Random Shots: Link Of The Day

• The big link that's making its way around the MMO blogging community today comes from Eric from Elder Game. This month's post (I kid!) takes a poke at the oddities in Champions Online's profanity filter. Very funny stuff. But like his prior post about the game, a little disturbing as well.


• In his post, he posits a chain of events that might lead to the hilarious implementation of a profanity filter that is so far reaching that it even standard game text is expurgated. That's the funny part. What follows, though, is his theory that this is another sign of an MMO launch failing to achieve orbit. Essentially, such shoddy work is a sure sign that Cryptic has already washed its hands at CO and has moved its primary developers over to finish off Star Trek Online.


• Eric already raised everyone's hackles once (What the %&@! is a hackle anyway?) with his post about WoW's live production going over to the second string. He's obviously not a man afraid to talk with authority about things into which he has no direct insight. However, he has a lot more MMO production experience than most and that gives his presumptions a lot more heft.


• Like Scott Summers, I'm still wearing the ruby quartz sunglasses about this game. I can tell there are problems, but it's pretty easy for me to overlook them when I'm having fun. That is very much not the case for everyone if instance numbers are any indication. Champions still has a chance to right its course before it founders on the shoals of apathy. But they had better move fast and move decisively. Otherwise this kind of statement will be accepted as fact instead of the fable Eric intended it to be.