that is rather the point of the whole thing.
 
The writers will know the main story and their own story (though I hope to work out an ending of my own so that the writers can be surprised as well), but none of the others. The puzzle creators and other people helping to add more flavor to the stories will know their section, and no others. There will be a main forum section where everyone can get together and brainstorm, but the creating will be mostly done in private areas.
 
Some of the stories are going to take a long time to unfold, and some will be short. I estimate this entire Quest to take between a month and two weeks to build up to the finale.
 
[Main point of this article is here:]
 
The thing I have realized that I need now for the story that is done are Actors. By Actors I mean dedicated role players who can be given a script of what is going to happen in their section, for them to play out as they wish. They would be Actors and not just Role Players because they would have to pretend to have no knowledge of what is coming and not let it affect their decision.
 
I imagine this could be a chance for some of the really brilliant role players out there to shine. A warning, however: some of the more hardcore, dedicated role players may be forced to do or make decisions that will be very painful to their character, emotionally. The goal is to encourage character growth within MD, instead of having it all be back stories and outside of the realm. I understand that some role players are too attached to their characters to sacrifice like that, and I'm sure we can find room for you as well.
 
Message me or reply to the topic if you're interested.
 
Secondary point: I'm considering creating alts for the purpose of the story. Your actions would determine their fate, and hopefully a well written story would let you come to care about what happens to them, even a little. I know I personally have trouble being mean to characters in games where you have a choice, partly because I'm afraid they'll jump out of the tv and get me, and, well, its just mean. Does anyone else feel the same way? If a character was sufficiently interesting with a unique personality and you got to know them, would you care if they died (the alts would die in the story and never log in again)? This would also present wonderful opportunities for character growth. If a healer were unable to save someone they cared about, how would that affect them? If, at great risk of life and limb, and yes, limp due to loss of limb,a hero were able to save someone they cared about, how would that change them? I anticipate the results with baited breath.
 
 
Additional thought: If people can fight and argue and care for Bob the Tree and Abra the Aramor, why not a character created for a story? As long as they are well developed and sympathetic this could work out quite well. Especially if some people dislike the character and wish them harm, and others want to defend them.

This this the kitchen knife I used in the vid. It's cheap stainless steel, bought it a while ago in a local supermarket. I think it cost 3 or 4 euro. If you can tell me what you're looking for Mur, I can take another pic, different angle or maybe closer if my phone cam can handle it.
 
 

 
 
With the tanto I spent about an hour sharpening. Preparing the water stone took about half an hour. Grinding the knife about 20 minutes and another 40 minutes with a leather strap. 15 cigarettes destroyed and one thumb slightly damaged, trying to get a clean cut. 
 
The kitchen knife, sharpening about 45 minutes. 15 minutes with a sharpening steel and 30 minutes with the leather. Only 2 cigarettes destroyed. Both were a clean cut, but I didn't film the first try. 
Add some more time for experimenting, taking pics, filming, uploading and such. All in all it kept me busy Sunday afternoon :)
 
A slow cut is definitely harder to do than a fast slice. With a flat blade, speed and keeping the blade properly aligned it doesn't have to be that sharp to cut the cigarette decently.  
When moving slowly the quality of the blade's material is probably more important. You can certainly get a better edge on it.
 
I'm going to try cutting a cigarette slowly next. Thinking about using a ceramic knife. I'm curious how exactly you (Mur) did it with your razor.
How did you hold the cigarette? Did you cut up or down? Did you push the blade through, or did you slice?

http://yoshi.40cakes.com/MD/
(After taking the pictures/videos, I transferred them to my computer, but had to wait for the website admin to give me the pass to upload them, so I ended up just getting the indexes and everything ready without any formatting, and then today in the morning I was able to start the upload, and I'm currently at work, so I will fix the formatting and any errors when I get home.)

So these were my attempts at this, both with pictures and videos.

I started with a stainless steel spring assisted knife, then used a machete (unknown metal), and then a fillet knife (again unknown).

Initially I used the spring assisted knife and I did a test cut, that while seemed to have started well, ended up tearing towards the bottom half.

Instead of doing an initial cut with the machete, I decided to just start with the sharpening. As you can see, the machete was pretty dull, I had found it at a house in my line of work, and always wanted an excuse to sharpen it. I ended up just using a hand grinder, and nothing more.

I then used a knife/blade sharpener(will take picture of it later) on the spring assisted knife blade, and then a palm sized oilstone, and then finally another sharpening item which I do not know the name of (will take picture later)

I also used my dad's fillet knife, which is already pretty sharp, but hadn't been sharpened in awhile. I didn't end up sharpening it at all due to not wanting to ruin the blade. I think I used it wrong, and therefore it didn't slice properly.

And then, just for kicks, I ended up heating up my spring assisted knife blade with a lighter for 30 seconds, which seemed to do nothing.

I couldn't use any of the random kitchen knives we have seeing as how my mom would end up using it on me after finding out I 'ruined' one of her knives.

All in all, it was fun, and I'm still not done with this.

[EDIT: Fixed up the link formatting a bit.]

Just be inside the MDA gates (awiiya's way) at the time Roph's posts in the mood panel.

Just be inside the MDA gates (awiiya's way) at the time Roph's posts in the mood panel.