Even though the game isn’t “officially” released until Monday, pre-order customers get a two-day head start on Cryptic Studio’s City of Villains, the sequel/expansion to City of Heroes. In a few minutes, I would imagine there will be a decent number of CoH fans logging on to try their hand at creating a villain.

I intend to be one of them.

To quote Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin) from Serenity:

“Let’s be bad guys.”

I’ve got a half-written piece (whether it actually ever reaches the point where I’m okay with posting it remains to be seen) on the meaning of the words “adult” and “mature” in today’s society and how we often use them to indicate things that are neither adult nor mature.

For example, the recent Grand Theft Auto games, while fun and certainly not for children, are also not “mature.”

This is, though. Jay Tea, over at Wizbang, screwed up and unintentionally insulted some of his readers. He handled it as maturely as possible, and I can’t say how much I respect that. Now, if only everyone would own up to their mistakes that way.

I’m a bit late on this one, I know, but please, let me explain.

When I started playing City of Heroes, one of my favorite villain groups were the 5th Column, the pseudo-Nazi villains. I can’t really explain why, other than to quote what others have said: beating up Nazis is cool. The 5th Column seemed slightly more menacing than similarly leveled villains, but I don’t remember every having any more difficulty with them. They just seemed more evil, probably because of the real-world connection. It’s hard to feel quite as threatened by a big guy with a TV on his head.

I eventually quit playing City of Heroes when World of Warcraft, but with the pending release of City of Villains (and annoyance at the complete inability of the Alliance to understand the phrase “fair fight”), my online gaming buddies and I decided to switch back.

Imagine my surprise when I first saw a member of (I thought) the 5th Column, and where I expected a German-looking rank name, I saw only “Nebula.” The group name, I suddenly noticed, was “Council.”

…Wha?

The Council, according to my contacts in Paragon City, are a ruthless group that seems to be fairly powerful. I don’t feel it. Honestly, that guy with the TV on his head? He and his Garbage-can-lid wearing buddies scare me more than “The Council”. Sure, they say you can’t fight City Hall, but if my experience with this Council is any indication, City Hall should be a pushover.

I don’t guess I’ve got anything of substance to add. I’m just annoyed.

(Check out Websnark‘s entry from the actual time of the change for a more indepth (and timely) reaction.)

Steve, from Hog On Ice tells us about surviving Wilma:

As far as I’m concerned, all the assmonkeys who are getting diaper rash over going half a day without ice can drop dead and feed the buzzards. Do us all a favor and just die. I can’t believe the whining I hear on the radio “I had to wait in line for ice. I had to wait in line for gas.” Pampered crybabies. SHUT UP already.

You know what I want to know, assmonkeys? Where were you last week when ice was available on every corner? Where were you when the stores were all open and you could buy all the water you wanted? Yes, okay, FEMA blew it by letting supplies run out for half a day. What about your sorry ass blowing it all last week? FEMA is for people who can’t take care of themselves. I guess that’s you.

I’m the all-time worst hurricane preparer on earth, and I’m fine. I got batteries, I got gas, I made sure I had candles and paper plates, I made sure there was enough food for a couple of days, and guess what? My life is just dandy. If you couldn’t get off your miserable behind and do the tiny amount of work I did to get ready, you deserve to die.

The hurricane hit on Sunday. I waltzed into the grocery store on Tuesday. That’s how long it took for the world to come back to life. All I had to do was keep breathing for 36 hours. It wasn’t hard.

Today I went to the store again. I got hamburger. I got more bread. I came home and fired up the propane grill, and I sat outside and ate two of the most delicious cheeseburgers I’ve ever had. I drank beer. I enjoyed the cool weather. Now I’m sitting in the dark, planning to go to bed at 9:00, and all in all, I had a damn fine day.

Before going to the store, I took Maynard and Marvin out by the pool, one at a time. We listened to John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, while I swilled cold beer and read The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel. I actually looked over at Marvin and said, “You know what, Marvin? Life is sweet.” And it is. IF YOU’RE NOT A WHINER.

God has really blessed us this week. I mean, okay, He let a huge hurricane knock out our electricity and mess up our yards, yes, but the weather has been spectacular. And with the blackout, you can go outside at night and see the stars and planets against an inky black background. People are meeting their neighbors. They’re meeting their parents and children. They’re not watching TV. I think people who watch a lot of TV should consider offing themselves, because they’re obviously not satisfied with what real life has to offer. For a few precious days, the Poison Box will be out of commission. Enjoy it, and stop crying because you had to drink a warm Coke and you couldn’t turn on your PlayStation.

Some people out there have real problems. Some got their houses torn up. Some lost their businesses. There are disabled people worried about getting food and medicine. All you whiners, shut the hell up and let people with actual trouble complain.

In that same post, Steve shares a dream he had:

This morning, I heard a familiar sound, and it woke me up. I was lying there half-awake, already thinking about caffeine and wishing I had a giant cardiac syringe full of espresso, when I realized…I was hearing the television. At first that didn’t make an impression on me, because my brain was still paralyzed from sleep. Then it hit me…televisions run on electricity! The power was back on! YES! YES! No more farting around with ice! No driving to the boat to take a shower! SWEET! And I started to doze off again.

Then I woke up for real.

Yes, you are reading this correctly. I DREAMED the electricity was back on, and I was completely taken in.

That reminded me of the dream I had last night.

You see, I got my City of Villains CDs yesterday. I installed them gleefully, even though I knew I couldn’t get on yet. I started to get on City of Villains, and, sadly, discovered that I had a 215MB patch to download.

Probably, some of you out there are now saying, “215 MBs?! Holy crap, man, you had to wait an entire two hours before you could play? That sucks!” I’m assuming you’re not being ironic*, so let me just say this: You suck. I’d kill for a two hour download. I’m on dialup. 215 MB is approximately a week of downloading.

Okay, it’s really about 16 hours, according to the City of Heroes updater. I was taking some literary license. Sue me. Anyway, I started things to downloading, and went to watch Lost, which was a rerun… And, of course, it wasn’t a rerun of the episode I missed, but the second episode of the season, which repeated the information from the first half and spent the other half of the episode with Sawyer and Michael fighting on a piece of their raft. If you’ve not seen this episode, I’ll save you the trouble:

Michael: Walt! Walt!

Sawyer: Dude, those guys in the boat took him. It’s not like he’s over there in the wreckage to yell back at you. Now, Jin, on the other hand, should be here somewhere. Do you see him?

Michael: Shut up, Sawyer, this is all your fault! They took my son because you made me fire that flare!

Sawyer: Jin! Jin!

Michael: Who cares about Jin? Get off my raft! Walt! Walt!

Now, repeat that exact exchange enough times to fill up a half hour of television, and you’ve got the second episode of this season.

So, anyway, I quickly decided I had no interest in watching Lost, so I decided that the universe was against me and went to bed.

A little while later, I woke up and decided to check the download. It only had about five minutes left, so I sat and waited for it. I knew I should go back to bed, but I wanted to at least log in and play for a few minutes. I got to the log in screen, picked one of my newer characters, and started playing…

Then, I woke up for real, only to find that my connection had died. After a few minutes of crying, I reconnected, and started the download again.

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* If you are being ironic, it’s obvious that you have no idea what MMOG withdrawal can do to a person, especially when he knows that his teammates are probably busy getting ahead of him. It’s horrible. Really. I mean, it’s at least as bad as being forced to put up with hot weather while on vacation at the beach. Maybe the government should come to help me out.

Since I suspect that listening to headphones would be frowned on, and since I don’t have any speakers for my MP3 player, I listen to my local K-LOVE station at work. For the last week or so, K-LOVE has been involved in its periodic pledge drive. As a listener-supported station, K-LOVE doesn’t support itself with ads, but from listener donations.

I’ll readily admit that I’m not an expert in economics, or marketing, or whatever you’d need to know how to get people to donate. However, I still have a few thoughts.

The President of K-LOVE (Dick Jenkins? I think that’s his name, but I can’t confirm it on their website) has been on the radio several times in the last few days, talking about how they’re coming in well below their pledge goal. K-LOVE has grown considerably, he tells us, but it seems like, as its audience grows, K-LOVE has been finding that it’s harder and harder to get enough donations to pay the bills. Then, he tells us this (paraphrased).

I just don’t understand. If only 1% of our remaining [that is, not yet donating -ed.] listeners would donate $40 per month [the standard pledge amount; the average needed for one hour of broadcasting -ed.], we’d be able to fund all K-LOVE stations in all areas. One percent. God can work a miracle, but He’ll do so by working on your hearts, and if only one percent of you would donate, we would reach our goal.

Does anyone else see the problem that I have with this? Here’s what I hear Dick Jenkins saying every time he’s on the radio:

“Most of you don’t need to donate. Ninety-nine percent of you don’t need to donate. Most of you could sit on your butts and do nothing, and we’d be perfectly fine.”

I could be wrong, but “most of you don’t have to do squat to help us” doesn’t seem like the best motivational slogan ever. Still, it wouldn’t be right of me to say, “You’re doing it wrong, Dick,” and then not offer a suggestion on how I think it could be done right. If I did that, I’d be a Democrat*!
Here’s what I’d say:

We’re still short of our goal, and we only have a short time left in our pledge drive. It costs an average of $40 for one hour of broadcasting on your local station. That’s about $30,000 per month, and without that money, we won’t be able to maintain your local K-LOVE station.

I know, for some of you, $40 per month is a lot of money. Some of you simply can’t afford that, and that’s fine. If everyone pledged only what they could afford, we’d be able to keep K-LOVE running in every location that it currently broadcasts from. Pray about it. God will tell you how much to donate, even if your situation means that’s simply a prayer. Listen to Him, and He will make sure that we get enough to keep K-LOVE on the air.

Instead of saying, “Most of you don’t have to do anything,” isn’t it a better approach to say, “If we all work together, none of us individually have to give very much?”

Assume that 4% of their listeners already give $40 per month, and that what Dick means when he says that they need 1% more is that they actually need a total of 5% of their listeners to give $40 per month. Now, for the sake of discussion, let’s assume an audience of 100 listeners.

5% of 100 giving $40 each rakes in $200 per month. If they could get 10% to donate, they could make do with $20. With 20% donating, a $10 donation would get them through. With 50%, it would take $4.

Like I said, I’m not an expert. I’ve taken economics classes, and I know that dropping the “price” to even just $2 per month (which is the amount they’d need with everyone donating by my calculations above) isn’t going to get everyone to donate. But 50%? That’s probably doable. 40% (at $5 per month) should be almost easy. Especially if you go with the “price discrimination**” technique and get those who are willing (or able) to give more money to actually do so.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just mouthing off about something that I’m completely unequipped to comprehend. Still, operating solely on common sense and my understanding of human nature, I don’t think I am.

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* Actually, I am registered Democrat, but for the sake of the gag, let’s ignore that fact, okay?

** Price discrimination is, if I’m remembering my Econ 54 class correctly, like what publishers do with books. They release hardcover books at $25 and get those people willing to pay that much, then release the paperbacks at 1/3 to 1/4 the price.