Rather thermite.

Speaking of, I've got something in my email that will horrify them.

Let's just say that "sex was involved" as was a "Twilight crossover." And that "Applejack's flesh tastes so sweet. And she (Applejack) liked that."

I would share more details, but I'm sure I'd be banned for having done so (not because of the content, per say, but because I inflicted it upon others--I myself desired a hazmat decontamination scrub upon reading it).

Celestia preserve us, that sounds worse than Cupcakes!

Yes.

Cupcakes? What's wrong with that sweet confectionairy mini cake?

*snickers*
you really do not want to know that in this context, believe you me ^^

Meh, so someone went Fifty Shades of Gray all over My Little Pony. Big deal. Welcome to the Internet.

Fifty shades has NOTHING on some of the fanfics out there....

If only things could be unseen. :shudder:

It's much worse than sex with a questionable power imbalance and massive BDSM, believe me.

*Cough* Did I mention the piece I have in my email yet?

I believe the comment from one of the judges for it was "I unread this story." Though that might've been one of the unscorable entries.

We asked after it was read aloud, "How many bronies are horrified by this?" and about six people raised their hands. If it wasn't every brony present, it was certainly most of them. When asked more broadly of everyone who was offended, about half the room raised their hands.

Strangely applicable from my webcomic readings.

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2211

It was read aloud?

The brony reading that damn thing must have had balls of steel and a stomach of unobtanium. I think I would have wound up saying "No. I'm not reading this. Not any further" after I started getting into that shit.

Read aloud by the author, yes. Everyone knows that the winners have to read their own stories.

The grand prize winner actually didn't read his own story. Ashe gave him the option to let someone else read it, if he could find a volunteer (there were four). That story was even more terrible.

Also: yes, the authors have a stronger stomach than I. Ashe managed to read all of them to the end, I could not.

Was this insanity of a contest like, explicitly to write something a fanficus horribilus worse than cupcakes or something?

Also, why aren't we using the Equus ferus caballus thread?

Something like that. The original intent was to write worse than The Eye of Argon.

But we out-stripped TEoA very quickly, and it eventually turned into "wring worse than last year's winner" to "cause alcohol poisoning in the judges" and finally "make the judges lose all faith in humanity." I'm pretty sure we/they've succeeded in that.



No idea.

Well, um...

Fluttershy: yay!

That sounds positively horrible, but if it was the stated intent, I guess it worked.

Fifty Shades of Yay?

Stated intent is to put all of your knowledge of "writing well" into "writing poorly."

But yes.

Does not sparkle...

looks like it sparkles, if you light one up though . .

What the fuck has happened to this thread?

Twilight

We led it astray a bit.

It needs to be taken into a dark alley and beaten.

Yes. Who ever though that vampires should sparkle should be taken into a dark alley and beaten.

Fixed that for you

DUMPSHOCK HAPPENED.




-k

Technically the original was correct.
Just as your fix is also, technically, correct.

The story I was forced to judge over the weekend had Twilight Sparkle banging Edward from Twilight.

This... Is... DUMPSHOCK!

The author of that piece is going to the special hell.


In a more related note:

You guys should get more developers on this thing . I expect you guys to at least be in beta by the time the harebrained game comes out

Certainly.

And remember, they only got second place.

Did first beat it out by sheer depravity? Or was it as technically superior as it was horrible?

With an Orbital Friendship Beam, I hope?

The Twilight one had a higher score, but the other won out due to "score addons." I.e. the number of drinks/drugs/showers the judges wanted to have upon finishing the read.

Let's just say it involved Charlie Brown.

We're not against having some developers do small things, but this is by and large still our baby. Also, logistically it would be quite hard.

I don't care about the baby part, it's just logistics.

DV8, this one is directly to you, but I'd like to invite others' commentary as well. I think everyone who plays Corrosion and has something to say should weigh in here.

2012-07-08 04:56:44



The PvP protection is partly a solution, but also partly a problem. More on that later. The protection for an hour after accepting a mission so you don't suddenly wind up dead for no explicable reason during a mission was a good idea, naturally. I'm not really sure that the reign of melee trolls is really over, though; a super-bodied troll can literally wade through storm of bullets that anyone but the most epic submachinegunner or pistoleer in the world can throw at them and deliver a fisting.



I'm sorry, but "Raise biotech and invest in medkits" doesn't address those concerns at all, DV8. I'll go down them in order.

1: "Some have suggested that PvP damage should be erased after the fight, so that you wouldn't have to log in to find yourself crippled by damage."
You log in to find yourself at a Serious wound (because stun damage goes away legitimately quickly enough to not be an issue) because someone ganked you with a combat axe/regular ammo/trollfist that did enough lethal overflow. Even assuming a high Biotech skill - and bear in mind that for Shadowrun, 6 is considered way beyond merely "competent" and is into the realm of the major-league surgeons, you have about a 30% chance to make your biotech roll. Even if you're at full AP, you can spend 9 of your AP either getting your wound down to a little, or not even getting it down at all!

The price in action points and the massive difficulty of trying to operate while under major wound penalties, frankly, makes Biotech an unappealing option, because you can and quite often will waste all of your AP trying to heal yourself. Getting your biotech above six is exorbitant in terms of nuyen and Karma, and biotech shouldn't be a required part of anybody's build.

2: "Others think no nuyen should be taken, or less."
The way Corrosion is set up now, there is no basically effective way of squirreling your money away, and someone who defeats you in PvP is taking 10%. That is way too much, especially given how gunbunny elves (to say nothing of any other sort of gunbunny) are going to sooner or later brickwall on the Veteran Mercenary, at which point they will find themselves basically unable to do anything except kamikaze in PvP and the Rippers hideout, ekeing out what kind of nuyen they can while watching it all go down the drain when they kamikaze someone who is undamaged and who shoots them basically dead in one shot. Perhaps one percent nuyen would be good, or even none at all.

Regardless, there is no conceivable way that "learn biotech, get medkit" can compensate for getting a tenth of your wealth ganked away in PvP. My medkit isn't going to replace the 10% wound in my wallet.

3: "Then there's the everlasting complaint that Dixie's prices are too high."
Simply put, they are. I'm at 383 reputation, and for a full heal, Dixie wants me to pay her 72,501 .

Seventy-two thousand, five hundred and one nuyen!

Consulting the Shadowrun, 3rd Edition core rulebook, on Page 240, I find the following passage under Lifestyles:


She's charging me for two months and near-as-makes-no-difference to a fortnight in the ICU, or five months of basic hospitalized care, just to fix me up. And I don't have it the worst of all.

Dixie's prices going up as your means go up is reasonable to a certain extent, but uncapped like this, they simply balloon out of control, as if they're set in anticipation of an MMORPG style level of exponential wealth generation that simply does not exist in Corrosion.

I will grant that you can avoid paying Dixie (thieving bitch) Flatline's kleptocratic rates by buying medkits and making use of them, but to do that, first you must have the skill to use them. That costs a lot of nuyen and a whole hell of a lot of Karma, even if your Intelligence is high. I will also grant that performing field surgery on yourself when you're at death's door and fixing yourself completely probably shouldn't be easy or simple. But when it's your only practical option, concessions have to be made.

Simply put, you either need to introduce a lot more runs to the game, cap Dixie's prices to something actually affordable to someone who is brickwalled in the Arena and is broke and has no sources of income other than Neon Blight, the Rippers, and the Steele, or remove the one-a-day cap on the two runs that do exist, so people can stagger their way through a mountain of Rippers in a cybertechnology-fueled murderous fugue state until they have enough nuyen to afford a full heal.

I would also like to point out, by the way, that a DocWagon Super-Platinum contract costs only 100,000:nuyen: and includes five free resuscitations a year, and would include the Platinum service 50% reduction on extended care. Also, their armed medical response team won't steal any of their client's monies. Dixie shouldn't be charging 72% or more of what a DocWagon Super-Platinum contract costs, because it's patently ridiculous.

4: "If you find that a player is ganking you mercilessly, get some friends together and camp him until he or she gets that it's best to play along."

This simply doesn't work, DV8. For one thing, problem players just attack anybody they can, with Physical damage (because, in his own words, "if I'm going to be called a villain, I might as well act the part,") without rhyme nor reason beyond "this guy is vulnerable and if I attack him I get Karma, win or lose." The simple fact is that "get some friends together and camp him" doesn't work, primarily because problem players (and players who want to avoid PvP altogether) have learned that you can completely avoid being attacked in PvP simply by never falling below a 6/10 wound. Getting a 9/10 wound is dirt simple if you're broke enough not to care about the money, just kamikaze the arena/the Rippers hideout until you get torn apart by lethal gunfire, or hell, pop three doses of Jazz.

So the problem players are drugging themselves into an unattackable stupor, and quite frankly nobody wants to sit on Corrosion all day, waiting and hoping that the target of their vengeful wrath will slip out and fail to log on for long enough to fall to 5/10. And even then, he's likely not to care, if he's so broke he doesn't give a damn about his money, since you've just fed him a point of Karma.

So "Camp someone" isn't a viable solution, especially when you've put code in place specifically to prevent camping and farming, which is being abused by the problem players to prevent them from having just vengeance wrought upon them.




This sounds good. If you need Surveillance 5 to attack someone, that will put them fairly well out of the price range of someone who's dead broke and looking to earn some karma off them by kamikaze attacking them, not to mention make it inefficient from an AP > Karma standpoint. It won't solve all the issues (Dixie (Thieving Bitch) Flatline's prices being primary among them,) but it should make a difference.

I play Skinner over there.

Trust me, Trolls can't just wade through a skilled players assaults. I know you haven't played the game as much as some folks, but as a Troll player, anybody that is worth fighting is going to get me unless I get lucky. There was a time it was nuts though.

In a game where many players have over 1000 karma, and can farm missions daily that pay about 10k daily, upping biotech is reasonable. And although the prices at dixies are hurtful, you can't compare them to the pnp rules, because its not pnp. We are earning way more than a normal pnp game.

Truthfully, I kinda think you tend to overreact when it comes to pvp issues. I've lost many fortunes, its just part of the game.

Sure, if it's someone who's maxxed out SMGs. Tell you what, I'll buy a full heal from Dixie, you can attack me sometime, and then we'll see how it works - though I can tell you how it will work. You'll fail to ambush me because I'm unambushable at present, you will then wade through burst after burst of my submachinegun fire, soaking it down to zero, and you will then punch me hard enough, right in the god damned face, to launch me into the stratosphere.



Where some players - those who spend all day PvPing - have over 1000 Karma, and the rest of us, guess what, do not! Also, that 10K daily doesn't mean a whole lot when Lifestyle costs are also ticked daily. Even if you make both negotiation rolls, you're not actually going to make all that 10K, so you're still gonna need to do busywork for Tempered Steele.

And Dixie's prices aren't just hurtful. They're extortionate. They're utterly insane, because, guess what, they expand far in advance of our ability to pay.

As I said before, they're predicated on ever-increasing MMO-style wealth accumulating potential, which just is not there in Corrosion. If you could pull down 150K in a day, then 72K healing prices don't look so bad. As it is, they're absolutely batshit bonkers, and "get biotech" isn't an answer, because not everybody will have realized they needed it before they brickwall and don't have Karma or Nuyen to spend on it. (Plus, it costs about 9 AP to fix yourself up, if you get lucky.)




Losing a fortune through your own negligence is one thing; getting it stolen is quite another, whether it's stolen by a PvPer who just randomly ganks you for a shitton of money or Dixie (thieving bitch) Flatline's extortionate rates.

Man, this thread was way more pleasant when it was grown men talking about cartoon ponies.

This is a lot of bile over a free browser game.

*nods* we are all about the loving and tolerating.

You should read the Corrosion chat-log. This is nearly nothing - just me trying to raise my points in an itemized fashion, and addressing counterpoints as they come in.



That said, yeah. I miss the loving and tolerating myself. Maybe I should try to write some more of that instead of getting pissed off by Corrosions daily grind of kamikazing myself into near-death.

So...did the vampire in Twilight sparkle? hehhehheh

Pinkie Pie is best pony.

You seem to have misspelled Rainbow Dash.

ShadowDragon: I appreciate the feedback. The only thing I can do, is put the time in. Many if not all of your complaints are remedied by a steadier, healthier income for your character. There are some balancing issues with PvP and we're constantly adjusting the parameters and introducing measures to make the game more playable. I have only so many hours in a day, have a girl and a full time job and I've already slashed as many of my extra-cirricular activities as I'm willing to slash. But you know that, of course.

Oh, and at a certain point, everyone needs to make a decision whether you fall on the my little pony or care bear side of the divider. I'm a care bear person, so you can all keep your ponies, pink, sparkling or otherwise.

i'm still saying PVP should be opt-in for everybody . .
but seeing how you put that much time into it already, of course, that's not what you want to hear i guess.

and don't get me wrong, if they make a new care bears show with the quality of MLP:FIM, i am so watching that too . .

Oh, don't get me wrong, I haven't discounted it, but I do want to see how player behaviour responds to these changes. It might turn out to be the only way people can stop grieving others, I'm just afraid that it might mean the end of PvP because everyone turns it off. But we'll see.

*shrugs* people who like the karma and are built for combat anyway will probably leave it on to advance a bit faster . .
most people playing mages right now will switch it off, because, after all, we restarted as mages as to not have to deal with PVP.
i hate PVP with a passion, no matter what game usually . . only in games like WOT or other online shooters where the whole POINT of it is to do that i do it . .

How can one choose? HOW CAN ONE CHOOSE?!

Besides, Princess Luna is clearly the best pony.




True, but a steadier, healtheir income just isn't forthcoming anytime soon. If you brickwall in the Arena, at present, the very most you can earn in a day is probably gonna be like 25K, assuming you have a skill of 14 and never waste a single AP to having a full meter, spending all of your AP as soon as they come in on doing the runs that are existant now, and have a Tempered Steele skill at 14. (Unlikely, but not utterly impossible.)




You heretic. How could you?



THIS! A thousand, thousand times this. I hate PvP, especially nonconsentual PvP, with the firey burnination of ten thousand galaxies worth of stars!

I got enough of that shit getting PK'd and griefed back in the dark days of Ultima Online.

For what a one-time-casual-but-then-lost-interest player's opinion matters? It's, to be honest, the knowledge that PVP was looming on the horizon for me that got me to stop trying. Grinding missions was okay, I was having a good time, but I knew sooner or later I'd start just being feeder meat for someone to click on every chance they got, and my barely-scraping-by nuyen and karma (and fun) would just vanish...so I just didn't log in one day.

Opt-in PVP lets the folks who want to do it, do it. Mandatory PVP means some sharks have fun feasting, but everyone else is just chum in the water (who swiftly loses interest).