Nude For Satan

Needs a mod to split and merge posts to get various topics better controlled.

Lets hope all this manual quoting works (people are gonna start talking about us soon, Jazz): You'd have to ask Hallu what his intended sample period was. Clearly a reset came around and he's looked at the feedback and found there to be no noticeable advantage to continue on with the change. This reminds me a little of the 3-mine max test, too (during Halloween reset last year). When its reset time, and the experiment has yielded no pressing argument to retain the change, its rolled back. A change should never be retained if is no sufficient level of merit in doing so. I quoted resets because that's the time to conclude a test. I'm just confused that you're asking why a change that failed to bring sufficient support was rolled back at the most optimum time for rolling it back. I think Hallu had already answered this, and he knows more about it than me, but the results apparently were : Benefit level insufficient to warrant implementation. Detriment level insufficient to exclude implementation. Feedback: some opposition, minimal support. All feedback (for and against) somewhat biased toward personal preference. ( Samgunn Jav ambushes and then runs, dropping mines behind him - 1 minute mines are perfect for his style of play ). Conclusion: not worth changing. <--- this is my take on it, no-one else's. And I'm not trying to be a prick about it. I just thought this kind of went without saying. Maybe I'm wrong. Its a pretty basic experiment. I just expanded findings there to make them a larger paragraph than really is required. In reality, findings are: "nah, didn't do nuffin' much". Well I sure can't argue with perspective! If it "seems" like caving in, to you, then it seems like caving in, to you. I admit you are correct and it does, definitely, seem to you as though its caving in. That's the information I have. I agree with you. I think his playing style is lame. Which makes it pretty hard for your accusation - that I believe its your opinion alone - to hold up, doesn't it? There may very well have been other people around who liked the 1-minute mine timer. They didn't comment, but they might have felt this way without commenting, or even knowing it was up for comment. Maybe I should have PM'd a few people and got their votes, but not from Gad's troupe. Lemme see, I'll ask A Thai Stick, Turbotron, Skiz, Dr Fat Finger, ... ok that's a smart-arse comment but I guess I'm just making a point. I totally agree. And yes, agreed, its not mutually exclusive. Well, yes, you are wrong. Told you why up above, in this post. And in the post before that. And in the post before that. Etc. What the hell is this info you keep asking for. The reasons have been given in almost every post. NO CLEAR BENEFIT. I keep visualising The Simpsons "I though I told you to get rid of those sideburns". Ummmmm ….. I don’t remember EVER saying it should be illegal and outlawed. So please show me where ive said this. Ive said I think it’s a lame tactic. If you're going to claim IM trying 'disinformation' (despite providing references and reasoning with my posts) then you should at least show me where i said that ..... ? I didn't say you think it should be. I said that's its not. This was a comment based on the changing environment of the zone and how what was simply "somewhat lame" in early years is now "very lame" more recently. A test was made. It didn't convince anyone to keep it on. It is rolled back. You continue to express a major disappointment that something which failed testing is not to be introduced regardless? You seem to feel very strongly that mine-repping is lame enough that an unsupported test settings change should be implemented. Errr NFS …. The only other person that complained about the 1min mines was you ? …. Was this before or after you mine-repped ? LOL. If you go back and read my post, it wasn’t about hurting GAD, it was about finding a ‘scaling adjustment’ (as you called it), the 1min mines may not have started as this but WERE a scaling adjustment ….. to reflect the zone as it is now. SMALL, with very FEW players. Ive explained how in other posts. Yes, I was the only other person that complained about the 1min mines. I stated that when I'm chasing a running opponent, they can crap mines in my path and regain them for re-use twice as quickly. Avoiding those mines to cause the runner to run out of mines is a response tactic now halved in value. I've said it forums and I've said it in-game. Yes, inconclusive. You heard it here ninth, folks. I must read back to find your Pros and Cons because I have overlooked them. I'll read back to see what questions you put to Gad, but your questions haven't been dismissed. I've given you my responses myriad times. That's what this post, post #29 on this thread, post #24 on this thread, and many other posts on other threads are dedicated to. I don't argue with this. Gad is welcome to respond to that. Is that what they actually SAID, or what youre assuming ? Did you ask ? How many chaos players read the forums regularly and followed the discussion to consider the positions ? They are welcome to speak up, its been a topic of conversation in-game as well. You can also get out the vote if you want. This was a CHANGE to a setting. This has also been argued in in-game chat. Gad etc made their positions clear. I have seen three people that we could expand to try to frame as pro-1m-mine voters. Yourself, samgunn (who came on board after the fact but his vote is valid) and Surrey, who said, simply "lol @ Gad whining on the forums". If a heap of people now start to complain that the change was rolled back, that input would still be taken into account. Yes sam's input is also appreciated. He gave a good solid for and against mix. And I agree with you that ideally, no changes would be best, except that the environment (playing numbers) has changed enough that this isn't really so. PS: lol its noon already. Do more of this please, its making my day fly by

Imo this is an extremely good point and very relevant to the debate. When a new player enters and we give them some early hints, one of the first is "your energy and your health are the same thing. DON'T waste firing with just spraying indiscriminately". Then they die to someone who's bonused a booster so they can send three thors down from the top of the map without having a clue what demographics of players will be in its path. Its a specific point where part of the playing philosophy is corrupted by the advent of bonuses. "Use your weapons wisely" is almost the reciprocal of the bonus system.

Its very very lame but for purposes of action taken, is not considered cheating. On a ... umm ... layman-term, I guess ... basis, yes I would call it cheating. But its not actionable. However, there is a reference amongst the rules to acting in a way that is detrimental to the zone in general. I would consider that this falls under that heading. Personally I would like to see this be actionable. Its more complicated than that (don't ask me to explain because I don't fully really understand every part of it from A to Z), though. My understanding is that this is incorrect. I gottah get back to that thread shortly to continue our argument. Apologies but I'm squeezing it in with work. But in short, this is also erroneous. It might have worked out handy for Gad that the resultant action was how it was, but Gad & Co did not force the result.

3. Toys are too easily gained through greens, bonusing etc, agree. Would rather the bonus system be scaled back than removing greens tho. Means there is still some actual legwork involved in gaining the toys. I think you SHOULD have to work at greening. Hence scale back bonuses and let people green their toys more than gaining them through automatic means. *actually good point inside the sarcasm here from Gad* - how about, when !fullship becomes available, its time to make !sc tougher. !sc only from safe, too?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw

or edit title and unstick

No, no caving in. Experiment run course, evaluated, acted upon. The reset finished at the same time it was expected to, it wasn't brought forward or delayed to accommodate anything. When it came about, Hallu made the change. Why are you so intent on demanding that an action NOT taken against players you think are lame, is caving in? It seems that, in the same way that Gad claims changes have been made to hurt specifically him, you are claiming that a change has been made to specifically NOT hurt him. At this point the question must asked: would you like to see things happen that help the zone, or things happen that hurt play-style you personally don't like? Mine-repping is not illegal and not some new superweapon. Its been around for ages. Its not to be outlawed. Sure, its easier in this day and age to lamely pwn with its use, so maybe some scaling adjustments are necessary. But no more than that. Yes, agreed. I'm not claiming you did not contribute. I find value in your comments quite a lot, even if I don't always agree with them. You'll note that I express myself very candidly, regardless of whether I have just agreed or disagreed with your previous point. I don't just take sides, I deal with everything on its individual merits. I'll agree when I agree, and I'll disagree when I don't agree. Its surprising how rare that is! What I'm claiming is you're wrong in alleging a "cave-in", and I am concerned that more times you stubbornly scream it out, the more opportunity there is for it to transmute into disinformation. Every time you shout something that's wrong, expect someone to tell you its wrong. This is more purely Hallu's side of things, but I have seen a lot of negative feedback from Gad and folk who generally can be seen gunning on Gad. I've not seen anyone totally pro-1 minute mines. I have not seen anyone overly helped or hurt by the change. I killed a bountied up poo bucket with a mine rep yesterday, man that was sweet The only other person I've seen make a negative comment about the 1-minute timer, is me. Overall, the results seem inconclusive. So, at the end of the test period, it would make sense to reset it to how it was before. If we dismiss Gad & co's opposition as pure whining - and ignore it, then we are left with a 0 for, 0 against result. A tie. So it fails to make the cut. Well ... they weren't whining Firstly, that's a waterfall. Honestly, if no-one else seems to think it helped them feel any safer or better defended against those lamers, then ... who cares? I copy pasted your post into a text file to read because of the number of smilies

I was in there an hour ago and they were still 1 minute. Must just have happened. Given not even ?chat works while the biller is down, a new news.txt is possibly not the first priority. I'm sure it will be there soon enough.

Cripes Gad, you're a very good player and usually have a bunch of extra guns attached to you. Have you every thought of just trying to defeat them?

Yeah bursts and rockets etc came at 3 per bonusing, now its just 1 each. So effectively the same thing we could previously bomnus for 2 pts now costs 6. I think Hallu said earlier that he considers the rep the most powerful special there is. And for someone wanting not to die, I guess that's true. That's his argument for keeping it so expensive. But its fair enough to argue that its on a par with 3 bursts + 3 thors for strength. That's up to our personal opinion. WE really gottah get a housekeeper in here to keep each subject contained on a relevant thread. Biller is down = bonus argument, How to get players = bonus argument, Bonuses discussion = bonus argument.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Hallu said the 1m was becoming 2m again because it didn't seem to pan out as much of an improvement. Pros and cons of the change were discussed ad nauseum, from sensible to screaming, but ... yeah ... I guess he just "caved in".

Why would a hunter attack a newb? A hunter chases either a high bounty, a laming vet, a turret, or someone who's pissing them off. A half-hour old player isn't going to fit those categories. ... Anyway, kids, on AI bots, and yes I'd already suggested they could be exploited (probably in ways we haven't even thought of yet, like extreme bot-sex), well clearly killing a bot (or being killed by one) would be excluded from stats, and they wouldn't count towards freq sizing either. Something like that. And I maintain that they should be only in either a newb arena or a newd sector of the pub arena, inaccessible to the madding crowd.

Says right at the top of the post you quoted, Jazz ; Speed & Booster bonuses have been tripled in cost, essentially, as their gain has been cut to a third of previous.

Jazz: !bonus fullship does not give you specials. Its kind of a ramped up version of !tuneup. It moves your Max Nrg to the max your ship can have, your bullets and bombs to their max levels, enables bouncing bullets and multi in case you dont have them, stealth, x and aw if you dont already have them. Not sure if it guarantees you prox. Probably does. Considering there's actually a bit of substance to all that, I reckon it should cost 4 bonuses, not 3. A spawning pilot missing only one or two of these things, eg they are full except max nrg is 1600 and otherwise they're ok, they shouldn't find this a handy bonus. It should really only be attractive for when you spawn and the game just sold you a complete lemon of a ship. Nothing bonus-wise should be money for jam. They are super-power-ups. They should feel like you've spent as much cash (bonus) buying them as you would have spent time and effort, greening them.

GOD I LOVE CONTINUUM nope, that just sounds wrong. Subspace for me.

I love the idea of bot ships. I really do. I don't think its without a lot of logistical and ethical issues, but I agree that AI bots for newbie practice is a concept that should be pursued if possible. I worry about putting the bots in the public arena, as vets could work out exploits that might come back to bite us in the butt. I worry about having a newbie arena, as this can defeat the purpose of getting more population in, in the first place. I am not across this whole scenario but I'd love to see a newbie section of pub arena. There IS room around the outside. In fact, the main arena is pretty darn big for our current pop, so why not shave a bit more off, add a parallel newb section, with AI bots, with newbs invited but not mandatory (maybe mandatory until first kill, I dunno), and restrict vet access. Yes, more issues again, a trolling vet may fabricate an identity to get in there and maul. Well, its just a concept. I agree re the client. We are plugging an old game here, that kids these days are wont to sneer at. But its a brilliant game and deserves its place. You're suggesting looking into types of tutorials. I don't see why this can't be done. The actual download to be in a zone transition is actually a tiny bit murky and needs clear explanation. Then, once in, yes, how to play. Well, that's in many ways up to people like me. As a staff member, I am meant to help advise new players on the basics. Of course, any vet can do this too. Be careful with obliterating the new names. Offer some advice to them. If it turns out to be some vet in disguise .... bah ahh well, next one. You're thinking tutorial videos etc. Yes maybe, haven't thought much on that. Real meat. Advertise the damn thing, excuse my french. Banner advertising is a great idea. As stated above, although small fry, Mittens' banner is greatly appreciated in my opinion. Tell your forum buddies, tell your facebook buddies. When I said "make" and "abduct" of course I'm using hyperbole. I mean, simply, annoy them a bit. On Facebook, whenever someone says "wanna get the new [insert stupid new game here] but not sure if its worth the time/money", I respond to them saying "Subspace: free, quick, best ever" or something ribbing like that. You never know, it might work. Always add the getcontinuum link wherever you do this, frame an image if possible too. Every time anyone's in an internet gaming cafe, ask at the desk if they have Subpace Continuum. Act surprised when they ask what that is. Then tell them. Use its selling points: First ever MMOG, oldest one and still running today. Give them the link. Probably should develop a poster so that if a cafe ever says "cool we'll add it" you can give them a poster to stick on their desk or wall. I know, I;m at the point of prattling, but there's something in this, I'm sure of it. Like you said, fliers, well for the cafe's anyway. And re your comment about AI bots being possible. I know this first hand. I was in Devastation zone once where they were testing an AI bot and it was massacreing me. I'm worried about giving them too much power. We've all seen the Terminator, yes?

Hehe I have none now 'cause I disowned them for not playing Subspace! On a brighter note, good work "Mittens Da Bunny" for plugging SS on his radio station, KIK FM (Darwin, Australia). Subspace appears amongst the rotating banner ads. Baby steps! http://www.kikfm.com.au/ http://www.gotsharing.com/images/kikfmss.png

That's an extremely valid point LC and I wish I had thought to sufficiently word my thread in a manner that didn't suggest approaches that might in some places be considered tantamount to illegal. I don't know what I was thinking. Jesus Christ.

Sadly, I know so little about Unix systems, or programming (other than QBasic), that I don't even understand your post! I've highlighted the bits I don't understand. Edit: I am looking at that page now. I am pathetically uneducated about sources and clients etc, so I don't really understand what this would do that is different from what the current Subspace/Continuum thingy. So there'sd probably something really cool in there! Does this mean it can go on those fancy cellphones some people have with games on them?

How do you get someone, who is used to cutting edge - or at least recent - gaming technology, to like Subspace. To get someone to go have a look, not to mention to play, come back, and repeat, is an immense achievement, very difficult. Fellow Aussie fenrix got four mates to join once, was seen out east near the safes showing them all the ropes (telling them stuff through something like Teamspeak, I think). Of these, Soothsayer II came back for one or two more visits, then he disappeared. Various folks here have been known to get their kids online to have a play. I know Blackers is one, but there seem to be a few here and there. Whether there are stayers amongst them, well, who can say. Every now and then I've plugged the game on a major sporting forum (in Aust) and had zero luck. One guy said it looked like StarCon, that's all I got. ( link: http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/editpost.php?do=editpost&postid=20600925 ) Has anyone actually had some luck, said to a friend, you should try this! They've tried, and they've stayed? 'cause it usually feels like I'm on a hiding to nothing.

As Gad's post is clearly specifically aimed at me, personally, I thought I'd better respond. 1. Yes its a good idea to reduce some of the advantages turrets have now in low pops. Also do same for advantages runners and remote lobbers have, too. 2. No leave safe zones there. Make sure they aren't ridiculously easy to enter, because some folk like to exploit them for hit and run sessions, but don't remove them altogether. Definitely was a good move to reintroduce them. 3. Toys are too easily gained through greens, bonusing etc, agree. Would rather the bonus system be scaled back than removing greens tho. Means there is still some actual legwork involved in gaining the toys. I think you SHOULD have to work at greening. Hence scale back bonuses and let people green their toys more than gaining them through automatic means. *actually good point inside the sarcasm here from Gad* - how about, when !fullship becomes available, its time to make !sc tougher. !sc only from safe, too? 4. Sorry I don't follow this one. 5. Who got rid of !revenge? Whoever it was, GOOD IDEA! 6. Agree except for the bit about the puppy ship, if a 50bty bot appeared I'd never get to it in time before you found it. Mind you, you'd have to check quickly to make sure it wasn't another instance of you 7. Don't follow this one either. People who don't talk to me are ultra-cool like Skiz. 8. Yes waiting sucks, I never wait. I hop in as soon as I can. Then, if a turret slot opens up, I'll jump on it. The only player I've ever seen actively waiting to hunt is sue e side. He asks for people to bonus rabbit hehe. I don't have that patience. 9. Turrets should be subject to mine rules like every other frequency. No special consideration! 10. Should be able to have as many gunners as the frequency settings allow at the time. 11. Or even if they gunned on a turret that stayed in play! 12. Nah don't ban him unless he does anything illegal. Probably need to scale back the advantages turrets have in these times' lower populations, though. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here's my take on the never-ending argument. Remember I'm not a long-time Chaos player and don't really know how it all was back in the day etc etc. Essentially Chaos has seemed to me to be intended to cater for many and varied playing styles. Turretting, hunting, J12 melee agents, bounty- and/or stat-whores. Lamers, surly vets, gangly newbs. There's kind of something for everyone. These days there's flag games etc to cater for even more conceivable goals. Overall, each of the approaches to play should have pros and cons, and not be either impossible to succeed at, nor impossible to defeat. In a perfect world each should have a similar level of difficulty, weighted against the strength of the goal. With turrets, the trade-off for a super-powerful multi-firing, multi-special, robust megaship, is that, as you start to assert authority using these advantages, everybody else starts to take notice, and you find yourself under siege. That is right, isn't it? Turrets are way more powerful BUT they suffer wave after wave of assailants paying a LOT of attention to them! THAT'S why its not a total mismatch. ( General view only, ignoring that me driving a turret with Blackers and Great Jedi gunning, facing say, Snafu, or Surrey in a straight-out duel, might not fit the above assumption of power balance! Actually me driving with a turret with Blackers gunning is enough to kill us in an otherwise empty arena!) So, this is representative of a basic concept, which is indeed a basic concept of gaming. As you proceed, survive, win, excel, etc, you "level up", and face more difficult "levels". In the case of Subspace, "levelling up" is really just entering a new level of "noticeability": So you're back to Level .... 2. People are going to notice you right from the start now. But they aren't going to batter you to pieces until you get a bit of bounty again ... or if they feel you really, really, did all that very lamely. Now, this is the concept of how the game is supposed to become more difficult as you become better. Its our version of levelling. So long as the environment supports this, it really can work quite perfectly. With Turrets, and also with Runners, and Remote Lobbers, part of the environments that keeps the balance, is population. All three need to rely upon not spending too much time constricted to melee-work. On the fringes, or anywhere out of the centre, there's more flee-space. Nowadays, population is considerably down. Why this is, and what we can do about it, is for another thread. Fact is, it is. What this has done, is it has altered the balance. The remote areas of the map used to be comparatively safer than the middle. There was less action out there, and, more importantly, it was action that hadn't seen what had just been happening in the middle. Now its basically empty, and almost entirely safe. The only action is the action that chased the turret/runner FROM the centre. The fringes are a haven now, with probably only about 20% the dangers that such areas used to pose. No-one's going to be hanging around safe, sitting in a sole gap to another sector, or spraying bullets all over the place in some outlying duel. There are other elements too, a random warp is a LOT safer now. The ability to get into a safe zone is easier, due to there being less enemies hanging around there at the time you arrive. So, overall, the balance of power has been skewed by population change. Now I'm no hunter. I've had a fun discussion with Gad about how proud I was when I killed him once, yes ... ONLY ONCE , in the 9 or so months I've been back in Subspace and playing Chaos. (Actually its twice, now, and I only added this sentence so I could brag about it) But I LOVE to chase a big bty or a turret. Why? CHALLENGE! I can hardly beat a first-time newb, but if a turret flits by, I'm off after it. Its FUN! Sometimes I'll try to be self-preservative in the act, sometimes I'll throw caution to the wind. Who friggin' cares. I guess if I was any good, it might matter a bit more that I'm fairly suicidal. Hence I think that some things DO need to be adjusted to bring the balance of power back to a more even level. Exactly what? Well, we've seen some slight tweaks and its generated a lot of discussion and anger. Larger tweaks are billed for upcoming resets and these are going to be supported by some and decried by others. I can SEE why a hunter feels that its lame for Gad to run round the map like he's in a centrifuge, or head for safe whenever he loses a gunner, to allow a secure reattachment rather than attempt to do so out in the open arena. When I'm on a turret, the driver has always attempted to enable my attachment from within play, rather than within safe. EG fongz, umm that other player, can't remember name, a word like dix but not dix, probably another 3-letter name, can't remember, loves lancs. They don't last as long as a Gad turret, but then again, they don't spend much time in safe, or rocketting along the boundary of the map, either. They tend to stay in play much more often. Caveat: not ALWAYS, as EVERY turret, like EVERY player, is plain stupid to not duck away from the action when they cop some hits and have low energy, or run out of reps. I'm an exception. Or stupid. Probably the latter. I can ALSO see why Gad and those who ride him feel as though the changes are some sort of personal attack on them. They are trying to use one of the various playing styles in Chaos. Their ships are more powerful, they have more focus on them, its supposed to even out. Why change anything else? Why the hate? Is he being punished for being good? To an extent, such tweaks ARE based on reducing the advantage turrets (also runners and lobbers) have these days - due to the lower population. Because there are less players around, more safe open spaces, fringes, unmarked safeties, unguarded slip-points, the "levelling up" simply doesn't result in a higher level of difficulty, or not enough so. The balance has become skewed. A turret should have to run a gauntlet of one strength or another almost everywhere they are in the arena, perhaps a little less so in the remote areas. Now there is just no gauntlet at all out wide, not near the safes, either. That just makes the situation a bit of a joke. Also, exploits of the game through simply, realising "hey if I do this, then ..." are always going to be discovered. They also must always be taken into account by staff, does this new concept ruin things, skew balance? If so, do we a) outlaw it, or b ) adjust other things, to bring it back to a balance. In my opinion rules/settings should ALWAYS be examined for the need to change. When the environment itself changes, ie population and its ramifications, then this is just all the more imperative. So I support tweaks to bring back some balance. I dunno if I agree with everything suggested. We suggested changes to the bonus system and the overwhelming response was to get rid of the bonuses altogether! Wasn't expecting THAT! So there is going to be a reset with no Bonus use at all ... a combination of a) a fun change and b ) seeing what feedback such a scenario gets. After that, new bonus settings are set to be introduced. Again, the reception this receives is all important. I don't care that Gad (and Gad-turret) mine-reps. I don't really care that he runs when under attack. I enjoy chasing a Gad turret regardless of my chances. What I don't like is that the arena is arranged, settings-wise, such that a Gad-turret can exploit safety zones for regular get-out-of-jail-free. What I don't like is that he wrongly (edited from falsely, I don't think it's "falsely") claims that Chaos keeps changing to accommodate hunters, when in reality NATURAL change (population attrition) has caused Chaos to change to accommodate runners, and staff are merely working out ways to restore some balance. Clearly, if Gad's playing style was so impossible to utilise in Chaos, he wouldn't be the current record-holder for longest ever streak. Finally, I don't like that Gad has publicly expressed that he hates the (or some selected) staff of Chaos enough that he was encouraged to try to kill the zone. I don't believe he is trying to kill the zone, though he may feel somewhat that way, on and off. Regardless, that's a pretty pisspoor thing to say, and doesn't endear him to the rest of the population too much. I don't mind Gad, but I'm not gonna say I liked seeing him say that.

I think that says more about them than about anything else.

One of the problems I see in cutting the lifecycle of a mine, is that when you're hunting/chasing someone who has laid mines, you can avoid his mines and then feel secure that he can't drop any more for a while. With the lower mine-life, a runner can get their full compliment of mines back on his ship quicker, because those he's laid will expire sooner. So in one way, it kind of defeats the purpose, so I'm actually (surprisingly) against lower mine lives.

I don't even know what the current setting is. All I know is that if I'm on my own, I can lay 5 mines, if I'm not, I should be conscious that if I lay heaps of mines, my teammates may be adversely affected. What I'd like to see is to have mines tied to 100 nrg in the same way AW is tied to 1 nrg. So if I laid 5 mines - in a bank or in any other manner - I'd be dealing with 1100 max nrg until some of them exploded or expired. Tell me that's not an awesome idea. Ha! You can't! 'cause it IS!