Luminara

In context, that sentence was a reference to the fact that farming and power-leveling is condoned on HC, which means that, in conjunction with modern gaming expectations of "the game" being what happens after hitting max level, there is no assurance that the player would garner the requisite experience in basic interaction with enhancements when using "sage mode", even if the gate were having one or more level 50 characters. In the context of that post as part of an overall discussion, I expected that you would comprehend the issues that I presented, without them needing to be explained, as you've stated before that you power-level all of your characters to 50, which indicates that you're well aware that farming and power-leveling are normal activities on HC and could have an impact on player experience. In your own words: In the context of that thread, your post was a sarcastic retort about helping new players by power-leveling them, then sending them out into the game without the proper experiences or resources. This establishes that you were, in fact, aware of the potential problems with your idea, and the accusation of patronizing behavior and expression of incredulity were feigned. Now, do you want to discuss the objective assessment that I posted? If not, I have funny cat pictures to look at.

I said that the game was designed to follow a format that requires players to learn how enhancements are used in order to progress effectively, and bypassing that format would leave players without that basic educational tool, not that players need to prove anything. In fact, I stated that there's nothing in the game that requires that players prove knowledge in order to progress specifically in response to the suggestion that the option be gated and only to explain why gating it wouldn't work. And you yanked that out of context and tried to misrepresent it. Whatevs.

I was so caught up in watching the footage from Blue Ghost (i've been so focused on Artemis 3 that i didn't even know about Blue Ghost until yesterday) that I wasn't aware that there was an eclipse. Not that it mattered, since the weather turned last night. Oh, well. Back to counting the minutes until Artemis 3.

Were this something the development team had any interest in adding to the game, it definitely wouldn't start below level 20. The game is scaled in the 1-19 range to give player characters the advantage. For example, a single use of an unenhanced T2 attack at level 2 is sufficient for several archetypes to defeat a +0 minion. As the character levels up, the player has to either enhance that T2 attack, or use another attack in conjunction with it, to defeat a +0 minion. Eventually, even fully enhanced to the ED cap, that T2 attack only deals a small percentage of a +0 minion's HP. Permitting players to take multiple stronger attacks in lieu of the standardized allotment wouldn't just be deleterious to the balance of the 1-19 game, it would also create a problem for inexperienced players by directly contradicting how and what the game currently teaches about slotting enhancements. The early game is designed, and makes an effort, to gradually ease players into the process of building characters by offering slightly stronger powers at certain levels and enhancement slots at other levels, and requiring them to learn to enhance powers. This would sidestep that, giving them nigh unlimited power from the outset, which would make the first 20 levels really boring, and then everything really, really hard, for someone who doesn't understand the systems and mechanics that they need to know later in the game. And there really isn't a way to gate this so inexperienced players wouldn't fall into the trap of failing to learn how to use enhancements properly, unless the gate is so exclusionary and arbitrary that it's impossible to pass through until they're veterans. We don't have DPS check fights, short of GMs and AVs, nor can they exist in Co* due to the extremely wide range of build variations, so nothing in the game can be used to make players prove that they know how to slot and use enhancements effectively. Putting an actual time gate, like XXX days, on the unlock would generate complaints, so that wouldn't be on the table. That only leaves things like badge collecting, or simply having X number of level 50 characters, neither of which is actually indicative of a player's grasp of enhancements and slotting. I just don't see this as something HC would use. It works against the ongoing efforts to bring in and retain new players.

Just eat your SG-mates like a normal person.

Back in the day, when the game was being maintained by a full development studio with a comparatively large staff who were full-time employees, Cryptic and Paragon didn't typically address player requests in this amount of time. But, hey, maybe if you crack the whip a few more times, the HC team will conform to unreasonable performance expectations.

You mean... stake your claim. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

There are a handful of people who have a problem with HC. It's their problem. Don't respond. Don't fire back. Don't even deflect and absorb. Just ignore it. The longer it continues as a one-sided drama, the deeper the hole they dig themselves into. Let them dig that hole, don't interfere and don't give them ammunition. Not even here on the forums. Keep being the incredible bunch of people you are, and when people are looking at more than server metrics, they'll see that the reason more people play here is because the atmosphere is better. There are times when the right solution is not fighting back. This is one,

Maybe he was on a... stake out. OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH and the crowd goes mild.

They do, every update. But there are a lot of players who show no interest in assisting in the guidance of that evolution. For example, people who post 2 or 3 times every few years and say nothing beyond "This game is boring and I like the other servers better". And because there's also little interest in joining the development team, which is small and working wholly on personal time, and a certain standard of quality is expected (as opposed to other server groups' "Throw everything at the wall, see what doesn't start fires" approach), development is slower. If you don't like what's being done, the time to speak up is when an update is in open beta (or, better, closed beta, which has a standing invitation), not once every six years. If you don't like the pace of development, the solution is to apply to join the team, not ask that they work harder and faster. If you don't care enough to participate in some way, you take what you get, and you get what you put into it.

Blutwurst.

They'll just give him another horse head to sleep with, and we do not need more pictures of that.

Report him to the mods!

Yeah... they charge an arm and a leg to eat people these days. Inflation, man. Inflation.

Blasphemy. Guards, take him to the dungeon!

Two fire farm brutes run 'round the AE, 'round the AE, 'round the AE! Two fire farm brutes run 'round the AE, 'round the AE, 'round the AE! @Snarky's back, back again. @Snarky's back, tell a friend. @Snarky's back, @Snarky's back. @Snarky's back, @Snarky's back. @Snarky's back, da na na. *butt shaking ensues, with much vigor* *back pain ensues, with much cursing*

You swallow.

That article covers people who were affected by two striking unions slowing down productions when they were still ramping back up after the pandemic, and production companies looking for bigger tax breaks outside of California. Not a single word of it even touched on film failures or production companies firing people, and considering that all of the people interviewed were unionized and contract workers, it affirmed what I said about the structure of the film industry. Um... thanks?

I'd rather look bad than lie. No, I don't think I should mind my own business, either. Their mistakes are public matters, I'm a member of the public, I'm going to point and laugh. That's... not how the film industry works. A lot of the crew are independent contractors, either part of a company which provides a specific service (set design, audio engineering, cinematography, etc.) or individuals (who are usually members of a union) contracted for the duration of the film. Of the ones who are employees of the production company, they're rarely in positions which lead to termination due to a film's failure, and even then, only if a film's failure is directly attributable to them. They don't fire the guys who swing hammers and run cable unless they're really fucking things up, like setting things on fire or constantly jumping in front of the camera while the cast is filming scenes. And for the contracted crew, they usually have to go through the director, who may or may not comply. Directors like to use the same people for crews when they can. Familiarity with the crew frees them up from micro-managing all of the work that goes on behind the camera and makes a shoot smoother for everyone. Even if a producer hates some of the people a director wants to work with, the director's usually the one calling the shots because the producer needs the director, not the other way around. It's very rare for cast/crew to end up permanently jobless because of a failed film, or even a string of failures. There's always another movie set that needs a make-up artist, a set designer, a gaffer, audio technician, lighting technician, props, etc. You don't hear about key grips struggling to make ends meet for the same reason you don't hear about people at ILM starving because a production company "fired" them. That's not how it works. The days of producers owning everything from the director to the best boy grip ended a long time ago. Production companies are glorified investors, publishers and distributors these days, and if Producer A won't hire someone, Producers B-Z damn sure will. Producers can fire directors (or throw so many obstacles in their way that they quit), who have much more control over the crew composition, and bring in a more pliable director, but that rarely works in their favor. If a producer is very insistent, he/she might convince a director to get rid of a crew member, but that's not going to have much impact on that person's career, the director will likely hire him/her on the next project (that happens a lot), or someone else will hire him/her and express gratitude that he/she was available (that's usually what happens when the other thing doesn't). No, the people who "suffer" are the ones in the production company, at least in the film industry. And you're right that the ones at the top rarely see the consequences of being dumber than one of my boots, it's the middle managers and secretaries and in-house PR people and bean counters and mail clerks who are deemed "unnecessary" or "victims" of cost-cutting measures or whatever they decide to call it. But even that's not the end of their careers, because, again, there are so many production companies. Directors and actors have been starting their own production companies in droves over the last couple of decades, so there's always another middle management job, secretarial job, PR job, accounting job, mail clerk job, et cetera. The "little guys" just move to another office, and they don't seem to be raising an uproar over that. Now, yes, it's a little different in the video game industry. A lot of good people lose their jobs when Ultrabig Money publishers buy their development studios and ruin them over time. And that is sad, it's not something I celebrate... and at the same time, I feel that it's a lesson they should've learned by paying attention to what's happened every time one of those Ultrabig Money publishers has bought a development studio. For decades, we've seen everything that companies like Activision and EA have done, we've seen them destroy one studio and franchise after another. Anyone who sells out to a company like that, with the mountain of evidence showing that it's a bad idea... well, they should've known better, and I'm going to munch on my popcorn while they make shocked faces and run around like panicking civilians in an office map. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

There was a guy who survived a shipwreck, talked about slowly starving to death in some television show I watched a long time ago. He was surviving on fish he caught, but gradually succumbing to rabbit starvation, and suddenly found himself craving the eyes, brains and skins of the fish (the fat storage areas). I remember gagging when I listened to him describing how hungrily he gulped down those bits, but having been close to that stage later in life, it seems a lot less repulsive now. There have been a few times in the last 8 years when I've seen roadkill and seriously considered bringing it back to the cabin.

Cottage cheese was the result of attempts to strain the cream skimmed off of the milk. When an animal is milked, the constituent components of milk come out all mixed up, the proteins and fats very evenly distributed throughout the liquid. The fats, what we refer to as the cream, are the most useful and desirable part, and we obtain them by allowing them to float to the top over time. We then use the cream to make butter or cheese. The problem is that... well, most animals are fucking filthy. Especially on their undersides, where their bodies touch the ground when they lie down (most ungulates sleep on their stomachs). They frequently have dirt and manure on their udders, so the milk has to be strained. No-one enjoys a mouthful of fur or straw bits or shit floating in their milk. There are better ways to get fiber in our diets. But straining it before the cream has separated not only means you have to wait longer to get the cream, you're also removing some of the lipids when trying to get the gunk out. So you let the whole thing settle first, then skim it, then put the cream into cheesecloth to strain that, then strain the rest of the milk. If you use too many layers of cheesecloth, it doesn't strain, it pools. The least fatty liquid drips out while the heavier, creamier part stays in the cheesecloth, and even at room temperature, the fats begin to coagulate into curds. Normal cheese-making requires scalding the milk (bringing the temp up to just under boiling), then adding rennet (Google it) or an acid (which is a shortcut), but cottage cheese, or farmer's cheese, as it's also called, relies on bacteria and yeast from the environment and takes place naturally. That jug of spoiled milk in your refrigerator isn't cheese, it's just spoiled milk. The lactobacilli went into over-production, the whey has completely separated and the gunky stuff stuck to the sides of the jug and floating on top are bacteria poop. You can make cheese with spoiling milk, or even recently spoiled milk, and there are a few that are made specifically that way, but once the process has gone too far, it becomes toxic. Cheese isn't bacteria poop, it's the result of the acids released by bacteria, or acids you add to the scalded milk, causing the fat molecule chains to unravel and recombine in a different, tighter configuration, what we have come to call curds. Yes, I make cheese, too. Cheese-making is a process as old as sausage-making, and just as fascinating. Acid cheese are really easy and fast, rennet cheeses only slightly more complicated and a bit more time-consuming, but superior for texture and flavor. Basic homespun cheeses like cottage cheese require almost no attention or time, but I've always felt like they were a waste of good cream. I like cottage cheese, but not enough to make it instead of a solid cheese.