Kafuuka

[quote name='Rhaegar Targaryen' timestamp='1286521432' post='69903'] Kafuuka, the basis is the free flow of thoughts which leads to culture (you shouldn't look at my words strictly since I present things relatively here). Yes AL gives the info about nature of the realm, but that wasn't my point, I was pointing out at the "blank" part of the realm where imagination comes, and artistic minds get to the "stage". [/quote] relatively Part of Speech: adverb Definition: in or by comparison Synonyms: almost, approximately, comparably, comparatively, nearly, proportionately, rather, somewhat, to some extent Relatively to what? I copied a dictionary entry for you to look at and see how your use of the word relatively makes no sense at all. You cannot compare one thing; you need something to compare it to. If you're willing to reply 'mea culpa, I meant figuratively,' then don't bother. You don't use any sensible analogies anywhere and frankly, your willingness to use proper English grammar is not even good enough to explain things literally. If you consider this offensive, then know this: I too am offended that someone who has been in this community so long is still underestimating us this much by thinking he can trick us into believing this is philosophy or sociology. You haven't even bothered to properly reply to me. I raised three separate objections and you attempted to squirm out of the lesser of them. Yes you read that right: attempted. Suppose I grant you that free thought leads to culture. Formally A -> B. There is no way to derive that ~A -> ~B. Hence your insistence that 'lack of free thought inhibits cultural development' is unfounded. Note that I don't even have to accept the original premise. You never bothered to consider the difference between players and characters. The 'blank part' you are referring to, when the 'artist gets on stage'... how do you wish to consider this important and at the same time ridicule the legend speakers and archives. Calling them less important when they are actually a prominent example of free speech. Alas they don't fit your 'requirements' because they are not free enough by 'default'. Oh, you're definitely not trying to degrade MDA, you're trying to degrade the whole MD population by dismissing valid arguments based upon your subjective judgements; your authority. Proving by intimidation that MD is not free, oh irony! And looking at your words strictly... other people have tried to look at the hidden meaning and you were unhappy with them too. In any case, debates are about words. If you are imprecise, it is your fault that your premises are rejected or a different meaning is added to them. If you paid any attention to the more philosophical debates held in MD, a part of the culture you consider to be stagnating, you would have known this.

[quote name='Rhaegar Targaryen' timestamp='1286476885' post='69863'] MD was made in that way that viewers fill it with their own thoughts (semi-finished drawings done in white and black, and such. Everything is evolving around imagination), and that's what makes it so great for artists. Mainlands backgrounds are supposed to be the most important thing in all that. [/quote] Really? I'd have thought that AL and Story mode were the most important background information givers. [quote]If you drop in a fixed authority as the only one to represent the land, you limit all the imagination to that one man/woman, you are eliminating other interpretations (for example, Ravenstrider thinks Loreroot should be a dark, mysterious, dangerous forest, while someone else thinks of it as a cookie farm diversity of thoughts, yey).[/quote] The 'fixed' has been contested repeatedly already. The 'only' is also contestable, eg. for Necrovion I can think of six characters that have a 'cultural advantage'. I have yet to witness any of the kings try to dominate the interpretation market, with the emphasis on attempting. It also seems to me this topic is not as philosophical as it pretends to be. Which is very disappointing to me. "Culture and Personality"? You need a dozen pages to define those concepts in real life. In MD you have an additional layer: there is the personality of the player and the one of the character. The culture of the player and of the character. You're talking about culture in MD, afaik, so you should restrict to the personalities of characters in MD. Not that there were many of your premises I believed before, but with this extra dimension, I think it is safe to say I refuted ALL of them.

[quote name='(Zl-eye-f)-nea' timestamp='1286467047' post='69845'] Can any of us think of some smart solutions? Its a bit hard not knowing how it works...but here's one from me anyway - make it so the thing that logs whether people voted or not activates the creds/ap/etc not the clicking of the link. (although if there is no log and it is just recognizing number of clicks in game vs number of votes on the website then obviously this isnt going to work lol) [/quote] Easiest solution: restrict to the links that did not require voting. There were a couple of those. Might even be extended to sites that did require voting but did not use captcha's because it's a lot less work to vote for those. Also, I don't think it checks the votes for all sites. As long as it's verified for one site and we don't know which, the people who abuse the system can be easily identified. Thus there is no need for the verification to be applied to all sites. I suppose not all sites offer the same methods for verification. @Fyrd: what do you mean 'only remaining advertising'? Mur has mentioned often that paid advertising is one of the larger costs of running MD. He has mentioned this before the advertisers' guild was established even. Whether or not they ever contributed much does not change that Mur managed to take care of advertising himself before and most likely still does.

[quote name='Fyrd Argentus' timestamp='1286148348' post='69589'] But I'm a firm believer that "Magic"Duel needs more magic![/quote] I hope, for your sake, that this is meant to be ironic. [quote] And MD needs more players moving to MP5. I wouldn't even whine (much) if only the newest mp5's got that first free wp....... [/quote] No it doesnt. It needs more players in general and more players who advance to mp5 when they are ready for it. When you're giving free sparkly stuff when moving to mp5, all you promote is players arriving at mp5 without even enough age to have maxed an elemental. Whenever the lack of mp5s is mentioned, people forget to consider the mp5 out-flux and keep focusing on the influx and the 'stunted growth' and 'overpowered mp4s and mp3s'.

[quote name='Metal Bunny' timestamp='1286122973' post='69572'] Ah right, wasn't thinking straight. Yes, with the AD it does indeed become sorite's paradox. But, unlike a heap, mur could superimpose an actual definition and worth of a wp, much like he did with the BP puzzle. AD's could then become worthy to a fraction of a wp, with added elements such as Dst's idea, of actually being there (I like that idea), much like the BP puzzle has several elements as well. So in that sense it isn't really like sorite's paradox, because we do have a higher authority that can define the worth of an AD and of a WP. [/quote] Except that said higher authority has asked us to debate about it and we are still bound to the paradox. afaik the only way out of Sorite's is fuzzy logic, but most people wouldn't like the consequences of that. (Personally I think they're hilarious when applied to this problem. Imagine every player having a (pseudo)random age requirement for their next 'free' WP.) Again, I don't understand your BP analogy. Multiple elements? The different starting tiles change nothing to the workings of the puzzle. The being there on one specific day is not a good implementation for goal a. An entire year of 'loyal activity' can be denied by one day of illness or other real life issues.

[quote name='Metal Bunny' timestamp='1286067214' post='69536'] Sorite's paradox? With what? In the measurement of the worth of the requirements of a wp? I give you, I admit, completely subjective, yet potentially objective measurement of requirement of one wp; the WP mechanism installed by Mur in the gazebo, with the patterns in the floor. [/quote] Quite simple: 1 AD is not worth of a WP. 499 AD is not worthy. In binary logic 499 + 1 = 500 AD is not worthy either. Any cut-off point is completely arbitrary. How exactly this translates into the BPG, I do not understand. BPG is ambiguous already. There probably are quite old players who have not solved it yet, while there also exist rumors of the solution being passed around. [quote name='Chewett' timestamp='1286100831' post='69550'] It would be intresting to see the stats catagorized into Gained no wishpoints Gained a couple of wishpoints Gained a lot of wishpoints [/quote] I have 8, I suppose that counts as 'a lot'. You should however also take into account that I spend my time on questing and quest creating. Any 'free' WPs are, imo, a mockery of both activities. In absolute terms, I would not loose much ranking under any but the most extreme frequencies, while I kinda 'need' one more WP for my current purposes. To maximize my gains, I should vote for a one time free WP, alts rewarded as well, preferably at a medium age requirement. In case of doubt, this is not what I am voting for. Granted, 'none' is more interesting for me than for people who don't design/solve quests. @dst: you should consider moving to Belgium, we're very good at making things more complicated without being more efficient. I remember the medal award and the voting and it was very chaotic. Every time someone got a Pyrrhic victory/loss in the vote count, previously awarded/unawarded players had to be reconsidered. There was little consensus on what active means etc etc. @apophys: that's been mentioned before (eg. on p5), without the emphasis on 666 though.

[quote name='Metal Bunny' timestamp='1285936122' post='69455'] Of course, I am only saying this because I am slightly more pessimistic towards wp inflation, especially when it's requirements are lowered enough that it doesn't really warrant an actual wp. [/quote] Sorites' paradox again... [quote name='adiomino' timestamp='1285980164' post='69486'] What use is a WP to a person that just logs in to gain active days anyways? (now if that "person" is an alt that is a different story..) [/quote] what use is logging in just to get active days? Unless you plan to return to actively playing on that account or alt abuse. In both cases WPs are interesting. [quote] but a WP to active days just seems like a nice idea. not much thinking has to been done about it besides how often the WP would be given out-if at all :PP. sorry if my opinion is too lax about it. [/quote] That's insulting. There's several things being discussed at the same time: yes/no, how many/frequent, what about alts, what about alt abuse, what are the consequences towards WP value, the pr impact on new players... Next time, read the entire topic. [quote name='Harion' timestamp='1285988266' post='69490'] it should be retroactive, otherwise, it'd be unfair to those who has stayed with MD the longest so because they had the unfortunate fate of getting into MD before this is implemented, they won't have this reward which, for all intents and purposes, is meant to reward loyalty? if that's the case, then that will just encourage more alts... [/quote] I'll try to understand your message first: 1. "It should be retroactive, otherwise it is unfair towards veterans who will not be able to get this reward." Unless they leave, they will get the rewards at the same time a person who starts playing the day of the implementation, gets them. eg. If the policy is adapted 01/01/2011, at 1wp/year, a 3y vet will be a 6y vet at 01/01/2014 and have 3 free WPs. A person who registers on 01/01/2011, will also have 3 free WPs in 2014. The only way for a 3y vet to have less free WPs is if they quite before 2014. A 3y vet who 'sleeps' between 01/01/2011 and 01/01/2014 will have no free WPs. This could easily be rectified by Mur, granted that we care about this problem at all. How often would it happen anyway? 2. "this reward which, for all intents and purposes, is meant to reward loyalty." No, not for all intents and purposes. Read the quote below carefully and see how the intents and purposes are not limited to loyalty, but are mixed with PR and other stuff (by lack of a better word.) [i]"placing a wp at the start of the time frame is important. A new player will not be impressed by the idea that he will get somehting after ONE YEAR of playing, ...they are not sure if they will stay one day at first. [...] I hope that in this way people will want more, and not consider wp as unreachable anyway. There are many that have none and stoped hoping for one."[/i] -Mur

[quote name='Metal Bunny' timestamp='1285853288' post='69400'] B and C are not necessarily an argument against A, as it depends upon implementation. [/quote] Reasons/purposes are not dependent on implementation and certainly not in a uniform way. CrazyMike gave an example how implementation is more proof if WP/day is not retroactive. The opposite is true: implementation depends on goals. [quote] You speak as if alt abuse would be the biggest and most severe problem, right at its implementation. But that doesn't have to be so, not if the implementation is done correctly. [/quote] Alt abuse and implementation are a problem regardless of reason. As such they are a slightly more interesting argument. I assume the worst for implementations, you assume the best. Obviously reality will be somewhere between those. No system is perfect. Finally, I'll restate this opinion: if retroactive WP/day have to be done, I think it will sell better towards new players if they also get something. Instead of new players wondering what the hell wishpoints are and being told they have to quest hard or wait 300+ days to find out, they'll get one quite soon. Veterans will win one more WP this way, but I doubt many of them will complain about such a suggestion. I like the suggestion of a new permanent WP dispensing puzzle too. Obviously the solution will be shared, but at least we'll have the opportunity to have fun trying it.

[quote name='CrazyMike' timestamp='1285777492' post='69358'] My example is only to show that the player has been active and voting, and that MD gains from the voting, justifying the active days. And as a veteran (though sometimes I feel like a noob with all the changes), I dont mind if the counter starts from zero for everyone if it gets implemented. [/quote] That would work well. I do hate the captchas when voting though

@MB: you do realize that reason b and c are also arguments against a? Even if a is [b]your[/b] intention, b and c indicate the side effects. Not only do veterans have an advantage when solving quests, doing creature battles, trading etc. they also had all the time of the world to attempt quests and now it's proposed they retroactively gain several WP(s) for free (possibly on alts to abuse too), while newbies have to wait a year? [b]If[/b] we're going to inflate WPs, especially if we're going to inflate WPs in an alt abuse promoting and veteran favoring way, there should be something for new players too. ie a WP for making it through the first month. *edit because you lot post faster than me* @CrazyMike: what about people who play the game by buying credits but are too lazy to vote? You could add the sum, but then people could buy WPs.

You're assuming that [b]if[/b] it gets implemented, it will be done retroactively. The question is 'what is the purpose of WP for days?' a. To reward people who have been loyal up until now. -> retroactive is good. b. To encourage all people to keep playing -> retroactive is questionable at best. c. To keep new players from disappearing -> retroactive is pure crap. To support this, I'll quote Mur himself: "A new player will not be impressed by the idea that he will get somehting after ONE YEAR of playing, ...they are not sure if they will stay one day at first." This also raised the question of how relevant the vote is. Few people register to the forum if they are not planning to keep playing for a long time. Due to a dispute about alt abuse - at least that is how I read it - the spent WP requirements for a bestiary increased to one. Will it increase each year to accommodate the proposed changes? [quote name='Jazira' timestamp='1285772985' post='69349'] As for the inflation of wishpoints, it could be a good thing since it will promote more WP quests and more people trying to complete them as there could be more possible WP winners. Just my own opinion, however. [/quote] Just how will giving free WP lead to more WP quests? Also, active days don't measure activity. Nothing can accurately measure activity anyway. Or loyalty. Loyalty bought with WPs is not loyalty.

Makes sense. However I don't feel like testing your quest further

I managed to get five cards easily. Last one is called 'the star' and it tells me to go to Golemus... for an mp3 quest I don't think directing people to GG is advisable, unless I read the directions wrong or there's a bug. I suppose people might get confused since you mix 'have' and 'found' sometimes.

In the spirit of putting pressure on 'people', I second this harping

[quote name='Mavac' timestamp='1285131418' post='68841'] Next quest. Player made i think. Fyrd something and his words. Got as far as actually finding his quests(wasnt to hard). Next part tho I dont get. Found the location for one but thats not really helpfull at all. Guess I need to hunt him down or something like that. [/quote] The 'problem' with player made quests is that currently they are all Wish Point quests. A WP is the largest reward a quest can offer (imo) and therefore those quests are usually designed to be very tough. The quickest remedy I can think of is adding a 'difficulty rating' tag to the quest list. That would not result in easier quests, but at least you'd be warned.

[quote name='Curiose' timestamp='1285016399' post='68752'] Newbies who get capped at mp3 without any kind of knowledge of how to play the game go on to mp4, and get theirselves stuck in stat damage because they don't know how to set up a decent ritual, or even how to use some of the basics, I am sure. [/quote] Stat damage at mp4, because they advance a day sooner? Most people I see advancing to mp4 are very very young and very excited about the advance. They're nowhere near having enough age to max an elemental yet. mp3 is the training ground most people try to skip as fast as possible and most vets will claim, if a noob asks, to be totally unimportant and 100% rectifiable on mp4/5. To the people I see posting PL entries like 'this player is a coward and knows only one ritual, that's not strategy.. he's always hiding blah blah blah': you sound like sore losers and don't get the definition of strategy. If it works, don't fix it. If you can't win, run/hide. Such is definitely strategy. People who post things like that on the other hand, either hope to look superior or to convince their target to change their ways. I'm certain it's ineffective. So who is failing at strategy now? To februari and anyone who wants to imitate him: you've made your point, your method worked. Doing it again is not original though, so find a new goal.

[s]3[/s] 2 angiens, all have 470+ age. No tokens. Bid in silver/gold only. *edit* sold one at 6 SC

[b]Fun nels[/b] [img]http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/1302/utob008funwithfunnels.png[/img] [i]It really would have been better if the title were fun nels instead of funnels. What's a nel?[/i] Here's the unmasked picture from Yoshi's trip, for those who gave up on gmasking it: [spoiler][img]http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/5269/yoshiun.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

It's not impossible to have both actually. eg. '5k + 10% max ve'. That's changing one line of code, unless MD is written in Turing or something equally low level. To double the coding effort, why not multiply the heath cost by the mp level of the benefactors?

"The seahorse is the person you want managing your finances or handling your legal matters." I don't think anyone wants me to handle their finances; too left wing for that. "How's my portfolio?" - "The rainbow forests are growing." "That means I'll get a lot of return this year?" - "No, it means the trees are healthy." "So when will I see my money?" - "Err, maybe if you cut down some of those trees, make them into paper and print dollar signs on them?"

Somewhere in the multiverse there might also exist an MD with player created quests, albeit a bit different. There's no reward for solving them in this universe, so you can post your solutions here, but do put spoiler tags around them! [b]The Lost Message of the Confused guy who fell into the Fountain and drowned.[/b] Your ounce sea -- late hears -- behind Lee. Hints: 1.Think metric. 2.Latin is not French. 3.List of french verbs: être, avoir, ecouter, se taire, faire, entendre... [i]What he really said was 'gurgle gurlge blub'[/i] [b]A waste of time[/b] [img]http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/1700/time.gif[/img] [b]Emo Topaz and the Razor of Doom[/b] [img]http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/377/topaz.jpg[/img] [i]He's sad because his hints are redundant[/i] [b]Yoshi's trip[/b] [img]http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/8956/yoshic.jpg[/img] Hint: yoshi

It's over... only one person managed to read the book of time, Totenkopf. As for the rest of you, here's an explanation of how it worked: 1. Anyone reading Ark's papers or the quest page should've been able to see that the pwd was 'the book of time'. 2. Being a question of time, the numbers in it changed every hour, on the hour. With a period of 20 hous, so that people checking back a few days later would see new numbers. 3. The [ and ] are always fixed. This should be a hint that all numbers in the same position always represent the same thing, a letter. In fact the numbers are generated by a modulated wave function f(x,t) = A(x) * sin ( omega * t + x / lambda ). This may seem very complicated, but what it means is simple. Each letter was converted into a number, with 'a' being '1'. Then for each hour of the twenty hour period, the number is multiplied by the sinus. To decode, if you realize it's a wave, is even simpler: for each position, wait for the number to be a natural number different from zero, this one will be the amplitude. 4. The second part was roughly the same, but in a two dimensional grid with diminishing amplitude to simulate entropy, ie f(t,x,r) = f(t,x)/r There you have it, hiding things in time. Next quest will be completely different and frankly I don't think anything like this one can be done again now that i've explained it. I hope you all enjoyed your headaches and are facepalming right now.

Removing logout is ridiculous and unbalancing. The people who were idling in the sanctuary would suddenly become vulnerable. They're probably the people who can afford losses the least. They're also the people who will be part of the largest group of easy prey. And then when they log in again and notice they got stat damage from drooling mp5s who finally got easy wins, they can't even log out anymore? It is also against any common sense about games. I choose when I play, when I am logged in/out or idle.

[quote name='Mya Celestia' timestamp='1284230379' post='68224'] 6. causing activity or change; capable of exerting influence [/quote] I prefer this one. Creating and solving quests is currently my main concern in MD and both cause activity. The creating should be obvious: I influence headaches onto other people - the solving only moderately influences people through the competition factor. I think I'm about as active as I should be, although others obviously spend way more time on the game. When talking about people being active in MD, it probably involves a qualitative judgement too. Blue texting all day might take more energy than creating one quest each season. Which is more active?