| Welcome Guest | Login |
Index
| Recent Threads
| Register
| Search
| Help
| 
| View Unanswered Threads
|
 |
Forums » List all forums » Forum: Piratical Parley and Politics » Thread: Riddle me this. |
|
Thread Status: Normal Total posts in this thread: 267
|
[Add To My Favorites] [Watch this Thread] [Post new Thread] |
| Author |
|
|
lbm
Joined: Sep 10, 2003 Posts: 1313 Status: Offline |
Well, I personally want to thank the OMs for coming up with an ingenious way to entice this old landlubber out of the inn and onto a navy boat for the first time in a LONG time! I have been with this game since Beta testing and have lost almost all interest in whatever new puzzle the Devs dangle in front of me. Atlantis? Tried it once. CI? I'd rather have a toothache. Foraging? Rather have a toothache and an impacted wisdom tooth. Whatever puzzle it is they recently put out that sounds like beach combing? Make that a root canal. without novacaine! Rigging? Beyond not interested... but wait? What's that? A tournament with a tantilizing prize that even *I* might have a chance of winning? (not that I would win, but it's encouraging to think that I wouldn't immediately get pwnd by the uber-elite that flock to every fam event.) After a few Booched I did get several Fines and even a Good! I am so proud of myself. Didn't win, and probably won't be playing that puzzle ever again. But ye did get me out to at least TRY it. Good job. :) ----------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Roleni
Joined: Aug 28, 2003 Posts: 4171 Status: Offline |
You mean your time has passed? <_< That aside - there are issues with this on multiple levels. One of them is that there are plenty of other ways to reward mediocrity, raffle something off, play a joke on ults, whatever than by using a familiar to do it. Reward top fine for kicks every now and then? Well, some won't find it funny, but if it's something cute and fun and the other places still get something nice, then it just seems silly. There's a difference, though, between silliness and bullshit. :) ---------------------------------------- Thalatta & others Hera tells ye, "You got me so flustered by the spanking, I booched my chat response!" Hera tells ye, "Purple is the most awesome colour ever!" |
|||
|
|
HiimEric2001
Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 3232 Status: Offline |
B then A. Taken farther, I wouldn't mind if the 3 other prizes were awarded to random Incredibles. I can't wrap my head around why anyone would ever want to give anything out for less than Excellent. If you can't get up to an Excellent then you suck. There are puzzles that I suck at. I don't expect to win a familiar (or anything!) in them. And guess what! I wish we could look at the Azure info pages. I used to suck at all the puzzles! I sure as hell wasn't reaching out my unskilled little hands looking for sympathy prizes because I couldn't hack it. Anyone can become the best at any puzzle. If you are willing to put the time into it. If you're willing to sit and think logically about what moves score the best, instead of getting flustered, or quitting, or not caring, or whatever, then you can win a familiar in a competition. I have never won a familiar for anything. I'm not going to quit though. I'm going to keep trying to improve, and whenever there are competitions I'll try my hardest. And I do not appreciate people wanting to turn my chance into winning a familiar into a lottery. And I don't appreciate people who haven't worked as hard being given prizes that I have worked hard to even have a shot t achieving. ---------------------------------------- Cire Purple Squid Brigade, Inglorious Fandango
|
|||||
|
|
Grinfish
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 7984 Status: Offline |
Oh my. Can somebody else flame this for me? You may Godwinize if needs be, as this certainly fits the bill of said era and certain figures within it. ---------------------------------------- Whitewyvern. Distinctly Limey. Retired, No regrets. Unretired, still No regrets. Available in Cerulean and Obsidian flavours.
|
|||||
|
|
Fixated
Joined: May 11, 2007 Posts: 3050 Status: Offline |
I honestly don't understand the mass HWFO going on here. It was one familiar, one competition, for a tan bird. They sometimes do the cute little bakeoffs or competitions (as someone said, top booched, etc), but you don't see them very often at all. There are other familiar events being held all the time to award the best in their league, no matter if it be puzzling competitions (the Summer games/February Frenzy), forum events, or actually bake-offs (Apollo's Weekend Bake offs). You can't say there's been a lack of letting people win familiars lately, and it was just one competition. One. If they did this all the time, I could understand the anger and sadness about OOO reverting to just a luck based game, but they don't. What I'm most worked up over is this competition to get the "top fine" occurred during a blockade. OOO really needs to sort out their timing, or let blockades happen on weekdays too. Hint hint. <3
Not even worth it. |
|||
|
|
Dogindafog
Joined: May 24, 2007 Posts: 150 Status: Offline |
appropriate names FTW.  ---------------------------------------- ~Dogindafog~ Monarch of Clandestine Gunnermooch said:
|
|||
|
|
bronzebeard
Joined: May 5, 2004 Posts: 2373 Status: Offline |
If anything, less than an incredible is a joke as far as prizes in a competition go. And the Oceanmasters agree, since apparently this wasn't meant to happen. Since it's doubtful familiars are ever going to stop being sold, just put in a cascading pot already and let the inferior people buy them. ---------------------------------------- Peglegpaul Now on Obsidian! |
|||||
|
|
HiimEric2001
Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 3232 Status: Offline |
How about you actually explain yourself rather than being a passive aggressive prick? Tell me why I deserve to be awarded awesome prizes for puzzles I suck at. I certainly don't think I deserve it. Apparently, you do? ---------------------------------------- Cire Purple Squid Brigade, Inglorious Fandango
|
|||||||
|
|
basso
Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 3156 Status: Offline |
I'd like to address this point. I spend a lot of my ingame time trying to help other players improve. Many of them seem to think that I was born as an ultimate puzzler. Often times, they'll try a puzzle using my advice, get a "fine" and claim it is too hard. After one duty report! A few have actually openly mocked the idea of reading a guide or watching a video to get better in a puzzle. Now yes, some of these are younger players who for some reason seek me out, yet don't want to put in any effort at all. They still do want to whine about how tough everything is though. Is this who we want to cater this great game to? Every once in a while though, I find someone who actually wants to listen and learn. Within a half an hour, they are getting goods and excellents at puzzles that have never made sense to them. A buddy of mine got his first incredible in d-nav the other day, and he was beyond excited. "Its so easy once it clicked in my head" was his description. This is a person with mainly all ables by the way, who thought the game was impossible and "unfair". Now, his attitude has changed completely, and he wants to learn sailing next. Personally, I was scared of d-nav at first. I could not wrap my head around the way the pieces rotated in fixed positions relative to each other. After a large number of fines, poors, and booches, I read up on it more, and watched one video. When I first played bilge, I clicked madly all over, trying to clear as much as I could (very much like how TH is played correctly). Obviously, I was failing rather badly. Some random dude on a navy ship told me it was based on efficiency, and I took off from there. The rest as they say, is history. By history, I mean I have #1 and a colored familiar from each puzzle. So how does someone go from "learning" to the highest incredible on an ocean? The power of information. That dnav video, and that random guy on the navy ship who told me about efficiency in bilge completely turned the game around for me. You know what is really amazing? In a game that is based on relative performance, the dominant players go miles out of their way to make guides, answer questions, make videos, and generally help everyone else. This is precisely why all the elite bashing and crying about familiars hording makes me so angry. The elites of this game are generally an amazingly helpful bunch. Just because some of them are "jack-booties", doesn't mean all of them are. I owe some of my success to those who came before me, so in the same spirit I'll help anyone who nicely asks for it. Finally yes, I did recently get 2nd place in a colored familiar multi-puzzle comp, because the guy I gave high level tips for alchemy beat me (alch was one of the puzzles). I don't want to win unless I am the best that day. That goes for me, and that goes for everyone else. So if elites are evil monsters who only caring about winning shiny things, why would I help my competition to get better? Why would anyone ever make a guide to help other pirates? The point is that you just can't succeed by showing up and hitting some keys or clicking the mouse. This fact is a good thing! Even better, sitting around for years clicking the mouse or hitting some buttons doesn't give you an advantage either. It is a game based on skill. Trying to play a puzzle without understanding the scoring or mechanics of it is like walking into a random class and taking their test that day. You would be amazed by the number of relatively experienced players that think alchemy is timed for instance. Or those that don't realize bilge is based on efficiency and not speed. Or those who think you have to do mega-vegas-9's to get the sails to move. So yeah I'll be blunt, if you can't figure out how to double each sailing platform and get goods, you do suck at sailing. Does this mean you are a bad person? Does it mean I'll shun you? Does it mean I'll mock you? No, but simply put, you aren't good. Saying that someone is not good is not mocking them, it is more stating the obvious. It is not like I go around sending people tells who have able stats. Quite the opposite actually, I donate my time in trying to help anyone who asks me, whether they are straight able in everything or not. Quitex, you are a great mate and crew member, but you have to drop the crap about familiar hording. I currently have 7, and I'll keep winning or buying (much more likely buying) them. It is really obvious that it is a sore point for you because you don't have one. Step outside yourself, and look at it from a different perspective. You know exactly the type of person I am, so when you lump "familiar horders" together, you are throwing me in with them. If the same people win them, more power to them. The simple fact is that competitions reward a different style of puzzling than most people have grown used to. It is all about one shiny high incredible, rather than a strong and consistent string of them. Finally, being bad at things is ok. I completely fail at treasure drop. Why would I be offended if someone said I suck at it? I mean, it is true right? Sure they could be nicer about it, but the point remains. There is nothing wrong with sucking :) ---------------------------------------- Montage of Sage
|
|||||
|
|
StuManchu
Joined: Jun 22, 2004 Posts: 7707 Status: Offline |
Well, you joined after the process was well underway, but apparently yes. Yes it is. Except we = them. ---------------------------------------- Was once Stuyvesant Redistribute your wealth, or we'll redistribute your blood. |
|||
|
|
OdorOfFrodo
Joined: Jan 6, 2007 Posts: 4426 Status: Offline |
Seig heil! Little too far, methinks. ---------------------------------------- Ecavatar by Ecastasy!
|
|||||
|
|
tarajayne
Joined: Sep 8, 2005 Posts: 1311 Status: Offline |
But massive HWFO about everything has been the norm. It's not just a blowup this time. In my opinion, it is not a bad idea to have a competition like this (on rare occasion). The same old contests do get boring, so creativity is always good. That being said, I think it must be held on a bakeoff ship, given at least a little notice, and definitely not during blockades. Otherwise, as was said, OOO's is endorsing sabotaging of ships. ---------------------------------------- Bridalgirl I get around. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by tarajayne at May 5, 2009 7:12:25 PM] |
|||
|
|
Quitex
Joined: Oct 9, 2006 Posts: 8144 Status: Offline |
As wrong as it might sound, Cire was telling the truth. You aren't supposed to win something that is--or was-- a well-known symbol of skill for.... sucking and then, being the luckiest. You shouldn't get your hands in a familiar unless you're proven to be brilliant at a puzzle, or flash the credit card. Sadly, being brilliant at poker counts, and the credit card does count too. They shouldn't. ---------------------------------------- Quitex, everywhere, mainly Ice. Monarch of Cows
|
|||||||
|
|
pomfret
Joined: Jan 8, 2006 Posts: 2672 Status: Offline |
Strangely enough, after I got my hands on a tan critter, I don't give two hoots about who else managed to get their hands on a this-that-or-other or how they managed to do so. That's the problem. There are some of us who think that the fun element in a bit of whimsy now and then outweighs the so-called 'principle' about familiars, maybe because we don't agree that it is an immutable 'principle'. And I didn't even get a chance to play :( ---------------------------------------- Pomfret of Except when I am Scroogie or somebody else Stupid merger made me change my signature... |
||
|
|
Grinfish
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 7984 Status: Offline |
Occasionally, there are going to be people who don't "get it". Whatever you say or do or teach, they simply won't be able to succeed at the normal goals required to obtain "Item X". However, said same people are fiercely loyal to the game, and enjoy it wholeheartedly, and play it with full effort. So, you end up with very few options to allow these people to receive Item X, and of course, in response and reverse to the "Elites get everything" arguments, you have to avoid excluding the more skilled people from said same competition(s) - not least because they can simply whip out a new alt and partake anyway. So, you end up with Lotteries, which are by-the-by, or trying to set up a competitive match with a "Handicap" to the more-skilled which puts everyone on a reasonable par. So, Top Fine Wins, Top Good Wins, and so on. Players who have limited skill have a chance, players who have greater skill have just as much chance, but with the slight hobbling of having to play below their means. Instead of holding onto a ticket/random number, Mr Average gets to play the game in a puzzle contest for a prize beyond their wildest dreams, to go against the best in the ocean, but without the complete desertion of morale you get in a traditional bakeoff. Summary - It was a variation of a handicap race which opened up the field beyond the usual means, and that is not a bad thing in itself. Too often would be too much, but heck, once a year per puzzle per ocean wouldn't be such a bad sacrifice. Someone who sucks can win, someone awesome can win, but someone average has just as much opportunity to win without being resigned to a total lottery that utterly ignores their lesser (but still valid) accomplishments. Sadly, it seems this is all moot, as the decision has been made to keep the underdogs firmly trodden down in future. One hopes they may reconsider that in due course. ---------------------------------------- Whitewyvern. Distinctly Limey. Retired, No regrets. Unretired, still No regrets. Available in Cerulean and Obsidian flavours.
|
|||||
|
|
StuManchu
Joined: Jun 22, 2004 Posts: 7707 Status: Offline |
"Underdogs"? that is a semantic/connotative leap that needs not be applied here. ---------------------------------------- Was once Stuyvesant Redistribute your wealth, or we'll redistribute your blood. |
|||
|
|
vnork
|
I'm curious - why is the entire player base entitled a chance to win a familiar through a puzzle competition? I'm an absolutely crap artist. I know this, and I don't expect OOO to give me a lottery's chance to win the portrait background contest or a familiar drawing competition, and I don't expect OOO to make it easier for me to set up an avatar shoppe. I'm not excluded from these competitions, but I don't think I'm entitled to be given a handicap either. Puzzle competitions have already awarded mid-upper level prizes to excellent/good/fine, which make it plenty worthwhile for everyone to join the competitions. I don't understand why familiars have to be included. Everyone already has a lottery's chance to win a seahorse, and everyone has a chance to save up enough PoE to buy one. Really, the better option than a handicap is a 2 minute or 5 minute long competition. Anyone one who's ever gotten an incred in a puzzle has a decent chance of winning that, and if you don't have the incredible trophy in that puzzle, then you probably shouldn't expect to win a familiar through that puzzle. -Vnork ---------------------------------------- [Edit 2 times, last edit by vnork at May 6, 2009 9:47:21 AM] |
|||
|
|
Grinfish
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 7984 Status: Offline |
Probably a bad choice of word, I was struggling to sum up the position of said peepils. Hopefully the rest of it gives the gist though. As far as the previous post goes (vnorks, in case I get sniped), I fear I'll just end up repeating my previous statements with the words re-arranged, so I'll be letting it roll from now on, unless someone says something really outrageously different. ---------------------------------------- Whitewyvern. Distinctly Limey. Retired, No regrets. Unretired, still No regrets. Available in Cerulean and Obsidian flavours.
|
|||||
|
|
basso
Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 3156 Status: Offline |
I've heard some decent stuff on both sides, but not an answer to this question only. Please leave the rhetoric and insults out of it, and answer the question. Furthermore, I'd like a "top fine" art competition very soon. I have some stick figure avatars that are pretty good lookin' :) ---------------------------------------- Montage of Sage
|
|||||
|
|
Talisker
Joined: Jul 24, 2003 Posts: 11261 Status: Offline |
I am an amazing artist of mediocre quality. I'd also enjoy this. ---------------------------------------- Leif The Forums
Av by Ecastasy |
|||||
|
|
Dylan
Joined: Jul 21, 2003 Posts: 10005 Status: Offline |
Deliberately misquoted |
|||
|
|
Grinfish
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 7984 Status: Offline |
I'll have a go then... The entire player base is entitled a chance to win in any competition run by 000 staff (There may be a few exceptions to this, as there generally is with anything - timezones, language barriers etc). The only barrier is whether you enter or not. The winner is by and large "The best entrant on the day" (cheaters excepted). Hold on there, wait a minute. Does that mean the most skilled? Not necessarily. Art competitions can see many years of MA studies appear to be a waste of time, as the Winner may well not be the best technically-accomplished artist, but someone who just happened to make something that the judges saw as great for the limited level of technical aptitude shown. Now, puzzle competitions don't have such a "human response". They can't see who is punching above their weight in the same way very easily, it can't use stats as a baseline, as they can be changed with a few booches or using an alt (see: Use of lower-standing sailing alts in sail bakeoffs). So, what other way to represent this "you don't have to be the best player, you have to be the best entrant on the day" in a way which permits those of lesser talent that same unlikely victory against their "superior competitors"? A "Top Fine" contest is probably as close as you could get. Imperfect - undoubtedly. I just don't think it's so bad it should never be allowed to happen. I certainly wouldn't expect this to be on a monthly rotation, but a one-off a year or somesuch isn't going to cause that much pain. ---------------------------------------- Whitewyvern. Distinctly Limey. Retired, No regrets. Unretired, still No regrets. Available in Cerulean and Obsidian flavours.
|
|||||||
|
|
Dylan
Joined: Jul 21, 2003 Posts: 10005 Status: Offline |
I have an MA. :( Plus, isn't it illegal for you to post something I agree with 100% ? (or is that immoral, I always forget which is which) |
|||
|
|
tanonev
Joined: Nov 18, 2006 Posts: 2361 Status: Offline |
IIRC, Sage saw a grand total of 3 bake-offs per duty puzzle in the year before puzzle competitions were introduced. (Feel free to correct me, but I doubt the number would be that far off.) Seeing this on a monthly rotation would make bake-off-winning familiars 4 times as rare as Top Fine familiars, which I'd hope we can all agree is absurd. Seeing this once a year would still mean that Top Fine familiars represent a significant proportion of the duty-puzzle-related familiars given out. As Sweetie said, the problem isn't the Top Fine familiar in and of itself so much as the fact that there are so few other familiars. Put another way, 100% of Rigging familiars were awarded for the top Fine. The solution: run more bake-offs/competitions. People would be less bitter to see a Top Fine familiar if that contest didn't mean they'd have to wait a whole 3 months to see a Top Incred familiar. Of course, we all know that bake-offs are rather time and energy intensive to run, so we can't expect the OMs to shoulder that burden. That's why I'm calling you (plural--everyone in this thread) out now. Soon and very soon, there's going to be third-party bake-off software that solves (actually, bypasses) the OCR problem once and for all. When that happens, I expect everyone complaining about the lack of bake-offs to chip in some time to put on bake-offs using these tools :) ---------------------------------------- Tanonev on all oceans; currently exploring Meridian. Puppetar by Tilinka |
|||
|
|
StuManchu
Joined: Jun 22, 2004 Posts: 7707 Status: Offline |
Why? Again this is kind of a semantic jump that's got me hung up. You're entitled to a chance, but if you suck at whatever criterion is being judged, that chance is just mitigated right off the table. This is what people are getting at here. ---------------------------------------- Was once Stuyvesant Redistribute your wealth, or we'll redistribute your blood. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by StuManchu at May 6, 2009 1:54:02 PM] |
|||
|
|
Dylan
Joined: Jul 21, 2003 Posts: 10005 Status: Offline |
Possibly because the statement "certain players should never have any chance whatsoever of winning any event ever run by OOO staff" is pretty repellent. |
|||||
|
|
basso
Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 3156 Status: Offline |
To me the "best entrant that day" is the person who scores the highest. I suppose I am asking why it should ever be any other way? Other than that, I am with you on what you are saying. As others have said, we have had rare OM eggs, rare furniture, and sleeping pets go to the top fine/good/excellent already. Of course everyone should have the chance to win, that is already a given. All you have to do is be the best, which for some people is much tougher than for others. For instance, I would never win a distilling competition, a SF tourney, a TD tourney, or a sailing competition. That is fine. It actually makes sense, because some people are so much better than I at those puzzles. Why should I win something if other people are performing better? It is a simple question, that is at the heart of my philosophic disagreement with most people in this thread. It doesn't make any of us evil, selfish, mean etc, it means we disagree. I'd like to discuss it more. ---------------------------------------- Montage of Sage
|
|||
|
|
vnork
|
http://forums.puzzlepirates.com/community/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=129826 Eat your heart out! -Vnork |
|||||
|
|
Dylan
Joined: Jul 21, 2003 Posts: 10005 Status: Offline |
You answered yourself, in your first sentence. I've pointed out before that tennis would be very boring if Roger and Rafael were able to enter every tennis tournament ever. Apparently the #1 lady tennis player in the world at this moment has never won a grand slam. In terms of football, consider top incredible = champion of world cup/superbowl, top excellent = winner of uefa cup/bowl championship series, top good = best amateur/high school team, top fine = best "little league" team. To rephrase your question: Is there any point in having any competitions other than the Olympics and world cups? And while we are at it, why not cut those down to the list of athletes/teams who have a credible chance of winning! I'm not being sarcastic, by the way. I do think that the timing (during a blockade) was poor judgement, but not the existence of the event as such. |
|||
|
|
basso
Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 3156 Status: Offline |
Are you suggesting that the little league champion ought to get the world series trophy? I would have thought it was very obvious that as competition scales, so do prizes. ---------------------------------------- Montage of Sage
|
|||
|
|
[Show Printable Version of Thread] [Post new Thread] |
Powered by mvnForum
mvnForum copyright © 2002-2006 by MyVietnam.net