This is a great write up of a recent games conference for MMOGs, specifically the last panel which was more like a rant. The moderator of the rant, Gordon Walton, had this to say about balance in MMOGs, “This whole balance thing is a retarded idea. Balance is a theory. There’s fun in the imbalance quite often. There’s gameplay and fun in the inbalance.” This is such a true statement it's not even funny, I know of one MMO which became shitty at launch because of last minute balances that fucked up alot of fun that was had in beta.

The MMO I'm refering to is the only MMO I've ever played, Planetside. Planetside had an ingenius idea, an MMO First Person Shooter with some RPG elements thrown in. In beta it was awesome, the weapons were huge and powerful and you killed a shitload of people. You had to team up in squads just so you could find a ride to the battle, atleast at first until you could get your own ride. Due to this battles were huge and by huge I mean thousands of people in one battle alone. Imagine that, imagine Unreal Tournament with thousands of people, half of them defending a fort, the other half laying siege. The most exhilerating thing was getting into the dropship and dropping inside a base right on top of it with your squad and being completely surrounded blowing people away on the drop down. It was straight out of Starship Troopers and you could play for hours.

Then they fucked it up by listening to the whiners. The whiners complained the shotgun was too powerful at close range, HELLO IT'S A FUCKING SHOTGUN, so they nerfed it and made it pretty much useless. Then the whiners complained about one of the battlesuits being too powerful because it mowed down infantry too well with it's dual cycling chain guns, do I even need to comment on how stupid that is to whine about not being able to stand up to a mech with dual chain guns completely alone? Imagine if the Taliban came to the US to complain to our military, "Hey, you guys have certain weapons one of our guys can't face off equally against, nerf them please." I blame the stupid RPG players who were expecting more dice rolling. Then they destroyed the whole squad feeling, one of the great things about the game was that you had to meet people so you could be of use and get to the fight, like in a real military but oh no, this wasn't good for the loners, no they had to ruin it by bitching and convincing the devs to keep a sky launch function which allowed them to drop from base to anywhere on the planet. Hey again, you want a quick fight and don't want to have to travel to a fight and get your team strategy together, great, go play fucking Unreal Tournament.

Ultimately I stopped playing after a few months, the changes were too many and too shitty. They started out with the best aspects of an FPS and an RPG and within three months flipped it and adopted the worst aspects. So here are the truths I've noticed that you need to make a great and fun MMOFPS.

First up, all weapons will be as powerful as they should be. If there's a battle suit with two chainguns it had better act like it and it had better take an entire squad to take it down, not one fucker with a few grenades. Likewise, a shotgun should be great for close range action, and by great I mean if I shoot you in the fucking head with one shot from it, you're fucking dead, end of story. Instead of making completely balanced weapons, make imbalanced weapons and imbalanced combat areas! Make weapons like they are in the real world, each one is better for a specific purpose! The battle field shotgun was designed for trench warfare, you make it across, jump in the German trench, and start unloading in a very narrow area getting maximum kill effect, that is how it should be! Likewise that shotgun should be practically worthless in an open field because you're picked off by the guy with an assault rifle before you can get close enough to use it. That is how you balance weapons, you give them a purpose. Yes I know some people just love a particular type of gun, but make them deal with it or specialize in the area where their gun is most effective.

Second, no ring of fucking fire! Yes I know that's supposed to give weaker players, in other words RPG players, a chance but how can they get better if they're coddled? If my reticule is center on a dude I don't want to see my bullets fly past him entirely, period. I had better miss my shot because my mouse slipped. Now a reticule that gets larger because it's simulating kickback, that's fine, I have no problem with that, that's legit and forces people to fire in bursts rather than full auto like the real world, something like in the Battlefield games. However again, that doesn't mean my first shot should miss entirely due to a ring of fire. If you're going to be an MMOFPS, then be an MMOFPS, let the RPG kiddies get used to it or quit, we don't need them.

Third, make squad combat necessary. If the weapons are done right this shouldn't be much of an issue because going off on your own would quickly become a suicide mission unless you're doing some deep in enemy territory type shit, as it should be. There's no such thing as Rambo in real life, it's cool for a stand alone FPS, but in an MMO that's supposed to simulate huge battles across a huge planet, Rambo just doesn't cut it, sorry. Now if dude wants to get his own vehicle and drive off on his own, fine, who cares, but don't facilitate him by giving him a way to jump right into combat. I say this because it becomes almost impossible to get a squad together when there's no one in base because they've all just teleported to battle. Also vehicles become practically useless except for the heavy battle vehicles. Support vehicles get left in the dust though, this shouldn't be the case! Remember that awesome tactic I mentioned about Planetside where you'd drop into a base from the air? The only people you saw using it by the time the first expansion came out were vets from the beta who were still around because all the n00bs just warped straight to the fight. Remember this, squad tactics make cool tactics, zerging is not cool.

Fourth, there has to be an end game. Yeah slugging it out day after day is fun... for awhile. Then it just becomes old because it doesn't serve a purpose. Thus you have one server which is strictly for continually slugging it out, all the rest have an end game. Using Planetside as an example, you have a set time when you start the next game, say 8PM EST, the game keeps going until one side remains and has taken over the entire planet. Once this happens the game resets and will be a slug it out server until the next time 8PM EST comes around and it resets starting the game over. At the end of the month you have a score card which announces which team won the most revolutions in the month, thus giving them another end game/purpose. Same thing for the year. You also give the winning side a bonus, like a new weapon, character class, vehicle, what have you. Not something that's completely uber but something that's worth fighting for. This also creates a cool way of introducing new content to keep the game fresh. Just keep it in mind, gamers are normal people, they like to fight, if there's a reason to fight, give them one.

Fifth, if you add new areas in an expansion, give them a purpose. Yes, people who have the expansion are going to have an advantage, all the more reason for those who don't have it to get it! Planetside's first expansion introduced caves that had pretty much no purpose so hardly anyone got the expansion, don't make this same mistake! There needs to be a tactical reason for the new areas and a purpose to the end game, otherwise they go unused! The expansion for Planetside had one great quality and that was the Flail, an artillery vehicle which could shoot huge shells from far off and kill lots of people who were clumped together, as artillery should, but then, like the other weapons, they nerfed it and killed any reason to go down into the caves.

So in closing what you need is realism, strategy, and a point, these three things make an MMOFPS fun, if you have the opposite, fantasy, zerging, and pointless, you get an annoying game which becomes boring quickly. Also don't misunderstand what I mean by realism, fantasy is ok when you're dealing with the story and such but it should also be realistic, read the first point to see what I mean. Hopefully someone will see this and make it a reality, Planetside would've been awesome had they followed these three truths. *crosses fingers*

I expect alot of my readers aren't heavily into the politics side of gaming like I am but if you've been reading my blog lately you at least know about the Hot Coffee "controversy." Well for the past couple of weeks there's been another, smaller, controversy over another Rockstar game entitled "Bully." Naturally the name alone has anti-bully groups all in an uproar saying it promotes bullying and all of that reactionary bullshit, but here's the thing, the game's not even out yet! In fact all of the information anyone has on it so far are press releases from Rockstar which paint an image vastly different than what these anti-bully groups are espousing. In "Bully" you are not the bully, in fact, you're the opposite, you're the kid being picked on and your job is to get even. That sounds like every picked on kid's wet dream to me.

The most vocal group so far has been the charity Bullying Online which is like a support line for kids who need someone to talk to about being bullied which is fine and all but this group shouldn't exist. Their whole platform is based on the extermination of bullying, good luck guys, you might get it out of schools but those kids are going to be in for a real surprise when they get into the real world and find a boss who simply doesn't like them or an apartment manager or a neighbor or a whole slew of people who just want to make their lives difficult. Now I'm not saying this makes bullying alright, I'm saying it's simply a fact of life and it's never going to change. The percieved strong pick on the percieved weak to keep the weak under control, that's just how it is. The only way you can break the mold is by standing up to those harassing you, bullies do not mix it up with the strong, that's why they're bullies.

Out of all the reasons I've contemplated suicide, being picked on has never been one of them. One reason being that I'll put up with alot and blow alot of shit off, the second reason is that once you cross that line which gets me interested I'll make it known real quick that you don't want to fuck with me. To give an example, the first year I was part of the Academic Decathlon my team mates would give me abunch of shit about my smoking, at first it wasn't any different than any other bullshit I caught from other non-smokers but then they also started jabbing at my race (I was the only white kid in the class). For awhile it was just little jabs here, little jabs there, typical friends poking fun at each other type shit but then it became an every day thing and it just became old and offensive. The final straw was coming in late one day to find a big black ink spot on the floor near the trash can where the teacher had dropped the printer cartridge, that had nothing to do with me and wasn't offensive. Although not a minute after walking through the door and noticing the spot I also noticed that everyone, including the teacher, had these big shit eating grins on their faces when they looked at me, naturally I was like "What the fuck are you smiling about." Apparently one of my teammates had made the comment "Oh look, Toshiro sneezed there", that was it, and the girl sitting across from me who was laughing with the rest of the class, noticing my disgust for the comment, said "Oh cmon it's just a joke." My response? "Yeah, it's also the type of shit which causes things like Columbine to happen." Boom, the room went immediately silent with the exception of the girl across from me going pale white saying "That's not funny man."

My teacher whipped me from the room and started laying into me about how he could have me expelled for a comment like that. I shrugged and said "Hey, I put up with racism and cracks about my smoking every fucking day and never say a word, and now you're here telling me I could be expelled for stating a simple fact?" My teacher wasn't stupid though, he knew what I was doing with that "simple fact," I was making a threat without actually making a threat, but it worked, they cooled down on the racist jokes and the comments about my smoking. The point being, if you don't make it clear that there are consequences to the bully's actions, they'll continue to bully you. Running away, ignoring it, or snitching to the teacher only make it worse, the latter could find your ass severly beaten somewhere where the school has no jurisdiction. I don't know what it's like in other parts of the world but I'm sure it's not that different from the schools here.

Hell, our politicians are the same way. Do you really think Dubya and the other scumfucks could get away with even a quarter of the shit that they do if gun sales suddenly went up and the general populace rattled their sabres from time to time? Fuck no. There are a little over a million people serving in the military around the world, there are over 270 million Americans, if just one percent, 2.7 million, of Americans rattled their sabres, politicians would be scared shitless. The last thing they want is a mob of nearly three million people well armed and looking for blood. Watch how quickly we get things like national health care and a minimum living wage. All of that "We have to worry about the shareholders" bullshit will fly out the fucking window. Cozing up to lunatic fringe groups like the Religious Right, out the fucking window. Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the lying snakes who plague "political" TV, out the fucking window, infact they'll jump out. These people are cowards and the moment you illustrate that their harassment has gone too far their tune will change mighty quick.

People, you can not run from bullies, you can only face them and deal with them. The question is, when is enough enough?

Don't know how many of you remember March 24, 1998 or it's relevance but it was the day of one of the worst school shootings in the late 90s with a kill count of five and eleven injured. Columbine wouldn't come for another full year. As reported by GamePolitics, Mitchell Johnson, the oldest of the two shooters (at the ripe old age of 13 at the time) is being released on Thursday now that he's reached the age of 21, alot of people are bothered by this, and surprisingly so am I. It's not really the fact that they shot up their school that bothers me, I mean if it were the Columbine two I wouldn't be so concerned, but this kid, he's a killer.

I remember when this shooting took place, I too was 13 at the time, and the reason I remember it is due to how smart these two's plan was. They didn't just go to school and start randomly shooting at people like the Columbine two, no these two actually used what could be called a "smart tactic." Now before you get all ruffled up I'm not saying what they did was smart, I'm saying how they did it was. Here's what they did, they set their position up right infront of one of the school doors, right where they knew people would come out during a fire alarm, they or a third party pulled the fire alarm to the school and when the people came walking out they open fired. It was like a conveyor belt just feeding them victims while they shot 27 rounds into the door way until the people in the back got wise and started running back into the building. Before it was all over they killed one teacher, four of their female peers, and wounded eleven others.

Wow. Seriously, wow. They used a tactic which would allow maximum damage with the guns that they had and their ability to fire them, I don't care what anyone says, that's fucking smart, and dangerous. This fucking smart kid is now going to be released within four days, is he truly cured? Has spending seven years in a juvenile prison really done what it's supposed to? The state of Arkansas could be releasing a smart, efficient, and now more mature killer, I hope I'm wrong.

Through out the past month or so there's been a huge uproar over the mini-sex game which can be unlocked in GTA San Andreas by a simple mod which edits the censor code. People were throwing a fit as if God were ready to come down and smite us bringing with him the end of days. The mainstream news media naturally blew up the situation and made it worse than it was. The original sex minigame put in by Rockstar wasn't completed, as can be witnessed by the fact that both CJ and his girlfriends were fully clothed during these moments. It was like watching an episode of the OC but less annoying and more clothes. This isn't the clip the media showed though, the clip they showed was of CJ fully clothed whilst his girlfriend Denise was butt-ass naked, which was not a feature of Rockstar's original game. In fact if you read the version release notes of the Hot Coffee the second or third version release added nudity to the scene. So what's Rockstar guilty of? Scenes of two fully clothed people simulating sex, I've seen hotter shit on FOX.

Groups like the Peaceholics, an illogical and ignorant but well meaning non-profit group in Washington D.C., say Rockstar is guilty of inciting kids into a life of crime and they use the fact that car jackings and insurance premiums have risen in their city. I guess they never considered the fact that people are getting poorer under this administration and have to resort to crime to eat. Either way they say Rockstar, the gaming industry in general, is turning their children into professional criminals. This is nothing new, every time some new media comes out the ignorant get their panties all in a wad and blame the entertainment industry. They've bitched about music since the early 20th century, then it was movies, then it was more music,then comics, then it was TV, music again, and now video games. They all say the samething, such and such is making my kids deviants. Here's a thought, maybe your kid was a deviant to begin with.

One of the big talking points amongst pro-game industry enthusiasts is "Why are these people in the minority then? Why are the vast majority of gamers not going out and committing these crimes?" I can tell you why. There's a difference between having the means to do something and having the will to do it. The means is easy, for example if I wanted to make a bomb and start terrorizing my city I could use household chemicals to do the job, but why don't I? Because I don't have the will to. Likewise, after I've played GTA or Half-Life or Manhunt for a little while I do not have the will to go out and do what I saw in those games. So here's the scary thing, why do these minority of kids have the will to do these things? This is the question no one's asking. Why do these kids go out and jack cars and beat up people when the majority of their fellow gamers don't have the same will to do so? This tells me there's something wrong with the kid before they played the game, not after.

This is a dangerous line of questioning in the political world and, and I REALLY hate to say this but, George W Bush has been the only person to have the balls to say what the real issue is, lack of parenting. Now "lack of parenting" is a very broad term, it not only covers things like abuse and blatant neglect but it also covers inadvertant neglect, like the parent(s) who simply don't have the time to be parents because they're having to work long hours just to keep their heads above water. This is how it's dangerous politically unless you're very careful with how you word it. There are bad parents out there, but there are also parents who mean well but can't catch a break and it's not fair to them to be lumped in with the genuinely bad parents. Sadly this is what happens and when something bad like the shootings in Alabama (see GamePolitics or my Friends section) happens the fingers are naturally pointed at the parents asking them why they didn't have more control over their kids. Instead of responding with "Well what the fuck do you expect, we're working our asses off just to get food on the table and keep a roof over our heads" they respond with shifting the blame to some easily demonized source, in this case it's GTA and other video games (Note, this is not the case with the current trial in Alabama, the father of the teen was abusive).

So how do we solve this problem? Well for one you're never going to get rid of bad parents, they're out there and there's nothing anyone can do about it so to worry about them beyond arresting them for child abuse is pointless. Bad parents are being dealt with the only they can be. However, in the case of well meaning parents it's all about politics. Demand of your representatives that every person in the country have healthcare. Demand that they put a stop to our high paying jobs being sent overseas. Demand that they increase funding into alternative fuel sources and get us off expensive gas (which will not only lower traveling expenses but also the cost of foods and other goods). Demand that they overturn the Bush taxcuts which put the tax burden on the backs of the middle class. Demand that they overturn the recent bit of legislation which doesn't allow people to declare bankruptcy on their credit card debts. Demand that they instate a minimum living wage. Demand that they make the wealthiest people in the country pay their fair share instead of making the poor and middle class pay it for them.

Demand that they give the working and middle classes room to breathe and the ability to prosper, demand the American Dream back!

Anyone who frequents GameSpot for gaming news knows that they have a (mostly) weekly editorial called "Rumor Control." Like the name says it deals with rumors in regards to the game industry. Today's was interesting, to say the least, when I read Rumor 2, supplied below.

"RUMOR #2: The FBI is investigating death threats e-mailed to Florida attorney and feisty game industry critic Jack Thompson.

Source: E-mails threatening great bodily harm forwarded to this and other publications by the attorney himself, as well as a Thompson-penned plea to Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman (sent to their offices and media outlets, including GameSpot) wherein Thompson asks for "help your respective offices could give me in persuading the FBI to act in response to these threats."

The official story: "People are threatening to kill me." And: "The FBI is all over these." --Jack Thompson. "No comment." --FBI spokesperson, North Miami Beach Division.

What we heard: Among the dozens (and dozens) of unsolicited e-mails this Web site has received from attorney Jack Thompson over the past weeks, a handful were singular in nature: they included e-mails purportedly sent to Thompson which contained threats on his life. By anyone's standard, the e-mails sounded dastardly, indeed. One read: "For being a total f***ing ***hole. I think video games or [sic] freaking awesome, and they are my entire life, and for you to insult them, is like telling me my life is totally worthless. For this, sir, I AM GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!!!" [Expletives masked by asterisks.--ed.] Another forwarded to GameSpot from Thompson read: "this is not spam, its [sic] my right as a citizen to send you thousands upon thousands of emails saying the same thing until you die painfully from gun shot wounds." And a third: "Everyone thinks you are insane, hence the name 'Wacko Jacko', which makes you the equivalent of a molester. Therefore you are gay. I hate you, and the world would be a better place if you were brutally murdered." We gasped along with Thompson. When we alerted Thompson that we intended to seek out additional details and verification of his claims from the FBI itself--as to the status of such an investigation and progress being made (the FBI employs trained media specialists for such purposes), Thompson replied with some urgency: "Are you, crazy? ... People are threatening to kill me. Either report what I have said, having been provided the emails, or stop bothering me."

Bogus or not bogus?: With members of the Bar (aka lawyers) compelled to tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth, and an FBI agent who doesn’t overtly deny that an investigation is underway, likely not bogus."

Before I get into their determining of how bogus this story is, lets go over some things. First for those of you who don't know who Jack Thompson is, he's a republican dipshit lawyer down here in Florida (Miami) leading the crusade against video games. He's popular at the moment due to his criticisms, and lies, of the GTA franchise. The guy's a fucking sociopathic liar, it's been reported by numerous gamers who have contacted Jack that his response was short and crude, one being "All gamers should be exterminated." No joke. Now mind you I'm talking about people who have sent Jack very professional emails with no swearing and no personal attacks which certainly deserves more than "You should be exterminated." Just my opinion of course but imagine if you sent your congressman a well written polite letter and you got back "Fuck off you fucking idiot, we'll do what we want," you'd be pretty pissed off. Well actually, they do that anyway they've just mastered the art of auto-response and tickling you while they rape you in the ass but I digress, most people in the professional world act, you know, professional. The fact that Hillary Clinton and other politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are getting involved with this clown is not too astonishing what with wanting to appeal to the "moral heartland" and all (I guess appealing to the spirits of the fore fathers never crosses their minds) is still disgusting none the less.

With that out of the way let's talk about GameSpot's rumor call. "With members of the Bar (aka lawyers) compelled to tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth," I don't know where these guys have been but trusting a lawyer's word is like trusting Satan that he'll get you into Heaven. I mean, lawyers lie for a fucking living, their job is to either put someone in prison or keep their ass out of prison by any means necessary within the court room. Fudge some truth here, have some evidence dismissed there, it's all about getting the jury to see their version of events. That's their job, so, unlike GameSpot, I'm not taking this guy's word based on the fact that he's a lawyer. Oh yeah and there are very few, and I mean very few, lawyers who work for justice. Those lawyers you'll find in non-profit practices who work pro bono or have worked in the State Defense Attorney for years, but guys like Jack with their own practice, it's all about the money. I mean he's a proclaimed lifelong Republican sticking his nose in the ass of the most evil liberal of all (according to the Right) Hillary Clinton. This guy is far from what I would consider a reliable source as far as truth is concerned.

Now look at these emails he was supposedly sent: "For being a total f***ing ***hole. I think video games or [sic] freaking awesome, and they are my entire life, and for you to insult them, is like telling me my life is totally worthless. For this, sir, I AM GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!!!" [Expletives masked by asterisks.--ed.]

Not only does it sound like a Jack Thompson speech, it's also laughably stereotypical. I mean, come on, seriously, this guy's trying to make a career out of making gamers look like unstable addicts and he just happens to get an email supporting his beliefs? Yeah, right, and Adolf really wasn't a bad guy. Next!

"this is not spam, its [sic] my right as a citizen to send you thousands upon thousands of emails saying the same thing until you die painfully from gun shot wounds."

I find this one to be pretty laughable too but I noticed something here, Jack's a shitty lawyer. Now the first "letter" is clearly a direct death threat but this one, show me where the person said "I will kill you" or any variation. It's not there! The person says "until you die painfully from gun shot wounds," that's not a threat! According to the law that is not a threat due to the ambiguity of the language. No wonder you're trying for a political career Jack, you suck in the court room. Next!

"Everyone thinks you are insane, hence the name 'Wacko Jacko', which makes you the equivalent of a molester. Therefore you are gay. I hate you, and the world would be a better place if you were brutally murdered."

This one could be real, infact, it probably is, but again you'll notice there's no death threat. The person says the world would be a better place if Jack were brutally murdered but he never says he is the one that will murder him. Come on Jack, you supposedly know the law, this is Semantics 101!

So what's Jack's response after GameSpot says they want to confirm his allegations? "Are you, crazy? ... People are threatening to kill me. Either report what I have said, having been provided the emails, or stop bothering me." Stop bothering him? Hey dipshit, you emailed them first buddy. This line also stinks of "I'm lying and I don't want you to confirm it." It's pretty clear to me this bullshit is nothing more than a stunt for Jack to further demonize gamers and the game industry.

To GameSpot's credit they did call this one correctly, the rumor was "The FBI is investigating death threats" which is more than likely true, sadly.

So bogus or not bogus?: FBI investigating death threats, not bogus. Jack Thompson's life being in danger, bogus, but knowing Jack's paranoia that all gamers are killers he probably believes it to be not bogus. Gamers sending hollow death threats, probably not bogus knowing the mentality of certain gamers. This being a PR stunt for Jack Thompson, not bogus.

I added another blog to my friends list, this one being by Dennis McCauley who runs GamePolitics. If you have any interest in video/computer games and the political culture surrounding them, Dennis' blog is what you need to read. Top-of-the-shelf reporting by an actual reporter! Hey, who knew that good reporters still existed? Dennis has been a long time video game columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Check it out.

In other news, LiveJournal needs to add a "hungover" emoticon.