The Order of the Stick

I remember that the mobile ports of Dungeon Keeper and RollerCoaster Tycoon were notorious with their "pay to do this routine action if you don't want a cooldown" mechanic. But it is perfectly legal. As is, sadly, the "This app is free to use and only requires your credit card for authentication. But in a week, we will charge you $20 a day until you unsubscribe. Uninstalling does not count as unsubscribing" setup. My wife got hit with one of those a few years back. Fortunately, the credit card company had heard of the scam, knew that the subscription terms were not stated when you signed up, and reversed the charges.

One other thought RE the Marshmallow Test experiment - It's also a sign of Character Development that the Monster In the Darkness immediately thinks that it's better to wait in order to get two marshmallow, since the Monster used to be about satisfying immediate appetite.

Also, there's the fact that the Monster is literally a kid (i.e the subjects of the real life experiment). And he's "passing" the test and the 100+ year-old Xykon is "failing" it.

Edited by Hodor2 on Jun 2nd 2023 at 10:52:53 AM

I.e. it's not legal. It just makes you think that it is so you won't complain at your credit card company. Also, most courts would say that important details hidden in the fine print is not valid.

It is entirely possible that the MITD is both 100+ years old and also a kid. Who knows the lifespan of its creature type?^note Of course I'm nitpicking. I know that Xykon was an old person when he got lichified to begin with.

Even when Xykon is failing at impulse control, he makes sure to put five “o”s in his exclamation to fulfill the Quinton’s ongoing terms.

Meanwhile, my main thought is: Poor, poor Redcloak. It's hard to be the straight-man in a group like this. :P

Well then he should have done less brother murdering.

Then he wouldn't be in the Straight Man camp on his own.

Which implies that there's a level of brother-murdering that would have been okay. :P

Could have stuck to verbally murdering him like normal siblings do.

The acceptable brother-murdering rate is slightly above zero, only because of e.g. Evil Twin situations.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Jun 2nd 2023 at 10:43:54 AM

This isn't lootboxes, it's microtransactions. Microtransactions are a bunch of smaller payments inside of a game (the aim being to make the player spend money they wouldn't have spent on an upfront purchase price). Lootboxes are a type of microtransactions with random outcomes (making it essentially gambling).

The name is fairly clearly also meant to invoke Candy Crush Saga (in addition to the other things mentioned).

I don't consider onomatopoeia or nonverbal exclamations to be words, frankly. It would be spectacularly unfair if the spirit did

In Start of Darkness, Xykon can tell when someone spells his name with a Z, out loud. I tend to assume the characters can read the speech bubbles, and Xykon can spell his "ooooo"s however he likes.

Yeah, they can definitely see the speech bubbles.

x13 Well, the Monster isn't choosing for himself, he's advising Xykon to wait. As before, he's trying to interfere with Xykon's search as much as he can.

Xykon could so easily bypass his restrictions just by adding ", yes?" to the end of all his statements

A consistent Verbal Tic might be more orderly than what he's obligated to do now.

Heck, there's at least one rude word he could append, at that...

There's also the "MAXIMIZED Energy Drain, dumbass" option.

My issue with the Marshmallow Experiment was always... who decided that waiting ten minutes to eat two marshmallows is more rational behaviour than eating the one in front of you after, say, three minutes? Is eating two marshmallows twice as enjoyable as eating one? Would it be rational to wait an hour for a second one? What about 12 hours? What's the scientifically established exchange rate of wait-time to enjoyment?

I mean, in the experiment itself, you're stuck sitting there for the whole ten minutes regardless, yeah?

It's not really a question of trading wait time for enjoyment. The wait time cost is fixed; it's sunk. Generally the kids in question will have a preference for two marshmallows over one marshmallow, so it's a question of being willing to wait to satisfy that preference. But you have to wait anyways, so waiting to get one more marshmallow is generally the rational call.

Obviously there is a discounting factor, the time value of marshmallow so to speak, but except in truly exceptional circumstances the ten-minutes-discounted marginal value of a second entire marshmallow will more than make up for the gap between the worth of a marshmallow right now and the ten-minutes-discounted worth of that marshmallow. Because it's ten minutes.

It doesn't really provide insight to extend it out to hours and see that it becomes much weirder, I don't think, because it's kind of relying on the fact that ten minutes is a really short time. A difference in length on that scale becomes a difference in quality, not just quantity.

Edited by RaichuKFM on Jun 9th 2023 at 2:44:13 PM

Is ten minutes a really short time for a kid that's told to wait?

Depends on the kid, apparently.

I'd be in that if it's both prizes for the 10 minutes.

A kid's perception of time is different to that of an adult. My secondary school maths teacher framed the idea such that every hour you live represents a smaller percentage of your time alive. To you or me, an hour might be no time at all, because we've lived so many hours before. A child hasn't experienced as many hours by comparison, and so it would seem like more time to them.

It is telling that Xykon, to whom the concept of time should no longer be a point of concern, still has such issues with impatience at times.