[PA Comic] Monday, December 1, 2014 - Recursor

Dog

[PA Comic] Monday, December 1, 2014 - Recursor

Recursor

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/12/01

Read the full story here

DoctorEars

I can just imagine Mike sitting at his Cintiq, wondering what Gabe and Tycho should be doing in this strip.

"Cupcakes!" he thinks. "Lots of cupcakes."

Monkey Ball Warrior

Must not play that game again.

*twitch*

CEOIII

So.......bots?

Comradebot

Damnit Gabe... I see you're off the wagon again.

How many days until Gabe Jr. is in a foster home?

Madican

The funny thing is that while the beginning missions, as in 90-97 or so, do take only a couple hours, the endgame ones can last for anywhere from 8 to even 24 hours.

Also they're not really bots. It's more of a minigame that can sometimes get you gear, but not often.

Darkewolfe

I knew this was going to happen. I fucking knew it.

I resisted the last xpac, and I was going to resist this one, but a buddy said to pick it up "Just so we can pvp."

I haven't done anything else since Thursday morning.

Invertin

I like the idea that Gabe and Tycho just have a cupcake feast once a week. Maybe twice.

Lucascraft

The trick is to not care that much. But I mean, that's true with any of the "social games" like Farmville, or Clash of Clans, of whatever. Anything which is time gated can easily come to control your life and dictate your schedule if you let it.

Unknown

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Tofystedeth

Sounds kind of like the retainer venture system in FFXIV. You can send them out on 1 hour or 18 hour missions to retrieve items. You can get them to either bring you something specific, like hunted or harvested items, or something random.
The random ones can be almost any item in the game. So you can get a high quality piece of crafted gear, or a drop from some of the lower level primal raid bosses, or a piece of kelp.

There are also a few cosmetic items that can only be found by retainers.

Inquisitor

I remember I used to have a timer set for when the next Wintergrasp would occur.

These days I want to tell a game when I want to play it, not the other way around. Consquently, I don't play WoW anymore.

jwalk

sounds like Neverwinter Online. the entire crafting system is based on "tasks" that take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours. fortunately you can log in from the web to collect the lewtz and reset the tasks..

boring as all fuvk, but necessary. some people have an army of alts just for this. like, hundreds.. they never actually log in and play those characters, they just have them for the tasks.

I uh, only have 5 of those.

Donnicton

jwalk wrote: »

sounds like Neverwinter Online. the entire crafting system is based on "tasks" that take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours. fortunately you can log in from the web to collect the lewtz and reset the tasks..

boring as all fuvk, but necessary. some people have an army of alts just for this. like, hundreds.. they never actually log in and play those characters, they just have them for the tasks.

I uh, only have 5 of those.

We just need access to our followers and missions from the Armory app to reach the true singularity.

YoungFrey

This accurately describes my last 3 days. But I had a lot of housework to do so it was nice to be able to make progress (of a sort) without actually sitting down at the computer. House is clean, 22/25 followers are 100 and several are wearing 615 gear.

Hahnsoo1

A lot of games have this mechanic, so it is pretty easy to relate to this comic.

My favorite version is probably Star Trek Online's system. You can send crew members on a large variety of Away missions, just like the TV show. They can get hurt, making your sick bay actually useful, and redshirt ensigns can actually die (again, just like the episodes). These away team crew members are a lot like cards in a collectible card game.

suprachromat

Lucascraft wrote: »

The trick is to not care that much. But I mean, that's true with any of the "social games" like Farmville, or Clash of Clans, of whatever. Anything which is time gated can easily come to control your life and dictate your schedule if you let it.

The problem is that Blizzard has become entirely too adept at pulling all the reward levers in the human brain. It's therefore quite hard to "not care that much", even if you intellectually know it's just an artificially time-gated rewards system. I quit a year or so ago but am feeling the itch again. Fortunately DA:I and the Steam sales are gonna keep me busy for a few months. After that, all bets are off.

forty

It has its share of issues and missteps, but WoD is the most fun and engaging a WoW expansion has felt to me since, like, Wrath of the Lich King.

MarcinMN

Looks like Gabe decided to do that heroin after all...

(See the comic from 11/26/14 f you don't know what I'm talking about.)

tygress

Cupcakes!!!!

Darkewolfe

suprachromat wrote: »

Lucascraft wrote: »

The trick is to not care that much. But I mean, that's true with any of the "social games" like Farmville, or Clash of Clans, of whatever. Anything which is time gated can easily come to control your life and dictate your schedule if you let it.

The problem is that Blizzard has become entirely too adept at pulling all the reward levers in the human brain. It's therefore quite hard to "not care that much", even if you intellectually know it's just an artificially time-gated rewards system. I quit a year or so ago but am feeling the itch again. Fortunately DA:I and the Steam sales are gonna keep me busy for a few months. After that, all bets are off.

Yes. They are way too good at making a game I want to play.

Honestly, the U.S. military should weaponize WoW.

Hevach

Gave WoW a chance before the expansion launched, and what they did to my favorite classes disappointed me greatly. But this? This interests me. When STO added duty officers a couple years ago, I got way more into that than you'd think you could playing a system where you basically rubber stamp the recommendations of your senior staff and sent off mooks to have adventures without you.

mare_imbrium

For me WoW was perfect for a small window starting at launch day and lasting around six months. I discovered things, and everyone was discovering things. There wasn't anyone I knew on my server because everyone I knew got scattered to the winds, picking different servers for one reason or another. But I started grouping with people over and over again and people would start to send me messages when they saw I was online and they needed a healer (I was a NE Druid on Silver Hand). But I couldn't keep up. I can never keep up. All of these acquaintances started to outlevel me, and I became busy in real life. I've tried to go back a couple of times - I even paid to move Ireth to another server when some online friends of mine were playing, whenever it was that they introduced the blood elves. But it's never the same, I never have enough time to play, and everyone I play with always goes much faster than I do and it becomes more and more like playing a single player game, and I feel like I'm alone. I know for a lot of people it became like a job, and I guess I'm glad I avoided that. But I would have liked to get to level 60 and have done one of those big raid dungeons once, for the experience (my highest level character is in the 50's).

ziddersroofurry

I only played WoW a little back in 2007. I'd been in Everquest for the last two years, and to be honest the experiences I had in that game were so great that it ruined all other MMO's for me. I've tried many since...but like the old saying goes, "You can't go home again." It was such a life-changing experience for me.

Sundaki Hoppinfoot, cleric of Stromm, RIP

BradGunnerSGT

DoctorEars wrote: »

I can just imagine Mike sitting at his Cintiq, wondering what Gabe and Tycho should be doing in this strip.

"Cupcakes!" he thinks. "Lots of cupcakes."

We need to see the Fourth Panel episode to make sure. ;-)

Peter Ebel

A literal description of Hell.

Replicantten

Slave to the grind.