Company of Heroes-Force Multipliers

This is an article I wrote a couple years ago about the RTS game Company of Heroes. One of the most interesting game concepts found in Company of Heroes is the presence of units that can turn the tide of battle against a much larger army. In most other RTS games, this sort of mechanism is accomplished through a rigid counter system, such as a spearman unit that can kill two light cavalry units, or an archer that can kill two spearman units. Company of Heroes has a much more interesting take on this, where support units like HMGs, buildings, and the map’s terrain itself serve to let a skilled player take advantage of this force multiplication concept. However, you can use the strategies in this article and apply them to almost any game, you just have to look at what methods you can use to defeat a numerically superior force.

HMGs: Heavy machine guns, such as the Wehrmacht MG42 and American .30 cal, are one of the most obvious tools that enable a smaller army to beat a larger one. They get accuracy bonuses against larger groups of troops and can suppress the enemy. This causes troops to crawl around on the ground, lowering their movement speed and making them more susceptible to the firepower of your main infantry, such as Grenadiers. Soon after becoming suppressed, those troops then become pinned, completely unable to fire or move. A well placed MG can stop a large infantry-based attack in its tracks.


MG-42 forcing British infantry to retreat


A 260 manpower brings 2000 manpower in British troops to a halt

Though MGs lose some effectiveness as the game progresses due to the increased availability of indirect fire weapons, such as mortars, howitzers, and doctrine based artillery call-ins, their suppression effect can still be very effective throughout an entire match. A well supported MG can be one of the best tools for stopping the current mainstream tactic of ‘blobbing.’

Tanks: With complete invulnerability to small arms fire and a powerful main gun (and potentially even an upgradeable turret-mounted HMG,) tanks serve as an extremely potent force multiplier for your army. Tanks that have heavier frontal armor, such as Tigers, StuGs, StuHs, and Hetzers, can laugh as weaker projectiles, like bazookas, bounce right off their hood.


A Hetzer watches as a bazooka round bounces off its hull, no penetration achieved


Riflemen and Rangers are forced to retreat with heavy casualties, Hetzer suffered no damage

A tank with infantry support can dish out a lot of damage, while any damage it suffers (short of death) does not cost any resources to repair - it only requires some of your repair crew’s time. In comparison, every soldier your tank kills will cost your opponent Manpower to replace. It’s important to keep in mind that you need to have infantry support with your tank for it to be truly effective and game changing. If you send in a tank solo, it will tend to die unless it is facing inferior forces.

Cover: This is easily the most available and widely used method of force multiplication. Yellow cover is frequently present all over a map in the form of small trees and brush dotted along the ground. Yellow cover gives your forces a moderate amount of protection from gunfire, allowing your squad to take fewer casualties as it faces off against a squad not in cover. Green cover, usually seen in the form of stone fences or hay piles, offers considerably greater benefits. If you have two Grenadier squads in green cover behind a stone wall, they can defeat three charging Riflemen squads. Obviously, the more cover you utilize, the better.


These grenadiers would be in trouble in the open


But behind their heavy cover they defeat these riflemen with ease

However, there are also ways to use the negative cover on the map (which causes soldiers to take additional damage) to your benefit as well. On maps like Semois and Angoville, the roads are common retreat routes. If you position some troops or a MG along these routes, you can easily get a squad kill as your opponent is attempting to flee.

Buildable defenses: Unless you’re playing as British, these tend to be forgotten in terms of improving your position on the map. A well thought out system of fortifications can make your opponent hemmed into a tiny area of the map, losing precious Manpower every time he attempts to leave that area. Each type of defense has advantages that merit individual discussion:

Barbed Wire: Currently, this isn’t used anymore due to the crappy wiring AI of the game, but I hear that this is fixed in the beta so it merits a mention. The point of barbed wire is to deny your opponent easy access to an area, because only weaker units, like Engineers and Pioneers, are able to cut it in the early game, and they suffer increased vulnerability to enemy fire as they do so. It can be built for free and VERY quickly by a variety of units from each side.

If you have secured an important area of the map, you can use these idle troops to sculpt the terrain to your advantage for when your opponent inevitably returns to contest your holdings. You can wire off some of the entrance routes to the area, button-holing him into only one access point, which leaves him as easy prey to a HMG team. You can also take advantage of negative cover on the maps and wire off access to heavy or yellow cover, forcing his infantry to walk down the main road and take additional damage from any troops you have in the area. The infamous ‘Semois Pin’ involved significant use of barbed wire to leave an opponent stuck in his base, unable to do anything of value.

Sandbags: These provide the bonuses of green cover to wherever you choose to build them. They allow for you to fortify open areas of the map, such as the left side of Angoville or many areas of Langres, giving your troops a great deal of protection from enemy fire. Another creative use that players have come up with is to build sandbags at small entrance paths to key areas, such as the high fuel on Sturzdorf. This allows it to function like barbed wire, except that it cannot be cut. In either case, they can allow your army to win against technically superior forces by providing a powerful cover bonus.


Sandbags buy time for this grenadier squad to upgrade a panzerschrek, so they can damage the armored car

Tank Traps: Basically the same as barbed wire, except it is used against vehicles. They are difficult to destroy and allow you to hem your opponent’s vehicles into your anti-tank weapons' kill zones.

Land Mines: These are the buildable defense that I see most often in 1v1 play. They only cost 25 Munitions and have a lot of power for their price - it’s highly recommended to use extra munitions you have on these! Many players do not choose to buy minesweepers, so they continually step on these. There are several varieties in the game - Panzer Elite Tellermines that only trigger on vehicles; regular land mines that trigger on anything and can be built by Sappers, Engineers, and Pioneers; and the more powerful M8 land mines that also trigger on anything.


This sniper took one step too far


Hetzer receives a damaged engine from rolling over a mine. It would now be easy prey for any enemy tanks or anti-tank infantry to destroy

Against Infantry: Mines suppress the squad temporarily, deal a bunch of damage (usually killing at least one squad member) and generally can stop an opponent in his tracks. Mines function as a force multiplier simply because they kill enemy troops as they walk around on the map, but they can be used in support of your troops to work even more effectively. For example, you can put a mine on the obvious flanking route to your MG position, resulting in your opponent’s troops blowing up as they get ready to throw a grenade. They can also be put on critical points, such as the +16 fuel points or the connecting strategic points on Angoville, Victory Points, or on major roads to give you a warning about what your opponent is doing.

Against Vehicles: Land mines do a significant amount of damage to vehicles and also frequently cause engine damage, slowing your opponent’s vehicle to a crawl. This makes them easy prey for a nearby AT gun, Panzerschreck-equipped unit, or a tank of your own. At best, when used with support it can almost guarantee the destruction of that vehicle. At worst, it still puts your opponent’s vehicle out of the fight for a significant amount of time, as he has to move a repair squad out to fix the crippled vehicle.

Buildings: Lastly, I am going to discuss the use of the buildings that are typically spread throughout each map. Though they are frequently used merely to stick a MG in (to provide a more secure base of fire for it,) they have a great deal of value for your ordinary infantry as well. They provide a significant amount of cover that can allow your squad to defeat larger numbers or superior quality opponents.


Out in the open, this rifle squad would be no match for the panzer grenadiers. As it is fortified in a building, the grenadiers must bypass that point to avoid losing men


These volksgrenadiers would normally die in seconds to these infantry squads. Within the building, they can hold out for reinforcements

Also, some squads, such as MP40-equipped Volks and Assault Grenadiers, are devastating to face in the open but do very poor damage to troops in buildings. When you run into these types of troops, you can garrison a nearby building with a Rifle squad or Infantry Section, easily winning the day.

If you approach your CoH game with these ideas of how to make your army work more efficiently to defeat your opponent, your victories will come much easier than they might have otherwise. When using all of these ideas to maximum effect, you will inflict considerable casualties on your opponent while suffering few with your own army. This will drain your opponent of Manpower while preserving your own for teching, purchasing upgrades, or training more soldiers to overwhelm him in later encounters.

Why Piracy Will Not Stop Until Publishers Change

I recently finished an exceptional book, I live in the Future and Here's How it Works by Nick Bilton. The book discusses how everyone, from companies to individuals, has to adapt to the influence that the internet holds in our lives. Unfortunately for the profits of many industries, ranging from films to videogames to music to newspapers, this process is destroying many traditional ways to generate revenue.

Unfortunately, rather than adapting to change, most of these companies are trying to fight it wholesale. Using laws such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the Recording Industry Association of America attempted to scare people out of piracy by suing 261 random downloaders for $150,000 a song. Most of these individuals settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. The Pirate Bay, a notorious piracy site hosting torrents downloaded by millions, recently lost a lawsuit to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The case will of course be appealed and probably go on for years while the website is still up and available for users to download whatever they want.


The Digital Millennium Copyright Act also misuses the national symbol for freedom

However, even if these websites are taken down through legal action and a few hundred people have to pay fines to the RIAA, nothing will change. Increasing laws and stiffer penalties against pirates and websites hosting torrents haven't affected piracy rates in the slightest. Given that millions of people are downloading things all the time around the globe, what are the chances that you will actually be sued for it? Slim to none. Filing lawsuits is an extremely ineffective piracy deterrent. Although I'm certain these statistics are highly inflated, the RIAA claims that music piracy causes losses of $12.5 billion dollars a year. Guess all those lawsuits really paid off for preserving profits eh?


However, the lawsuits did give the RIAA great relations with the public

This problem spawned the other defense publishers have attempted against piracy, securing their files with various forms of copy protection. This protection makes the product's root code harder to hack and then post online for download. Unfortunately, it has proven completely ineffective in preventing theft as a challenge only makes hackers more determined to break into the code.


This man lives for a challenge

Additionally, many of the efforts have been damaging to customers using the products legally. Sony BMG, a former music label, tried to block piracy of their music by including a secret software program that installed a rootkit on user's computers when they used their CDs. This program, which users had no idea was being installed, also created a gigantic vulnerability in the user's computers to malware. After this was exposed, Sony tried to fight it for a while but ended up with a huge recall and the ire of most of its former consumer base.

Videogame publishers have attempted to use software copy prevention for years as well. The earliest efforts of this included CD-keys or codes that had to be entered to install or use the software, which were included in the box the game came with. As these efforts proved largely unsuccessful, third party developers were used to provide copy protection software that was installed along with the game. One of the most infamous of these was StarForce, which, in addition to being ineffective in halting piracy, was suspected to cause damage to user's computers.

All that lawsuits and copy protection accomplish is to piss off the consumer base of companies. If the legit version of a product is worse than the pirated version, is it any wonder that people will choose to pirate it? You can't treat your customers as if they are criminals and then expect them to hand over their money for an inferior product.

What is the actual route to fighting piracy? Releasing a quality product without forcing the customer to deal with a lot of bullshit in purchasing and using it. If you make a product easy to purchase legally, you'll find that your customer base rises dramatically. Look at Itunes-it has sold billions of song downloads in the piracy friendly music world simply because it is extremely easy to purchase from.

Stardock is a company that has ceased to use copy protection for any of its products, and has not suffered any financial woes from this decision. Additionally, they released a bill of rights to explain their policy in depth:

* Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
* Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
* Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
* Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
* Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
* Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
* Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
* Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
* Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
* Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

If every company followed rules such as these, I imagine that companies would find a lot more consumers for their products.

Motion Sensing Technology

Among current generation consoles, the Wii has been extremely successful by focusing on a new way to play games as opposed to improving the current methods of play. Microsoft and Sony are joining the affair by introducing the Kinect and Move, motion sensing devices similar to the Wii controller. The question is, is motion sensing technology just a fad or does it actually bring something unique to the experience?

For most games, the addition of motion sensing technology is not helpful in the least. Games that require character movement still need to use a direction pad to accomplish this, hence the nunchuck attachment that features a d-pad. The sensors are also not always completely accurate in sensing the motion you are making, leading to imprecise control and occasional unnecessary character deaths.


Imagine if this syringe goes in the wrong part of this fellow's liver.

On the other hand, the technology does make some aspects smoother. You can move the cursor around the screen faster than with a regular controller in most cases, allowing for faster reactions in shooting games. Additionally, it makes certain movements more natural, such as turning cranks by spinning the Wii-mote around like a crank instead of mashing A. This certainly makes the game feel more natural to people who don't play games very often, as they can make a movement instead of trying to figure out where the A button is.

However, the largest impact of motion sensors is on the population of gamers. People who never played videogames at all own a Wii and enjoy it greatly. It allows many to feel more like they are part of the action than if they were using a regular controller. It's easier to pick up, you don't have to learn where buttons are, you just move it around. Maybe eventually they'll start playing traditional games.

Downloadable Content

Remember when you could download patches for the game that included new content and it was free? Those were good days. I remember when new maps came out for the first Call of Duty and how much fun it was to get more playtime out of it for FREE! Now you have to pay money for new maps in Modern Warfare 2 and almost every big new release comes with DLC on release that you have to pay for.

I can see why publishers do this-it's easy money for them and people are stuck paying for it if they want the full game experience. The other valid reason I can see for DLC is that it helps prevent piracy to SOME extent by forcing people to download the stuff online after buying the game legitimately. I certainly prefer day 1 DLC over DRM software that afflicts my computer.

Still, there are ways to do DLC well and ways that are kind of being an asshole. Here are the ways to do it right:

1. Don't Charge for DLC that's available the first day of release: If you charge DLC day one you're just making people pay for things that are already in the game they just paid full price for. No extra developer effort was put in, you're just removing part of the game and charging more for it. That's just not right.

2. Don't charge for new maps for FPS/RTS games: It's extremely tiring playing on the same old maps game after game, so many players might be willing to pay for new maps, as seen with all the people who bought the map packs for Modern Warfare 2. However, the reason that you shouldn't charge for these is that they help build the online community and also give the developer goodwill. Both of these will help when you release your next game, as you have a solid group of fans who will be looking forward to it. The reason Modern Warfare 2 got away with charging for it was that it already had a well established fan base. If you're a new series, don't try it.

3. Don't provide DLC that gives specific players advantages: I can't actually think of any game that has done this, but I also want it to stay that way. The whole point of a game is that it's on a level playing field at the beginning so the person with more talent wins. If players can pay money for things that give them an advantage, such as units in RTS games or better guns in FPS games, then the balance is completely fucked.

4. DLC you can charge for: Any DLC that is released after the actual game and took actual development work is fine to charge for. This is akin to an expansion pack, which I'm quite happy to pay for. The Mass Effect series is a good example-they added a few new single player missions you could experience and they were reasonably priced.

Overall, I'm not a big fan of DLC, but if it's similar to an expansion pack in design I am OK with it.

Inventory Systems

A well designed, simple inventory system can greatly improve a player's enjoyment of a game. This is especially true in games where players must frequently change their character's equipment to adapt to situations in the game, such as the Resident Evil series. So why do so many games design their system so poorly?

Here are some requirements for a good inventory system.

1. The inventory must be able to easily hold the items that are needed for regular use in the game. This includes things like weapons, ammunition, healing items, and especially plot items. If you do not have sufficient room for these "must have" items then the player certainly will not have room for other items that are of only situational value. You can certainly have a limit to how much stuff a player can have in their inventory, that limit just needs to be set with a realistic look at how much stuff players HAVE to haul around with them to be able to play the game.

For a game that does this well, look at Baldur's Gate II. You can have a party of up to 6 characters, each holding 12 items, in addition to three slots for weapon ammunition and three quick slot items (which can be magic scrolls, potions, and other consumable items) per character. Additionally, weapons and armor that are equipped on the character are not stored in those slots, they are put on the character's actual body. This system provides easy room for all of the needed items, allowing the player to use the remaining 12 slots per character for situational and plot related items. Additionally, the game offered some items, such as bags of holding, that could hold 20 or so items each, freeing up additional room.


The inventory system of Baldur's Gate

The game frequently requires players to hold on to items for a long time until the party can find a town to sell them at, so all of the inventory space is extremely useful. However, there is still depth to the system because even with all this room there are still many situations where players will need to decide what they want to keep. Additionally, items have weight so players need to balance where they put the suits of plate mail.

A game that executes this extremely poorly is Resident Evil 5. In this game, players have two characters with only 8 slots each that they can put items in. Every weapon takes up a slot, armor takes up a slot, every healing item takes up a slot, ammunition takes up a slot. So, if you want to have armor and three different guns, you only have one slot available for healing items. Additionally, the method for exchanging items between the two characters is extremely cumbersome when both inventories are full. This system makes the player frustrated when trying to strike a balance between necessary healing items and necessary weapons/ammunition.


The ridiculously small inventory of Resident Evil 5

2. Make the inventory easy to organize. In systems where items are stored in a long list, items that are used in combat, such as healing potions, should be at the very top of the list. This makes them easy to access when they are needed in a hurry. Ideally, the system should have options available to have the computer auto-organize the inventory for the player. This minimizes time spent moving items around on various menus to make room for the new sword that the player just found.

3. Pause the game when the player is accessing the inventory screen. There is nothing worse than being killed while trying to find a healing potion that is dug five screens down in a poorly designed interface. One exception to this rule might be that if the player is in active combat then it is fine for the game to keep running, to simulate the problems with trying to grab another weapon or something while you're in a fight. However, if the inventory is cumbersome this is not a good way to add tension to the game, you're only going to make the player mad.

4. Make the inventory menu large enough to easily see what you have access to. All of the Final Fantasy games do this extremely well. You have a lot of items, but the inventory screen fills the entire game screen so you can see everything in a few moments. Resident Evil 4 does this with skill as well. You have an attache case screen that shows all your weapons, ammunition, and such graphically and it only takes up one screen.

King's Bounty is a game that executes this extremely poorly. You have a screen with your character and below him you only have five slots with arrows on both ends to scroll through them. Unfortunately, every single item you pick up in the game, from armor to consumables, goes into this inventory and to use them you have to scroll through them one by one every time. This takes a lot of time and is needless-a separate inventory menu should have been created to ease this for the player.

5. Stop trying to represent item size in inventories by using grid based systems-such as making a battle axe take up 6x4 spaces. This is the method used in almost every action RPG-which is kind of funny because you end up being taken out of the action and trying to rearrange your items so you can pick up that new weapon you just got.

Have fun trying to fit everything in here!

It's much more convenient for the player to have a slot based inventory and let smaller items, like healing potions and magic scrolls, stack. Look at World of Warcraft for a decent system. If you must represent item size, use weight instead of grid hexes, as in Baldur's Gate.

There is one notable exception to this rule and that is in Survival Horror games. In these games, part of the tension is that you have limited resources in a hostile environment. In those cases, organizing your inventory actually adds to the tension because you have to consider whether every item is worth picking up. I'm low on shotgun ammunition, but I have to drop a healing item for it... is that worth it?

Resident Evil 4 had one of the best inventory systems I've seen for a game of this type. You have an attache case that you can spend money to upgrade to hold more items. This adds more strategy to the game because you can buy new weapons or improve those weapons, or you can spend the money to hold more stuff.


I'm not sure how Mr. Kennedy fits a rifle, a shotgun, a machine gun, and a handgun in this box, but it does work quite well with the game

With these five steps, every game should have a reasonably easy to use inventory system that minimizes the burden on the player and keeps the focus on the game, not on organizing your catalog of items.

Developer Focus: Single Player or Multi Player

After playing through the single player campaign of Starcraft II, one of the best RTS campaigns I've ever played, I had to think about whether it's worth it for developers to invest so much energy into the single player components of their games. All of the cut scenes, movies, voice actors, different maps, special units, and other material that's needed can eat up a huge portion of development time and money for a project. In a developer that isn't Blizzard, this may lead to an issue where there isn't sufficient time spent on the multi player and single player portions of the game to make them both enjoyable for players.

The problem is usually most obvious in the multi player portion of the game, as the single player is the most played part of a game, with only a small portion of the community continuing to play online. There may be gigantic balance issues in the game where one faction or strategy is basically impossible to beat. Support to fix these problems is also frequently lacking. Many developers take months to put out a balance patch, and even when it comes it may not be tested properly, causing more problems than it solves. This leads to an irate community and a hemorrhage of players until the problems are fixed, assuming they are at some point.

The problem is certainly not limited to RTS games, FPS titles and any other game that includes a online component as well. Many feature a superficial online system that minimal effort was put into, including a couple popular modes like team deathmatch and free for all, and that's about it. The real development effort was put into the game's single player mode. Sadly, in many cases the single player mode is also forgettable. I haven't finished a single player campaign for a FPS in an extremely long time and I have never played them more than once.

This begs the question, should developers continue to funnel ever larger amounts of money into creating a single player experience that most players will only complete maybe once or should it instead be invested into the multi player component, which may build a community that lasts for years, building a loyal community to the title?

The biggest barrier to the creation of games that focus exclusively on the multi player content is that most people who buy games do so for the single player. Many players simply don't feel comfortable with playing online because of many factors. They don't like to lose, the rudeness of other members of the community, latency issues, poor interface design of the online features, etc. Most players are unwilling to get their ass kicked by better players for the required number of games to develop enough talent to win.

Fortunately, many of these barriers are not insurmountable. Starcraft II introduced a lot of features that could potentially make new online players feel comfortable playing. There is the option to play a number of unranked games before diving into ranked play using special maps. These maps feature rock barriers at the ramps to the base, allowing a player to have some protection from attack so that they can develop some comfort with how the game works and how to build their army. Additionally, the first 5 games are played in a placement mode, placing the player in a league appropriate to their skill level. The interface is well designed to make it easy to figure out how to start games and get into the action. The map editor is great, giving mapmakers a lot of options for creating unique scenarios, such as tower defenses, adding custom maps to the community. In Warcraft III these custom maps became a large part of the online population, especially Defense of the Ancients, a custom map that developed its own tournaments! Lastly, the addition of achievements to the game allows players, even bad players, to feel that they are accomplishing something when they get new portraits they can use in multi player.

Although it is still unfeasible to expect developers to be able to focus exclusively on multi player content, if steps are taken to make the online experience more friendly to new players, it may be possible in the future. It will be interesting to see the data on the online player base for Starcraft II to see if these steps encouraged more people to play online or not. If they did, it seems like every developer who wants an online component should take similar initiative to get more people playing the multi player part of the game.

Web Site Comments

More and more websites allow users to post comments on their content. Everything from Youtube to Texts from Last Night to Yahoo News offers the ability for people to offer their wisdom. Personally, I don't believe that this is a positive trend. If you skim them you risk losing your faith in humanity. If you read them in detail you risk losing your sanity.

Let's look at an example from Yahoo news. Of course, this may be unfair because it mentions Barack Obama, the current bane of western society, but I think it will illustrate the point anyway: Obama says Government remains Committed to Gulf Coast Relief

The actual text of the article was four brief paragraphs mentioning that the well was capped and the Obama administration will still be providing some support to the gulf region in the aftermath of the oil spill disaster.

First 5 comments:
"go back to violent Chicago and be with your brothers and sisters, being president is not for you." by Monkey Shines

"Be certain to do it with BP finances.
Despite your persistent previcating." by Watchman 1

"focused like a laser. Deport this monkey to zimbabwe to be with his idol, robert mugabe." by Filthy Sodomite

"That's right, Mr. President. Spend more of our tax dollars bailing another corporation out of a jam. The American working man can work even more hours to get you more tax dollars to blow!" by I eat your h8

"nuke obama" by Weston Jakes

I could maybe see some skepticism as being reasonable, instead we get racism and ignorance from people with ridiculous names. Considering the anonymous nature of the internet, expecting a comments section to yield anything worth reading requires a dangerous level of optimism.

At least on internet forums, the audience tends to have similar interests and ideas so a community can develop, allowing people to know each other and thus be more likely to lead to productive discourse. Additionally, these sites require registration and they can ban your account if you are too abrasive and irritating in your posting. The work required in registering and re-registering if your account is banned tends to keep people who just want to vent some rage from joining the website to do it.

On a news website or youtube, no such community exists and so all you have is the anger of hundreds of people sent into a void. You could argue that they are similar to letters to the editor of a newspaper, but one key difference is that those letters are reviewed by the staff of the newspaper and only appropriate ones are selected. In contrast, comments can be posted to a website with no vetting by staff. The only reason these sections exist is to let people attach their ire to the productive work of someone else, which is quite sad. There's a reason that novels don't come with five blank pages on the end for people to review the book.

And yes, I am a hypocrite for allowing comments on my blog, but on the other hand no one reads my blog except some guy from Denmark so it doesn't matter.