User:Aichon/Archive 2009

Aichon:Talk Archive 2009

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Aichon

ˈīˌkän :Talk Archive 2009

Announcement: I'm no longer active. My talk page is still your best bet to get in touch. —Aichon— 04:39, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

This is an archive. Don't post here.

If you have anything you'd like to add to one of these conversations, then go to my talk page, reference the relevant conversation from here, and post your comments there. This page should not be edited by others. These are all messages I've filed away. They shouldn't be changed or added to, since the contexts of the situations have been lost, forgotten, or could simply be remembered differently by the involved parties. I'd prefer to start any of these conversations fresh, if they must come up again.

Archives: 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | To do

Link

Thanks for fixing the link for us, much appreciated. I was wondering, would you be perhaps interested in joining SoC with your pro-survivor character? We would be more then willing to help him out if he is inexperienced.

Cheers, Cortonna (DarthRevan 02:41, 29 August 2009 (BST))

Most of the groups are sometimes very aggressive (read bitchy) about somebody else outside the group editing the page (it's considered bad etiquette). We however have nothing against edits from people outside the group so long as it is constructive and not detrimental to our cause. You fixed a link I overlooked in this case and I am thankful.

We would definitely like to have you in our crew. Just sign your name and profile on the wiki members section, register on the forum (do send me a pm on it so I can give you access) and you are in. Oh and don't forget to put Soldiers of Crossman in your group slot ;) Glad to have you with us my friend. Inside the forum I made a specific thread for new people in Malton, so you will find a lot of info and help there and if you have a specific question, don't hesitate to ask me.

Cheers,

Cortonna, DarthRevan 16:41, 29 August 2009 (BST)

Manure Edits

Okay, thanks for the advice. I actually didn't think that anything less than creating a new page counted as a major edit, I'll be more selective in the future. ~Dr Frank ^{(t) (DF) [P] (Sb)} 08:35, 21 September 2009 (BST)

Bug in QuickLinks

Hello Aichon. I'm using almost all your greasemonke's scripts (both original and modified releases)and they are really helpful. The reason I'm writing this is because QuickLinks' settings button is not working properly, instead of showing my settings a not found page appears. I just realized that if I changed the order of execution of the scripts and put UD Zero Out Buttons after QuickLinks it does function as it should. I wrote this anyway to let you know about the bug. Regards. telepibe 04:53, 15 October 2009 (BST)

Hey, thanks for the heads up. I didn't even realize other people were using my scripts. Anyway, this was actually one of those odd bugs I was aware of, but completely forgot to mention, since I just kinda assumed I was writing scripts for myself only. I'm actually working on a replacement for my modified version of QuickLinks that won't have this issue (it'll roll the Zero Out Buttons functionality into the same script, rather than using a different script), and I hope to have an early version of it out sometime "soon". But yeah, for now, doing what you did is the proper way to handle things; QuickLinks needs to be executed before Zero Out Buttons. —Aichon— 18:11, 15 October 2009 (BST)

Unpowered vs Uncaded

Just wanted to clarify the difference. Unpowered just means no generator, it doesn't refer to the barricades. So you can have an EHB building with no generator.
BTW thanks for coming up with the examples for the barricade template. It's been so helpful and I don't think we could have had the conversation without your visuals to refer to. Awesome show great job!

	A FREE COOKIE
	Giles has given Aichon a cookie for his awesome barricade templates

--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 11:35, 23 October 2009 (BST)

Thanks for the cookie! I'll proudly display it on my user page. And I'm glad I could help. It gave me something fun to work on this week, instead of working on my thesis, the grading I need to do, and a class project due next week. >_>

As for the difference, I guess I understand that, but the way I think of it, the only time you would intentionally leave something unpowered is if it's also meant to be unbarricaded, otherwise, in ideal situations, you'd power it as well. Of course, I suppose wonky barricade plans could dictate things however they want, so my reasoning only goes so far. —Aichon— 11:43, 23 October 2009 (BST)

Repairs

Good to know, I did a 306ap repair once, actually idled waiting to come out of it. Do you know about the Big Game Ruin Hunting page? Record your achievements! --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 20:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I had heard of it at some point, but never saw the page itself. I'll mention it to the folks I know so that they can post their screenshots. I think it was in Gatcombeton a month or two back that the one I was thinking of was repaired.

Oh, and I'm a bit confused now. You had said previously that the highest recorded was 160 or so, but you mention having a 306 and the link you provided gives a 276. I'm missing some defining detail, but I'm not sure what it is. —Aichon— 20:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, missed that 276. The 306 was in borehamwood, and I didn't want to give away my position what with it being a permadeath map.--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, sorry, it was 291, not 276 (bad short-term memory), and that makes sense with not publicizing it. I was actually reading up on the The Borehamwood 100 last night, since I didn't start playing UD until relatively recently and was curious. Wish I had been around when those cities were still open. —Aichon— 21:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, hopefully with the one year anniversary in 2 days Kevan might be nice and let people back in! --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That'd certainly be interesting, but somehow I think it would spoil what you guys have there now. I wouldn't wish that on you guys, even if I wish that I had been there. Still, it's a nice thought. —Aichon— 21:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

POV

Thanks for dealing with it in a sensible manner. I currently have an ALT in Roywood who's spoken to both groups very recently. Every building I go into it's "Want to join SOC?" Recruiting at the moment I see? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:24, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I didn't handle it as well as I could, since I was okay with compromising on editing the SoC mentions out of the comments, which does fall into impersonation. In general though, I try to maintain neutrality as best I can, but I was definitely glad when I saw that you stepped in to offer a neutral view that neither side could provide on their own. I really appreciate it; thanks for your help.

But yep, we're recruiting (as ever), and we have one very active member who loves to tag every building in every suburb that we go to. Most of the group has moved on past Roywood at this point, though there's a contingent that's staying behind. We're trying to work with the RCDF on managing things, but we've already had several miscommunications on both sides of the line which have made things more eventful than I would have expected. —Aichon— 21:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Such is malton. Heading to Dakerstown, or Quarlesbank, or further south? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Technically, I'm not supposed to confirm that your first guess is correct (*cough*), since we avoid discussing these sorts of things on the wiki until after we've made some progress. —Aichon— 21:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Well then *cough* Extinction like meastshielding both PASK NT and the Southern of the two hospitals. Most survivor activity is near the northern hospital, so say hi to FAUCK whilst you're up there. Main RP is inside the Junkyard next to Pask *cough* I may even send Monty Orlando to say hi. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:54, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm actually still behind with the Roywood contingent (currently taking a nap on Hecks Street after getting a much-needed poke), but I'll pass that information along to the people who need to know. And I definitely recognize that name of yours. I can't remember if I FAKed you or if I just took note of you doing something like barricading, but I do remember seeing your name and getting a chuckle out of it. —Aichon— 21:58, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Your User Area

I have to say, I am mightily impressed. The layout you've got going on is great! It makes me ever so envious. I even dappled in a bit of code stealing for my personal gain. (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?) ----Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}23:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments. I've been bored the last few weeks and haven't felt like working on the actual work I should be doing, so I've been intermittently keeping myself busy with stuff here. The current layout works well enough, though it's not as flexible or as nearly aesthetically pleasing as I'd like. But it's simple, easy to manage, and looks "good enough" to work, which is all that really matters. And I definitely have to agree with your statements regarding imitation. Don't tell him, but I borrowed it from Midianian originally. Feel free to borrow any parts you see fit. I have no issues with people borrowing stuff like that.

I'm actually eager to get to know you on account of the sysop nomination and the fact that I don't like staying uninformed for long. I was sincere in my abstention there, in that if I felt like I knew you better and felt you were capable, I'd be willing to put in a vouch, but I simply haven't taken the time to learn about you since our paths haven't crossed much as of yet (and this week has been brutally busy, so I have had no time to look through contribs and the like). As I mentioned there, I'm still a pretty new user around these parts, so there are lots of people who are having a positive impact on the wiki that I simply haven't had a chance to meet yet, but hopefully that number will dwindle over time. To say the least though, I'm glad to meet you. —Aichon— 00:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Imitation is only flattery if you don't blatantly copy anothers user page, character images and all and shit. :/ -- SA 00:18, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I would certainly agree, though I feel like I'm missing the relevance. —Aichon— 00:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

You're not an old man here like I am. :) Long story short, this guy, under many different accounts blatantly copied my pages, wrecked a few of them, vandalised the wiki, did it again and tried to make everyone think it was me, and overall just sucked as people/a person. :/ -- SA 00:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Sheesh — gotta love those types. You run into them on the 'net every once in awhile, and they just drive you up a wall with how dense they can be. (as an aside, that last comment I made had the wrong tone...I meant for it to be more of a hint-hint to clue me in and not cold or condescending, but on a second reading, that's how it comes off to me) —Aichon— 00:57, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Drove me up a wall they did. And so did their many alts and confusing actions. T_T I did see it as more of a blunt clue me in statement too, nothing cold or condescending. Though I may just be too tired to see hostility. :D -- SA 01:02, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Nah, if you were reading hostility into it, I'd say you were tired, since there was none intended. But I really should make a point of being clearer. Smiley faces tend to clear these things up (though I've been a bit hesitant to use them frequently, since I know some communities frown on them). After all, nothing says "it's meant to be taken lightheartedly" like a good emoticon. :P —Aichon— 01:19, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Too true! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:DDD:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:DD::D:D:D:D:D:D::DD:DD:D:D:D:D:D:D:D::)-- SA 01:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

And nothing says "I'm serious about lightheartedness" like typing up that many emoticons by hand, instead of c/ping them. Seriously though, that had me laughing, since I wasn't expecting that. Even more so once I saw the errors in there. :) —Aichon— 01:27, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

What? Errors? Well fuck. I didn't notice them until you said something. >< -- SA 09:39, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Aww, but see, that tells me you care about handcrafted smilies, as compared to mass-produced ones. Naturally, there are some errors in the process, but now I know that each one was made individually. —Aichon— 17:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Barrista Feedback

Hello again. I tried Barrista but isn't working properly. I thought that the others scripts/extensions could be messing with it, so I disabled them all but with no luck. Here's a screencapture. I'm using Firefox 3.0.15 with latest Greasemonkey. Regards.--telepibe 03:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

How very odd, but you're completely correct...it does the same thing in my copy of Firefox. Thanks for letting me know. I hadn't yet tested it in Firefox, just because it and Safari usually render things similarly and I wasn't calling this a full release yet, but obviously they didn't render the same this time. Not quite sure what to make of that. I'll look into it when I get a chance, but I'm not sure what the issue is or how much work it'll take to fix. Thanks again for cluing me in. Hopefully I'll get that cleaned up so the Firefox folks can use it. —Aichon— 05:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I've given Barrista a try and it seems to work fine in Opera 10. Chief Seagull (talk) 09:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. From what I saw, it mostly works in Chrome as well, though I had to make a few modifications. I've been keeping this message here all this time, rather than archiving it, because I still plan to go back and fix it for Firefox one of these days. Just haven't gotten around to it yet. Once I make the Firefox fixes, I'll roll them in with my Chrome fixes, and will hopefully have v1.0 ready then. —Aichon— 15:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I've really been enjoying your scripts, especially Barrista (it works beautifully on Chrome 5.0.360.0). Since the Rogues Gallery has moved from ud-malton.info to urbandead.net, I took the liberty of changing that one line of the script to get RG working again, and uploaded it here (I zipped it up so it doesn't automatically try to install in your browser, since I figured you would want to look at the script before installing it). Anyway, thanks for all your hard work, it is certainly appreciated! Cam moo 06:47, 30 March 2010 (BST)

Thanks for the update and the fix! I actually wasn't even aware that RG had moved yet, truth be told. I really should get around to fixing Barrista proper, since it's by far my favorite script, yet it doesn't work across the board. In older versions of Chrome, it has issues with text placement, in Firefox it doesn't work at all, etc. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. I don't have time at the moment to give it a once-over, but the fix should've been straightforward, so I'm sure you nailed it. I'll try to remember to post the update sometime this week, and thanks again! —Aichon— 09:21, 30 March 2010 (BST)

Ok, I went ahead and rolled in your change (I actually went with the link it resolved to, rather than the one you used, but they go to the same place in the end) to a newer beta version I've been using for a few months. Hopefully everything works out okay with it, but it's working fine on my end. —Aichon— 18:27, 31 March 2010 (BST)

Cool! I wish I knew more about JavaScript, I would try and help you work on it. Unfortunately, copy-pasting URLs is pretty much the extent of my scripting knowledge. But, thanks again for all the work you've put into it, and if there are any more super easy fixes that I find, I'll let you know. - Cam moo 21:21, 31 March 2010 (BST)

That 'thing'

Where did you come accross it? Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 18:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you really want me to post details on how I found it? The long and short of it was that after it was mentioned, I was curious what 'it' was, so I just looked through the relevant contribs until I found what was being discussed, which didn't take too much time. —Aichon— 19:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

after it was mentioned being my key interest; where did you come accros it if you weren't stalking my talk page? Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 20:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, gotcha. Umm...I kinda was. Stalking, that is. I had started watching pages for interesting people I saw on the wiki, and you were one of them. —Aichon— 21:16, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If you hop on the UDWiki IRC, I'm on there quite a bit. We can discuss it there, if you'd like. —Aichon— 02:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm 'interesting'? Das so sweet... Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 20:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Plus, I liked Code Geass, so that didn't hurt things either. —Aichon— 21:51, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Hey thanks aich, couldn't have done it without ya, im new to this kinda stuff. If you ever need any help in the survivor world, give me a holler and ill see what i can do, ill leave my contact details here: http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=1627595 User:Medical1 19:06, 8 November 2009 (EST)

Sure thing. Glad I could help (though, in the interest of full disclosure, I was the one that removed your ad as well when it was infringing). And again, if you need any help with the wiki, I'll be happy to help out a bit with the knowledge that I have (I'm a wiki rookie too, though my background gives me a leg up in learning it). As for in-game, my survivor tends to be up in the northwest, but if I ever find myself down in your area, I'll try to remember to look you up. :) —Aichon— 08:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey Aich, my recruitment poster seems to have been taken down form the page, any idea why? User:Medical1 21:29, 26 November 2009 (EST)

I think one of the maintainers of the page removed it because the image you are using is too big. Basically, images on that page are only allowed to be 56KB large, but yours is 102KB. To try and help, I've made a new version of your image that's under the filesize limit (it's about 45KB), but the colors are slightly washed out. You can see it at my website. If you find the image acceptable, just save it to your computer, then upload it to the wiki. That should do the trick, I think. After that, you can add back in your recruitment ad. I'll delete the image from my site at some point (probably not for a few weeks), so be sure to grab it. —Aichon— 10:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Once again, i thank you aich, although i dont really see what the colour difference is... User:Medical1 23:32, 27 November 2009 (EST)

It was a minor difference, and only really visible if you put the two images next to each other and looked at them side-by-side. Still, some people are very particular, so I wanted to point out that there were differences, just in case it mattered to you. I'm glad to hear that you're okay with it though, and I see that your ad is back up. Again, let me know if you need any help at some point. :) —Aichon— 19:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

My freaking god Aicon you are the best! i only put that suburb group up there for a few seconds and yet you still found it, thanks for the help (again) and i hope you enjoy your day. User:Medical1 20:56, 7th December 2009

My Userscripts

Would you like to adopt them? You seem able to handle the code while I seem unable to drag myself back to UD :P. --Midianian 16:05, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can sling a little code around here and there, but not nearly as well as you can, from what I've seen. ;)

Regardless, I think I'd be up for taking on the ones that I use, since I certainly have a vested interest in seeing them continue to work. Of the ones on your userscripts page, I'm currently using everything except UDPL and UDRB. For those two...I suppose you could route people to me for support on them, but I probably won't be proactive in handling bugs, since I wouldn't catch them myself. I doubt either will have issues anyway, since they're pretty straightforward.

So, sure. Perhaps we can just refer to it as "keeping them warm for you," rather than calling it an adoption though? After all, I'm kinda just hacking my way through these things, since I'm picking up Javascript as I go, and if people thought I had your blessing, they might think I was as talented as you are. If anything, I'm worried that mistakes on my part might reflect poorly on you if people attribute the errors incorrectly. Plus, this gives you the option to wash your hands of me if you come back later, see that I've made a mess of your work, and want to fix things up yourself. :P —Aichon— 23:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

"Do you not know, my son, with what little understanding code is written?" ;) I didn't know JavaScript, XPath or DOM at all back when I started writing these, and I honestly haven't been doing these that much. I think you'll do just fine. --Midianian 11:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See, now you're just showing off. :P

Anyway, if I'm going to be taking them on, I'll add an additional section on my userscripts page for your scripts, that way it's clearer what's going on, and if I'm going to be maintaining them, I suppose I should actually start properly documenting the modifications I make...*grumble grumble* —Aichon— 15:17, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Lexicon

The rules are quite confusing, I admit. I am trying to write a guide to the lexicon here. If you have more questions or still have no idea, tell me. :) --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}17:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

So, let me just double-check that I understand things, since it's mostly the citing and back-citing that has me confused. The formatting and first round are easy enough to understand.

• If I were to enter now, I should write an article for the present round by filling in one of the phantoms for the round.
  • What if there are no phantoms for the round, as is the case with JKL right now? Do players just write an article (like what happened in the first round), and expect it to be cited by a later article in the game?
    • Is that what a back-cite is?
  • If I were to enter now, would I also have to write articles that are missing for the player that I'm replacing? E.g. if they didn't write a Round 2 or 3 article, but we're on Round 4, I'd have to have to actually write three articles to start off, and make all relevant citations, etc.
• Once the writing phase is complete, I should then insert a citation into someone else's article, creating a phantom for some future round.
  • Do I insert one or three citations? The page you linked seems to contradict itself on this subject, though I'm unclear, so it might not be contradicting itself.
  • Do the citations I insert only get inserted into the current round's articles, or can they be placed in articles of the previous rounds?
  • Does the citation have to be for a future round (i.e create a phantom), or can it be for the current round or earlier rounds?
• Repeat the above steps until the game is over.
  • When we get closer to the end, do we have to start making a point of mentioning past articles that are currently not cited? Should there even be any past articles that have not yet been cited?
  • Regarding which you can and can't cite, I can't write articles for citations I created (e.g. if I inserted a citation into user B's article, I couldn't then write that article), nor can I write articles for citations that other players inserted into my articles, correct?
    • How is this maintained? It seems possible that you could get situations where users have no choice but to write those articles, especially as the game gets closer to the end.

I guess you could say that I get the general idea, but I'm still really hazy on some of the specifics (especially back-cites, which I haven't seen a good explanation for yet), and coming from a CompSci background, I inductively haven't seen how this game can come to a guaranteed correct end, with everyone being able to avoid citing/writing in reference to their past work. It might, but I just haven't grasped how yet, so it bothers me at a logical level. —Aichon— 17:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You do not have to write a phantom if there are still spaces in the round. If there are 11 other articles and a phantom, however, you must write the phantom.

A "back-cite" is a citation of an article from a previous round. (This needs to be put in the help page.)

You would, however, have to write the missing articles of the person you are replacing. For example, Prof. Latirus had to write the missing round two article that Matthewbluewars didn't write before completeing the current round. Once you had finished the writing stage, you would then cite another's article. You would cite this article once. Three is the total number of citations allowed in an article. (Meaning it can have one citation from the citation stage and two "back cites".) You can only cite articles in the current round, unless you need to cite a past rounds articles because your successor didn't complete that task. If you are writing your article, you are allowed to back-cite twice at the most.

The citation has to be for a future round, until you get to the last round. You are also correct on wether or not you can create an article. If it comes from you, either the name of the article or the context, then you cannot write it. If it is a citation from an article that came from your article, then you are allowed to write it. You are allowed to back-cite your own work or any work directly associated.

--Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}17:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, makes sense, I think. That answers my questions. I'll add myself to the reserve players list, just in case you need me. —Aichon— 17:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Monsieur Engel

I suggest you skip X-2 altogether, unless you REALLY like watching tits bouncing around, and just read it's wikipedia synopsis. Also, drop everything and play Zone of the Enders and Dragon Warrior Monsters now. DO IT!-- SA 03:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Whoa, topic jump, much? Sounds like you must've stopped by my Backloggery page and taken a good look through it. You should set up an account over there since it's a great community.

Anyway, yeah...X-2 was a game I picked up for dirt cheap, so I figured if I got really bored one day, I might actually play it. I haven't felt any inclination to do so yet though. ZOE is close to the top of my to-do list and kinda keeps bounding back and forth between getting started "soon" and getting started "very soon" (where "soon" and "very soon" are virtually meaningless, given my random schedule). I started a game of ZOE2 years ago, but never got far before getting distracted. I enjoyed it, but just forgot about it. DWMonsters...kinda fell of my radar since I've never actually met anyone who's played it. What is it anyway? It was a random hand-me-down I received from someone who never even played it, so I have no idea if it's supposed to be decent or not.

I bought a late-model Gameboy Advance SP with a backlight a few months back, so playing those old GB/C games is actually tolerable (my DS had spoiled me), but I just haven't found any time for handheld gaming recently. I used to play while taking the bus to or from my university, but I'm off the bus routes this semester and have to drive myself now, so no time for those, and whenever I do have that infrequent minute or two here and there, my iPhone has honestly filled that niche for me. —Aichon— 04:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I figure if you care about the headers you'll move it to one you like yourself. :)

Anyway, dirt cheap or not, it's basically one giant fan-service. That's pretty much all X-2 is, breasts with a plot. Like a high-class porno. :)

ZoE is a fun game, thats all I can say about it. Couldn't ever find number 2 though. :/

DWM is like the Dragon warrior's answer to pokemon. I found it funner overall. The final boss was a bitch if I remember correctly.

My girlfriend gave me her old GBA so I bought a flash cart and have been playing my games like that. I need to put some lights in the GBA though. The non-lit screen is killing me. :S Good luck killing that back log, I' have a huge one too.-- SA 04:40, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't care too much about headers themselves, though I do appreciate sensible organization so I can find things later. The non-sequitur just caught me off guard. :P

Regarding X-2, yeah, I had heard that, though one or two people I talked to said it had some interesting gameplay. I honestly bought it more out of a morbid curiosity than anything else, and wouldn't be surprised if I never played it.

Once I get around to playing my ZOE2, I'd be happy to loan it to you. Or, heck, I could loan it to you now, I suppose, since I don't plan to play it before ZOE, and ZOE2 is supposed to be short anyway. If you don't want to though, you can generally pick up copies on eBay for around $25-30, I think, which is how I got mine. There's also Goozex, which is pretty nice, from what I hear.

As for the GBA, you can grab the late-model SP for about $40-$50 on eBay, though places like Gamestop will often sell them for $30 since they don't differentiate between the late-model ones that had the backlight and the earlier ones that lacked them. One of my roommates picked his up for cheap that way. If you're interested in doing that, and can't find which colors correspond to which models, I could just ask one of my roommates, since they have that sort of stuff memorized (two of them used to work in a used video game store).

EDIT: Found you? —Aichon— 04:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Sowwy. I'll just make my own header and use that from now on. :)

I'd happily take it if I was positive my roomie wouldn't snag it and never give it back. He's a massive ZoE fan and I'd never see it again because he doesn't have it either. I'll buy it off ebay sometime. Can't ever seem to stay away from the damn place though. :/

I'm fine with my GBA, I'll just install some backlights from spare parts I have left over from working at my old pc store. 40 bucks cheeper! :D

And no, it's not me, there vidya game line up isn't very good in my opinion. But if I make one, which I think I will soon, I'll send it to you.

Play TF2?-- SA 05:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

No worries about the header. Like you said, I'll just move it if I feel like it. ;)

Ah, yeah, that would be a problem since I'd like to get it back at some point. It's a game I'd really like to play one of these days. And the GBA idea is a good one. You're a braver man than I, though. I stick to software for a reason. Hardware scares me kinda. And I'm kinda glad to hear that's not you over there, though I was glad they liked SotC, since that game is one of my favorites. And please do link me. I'd be happy to add you as a friend on there and then berate you, along with others over there, regarding your failures to play various games.

As for TF2, afraid not, though I want to. I'm about four years behind the curve on PC gaming, since I'm using an ancient PowerPC Mac (i.e. the type that can't dual boot Windows) as my primary machine still. I picked it up because I wanted to be able to play some of my old games for a few years longer, but I'll need to get a new workhorse computer at some point in the next year, I think, since this one is just getting further and further behind. Whenever I do pick up that new computer, the Orange Box is on my list of things to grab. —Aichon— 05:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, plus I'd just want to keep it myself too much. D:

Thanks for the encouragement on the GBA idea. I actually know how to do a lot of things when it comes to hardware shit, more so than I know about software. But I'm catching up on the software part since I don't have a large income to finance my electronics hobby anymore. ;-;

Actually, SotC is going to go into my backlog when I have more time to add to the thing. It seems like such a great game, and my other freind has been telling me to play it for awhile now. :/

Happy?

That's right, you're a mac user. Tee hee. Using such a horrible machi-oh who am I kidding. I'd use a mac if it was better in the hardware aspects than my desktop. :D You definitely must pick the oj box. I need more people to kill at TF2. >:)

Also, Hamachi+StarCraft is a good combination...-- SA 05:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I have nothing but respect for people that can fool around with hardware like that. I could never do it. I could probably slap a machine together if I felt so inclined, but monkeying around with things that are already together just scares me to think about it in most cases.

And you haven't played SotC? You really must. I have two copies of it, but my Greatest Hits version stopped working for some reason (seems like a case of one of those incredibly miniscule scratches that just so happens to be in the exact wrong place, so now whenever you fight the 5th colossus and go over a certain part of the terrain, the game freezes), so I went out and bought a black-label to replace it. And if you like SotC, you should try to find a copy of ICO as well. They're very different games, but they share a similar atmosphere, which it looks like The Last Guardian will continue once it comes out.

And yep, very. :D Plus, I found you before you posted, so :P

Yeah...Mac user. I could write a rant about why I use them, but the rant got boring to type up after the 20th or 30th time. Long story short, I'm sticking with 'em, since my computer is for productivity first and play later. You're welcome to kill me whenever I do pick up a new computer. Should be delightfully simple to do, and TF2 is an awesome enough game that I'm sure I'll be laughing the whole time I'm getting killed.

And I really haven't played SC in years. I'd pick it up again for fun now, but I don't want to get hooked on it so soon before SC2 comes out, since that'd potentially cause me to make an impulse purchase on new hardware, which I don't want to do right now. I'm trying to hold off until next semester (hopefully my last semester before I graduate again), at which point if I still have a TA position, I'll be in a good place financially to drop some serious money. Plus, Apple is due to update the Mac Pros around that time as well. —Aichon— 05:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I came, I saw Mac, I commented. Macs are great, SA. If mine can play EVE, which has its notoriously bad (though much improved) Mac client, well, yeah. 30FPS!!! (used to be <10 by the way)--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 06:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I used to use an even more ancient Mac when I still played WoW (it didn't come close to meeting the minimum requirements for vanilla WoW, even). With those 40-man raids and AoE spells having to animate for every single target that they hit, there were places where I was lucky to get a half-frame a second, I kid you not, though I averaged more like 1-3fps in boss fights. And yet, disturbingly, I did decently well at healing, beating out some of the more experienced and geared players. Frightening, if you ask me, since, in retrospect, I had no business being there. And yes, Macs are great. Beyond great, even. Been using them for as long as I can remember. —Aichon— 06:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not too hard to put together a rig when you think about it. Just a few parts to slap together. ;)

OH GOD I HATE THOSE SCRATCHES. I had JUST bought Fallout 3 finally, dropped it, and it wouldn't go past the birthday party. I ended up just pirating another copy and justifying it as I already had it. And I plan to buy SotC. Probably as a christmas present for myself. :) Ico, I'm going to ask around to see if I can just borrow it.

Yeah yeah. Stalker. >:| :)

No rant needed, it's not a big deal. As long as you're not one of those :smug: Mac users I don't care. Though I will make jokes about how you're one of "those" people occasionally. :P

I still play SC every couple of months. It's just without human opponents it's not so much fun after ten years. Battle.net is filled with porn games, and none of my friend like to play because I'm too good. I'm not boasting here either. It sucks. I miss playing it against people. I can't wait for SC2, I just hate the decision to split the campaign into three parts. I suppose it's necessary, it's just depressing, you know? I hope the release the hardware reqs soon, because I'd LOVE to know if I'm going to be forced to upgrade sometime. My gfx card is barely holding up nowadays. Not complaining though, I got a Visiontek x1650 256mb off of ebay for 15 dollars! I might upgrade sooner thna I wanted though because Shattered Horizion looks very fun. Don't know if I'd have the cash for it though. Going from something like 18 an hour to a little less than 10 is still kind of jarring.

EDIT: I know what macs are like. I used them for a year or so. It was just cheeper to upgrade to a pc instead. Especially when I got a pretty high end Alienware rig for half price. :) Truth be told though, Linux is still the best. :)-- SA 06:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, rigs aren't too difficult, hence why I think I could manage that. Beyond that...meh. I'd rather just hit up a friend for help. And yeah, I do tend to do stalker-esque things. See Exhibit A. Plus, you mentioned your usual screen name, and I just checked to see who the most recent person to sign up was (it's listed on the front page).

As for Macs and smugness...err...I kinda can be. I tend not to parade it around, but when things are going horribly wrong for one of my friends, it's hard not to (and I expect the same in return when my machine gives me trouble, since it's all meant in good humor). And I do agree that Linux is nice, but it's still too needy for me. I just want something that works and gets out of my way so that I can work. Besides, when it's possible to fine-tune something to your tastes, I do, hence my userscripts, the WoW custom add-ons, shell scripts rigged to display on my desktop right now, etc.

And I have no issues with other people using Linux or Windows, so long as they have a reason for choosing that and didn't just lemming their way into that route. A lot of people have perfectly good reasons why those systems are better for them, and I advocate using whichever one meets their needs the best, regardless of which it is.

With SC, you wouldn't find me a challenge at all. I mostly play custom maps on those things (not the porn maps or DOTA *eyeroll*), so I really have no experience in playing them as they were meant to be played. I can hold my own at a lot of TD maps though. :) —Aichon— 09:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

It's okay, we're ALL stalkers here.

As long as you aren't seriously being a smug prick about your mac, I don't care. Linux can be needy, but it's still fun to use. I can't seem to use it now, because my hardware doesn't really want to run well with it, and I can't do any serious work trying to figure out the problem because it doesn't work well. ;_;

I play the custom maps too. I really like the zombie defence themed ones, and always will. I just enjoy an actual game occasionally. :) -- SA 01:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Nah, I'm not serious about it. Like I said, I like Macs, and I think a lot of people pass them over for bad reasons, but I do believe in getting the computer that's right for you. I can't fault people for making informed decisions that differ from mine.

And zombie defense maps...are we talking things like SWAT Aftermath?

Oh, and as an aside, I noticed some of the (since-removed) discussion on Iscariot's talk page about edit links. I was looking into it a bit, and I did figure out how to make custom-colored edit links, but I couldn't quite get the placement right, nor could I figure out a way to get them to automatically determine which section they were in (I think we're missing a necessary "magic word" on UDwiki). Since his page has new comments inserted at the top, the links would edit the wrong section as soon as someone added a new section to the top, so my idea is not too useful. —Aichon— 04:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot of maps to name that were zombie defense themed. Some of the Resident Evil maps were absolutely amazing in the way they played, the problem was getting enough people to play and stay. I remember this one where there was one person who played the overall zombie hordes, one who played as Nemesis, someone who played as Jill, Carlos, Chris (I think), the RCPD, etc. It was amazing fun. I haven't played SWAT Aftermath though. Actually,I should amend what I said earlier. I like Zombie defense maps, but overall, ANY high quality defense map is good for me.

If we can get him to have new posts at the bottom, the problem is essentially solved. :) But he won't. I'm goign to ask a wiki guru friend I have about it whenever he gets on IM, but no guarantees. It'd be cool though.-- SA 05:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, a couple of my friends and I were really keen on playing hero defense maps (though we were not any good at them). The SWAT map basically dumps you with whoever else is playing on a map with zombies that keep spawning and keep coming towards you. It's basically all about running and staying ahead of the horde as it keeps snowballing and following you. If you linger at a place too long, the horde catches up and overwhelms you eventually. Then, occasionally, a boss gets dropped on the map that completely disrupts things. It's possible to solo, but it's a lot more fun to work at it with a group, since it involves a lot of tactics, team work, and picking items and skills that complement each other well. Plus, you can save and load your characters, which is fun.

And I can't really blame him for doing what he did. I had the same problem on this page, actually, since I had originally themed it like the rest of my pages and had comments at the top. I eventually just decided to compromise, put the comments on the bottom, and changed the background color to something more neutral. It works, but it's not ideal. —Aichon— 05:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Link plox?

You guys wouldn't have to deal with it if you stopped caring about aesthetics so much. Hell, I can't see a lot of colors anymore. :) -- SA 05:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's a link for SWAT, if that's what you were asking for. I actually haven't played it for a long time, since it takes about 5 minutes for the map to load on my computer (it's a MASSIVE map), and the only people willing to wait that long are real-life friends who I don't see frequently any more.

And yeah, if I sacrificed on aesthetics more than I already have, I suppose it'd work fine. In the end, I'd rather have something that's hassle free than pretty, so making it more practical for others to use was just the sensible thing to do for me. —Aichon— 09:11, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the link is what I wanted. I'll try it out later, hopefully I can get my cockish friends to get on hamachi and play too. Although I though it was a Starcraft map, being that it was the subject of discussion, but WC3 is actually a better choice. One guy's card won't render 2d game slike SC well. :/ -- SA 18:09, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yeah, I mentioned DOTA at some point and got distracted. I was a bigger fan of SC's core RTS component, but WC3's engine works much better for custom maps, if you ask me. —Aichon— 22:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It does and it doesn't. SC seems to me to be better overall when it comes to customs, but WC3 can specialize with things more than SC can. Like the hero concept. All those RPG maps in SC would have been so much better if done in the WC3 engine. Also, SWAT is fun solo. But can be hard, even on normal. I made it to level 36 as a Maverick with the flamethrower. That damn dead dog penalty got me killed though. :/ -- SA 22:43, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I recall seeing a guy solo with a Sniper almost all the way through on the hardest difficulty level after all of his teammates died. He revived them once he got the chance, but they probably had to wait a good 30-45 minutes before he could get back around to them. Fun stuff. —Aichon— 03:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Fuckin Love Dota. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 04:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Then snag League of Legends which is free, and play the new DotA with me!-- SA 05:03, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Eh...can't say I ever really played it. I definitely respect what it is and how some people can enjoy it. I think I could enjoy it too, but I'm not willing to give it a chance for some reason. My younger sibling managed to get into the Battles for Newearth (or whatever it's called) private beta and seemed to enjoy that, though he eventually went back to the original DOTA. —Aichon— 07:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

League of Legends and HoN are for faggot noobs. Sorry. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 09:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Emphasis on faggot ;D --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 09:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll be sure to let my younger brother know that others agree he's a noob. I've been telling him that for years and he didn't believe me, but maybe he'll take a third-party's word for it. —Aichon— 14:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

It's my only source of PvP DotA. I have no idea what I did with my WC3 serial, so I can't play the actual DotA. Unless I want to just play the AI map. But you know how boring that can get after while. :/ I do agree that HoN is for faggots though. That game looks horrid.-- SA 18:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

How rotten :/ Dude, there would HAVE to be some free, easy to obtain unofficial servers out there. Australia has one called Bored Aussies which has basically united the Dota players in the nation. It took a couple of years, but the skill level on BA is leaps and bounds above australians that play on BNet. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 23:30, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Shoot me an email with the info then?-- SA 01:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Just fucking date already wtf--CyberRead240 23:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm just not into men. Sorry read.-- SA 23:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You're Read, right? Nice to meet you too. :) —Aichon— 03:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

And hi, Jed. Nice to make your acquaintance as well. —Aichon— 14:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Lexicon (Minor)

Do us a favour, can youu pick a word from Lexicon:Breakout to turn into a citation? Cheers.--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I'll get to that in just a minute, hopefully. —Aichon— 19:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. Incidentally, shouldn't it be "Yagoton" rather than "Yagaton," or was that an intentional misspelling for flavor? I honestly can't tell. Either way, fun entry. —Aichon— 19:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. I'm never sure with flavour. Its like defence/defense, doesn't really matter. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:44, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Err, I meant "for flavor-based purposes," and I was saying that in reference to the potential "Yagaton" misspelling ("Yagoton" is the in-game spelling, but you spelled it differently). But yeah, flavor/flavour...no difference. :) —Aichon— 21:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Character Formatting

Unless you have any strong objections, I think I'm going to steal some of your formatting on your character pages. Because it's just that sexy. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 09:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Glad you like it. By all means, steal away. Though, obviously, it'd be nice if they didn't look too similar, so change the colors or something, ya know? ;) —Aichon— 10:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll think of something. To be honest I was tempted to steal most of your Userpage formatting, but I don't feel particularly adventurous to make your main page mesh with what is already on mine. So just absorbing your character formatting seemed like a good compromise. :D --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 10:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, most of my formatting is pretty straightforward, at least in terms of code. I was lazy and just used very simple tables for most of it, rather than actually using divs with proper CSS like I should've. If you want more than just the character pages though, feel free. I don't have a problem with people borrowing the structure or code, so long as people don't get confused about whose pages are whose because they look similar. I was just glad I seemed to make something that could hold the inordinate amount of text I tend to spew, while still looking somewhat organized. —Aichon— 10:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Just as an FYI, I'm sure you've realized that I didn't exactly make User:Aichon/Journalbox with other users in mind, since it doesn't seem to match your color scheme. To help you out, I've now rigged it up so that the colors it uses are specifiable through variables in the template. If you go to edit it, you can see which variables correspond to which colors fairly easily, and should be able to customize it to match your scheme by just adding those variables to your page. I'm kinda sleepy, so if I did something dopey with the variables and you'd prefer them set some different way, let me know, since it's no skin off my nose. —Aichon— 13:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I had noticed that too while I was half-asleep last night. I'll probably play with the variables tonight. Thanks again, and enjoy the holidays! --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 23:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if any of your characters use a DSS Satellite Phone or not, but that might not be a bad line to add to your journalbox. One of my characters is, and I just copied the hard code for it and added the line. Again, not sure if it's something that your characters use, but a thought. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 21:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid none of mine use a DSS (the userscript doesn't work in my browser of choice). I'd look into making it an optional parameter if any of mine did though, since it'd be useful to have, for sure. But yeah, for now, I think doing what you did is probably the best thing to do, given that I never really expected that template to see any general use. —Aichon— 22:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the template is quite nice considering it uses the UD interface color scheme (hence why I didn't change any of them) and looks much better than perhaps a bulleted list of information about one's character. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 04:39, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

On Character Names, Webcomics and Being Senselessly Pounded...

Indeed, it refers to the webcomic you think it does. Yes, it is a most fun comic. Very shiny, very sparky. I take it that you're a fan of the series? -Wulfenbach 08:29, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Very much so. I haven't been following the podcasts/radio broadcasts, admittedly, but I do follow the comic, and I've been enjoying the recent arc through the castle quite a bit. I was really sad to see Buck Godot come to an end earlier this year, since it was another comic of theirs that I rather enjoyed. —Aichon— 10:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, as I prefer it to the gaming-related one they do. Ah well, all things end. -Wulfenbach 21:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Even so, GG seems to be getting better as it goes on. I remember back when they opened it up so that the 101 class was even with everything else. Felt like Christmas day when I suddenly found I had a few hundred comics to catch up on. —Aichon— 02:39, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

An opinion, good sir

Hey there. Since I generally value your opinions and such, I wonder if you might respond to an open query I've made here. It involves categories and subcategories of categories. I don't know if you follow that type of thing, but if you do I'd appreciate any comments you might have. thanks!--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 01:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for asking (and the vote of confidence), but I'm afraid I'm pretty clueless when it comes to categories (I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I really am a wiki newb that is still learning the ropes). I don't see any drawbacks to what you've suggested, since it does seem like it'll help tidy things up, but, again, my knowledge of such things is limited. That said, you might want to talk to The Rooster about a bot if you're going to be doing a few thousand edits. He could probably rig something up that does it for you in a hurry, I'd imagine, assuming he has time. —Aichon— 02:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Eventual Sysopness

Disturbingly being one of the "old folk" that I rapidly realise I'm becoming around here, I note that theres a small bunch of you "younguns", actually looking at improving the place, checking the categories and the like, and helping people. Yourself, Maverick, Giles, and slightly further behind yonnu and rorybob.

Now in fairness, the day to day tasks are being handled pretty well. Protections, speedy deletions and the like are cleared most days, but as mis said in his promotion bid, the wiki is in places a reflection of past glories. Having written up the dark page and halloween stuff this year, i think we need to have a real root and branch review of all the important pages.

Now as a person with a good understanding of wiki editing, and a desire to improve the wiki, you're half way there. I feel your self assesment is right, do you need it?, and how will you involve yourself in those areas of the wiki considered "Drama Filled"?

But hey. Whatever right? I'd actively encourage you to persue it, but thats my opinion. Expect some more Recent Changes stalkers to chime in below. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 12:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

NO I AM NOT A RECENT CHANGES STALKERi resent that label Cyberbob  Talk  12:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

what ross said Cyberbob  Talk  12:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I came back to the page for this? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 12:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeh see, this is exactly why I was "saving my vote" for Aichon. You'd make a good sysop dude. What's needed isn't janitorial experts, though that is a definite plus on the old resume/CV. In fairness, none of us will ever have the janitorial expertise of Rooster, and he can pretty much do more with his terrifying bot technology than 5 or 6 of us dedicated users can achieve in janitorial departments.

What the wiki needs is level-headed sysops who are interested in helping others and who will establish an environment of well-considered reasoning and helpfulness. And probably the wiki needs a strong identifiable goal, in the same way that wikipedia has the goal "to write an encyclopedia". And you're someone who will consider your opinions before making them and who will try to be productive. And if you fuck up the wiki while learning on the job, no big deal. The old-timers can fix your mistakes while you learn. =D --_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 12:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

In terms of being a great sysop, you say that about quite a few users, none of who are sysop worthy. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 12:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

That's ironic, you've promoted someone who wasn't sysop worthy. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 12:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

In the eyes of a petulant infidel? Quite, --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 12:57, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

In the eyes of the majority of those that took the time to put forward their opinion. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 13:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

10 minutes to think that up, disappointing. You are the only one still preaching aimlessly, they have seen the light. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 13:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry for my bad post :( Cyberbob  Talk  12:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Man. How I wish I'd taken as much thought to the matter of being a Sysop as you. Now I look back on it, I was horribly inexperienced (and still am) in the drama aspects of the wiki, and wanted to be a Sysop for the status symbol, which is the completely wrong way to look at it. Of course, this completely ruins any chance of me becoming a 'sop in the future, but with my attitude to things like this, that's a good thing. --Rahrah^{Come join the #party!}18:51, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I want to address a few things, but before I start, I want to be clear that I do change my mind as I am presented with new facts and educate myself on various topics. I expect that I'll view the situation differently in a few months, but this is my stance at the moment.

To get to the crux of the matter, I don't see a need for me to be a sysop right now. The two good reasons I've seen for being a sysop are if someone has a need for the buttons or has a valuable opinion to contribute to the admin pages (preferably both). My opinion on admin issues is ill-informed at the moment (especially in regards to complex issues), so while I do plan to educate myself on how things work over there, I'm currently uneducated in those matters. As for the buttons, the types of tasks I deal with have not been hindered due to a lack of buttons. So, on both counts, I'm not a good candidate, and am, frankly, unqualified at the moment.

Regarding the drama areas, I do intend to dip my toes in those areas over the coming months and get a feel for them, but, at least for now, I have no idea if I'll become interested in (and capable of) dealing with drama or if I'll find the idea intolerable. As for janitorial duties, I've slowly been finding niches where I can help, and I plan to expand the work I do, but so far I've had little interest in assuming responsibilities just for the sake of assuming responsibilities. I like the freedom of being able to contribute where and when I want, without having to worry about meeting expectations. Is it selfish? Definitely! But this is a wiki for a game. If I'm not deriving some sort of enjoyment from doing what I'm doing, I'm doing it wrong.

Anyway, this response is already too long. If you guys want to discuss it further, I'll still respond to any comments here, but I'd prefer that you talk about it with me via IRC, e-mail, or some other channel. I don't want to end up being an attention whore by playing coy, but it seems that's what's happening. In the meantime, I plan to continue interacting with more of the wiki over the next few months, and will continue to evaluate my own qualifications and desire to be a sysop. I probably won't seriously consider the idea of being a sysop until closer to March anyway, since I'll be ramping up work on my thesis until then. —Aichon— 00:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

ALL ThIngs D3ad's recruitment ad

I changed it to make it clearer for the user (in this page he got it kinda wrong). :) --Janus ^talk 22:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That's like a double-impersonation, since you changed what I said he had said when he got it wrong the first time today. Anyway, 'tis fine by me. I certainly don't mind. And I hope you don't mind that I changed your link too. :P —Aichon— 22:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

OMG VANDAL! --Janus ^talk 22:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I haz dizclamer at top. —Aichon— 23:05, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Awesome!

	A FREE COOKIE
	Maverick has given Aichon a cookie for his most excellent work in helping solve an inter-browser template coding issue!

Thanks again, dude. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 09:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure thing. *adds cookie to main user page* And now I'm going to bed. Really. I mean it this time. I swear I'll do it. —Aichon— 09:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I hope so. Otherwise I'm going to make a template that says you don't get any sleep because you're always on the wiki. Harhar! --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 09:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Damn. Just noticed you already have a template for that. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 09:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Heh, yep. Come next week though, I won't have a reason to be up at specific times any longer, so I'll probably be awake at all sorts of odd hours. —Aichon— 19:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

CHUD

I'm flattered that you decided to use the CHUD codebase for one of your GM scripts! :) Just a note--jimflexx took the script and ran with it, implementing several new features. Should you want to peruse the changes, just pick up a fresh copy of CHUD. Happy scripting! -   HaliphaxTCS 16:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, you're being very gracious, and I appreciate that, especially since I'm taking it in a different direction than your original vision. So, I do want to thank you for letting me use your code. As for the update, that's actually what I started from. Prior to that, I didn't know why it wasn't functioning for me (GreaseKit can't do as much as Greasemonkey, and I thought that might be to blame), so I had never looked into the code to try and fix it. I had always planned to write up my own script to meet that need, but once his update came out, and I saw that it worked, I used that as the basis and ran from there. All of the code I've posted has been thrown together in the 3-4 days since I saw that chud had been updated.

I'll add in credit for him where appropriate on my page, since I hadn't done that yet. —Aichon— 19:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Reply to ingame statement

^_^ --Haliman - Talk 23:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I was beginning to wonder if you had seen it since I made it a day or two ago. Anyway, the group my survivor is in is going to be in the suburb for the next few days at least, so we'll probably be bumping into each other. :) —Aichon— 23:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The Daubeney Building

I see one of your characters is in there, now. If you want to meatshield the place, fine, but you might want to keep an eye on your fellow survivors while you're in there. You seem an upright sort, and we've had issues with breathers resorting to zerging to take and hold the place, notably Knights of the Eternal Flame and Bonphire/phirefly. --Mold 11:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep, that's me. And I see that a character of yours is one of the usual residents. The group my character is in seems to have made it a personal project to hold that building while they're in town, but the SoC doesn't believe in zerging. I'll be on the lookout for any occurring, but if you see ANY zerging with our group (or even other groups), you let me know. Just as a heads up though, we are a pretty large group (50+), so it's not too difficult for us to keep a place full of bodies around the clock, especially a TRP. I doubt we'll be in town for too much longer, since we're looking to get back into some action (the only action we're seeing in EB is with you guys, honestly), and I'm sure you guys are eager to reclaim your home.

As an aside, I know you weren't accusing me or anyone else of anything and were just advising caution, but if you are ever curious where my characters are, I have the locations of all of them (except the survivor you spotted, due to a request from leadership) visible on this page. To say the least, I take zerging concerns seriously, and want to make sure it doesn't happen, even by accident. —Aichon— 21:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

It is a pretty dead suburb, though I'm surprised to hear the Daubeneys are the only opposition you're running into. I already do report obvious zerging and suspected zerging I encounter to the ZL (including zombie zerging, though that's a bitch and a half to spot), any special reason you'd like to be informed personally in addition? I just pointed it out to you because you seem an honest player from your posting habits, and you've currently got a much better view inside the place than I do.

Regarding zerging zombies, perhaps you could make that substantially easier to spot for some of us, in addition to just making life easier for folks whose friends are mostly dead. Among udWidget's features is a zombie name display function; that feature alone would be worth using udWidget for some zombies and zombie sympathizers, but the extension doesn't work for players using unix-like operating systems such as Ubuntu. I tried to get that portion of the widget working as a greasemonkey script, but I don't know jack about javascript. Judging by this you're fairly interested in and capable of solving these sorts of problems; do you think you could come up with a zombie name display tool that doesn't depend on or exclude any specific OS? --Mold 11:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding zerging, you might have picked it up elsewhere, but I'm actually a pretty new player to the game still, so, embarrassingly enough, I honestly don't know how to definitively pick out zergers from a crowd. Is there anything in particular you look for? Is it just a matter of similar names and join times, or is there something else?

As for informing me, we don't go out of our way to hunt down zergers (or PKers, for that matter), so we don't check the ZL regularly, but when we do find out that people are zerging, we make a point of distancing out group from them and avoiding them. I was just thinking that, at least while we're in the suburb for the next few days, if you saw anything improper occurring, it could clue us in to unscrupulous folks that we wouldn't want to be associating ourselves with. I don't want to put any undue burden on you though, nor did I have it in mind that you should keep us in the loop for all future zerging reports. :P

Onto the script idea, I know exactly which feature you're talking about (it's one of the niftiest things), and I wish I could make it into a userscript, but I'm afraid it's beyond where I am right now. The problem for me is that it relies on making additional server requests in the background as the extension is running (the names of the zombies aren't loaded with the page, so they have to be retrieved in the background from the profile pages of each of them), which I don't know how to code up. And if that hurdle were jumped, I believe that the browser I use, Safari, locks out those sorts of things due to security concerns.

I'll take a peek again at it at some point and see if it might be possible to get it running in Firefox (and if it's an issue with *nix, then I should run into it as well since I'm on a Mac), but I wouldn't count on me coming through on this one, since I think it's just a bit too far beyond my knowledge and capability. Sorry. —Aichon— 13:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I'll say right out that there's no way to be 100% certain what you're looking at is zerging, but that can open up the can of worms about fallibility of the senses and the sentient mind and whether a human can be certain of anything it knows or experiences, and I really don't like getting into that particular philosophical discussion. Just take it as a caveat that mistakes can happen.

Name similarity is where it starts, and close join dates helps, but that alone isn't enough. You watch for patterns, and other weird little details that don't look quite right, those will add some weight to the initial suspicion.

For an example, this guy attacked me in zombie form a long while back, I only bothered checking the profiles because ZKing is pointless except for XP-desperate newbies, so it's kind of confusing to see. The characters essentially have the same name, just with slight variations (how many Filipinos named Kevin exist, anyway?), they joined UD less than a week apart, and to add some weight the attack timing was weird. It was one long stream of incoming attacks with no breaks, as if they'd both gone active simultaneously, except there was zero overlap between them - one burned itself out completely and then the other started up immediately after - looking more like one player finished one of his characters and then logged on the other quickly, rather than two guys hitting at the same time.

Another example of one I happened upon was Ivan2X/CrazyIvan2X. Being extremely generous, they have different names in their Real Name slot, maybe they're just fans of the same fictional character, one found UD and told the other about it 5 days later, and they have the same shirt size or something, but it does look bad. However, when I found them, they were in the same building with one Rob Kohler, with the same Real Name entry as CrazyIvan2X. At the time, CrazyIvan2X and Rob Kohler had identical survivor form descriptions (they might still, but I can't tell right now, one's alive and the other's undead). So now we've got CrazyIvan2X looking a lot like he's also Rob Kohler, and it's a lot harder to give Ivan2X the benefit of the doubt because CrazyIvan2X is already looking guilty. One more detail that isn't a problem on its own, but doesn't make Rob/Ivan/Ivan look much better, they were arranged quite neatly in the order of active character timing, one after another.

Then you find people like Rathar of KEF and KEF Rathar. Join dates aren't too similar but you really don't need it. Guy's got the same name in two different forms, same Real Name too, both in the Knights of the Eternal Flame (KEF) group. In the same group you find Egan of KEF and Ray of KEF. We're starting to see an X of KEF name theme, here. Note also that Egan and Ray both have "A Pristine looking uniform in these times. A Patch with a silver shield with a Red and Yellow Cross in it." as their survivor description, right down to identical grammatical errors, and this is copy/pasted (again, including identical grammatical errors) from Rathar of KEF's description. (And though I'm ashamed it took me more than two seconds to notice it, and don't currently have the UDID handy, there's also a Peter running around... somebody is a Ghost Busters fan.) The same group also includes Kimmuriel of KEF (identical description to Egan and Ray), Redgar of KEF, and Sir Robyn of KEF, are we starting to notice a pretentious quasi-medieval names pattern yet? Redgar looks like a dwarf and has a fantasy dwarf-like surname in his Real Name blank, and Sir Robyn actually claims to be wearing chainmail, I guess he likes D&D too (can't fault him there, so do I). I think Major Rager might be the only non-zerg member of KEF, and that's assuming the Real Name of "pete" doesn't indicate he was Peter of the Ghost Busters (pretty weak link there, though, not really worth pursuit).

And then you've got some people so obvious you don't even bother making an explanation of your reasoning.

Can I say I'm absolutely certain all these people are zerging? No, I can't. Would I put money on them having been zerging if it could be proven for or against, before the big reveal? Sure would. It's a gut feeling thing, but I think you can probably see from the examples I've given that some gut feelings can be fairly compelling.

Regarding the zombie namer script, hey, don't worry about it. Maybe you'll get there some day, and if not, oh well. Just thought I'd run the idea by you, since it'd make spotting zergers hiding behind zombie anonymity easier, and you do get your script on. Certainly didn't mean to imply an obligation. --Mold 14:47, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow! That response was a lot more detailed than I expected. Thanks for going to the extra effort! I guess one of the things that's always confused me is how to tell the difference between a coordinated group and a single person controlling multiple characters. For instance, I strike with MOB, and we effectively have no break between when one zombie is attacking and the next one starts. Granted, the names and join dates are wildly different, but the pattern of attacks is there, nonetheless. Some people are obvious, of course, but I always wondered about those coordinated groups.

As for the script, no worries. I didn't feel any obligation, but I did want to explain the problem. It was actually something I had considered trying to implement at one point, until I thought through what it would require. —Aichon— 00:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Real coordinated attacking can look iffy, and as I said, mistakes can happen, but strike teams generally don't have spelling/grammar variations on the same name, and they usually aren't cooperating to do something bizarre like Team ZKing (how often do you expect to find that happening, anyway?). I know some strike teams will take turns to avoid tangling grasp conflict, but even then you'll tend to see timing overlap like A zombie (deadboy) destroyed a generator (2 hours and 36 minutes ago). A zombie (genericzombie) clawed you for 3 damage. (2 hours and 35 minutes ago) ...and again. ...and again. ...and again. ...and again. (2 hours and 34 minutes ago) ...and again. ...and again. ...and again. ...and again. ...and again. A zombie (deadboy) clawed you for 3 damage! (2 hours and 33 minutes ago) ...and again. ...and again. ...and again. ...and again. (2 hours and 32 minutes ago).

It is unfortunate that a lot of people (me included) will tend to take a "guilty until proven innocent" stance on the issue, and some people get wrongly accused, but it's the way things go. It's also problematic that zergers with the sense to know what looks iffy and avoid it won't ever be caught. It would be nice if there was more on the game side toward avoiding or punishing zergers, or better yet, more integrity in the community (like that'll ever happen), but as it is all we can really do is keep our eyes open, guess carefully, share info and hope that each individual's negative reaction to the zergers builds up to collectively grief them out of the game without any individual actually having to be guilty of griefing. --Mold 01:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, with the coordinated groups, they tend to get known for being coordinated groups, and distinct members can generally be identified in other ways (they chat on IRC somewhere, have a presence on the wiki, etc.), so oftentimes I do think the "guilty until innocent" approach is simply more practical in the case of UD. Even so, I do have to say that before I learned about zerging concerns, I always thought it'd be fun to get a group of my real life friends to join, work closely together, and have very similar names, just to confuse the people we're attacking. And I do agree that more integrity would definitely be nice, but won't be happening anytime soon. —Aichon— 01:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Heh, hope the impression I made was a good one, or at least got an entertaining reaction, and no zerging suspicions. I don't think I could pull off a slaughter like that every day, though. Some of those guys were injured, I think only one of 'em had a flak on, I have a crapton of ammo, and I was right outside the building which was VSB when I first stood up. You can thank Davo for me being alive, preferably with bullets. ;) --Mold 12:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

They only had nice things to say about you. Well, while they weren't cursing you and stuff, of course. :P

We also had a few people reiterate that this is the sort of reason why we shouldn't be CRing zombies. —Aichon— 13:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

omg

A shadow with a signature, trippy :S --

 

 

 

 

00:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I know! I really like it, but I can't say I came up with it first. I noticed Chief Seagull's signature here and modified the code to make it stand out a hair less than his does. —Aichon— 00:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Too bad icon sucks at making signatures. Tip, it's broken.-- ¯\(°_o)/¯ 02:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Grumble grumble...I know what the problem is... —Aichon— 02:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for calling it to my attention. —Aichon— 02:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Welcome! :) -- ¯\(°_o)/¯ 02:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Feeding Groan

Pulled from User talk:Aichon/Other/Fighting the AP War. —Aichon— 07:24, 10 April 2010 (BST)
Surely worth a mention?

Also your numbers on FAK searching look a bit odd. Is it based of unpowered hospital?

--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 11:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

*cough* I just typed this thing up in one sitting without really going back through and checking it for completeness...wasn't exactly expecting commentary just yet. But yeah, FG probably does deserve a mention. I was planning to do an inventory of the skills to see which I had missed before I posted it, but hadn't gotten around to it yet, since it's not really that close to done yet.

As for the search rates, I got the FAK search number from here, which, in looking at it again, has slightly better odds than I stated. It should be 7 AP to locate a FAK, based on that, rather than 8 AP like I said. Do you have different numbers from those somewhere? If not, I'll correct it accordingly (really, all of my numbers are gonna need to be checked again, since I rearranged sections at one point and may have misplaced a few things). —Aichon— 12:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Springtime I'm going to donate for a bunch of characters and as such have spare ap's to redo search rates, an article I want to do on spawning criteria and some other stuff. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 12:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd have redone the search rate articles myself by now (one of them still has Drug Stores listed as a good source of FAKs!), but, well, it all kinda seems meaningless once you find out about Groove Theory and realize that it actually works. After that, it's pretty hard to conduct fair searches, since you can see where the grooves are and either end up clicking to meet them or not meet them, either of which biases the results. Talk about massive sampling bias. —Aichon— 13:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thats why Im getting some throwaway characters I don't care about. I can click search completely at random that way. Never going to use the stuff anyway. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 13:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

But "how can it truly be random?", is what I'm getting at, rather than that you'd be wasting perfectly good chances to get useful items. If you click at regular intervals, you'll suffer from sample bias. If you click as often as the page loads, same problem. The best I can think of is to generate a series of pseudo-random numbers in advance and then click at the times designated by them. Or, perhaps better, generate pseudo-random numbers in the range of, say, 10-100, then treat those as the deltas between adjacent clicks. It'd be awfully wearisome though. —Aichon— 13:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

True, but having 3 or 4 characters clicking search every day for a week should give a quite impressive sample size of, what? 1400 searches?--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 14:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, 1400 searches, roughly...with sample bias. :P

For instance, imagine that you wanted to determine how much of the road was depressed in a series of ruts by walking down it and seeing how many ruts you stepped in. The ruts aren't random: they're equally spaced apart. It doesn't matter where you start on the road, because if you maintain a constant stride once you start, the number of ruts you'll hit is already predetermined, so there's no point in even conducting the test at all. The only way you can change it is by changing the length of your stride, but then you'd be changing your test in response to the results you're getting, which would taint the results.

The unfortunate truth is that your stride length and starting position effectively determines the success rate you'll have, making the experiment moot. If your stride length matches the distance between the ruts, and you're already in a rut, you'll have a 100% rate. If your stride length is the same but you're not in a rut, you'll have a 0% rate. If your stride is 1/3 that of the distance between ruts, you might have a 33% rate. None of those provides an accurate indication of the true frequency of ruts, however, because the frequency of ruts can't be 0%, 33%, and 100% simultaneously, yet all three of the tests would seem valid at first glance.

Hence my assertion that the only effective way to determine the rate of success is to create a randomized stride length that is non-uniform and does not react in response to the results you're getting. It has to be a set of strides that are determined before starting the test, or else you'll either taint the test by changing your stride or will end up with sampling bias by not changing it.

Alternatively, you could conduct two sets of tests. If you use Groove Theory, you could determine the breakdown of items within a given structure, since only the chance of finding any item is affected by Groove Theory, rather than the chance of finding a specific item. After that, you could try to determine the likelihood of finding any item. —Aichon— 16:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I think I could rig up a bot that searches for the groove and then tries to stay in it so as to collect as many items as possible and figure out the breakdown, though I'm not sure how I'd get it to output the results...hmm... —Aichon— 16:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I wansn't going to click at a certain frequency, just random clicking every couple of seconds, as the mood took me. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 17:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

But...but...sampling taint. And stuff. I'm rambling since I've been awake for far too long. It's Thursday now, right? —Aichon— 17:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Great Suburb Massacre 2010

You get this message because you've expressed interest in contributing to the upcoming GSM. I have created a page in my user space so we can discuss the project and iron out any potential problems. Feel free to add any thoughts/questions/queries/improvements/random insults. Post directly on the main page, I've had the talk page protected to allow work to actually get done. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 07:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Mr. Snuffleupagus

A vampire snuffleupagus, that is! {opens mouth wide with fangs showing, eyes turn red} RARRRGGHH! --Vampire Snuffleupagus 03:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi there!

I just want to drop by to say thanks for your help, and for that welcome. I'm a tad clueless when it comes to technical things, so really, your help was greatly appreciated. I don't feel that clueless anymore :P

Have yourself a good one fran. --BrainBanana 04:02, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

No problem, and I'm just glad I could help. We all had to start as a wiki newb at some point (I still consider myself one), so I'm always glad to help out someone who is genuinely making an effort to understand and make things better. Again, let me know if you run into any problems along the way, and I'll see what I can do to help. —Aichon— 04:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Meh, random moo'ing

Hola,

I thought to bring your attention towards the wall-of-text/11 point font masturbation taking place over here and here.

Oh, and Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. -Wulfenbach 12:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've been involved in that first conversation for awhile now. :P

As for the second, I was gonna get around to it in a bit. Been tying up some wiki coding (check RC and I'm sure you'll see lots of stuff from me) for a project and finally just about have it all worked out. Link and I were talking on IRC a few hours back though, and I think he's moving it in a MUCH more intelligent direction than the policy was going, since he's essentially calling for what you were wanting in terms of bolded votes. —Aichon— 12:29, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

See, that's what's confusing me, because all I'm really asking for is for people to follow the voting section on each page as appropriate. I know common sense is not common, or sensible depending on sides of the argument, but I find it pretty gob-smacking that we'd even attempt to regulate intelligent discourse on a wiki like this. '

In fact, I would characterize both being a sysop and trying to regulate intelligence on this wiki using the following well-known commercial. -Wulfenbach 12:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, pretty much like you said...herding cats. Still though, common sense isn't as common as we'd like to think, so some times it's necessary to regulate it. As a guideline though, the change wouldn't be as binding as it would be if it had been a policy, and it could be more easily changed later if need be. Anyway, let me catch up on those arguments in a sec, that way you and I don't end up covering territory that you've already gone over. I'll respond over there once I have some thoughts together, but it'll probably be a few minutes yet. —Aichon— 12:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)