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[PA Comic] Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - Zeppeling

GethGeth LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
edited April 2012 in The Penny Arcade Hub

Posts

  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    DAT STERN

  • AntimatterAntimatter Devo Was Right Gates of SteelRegistered User regular
    well

    this isn't my favorite PA

    especially since it's the kind of joke that's been made for years

  • Kirby-ohKirby-oh Registered User new member
    In case anyone is interested, I know what fetish that is!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_sexuality

    Facts you learn from podcasts, eh? Viking fury!

  • peacekeeperpeacekeeper AustraliaRegistered User regular
    i want to see the fourth panel for this one and what ideas were rejected

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    I didn't realise Second Life was still going. This has been an educational comic.

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • IvarIvar Oslo, NorwayRegistered User regular
    I think understand that guy

  • NeurotikaNeurotika Registered User regular
    Oh my, eagerly awaiting the supplimental news post(s) for this one.

    I'm sure Mike has learned some things from his brief foray into the frothing darkwaters of SL.

  • KageraKagera Imitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered User regular
    I feel like this is a comic from 2005

    My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
  • TleilaxuTleilaxu Registered User regular
    Is panel three supposed to be two zeppelins bumping uglies, or just one character Gabe fashioned out of two zeppelins to look kinda wang-like?
    If you read it as one single character's dialogue, it's absurdly funny. Like he's on a quest to defile some lighter-than-air sack.

    checkpointangrybirds.gif
  • hoophoop Registered User new member
    Thank god it's a rigid airship.

    Lana?

  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    Kagera wrote: »
    I feel like this is a comic from 2005

    I agree. It took me a minute to realize it was actually new. So I also await the news post to see why SL is coming up now.

  • A Dabble Of TheloniusA Dabble Of Thelonius It has been a doozy of a dayRegistered User regular
    hoop wrote: »
    Thank god it's a rigid airship.

    Lana?

    The helium!

    vm8gvf5p7gqi.jpg
    Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Seems a bit late for them to just now be jumping into Second Life. Of course, I can't really judge them for being late to a game. I'm just now discovering the Resident Evil series.

  • agilemaniaagilemania Lyon EstatesRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Gabriel wrote:
    after watching the documentary Life 2.0 I just spent my first 10 minutes in Second Life. That is one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

    Gabriel wrote:
    the documentary was great, the "game" was sad.

    agilemania on
  • RaddRadd Registered User regular
    SL is depressing.

    It's a great concept, a brilliant concept, but it's implementation is just so bad. You can tell the company that runs it decided to cheap out and not hire any artists, instead relying on their userbase to donate things like starter avatars. So your first impression of SL will always be how hideously ugly it is.

    That alone will drive most potential new people away and they will never see stuff like;

    6879498799_f9109868f0_b.jpg
    6846125607_784b6e07f4_b.jpg
    doomed_medbay_10.jpg
    6805014859_97c49d259f_b.jpg
    401128-6.jpg

    Hell, it's so difficult to find the good stuff in SL that most who stick around will never realize stuff like that exists there.

    Anyways, SL is in the new again because Rod Humble is their new CEO, they've added mesh import, and they've started adding features they should have had in 2002. No idea if it will be enough to keep them relevant or "too little, too late".

    sp-banner-long.gif
  • JauntyJaunty Registered User regular
    Radd wrote: »
    SL is depressing.

    It's a great concept, a brilliant concept, but it's implementation is just so bad. You can tell the company that runs it decided to cheap out and not hire any artists, instead relying on their userbase to donate things like starter avatars. So your first impression of SL will always be how hideously ugly it is.

    That alone will drive most potential new people away and they will never see stuff like;

    Holy Shit

    Hell, it's so difficult to find the good stuff in SL that most who stick around will never realize stuff like that exists there.

    Anyways, SL is in the new again because Rod Humble is their new CEO, they've added mesh import, and they've started adding features they should have had in 2002. No idea if it will be enough to keep them relevant or "too little, too late".

    Well I'll be damned
    That's insane

    qcklw92m98s0.png
  • RaddRadd Registered User regular
    Jaunty wrote: »
    Well I'll be damned
    That's insane

    The Metal Slug tank? I made that. It works. You can climb in and drive it around. The vulcan cannons even rotate back and forth as you move forward and backwards, just like in the games. The turret even rotates. When I have time i need to make effects so the guns can fire. It already jumps and kicks up dust as it lands.

    That's why SL is such a fantastic idea. You can do stuff like that.

    But you'd never know just logging in and trying to endure the awful graphics and confusing "new user experience" they inflict on you when you start.

    Worse yet, getting the most out of SL's graphics requires you to work against the default settings they use on all incoming people. Those sci-fi environments at the top? The ceilings are too low for the default camera placement. They make the camera hover a good couple metres over your avatar (you need to dig around in the debug settings to implement more modern style camera placement like you'd find in any professionally made videogame) and they start you off with a 2m tall avatar, combined this means you need to upscale everything, which eats up resources and area fast (since the land area you have to work with is always a set size, making stuff bigger means you have less area to work with).

    It's just infuriating if you know anything about design.

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  • open_sketchbookopen_sketchbook Registered User regular
    I didn't realize you wanted to have sex with the Metal Slug tank so badly.

  • RaddRadd Registered User regular
    I didn't realize you wanted to have sex with the Metal Slug tank so badly.

    You don't?

    sp-banner-long.gif
  • open_sketchbookopen_sketchbook Registered User regular
    True enough :P

  • Lucky CynicLucky Cynic Registered User regular
    SL is pretty amazing. Like Minecraft, it is a playground of pixels so of course some of it is kinda cheezy, and some of it is amazing. The devs always did struggle with how to market it, because it is so many different things to so many different people. As such, the beginner areas are clean, sterile semi-futuristic parks. It has come a long way and when you know all the cool areas, you only stick to them. Whats awesome is that many of these epic locations have been around literally for years. The Steampunk city they have set up is especially amazing.

  • Bacon-BuTTyBacon-BuTTy Registered User regular
    Second Life *is* sad, but not the way Gabe says it is.

    It's sad because it has mountains of potential but people only ever think of it as a place where losers go to be vampires, furries or indeed airships.

    For reasons already explained, the developers themselves don't help their own product. But people jump to too many conclusions about SL for it to ever have a chance anymore.

    And that's sad.

    Automasig.jpg
  • Maz-Maz- 飛べ Registered User regular
    Mhm, hot... :winky:



    ...-air balloons.


    I'm sorry.

    Add me on Switch: 7795-5541-4699
  • GalacticGalactic Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Radd wrote: »
    snip


    That stuff exists in SECOND LIFE?!? Is there another new game out there with the same name? Because the Second Life I played for a few weeks like 5 years ago was a shitty MMO sandbox with terrible graphics and poor customization.

    Galactic on
    ^_-;

    Too Galactic for you.
  • theResetButtontheResetButton Registered User regular
    I tried Second Life a few years ago, and the starting area and character customization were so obnoxiously broken that I couldn't be bothered to go beyond that.

    Keep honking: I'm also honking.
  • InvisibleInvisible Registered User regular
    I remember reading about news organizations and other groups establishing Second Life locations. Articles about how people were making real money selling in stuff in game. Basically people trying to legitimize it.

    But all of that is secondary to the real things I remember reading. Like the penis bombs; just swarms of penises flying through the air. And the constant talk of not-so underground pedo-rings.

  • theResetButtontheResetButton Registered User regular
    Invisible wrote: »
    But all of that is secondary to the real things I remember reading. Like the penis bombs; just swarms of penises flying through the air. And the constant talk of not-so underground pedo-rings.

    I guess Obi-Wan was wrong about the whole "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" thing.

    Keep honking: I'm also honking.
  • TleilaxuTleilaxu Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    This

    FmoHv.gif


    is all I know about Second Life. Are people still able to fleece the furries, or have they experienced a virtual-reality housing bubble helium sac yet?

    Tleilaxu on
    checkpointangrybirds.gif
  • RaddRadd Registered User regular
    Galactic wrote: »
    That stuff exists in SECOND LIFE?!?
    Yup. It exists in SL. Stuff of that caliber has existed for years. It's just buried under a mountain of crap, poor default settings, the lack of any explanation of the crappy search engine, and the absolutely atrociously awful starter environments they toss you into with those terrible starter avatars.

    Here's a few examples of the crap you need to get around to make good stuff in SL.

    The camera placement resembling that of a videogame from 1997.

    Like theResetButton says, the avatar customization is broken. Above about 6'3" it becomes difficult to create an avatar with correct human proportions (impossible if you make a female avatar, the arms will not stretch long enough to maintain proportions if your body is stretched out past about 6'1"), then to ensure everyone has terrible proportions, they start you off at about 7' tall that looks like the proportions were set up by a 13 year old (tiny heads, short arms, super broad shoulders on men, super long legs on women). There is nothing in the appearance editor to help you fix your proportions, you basically need two years of art school and enough free time to waste in figuring out how the appearance editor is broken and THEN you can make a good looking avatar.

    The environmental shader defaults are just abhorrent.
    Here's that island screenshot again:
    6805014859_97c49d259f_b.jpg
    Here's the same scene with SL's default shader settings, this is how the people who run LL want you to see that island setting:
    6856541556_1e6672585b_b.jpg

    The first screenshot has no additional features turned on, no special filters, just moved some sliders in the shader settings panel. Changing these settings in no way affects performance, you get the same FPS either way, they just could not be bothered to hire a graphics professional to create proper default settings.

    I love tooling around in SL building stuff, but for the above reasons I can't really recommend it and I certainly don't fault anyone for seeing it as crap. Crap is how the people who run it choose to present it.

    sp-banner-long.gif
  • J4RMZJ4RMZ Recovering Misanthrope San DiegoRegistered User new member
    Well it was worth a shot.

  • ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    I actually work in OpenSim environments for my job, OpenSim being the opensource version of Second Life. I even have a server on my own pc here I use for sandboxing and mockups of stuff I do for an RPG game I run. I think it has a lot of use if you have something you want to do as a specific group or organization. A virtual school, meeting and presentation areas for companies, or learning some basics of modelling and scripting for your own game, for free.

    Social aspects? Ehh, I stay away.

  • KageraKagera Imitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered User regular
    This is how I see second life in my mind.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_MOX99ltoY

    My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
  • gigabumsgigabums Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Scooter wrote: »
    I actually work in OpenSim environments for my job, OpenSim being the opensource version of Second Life. I even have a server on my own pc here I use for sandboxing and mockups of stuff I do for an RPG game I run. I think it has a lot of use if you have something you want to do as a specific group or organization. A virtual school, meeting and presentation areas for companies, or learning some basics of modelling and scripting for your own game, for free.

    Social aspects? Ehh, I stay away.
    Wait.

    What job has you go on a version of Second Life?

    gigabums on
  • ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    Making educational training scenarios for international students.

  • KageraKagera Imitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered User regular
    Like how to be culturally sensitive to anthropomorphic Zeppelins?

    My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
  • Mr_GrinchMr_Grinch Registered User regular
    During my first forray in to Second Life I was accompanied by a friend, it was also his 'first time'. We had an absolute blast, I -think- Cynic (sorry if it wasn't you!) showed us some of the cooler sights. There was a Fallout themed area, some transformers and other awesome stuff. Then he left and my friend and I decided to venture in to the crazier side. During that time we went to a dungeon where people were indulging in...everything and my friend sat on a giant penis sticking out of the wall, it was spewing semen. I took a picture.

    All in all I had fun, it's definitely full of crazy and 'sad' stuff but there's some great user created content. I'll be honest, I'd have been screwed (possibly literally, against my will) if it wasn't for Cynic and some of the other classy PA gents though, it was very much bewildering for the first time user.

    When all is said and done...it's better than Playstation Home.

    Steam: Sir_Grinch
    PSN: SirGrinchX
    Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
  • Lucky CynicLucky Cynic Registered User regular
    Yeah, I was with the old Fancy Lads crew a few years back. That was back in Summer 2007. You guys all came and went but I stayed. I don't think you ever did see New Babbage, the steampunk city? That was all sorts of rad.

    And mind you guys, there is no subscription costs. You can plug in a few bucks to rent or buy property, clothing and items. All in all, it is quite cheap to have a great time. Also I'll say its a hang out. You log on, send it off to the side of the screen, look up some chicken recipes, chat with some friends, and move on. Other people, like Radd, may get more into the creation of things and actually begin building with it, which is actually great fun and can actually be pretty rewarding.

  • PhantPhant Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Yeah, I was with the old Fancy Lads crew a few years back. That was back in Summer 2007. You guys all came and went but I stayed. I don't think you ever did see New Babbage, the steampunk city? That was all sorts of rad.

    And mind you guys, there is no subscription costs. You can plug in a few bucks to rent or buy property, clothing and items. All in all, it is quite cheap to have a great time. Also I'll say its a hang out. You log on, send it off to the side of the screen, look up some chicken recipes, chat with some friends, and move on. Other people, like Radd, may get more into the creation of things and actually begin building with it, which is actually great fun and can actually be pretty rewarding.

    Ahah the Fancy Lads, I remember you lot. Personally what has kept me in SL all these years is the fact that if you are a person who really digs a great variety of music, there are people who KNOW that music inside and out and will play it for you! I have discovered more incredible music via SL than any other way in the past few years. The trick is meeting those people/finding out where they spin, because 90% of the 'clubs' in SL are predictably boring, top40s playing virtual meatmarkets. Once you get a in though, you are golden, the community of people who are really passionate about music are like a spiderweb and it will lead you to any number of venues where people dj incredible varieties of awesomeness.

    @Radd Penny, is that you? :P

    Phant on
  • Lucky CynicLucky Cynic Registered User regular
    Phant, I used to know a saxophone player who would open his mic and just jam for a while. He was a cool dude and we'd have a conversation and "Hang on, I've gotta get this tune out." and he'd step to his mic in the next chair over and hammer out some pretty harmonic music. Last I knew of him, he would jam live for some human clubs but he hasn't been online in quite some time.

    And yes, in SL, you should specify.

  • KingMoleKingMole Registered User regular
    Did someone say FANCY LADS?!

    FancyLads_001.jpg

    apologies on being a little late to the party

    doomrider_sigPA.png
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