"'City of Heroes' character 'Twixt' becomes game's most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor"

Bullshit. I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, so be it:


Dear Professor David Myers,

Hi. You don't know me. We play on different servers. As such, I had no feelings for you one way or the other. So, I immediately take issue with this article that portrays you as some sort of infamous celebrity in the world of CoX. You're not.

Having seen a few dozen videos on YouTube of you getting killed in Siren's Call and Recluse's Victory, I take issue with the article portraying you as a good PvPer. You're not. Also, the article neglects to mention that you also posted on the forums of this game, purposely stirring up ill will. We call that trolling, dear Professor. The act of intentionally upsetting people to cause a negative reaction.

I'm sorry that you became a social outcast on the Freedom server by TPing into Drones. We both know it was more than that, but that's not the issue here. Droning people isn't particularly skillful, but at the same time, it's entirely the fault of the people being Droned. With how large the zones are, you have to be fantastically close to the enemy's base to ever risk it happening, and decent players rarely fall victim to it. So, in my opinion, anyone you ever Droned had it coming, cause they were base hugging.

I've received plenty of nasty tells from other players in my time. Most of them while PvPing. I've never Droned another player. I've killed people within their own bases. I've hidden inside their hospitals and killed them when they respawned. I've hidden atop high ledges and swooped down on them without warning, killing them in mid-air. I've hounded Heroes and Villains alike within multiple zones and inside the Arena. I've stalked players that gathered launch codes or meteor shards, and robbed them of their hard won treasures just when they were sure they would reap the rewards of their efforts.

But I've never Droned.

I've even gone so far as to lure the "robotic firing squad" away from an enemy base, with the help of my SGs sniper unit, to leave an entire Villain base undefended, so that my group could swoop in an occupy the whole base, preventing any players from entering on that side. Safely at least.

So, when I read this article, about how you are universally hated and reviled, when the worst thing you've done is Drone some players, or break up some Fight Club in SC, it makes me want to laugh. You're not grieifing anyone. You never did anything that good or bad. The real crime here was the trash talk and mockery that you lent to this conflict, that the article neglects to mention.

I guess the crux of my issue is this: There is nothing inherently wrong with Droning. The Devs, from day 1, have established that nothing save from trapping someone within the geometry of a map is griefing. So, when you TP someone into a Police Drone or Arbiter Drone, you're not breaking any rules. Once someone tells you they have a problem with that action, the dynamic changes. If you TP someone, knowing it will upset them, you are 100% responsible for their reaction. I'm not justifying how they act, most of them sound like very immature people, but you still knowing act in such a manner to cause that reaction from them.

For instance, when in Warburg, I ganked many, MANY other Heroes. It was even the subject of discussion on the Justice forum (that's my server). People talked about whether it was right or wrong for me, roleplaying a biped Police Drone, to kill other Heroes. So, at that point, I changed how I addressed other Heroes in Warburg. I would still attack and kill any player I could, regardless of faction. However, if any Hero ever asked me to leave them be, I would after the first kill. I took responsibility for the consequences of my action, regardless of whether or not what I was doing was wrong. Why? Because that's how all adults should act, online or offline.

Also, I should point out that my SG, the Paragon PD, was the subject of much hate and griefing, simply by existing. We were a top 10 SG for several years, with hundreds of players. Our mere presence spawned rival SGs (Anti-Drones, Rouge Isles PD, etc), our players were subject to constant griefing and harassment, and some (including me) were even kicked from teams for being who we were. On more than one occasion, I've had whole zones of players turn against me just for my name and uniform. Feel free to read my blog, Professor David Myers. I've fought massive battles against both Heroes and Villains simultaneously, outnumbered as bad as 4 to 1.

And not because I intentionally upset players as part of a study on small group dynamics or how the anonymity of the internet emboldens people. Just because I was me.

So, I hope you book is a success. I hope it's more honest and truthful than that article.


-Police Drone TH, lvl 50 Assault Rifle/Energy Manipulation/Munitions Mastery Blaster, Justice Server, Circa Issue 3, proud owner of the 400 Rep PvP badge, and server FFA Arena Champion for 7 Issues.


PS- Zone PvP wasn't introduced until Fall of 2005 with the release of Issue 6: "Along Came a Spider", not Spring of 2004 like the article would have people believe. Issue 6 is also when City of Villains was released. PvP didn't exist until Spring of 2005, and that was limited to the Arenas. The social environment that fostered peaceful interaction between Heroes and Villains existed for a year and a half before zone PvP was a factor, and 90% of the Villains that were created with the advent of CoV were initially Heroes. Again, something the article failed to mention. Furthermore, from Fall of 2005 till Spring of 2006, the PvP zones were the only place where Heroes and Villains could meet face to face, making the only zone where social interaction was possible between the two factions. Pocket D, Cimerora, and the Rikti War Zone didn't exist at that point.

MMO Manners

People online are notoriously rude. Whether or not one is actually being rude, it is usually how they are interpretted as acting anyway.

Two days ago, I was running some RWZ (Rikti War Zone) missions with my friends. We had a team of heroes and villains, are were doing the story arc where Longbow (think S.H.I.E.L.D.) tries to steal Vanguard's (think an even more badass S.H.I.E.L.D.) thunder. One thing leads to another, and much to the delight of the villains on the team, we start busting Longbow skulls. Fun.

Eventually, our battle takes us head to head with a Longbow Hero (Archvillain), who could make Chuck Norris's blood run cold. He smashes into our group like an angry bull, and we wipe. Once. Twice. Three times.

Finally, we re-order our team a tad, trade one or two of our players, and lower the difficulty. We go in for round four, and we start to win, but then our tank panics, jumps into the backline, right as the Hero fires an AoE at him. The result is a lot of dead support characters, and a fifth wipe. We rally, and keep the fight going. The tank runs back in, then gets knocked back into us. Again things get hairy, when I realize that our tank has no KB (knockback) protection. I try to get him to stand in a corner, in order to negate the KB, but he won't listen. As a result, he keeps getting bounced back into the team, who then eat AoEs in the face.

It doesn't take long before I flip a monumental shit, and start screaming at the guy. A few moments after my tirade, he falls in line, and we are able to take the Hero out.

We exit the mission, get ready for our next run, and I apologize to the guy. It turns out he was brand new to the game, so I took the time to explain what was going wrong, and what could be done in the future to fix it. As it turns out, he did have KB protection, he just failed to use it. I give him some slotting advice, as does the scrapper. As I wrap up with our tank, one of the villains chimes in:

"Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen someone apologize for something like that."

And that bothered me, because he was right. Online, far too many people are not accountable for what they "say" or how they "act". I play games, online and offline, in order to relax, not to yell at people. I don't enjoy acting like that, and it's important to me for people to understand that.

That's why I apologized, because I meant it.

Um, what should I call you?

One of the things that I've always found fascinating about playing MMOs, or any game with online multiplayer, is how people choose to interpret the names of others. That is, how a persons name, or the name of their avatar/character/toon is changed/shortened/altered to make it more convenient in conversation.

Now, character names break down into five rough categories:

1. Actual names
2. Long multisyllabic names
3. Statements as names
4. Plays on words
5. Other
6. Actual names are easy enough to work out. Guild Wars requires you to have a first and last name for any of your characters, so usually you simply need use a player "first" name. I have a Warrior named Roland Dresden, a Paragon named Rook Enassi, a Mesmer named Freya Dresden, etc. Whenever I played them, people simply addressed me by my character's first name.

Longer names pose a small problem. When I played WoW briefly (Up to level 33), I had a Troll Warrior named Alavatus. While not a huge name, it is four syllables, and in general, people addressed me as "Ala" or "Al". Then, you have other names I've used like Kammorremae, which people shortened to "Kamm". I know people like Quatermain, or Abraxxus, who's names are shortened to "Quat" and "Brax" respectively.

Statements as names is where is gets weird. If you hook up with a mage named "Fase Pwner", what do you call him? "Fase"? "Pwner"? Generally, people will just use the first part, and call you "Fase", but every once in a while you get someone who recognizes "Fase" as the adjective, and "Pwner" noun it describes, and then everything goes to hell cause the whole team except the smart ass healer is calling you "Fase", while he is calling you "Pwner". Ass.

Plays on words sometimes overlap with Statements as names. For example, my Defender is named Combative Medic. My old friend Patrick had a Defender named Apathetic Empath. I have no idea what people called Patrick (other than asshole, cause he was one, not that I'm not), but people refer to me as "Medic" or "Med". Why they shorten it to "Med" is beyond me...

Finally you have Other. And honestly, most names these days are Other. My sisters-in-law ran characters named "Super Funky Peach", "Snuggle Bunnies", "Gorgeous Tsurugi", "Panda Mei", etc. My most recent Guild Leader in GW had characters like "The Devil Himself" and "The Devil Herself", while a friend of mine from CoH has toons like "Molten Slowa", "Insane Slowa", or "SWAT Drone SL-OW".

And frankly, that's the best way to go; having a common theme amongst your names that allows people to use the same moniker for all of your characters. These was an asshole from my old guild who had the name "Cangzhen" as a preface to all his character, with their. profession following it (Cangzhen Monk, Cangzhen Warrior, etc). Of course, that naming convention can defeat the point of some MMOs, like City of Heroes or Champions Online, where the point is to create a truly unique avatar that represents precisely the type of character you want to play.

RMTs

Real Money Traders (RMTs) hurt games. So do the players who buy from them. They cause inflation, they harm drop rates, they generate underskilled players. In extreme circumstances, they hack and steal players accounts.

Don't be a dillhole, don't buy in game cash (or gear, or runes, or powerleveling, etc).