State of Decay 2 -- Lichenology for the Win!

I have played both State of Decay and State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition, both zombie survival games, for many years and enjoy the titles. Recently, SoD2 updated to the "Juggernaut Edition," improving game AI, some graphics, and a host of other items throughout the game. Overall, I have really enjoyed those improvements and the game is even more fun to play now.

In both games, there is a chance that you can "roll" a person with the skill "Lichenology," the study of lichens, that gives you the base bonus of +2 Meds Per Day and knowledge of Gardening and Herbalism. This is huge, as you use a set -2 Meds Per Day to stay healthy each day. Lichenology effectively cancels that per-day charge. This means any extra meds you find in the game are there for your use via the Infirmary, to create medications that you can carry with you, or to put in a rucksack for trade with other groups for various missions.

What I've noted in SoD2 is that any time I've been lucky enough to either roll a survivor with Lichenologist or when I've found a book that grants that ability in-game, the game gets harder. Much, much harder! The game targets Lichenologists like no tomorrow.

I recently completed my last game at the default difficulty level and decided to try to get all four bonuses at the Dread difficulty level. I played and finished one game prior to the Juggernaut update. While playing, I found a Lichenology book at a vendor, bought it, read it, and immediately the game stepped up a level. Every time I took that character out of the base, zombies were attracted to her no matter how carefully I played. It seemed like every mission she ran had a Juggernaut or a feral, plus at least one shrieker, nearby. I always had to be extra careful, do every mission with a helper, and drive to even the closest locations so I had the relative safety of a vehicle to get into to either mow down hordes or to make a fast escape. In the end, it didn't matter, as she was caught between two Juggernauts and ripped in half.

Aside:

Strangely enough, I have the same problem with auto mechanics. I had one game where I went through 6, yes 6!, auto mechanics. I had another game where I had one auto mechanic, she was killed by a feral and a horde fairly early on, and I never saw another auto mechanic to poach into my group nor did I find any mechanics books from that point forward to make my own auto mechanic! Boy, I found it next to impossible to complete that game. I kept destroying the vehicles I found with little chance to repair them, as I wasn't finding many repair kits in my scrouging and I couldn't make any of my own without an auto mechanic! Talk about Hard mode -- having to run from one side of the map to the other sucks!!

I finally finished that mission, got the Trader bonus, and started a new game. I selected to start with an auto mechanic and a lichenology survivor from previous games, plus a new character (Medicine). When I started the game, I told my wife, "Well, I'm starting in hard mode! I'm starting with a Lichenologist!" She laughed. While playing, I have had the hardest time whenever I take either of those two out for missions. (If you're wondering why I even take those two skills out of the base it is because you get worthwhile bonuses from having them be Citizens and Heroes. It is worth it to play them enough to get those bonuses.) 

Recently, I came across a vendor who was selling a Lichenology book and purchased it. I found a character with no quirk skills, poached him into my group, read the book to give him the skill, and played him trying to reach Hero status. I told my wife, "Well, the game is going to swarm my base with Juggernauts and tear me apart-- I just made another Lichenologist!" Literally, within 30 minutes of creating him, my base was swarmed and there were two Juggernauts and they each specifically went after the two lichenologists! I managed to survive that encounter, but it gets worse...

Later, trying to get him to Hero status, he was mobbed by a horde containing two shriekers and a feral, which I barely survived even with a sidekick along-- everything ignored the helper character and targeted the Lichenologist. I switched to another character and a horde almost immediately attacked the base, including a Juggernaut. The Juggernaut targeted the new lichenologist character and ripped him in half, killing him! Inside my base! During the attack, of the eight characters I had at the base, only two came to help the character I was running, so it was just three against the horde and juggernaut, even though the other five were right there and should have come to help. Out of all the games I've played, this is literally the first time that a) not everyone came to help out on an attack inside the base and b) that a character died from a solitary Juggernaut attack inside a base! End result: I'm back to only having my original character with the Lichenology skill. Luckily, she's already at Hero status, so I never let her leave the base (although I have to be careful every time a base attack occurs!).

At this point, with the consistency with which the game is targeting my Lichenologists, I can only assume that the programmers have purposefully written code that targets those characters. I played five games to completion at the normal difficulty and, whenever I had a Lichenologist (made via book or rolled), they were unduly targeted. I'm on my second game at the Dread difficulty and the targeting is even worse and feels unfair. I have to be extra careful when using them, I have to take extra help on every mission, and I have to watch out for those characters during base raids. It takes a lot more effort and I'm having to dress them in bright clothing so that I can easily pick them out of a crowd and keep an eye on them.

I tell you, I don't care how long it takes, I'm strongly considering that for my next Dread-level game I will start with three Lichenologists and see if I even make it through day 1 before an endless horde of Juggernauts and ferals attacks them and wipes them out!

Addendum

I have finished my previous game and started a new one. Of the seven games I've played to completion, all but one had at least one Lichenologist in it, and I have two that survived of my 50 survivors I've kept. I pulled both of them into the next Dread-level game and I rolled until I got a third Lichenologist. We'll see how the game reacts to that!!

Addendum 2

Since starting the new game with three Lichenologists, the game has done some weird things. When you first start a game, even at Dread difficulty, the first game-day is usually fairly free of special zombies. However, this game started with a Juggernaut right off the bat near my base. I managed to avoid it, even though two missions took me right by it.

Next, I was out scrounging for Materials with my newest Lichenologist when the game just quit to Windows. No error messages, no BSOD, nothing but a slight pause, and then I was looking at my desktop.

I simply take this as further proof that the programmers have it out for Lichenology specialists within the game. 

Addendum 3

Beyond my three starting Lichenologists, today I collected three more people for my survival group. Two were mechanics and one had no quirk skills. I was using one of the mechanics to reach Hero level out doing some missions. A horde was between me and the objective so I threw one molotov cocktail-- and, even though it landed directly in the middle of the group, not one of the zombies was killed. I threw a second and a third with the same effect. By that point, the horde was on me and I tried to get away. But my truck struck a huge pile of nothing (literally, I showed my wife -- it was the side of the road, nothing was visible at all, but the front end was torn up and the truck started burning... they type of burning that leads to the truck blowing up after about 10 seconds or so) and blew up, greatly injuring me. The horde tore me apart after that. Now, my one "working" vehicle was half-way across the map and destroyed. I had to pick another character to take over for the dead one.

I chose the non-quirk skill person, so I could start working her up to Hero. She was back at my home base, so I was teleported back there... into the middle of a horde base raid! Crap! I was immediately attacked by a feral that was already inside the base and none of the remaining survivors were helping me. I nearly died before one decided to shoot it. Then a Juggernaut attacked. The base all turned to it and we slowly whittled it down and killed it. Then a second and third Juggernaut attacked! One of my three lichenologists was killed (the new one I had rolled for this game), my other mechanic was nearly torn apart and is grossly damaged, I've used up nearly all of my ammo, and the character I'm using now has more injuries than my Infirmary can overcome. This is all happening on surviral Day 5, by the way. Day freak'n 5!

Again, this seems egregious, especially compared with any other SoD2 game I've played, even the other games at Dread level. The easiest game I played, by far, was the one with a starting Fishing and two starting Recyclers that never had a Lichenologist and only picked up one mechanic.

You will not convince me that it is completely random that when I have a lichenologist (or three!) in the group that the game doesn't target them specifically or become harder in general. Never. 

Addendum 4

I recently started a new game after the major updates of early 2021. I used three existing characters of my 50 survivors, including a Lichenologist. Of course, on the fourth mission out of the gate, I was surrounded by a mob, had three (!) screamers (with one being inside a building, so I couldn't immediately kill him) plus a Juggernaut in the mix. ALL of the mobs immediately keyed on the Lichenologist I had brought as backup and to help carry stuff (it was a "clear for materials" type of mission). I couldn't grab aggro from her to, literally, save her life, even when spraying the mobs of zombies with auto-fire from my machine gun. She was eventually torn apart by the Juggernaut in a very bloody display.

This is just par for the course, as you can see from the ongoing story above. The programmers hate Lichenology/Lichenologists!

More Game Design

I have previously talked about game design changes I would make to games I enjoy playing. Another thought struck me recently: penalizing the player. By this I mean that the player is penalized in multiple ways for using his character/avatar's abilities.

Your character has an Energy bar that is used to cast his abilities and each ability has an energy usage amount. So, for example, a power may "cost" 10 energy to cast and your character may have 100 energy total. If you do not have enough energy to cast the ability, you cannot cast it. The higher the power (or more powerful it is), the higher the energy cost to cast it. There is usually a method by which your character regenerates those used energy points, either over time or via some sort of "energy potion" concept.

In addition, each of the abilities usually has a "cool down" timer. This means that, when you cast it, you have to wait that period of time before the ability is usable again. More powerful abilities typically have higher cool down times, so can be used less frequently.

Next, many games use a system whereby a power is only useable in certain circumstances. For example, only after a previous power is used or only when a certain game circumstance occurs.

Lastly, a fairly common practice is to create enemies that have powers that take away your energy, impede your use of your abilities, are immune to some or all of your abilities, or render your character completely unusable for a space of time.

So, to sum up: powers have a cost to use AND they also have a timer for how often they can be used regardless of cost AND you are limited by the amount of energy you have and how fast you can restore it AND some powers can only be used in specific circumstances, plus enemies are often designed to make it difficult to impossible for you to use your character's powers. This seems like multiple penalties all to one game system.

I have a few suggestions to resolve these issues:

• Pick either the Energy bar/Energy cost OR the cool down timer concept and eliminate it. Both do essentially the same task: they limit how often you can cast the ability in question. If you don't want the player to use the ability very often, then remove the energy cost/bar and keep the timer. If you want the player to have the choice of how quickly he uses the ability, remove the timer and keep the energy bar/cost. 
• In scenario 1, you remove the bar/cost. You keep the timer. So, in LOTRO, my Runekeeper would still have a low-damage ability I can cast every second, but higher power abilities can only be cast every 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 seconds. It doesn't matter how much they cost because I'm limited by time to how often I can use them, regardless.
• In scenario 2, I have no timer on anything. The player must manage the resource and the resource costs of the powers. Knowing I have 100 energy points total, do I deem this combat worthy of using the 50 power cost ability, or should I use ten uses of my 10-point ability? How quickly do I regenerate my power? It all comes down to resource management.
• Depending on your choice in the previous step, you may want to eliminate having abilities that only enable if/when another power or circumstance comes up.
• As a player, it is no fun to have abilities that either suddenly pop up and you have (typically) a short period of time in which to click them to make them work, or they only enable after a certain sequence of powers have been selected first. Either make these abilities available all the time (but limited by power cost or a long cool down timer), or make the abilities of the power an upgrade to an existing power, making the timer longer or cost of the power higher to compensate for the added ability.

At this point, you have resolved the issues from the player's side. Either the player has a resource he needs to manage (a power bar and power costs) and he can choose to attack ruthlessly and run out of power fast or efficiently and be available for the long haul, or the player has to time his attacks based on their timers and availability to make "attack chains."

The last point, enemies that somehow make your character unable to use his abilities, either through taking away some/all of his power, increasing the timers on the character's powers, or by "mezzing" (mesmerizing) the character so they cannot contribute at, should be handled delicately. Early on in City of Heroes, for example, the high-end game was not fun because it seemed like every high-end enemy type had one or more energy robbers or mezzers in the group. You either had no energy to use your super-hero abilities, your character was unable to do anything due to being mesmerized, or the enemies turned off your "always on" abilities, making you much more vulnerable. In LOTRO they do the same thing primarily with mezzes; you suddenly find your character completely unable to do anything and very vulnerable to attack. Often, these attacks stack so you are down for 20 seconds, then another hits you just as you come out of it so you are essentially useless for 30, 40, 60 seconds at a time.

Players don't mind when a mob uses good tactics and has powerful hits that take chunks of  their character's "health" (hit points, endurance, etc.) points away and defeat them. But players get upset when they cannot play their character and have no choice in the defeat; the enemy did something that mezzes them and then defeats them, the enemy drains their energy bar to nothing, making them useless and unable to do anything; etc. Game designers need to keep these types of enemy forces reserved for special situations and climactic boss enemies.

In the end, most games I play restrict or penalize players multiple times when they use their abilities. I think a better system would be one that allows the players to make the choice of what and how quickly they will use the player's abilities over one with artificial restrictions. 

City of Heroes Gone

NCSoft, the owner of Paragon Studios and City of Heroes (and Villains), suddenly decided to close up the studio and the game, with November 30, 2012 being the go-dark date. This came as a great surprise to both Paragon Studios and the fans, as the game was still profitable, although niche, and the studio had a lot of plans, including a full update about to launch. Instead, they started to shutter the business and prepare for the death of the game.

The big problem with playing an MMORPG is that it is online; in other words, the user, once they have "purchased" the game, is at the mercy of the game's owners and developers. When they decide the game is finished, the user cannot keep playing on their own. Once the servers are turned off, that is it. It is over. Kaput.

It has happened to a number of games, although most manage to eek out an existence on small servers with minimal staff (or even with programming-minded non-professionals taking over). What is frustrating about this decision is that the game was only 8 years old (there are many older MMORPGs still going), it was still profitable and had a decent fan-base, and it had developers who truly cared about the project and were actively trying to keep it successful and make it even more successful.

NCSoft bought the IP from Cryptic Studios, who first made City of Heroes. NCSoft is based in South Korea and has made a name for itself in the Asian market for MMORPGs. However, they had little to no footprint in America or Europe, as their games did not resonate with western audiences. City of Heroes allowed them to have a successful franchise in those areas. For the most part, they left Paragon Studios alone to continue developing the game as they saw fit. The game's audience had dwindled down to a fairly robust (for the genre) core of die-hard fans. They got a bit of a boost when they went Free to Play, but that was temporary. Again, though, all signs (including Paragon Studio personnel who should know) pointed to the game continuing to be profitable in its market.

What is disconcerting is that many of the "big names" who enjoyed the game came out of the woodwork and offered to help the company, the studio, and the game when NCSoft made the sudden and unexpected decision to shutter the game. Mercedes Lackey, Neil Gaiman, and John C. Wright, among others, protested and offered their support. Companies were interested in purchasing the IP from NCSoft, but were rebuffed (or NCSoft asked for 4-6 times what the IP was actually worth, which is the same as a complete rebuff).

In the end, NCSoft could not be swayed and the game did, in fact, go dark on the designated day.

I'm sad and a bit angry at this. I can tell you that I will think twice before purchasing or signing on to play any  NCSoft property in the future. Not only are most of their efforts not amenable to western game playing, but the way they handled this game closure tells me they are not to good business people.

But mostly I'm sad for the game, the many dozens (oh, who am I kidding, hundreds) of hours I spent in the game for most of the last 8 years, and the many friendships I nurtured within the world. I went from an MMO newbie to one a grizzled veteran who helped the newbies in the game. I played for the better part of two years with three of my close friends, we created a large super team together (Pax Equitas), and they helped get me most of the way to my first level 50. I continued playing even after each found other life concerns that took them away from the game. I found new people to play with, new heroes to help, and new challenges. I told many stories, helped many people, and was helped and touched by many more.

Red Thorn, Seraphim Angel, Shield Sentinel, Qu'en, All-American Girl, Gilgamesh, Water Wraith, and all the (many, many, many) other heroes, may you Rest in Peace. Your fight is over, but not forgotten.

Red Thorn in the center of one protest toward the end of City of Heroes. Various other heroes stand with him.

ADDENDUM:
A year later, and it still doesn't make much sense.
http://www.pcpowerplay.com.au/2013/11/no-more-heroes-the-fall-of-the-first-superhero-mmo/

Rift

I fairly recently became aware of a new MMORPG called Rift. It generally uses the tropes and conventions of other online games of the fantasy genre, but it does something that few of the others do: it learns from the mistakes of past games and has put in place new ways of doing things.

Rift provides you with a lot of storage space, than can be expanded by larger sized backpacks. Many games make storage an issue so that you cannot carry around what you want to and have to make decisions (or as a time sink so that you have to constantly return to locations where you can sell items).

The game provides a button at each vendor to sell all "gray" or low-level, trash items that you pick up during your forays into the wilderness. This saves a lot of time at the vendors, and means you can more quickly get to reviewing and selecting which of the new, high-level items you wish to keep and use, and which you want to sell (or if you have stuff that is craft fodder and want to convert it).

While Rift has a craft system that is very robust, you do not need to waste backpack space with the craft tools. In LOTRO, for example, I have some Explorers. Each one has to waste up to three slots just to carry the sewing kit, pickaxe, and hammer needed for the crafts involved. In Rift, you simply take the crafting skill and the game provides you with the appropriate tools when you need to use it-- you do not waste any valuable slots on the tool. Backpack space is still needed for the materials you receive via crafting. In general, you can select up to three crafts that all work together so you are pretty much not reliant on other people for materials.

Each class has special abilities or powers they can use when a power bar level is achieved. For example, some of the Fighter classes build up "Attack Points," with a total of three available, while a Thief can build up their similar power bar up to eight. Each is built up using "Builder" powers and used with "Finishers." This is similar to many classes in other MMORPGs. In this game, however, once built up, those power bar are not lost until YOU use them. In most games (all that I have played, until Rift), whatever you build up slowly ebbs as you play or if you don't use it. In Rift, once you build up your bar, it remains on your character until you select a Finisher that uses some or all of it. In addition, all of your starting abilities/powers build up those bars. The use to build-up ratio may not be 1:1, but your starting powers all have at least a chance to give you one or more of those power build-up/energy/bonuses. (In most cases, it is very nearly 1:1. However, the fighter has to actually hit with its builders, so a strongly defensive or dodging opponent can make it harder for a fighter class to build up his Attack Points.)

One of the important changes in Rift over most of the MMORPGs I have played is that in Rift you select your main archetype from the four classics (Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Mage). But, within that selection, you have up to three "souls," or subclasses, that you can mix and match to tailor a character to your exact play-style and desires. For example, there are 8 subclasses of Fighter you can opt for, mixing and matching up to three of them together for various abilities. The subclasses are labeled as Offensive, Defensive, or Support. So, for example, I initially went with one of the default setups with my Fighter, which happened to have three Offensive subclasses selected. However, with my play-style of "slow and steady wins the race," I was finding I was dying a lot. I investigated the subclasses a bit more, and determined that by mixing in the right Defensive subclass, I was able to vastly increase my survivability with my play-style.

Another change to how Rift works as compared to many MMORPGs is that it uses fewer clickable powers (even though you have, in essence, three "classes" worth of abilities from your subclasses). Instead, each time you level, rather than always getting a new clickable power, you get abilities that modify your existing skills and abilities. On level up, you might select to increase your defenses, or ability to dodge, or the number of opponents the existing abilities attack, or add a new energy type to what your powers can do -- there are many choices, only some of which provide you with new clickable powers. In addition, many of the subclasses have synergies between powers and abilities that allow you to build up very potent offensive, defensive, and support abilities by mixing and matching what each subclasses does. For example, I stumbled on a combo of three subclasses on a mage character that each have powers that apply Damage Over Time (DOT) effects or that have abilities that enhance and improve DOTs. By mixing and matching, I have a mage that can case a few spells on the opponent and then move on to the next opponent, knowing that the DOT effects will take the first one out in no time.

One other aspect of Rift I really like is that there are a lot of aura and self-buffs that you can click and forget or buff for up to an hour on your character. Some of these are group buffs (or can become group buffs) and many are self-only buffs. You can, in general, have all of the buffs from any of your three subclasses working at once; which means if you select your subclasses carefully, you can create a character with many buffs going on and providing synergies at one time.

As a sidebar to the way the classes and souls are set up in Rift, they have made "respeccing" relatively easy and painless. In many MMORPGs, you have classes that can do multiple things in a group (for example, DPS and Tanking), but the player usually is specified (speced/specced) for one or the other. It is often expensive, irritating, and sometimes time consuming to respec your character to fit the other abilities when needed. In Rift, your second Spec slot is pretty cheap and each subsequent one is more expensive (you can have up to six Specs for one character!). Secondly, a respecced character in Rift can COMPLETELY respec from scratch for each one of those Specs -- while you have to stay within the main selection you made (Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief), the three souls/subclasses you use for each spec can be completely different. For example, my Cleric has a "Tank" build, that has two Defensive and one Offensive soul, a "Battle Tank" build that has two Offensive and one Defensive soul. This allows me to be do more damage while playing on my own, and to be more of a tank/healer when I am grouped with people. Switching between them is easy and quick. Also, as long as a subclass/soul is at 0, you can change it to something else. If you have spent points on a subclass, you can still change it by going to a class trainer and paying a relatively nominal fee to start over from scratch, and there is no limit (except for money) on this form of respeccing. All in all, respeccing is VERY easy compared to most MMORPGs.

Most MMORPGs have events or times when grouping is somewhat forced or required. Rift has a rather neat and elegant method for events: If you are in the area when the event is taking place, you can join the public group, continue to participate with others but as an individual, or ignore it completely (although you might get attacked if you get too close). Public groups, if enough people are around, can also merge into a super group containing multiple groups. If you decide to join one of the public groups that spontaneously forms when these events occur, your buffs and group abilities immediately populate to your new teammates (and theirs to you). It is quick, painless, and you don't have to spend minutes to hours in a group channel or chat posting "Looking for Team for X" -- you just go where the action is and group up as it happens. You can choose to stay together or go your separate ways afterward.

Another small, but very nice, change that Rift made as compares with most MMORPGs is that you can mail up to six items to other characters, in addition to money and text. Most games I've played either don't allow mailing items or reluctantly allow you to mail one item at a time to a character. Rift designers have realized that this is a needless restricting to paying customers and let you send six things at once. It makes rekitting a new character with your higher level so much faster and easier-- you can get right to the adventuring!

Anonymity and You

There have been recent articles about situations in which people did something "anonymously," were found out, and reaped huge consequences from it. In one noted case, an 11 year old girl posted an acidic, obscenity-filled rebuttal to rumors she was dating the lead singer of a band. People on the web trolling site 4chan found out her real name, phone number, and address, and en masse decided to make the girl's life a living hell. She is now banned for a time from any internet activity and she is in police protective custody. The police are building a case against some of the 4chan people as it appears they may have broken the law in their relentless pursuit of this girl. Or the teacher who was fired for posting comments about a student, even though she didn't name the student directly. There are even articles that are now poking some fun at the issues.

As the humorous article points out, many of us choose anonymity not because we're criminals, but to hide simple embarrassments or to show either positive or negative support for things that matter to us, but for which we might get "flamed." I call this blog "John's Omniverse" because the name John is ubiquitous (hell, unidentified prostitution users and toilets are both called John, that's how prevalent the name is) and I don't have my real name or anything else associated with it. This small layer of anonymity allows me to post political, religious, and social commentary in a way that gives me plausible deniability should I need it. Do I think I'm truly anonymous? Of course not. There are many clues to who I am. Blogger and Google both have access to my data, and "know" who I am. But to the casual reader, I could be the guy next door, or someone on the other side of the planet.

Most sites have you sign in with your real name and create your ID. Many sites you are granted permission to use after making a purchase from the site owner, so they have your credit card name on file. All sites have the means to monitor the IP address you use to enter the site. So, while the sites have access to data that can be used to identify you, they do not adequately police the blogs, boards, or what-have-you that they host, and don't warn or stop trollers from trolling. While I think that the RealID solution presented in the Cracked article is one way to go, shouldn't the real first step be enforcing the rules in the first place?

In both of the Super Hero MMORPGs that I play, every time you want to play the game, but before you can actually enter it, you have to accept the game's EULA (End User Licensing Agreement). Both EULAs clearly state that you cannot use names and/or likenesses of owned or copyrighted characters. Yet I cannot move around any zone in either game without seeing an Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Wolverine, Rogue, Batman,  Superman, or another licensed/owned/copyrighted character "clone." Matter of fact, after each of the big comic book movies is released, for the next 2-4 weeks the games are filled with clone after clone of those characters in the movie. These same people who accepted the EULA, and then broke the rules they just accepted, get all pissy when someone inevitably reports them to the GMs and their character gets "generic-ed." They come crying to the forum boards with woe-is-me stories about it when they argue with the GMs and get a 1-3 day ban from playing. I have no sympathy-- they broke the rules and they got caught, deal with it.

America literally has thousands of gun laws in every state and federally. There is quite literally no situation you can think of that involves ownership rights, purchasing, resale, and/or using guns that there isn't a law already in existence to cover. Yet people want more gun laws. The problem with all those existing gun laws and any new ones people insist on having is:

1. Criminals don't follow the rules.
2. The rules are hard to enforce.
3. There aren't enough government employees (i.e., cops, feds, et al) to enforce the existing laws 100%.

Anonymity does allow certain people to feel free to do as they please, and anonymity is the haven for those who wish to perform criminal activities. Some will stop their bad behavior if they have to use their real name and/or address. But many won't stop because they simply do not fear retribution. If those who moderate these sites do so quickly, efficiently, and to the fullest extent, many internet trolls will be found, banned, and will lose the right to post their hate speech. But, just as with game GMs looking for clones and law enforcement officers looking for illegal guns, there are far too few moderators to adequately handle the rules/laws already in place.

There are some advantages to a RealID program, however. If you have your actual name attached to anything you say online, people will choose not to say as much online for fear of reprisals. As my mother once said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."