Sandra Fikes

Seems there's a lot of strong opinions on it, so I'm curious what people think on the Dark Zone in Tom Clancy's The Division 2 possiby having a PVE mode. Gonna let this run a week, to get a wider spectrum of opinions, but tell us, do you think the Division games should have...

The Dark Zone poll I ran last week has concluded - looks like a bit over half (57%) of the almost 300 people that voted would prefer if there was two options for the Dark Zone the same as there is for Survival. I guess now the question would be, what would people want from a PVE Dark Zone? Personally, I don't want the special gear that is in there,(pretty sure it can be obtained other ways anyway), I just want to be able to enjoy exploring that part of the story world without people targeting my guy to elevate their Rogue status or in case I have something they want.

Talking is good! The world becomes a very dark and lonely place if people fall into a mindset of not talking about anything with anyone else. And the only way to discover perspectives other than our own is to talk to others about stuff. I actually don't disagree with you on the AI being bad for the arts, I just see it a bit differnt I think. From my perepective part of the issue is people being overly wary of writers and artists. It is the old "they wrote about killers.... are they a killer?" scenario. Just because a writer's search history includes how long it takes to bleed to death from a gut shot does not mean they plan to shoot someone in the gut.

@phantascene Imo, that's a different subject than the OP. Witch-hunts are common on social media. Unfortunately, it's par for the course. Imo, AI is destroying the arts. Should I not talk about it? I don't block for disagreements. I block for insults, bad faith, p o r n, that kind of thing.

Is it safe to assume that those defending AI in writing and the arts are using AI in their writing and art? #writingcommunity

@Sanjian_Unkara I was running the Manhunt at Camp White Oak to go after the Recruiter. This is on the docks just after leaving the lodge.

@phantascene Where are you in the world?

Feeding the birds. (Just... don't ask too many questions about what I feed them.) _____________ Trivia... My grandma lived just a few hours from where The Birds was filmed, and not long after the movie was shooting she had a raven that would sit in her driveway and peck at the shiny hubcaps on her VW Bug... she always suspected it had escaped from the film set.

I don't think so, because on that run, I think I was at my normal time to get to that point in the mission if it had been set for Challenging or Heroic. It felt rather well balanced to me, just taking me back to considering my moves and what build would be best rather than doing the same thing for the 200th time, which I think is what players who have been playing for the love of the game will appreciate with this mode.

@phantascene My only concern is that escalation will just make them total bullet sponges and each mission will take 2 hours to finish. Is that the case or is there more to it?

Okay, just jumped into a solo on the Division 2 PTS for the Escalation mission running the Space Administration HQ (One of my favortite missions) and let me just say.... WOW! I've got used to just breezing through that mission on challenging and kicking it up to heroic if I want a bit more "oh shit... shit shit shit..." moments with my sniper. Still doable for me if I don't mess up, but my casual play mode is challenging (hard if I am just having a bad day.) I went in with my current build, my Headshot Hotshot: (4 piece Hotshot including Ninja Pack), Ninja Backpack, Chainkiller Chest, and Turmoil Knees, with the Shroud and Lexington. Decent run and gun for moving around the challening or heroic open world map for me and has seen me though many'a mission on challenging since I tossed it together. I was clearing challenging control points just last night with it so, let's see, right? Oh boy... I'm not going to go into details about the PTS stuff, there are much better folks to talk about that, I am just gonna say that I have not had that much fun in the Space Administration mission in a long time. I was rethinking strategy, considering what gear would work better for stuff, and doing a lot of "THIS IS SO AWESOME! ... Oh shit, that was a mistake... shit, run, shitshitshit... no... Wait... what? I'm ALIVE!" Now, my gear is nowhere near level improvement 30, I'm at level 15 on that (gear was up to level 12), so I am not worrying about all that stuff to do with the new gear stuff. I just wanted to see what's in store and I am delighted with what I have seen so far. As for my mission... I made it almost to the end of the aligning the satelite dishes when I realized I had moved to a bad location and had enemies on 3 sides. Mistakes were made, I ran out into the open on accident and could not dodge, roll, scramble, and "OH SHIT!" my way back to cover in time to avoid a gruesome death on the rooftop. Woke up on the curb outside the mission and first thought was "THAT WAS SO AWESOME!" It is, however, after 4AM, so I am not diving back into things tonight. I do look forward to this new Escalation for missions and want to thank the Division 2 team for all their hard work in giving us more challenging stuff to keep us looking forward to feeling our pulses pound as we make our way through missions. Image one shows my build. Image 2 shows the second before everything went wrong. I had that third dish started, just had to clear the enemies and finish its positioning and roof was done. Ah well, I had fun and that's what counts!

@SteffenJack84 @AlastairGrayson He was not talking about art, I just love his perspective on it. The quote is from an article in the Harvard Gazette where he and others were asked about their opinions of AI and if it was dulling people's minds. news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/…

@phantascene @AlastairGrayson Chris is obviously not an artist lol and his credentials are meaningless.

Just add one more... 👍Like what was posted 👎Don't care for what was posted ❤️Love the post and fully agree with it A lot of times I would like to indicate an agreement, but hitting an "I love you" heart feels wierd, other times someone posts something that the heart is perfect for, such as if I am sympathyzing and sending love and well wishes or something.

@JeebsTX It would look better if we made the decision to change the Like button: 👍 422 👎 Not sure if I’m ready for the mob that it would create on this peaceful Sunday.

Hey @nikitabier, that dislike button looks so out of place in replies!! What's the end goal here? I can select “Spam” On Elon’s reply? lol

Why.... for the love of everything that is sane, do I always see the typo AFTER I hit send on the post that I meticulously read and reread and selected every word with the utmost care? Just sent a post and realized as soon as the comment landed I accidently hit the p too when I tapped the o, so a few words in it says "top", not "to". This, my dear fellow writers, is why we need editors. Writers can't even manage 250 words without needing professional help. 🤣

It's not a question of pro AI or not, it's about if it is okay top find people guilty based on nothing more than speculation. You asked if it was safe to assume someone who might not hate AI used it for their writing, I can say for absolute certain that I, at the least, don't use it because finding the right words to go together is the fun part of writing. I do appreciate that you at least did not block me as soon as you made up your mind about me. I enjoy discussing things like this with others, but will let the issue rest now if that's what you want. It was a pleasure talking to you about it.

@phantascene I get it, you're pro AI. We can agree to disagree.

@AlastairGrayson @SteffenJack84 One of my favorite comments about AI has come to be by Christopher Dede of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who noted that AI should be looked at like the owl on Athena's shoulder.

@phantascene @SteffenJack84 I am a software engineer. AI produces very sloppy, poor code. Always has. But it can solve problems in minutes that would take hours or days for me to track down and solve. The same is true of writing. Using it as a tool to improve is good. Using it as a crutch to finish is bad.

@mikebuckley007 Nah, I had just gone in with what I was using the night before in Challenging missions. Just wanted to test stuff out and see how it compared.

@phantascene No unbreakable or revive hive???

@SteffenJack84 I don't care if someone calls it art. I refuse to call a banana on a wall art, people say that's art. And I don't think that most people will care in a few more years, the same way that people today do not care about a lot of the stuff that was treated, years ago, how AI is now.

@phantascene The OP was about artists using AI, not about readers or their perception of possible AI use, etc. "AI art" isn't art because there is no artist doing art. And those who use it are not artists--they're barely technicians. Artists concerned about this aren't stupid--they're right.

I am well past fed up with the whole "It's AI!!!!" witchhunts that have been going on. I've watched technology come along and be treated the same way AI has been for 40 years, and history shows that in a few years no one will care. I already do not care. If someone uses AI to help them write, I don't care. I just ask that they make sure the story is a good one, because I just want a good story I can enjoy. (Preferably about thieves on a grand epic fantasy adventure.)

Why is it so important to people how a post is made? Whether or not AI was used is being discussed as an existential crisis. “How can I trust any writing is real anymore?” Do you think? Can you discern truth from fiction? Who CARES how it was written? What about the point made

@TheRoanokeLife @ronsterd89 How about a nice game of chess?

@ronsterd89 The only winning move is not to play

@ronsterd89 He killed me with a sword. How wierd is that?

@SteinKardinal86 Hope you can get some good rest and feel better when you wake up.

Feeling like absolute crap today. Everything hurts. Guess the flu got me finally. Going to bed early. Have a wonderful evening y'all 🍻

SAG-AFTRA Statement Regarding Val Kilmer Digital Replication.

@mikebuckley007 Yep! Pretty sure it is.

@phantascene Is that from Lost?

I just stumbled across another Easter Egg in the Division 2.

People will read what they enjoy reading. A lot of readers are going to insist on social media that they would never read AI, because that is the cool thing to say right now, but I doubt many would actually worry if they enjoyed a novel unless it comes out that it was AI - then they will insist they knew it was bad and was just being kind before. Getting upset because someone used AI to write is just going to cause more and more trouble for people who did not use it, but used proper spelling of English or American spellings of words with or without U's. People will stop using proper punctuation. I know several writers that have already said they leave typos in their published books to avoid being accused of AI. I also know of some cases of stuff that was identified as being AI that was wrote long before AI came along. It's stupid and is going to result in the only halfway readable books will be ones that AI DID write, because people will be frozen with fear that their careers will be ruined even if they do not use AI if they use anything that AI uses. At some point people need to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and just write the best damn books they can. Get a following of 1,000 loyal fans who will happily pay you a couple of dollars for any novellas you write and you are making a couple thousand dollars a month for one novella a month. Those people will tell others of how great your stories are... it adds up.

@phantascene It has its uses but, imo, should be kept out of the arts.

@CrusaderOfValor Yes. I found it during the Manhunt there. Have not checked if it's there other times and I just never went where it is.

@phantascene Is that the zoo?