Super Hero MMO's

Graphics: Well, City of Heroes is the oldest of the three games, and it shows. The older areas of the game, such as King's Row, Steel Canyon, and the Hollows are really showing their age, and the older villains, such as the Outcasts and Trolls look really rough. That said, they have done much recently to compensate. The newest zones, in Praetoria, and the re-vamped Atlas Park are stunning, but the entire world isn't like that. DCUO, being the newest, has an advantage their, and it uses it. DCUO is stunning all the way through. Champions, despite coming after City of Heroes, never did a major graphics overhaul, and got left in the dust.

Points - DC Universe Online 2, City of Heroes 1, Champions Online 0

Gameplay: DCUO Really drops the ball on this one. It plays like a console game, which it is (it's also available on the PS3), but, it is still an MMO, so it doesn't exactly play like a console game completely either. I found DCUO's gameplay to be very un-fun and button-mashy. Both City and Champions have much easier to understand gameplay. Honestly, City and Champions are so similar in gameplay, I tied them.

Points - City of Heroes 1, Champions Online 1, DC Universe Online 0

Character Creator: DCUO really dropped the ball on this one too. The creator has limited options, is difficult to navigate, and not very user friendly. I almost want to give it a -1 for this. Champions Online has a really toony look, but is honestly the superior creator. I like the City of Heroes look better, but Champions has more options, better color scheme, more scaling options for the whole body, including face. Most of the DC content is locked behind a gear system. Ugh.

Points - Champions Online 2, City of Heroes 1, DC Universe Online 0

Content: DCUO is really repetive, and being the newest, has little content. Most content is outlevelled quickly as well. Champions has more content, but no one can beat the 7+ years of content that the City of Heroes team has built up. Not to mention the over 200,000 player-created missions available through the Mission Architect system. As for QUALITY of the content - City and DCUO tie here, with Champions a close second.

Points - City of Heroes 2, Chamions Online 1, DC Universe Online 0

Immersion: The game world. Honestly, each took a different approach. City of Heroes created everything from scratch, DCUO used a comic world that has been established for almost a century, and Champions floats somewhere in the middle, using a world that has existed before as an RPG (Champions RPG), but as an RPG, was open enough for the players to have their place. Each had their own approach and each did it well. Straight tie here.

Points - Champions Online 1, City of Heroes 1, DC Universe Online 1

Powers and Power Selection: Each game had their own tactic here too. Honestly, I really hated the way DCUO went. I think it majorly sucked. I wanted a lightning hero, and could not create one. I was disappointed. City of heroes seems really restrictive at times, with their archetypes and powersets, but really interesting power combinations in Champions end up making characters not as powerful as they should be. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Again, a tie.

Points - Champions Online 1, City of Heroes 1, DC Universe Online 1

Community: This one is where much of the pudding lies. The OTHER people. I have to give the win to City of Heroes. Their community is just awesome, the developers care and interact with the community (and they do it well too). It leaves both DCUO and Champions far in the dust. Really far. Of the other two, the Devs of Champions are virtually non-existant, and DCUO is pretty much the same. The playerbase is what separates these two, and Champions is better than DCUO's.

Points - City of Heroes 2, Champions Online 1, DC Universe Online 0

Cross-Platforming: Well Champions online looses by default - it is only available on one platform. The PC. DCUO has both PC and PS3, but they are not combined. That means, a PC player cannot interact with a PS3 Player. Lame. City of Heroes has two platforms as well, PC and Mac. While many will argue that they are both computers, and thus not really two different platforms, they are. PC players play in the same areas and interact with Mac players. That said, Mac's are not a big gamimg system in the first place.

Points - City of Heroes 1, DC Universe Online 1, Champions Online 0

TOTALS: Champions Online 7, City of Heroes 10, DC Universe Online 5

Result: City of Heroes is by far the best Super Hero MMO of the three. I have all three, I have a lifetime gold membership to Champions Online, and subscribe to City of Heroes. I let my DCUO sub lapse, but will probably play again when it becomes free. That said, if you are looking for me in a super hero MMO, look in City of Heroes - That's where I'll most likely be.

Christmas time for an Athiest?

Here it is, Christmas. Originally Christmas was the Winter Solstice. When the Christians (with the rest of Rome) invaded northern Europe, and tried to convert the masses, they chose to celebrate the birth of Christ at the same time as the Winter Solstice in order to get the pagans of the north to celebrate with them. It was an easy way for the Christians to help convert the masses. The same logic applied to Easter with the Spring Equinox.

So, as an Athiest, why do I celebrate Christmas?

Well, a certain part of the equasion is cultural. I was raised in a predominently Catholic culture, so a part of that culture has rubbed off. Of course, most of the visual Christmas holidays are no longer religious in nature. In addition, the holidays have become more about the spirit of giving and comadarie, which is something that anyone can believe in, religious or not.

Also, a part of it is respect. I may not believe in God any more than I do in Santa Clause, but that does not mean that I do not respect others belief in God, Allah, Yhwh, Buddha, Thor, or Quetzalcouatl. In fact, I respect others beliefs, and thus, part of living in a Christian community is being a part of it with them.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chaunakah, and Blessed Kwanza to all!!

SOPA/PIPA

With the SOPA Markup delayed until early 2012, many who are opposed to it breathe a sigh of relief, it will give many people a chance to build up more opposition to this draconian piece of legislation that our southern neighbours are introducing.

Draconian? Well, SOPA was created with the best of intentions (we all know what the road to Hell is purportedly paved in), but it unfortunately does a poor job of it. See, SOPA won't actually stop online piracy. Heck, I am betting it will barely slow it down, but the MIAA, MPAA, MAFIAA, and many other media and pharmaceutical companies are hoping to pass this piece of legislation, falsely believing that it will protect their incomes.

I suppose they forget that people can choose to vote with their wallets, but that is besides the point. SOPA will criminalize intermediaries that have no intention of comitting crimes, forcing sights such as Blogger, Facebook and YouTube to monitor their content, or be forced to shut down, loosing  revenue. See this is how it works, a copyright holder, lets call it YNF, discovers that user Bob12345 has posted a music video by the rapper Whatshisname on Watchthispiratedstuff.com. They then get to file a complaint. All credit card companies and banks are now forced to stop all funds going to Watchthispiratedstuff.con, shutting the site down because it is harbouring pirated content. Now, this seems like a good idea at first glance, but lets take a closer look.

Now let's plug in some real names into this blog. For the user, I will choose myself (I have not uploaded any videos to any sites, but I want to give an example here).

Now lets say it is UMG (That's Universal Music Group) discovers that user Gothenem has posted a music video by the rapper Mack 10 on YouTube.

Yep, that means that UMG can SHUT DOWN YouTube. That means that YouTube needs to stop me before UMG does - So it needs to monitor it's users uploads to make sure the infringing content is not put up there. But then, HOW does YouTube know what's infringing content, and what content I have rights to put up there? What if it was an independant project that Mack 10 did with me? We have full rights to it, and UMG has none.

Now, to continue picking in UMG, they have shown that they are willing to block videos that they have NO rights to. Possibly because they think it will harm their business. This was the case with the whole MegaUpload video. This was all done under the DMCA, which is itself not that bad a piece of legislation. Yes it has issues, but it isn't that bad, as only infringers are really harmed by it, not innocent second parties.

Now if this happened under SOPA, not only would Megauploads loose all access to funds from American banks and credit card companies, but so would YouTube!!! Then, both Megaupload and YouTube would have to fight to get their funding restored, all the while, UMG had no copyright claims to the video, and Megaupload held ALL the rights. Meaning NO CRIME was committed. UMG just didn't like the video (probably saw it as a threat), and shut it down.

So, if companies like this are allowed to shut down sites without Due Process, take away revenue, all becuase someone FILED a COMPLAINT, without the need to prove them guilty of wrongdoing, the potential for abuse is, well, too massive to comprehend.

SOPA will actually have little impact on actual piracy, it will still continue, It will punish innocent second-hand parties who may not be able to properly police their own users, and has a HUGE potential to be abused by corporations that do not have a strong ethical guide.

This is why SOPA will not work. But don't take my word for it, look around on the web. A quick search on SOPA will give you all the facts, for and against SOPA.

Now, don't take this as a Pro-Piracy rant. It isn't. There can be meaningful and proper legislations put in place to help combat Piracy, but SOPA isn't it. SOPA is a badly written piece of legislation that threatens to set back civil liberties almost 200 years as it infringes on the First Amendment.

Anti-piracy legislation WILL happen, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool, but Americans can choose which piece of legislation it is. Now OPEN (a piece of legislation introduced by Darrell Issa) has more possibilities than SOPA. It has its issues to, but it is a MUCH better piece of legislation than SOPA ever will be.

So why the push for SOPA? Well to put it bluntly, the Media Moguls want SOPA because it not only lets them target infringers, but it also lets them target COMPETITORS. By being able to attack and shut down sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and even Google, media corporations are eliminating their competitors. They believe that it will increase their revenues. Of course, they are loosing sight that they could USE these sites themselves to increase their own revenues, possibly tenfold, because they have a narrow vision of what they want their business to look like.