Kafuuka

Is it supposed not to work during heads? If it is, I can see how the code could have gone wrong, which is nice if you need to fix stuff.

Serial; that one actual is nice. http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=rasiel&t=1000&a=n

Way to go Darigan and other people. You're void of arguments and full of emotional persuasions. Why you are giving minus ten rep to people who ask for proof or people who give decent arguments in favor of februari is beyond me. [quote name='Darigan' timestamp='1283537733' post='67631'] You are assuming someone would honestly do this, either out of boredom or to prove it can be done. Either way theres ways to figure out such things before they get to such a level.[/quote] Bronzometh already explained this: it happened with february and nobody prevented it. Your argument has been preemtively defeated by Bronzometh yet you must restate it? [quote] The more you talk about it the more you make it seem like it's something you'd want to do yourself[/quote] So without real arguments, let's attack the persona behind the arguments shall we? [quote] , you honestly haven't played this game long enough if you think anyone would be able to honestly get away with it.[/quote] Except that once again, februari did get away with it... because what februari did was officially not wrong. [quote] If they do then they do and will be dealt with swiftly by which ever option is chosen best. You seem to have no faith in the community and you should a lot of people have been here a lot longer and dealt with different situations like this before. [/quote] After seven pages of discussion nothing is swiftly dealt with. You're also horribly inconsistent: you have faith in the community and think nobody would purposely cap noobs, yet at the same time you accuse Bronzometh of wanting to do it, be it just to prove you wrong. Furthermore, he argued against one specific system. If we are to have faith in the community, I can use that as a reason to argue for the option 'do nothing'. Which is also what I intend to do. Choose 'do nothing'. Didn't you see Mur's warning? Whatever limit you impose on mp3 will have implications for higher levels. Februari is a single case. He made his point, and considering the amount of fuss that's been made on it now, I think he made it very strongly with your help. There is no reason for him to keep repeating his strategy, nor for anyone else to copy him. You can stop trading with him, you can organize a massive hunt and punish him within the limits of current game mechanics even. You can try to warn noobs against his kind. Which reminds me, back in my day, mp3s were advised to use simple rituals as defenses. Not to win obviously, but to minimize the damage from attackers. Every time I see new players asking if they 'did something wrong and should start again?' people say that whatever you do 'wrong' can be adjusted at the next mp level. Are these attitudes suddenly invalid? Do we need new game mechanics because of one single player? It seems to me that defeating an mp5 as an mp3 is cool. However, nothing makes as big an impact on the game as having the mechanics changes for/because of you. If that happens, I'll gladly nominate februari for biggest villain and most influential on the next festival.

[quote name='Chewett' timestamp='1283491183' post='67593'] Ye of little faith [/quote] I don't think he's the only one being of little faith. He's the only one being honest about it and for that I commend him.

I prefer distribution according to role, reason and [b]merit[/b]. It does seem tedious though. The community has never come to a consensus on what is 'proper roleplay'. A lot of people ignore the difference between an argument and a persuasion. And some things are technically correct but morally wrong, eg. "My character is the Grinch, therefore I should get one hundred items and then nobody else can get presents." There's also one hundred of them... if every player is going to submit a reason for every item, who is going to read and judge them all? I propose the distribution occurs in phases. Phase I Lasts a fortnight Five medium level puzzles and contests are held. To cater to the different needs and to humor Burns, there should be one decryption puzzle, one fighting contest, one find the next clicky, one creative writing contest and maybe something original Actually I don't know what kind yet but everybody should have a chance at solving at least one puzzle, while few should be able to solve all. Phase II Lasts a week All unique items and their descriptions that will be distributed are put on public display. Players can write one argument for one item they want per ticket they gained. Placing two tickets on one item will sum your argument scores for that item and thus increase your chance of winning that item. False or duplicate reasons (per item per character) will get negative points though! Perhaps the number of tickets put on each item can be displayed too, for strategic purposes. Phase III The arguments that were valid but did not win an item will be translated into scores and the scores per player are summed. The remaining items (raw materials and items nobody wanted, if any) are distributed according to score. (Or by lottery where score increases your chances.) Pro: the number of reasons to be reviewed drops drastically. It'll be exciting for everybody and a number of strategies are available. Can be incorporated to the festival and made a yearly event. Con: needs five very good puzzles, in design and difficulty as well as fair execution and rewarding. Displaying item descriptions might be spoilers yet considering the trouble people will go to, they should not be duped. Needs ticket items to be made, although that should be straightforward. Still needs a judge to review a large amount of arguments. [quote name='(Zl-eye-f)-nea' timestamp='1283433027' post='67564'] On the grander scheme; A limit on the number of items an account can hold may help, but as crafters etc ask you for other items (with your wp) to make a singular item this means often you have to carry/collect a bunch of items you don't want or need in order to make this one item which makes things a bit of a pain(to make an item I have in mind atm for example I will need at least 3 other items with a wp and I will have to carry these until I can get the item made). Then you have to also consider "non-entity" items like medals and certificates. So, perhaps 4 sections to your items list: a limit of 5 in the collecting to make other items section, a money section, a medals and certificates section and a limited normal items section. [/quote] As you said this is a double edged sword. It prevents hoarding to some extent (alts are not accounted for) while it also cripples people who are not trying to hoard or get a monopoly. Splitting it into categories might work but it will make the interface even more clustered and is artificial. I think it would translate better if every item has a weight variable and players have a carrying capacity (which might be increased for alliances or by items). Raw materials should naturally have the largest weight, while coins and medals and small trinkets should be light or even weightless. To limit the number of finished goods, a power value could similarly be assigned, which depends on the properties of the item. Items that are usable would have the largest power ratings. A player's capacity to carry powerful items could be modified by principles (minimal influence), mp level (moderate), age (minimal), number of spent wish points (large) and by spending a wp on increasing capacity (humongous). Obviously, power and weight values are very much subject to debate and the system will not be noob friendly. It does make RP sense to me though. You just cannot carry a hundred swords without having a bag of holding or a dimensional pocket. Using an enchanted item, in a low magic setting - which I believe MD is - should not be something taken for granted. It takes time and effort to attune to the tool, to feel how much energy is stored in it and to replenish it after its use. The system is flexible, allowing a large amount of bonuses to allow people different carrying capacities and thus increase diversity. I will however not say it is 'fair'. I don't think any system can be truly fair, nor that MD is based upon the common view on fairness. Some players have earned or by coincidence been granted the reputation of being powerful and as such it makes sense for some of them to be able to carry more powerful items. @Yrthillian: I suppose king items could be made weight and powerless or kings could get a power bonus. The latter makes more sense to me. Managing items... I don't think it'll be interesting for the average player to have extra buttons to click before they can see that one item they have. Plus items should still all show up in the inventory list for others to see if they check you, if I understood Zleiphneir's intentions well.

I think Fyrd listed a lot of things to do, although he forgot debating just for fun. As for character design, you could either go for as close to the original Mad Hatter as possible, or you could try creating something new. From the name, I'd suppose a character that is sane is not quite an option, but there are many ways to be 'mad', eg. obsessively checking whether your hat is still in the right spot - maybe the hatter has a bald spot he's trying to hide? Papers and characters don't need to be centered on or even include a story. Background stories are just one of the ways to portray the nature of a character. Most other games I know work with stats and classes and have systems like alignment (d&d: good vs evil and lawful vs chaotic). In MD you're not restricted by anything except for common sense and consistency. If you go out of character all the time, people won't believe in your character anymore. If you try to powergame/godmod, people won't like you either. Regardless of how poetic your story was.

"Our purpose is to have a purpose." I don't think an analytical person can feel like he/she is truly without a goal. You might not be certain what it is or which one is the most important, yet by thinking about your goal you implicitly form one. You can feel lost yet at the same time feel comfortable about knowing you feel lost. As Zleip also mentioned, analysis isn't everything. - Knowing the cause does not necessarily grant you power over it, nor is it an absolute requirement to control it; it came to be without knowledge so it might go by itself too - I suppose the best we can offer is the knowledge that others understand you and a sense of belonging. (Of course I could be completely wrong, but someone in this thread is bound to say something right eventually.) @Curiose: that's exactly how I discover new places and explore cities, forgetting my map and getting lost. It sucks if you need to be somewhere urgently but it's surprisingly fun when you have idle time.

[quote name='Novato' timestamp='1282757191' post='67040'] Ok, geek style is one kind of style that you only enjoy if you also like to study, specially if you enjoy the standard school disciplines, like math, poetry and others. [/quote] If you're implying that many quests are geared towards people who like to think, I'd take that as a job well done. If you're implying you need certain degrees, I'd grant you that some people have advantages for some quests. However I've never attended courses in word riddle solving - especially not in English - nor poetry. I think quest solving requires imagination foremost, and memory and pattern recognition secondly. These are also skills that are (in)directly trained in almost any scholarly discipline. And even in other games. [url="http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2008/09/gamesfrontiers_0908"]Here's an interesting article about how children accidentally learn the scientific method through gaming and then try to refute that they learned something..[/url] [quote name='Burns' timestamp='1282760428' post='67042'] Other than that, i'm afraid that far more than half of the quests, both current and all-over, can be tagged in few groups: find, write, decipher, and fight. [/quote] If desired any quest could be argued to fall into the category 'analyse the logic behind the quest and find the optimal solution.' There's infinite possible ways to categorise quest types. If i use narrow criteria most of them will be singletons, if I use broad ones I can fit them all into one group, nl quests. My point was that of the currently running quests few are really redundant in approach. eg Fyrd's quest is partially 'find' and partially 'decipher: word games/riddles'. I managed to solve some of the riddles, yet solving the other riddles is not an automatic result. Compare this with a type of 'find' quest from the past wherein you would get a description of a person and then had to find said person and ask for the next description. Back in the RPC days, I had links to all RPC's papers and checked them one by one versus the description. The RPCs were the most likely suspects, because including an unknown mp3 would be too hard for anyone to find and RPCs were considered more reliable to log in frequently. So there emerged a 'pattern'. We should seek to avoid or scramble the patterns, to create new types etc. But I do not think we should discard winning formula's nor that we should complain; the only gripe I have is that it seems very difficult to create a permanent quest - with appropriate reward - that remains even if its creator left MD.

[quote name='Burns' timestamp='1282749204' post='67028'] Usually, somebody leads the way, and everybody does similar quests for a period, and then it's over, until somebody figures out a new style again. In time, you get every style, but it takes patience, and determination, because quests with a known pattern will be solved by the people who already solved them before, because they know the pattern. [/quote] There's only three types of quests that are recurring afaik: - Find the next person/clicky through a very vague description. - Write an essay. - Break the code. The first one is often done in conjunction with other puzzles. The essays seem to get worse, nowadays people even put in a required amount of words. The codebreaking is only a problem if people keep using the same binary switch system. If we look at current quests, there are: A question of time - Kafuuka - this might look like a codebreaker to many but the binary switcharoo is definitely the wrong approach Funnels - Zleiphneir - does anyone even dare saying this is a standard quest? Lost path treasure quest - Fyrd Argentinus - finding the clickies is not the hardest part although some of them gave me considerable trouble Diamond of Misery - Metal Bunny - there's no words for this one; there's only a picture and I never seem to find bunbun's trail if he put up new hints Teaching the Principles of Magic Quest - Yrthillian - an essay quest; someone is going to love this comment Recent quests I remember: A Quick Quest - Sasha Lilias - not standard, although ridiculously easy and therefore was solved by dozens within less than an hour of being put online The Whole Kit and Kaboodle - MRD - essay with an insane word count Yoshi's Memories - Yoshi - a mixture of puzzles and riddles Define Existance - Granos - imo this was a logic quest, not an essay Even a worst case judging leaves more than 50% of those quests as pure originals. And I'd like to refute in advance that no new style has become dominant because nothing stood out. Some quest designs can only be used once. Kinda like how 'the sixth sense' fails to surprise you the second time.

This seems the best way to store the data to me: [code]@vs = mds_storage("numbers","aoau"); // get the name of the storage if(@storage[@vs] == null)@storage[@vs] = array(); // initialize storage array if doesn't exist yet if (user does not exist in array yet) { // use a key for this @temp = array( 'name' => uv('name'), 'number1' => null, 'number2' => null, etc 'number9' => null); @storage[@vs][uv('id')] = @temp; }[/code] Checking if someone has nine numbers is a rather long condition - if !(number1 == null or number2 == null etc) - yet the alternative of keeping a counter for this seems less efficient to me. Retrieving an individual number or the sum is straightforward. The only confusing thing is that this structure is a fixed length array embedded into a variable map type yet in MD script everything is named array.

[quote name='awiiya' timestamp='1282641892' post='66948'] If you mean handing out the text (which, in truth, is the only important part about them), I see no issue with it. [/quote] The only [b]currently[/b] important aspect, now that AL is on hold. To me they also have a collection value and they are required for the spell master achievement.

[quote name='Mourn the Leper' date='21 August 2010 - 03:39 AM' timestamp='1282354774' post='66687'] -don't take more than 12 credits per semester your first year, or a class before 9:30am...hmmm, the last one might just be me. [/quote] I suppose the system is different per country, but in Belgium and the rest of Europe, 30 credits per semester is the norm. We also have low tuition fees so the economical pressure put upon the students is low and I've seen many loiter around and try to stretch their fun times at the universities. It always starts with good intentions mixed with the intimidations of freshman year and then they decide to leave one course for second session so that they can fully focus on the other exams and then they fail another one and have to redo it in september too etc. Next year the guidance will persuade them to take a lower amount of credits and they will most likely fail some courses again until they're down to one course a semester... If you had no problems keeping up in high school, don't be intimidated by university and don't be persuaded to take it slowly. I wouldn't rush in an take additional credits in the first year, but many people can easily go over the recommended number. Likewise, if you fear you don't understand anything about a course, don't panic. Most likely nobody of your classmates does. In my first year of physics there was one teacher who managed to confuse all people in the first week and a dozen just quit, but it became clearer afterwards. Being a mathematical person, I compared the number of people to show up for their exam to the average rate of people passing, which is very interesting: about 60% of those enlisted, showed up for all of their exams in the first year and about 50% of those enlisted, passed their first year. Choices: there's the old approach of listing strengths and weaknesses. I'm always baffled when people who avoided or failed maths in highschool ask if studying physics is a valid option... the most economically sound choices in Belgium are civil engineering, law, economics and IT. The problem is mostly that studying something that does not really interest you for five years and then making a career out of it for the rest of your life is not fun. Out of the social sciences, sociology and psychology seem to get more opportunities because they get a large amount of statistics. In hard sciences biology is currently on the rise due to increased funds for health research and increased IT capacity. (Historically biology is around for ages, but it's only since 1960 that it really kicked of. Physics had it's big boost in early 1900s.)

[quote name='Curiose' date='19 August 2010 - 01:55 AM' timestamp='1282175754' post='66503'] Ick... I would hate the feeling of having strange things in my body... How can you stand it? [/quote] You shouldn't feel it; our sense of touch exists mainly on the skin, not deeper inside. It's the entry wounds that you feel or if it gets infected. Which is a good thing since it can take a lot of time for plastics to be degraded/expelled if that even happens.

[center]INTP Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving Strength of the preferences % 56 62 1 22[/center] I've taken similar tests before and they never seem to be able to determine whether I am 'Thinking' or 'Feeling' type. Therefore it's a good thing this test gives percentages. P score is also quite low, but I am definitely a procrastinator.

Ambiguous. The one time deal he offers is very attractive. Being rewarded a custom 'powerful' item seems more like a reward than an attempt to stop people from hoarding. Implicitly this also sets the price for a WP as between one and three items. I'm curious how restricted the role related keyword will turn out and how powerful translates.

[quote name='Fyrd Argentus' date='12 August 2010 - 12:13 AM' timestamp='1281564819' post='65839'] I am suggesting that we consider these "guilds" to be a lesser thing that true alliances, such that you can be a citizen, and alliance member, and a guild member. [/quote] Mur has explicitly stated guild members cannot also be alliance members. Furthermore I abhor the notion of guilds being less than an alliance. They are different, but that does not imply one is better than the other. Half of the 'old' alliances aren't even remotely connected to fighting, which made me wonder why guilds - which are also not about fighting - even need special treatment. However I'm told mp5s are relentless in attacking everybody they can, which could pose problems for lower mp level players. [i]- before anyone bothers: I am not afraid of mp5, that 'ultimate fighting' level just fails to interest me.[/i] That aside, I too wonder if there will be enough players interested in joining a guild with their 'main'. @Ivorak: the crafters have always claimed neutrality. And I've never seen them behave otherwise. Whether this should extends to guilds that are assigned a land I don't know. If we look at reality, guilds often had local branches in every land or a competing guild of sorts. If the lands were to have all resources and thus become self sufficient, that'd be boring and purpose defeating.

I have no idea why, but it happened before when people attacked the aramors on GG. If it was intentional, I'd say it is so that people learn to think before they act, but I assume it was/is a bug. What kind of a greeting is attacking anyway?

You shouldn't attack mp2s, they've caused bugs before. Afaik those who did, won't be able to attack I Ark Mattarox again, for one thing.

[quote name='Chewett' date='10 August 2010 - 12:00 AM' timestamp='1281391230' post='65492'] I Had written it. All of it was done, chat talking was nearly perfect if a little temperamental sometimes (nearly fixed it all up), movement completley done, as was battle log reading. It was going well until the latest announcement that i assume you havent read? [/quote] I read the announcement, that's why I said 'remedy'. It still is tricky to know what can be done without knowing what you already did. The most obvious would be to use a captcha forcer - the new login doesn't look terribly complex compared to some i've seen on other sites - or to NEVER log out. Logging in 'manually' and then letting the bot take over should be possible. I assume you're not eager to share your code, but if it's in a language I can read, I might be able to help. (ie the more it looks like c++ the easier for me)

Depending on your means it might be simple to remedy. With enough servers/proxies, you could let them be online 24/7 and say the right stuff only at the right moment? It's a bit tricky to say much since i haven't actually tried to make a bot for MD yet, so I don't know all the troubles of keeping them alive and what they can and cannot do. I imagine talking in chat is easy, but moving around seems less straightforward to implement?

[quote name='Rhaegar Targaryen' date='09 August 2010 - 08:48 PM' timestamp='1281379693' post='65478'] -It is rude when I say its a bit pointless to ask a new player about possible changes around him?[/quote] Tone and choice of words is everything. "Well what did you expect when asking [b]them[/b] anything?" Such a sentence can and will be understood as 'noobs are ignorant', which is indeed rude. [quote]furthemore I hardly believe I was the reason of someone leaving the game, you are targeting the wrong old player category.[/quote] He never said 'you', he said 'if many people talk the way you do'. The issue of "old" players being rude towards new players has been raised countless times before. [quote]-since you are a fan of word games, I didnt say I feel that I am the one who should do it, just that changes are needed (wanted, whatever, dont take some words from me literally), sadly I dont see anyone trying to do anything fresh to make things entertaining for the new ones and enlarge our community.[/quote] Continuing on the 'word games', you say you don't know best, but you do know that things need to change AND that nobody tries to do anything (fresh). That's not a paradox, that's being inconsistent. Furthermore I think you ought to look harder. eg. If you look at the WP logs, you'd notice several people have bought grade 4 clickies and some 'newer' players are making good innovative quests. That's not related to battles, but such is not my expertise. However I doubt nobody is trying anything at all there. As for what the SG do: they seem to do what they were intended too. A self regulating semi safe place to train. It also makes it easier to find targets and people to talk to, since the realm can be quite empty if you stray far from the gazebo of equilibrium.

[quote name='Totenkopf' date='05 August 2010 - 03:32 PM' timestamp='1281015152' post='65143'] lol in Romania we call Coelho "literatura de aprozar", which would translate to "greengrocer's literature", but lose some of the humour in translation - the idea being that they should sell Coelho at greengrocers, since only housewives read his books [/quote] I guess that is the equivalent of the dutch term 'stationsroman' or 'railway station novel'? - A light novel without literary ambition, strictly for entertainment, usually romantic and/or adventurous, often chosen as a pass-time by travelers. I'll admit you can read Coelho's 'The Alchemist' strictly for entertainment; it reads very quickly and is very cheerful. The message might be a simple one, it is nonetheless a valid one. Certainly in this day and age.

[quote name='Totenkopf' date='03 August 2010 - 11:33 AM' timestamp='1280828025' post='65003'] is there anyone that thinks the light would _not_ reflect directly back towards the center (besides there being no interference whatsoever due to having a _single_ _coherent_ light source)? [/quote] Yes. I addressed this in my answer. Photons follow the laws of conservation of energy, momentum and angular momentum. Theoretically a three body interaction consisting of two photons and the mirror, can account for photons deviating from a pure reflection, without violating the conservation of energy and momentum. For angular momentum it might be necessary to take into account four photons, but such does not matter. The deviations should occur with a non-zero probability, which is probably monotonously decreasing in function of the absolute deviation. However I doubt it could be experimentally verified since the whole setup requires several physically impossibilities. This supports the black body concept, since photons that deviate will never pass the center point again. Unless they experience a second deviating reflection, opposite to the first one. Until such happens these photons are lost to the cavity, or the cavity works as a black body.

Because Sahsa forgot to quote the part that mattered, I will: [quote name='Muratus del Mur' date='01 August 2010 - 06:52 PM' timestamp='1280681574' post='64913']At this point there should not be possible to get coins for free, please correct me if i am wrong![/quote] Correct me if I'm wrong but solving the Broken pattern puzzle a 43rd time is free, as well as getting coins with free credits.

[quote name='Firsanthalas' date='31 July 2010 - 01:40 PM' timestamp='1280576441' post='64831'] On a more personal note though, I almost find it amusing someone accusing Z. Anyone that knows him and the sheer amount of time he's been in MD would most likely agree at how absurd it sounds. [/quote] The sheer absurdity might be amusing, but this is exactly why many would think that the glass is half empty. Nobody likes being accused, whether this is an attempt at character assassination through new and easily manipulated players or it is a misunderstanding. I hope wolfs cannot name anybody who did give him the idea, but how will we ever know whether he can't or he doesn't want to?