Trenches comic: Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012 - Astrology

Rankenphile

Henroid

I think I'm gonna like Q more if he keeps having a sassy pose.

TIFunkalicious

i feel for the Tale i guess, but i think one should be able to spot an overambitious project
just sounds like too much shit from the start

doesn't sound like he was out of a job though

Squidget0

The story doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If the game was in the early stages (ie: pre-production), why would they have been focusing on bugfixes and crashes? That's not even a thing until you have a playable build, and not something that can kill a project until well after that.

Also, what kind of crappy bug-reporting system can be filled up in a week's worth of work? Bug reports themselves don't take a lot of space unless every one includes video/picture data (which is pretty inefficient.)

Ivar

And Cora.

Tomanta

My guess on the game/franchise is Godfather.

SW15243

Tomanta wrote:

My guess on the game/franchise is Godfather.

I was going to say Scarface. I guess we're on the same page.

Illessa

Squidget0 wrote:

The story doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If the game was in the early stages (ie: pre-production), why would they have been focusing on bugfixes and crashes? That's not even a thing until you have a playable build, and not something that can kill a project until well after that.

Also, what kind of crappy bug-reporting system can be filled up in a week's worth of work? Bug reports themselves don't take a lot of space unless every one includes video/picture data (which is pretty inefficient.)

First thought that springs to mind - they were using Jira and left it running the all in-memory HSQL database it ships with that you're specifically supposed to replace with something more robust. I mean, I have experience of bug-trackers running into serious indexing issues above a certain threshold - said threshold being in the millions, which seems unlikely inside a week.

But yeah the whole 3-week timeframe makes the whole story sound reeeeeally unlikely unless they're seriously exaggerating.

Lindsay Lohan

Tomanta wrote:

My guess on the game/franchise is Godfather.

That was my guess to - the remake a year later was probably the Blackhand edition and the management aspects I believe made it into the second game.

Warlock82

Godfather looks right, it has about the right metacritic score. Scarface seems a bit higher and was apparently a bit better received.

Sage_Catharsis

The idea that this was game of the year material should have been your first clue. Unless its sci-fi or fantasy or something from far left field a company shouldnt be to ambitious to start with... Why are humans so naive?

Sorry to sound condescending. My nose is stuffed and I want a sci-fi sandbox game with lightsabers and stealth ninja armor.

aflyingskypie

maybe the warriors... also sage play swtor

Enc

Tale sounded a bit like the All Points Bulletin evolution/buildup/collapse to me.

Aldo

Enc wrote:

Tale sounded a bit like the All Points Bulletin evolution/buildup/collapse to me.

Only not based on a world famous franchise and not set in the past.

Also, APB was made in Schotland where they do not have high schools.

RoyceSraphim

The story sounds like the Godfather 2 that the reviews told me about.

Enc

Aldo wrote:

Enc wrote:

Tale sounded a bit like the All Points Bulletin evolution/buildup/collapse to me.

Only not based on a world famous franchise and not set in the past.

Also, APB was made in Schotland where they do not have high schools.

Hence the "a bit" part. A lot of the same sort of high concept collapse happened there too.

I wonder how many games have that magnitude of divergence from the launch concept to the finished result.

Garthor

About 11 out of 10, Enc.

forty

Squidget0 wrote:

The story doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If the game was in the early stages (ie: pre-production), why would they have been focusing on bugfixes and crashes? That's not even a thing until you have a playable build, and not something that can kill a project until well after that.

Also, what kind of crappy bug-reporting system can be filled up in a week's worth of work? Bug reports themselves don't take a lot of space unless every one includes video/picture data (which is pretty inefficient.)

Thank you. I had the same thoughts reading that. Tale seems extremely embellished.

And yeah, has to be Godfather based on the descriptions.


Side note: Was the job market that tight in 2005-2006 ("but this was the leading edge of the recession and work was hard to come by")? I got my job in November 2005 without much effort at all.

Enc

Recession started in Late 2006 for certain sectors (housing and housing retail) and was in full swing in late 2007 for everywhere else.

That seems a really early date to even be thinking about the recession. Things were still pretty decent in 05.

Taramoor

Sounds like Scarface to me.

RoyceSraphim

Scarface kept its business system, I got the feeling the tycoon system in the story didn't make it to the end.

Jetstream

Is no one else concerned that Isaac seems to be having a bad reaction to the punch?

astronautcowboy3

Even in 2008 it hadn't gotten that bad yet. 2009 grads were the first to have it really miserable.

Indica1

None of these have been funny so far.

MATPHAT

I absolutely never post on PA, but this comic is so not-funny that I felt the need to come out of hiding just to say it.
Just my opinion.

onigame

The first panel has some incorrect coloring; the patch of ceiling sandwiched between balloons should be the bluish-grey of the ceiling, but here it's white.