[TRENCHES] Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - Rotten to the Cora
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Rotten to the Cora
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/rotten-to-the-cora
Finish him!
AnonymousI worked for a my first software company in the late 80s into the early 90s, and we were bought up by a “giant”. We were located in the Seattle area, they were down in San Francisco, and it was a very interesting relationship to stay connected (this was the dark ages before the Internets…!). Over time, our group was downsized bit by bit until the original group of around of 100 (devs & testers) was reduced to about 10 testers. They had us working as a rogue testing group - spot checking the work that the teams in SF were doing. It felt a bit dirty because we knew we were working behind the scenes for higher up manager types who wanted to know if their teams were finding all the bugs.
Then something interesting happened….
Managers came and went, and we were shuffled between a few of them, and eventually we realized that the last person we were working for was gone…. but no one new had gotten to us to let us know what we should be working on next. So, after a few boring days we hooked up a Nintendo to a giant TV, rearranged our cubicles, brought in a couple couches, and played Mortal Kombat (the original one) until we heard what to work on next.
We waited for 6 MONTHS while playing that game all day long.
We’d show up each day on time, play MK, and then go to lunch, come back, play MK, then head home at the end of a full day. We wanted to be there in case anyone tried to call or email us, but no one ever did. We didn’t know who to call about what we should be doing, because the person we last worked for wasn’t there anymore.
Our paychecks kept rolling in, and over time, one by one, guys on the team found jobs at other companies – because they were getting bored of just playing Mortal Kombat all day long. In the end, there were 3 of us left, and we got a call from headquarters letting us know that they were going to give us a “re-deployment package” and let us all go. It was an extremely generous deal, and I used it to put a down payment on my first house.
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Tales seem to stay interesting though. Would love a job where I could just sit around and play video games all day. Why did they only play MK though...? Its not like they were commissioned to work on it...You would think they would have swapped the games around a bit.
I don't generally bitch about things here because everything is given freely and we're not entitled to anything. It's just frustrating to see the comic devolve into this. It's not funny, the pacing has turned glacial, and every entry seems like it's designed to get to a tepid quip in the last panel.
It lacks focus and clarity. There's supposed to be some drama about a clone popping up in the marketplace, along with an aborted tester vs. developer feud and Issac being the QA manager, but everything is diverted by 3 horrible Marley comic strips. All characters not named Marley have become unrecognizable. The plot is standing still, and the humor is nowhere near strong enough to keep it afloat.
I sincerely hope it gets (a lot) better, because it's very awkward to read right now.
Wat? This whole last season was fantastic. I laughed out loud multiple times. I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The Marley trips were irritating but other than that, I don't agree with your assessment at all
12 oz. Mouse is a poor reference if your goal is to make something that's not shit.
Depends what you're going for. The first 3 episodes of ozmo are pretty bad, but the writing on the later ones are great because it incorporated real complex drama. Pretty much nobody's one-dimensional; I think the writing for the later eps was just like the writing for Trenches.
A lot of the forum posts recently seem to disagree with you.
Beats me. Hell, I don't know why they didn't bring in another TV and another SNES, or... something. It's not like they apparently had a lot of oversight or anything.
I wouldn't put much stock in that. Comments sections are driven by the loudest complainers. People now are complaining that it's not as good as it used to be, but there wasn't a time when they were going "this is it, this is the golden age of The Trenches". Trenches has always had two things
1. A loud group of people complaining on every comic that it isn't like the things that they like
2. Good traffic
This was my question... And this was in the 90s, so it's not like SNES games were rare or anything...
It's also possible that people would go back to their cubicles and play/do other things occasionally, with the Giant TV/MK setup being a centerpiece that people drifted in and out of over the course of the day. Plus, once they all got good at the one game, it likely became a bit of a skill challenge they could compete against each other with, similar to how PA plays ping-pong a lot in their office, even though they all likely play other games everyday as well.
I haven't been on the forum in 2 weeks or so but most of the threads have been overwhelmingly positive this season, go check if you'd like. Once again, don't know what you're talking about save for the Marley s t rips that went on way too long
In 1992 Mortal Kombat was.... it. The idea of having you and your friends playing it on a giant screen tube tv (which was incredibly rare back then also - and usually only seen at trade shows) all day long... man... that's as good as it got back then. Sure Street Fighter was there also, but that would be the equivalent of today getting PS4 and XBoxOne people to live in harmony…
And like Marsilies said above, back then, you’d build up a skillset of attacks and going back and forth head to head, swapping the loser out… was like a never ending tournament of play.
Good times…