To all the Original CoH players

[HeyItsRadny]

I'm curious if any of you remember the player Twixt from the original servers, might remember him as an incredible nuisance, as he definitely purposefully was! He is one of my college professors, had him last year for Freshman Seminar. I was wondering what any of yall who might remember him have to think about him, knowing that his purpose was for social experimenting to draft results on the concept of society and community unwritten rules/etiquette in early games! I thought it was a really interesting topic when he brought it up to us last year and was very intrigued by his logic, but I feel like a lot of you were probably less than enthused at the time hahaha. Let me know what your thoughts are! Preferably no threats though.

[Rylas]

I read an article about him and the experiment just the other day. I never played PvP but remember a big to-do in the forums about him.

 

I don't find it all that surprising that the behavior of the inhabitants of a social structure might sometimes be influenced more by the rules formed among themselves than by the rules intended for them to behave by. Rules that weren't enforced to be followed either.

 

Look at driving behaviors in big cities. In a large city where police don't ticket for speeding as much, you might see different behavior socially enforced by its drivers than those cities with smaller population and quieter traffic. Once a social behavior is adopted and creates some level of stability, people are gonna react negatively to anything that doesn't follow that behavior.

 

Still, the way people reacted went overboard sometimes for sure.

[ArchVileTerror]

From what I read, his project didn't exactly adhere to any scientific burden of proof, and basically came across as just trolling for the sake of trolling under the guise of scientific research.  I don't have a complete picture, of course, but I only know of the one article online to base this opinion off of.

[Cornell]

I very much remember this. Not so much first hand but, I know he played his character in Siren's Call. He was an asshat from all accounts. TPing people to drones, really. Then again, if you pvp'd in CoX you had it coming! Now, do you remember Sister Flame?

[Rust]

I don't recall anything concrete, but the name Twixt definitely twinges my memory.

[Stray]

I remember when he was on Champion, and then finding out about the "experiment" after he went off to... Freedom?

 

I seem to recall him being investigated by an ethics board for the way that the experiment was handled, wonder if that was actually a thing.

[WarScribe]

Played with and against him on Champion.

He was hated by mostly every hero and villain in sirens calls who tried to fight club.

 

I thought he was hilarious. He’d tp people into drones and mobs and stuff lmao.

 

Sigh, I’m old...

[HeyItsRadny]

Played with and against him on Champion.

He was hated by mostly every hero and villain in sirens calls who tried to fight club.

 

I thought he was hilarious. He’d tp people into drones and mobs and stuff lmao.

 

Sigh, I’m old...

Haha yea, he talked a lot about that tactic and found it interesting how that seemed to be his biggest offense to people! Aside from attacking friendlies, obviously

[HeyItsRadny]

I remember when he was on Champion, and then finding out about the "experiment" after he went off to... Freedom?

 

I seem to recall him being investigated by an ethics board for the way that the experiment was handled, wonder if that was actually a thing.

As far as I've heard and read, that's pure hearsay. Let me see if I can find his write up on his experiment.

[HeyItsRadny]

I very much remember this. Not so much first hand but, I know he played his character in Siren's Call. He was an asshat from all accounts. TPing people to drones, really. Then again, if you pvp'd in CoX you had it coming! Now, do you remember Sister Flame?

Sad to say CoH/X was a few years before my time, so Professor Myers is about my only source of knowledge from the game eheh.

[Razor Cure]

Go punch him in the face. Seriously. His 'experiment' of testing if players get angry at being trolled and abused, especially Verbal abuse (he didnt just drone people and stay silent), was a joke. He must have the maturity of a mayfly.

[Reiraku]

"Get moar phase. Ho ho"

[WarScribe]

I can’t say that I remember he being verbally abusive.

I don’t recall him really saying anything unless provoked,

or some generic statement about heroes winning

[Kifflom]

I remember him teleporting people into the drones in the hero base in RV (forgotten what this even stands for -- the highest level PvP zone) on regular basis. I think he even had a villain build to do this too. When more/better hero players came into the zone and pushed back to the villain base he'd swap to his villain character and set up shop there. This was on Freedom around i11 to i14.

 

After I quit playing in 2010 or 2011 I remember a friend from the game messaging me on Steam to tell me that Twixt had published an academic paper on his experience griefing people. I didn't look into it and didn't really believe him. I figured anyone who had the mental wiring to do what Twixt did for as long and as often as he did it wouldn't be able to hold down any kind of job at all.

 

"Get moar phase. Ho ho"

 

reading this gave me PTSD

[Misguidance]

I remember people talking about this guy a lot on the forums, but I never met him in-game.

 

I did meet a lot of people using his teleportation tactic 'for the lolz', though, so I'm not surprised folks got thoroughly annoyed with him.  The idea that he managed to actually make an academic paper out of it is both hilarious and infuriating.

[TerraSecundus]

I'm curious if any of you remember the player Twixt from the original servers, might remember him as an incredible nuisance, as he definitely purposefully was! He is one of my college professors, had him last year for Freshman Seminar. I was wondering what any of yall who might remember him have to think about him, knowing that his purpose was for social experimenting to draft results on the concept of society and community unwritten rules/etiquette in early games! I thought it was a really interesting topic when he brought it up to us last year and was very intrigued by his logic, but I feel like a lot of you were probably less than enthused at the time hahaha. Let me know what your thoughts are! Preferably no threats though.

 

I'm less concerned with his behavior in-game and more about his actions under the guise of research. TPing people into drones, sure, whatever.

 

However, if his victims were part of a study and did not provide informed consent to participate in that study, didn't he commit some sort of ethical violation?

[THEDarkTyger]

Honestly? "Social experimenting" is just a code word for "trolling" on the internet, especially in MMOs.

[Misguidance]

Honestly? "Social experimenting" is just a code word for "trolling" on the internet, especially in MMOs.

 

Yeah, but he took it a step further and actually DID do a social experiment, basically proving what anybody with half a brain already knows.  Which is that trolls are annoying gits.

 

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/8108/random/playing-by-the-rules-of-twixt

 

So because of him, we can actually say that trolls are scientifically proven buttholes. (Also, his conclusions in the actual paper show a staggering lack of understanding about how and why people play MMOs, which makes it even funnier/aggravating.)

[THEDarkTyger]

Honestly? "Social experimenting" is just a code word for "trolling" on the internet, especially in MMOs.

 

Yeah, but he took it a step further and actually DID do a social experiment, basically proving what anybody with half a brain already knows.  Which is that trolls are annoying gits.

 

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/8108/random/playing-by-the-rules-of-twixt

 

So because of him, we can actually say that trolls are scientifically proven buttholes. (Also, his conclusions in the actual paper show a staggering lack of understanding about how and why people play MMOs, which makes it even funnier/aggravating.)

 

Which makes it sound like to me that his "research" was just an excuse to have his fun by being an annoying git.

[Water]

Yes.

 

His is a very funny story and an entertaining read. Aren't we all experimenting socially all of the time anyway?

 

[ScarySai]

Seems like one of those studies that really didn't need to be made, from what I remember.

 

"Oh I acted like an obnoxious, annoying person in this game and people didn't like me, truly, I am breaking new ground."

[Huron]

Dude got paid to be an Internet Troll. Think of how many people out there do it for free. I believe the Joker had something to say about that....

 

On the other paw, the Loyola administration REALLY should be embarrassed.

[Misguidance]

 

On the other paw, the Loyola administration REALLY should be embarrassed.

 

I suspect that none of them knew much about video games (let alone MMOs) and he somehow managed to bamboozle them into thinking it was Important Research, when really he just wanted to be an ass online all day.

 

Not going to lie, if I thought I could dupe my boss into letting me play CoX for work, I would probably try it too.

[barrier]

I've read Twixt's work. He's full of it.

 

Not once does he delve deep into the fact that what drove most people's hatred of him had nothing to do with his tactics and everything to do with his refusal to interact in a "normal" manner.

 

What's my counterpoint? Me and one of my VG buddies basically behaved the same exact way for about 2-3 weeks, but filled the broadcast with chatter. There's a video somewhere of me forging his mastermind and successively droning 15 people while trash talking and calling targets in the open on broadcast.

 

Twixt wanted to draw broad conclusions from his play, but not once did he try to play the game as intended while also using broadcast to communicate his intentions. He didn't. That was the most basic control-group run he could have done, but he didn't.

 

All in all, the man is just an obsessive gamer like most of us, except he felt he need to write a paper about his experience so as to not get fired.

[BrigedFitch]

I played on Freedom, I remember him! haha! And I remember the article he wrote. He's bizarre.

 

RV is Recluses Victory