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Nov-10-2006 17:12

I was just perusing the weekly high scorers (wow! you guys are amazing...) and was wondering just how it is possible to complete so many cases (200+!) in one week. By my count, 7X12 is 84, plus maybe another 4 favors per day - that still only makes 112, if you solved everything. Where are the other 100+ cases coming from?

Nov-11-2006 14:47

Night after night was spent, day after the day. It was a huge deal, that ate a lot of time. But I wanted to claim victory, I wanted to reach this time consuming long term goal.

Unfortunately what I didn’t really think of when I put in the hours. That there are no rules in sleuth. At least not really written ones. I wronglty assumed there are a lot of unwritten rules, as apparently did all the other top players at the time. I honestly thought we all would know that the point is that we play a game. Not play a system. And I guess I have been wrong. At least a few years later, it turns out I was wrong at the time. The absence of rules, literally I suppose means an absence of rules. And with that I made a huge mistake. I never thought there eventually would be a group of people, who would play by a different rule set, as another generation did, or as many others do…..and I guess by the amount of arguments I hear, still do.

The mistake I made was, that I wrongly assumed that there were unwritten rules around this, or a line that one should not cross. What I didn’t keep in to account that others may not have this line, or this line wasn’t there to begin with. I really don’t know. But if I had known that the high score list wasn’t something that required a long term and many hours of effort, I never wouldn’t have spent the time.

Nov-11-2006 14:48

I made a foolish mistake in a lot of assumptions. And I am truly sad that I spent so many hours achieving a goal. That was really based on a wrong assumption. So what does it feel to find out that you spent 1000s of hours on a wrong assumption. Really really shit. I am really sad. If I had known, that the amount of experience points that I have could be reached in a matter of weeks, in a fraction of the amount of time I did it. I would have NEVER done it.

It was a stupid mistake on my end, assuming certain rules, and a sense of honor in achieving points. That’s all. As for any other debate, I rather leave that to those that are still playing the game and in this community.

Nov-11-2006 14:53

First of all, thanks for moving this back.

Second of all, I have nothing but respect for Nikkie and what she's accomplished in this game. You did things, in my opinion, the right, ethical, fair way and its an honor to try and overtake you :)

Nov-11-2006 15:12

I think that there are rules in Sleuth.

3 False Accusations and you are retired.

Liar/no alibi + PE = Guilty

Etc.

Everything else like the High Score boards are measuring sticks, not rules. They capture a moment in time. They do not proclaim any player better than another, they state who has the most points at that moment. If that moment has passed for a player, and they no longer play the game then they should not feel badly that someone else is now on the list.

I have talked about milestones in the past ( http://noir.playsleuth.com/map/cityhall/post.spy?id=14884 ) and those did not involve judgements of myself against others, but of judging my current self against my past self.

Aralives and Biggie make very good points that they value thier agency and that is the important thing, not the actual fame # that they currently have. In recent celebrations for Hitchhikers of London for their 100th hunt it was pointed out that it is a milestone, not that it made them better than anyone else.

The high scores are there for new people to measure themselves against if they want, to blow past if they want, or to create brand new ways of measuring like Chelsea and Carrie are now doing on the new Arch Villain High Scores.

Chron and his team should feel good about seeing their name at the top of the weekly high score list. They obviously value that number and they put in the hard work to grind out that many cases. If someone else has a different yardstick to measure themselves against it does not mean that they are wrong.

Ben creates the rules, and we just look for ways among ourselves to compete with each other. There is a reason that after you solve a case the options are:

Buy gear
Look at high scores
Purchase skills
Start a new Case

Nov-11-2006 15:29

Thanks for your opinion Ran, and you make several good points.

There is also another rule in Sleuth.

No more than 2 detectives subbed into each agency by one person.

In my eyes, this violates that rule. Its a loophole that needs to be closed. My suggestion for this is to limit the number of cases any detective can have to 32, which is the most you can have with 2 subbed detectives.

Thoughts on this?

Nov-11-2006 15:34

Starting a new thread for that topic now Biggie.

Nov-11-2006 16:01

Many of us are not here for the competition but are here to explore and solve puzzles. However, it is very easy to hand over your password to a Director if you are new and don't know any better.

Nov-11-2006 16:16

I think passwords is getting off the subject a bit.

Nov-11-2006 16:20

For the newbies and people who do not know, assembly line solving cases means, opening a case, getting all suspects, checking your contacts for matching PE evidence, then storing it. Using another detective with different contacts to check and match the physical evidence, then accusing the only person who has a fake alibi that matched the PE. It is not about skill, but about being able to turn over case after case, over and over, doing the same thing day in and day out. You can rack up experience points by the truckload doing this method.

The question that it raises, is this really playing the game?

Nov-11-2006 16:43

NO

In my opinion anyways. First of all, for the newbies, this is a BAD way to go about learning to play the game. You will need to be able to solve AIs on your own in order to Arch Villain Hunt, which is not only fun, but challenging AND gets you great Exp at the same time.

Second of all, its akin to using cheat codes on video games. Sure, you can use it, and you'll finish the game, but did you REALLY win? Or did you just take the easy way out?