Why I didn't take, and won't take part in, the Cash For Clunkers plan

After the previous post, I was contacted by somebody who asked why I just didn't go to a car dealership and take part in the Government sponsored Cash For Clunkers program. Now, rather than respond directly to this person, I've decide to just do a generic blog post explaining my reasons why I didn't take advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program, and why I'm not going to take part in the Cash for Clunkers program.

Now, can anybody tell me how the current financial crisis was initiated? If you answered something to the effect of, banks lent money to people that couldn't pay it back, you'd be right. So does anybody know why banks lent money to people who couldn't make the payments? If you answered affirmative action, lawsuits from liberal democrats, and courts making law instead of interpreting law, you'd be right. Many banks and lending agencies were forced to lend money to minorities and certain racial groups on the grounds of having to be fair. Banks and lending agencies couldn't just tell a minority or certain racial group that they just didn't have the credit rating or security to justify the loan. In some cases, people who were declined loans because of failure to pay past loans on time, or failure to maintain a steady job, or were unable to present any proof of being able to actually pay the loan back on their current job, took the decline of their loan to court and won the loan amount on the basis that they were being discriminated against for their color, genetic background, or any other excuse.

The obvious solution to this sort of lending problem is to simply reject loan applications based on facts. Have you held a steady job? How much does your job pay you? Have you paid your bills in the past on time?

However, Democrats don't deal in facts. They really don't. The cash for clunkers program is proof, and here's why.

Can anybody tell me the demographic of somebody who is likely to drive a clunker car? If you said something to the affect of a low-income to middle-income family, you'd probably be right. People who drive clunkers... generally couldn't afford a new car to begin with. While their are exceptions, such as people who buy clunkers to rebuild them or refurbish them, or those that just like collecting cars, you wouldn't be wanting to take part in the Cash For Clunkers program. Upper middle class and rich families that were already buying from Porsche, BMW, and Audi, probably didn't have clunkers they wanted to trade in anyways.

Okay. So our demographic of low-income to middle-income is set. Can anybody tell me what the average cost of a decent car? Well, a VW 2009 Rabbit starts around $21,000. A Golf GTI is $24,000. A Honda Fit Sport starts at around $18,000. In fact, if you want something that's under $15,000 in the US? You'd better start at Kia. It's such a noticeable split in costs, a local Ford Dealership near where I live makes special mention of it's inventory under the $15,000 mark.

Okay. So for a decent new car from pretty much any car dealership in the US... is going to start around $15,000 if you cut everything out... and you'll be pressing $20,000 for a decent car with all the trim.

How much can you get for the best condition clunker on the Cash For Clunkers program?

I see the light clicking on in some eyes out there. You probably thought $4500. Which is just about right if everything goes your way. Realistically, the Cash for Clunkers is only gonna net $2000 to $3000 back. I'm not saying that isn't a lot of money...

I am saying that $15,000 - $3000 is still $12,000.

The really huge problem with the Cash for Clunkers program is that even in the best case scenario, you probably won't even get a third of the cost for a brand new car, with a factory warranty, and all the trim that makes it worth living in. In order to come out even slightly behind, you'd have to go buy a car from a Korean or Malaysian dealer... and no, that's not a good thing.

If you went and bought a Toyota, a good Ford, a Honda, VW, or anything else remotely decent, even with the Cash for Clunkers program you'd still be roughly $10,000+ in debt. You'd also be locked into a multi-year payment contract.

And what happens... if you can't make those payments?

Have I made the picture clear enough? All the Liberal Democrats have done with Cash For Clunkers is merely set the foundation... FOR ANOTHER FINANCIAL CRASH.

The demographic mostly likely to have clunkers, and the demographic most likely to use the cash for clunkers program in order to get a new car, is the exact same demographic that couldn't afford new cars to begin with. Even with a $2000 to $4000 discount, there's a real big question of how many of those purchases will default. How many car dealers have lent money, in the form of cars, to people that simply can't pay that money?

For me then, since I'm obviously capable of seeing the inherent financial trap in the Cash for Clunkers program, I'm not remotely interested in trying to take part in it. Yes. I think I have a steady job. Am I confident enough in that job to risk a $10,000+ loan from a car dealer?

No.

My observation does raise a crucial question. If the trap of car dealers selling cars to people who can't afford cars is so obvious... why would car dealers knowingly take part in such a bad business practice? My gut reaction is that the majority of car dealers look at what happened with GMC and Chrysler. Rather than simply standing aside and letting them die, like British Leyland, GMC and Chrysler have been bailed out. Many car dealers today might be betting their futures on getting bailed out again.

Question: what happens when Obama and crew is kicked to the curb and their legislation is repealed? What happens when GMC and Chrysler are told to make like BL and just DIE?

You don't think that's going to happen? Are you really confident enough to bet your money on it?

really. really. really. hating that berretta right about now

Okay, anybody's whose reading this knows I'm probably one of the worlds worst people when it comes to asking for donations or other financial support. I hate it. Only, I'm approaching a position where asking again seems like the only thing I can do.

Remember that Chevy Berretta that I took pictures of when the left front wheel came off due to a problem with the ball joint? Well, it's acted up again... with my radiator developing a huge crack and the head gasket "blowing." As best as I can figure listening to the real car mechanics, the problems with the water cooler from earlier kept the temperatures in the cooling system at a higher than normal level. The higher temperatures lead to the gasket that seals the main engine block and the head to developing cracks and leaking through. The higher than average temperatures in the engine head meant that the spark plugs fused to the walls.

Oh, and they weren't the right spark plugs either. Whoever owned the car before me had put the wrong kind of spark plug in. Since I'm not a mechanic, I don't know what the difference in spark plugs is. I just know that people who fix car engines said they were the wrong spark plugs.

Sooo...

I'm now looking at a $130 charge for a new radiator. A $400 charge to have the engine head rebuilt... and charges for new spark plugs, and a gasket kit.

As much as I dislike begging, if you have change to spare, I really could use it...

MMO - capturing the magic

Very recently other former players of the Planetside Outfit Band of the Hawk and I re-upped Planetside to try playing it again. It used to be one of my favorite games and I repeatedly used Gamenikki.com as a platform to rage against SOE for many of the brain-dead management choices. While other MMO's of the same time period, such as World of Warcraft and City of Heroes continue to grow and expand, Planetside has stagnated. While other MMO developers worked to update their clients to work against newer versions of Microsoft Windows, and in the case of NCSoft / Paragon Studios, hired a third party to insure platform support for Linux / Unix based systems, SOE did no such thing. Planetside won't run in Windows XP Service Pack 3, or any version of Vista, without enabling the Windows 95 compatibility mode. That's both interesting, and disturbing, for a game that was released after Windows Xp hit the market.

While playing Planetside I started to wonder what it was about the game that felt so special so many years ago. While I've ranted before about the destruction of the full military campaign in favor of a session-based play style, there was something more to it than that. There was something more special than hundreds of players crashing together over a single base.

The answer, surprisingly, came from outside Planetside and in City of Heroes. One of my policies with City of Heroes is that I don't create any new avatars until an existing avatar has hit level 50. Having just leveled and Ice / Rad to 50 I went to work on a new Dark Armor / Energy Melee tank. I also was testing out my recently completed triple SLI platform under Cedega... and as I loaded into Galaxy City on a fresh installation... the first thing that hit me was the music. It was a soaring, heroic, theme. The layout of the lower levels, designed to keep new players to the game contained to a specific area, teaching them the rules of the game world.

Later on I went with a group attempting the Sara Moore Task Force, and one of our team members had never been the shadow shard before... Our team leader, while having been on Shadow Shard TF's before, didn't know about the Mole Point Warpgate Shortcut. So much of the task force was spent teaching these players the tricks of the Shadow Shard...

Which was about when the answer came to me. What made Planetside so special so long ago, was that it was so new and unfamiliar. Nobody else had tried to do an MMO-FPS on that scale. Nobody else has attempted anything... on that scale. Not even Tabula Rasa succeeded in matching the scale of Planetside. Every new weapon, every new vehicle, every new cert point... changed the face of how you played the game. SOE's decision to chase after the UT / Quake market with session based play irreparably harmed the game, destroying the player base. Today, the few players left can pretty much get away with anything in Planetside.

Other MMO's kept building and expanding their worlds. As much as I dislike World of Warcraft, it's marched upwards with it's new lands, new dungeons, new challenges, new items, and so on. The Everquest series has grown as well, with regular expansions, proving that SOE does know how to expand at least one type of game. Niche MMO's, like Eve Online have grown as well. City of Heroes, once Jack Emmert was kicked out, mixed a Korean Micro-payments scheme with a traditional monthly pay scheme to become one of NCSoft's most profitable titles. The money earned on various booster packs didn't go to waste either, as the money was invested back into Paragon Studios to fund rapid expansion of the development team. As City of Heroes goes into it's 16th free expansion, it's already managed to match, if not surpass, all of the features it's former lead developer never delivered, and only promised to deliver in Champions Online. WarHammer Online is another game that continues to expand and grow, with new character classes and new lands.

One of keys to keeping a subscription base, as I can determine, is continuing to capture the magic that made somebody like the game to begin with. I think the principle holds up well outside of MMO's. Many Multiplayer shooters, like Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament, Quake, and Doom, have retained long lives in their markets by offering up community created maps, weapons, and characters. Valve Software caught a metric ton of flack over announcing and demonstrating Left 4 Dead 2 before there was software developers kit for the first Left 4 Dead. Over 40,000 accounts have joined the Steam Group promising to NOT buy L4D2. I think the point stands that multiplayer games need fresh content to continue to survive.

I think F.E.A.R. Combat and Far Cry stand as two excellent examples of Multiplayer Combat that faulted over when players just couldn't find new content.

Planetside? Well. It didn't grow. The age of the game is readily appearent the minute somebody loads in. It's a sparse, barren world. The bases have remaind the same. The planets have remained the same. As much as I liked the game, it's gone absolutely nowhere in literal years. It just hasn't managed to recapture any of the magic that set it apart so long ago.

Perma Bans in MMO's: Test case in the courts?

From Game Politics : http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/07/21/lawsuit-banned-resistance-player-alleges-sony-violated-free-speech-and-stole-his-money

The short version is that a player who was banned from the Playstation Network is suing Sony, describing the ban as theft. The player states that he bought Playstation Points that are non-refundable and that since Sony banned him, they have stolen the money he had spent.

I think most MMO companies, such as NCSoft, Activision, and EA, will be watching this case with interest. If the court decides, rightfully, that the player violated the Terms of Service agreement for the Playstation Network and that Sony was well within their rights to ban the account regardless of how much the player had spent, trolls everywhere will be put on notice that their actions can carry a financial loss.

If the court decides, wrongly, that Terms of Service agreements are meaningless, and that game companies overseeing private networks are not allowed to control access to those private networks, then the message will be sent out that trolls can behave as badly as they want. Legally, there is no recourse of action a game company can take in the US.

One of the key failures in this player's argument is that Sony is breaching his First Admendment rights. Basically, the player is claiming that he can be as vulgar as he wants, as obscene as he wants, and as filthy as he wants... because that's his right to free speech. Well, if I yell FIRE in the middle of a crowded theater or mall, and there isn't one... guess what? That's not protected under free speech.

There are precedents set of what constitutes free speech, and where free speech applies. If you start shouting obscenities in the middle of a crowded mall, Mall Security has every right to come escort you off the premesis, and they can do so under a variety of different reasons. Some security types might file an official complaint that you are disturbing the peace. Other security types might lean on the whole private property rules. Still yet more Security types might point out that obscene language is not covered under Free Speech and then have a restraining order posted.

In the same way, massive multiplayer online networks are private property. As much as some people might not like the idea, World of Warcraft, Everquest, WarHammer Online, City of Heroes, Playstation Network, Xbox Live, and so on... are not public forums. They are private networks that require agreeing to some rules and regulations. Those Terms of Service enable the network administrators to set their own rules about what is appropriate, and what is not appropriate. Some ToS outline some of the steps that might be taken if you break the rules and regulations that have been set.

The hope is that the first judge to get this case laughs this particular player out of the courtroom, not even allowing a jury trial based on the sheer ludicrous nature of the complaint. The hope is that a judge would look at the plaintiff and say something to the effect of You Broke There Rules, Get over it.

The worry is that a judge might be more interested in setting a verdict against Sony, or isn't interested in examining the merits of the complaint or the case itself. In such a case, the ability of network maintainers to provide a safe enviroment for their player base could be greatly diminished, and a ruling in favor of the plaintiff carries the remote possibility of ruining the ability of MMO's to operate inside the US.

yes. I am on facebook. quit asking

Yes. I do have a facebook account.

No. I haven't suddenly taken to liking social networking. I needed to establish a login due to Adventure Crossing setting up events through Facebook... and events aren't viewable without an account.

Yes, the picture on the facebook page is me. It's from 2007 and was taken by an editor while waiting for Nintendo's E3 press conference to start.

On another note, I did find Facebook's friends linking rather... interesting. Upon signing up Facebook surprising suggested two names that I recognized. Ralph Hayes Jr. for example, whose comics I've referenced in the past. Jonathan Pointdujour, one of the other writers on Gamenikki. Some names... I'm still trying to figure out why Facebook said I might know them... like Steven Sarron and Nerina Christos.

Why don't Democrat's use Firefox?

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/july/125949.htm

And I quote

QUESTION:Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox? I just (applause) I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don’t understand why State can’t use it. It’s a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, apparently, there’s a lot of support for this suggestion. (Laughter.) I don’t know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer? (Laughter.)

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: The answer is at the moment, it’s an expense question. We can --

QUESTION: It’s free. (Laughter.)

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Nothing is free...

SECRETARY CLINTON: ... And it reminded me of what I occasionally sometimes do, which I call shopping in my closet, which means opening doors and seeing what I actually already have, which I really suggest to everybody, because it’s quite enlightening. (Laughter.) And so when you go to the store and you buy, let’s say, peanut butter and you don’t realize you’ve got two jars already at the back of the shelf – I mean, that sounds simplistic, but help us save money on stuff that we shouldn’t be wasting money on, and give us the chance to manage our resources to do more things like Firefox, okay?

Okay. Yes. I did cut some of the mid chatter out... but every technician worth his salt is having a big what the bloody hell moment after reading that. First of all, Mozilla FireFox is Open-Licensed software. It is both free of cost, and free of patent and licensing concerns. It also is amazingly simple to maintain. The update mechanism works just from within the application.

Where-as with Internet Explorer, you have to use Microsoft Windows Update to patch the application. You also have to make sure you read every single update because some updates contain submarine applications... like the .Net Plugin for FireFox that disables the uninstall option. A bit like any bit of legislation put forward by the Democrats that contains submarine spending and no way to say no to that spending.

... in that light, the Democrats might have a better handle on FireFox versus Internet Explorer than most technicians are giving them credit for right now. IE works like a Democrat political process. FireFox... doesn't.

The issue with Windows 7 pricing

The page in question is here : http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windows-Windows-7/category/102

The pricing in question is this:

$49 for Windows 7 Home Premium

$99 for Windows 7 Professional

Okay, these are the upgrade prices... which are cut in about half. Microsoft also states that the pre-order on upgrades is good as long as supplies last and classifies these prices as a limited time offer.

Question: How actually determines how much supplies are on hand, and what their value is?

The answer is of course Microsoft. It's quite literally impossible for Microsoft to run out of supplies, since they are the ones making the supplies available.

It's a cute trick though. By making the prices for Windows 7 very competitive now... as the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade is less than the cost of most Xbox 360 and PS3 games, many consumers will feel they are forced to buy now rather than paying out the regular prices later.

Thanks Microsoft, I do intend to avail myself on one of the Professional upgrades... I do need to know how to fix such installations of course... but stuff like this isn't likely to make me move away from Mepis Linux.

11 year old says Video games a waste of time... um. He's wrong.

Story is carried by the NBC-LA here: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/11-Year-Old-Graduates-From-LA-College.html?yhp=1

The jist of the story is that an 11 year old boy is graduating from an LA college, has some experience with martial arts, and says Video Games are a waste of time.

Okay, for the most part, he probably does have half a point. Back in 2008 I went over that just playing MMO's didn't automatically grant leadership skills. For the most part, Video Games are just for having fun, a way to sit back and relax.

That being said, Video Games aren't just a way to waste time. Lets skip the educational games for a minute and talk real-world applications. Steven Spielberg, the legendary film director and producer, made headlines when he used Epic's Unreal Engine to make the sets for A.I. Today, it's common practice for not only movie studios, but television studios, to build sets in game engines first to make sure that positioning and lighting is accurate before actually building sets. Ever heard the old saying, Measure Twice, Cut Once? It's the same effect. Instead of having to build a set, find out it doesn't work as expected, visual entertainment production teams can save time and money, real money, by doing the work first on a digital gaming platform.

Video games haven't just made an impact on production of visual entertainment outside of Video Games. They've also had an impact on construction and architecture. Lets say you are building a house, and you hire a qualified architect. Chances are, he'll probably use some Computer Aided Design program to check out how your house is going to be built long before he ever hands over the first set of blueprints. So, question. What has driven the development of C.A.D. programs over the past 10 years? If you answered Video Games, you'd be right. As developers have struggled to produce buildings that are more realistic and believable, they have for the most part built the tools needed to do so. Okay, if you want to get technical, Industrial Light and Magic has been capable of producing spectacular special effects, both digitally and with props, since the 1970's. However, most of the Hollywood companies that went digital use huge rendering farms backed by some form of Unix, and now Linux. However, if you stop and take a look at say, Valve's Left For Dead, you'll find an incredibly realistic farmhouse... that probably only took hours to build versus days that a movie production studio would normally take.

So, Video Gaming drove the development of faster tools, that ran on commodity hardware, and commodity Operating Systems. The gaming aspect isn't lost on other aspects of construction, such as road design. Game developers have pushed the development of tools and resources to design racing games that feature realistic surface reaction, realistic car reaction, and realistic lighting. You'd be hard-pressed to find a road construction company that hasn't used a game engine to model and try out their new roads ahead of time now.

The US military also has real world uses for video games. While America's Army has a long ways to go before it can match the full world battle simulation of Planetside, its small scale, close quarters offerings are some of the most realistic in the world. In the latest versions used by the US Army itself in training, it's replaced monsterous mainframe systems with cheap commodity hardware... and it's actually proven in battle. There are cases on the record books where field medics, and even civilins, have preformed medical procedures they only experienced before in the America's Army Video Game. Waste of time? Not according to according to the guys responsible for putting warheads on the forheads either.

AFBlues covered this topic in a very effective manner recently, in this comic : http://www.afblues.com/?p=941. A UAV, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle had crashed. Nobody was hurt, injured, killed, or whatever. Now... just where do you think the implementation for UAV's came from? If you said Video Games, you got it right. Most of the major improvements in remote control and video control have come from video games. To many UAV pilots, sitting down at their console and flying their craft is exactly identical to sitting down at a computer monitor and loading up a really good flight simulator.

The examples of real life implementations of video games go on. Space Shuttle Launches? Take a good look at the inside of NASA's space centers when they put a shuttle launch on TV. Air-Defense and Missile Command Systems? Good luck determining whether or not a Patriot Missiles Control deck is a game. It isn't of course, but if you wanted to, you could use it to simulate an entire missile attack and counter-attack. The implementation of video games in real life is not just limited to Military applications either. City bomb squads depend on robots and controls that were developed as off-shoots of... you guessed it... video games.

The idea of using games for combat training has been around for years, it was one of the major plot points to Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game. In that book, children were told they were playing games... instead they were training for, and then actually implementing real battle strategies and controlling epic fights light years away. Monica Hughes used the same sort of plot point in her book, Invitation To the Game. The plot point there consisted of a group of grade school graduates being introduced to an alien world... through a video game. Then there was Star Trek and the Holo Deck. In fiction, the ideas have been there for decades. Now, those ideas are here... in reality.

Okay, as I explained back in 2008, just playing a game doesn't automatically grant you certain skills. However, certain games can teach you certain skills. Playing a Flight Simulator won't automatically teach you how to pilot a Cesna. However, you can use a Flight Simulator to improve your skills and how you interact with the equipment. You can train your eyes to detect certain positions of the aircraft. Most flight schools put pilots through hours in simulators before sending them up in a real craft. Waste of time? I've yet to meet one pilot who thought a Flight Simulator was a waste of time.

Now, I realize that I am dancing around the issue of how an 11-year old managed to get a degree in LA's University System. That is a can of worms on it's on. From that single comment on video games though? I seriously question how good LA's school system is if it could turn out somebody that can't even see basic benefits that video gaming has brought over the past years.

Then again, it is LA. I've been there. I can't really say I'm surprised.

CoH cheaters caught? you tell me

If there's one thing I hate in online games, it's players that cheat. I especially hate those twho finds ways to break various games, or find ways to grief other players. Now, I've used both this blog, and Gamenikki.com before to call out various people who I believe have crossed the bounds. Well, two of my friends just screen-capped me dealing with appearent cheaters in Atlas Park. Since NCSoft tends to be extremely slow, to completely non-responsive to dealing with these types of issues until their hand is forced, I'm going to go ahead and force it. You read through these screen-shots and tell me whether or not some of the players are out-right admitting to abusing the AE system.

Funny... I never had a problem with AMD kit...

Yes, I have heard about the EU's ruling against Intel. You can stop flooding the Mepisguides inbox now. Yes, I am collecting my thoughts on the matter... but as usual... you can probably expect me to try and fully put something compelling together, rather than just a knee-jerk reaction.

This post... however... is a little bit closer to home. See, a couple months ago Intel sent me a 920 Core I7 processor for benchmarking purposes. Only... I haven't been able to use it. The only Intel motherboard I actually own... is the D975XBX. While I do have to admit that the motherboard has been absolutely stable with everything that I've thrown at it... I've been over it's largely limited CPU support before. I also mentioned that getting Mepis and Vista installed involved some jumping through BIOS hoops and low level configuration. Well, that's what I'm by and large paid to do by some of my customers.

So, I saved up and was recently able to pick up the DFI LANPARTY JR X58-T3H6. I already wrote about the board last month when I first saw it on Newegg. It's a MicroATX motherboard with 2 16x PCI-Express slots, full 16x slots at that, which is a product I've been banging on motherboard makers to produce for years.

Only... I should have paid attention to the fine print. Over the past couple of months HardOCP and Newegg ran a special for a 6gb Triple-Channel set of Memory from OCZ, specifically model OCZ3X1333LV6GK. At about $75 with free shipping, I wasn't complaining.

Except... the DFI board that I bought... does not support this memory. The only OCZ memory that the DFI board lists as supported consists of models OCZ3FXT20002GK, OCZ3P20004GK, and OCZ3P16002GK. Attempting to run the OCZ memory I actually have on this motherboard just results in the CF bios error, which in the manual means incompatible memory.

Now, in all fairness, I am supposed to be the person who knows this stuff. Yet... I've never had this kind of memory problems with AMD kit or ATi kit. I've used off-brand, non-vendor certified memory on AMD kit since the Abit KG7. Both my Asus P542-D2 Asus P4R800-VM motherboards performed with pretty much any memory I threw at them. It's only been the Intel D975XBX, my Clevo D900T, and now this X58 motherboard, that have thrown fits on specific memory types.

***

DFI responded stating that these two triple-channel kits had been tested

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225 DDR1600 3x2gig = 6gig.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231230 DDR1333 3x2gig = 6gig.

Soon as I have another $100 to go spend on memory, I'll try them.

Proof that Valve will actually do anything if there is money to be had

This is one of those convenient for me type posts. Valve has gone and made a pretty good case that they will pretty much do anything if there is money involved for them...

up to and including publishing a Uwe Boll game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/31300/

If I have to explain to you who Uwe Boll is, that's actually a Good Thing from my point of view. The best way I can put this is by using just one Link.

Germany's answer to Ed Wood.

CoH: Kotaku Repost

This is a quick repost of a comment I made on Kotaku. Since I could not find it after the post was made, copying it here.

and with one move, Champions Online and DCU were rendered into dust. -over reaching sweeping statement made to sound like somebody who played the games had said something meaningful.

Here's the problem with the statements about Champions Online: It's being made by the same guy, Jack Emmert, who was directly responsible for City of Heroes stagnating. Most beta testers agree that Champions Online, now, is just about where City of Heroes was 2 years ago. That's not a good place to be when one thinks about how far City of Heroes has come with it's free issue expansions. While there is a lot of hype surrounding Champions Online, and it is hype, the fact is, the development behind it isn't the development team behind City of Heroes. It's the development team that was behind the canned for quality reasons Marvel Universe Online. Take that how you will, but if you honestly think Champions Online will somehow deliver a good experience to play? You've got a lot more faith than I do in people that have a track record of ruining games.

The problem with DCU, and it's not really a problem, is that it's an SOE game. If you think about the majority of SOE releases, you'll probably only come up with 2 games that actually had long-lives as MMO's. Those are Everquest and Everquest 2. All of SOE's other properties ranging from Star Wars Galaxies, to that Pirate Game, to Planetside, have problems with developers loosing sight of what their game is about. To many players, SOE has the worst history possible in the development of MMO games. Given SOE's track record, one is forced to wonder not when, but HOW the upcoming DC MMO will be screwed up or over. I'm not saying DCU is going to be bad. It actually looks quite interesting, and should DC actually maintain control over the development, does pose a threat to NCSoft's Playerbase... or does it? A lot of people today play two or more MMO's. NCSoft already has a partnership with Sony, and while Marvel has a bad history with what is now Paragon Studios, DC does not. Could there be a link-up between CoH and DCU? Probably not, but I wouldn't be so quick to think that Statesman and Synapse wouldn't have a quick crossover with Superman and The Flash.

Another problem I see in these comments come from those who whine about a level cap. Well, there's a reason most games have a level cap. Players have a goal to shoot for. Moving the level cap onwards and upwards forces players to continue to re-evaluate and redesign their characters. World Of Warcraft is a prime example of why developers should maintain a consistent level cap. The constant ever upward spiral of levels prevents all but the hardest core players from experiencing character archtypes in an effective manner.

There is no other way to say this: If your player base strategy depends on forcing players to continue to chase rebalanced levels instead of actually producing content for the players to experience, then you have failed. World of Warcraft, at first glance, seems to be counter-intuitive proof. Until you actually start looking at how the player base is made up. There are tons of flavor of the month classes. The majority of the player base aren't gamers, but merely people who find the interface simple to understand, and consider World of Warcraft to be a safe option. It's sort of like the difference between Halo and Metroid Prime. Real gamers wondered what the heck people were on about with Halo and didn't understand why Metroid Prime didn't get that sort of public exposure. However, the barrier of entry to Halo was much lower, and therefore palatable to the mass market. World Of Warcraft's level grind is attractive to the semi-gamer market since they can basically pick one or two character classes and stick with it. Then if anybody asks why don't they play something else, they have a legit excuse that they don't have the time to go play another class.

City of Heroes, by sticking with a level cap, encourages the player base to field several different archtypes. Okay, not everybody is going to play a defender. Not everybody is going to play a corruptor. However, the percentage of the player base that has actually tried to level multiple archtypes is significantly higher than other MMO's. While I could be wrong, I think only Guild Wars has a higher ratio of players with multiple character types.

City of Heroes also has the strength, at least on the hero side, that players have a variety of ways to level up. It is possible to take 4 different single Archtypes to level 50 and never take the same level path. I should know, I purposely went out of my way to do that.

Now, that is is my point of view. I see constant level cap increases as a sign that the development team does not know what they are doing. There is little doubt that somebody will say World of Warcraft's stellar player-base numbers prove that idea wrong.

So I'll leave with just this question:

For those who play World of Warcraft, how much of the current player base you know actually worth PLAYING WITH?

Bootleg... AVG?

A friend of mine at Adventure Crossing brought me a computer from a friend of theirs that reportedly had a virus. On boot I ran into something I've literally never seen before... running on startup was a Personal AntiVirus application that had the exact same layout and GUI elements of Grisoft's Free AVG anti-virus application. The computer did have AVG 8.0 installed, but any calls made to the AVG application were re-directed to the Personal Anti Virus application. The new PAV app would find and detect multiple virus's, then refuse to remove those virus's without an expensive licensing key.

What happened was this: Internet Explorer had been infected by a malicious ActiveX control. The malicious ActiveX control appearently contains a list a number of legitimate sites, such as Microsoft's Windows Update, and upon visiting these sites users are given an IE-style information bar saying the page is infected with malicious software. The user is directed to install the faux copy of AVG, which uses the gaping security hole that is ActiveX to take over system functions.

While such problems can be prevented primarily by NOT USING INTERNET EXPLORER AT ALL, much less using Windows at all, my fix was pretty simple.

I dropped to safe mode and installed an updated version of SpyBot Search and Destroy which let me elminate the Personal Anti Virus from the start up menu, and trash the ActiveX components. Also in safe mode I deleted the PAV folder from Program Files and cleared out the start menu entries under C:/documents and settings.

Once the system was back up, installed and ran AVAST. Recently I've tended to prefer AVAST for Windows AV needs. AVG has gained quite a bit of bloat in recent versions, and while it is still a fairly competent malicious software solution, much more than competitors from Symnatec or McAfee, it's moving out of the light-weight system-resource light market.

Also, if you have a matching good Windows Xp disc, I'd suggest running a sfc scannow to check system components. In my case, several files had to be replaced from the disc, though I don't know how much of that was due to the particular problem the computer was brought to me for.

CoH: The Genius, and Insanity, of Positron Task Force

Those who read this blog know that I like to bash on Positron's Task Force on a regular basis. For many players it is their first introduction to City of Heroes Task Force concept, and for the low level first time runner is little better than a meat grinder. Off the top of my head I can come up with dozens of ways to improve the presentation of the Task Force and update it to actually better fit the story it tells. For starters I would implement cut-scenes to detail NPC interactions that players stumble upon. I would redesign the entire last quarter of the Task Force to be an Epic Fight through Faultline and into the Bowels of the Dam. I could do so much with the game... now.

However, an one-off snarky comment got me thinking a bit more about Positron's Task Force. After promoting my Villain Equivalent, yet again, on the official message boards, somebody responded by asking whether or not it was a good idea to copy a less than fun task force for Villains if the point of the game was to have fun. The poster admitted they hadn't actually read my proposal before making their snarky comment as I had directly addressed such questions in my proposal. I had focused on the importance of making sure the first Task Force villains could encounter would be a lasting and memorable experience that showed off the best of what the game could do at that time.

In the same manner, I had to drop my biased opinions against the Positron Task Force and place myself in the shoes of Jack Emmert and Matt Miller early on in the Life of City of Heroes. I had to forget about all of the stuff I could do now, and think of what they had to work with back then.

For an early task force, the Positron TF was a work of genius. One of the strengths of City of Heroes is the strong focus on Team Combat, and how various builds work together to complement each other. Positron TF was an instruction ground teaching players that alone they were nothing, no matter how great their DPS, how great their defense, or how strong their singular buffs were. The Task Force placed importance on support powers such as Teleport Friend, and encouraged buff types like Empaths to pick up their Revive power as early as possible.

At the same time the task force showed off the best of what City of Heroes had to offer. Players were introduced to NPC wars, as well as a story system that could maintain a consecutive series of missions over a wide range of geographical locations. While that might not seem so special now, as far as I'm aware no other MMO has an instanced missions system like CoH's.

With such a viewpoint, the insanity that is Positron's Task Force takes a different view. It was genius. Twisted, maniacal, and sadistic genius... but genius none the less.