The hardcore language (filter) of Champions Online
by Krystalle Voecks 
Oct 19th 2009 at 8:00PM
Filed under: Super-hero, Bugs, Opinion, Champions Online
While many folks we know really don't care too much about chat filters one way or the other, the rather overzealous chat filter in Champions Online seems to be causing some problems for players - and NPCs! Eric Heimburg over at Elder Game ran into some NPCs having their rather harmless (read: written by game designers) chat censored out due to the crazy filters. Based on his experience, he proceeded to spin an amusing tale of how he suspected the design and testing of that particular feature might have gone down to leave it in as touchy a state as it's currently in.
The rest of the post - well, some will agree with Eric, and some will wish he'd stuck with the sillier things about the chat filter. He goes on to refer to Champions Online as being in its "death throes." As this also isn't the first time we've seen weird things get filtered ("Sega" in Guild Wars, "Depp" in World of Warcraft to name two old examples) we wouldn't be surprised to see Cryptic Studios crank the sensitivity down a bit. That said, if you've ever run up against a chat filter garbling your words when you're just trying to be a @(&*!%^ the streets, pop over and @(*$%^! moment into reading about this particular way-too-touchy filter.
The rest of the post - well, some will agree with Eric, and some will wish he'd stuck with the sillier things about the chat filter. He goes on to refer to Champions Online as being in its "death throes." As this also isn't the first time we've seen weird things get filtered ("Sega" in Guild Wars, "Depp" in World of Warcraft to name two old examples) we wouldn't be surprised to see Cryptic Studios crank the sensitivity down a bit. That said, if you've ever run up against a chat filter garbling your words when you're just trying to be a @(&*!%^ the streets, pop over and @(*$%^! moment into reading about this particular way-too-touchy filter.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mysecretid said on 8:49PM 10-19-2009
It's a simple thing to turn your chat filter off in Champions Online.
Simply right-click on the main chat tab above your chat window, click Options on the menu which appears, and then uncheck the chat filter option.
You'll have to do this with each of your characters, as the function isn't global (yet, at least) but it can be done.
Now, for those who _do_ want a chat filter, but want it to censor different words than it does now, that's a different problem, and I can't help you there.
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Baburnama said on 9:03PM 10-19-2009
Huh. I don't follow his logic: "If (my complete conjecture on) crappy chat filters, then total failure."
I'm liking CO. I don't see where all negative comments of this magnitude - "This is just a symptom of Champions’ painful death throes" - are grounded.
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Angel said on 9:27AM 10-20-2009
The negative comments aren't grounded in anything but hyperbole. When some people put their hate on for something often if is really not founded in any sense of reality. CO is not perfect but it is far FAR from an auto-fail situation. It will more than likely do far better than marble-mouths are saying.
Brian! said on 11:10PM 10-19-2009
I like champions. I wouldn't mind better teaming tools - right now finding a group is a pain in a way. I wish everyone would adopt the open group model of WAR and improve upon it. Then make it so that helping anyone complete their quest awards support XP too. That way everyone wants to help everyone.
mysecretid said on 6:45AM 10-20-2009
Agree with Bab and Angel.
We've gotten to the point where most people seem incapable of just saying "I really hated Game X".
Now, they have to make grand statements to the effect of "Game X is horrible, its developers are incompetent and worthy of torture, and anyone who says they actually enjoy playing Game X is a ridiculous moron who should be killed"
And, lately, we get these "Game X is already dying" statements repeated over and over, as if repetition will somehow make it true.
As Angel says, it's all pompous hyperbole. Play what you like, ignore what you don't like.
Thanks for the moments of sanity here, you two.
Baburnama said on 10:58AM 10-20-2009
We three, we three! I'm not crazy, either!
Darthkirby707 said on 9:16PM 10-19-2009
Since you can turn it off (which I obviously did), I really could care less.
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GaaaaaH said on 10:42PM 10-19-2009
Back in guild wars, there were NPCs called damned clerics.
Auto calling them using the targeting system resulted in "I'm targeting ****ed Cleric!" through the filter
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Jim said on 4:20AM 10-20-2009
My favourite was during the beta for Pirates of the Burning Sea.
NPCs called Coastwatch Pickets, whose names were filtered in chat as Coas****ch Picket, effectively drawing attention to profanity that would have otherwise gone un-noticed.
Psychotic Storm said on 7:15AM 10-20-2009
I think we have a few biased players trying to make the game look or feel bad, while it isn't so, they also seem to be incapable of presenting hard evidence of their claims when asked for.
Regardless, they try really hard to do as much damage as they can and it leaves me puzzled, why try so hard?
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CTrees said on 8:18AM 10-20-2009
Runes of Magic has a chat filter which blocks such horrid terms as "cave." When one of the mobs is a "poisonous cave scorpion," well it causes the same problems as many of these other games, especially when people try to sell its information card.
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Icepuck said on 8:21AM 10-20-2009
My favourite was City of Heroes... the word "god" and "jesus christ" were profanity filtered.
A mate would sit in front of Atlas Park copy and pasting a phrase from the bible at the new player spawning point... made him look like a dirty mouthed sailor.
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Jess said on 10:10AM 10-20-2009
That's common for filters. Same with the word "Jew" etc. It's more to protect the integrity of words themselves and the people who value them from the ravages of your average MMO smacktard.
Mature Gamer said on 8:54AM 10-20-2009
It's the internet. People are going to defend their convictions on either side of any issue until the earth beneath their toes lies scortched and salted.
As far as the author's concerns about the long-term health of the game, I think his DDO vs. LotRO comparison with Turbine's two closely-spaced launches is entirely apt. It may not turn out to be totally precise, but there are certainly a significant number of similarities between the two situations.
I haven't seen any sales data leaked yet, which makes me wonder why it wouldn't be leaked by Cryptic if it was complimentary. At any rate, we'll see how it goes. I suspect CO is going to struggle in keeping itself financially viable.
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Bob said on 8:53AM 10-20-2009
This Eric guy must severely hate QA, what's his beef?
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Belkar said on 2:14PM 10-20-2009
Agreed. Several paragraphs dedicated to how this is a QA failure, not an engineering one or even a design/community one. The CSR's in this story are petty (they'll stop providing community reaction to the dev core if they don't get their way). The community team's input is non-existent. But the engineering team are rockstars - they write flawless code in 50% of the estimated time.
It's one possible scenario, sure. But this guy clearly has an agenda and that's to bash QA any chance he can. Read some of the other articles to see this refrain sung over and over.
BoomingEchoes said on 8:50PM 10-24-2009
You know why Sega is probably filtered in Guild Wars? Because the word Sega in Italy (at least) is slang for masturbation:
Sega did an ad campaign years ago where they put their company name on the back of an Italian teams jersey's. After at least a week or two the team had to stop wearing those jersey's because someone either got mad about it or it was pointed out to them that they had a pretty funny word on their back. Pretty great stuff really.
Want to talk about a weird chat filter, take a look at Aion. I only played for the short open beta window they had but that game filtered so much stuff from words that were no where close to dirty, in really any language, that it made reading chat nearly impossible for me.. It was a pretty good thing the chat almost always turned into a flame war over something about WoW cause at least then i could just choose to ignore it completely.
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