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Way too many stupid illiterate posts occurring but a possible solution

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by hippocoder, Nov 23, 2011.

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  1. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Trying to be nice here, but the number of mangled, frankly idiotic noob postings has clearly reached a new plateau, and it's difficult not to just abandon the unity forums outright because it's very doubtful many intelligent people remain. I don't mean innocent posts which ask simple newbie questions, those are welcome. I am referring to the derp postings where the author can barely even type in his native language let alone anything else.

    It's turning unity into some sort of shovelware environment. A new user with a brain will soon announce: WTF have I stepped into?

    In order to stem this tide, I would suggest that all new members that sign up to the forum get an automated email + pm, which directs them to the assets available for learning unity, for example the walker boys tutorials pretty much should be mandatory, followed by the resources, plus some good advice on forum etiquette: provide source or clear english in posting, and provide as much help as you can to clearly outline the problem.

    This is becoming a problem because (without being nasty) I feel like many new posts are done by complete and utter morons who haven't got any idea how to even construct a forum post let alone code.

    Sorry for the frank post.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2011
  2. diddykonga

    diddykonga

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    Agreed +1
     
  3. andorov

    andorov

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    Unity is a product that I feel is heavily marketed with the notion that game development is easy and that everyone can do it with Unity!!! This sort of attitude inevitably attracts the kind of users that post complete garbage. Its amusing to me how many people call themselves 'game developers,' without having the capacity to develop even a tenth of a game. Amusing, but not surprising, because I've had the pleasure of meeting people in real life that call themselves engineers and proceed to talk about some free energy nonsense.

    Oh well.
     
  4. Eric5h5

    Eric5h5

    Volunteer Moderator Moderator

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    I'd hate to see the nasty version. ;)

    --Eric
     
  5. taumel

    taumel

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    @Eric5h5
    This is not the right place to discuss his personality!
     
  6. larvantholos

    larvantholos

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    It would be useful to direct them, but you know, that would still involve people being able to read and write. Getting people to read is the biggest challenge, really. They could setup the links on the website to tunnel them through all the help links, which are not hard to find, and people would still go onto the forums, because its our basic nature as human beings to be social - and somehow we think that social information will be more useful than the static information (help files, tutorials etc).

    Lets face there, there is no way to stem the tide of stupidity. There is stupidity from one end of the internet to the other, one wonders how we as a species manage not to blow ourselves up with our collective IQ some days.

    But hey, you have no obligation to reply to anything posted. In fact, if its poorly written, and probably a troll thread, or simply unintelligible - you might do them a favour by hitting report - rather than feeding the idiocy. You could also easily report it, and say "please direct to help files* - you never know, enough of those reports go through it might help the moderators push a better policy on people.

    But that just leads back to where I started - You can't make people read. They go back to their base instinct, which is to find a social outlet to get that information. Massive forum influx, more social opportunity, people who aren't serious wont be here in a week, a month, six month, years later. And if they are, and still have produced nothing, its their time to waste ;) you can waste yours however you like too.
     
  7. jackshiels

    jackshiels

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    Charging $20 for Unity would probably kill off 80% of the issue makers.

    *awaits flaming*

    But seriously, this is the very issue.
     
  8. fanjules

    fanjules

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    As a new user coming from top-end Flash development, I was already used to some of morons that would plague forums, often giving out misguided "advice" or more often than not dumping their teenage rage upon you. Unity, if anything seems worse, and it's entirely down to the barrier of entry - a victim of it's own success.

    More so, because the documentation is weak at the moment and often unable to keep pace with the rate of development of Unity, I have to resort to the forum more than I would ideally like to. A nasty biproduct I have found is that searching for a solution with Google often brings you to a forum post with incorrect advice, because the idiot ratio is so high.
     
  9. CharlieSamways

    CharlieSamways

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    I agree, *Hopes he isn't one of them*
     
  10. UnknownProfile

    UnknownProfile

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    I also agree completely (and don't worry, Chalie, you aren't one of them).
     
  11. Gruhm

    Gruhm

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    Perhaps adding a couple of newb focused topics would mitigate some of the impact. Maybe a "Getting Started" and an "RPG/MMO Development" topic? The goal here would be containment.

    I love the idea of an automated email directing new folks to available resources.
     
  12. Moonjump

    Moonjump

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    I am quite forgiving of the standard of English because it is a second or third language for many on these forums. Text speak doesn't get the same forgiveness.
     
  13. carking1996

    carking1996

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    I completely agree with this. When I started here the forums were nice and clean. But soon enough, I found a lot of posts with horrible language, garbage posts, and many flame rages.

    If Unity was $20, I'd pay for it considering it's a very good tool(the free version is). I'd honestly think that it is very well worth more then $20 dollars.
     
  14. Vert

    Vert

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    Any possibility of adding the feature to vote comments/threads up/down and after reaching say -5, the comment/thread will be hidden and you will have to click something to view it? That seems to work well enough on other sites.
     
  15. I am da bawss

    I am da bawss

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    You do realize many of these people are probably KIDS dreaming of making their own MMO right? And kids these days with deteriorating education system and a penchant to use SMS txt msg/"31335" ("elite")" speak basically render them unintelligible to the 30+ X Gen and baby boomers.

    So give them a break! Don't blame them, blame the education system and the invention of mobile phone! :D

    On the other hand, maybe all these will disappear in a few time, when SIRI takes hold and becomes the dominant human-computer interface (have you try it yet?! I was completely blown away) and everyone just dictate to the computer and let computer do all the spellings and grammar...
     
  16. HolBol

    HolBol

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    +1 Agrizzilled. I don't like correcting native english speaking people's sentences all the time, but I end up doing it anyway. Sure, we all have typos and whatnot, but there is no excuse for misspelling every other word.
     
  17. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I think its really sad to have to include you in the users my original post talked about. Since you keep following me around trolling me, I guess I'm right to do that.
     
  18. Redbeer

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    hippocoder: "I bought all of the Pro versions of Unity, get off of my lawn because you lack the IQ, determination, and investment capital to commune with me!"

    a token few: "I +1 this message, because hippocoder invited me onto his lawn and I feel that a sign of professionalism is to agree with those that seem smart."

    the rest of the people: "kin sum 1 hap me m8k l33t game fast? I wtfpwn 5 man lairz soloz in WoW so I kin make MMO."

    :p

    P.S. Is there such a thing as a "smart" illiterate post?
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2011
  19. Tiles

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    hippocoder, you must read a completely different forum than i do. I don`t see your so called idiotic posts, no forum degeneration nor any other signs of the end of the world than you do. What i see is a healthy very big community with all kind of users. And so all kind of questions and dreams. From 8 to 80, from total newbie up to expert. That not everybody is at your level is more than natural.

    But that is not a reason to damn the community or to cry for restrictions. When you feel uncomfortable with how it is then you better do a step back and try to rethink your personal strategy. What is it that you visit the forum? To feel that you are kind of a small elite where just one of a million is allowed to say something because everybody else is a moron? Or to help others and ask for help?

    When you dislike a post then don`t answer it. You don`t even need to read it. Just ignore.

    By the way, i am ways more disturbed by your post here than by any of your so called "moron" posts out there. Because this post suggests something that is not there really, that the forum is full of morons. And that there are just stupid illiterate posts. But yeah, i know, i`m already at your list of morons too, right? Ah the world is so evil :)
     
  20. carking1996

    carking1996

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    Yes. It's called 95% of Hippo's posts.
     
  21. kerters

    kerters

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    Someone should build a new forum for the elite, VIP and smart ass people.
    /clap
     
  22. MitchStan

    MitchStan

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    If you spend a few hours reading threads from 3 or 4 years ago it becomes clearly obvious that the quality of the posts here have dropped significantly this year. It's pretty sad actually. Back then, every post was helpful or interesting. Today, if I find one post that is worth reading, it's a gift.
     
  23. Jaimi

    Jaimi

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    I'd actually like that. Maybe we could then avoid all the 13 year olds who post the worlds worst artwork in search of a quick buck, and all the congratulatory praise from their friends.
     
  24. kerters

    kerters

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    There's no need to get bitchy here :D
     
  25. yuriythebest

    yuriythebest

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    Why not imitate the Ogre3d forums and get a "newbie/getting started/basic questions" forum section
     
  26. carking1996

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    ooh. I like that idea. Sounds excellent!
     
  27. TehWut

    TehWut

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    Jesu! wasn't this supposed to end with the Renaming of this section and that fan made website?
    Can't tell if trolling or wants to attract more kiddies....... A newbie section will not rid this forum of it's issue, if they see Unity has a newbie section, well it must be easy to make your own game!! And of course, they will have graduated from the newbie section within 2 months, right?

    I was okay with the other website to steer off the socializing and chit chat, but this is starting to turn into some Elitist protest thread. A "VIP I am the best professional screw you n00bs" section is just stupid. This is the internet! Not everyone graduated from SMU before spending 10 years in the industry.
     
  28. antenna-tree

    antenna-tree

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    Creating a "Newbie" or Kiddie Corner" section has seemed tempting to me many, many times. The problem is that most people don't think their questions are too simple, have been answered a thousand times already, or simply irrelevant. How would you feel if your questions/posts were constantly being moved to one of these sections by a moderator?

    Same goes for an "Elite" or "Pro Only" section. How would you feel if your "elite" questions were constantly being removed from this section? Or how would you feel if you were a knowledgeable Free user that wasn't allowed to participate in the "Pro" section?

    The best we have right now to alleviate this is the ignore feature. If you find a particular forum user obnoxious you can choose to hide their posts and make them disappear from your forum experience.
     
  29. Gruhm

    Gruhm

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    Rereading the original post, I think it's pretty clear that the point has nothing to do with the experience level of the poster or the difficulty level of their question.

    I'm very new to Unity and game development. So no elitist here. Before I'm going to ask someone to spend their time considering MY problem, I make damn sure I did all I could think of to investigate it myself first. After that, I'm going to make sure I present it in a clear way and with enough detail so that those considering don't need ESP to figure out what I'm going for. This has nothing to do with skill level or education. It's basic respect for the time of others.

    Also, If someone here directs me to a link in the documentation or a related post, I'm not going to reply with , "ya, ya, I read all that, but how do I make my guy shoot stuff?".

    I think these forums are great. I haven't been here long enough to know what they were like in the past. I don't see any harm at all in creating a "Getting Started" type of topic. Some of us may actually enjoy helping at that level. Others may be spared some of the filtering needed when reading other topics looking for useful posts.
     
  30. ColossalDuck

    ColossalDuck

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    Yes, I am inclined to agree that I go into many posts today, expecting to be able to give an answer quite easily, and am unable to understand what the poster means. I think to myself "Oh, that's why there are no replies".

    To sum it up: +1
     
  31. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    The intention of this post was to push for a way to lead new users to the tutorials and help assets from the outset, not to offend. Of course if I did offend someone then they're probably not very bright. To be honest, I expected some people would confuse my message with helping people and forming an elite club. That wasn't very bright of those people was it? I have no interest in elite clubs. I have every interest in an intelligent knowledge based forum though.

    I'm hoping that by guiding new users into proper channels, they won't feel lost and helpless to the point they can't even formulate the right question to ask. I feel pushing people to do tutorials is something that will benefit unity - for every guy that's not got the patience, there's another guy who gets a lightbulb.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2011
  32. Starsman Games

    Starsman Games

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    I got a few thoughts:

    1) This forum, from my understanding, has opened its doors to an international audience. You may think someone is ignorantly misspelling every other word, when they are at least ordering them well enough to make you think he is a native speaker after just a year typing in this, his potential 2nd or who knows, 4th language.

    2) No automatic emailing of documents will discourage the impatient student to stop asking for the quick way to do his hello world game.
    I have noticed an increase in trolling posts, blatant insults, and trolling (and I have to say, veteran pros are not innocent on igniting those.) No automation or protocol will fix this. As the forums gain popularity, we will just need mods to be more active. At some point someone may need to be paid just to monitor the forum quality of life, and if there is someone already then hire more people to do it.
    The alternative is to lock down forum posting only to users that have paid for a UNITY version, to increase the level of access, but I am not sure that is in the best interest of either the community or UNITY as a whole.

    I apologize if I happened to fill this post with grammatical and orthographical errors. English is not my first language. ;-)
     
  33. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

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    I am forgiving when English is a "second language." I find it a sad indictment of our culture and society when people who are non-native English speakers communicate with a higher degree of lucidity and clarity than someone who has English as their first, and often only, language. Illiterate morons one and all.


    You missed the anomalous data point of "B******s to the lot of you! I'll disagree with you because I think you're an idiot."
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2011
  34. VeraxOdium

    VeraxOdium

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    I'm fairly new here, < year. I've wondered many times how many "real" game developers are on this site. I always assumed there was a secret society where the big kids get work done because it can't possibly be happening here, I'm only half joking.

    I lurk the forums daily, reading as much as I can just for general knowledge. I first look at the name of the poster and try to recall how trustworthy / knowledgeable that person seems to be. The ratio is not pretty.
     
  35. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Yes I'm aware of that. You'll notice those people are easily spotted and forgiven. They make an effort, despite the language, to format the post, avoid multiple !!!!!!!! and so on.

    If you read my first post clearly, I'm pointing out that I'm aware of the language barrier. I thought I made it clear, but perhaps not. I'm talking about illiteracy in the native language. ie an englishman talking like a complete idiot.

    I will quote myself from the first post:
    And Justin says:
    Even the most butchered use of the english language often makes more sense to me coming from an intelligent non-native speaker, than someone who is brainless. It's easy to spot.

    Antenna says:
    I agree, thats why I felt that at least, the person who joins the forum could have a solid head start. I don't think a newbie or kiddie corner will work either. Nor will it encourage people to make the right kinds of posts - posts that help someone to help you.

    Last but not least, lets not forget most of the unity staff working on the engine aren't english either, but that does not stop them from being highly intelligent and able to communicate clearly. This isn't an attack on non native speakers, lets not confuse or derail the topic's intention of educating new users.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2011
  36. kablammyman

    kablammyman

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    we dont post much on this site...its not a secret society, its just not a society you will find here. When I have programming question, i tend to post in gamedev.net or some other forums where there's a lot more C/C++ coding. You will notice how C++ is a huge firewall to lazy "game devs"

    I really try not to post here because i know my questions (unity specific) wont get answered. Too many newbs, not enough pros to help with the less common questions.
     
  37. TehWut

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    Indeed, it will sift through the beginners and the n00bs.You suggested earlier that they do a mandatory walkthrough of the entire WalkerBoys series before posting. If you can actually find a way for this to work, then be my guest.
     
  38. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I think now more than ever, a forum only accessed by paying users will filter out 99% of the bullshit and encourage serious users to input again. But that idea gets shot down by freeloaders pretty fast.

    I believe that by giving an area where people who are serious about unity feel confident posting again, you'll at least attract them back to unity and they'll help in other forums pretty much automatically. They just need a reason to visit the forums in the first place, a reason that is sadly lost.
     
  39. Redbeer

    Redbeer

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    Well, making the post title include "stupid and illiterate", then posting a clearly judgmental description of the post types (and thus the posters of said threads), is hardly a strong lead in for productive discussion, and hardly the fault of those that have in your words "confused" the message.

    That said. I have no problem with any sort of walled garden created for Pro users. In fact, I'd generally say that anyone who has invested in Pro should be part of the beta, and there should be a beta forum for those people, or they can just make a Pro forum and I'd expect that the moderators, and users, can just repost things that are truly helpful to the community at large in the other sections.

    I'm also not likely to believe that people who post such stuff are likely to work their way through a comprehensive tutorial, or read posting guidelines, up front, as that is often the reason they are that way in the first place, either from lack of interest, or some sort of language barrier. This is often the TL,DR crowd, so having any sort of even moderately extensive instruction pushed on them is probably a waste of time, but it's worth a shot maybe.
     
  40. taumel

    taumel

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    @hippocoder
    From your postings here and on ... i would say you're taking things sometimes way too serious, try to relax and be less grim, it doesn't hurt (this much). :O)
     
  41. vdek

    vdek

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    The point of entry of the majority of Unity users is through the free version. If it wasn't for the excellent community here I probably would have never picked it up despite it's strength as their are alternatives. It is an anecdote, but I believe it is one that applies to many users here. To be honest though I think even if you segregated it, you would still find the majority of users posting in the regular forums since people tend to gravitate to larger crowds.
     
  42. Bael

    Bael

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    I think it's more of a problem with perspective. Hippo, you joined the forums a year and a half ago and have nearly 4.5k posts. Ballparking it that's what - 8 posts a day, every day, for a year and a half? Someone that spends that much time on a forum will get agitated by anything that gets in the way - there's too much to read, let alone reply to. I've read these forums daily for years, and have no problem with the way the community has grown.

    There is certainly more garbage on the forums than back when it was a niche product used by a handful of professionals - but it's nowhere near the dregs certain individuals here would have you think. Overall this is still one of the most friendly and helpful product forums you'll find on the 'net. Most of these 'problem' posts are easily filtered just from their title alone - I actually get more agitated by posts like these which seem to show up every couple weeks, asking for some special private members-only section so they can be separated from the underlings in the general populace.

    As for a 'pro-only' set of forums, it still wouldn't work. Yes, you'd filter out the kids trying to make MMOs, but you'd also filter out every other knowledgeable person who doesn't have a pro license - many of whom could help answer serious questions posted in said pro-only forum.
     
  43. VeraxOdium

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    So I've been thinking about this for a while and have some ideas. One of the things that has bothered me is the lack of a robust "education center". There are a lot of resources out there but they are scattered, hidden, not always obvious where to find what you are looking for. For instance Hippo mentioned the "walker boy tutorials", I had never once seen anything about them. I googled it and found all this great info, wish I had known about this a year ago.

    So what I'm proposing is some kind of user generated resource page that is a categorized index of everything that is out there. Make it a single page that is a springboard to every main category of information. Each category could be subdivided down into smaller manageable areas of focus with links, tutorials and faqs. I don't propose a forum type area, we already have that, more of an area that contains categorized data that the already existing forums could work off of.

    One of the categories could be "Beginner - Start Here", similar to GameDev where a general overall guide is laid out to answer all the standard questions they have.

    Unity could have a group of moderators / trusted members edit and maintain the pages, approve tutorials, links to outside resources, etc.

    Just organizing information and making it extremely accessible by itself could cut down significantly on redundant fail posts.
     
  44. VeraxOdium

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    I guess the Wiki page kind of already does this, but I dunno, found the Walker Boys tutorial link there, haha. :p
     
  45. ivkoni

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    The forum is here to answer questions, but also to troll around a little every now and then, no?
    Hippo, if you don't like the forum, why do you post here so much? Or you just post to bitch? If you don't like the forum as is, ask unity to give you moderator status to improve it as you see fit, or make your own forum and approve personally every member who wants to join.
     
  46. antenna-tree

    antenna-tree

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    @VeraxOdium - we have a new resource section in the works for the web site. It will hopefully speak to all of the concerns you brought up.

    @redbeer - our beta list is already 1000+ and that number is starting to become an issue with regards to noise vs helpful input (not to mention leaks of the beta builds). Opening it up to all pro users would just be too much for us to react to unfortunately. However, we have done public betas in the past (3.0 for example) and don't be surprised if this happens in the near future as well ;-)

    @hippo and other fervent forum users - as people have pointed out, the noise on this forum only affects a small percentage of us that visit this forum multiple times a day and treat it as one of our main "hang out" spots on the internet. For most people this forum is still a very useful resource to discuss Unity and get answers to whatever questions. But of course that "usefulness" stems from the fervent forum users who answer several questions a day so we should keep trying to make this a better environment. Threads like this are useful feedback... even if some things said were unnecessarily harsh.
     
  47. taumel

    taumel

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  48. VeraxOdium

    VeraxOdium

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    @aNTeNNa trEE - Awesome can't wait to see it.
     
  49. antenna-tree

    antenna-tree

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    Shhhhhh... no seriously shut the f**k up guys... we all need to take a second, quiet ourselves, and try to pick up on the background radiation of the Universe... it's affecting our forum posts in unforeseen ways and is probably causing all these anomalous MMO collaboration threads to appear at random. We need to wrap some sub-atomic noise canceling headphones around the whole Unity forum to ensure it's fidelity.

    taumel - you're still my favorite forum user even though you steady "troll" ;-)
     
  50. taumel

    taumel

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    @aNTeNNa trEE
    I love you too! ;O)
     
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