"God" censored on City of Heroes

Do you know that "God" is a censored word on City of Heroes? It shows up as "<@#<@#<@#<@#$&!>!>!>" if you toggle options->allow profanity (off by default). Supposedly, this is because some people might take offence at the casual use of that word.

And yet, at the same time, the game does not censor the words "hell", "Satan", "devil", or anything like those.

On the other hand, the game makes numerous references to heavy occultic themes, as seen in the two factions, Circles of Thorns and the Banished Pantheons. The Circle of Thorns are cowled mystics who summon demons and spirits and makes human sacrifices. The Banished Pantheons are composed of shamans and summoned spirits and the walking undead, and resemble a caricature of the First Nations people and Native Americans.

Furthermore, the game's magic equipment makes references to Aleister Crowley and some non-existent Chinese-sounding name. This is not only culturally insensitive, but outright ridiculous and controversial.

Now tell me, which is more offensive?

Oh yeah, the word "gay" is also censored, in case you're wondering.

I really want the American family values people to notice this, but you know, that's like free advertising for City of Heroes. I don't want them to make massive profit from a flawed product, and I definitely don't want an influx of mainstream new players.

Conclusion on City of Heroes

A month of gameplay has led me to this conclusion: CoH sucks.

Being rather experienced with MUDs, I can say every flaw I've seen on them resurfaces in some form in CoH. Even worse, CoH is a commercial game with all the corporate rubbish attached.

I will also say that the only advantage CoH has over text-based MUDs is that it has fairly advanced graphics. That's the only advantage, handicapped by superficial restrictions (cape at level 20 and aura at level 30) and annoying sound effects (e.g. fire tanker or dark armor [sic] scrapper).

I'd say more, but I'm having a headache from the heat.

Blog b0rked again

Why does this happen so much? I haven't even been doing anything to the template, and the whole thing is broken now. Blah.

The irrelevance of "agreeing to disagree"

I've heard this statement many times, and so I felt the idea was worth pondering. Something like, "Let's not make this personal. We should respect each other's opinions. Let's agree to disagree." This concept is often invoked when people start getting hot-headed arguing over differing beliefs and opinions.

I don't think this concept can be justified, except as a phony attempt to compromise.

Personally, if someone thinks differently than myself and the way they present their views or their views alone are repulsive enough to make me upset arguing over them, I don't see why I have to respect their ideas and consider them equally valid.

In particular, some people can be very confrontational and vocal about their beliefs. In such cases, my opinions mean as little to them as theirs to me. Why am I obligated to respect their opinions, or even them as equal human beings when they obviously don't feel they need to?

When someone acts like a jerk because they believe in a certain idea, we're supposed to respect them and agree to disagree, accepting the untruth that their perspectives are just as good as mine.

Maybe it's just my insecure side overreacting right now, but I can't help seeing those with offensive beliefs as total fools, because some ideas are just stupid and wrong, and believing them makes them just that.

I don't feel like responding to insensitivity with sensitivity.

It always makes me feel a little weird when married couples or best friends sit on different sides of ideological struggles. That often makes me question their commitment to each other.

CoH's political messages

One may think that CoH is just a game, but as clearly demonstrated by Freedom Force's exaggerated satire, superhero settings usually have political messages behind them, whether intentional or not.

This probably is no surprise to anyone, because superheroes are characterized by their abilities to solve social injustice, however one may define that. They are the embodiment of individuality and sometimes nationalism ("Truth, justice, and the American way"). Often, they have to break the law to achieve their goals, thus revealing discontent with the status quo.

CoH, though, is fairly disgusting when it comes to the political ideas it seems to support. One of them is blatant sexism. In one mission, the player is given this message upon entering an alien base: "You followed him to the base. Or her. You can never tell with [these aliens]."

It's actually pretty clear that no one put this message there deliberately, and it's probably only there because of the male-default psyche of the modern world.

Another political belief is demonstrated below:



If you can't see the picture, it's basically an in-game screenshot of a mission description.

It reads, "The Freakshow have been mouthing off about disrupting the satellite communications conference that's happening today. Their leader, a Tank Freak called LEO, claims it's all about fighting globalization, but it looks to me like the Freaks are more worried about new security measures that would keep them from pirating satellite TV. And they'll kill to keep getting free television. Could you go to the offices where it is being held and make sure that the Freakshow don't do just that? The Freakshow will move soon, and you won't have a lot of time to stop them. Maybe two hours at the most."

This message shows two biases: 1) strong prejudice against the group known as "The Freakshow"; and 2) strong bias regarding the freedom of information as well as corporate and government control of it.

If you don't know what the "Freakshow" is, it's basically an ugly (and wrong) caricature of an anarchist organization. The Freaks are former disgruntled white-collar workers who claim to fight for corporate injustice. However, they are in reality violent killers who have become insane from massive drug dosage. They have become nearly immune to pain because of this, and many of them use technology to transform themselves into half-robotic monsters.

Some of them look like this:



CoH also frequently abuses the anarchist symbol, putting it on graffiti in criminal hideouts. There have also been records of violent gangsters saying, "Anarchy rules."

Disgusting.

Talking about others behind their backs

I've tried to look at myself from many different angles, and I have of course observed many qualities that are easily considered personality flaws. Among them, though, are a few traits that may be a little ambiguous, meaning I'm not entirely sure if they are really flaws. One of these is, of course, talking about others behind their backs.

I don't do it too often, because I generally have no one to talk to; but I've observed myself do it a few times. Mostly, I speak to one person about another (usually a mutual associate), though if you know me, you know I don't slander people; I merely complain.

When I say I talk about others behind their backs, I'm really referring to negative things (not that I don't ever speak of people positively). Things you wouldn't want to say in front of people unless you're used to making blunt comments. That said, since this is a social phobic's blog, I will examine it from that point of view.

Usually, social phobics tend to be fairly afraid of others talking behind their backs, and from that reasoning, it would seem that I'm a hypocrite here. I somewhat agree with that assessment, but I think social anxiety also justifies the opposite argument.

Does it really matter to social phobics when other people think negatively of us? It most certainly does. Would it hurt to learn the truth firsthand? Most certainly. Would it hurt to not know anything? That depends; it could cause some severe anxiety, but I think some anxiety is overall better than the depression that always follows a traumatic revelation.

As for myself, I find it easier to cope with people who think negatively of me but are not blunt enough to say it in my face. At least, even if I hear about their opinion, I can simply pretend that I don't know anything. I can continue to feign ignorance if that helps relieve any tension which will only adds to my anxiety.

Social phobics like me are usually paranoid about what others think of us. Thoughts and words, however, are quite different. I, for one, wouldn't never be comfortable around people, but being kept in the dark, or even imagining that I'm being kept in the dark, about what others think is a fairly scary thing. It makes me feel uncertain about any relationships, and I would have no idea which direction to take. That's just life, really, but it's still too much for me.

On the other hand, would I feel bad if I knew someone was talking about me behind my back? Of course, but would I feel any better if, say, they actually kept the negativity to themselves but I could detect it? What if they just confronted me one day and poured it all on me? Which would make me feel better, or, I should say, less miserable?

I think it's probably true that most people get angry at people they don't know and complain about them afterwards -- like someone who cut you off on the road; a particularly rude person at the grocery store; a cashier who gave you the wrong amount of change; or a police officer that fined you for parking in the wrong place. Don't people do it all the time? Talking about them bitterly and negatively without their knowledge? Why is it any different when it's someone you can actually name? Are people you don't know any less human?

And finally, while I may talk about other people behind their backs, the cause is probably not malice but frustration accumulated over time. The primary motivation is usually to unconsciously garner support for myself (rather than against others), and usually there's no intention to spread the message or anything. Of course, I don't have any real confidants, which means I will have to be even more cautious from now on.

Counting and counting...

I started the City of Heroes trial on May 27th. Today is June 5th. The 5th excluded, that's something like eight days. According to the server, I already spent about 100 hours on CoH.

I dunno.

Not posting much? A bit too into CoH

I haven't been posting much these days, because I'm sort of addicted to City of Heroes. Why? Well, I guess I like the community feel and the players I've met so far. Being housebound and generally without dedicated friendship, I guess that's one way for me to connect.

One good thing about CoH is that there isn't really a loot system, unlike other MMO games. This eliminates about half of the problems and bitterness caused by loot systems in multiplayer games. Perhaps this is also why the people I've met are generally nice. I only saw about two instances of frustration and anger, and both were minor misunderstandings that were later resolved.

Another thing is that as strange as it may seem for me, I actually like superheroes -- I should say, I wish I were a superhero. While I never read any of the American-centric superhero comics, I did grow up watching X-Men and Superman. Although that has always been a male and American-dominated world, it is something I really admire. The power to right all wrongs is a tempting quality I wish I had. At times, I grow really obsessed, and start pretending that through sheer willpower, it might really come true.

While CoH is far from perfect -- there are many things worth complaining about, enough to fill a few full-length blog posts -- it provides me with temporary solutions to the two desires I've always had: to connect with people, and to feel empowered.

While I'm speaking about power, I should mention that CoH has done a horrible job making low-level PCs feel powerful. In fact, it's the age-old character-power paradox all over again. If you've played NWN modules and on servers, you might remember how weak your character is at level 1; characters at that level are so weak that they have to kill rats and bats to progress, and weaker characters may sometimes find themselves killed by these vermin -- not by the poison or disease they may carry, but by their fangs and claws.

The character-power paradox refers simply to the fact that in most games, the main character is often considered an extraordinary figure. However, to balance the game, characters are artificially made weak and enemies strong. This results in the paradox that ordinary citizens in real life turn out to be stronger than the fledgling hero, or that powers and tools turn out totally unbalanced compared to their real-life counterparts.

In Neverwinter Nights, for example, it is harder for a dexterity-based fighter to kill a rat with a sword than shoot down a bat with a bow. Let's not think about the fact that anyone can kill a rat audacious enough to challenge a human being, and instead focus on the sheer irony of game mechanics gone awry.

Likewise, in CoH, the thugs and criminals are completely overpowered even in populous areas where ordinary citizens walk around. At low level, a "hero" can pass by a group of thugs and not disrupt them, but still get shot to death just for walking too close (in games, these are classic examples of aggressive mobs). This problem very well persists into the 20's, I assume, since some of these random NPCs are as high as level 23.

Of course, I can understand that in the city and in the wilderness, there may be some unscrupulous groups preying on the unwary. However, the difference here is that the game features heroes with superhuman powers, just like those depicted in Marvel comics. How can they even be considered heroes when any hapless thug stands a chance of killing them with their own versions of -- surprise -- superpowers?

No, of course they are not supervillains like Doomsday. They are not even close -- they're just ordinary foot-soldiers in gangs, your typical drug-crazed car-jacking gangsters. Yes, there are some more supernatural ones, but they are definitely not the deity-like entities that are CoH archvillains. These are simple minions, and they easily overwhelm lower-level heroes. It's really a pity, and a major annoyance.

Anyway. All I'm saying is that CoH currently appeals to me a lot, despite many of its flaws. I might get a three-month subscription, although I have to check the pricing first...

(Edit: I'll be posting my character's full bio here later.)