One of the perks of not being their first attempt at a webcomic.
I mean, I'm all for new talent in webcomics (Love Manly Guys Doing Manly Things), but if they feel like making something new, that's good too.
Also, it's sad that overqualification is a totally common reason for rejected applications. I get WHY business do this; they want employees who are likely to actually want to keep the job long-term, and aren't just looking to get a paycheck until something better comes along.
One thing I've never understood is the orange noses. Kurtz does it sometimes in PvP too.
Yeah, it bugs me too. Because to me it looks like someone has cut off the nose and just left a gaping wound where it should be. Consequently it's difficult for me to care too much about what's happening to the characters when they should clearly be seeking immediate medical attention.
I never noticed this before.
Now it is all I see when I look at the comic.
I came here to comment on the same thing. Why does the main character have an orange bar on his face?
I'm not artist so I really don't feel like I have much place to criticize what might be a legitimate design intention, but it's all I see - an orange bar where a nose should be. *shrug*
If anyone is interested in what the text on the Personnel Files says on the New Readers page, try pasting the text into this tool and select Base 64 decode as the option. http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/encrypter/index.php
Yeah, I noticed that too... curious to see if they are meant to provide insights into the characters [some of them might... maybe...] or if they were just goofing around...
PAX Prime '09 - H1N(erd)1 Survivor - Never Forget (Your Hand Sanitizer) PAX Prime '14 Omeganaut - Result: KO in 3rd Round (Damn you, Super Avalanche 2!)
I guess the quotes will have something to do with the characters, since the top one is from Isaac Newton and relates to Isaac. The bottom one is interesting, text is: "He is a real rabbit. I don't know what to tell you; I was outvoted." and pic kinda looks like a wascally wabbit, no?
I guess the quotes will have something to do with the characters, since the top one is from Isaac Newton and relates to Isaac. The bottom one is interesting, text is: "He is a real rabbit. I don't know what to tell you; I was outvoted." and pic kinda looks like a wascally wabbit, no?
Well then I'm curious to see how the following relates to one of the characters:
noun
a sideboard or cupboard.
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: Italian, from medieval Latin credentia (see credence ).
The quote about the rabbit is a nice touch...
PAX Prime '09 - H1N(erd)1 Survivor - Never Forget (Your Hand Sanitizer) PAX Prime '14 Omeganaut - Result: KO in 3rd Round (Damn you, Super Avalanche 2!)
I don't know how I was at the comic. I had its tab open, but I don't remember opening it. I didn't know about this comic before then. Some dark force is at work here.
noun
a sideboard or cupboard.
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: Italian, from medieval Latin credentia (see credence ).
the word you're looking for is
"credenza".
Its like a shelf for rich people.
Lewis Black did stand up about how some guy spent millions of dollars on one for his office
while defrauding a company out of money...ill try to find a link to it.
idk how it relates to that guy though. maybe he has a nice credenza?
Looking forward to the future of this comic. Might I request a delightful unique favicon at some point in the future so that it doesn't it doesn't sit as a sad white sheet of paper on my bookmark bar?
I would like to second this. Except, in Chrome I have a sad globe instead.
When I look at it, I pretend that the entire planet and everything on it is sad because this exciting new venture does not yet have a favicon.
At the risk of stirring up the bee's nest of die hard loyal PA fans.
I find myself thinking it is so far, a crap comic albeit nicely presented. I find myself expecting it to be good because of its origins and endevour to not let this warp my view.
It is going to take a lot more then a PA stamp / sexy website to make this crap smell like butterflies.
Was hoping that some of Scott's influence would include letting readers view the strips directly from the RSS feed (a la PvP) instead of just having the feed contain links to the strips. At least there *is* now a feed, I guess.
Well I have read the first three comics so far and I am impressed. I wonder how much of that is coming from my prior fan-dom of PA... The world may never know.
Looking forward to the future of this comic. Might I request a delightful unique favicon at some point in the future so that it doesn't it doesn't sit as a sad white sheet of paper on my bookmark bar?
I third this. I don't know why, but it is a major pet peeve, not having a thingy for all my bookmarks.
Holy shit, I really want to know what game/system is being talked about in today's Tales from the Trenches. Does anybody remember this happening in a particular game in recent memory?
Wow, it's kind of amazing you were able to note that it was a Tesla Roadster and not, say, a Lotus Elise.
I hadn't even considered that it was a real car when I first saw it, just assumed it was a generic Ferrari-like sports car.
I've seen my share of both, living on the mid Peninsula. The key is the charging port behind the window.
Lotus' bodywork around the driver's window is more angular and less curved. In addition, the Tesla has a more 'posh' interior compared to a Lotus. The second panel floor mats are a dead giveaway.
Tesla's bodywork is provided by Lotus and is the Lotus Elise bodywork, the only difference between the two cars is the powertrain, could be either, but the original one is definitely Lotus.
Holy shit, I really want to know what game/system is being talked about in today's Tales from the Trenches. Does anybody remember this happening in a particular game in recent memory?
It's incredibly tempting to try to find out, isn't it? But a lot of games have come out in the last decade. A lot of games. Still, it's super tempting.
Holy shit, I really want to know what game/system is being talked about in today's Tales from the Trenches. Does anybody remember this happening in a particular game in recent memory?
It's incredibly tempting to try to find out, isn't it? But a lot of games have come out in the last decade. A lot of games. Still, it's super tempting.
Guess we'll just have to play every game from the last decade until the end so we can save before the final boss fight until we find the right one. OH WELL.
After reading those few stories and beginning to imagine the mountain of similar stories in the game industry... I just don't want to play video games any more.
I know I'm saying this from a computer likely made by poor labourers in an oppressive country, powered by an energy source that likely originates from a corrupt regime, wearing clothes sewn by children in a *different* corrupt regime, etc, etc, etc... but I've always tried to believe *some things* in my life were a product of passion and not suffering.
I guess I was never that big a gamer to begin with. I never took the time to think about how horrible the industry must be, though. Thankfully Penny Arcade and PvP are pretty easy to enjoy regardless of whether you actually play video games.
After reading those few stories and beginning to imagine the mountain of similar stories in the game industry... I just don't want to play video games any more.
I know I'm saying this from a computer likely made by poor labourers in an oppressive country, powered by an energy source that likely originates from a corrupt regime, wearing clothes sewn by children in a *different* corrupt regime, etc, etc, etc... but I've always tried to believe *some things* in my life were a product of passion and not suffering.
I guess I was never that big a gamer to begin with. I never took the time to think about how horrible the industry must be, though. Thankfully Penny Arcade and PvP are pretty easy to enjoy regardless of whether you actually play video games.
No offense, but it sounds to me like you can't see the forest for the trees.
People love to think of game developers as monolithic entities, and while it makes some sense to attribute qualities to an organization as a whole, the practice tends to verge on personification. For example, you often hear studios described as "lazy" if they reuse assets too often in their game. This is an odd thing to say about a group of people who have each been working 100+ hours a week for the last six months to ship their product on time. The people who create the content don't set the release date, and even the publisher is answerable to its investors. And the investors? Well, is it so unreasonable for a mutual fund that carries the retirement investments of thousands of workers to concern themselves with the bottom line?
The point is that there are creative, passionate people at nearly every decent game developer. There are also cold analytical people, authoritative managerial people, quiet creepy people, and a number of average Joes who are really just there for the paycheck.
As for this story, I honestly wonder if the studio exec didn't make the right call. I imagine that if this occurred with even 1/10 000 customers on a major title we would have no trouble identifying the game today. The truly sad part is that even if only one system was affected, the consumer probably had no way of knowing what caused the problem, and ended up footing the bill for his own replacement =(
Holy shit, I really want to know what game/system is being talked about in today's Tales from the Trenches. Does anybody remember this happening in a particular game in recent memory?
It's incredibly tempting to try to find out, isn't it? But a lot of games have come out in the last decade. A lot of games. Still, it's super tempting.
Guess we'll just have to play every game from the last decade until the end so we can save before the final boss fight until we find the right one. OH WELL.
At the very least, it can be narrowed down somewhat:
He says he has to play through the entire game again after borking the console. This would suggest the game is saved locally, and not on a memory card. Which removes PS2 & Gamecube, at least.
So a game in the last 10 years, that has an autosave function and manual save function, and you can reach the final boss in 16 hours, on the Xbox, the 360, the PS3, or the Wii.
Oh god, I think I might know what game was mentioned in Ship It. I'm not sure if I should outright post the title, but I can give a few hints.
It was released in 2009.
It was released on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but to the best of my knowledge this bug is only on the 360.
It's a third-person shooter.
I wasn't involved in the development of this video game, so if you do find what game I'm mentioning please don't ask me anything, OK?
Oh god, I think I might know what game was mentioned in Ship It. I'm not sure if I should outright post the title, but I can give a few hints.
It was released in 2009.
It was released on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but to the best of my knowledge this bug is only on the 360.
It's a third-person shooter.
I wasn't involved in the development of this video game, so if you do find what game I'm mentioning please don't ask me anything, OK?
And yeah I could be wrong.
I could be wrong, but it seems pretty clear from the wording of the actual Tales that they're trying hard not to give any identifying information.
Whether this is to protect themselves from potential legal action, protect the advertising revenue streams, or to protect the testers that submitted their stories from punitive action from employers - we don't know.
All I'm saying is that if the author's have gone to any lengths at all to protect the identities of the people, products and companies involved then maybe we should leave it at that.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to know if I have a potential brick-maker sitting on my game shelf. But I'd rather it not be at the expense of something I enjoy, be it the forums or the comics.
I'm excited to see how this comic goes, I like all things Penny, but its odd that they chose the name Isaac for the main character.
I've been running a video game based comic with my friend that we started for fun a year and a half ago and one of the main characters is named Isaac as well. Not that I own the rights to the name of course, just thought it was an odd coincidence.
Mediocre, at best.
It's like you took Gods (G&T) and then blended them with a monkey(kuntz) and expected something better.
I would like to know who thinks they would need to rewrite a file structure to prevent the auto save to conflict with manual save smells of BS... Or the developer was an idiot. rewrite the file structure my ass.
While clearly if everything on the Internet was exactly as I want it, it would be awesome~ I do recognize we all don't have the same tastes, so I wish you all the bests. In all likely I won't be back.
Mediocre, at best.
It's like you took Gods (G&T) and then blended them with a monkey(kuntz) and expected something better.
Such amazingly kind words for a comic that is four strips old (at the time of this writing).
I'm tempted to assume you haven't actually read any of it, and simply came here to deposit a hate-statement (hatement, perhaps) detailing your displeasure of a particular artist. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume, then, that you're simply impatient: the sort of person that will gladly pay for freemium content that can be attained through free play, simply because it means you have to exert less effort to acquire a piece of plastic from an elder and enter a series of numbers than to properly gird yourself for battle and hunt down a dragon for a massive, steel-rending fang from which to craft a blade.
I would like to know who thinks they would need to rewrite a file structure to prevent the auto save to conflict with manual save smells of BS... Or the developer was an idiot. rewrite the file structure my ass.
The first rule of doing something for someone else who has no idea how to do what you do: quote your time frames high. They will always demand you finish in less time (or half the time). What they said was, in essence, "We don't know, but we have an idea, and the worst case scenario is we have to do a lot of shit, so I'm gonna quote you that scenario, and hope it's something really small and insignificant like a dropped comma or a broken comment line."
Anecdotally, when I was in high school the band director would often have to confer with Important People regarding events (like graduation ceremonies, or football games). No matter what, we were expected to be ready and on the field in far less time than it takes to properly assemble, organize and lubricate an entire band's worth of equipment. The director once equated the concept as that of a radio: they believe they can flip a switch, and lo, a band is on the football field. Flip again, and the field is bare. One could produce an interesting effect were one to rapidly toggle that particular switch, I daresay.
Ever encounter someone who doesn't regularly operate a computer? The kind that, when you happen to visit, will bequeath you the title of 'Computer Guy' (or perhaps 'Computer Gal', if that's your preferred gender role) and ask you to unclog the series of tubes that connect them to their Face's books and their Tweeters and that dispenser of cat videos, the Your Tube? Imagine that sort of person in an expensive, three-piece suit, holding the reins of a wagon with nary a mind to the direction the horse would lead or even how to provoke motion, save for the meager representations they've been given in the motion picture halls. Imagine, then, that one of the wagon wheels is missing, that your wagon is propped on a rock, and unable to move anywhere until you get another wagon wheel in its' place.
You might find that explaining the act of putting the wheel on would prompt confusion, then possibly indignation, followed swiftly by a berating, exasperated cry of "Just Fix It!" (Capitalization and all.)
While clearly if everything on the Internet was exactly as I want it, it would be awesome~ I do recognize we all don't have the same tastes, so I wish you all the bests. In all likely I won't be back.
I'm glad that you can at least accept that you are but a mortal, with mortal failings, although at this late stage it it much alike to robbing a rich, elderly woman, then apologizing for tramping mud all over her expensive Oriental rug. A kind goodbye to you, regardless.
Or the anonymous poster with his story could be lying.
Frankly NDA or not that sounds like one of those ethical things you should whistle blow on, at least to the manufacturer of the console.
yeah, but you have to see it from his perspective. he already has a shitty job in an industry that involves him working for a large number of employers for short time spans. so while this one bug that's probably unlikely to happen in most players games is a big deal, he's unlikely to risk being ostracized and not working ever again for it. if you look back, how many whistle blowers have been A) temps and have gotten jobs again. anti discriminatory laws aside, it seems highly likely that the company would let it be known that he was a rat, and he wouldn't be hired by others, not even going into breach of contract by breaking the NDA.
on another note. yes, these guys attempt to break the game any way possible to test out worst case scenarios and such, and while this seems like a major deal, exactly how likely are you to manually save your game at the same time as the game is autosaving. thats the point of the autosave, so you don't have to save your game, i doubt many people unwittingly duplicated the bug.
Posts
debating whether I want to submit one of my own horror stories or not. online testing at EA, woo hoo.
Hey Strongbad, how do you type with boxing gloves on your hand :?
One of the perks of not being their first attempt at a webcomic.
I mean, I'm all for new talent in webcomics (Love Manly Guys Doing Manly Things), but if they feel like making something new, that's good too.
Also, it's sad that overqualification is a totally common reason for rejected applications. I get WHY business do this; they want employees who are likely to actually want to keep the job long-term, and aren't just looking to get a paycheck until something better comes along.
Still sucks when it happens to you, though.
I came here to comment on the same thing. Why does the main character have an orange bar on his face?
I'm not artist so I really don't feel like I have much place to criticize what might be a legitimate design intention, but it's all I see - an orange bar where a nose should be. *shrug*
edit: Sweet, feed is up! That was fast! http://trenchescomic.com/feed
Yeah, I noticed that too... curious to see if they are meant to provide insights into the characters [some of them might... maybe...] or if they were just goofing around...
PAX Prime '09 - H1N(erd)1 Survivor - Never Forget (Your Hand Sanitizer)
PAX Prime '14 Omeganaut - Result: KO in 3rd Round (Damn you, Super Avalanche 2!)
Well then I'm curious to see how the following relates to one of the characters:
The quote about the rabbit is a nice touch...
PAX Prime '09 - H1N(erd)1 Survivor - Never Forget (Your Hand Sanitizer)
PAX Prime '14 Omeganaut - Result: KO in 3rd Round (Damn you, Super Avalanche 2!)
a sideboard or cupboard.
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: Italian, from medieval Latin credentia (see credence ).
the word you're looking for is
"credenza".
Its like a shelf for rich people.
Lewis Black did stand up about how some guy spent millions of dollars on one for his office
while defrauding a company out of money...ill try to find a link to it.
idk how it relates to that guy though. maybe he has a nice credenza?
I would like to second this. Except, in Chrome I have a sad globe instead.
When I look at it, I pretend that the entire planet and everything on it is sad because this exciting new venture does not yet have a favicon.
I find myself thinking it is so far, a crap comic albeit nicely presented. I find myself expecting it to be good because of its origins and endevour to not let this warp my view.
It is going to take a lot more then a PA stamp / sexy website to make this crap smell like butterflies.
Here's hoping for it's successful future.
I am honored to witness its beginnings.
I repeat, hands down.
Also, the comic looks promising. Almost Tuesday!
It's showing promise.
and by promise I mean that it isn't the same joke as the first two strips.
Looking forward to more.
I third this. I don't know why, but it is a major pet peeve, not having a thingy for all my bookmarks.
It's incredibly tempting to try to find out, isn't it? But a lot of games have come out in the last decade. A lot of games. Still, it's super tempting.
Guess we'll just have to play every game from the last decade until the end so we can save before the final boss fight until we find the right one. OH WELL.
I know I'm saying this from a computer likely made by poor labourers in an oppressive country, powered by an energy source that likely originates from a corrupt regime, wearing clothes sewn by children in a *different* corrupt regime, etc, etc, etc... but I've always tried to believe *some things* in my life were a product of passion and not suffering.
I guess I was never that big a gamer to begin with. I never took the time to think about how horrible the industry must be, though. Thankfully Penny Arcade and PvP are pretty easy to enjoy regardless of whether you actually play video games.
No offense, but it sounds to me like you can't see the forest for the trees.
People love to think of game developers as monolithic entities, and while it makes some sense to attribute qualities to an organization as a whole, the practice tends to verge on personification. For example, you often hear studios described as "lazy" if they reuse assets too often in their game. This is an odd thing to say about a group of people who have each been working 100+ hours a week for the last six months to ship their product on time. The people who create the content don't set the release date, and even the publisher is answerable to its investors. And the investors? Well, is it so unreasonable for a mutual fund that carries the retirement investments of thousands of workers to concern themselves with the bottom line?
The point is that there are creative, passionate people at nearly every decent game developer. There are also cold analytical people, authoritative managerial people, quiet creepy people, and a number of average Joes who are really just there for the paycheck.
As for this story, I honestly wonder if the studio exec didn't make the right call. I imagine that if this occurred with even 1/10 000 customers on a major title we would have no trouble identifying the game today. The truly sad part is that even if only one system was affected, the consumer probably had no way of knowing what caused the problem, and ended up footing the bill for his own replacement =(
At the very least, it can be narrowed down somewhat:
He says he has to play through the entire game again after borking the console. This would suggest the game is saved locally, and not on a memory card. Which removes PS2 & Gamecube, at least.
So a game in the last 10 years, that has an autosave function and manual save function, and you can reach the final boss in 16 hours, on the Xbox, the 360, the PS3, or the Wii.
It was released in 2009.
It was released on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but to the best of my knowledge this bug is only on the 360.
It's a third-person shooter.
I wasn't involved in the development of this video game, so if you do find what game I'm mentioning please don't ask me anything, OK?
And yeah I could be wrong.
Frankly NDA or not that sounds like one of those ethical things you should whistle blow on, at least to the manufacturer of the console.
I could be wrong, but it seems pretty clear from the wording of the actual Tales that they're trying hard not to give any identifying information.
Whether this is to protect themselves from potential legal action, protect the advertising revenue streams, or to protect the testers that submitted their stories from punitive action from employers - we don't know.
All I'm saying is that if the author's have gone to any lengths at all to protect the identities of the people, products and companies involved then maybe we should leave it at that.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to know if I have a potential brick-maker sitting on my game shelf. But I'd rather it not be at the expense of something I enjoy, be it the forums or the comics.
I've been running a video game based comic with my friend that we started for fun a year and a half ago and one of the main characters is named Isaac as well. Not that I own the rights to the name of course, just thought it was an odd coincidence.
This is our comic: http://double-xp.blogspot.com/
It's like you took Gods (G&T) and then blended them with a monkey(kuntz) and expected something better.
I would like to know who thinks they would need to rewrite a file structure to prevent the auto save to conflict with manual save smells of BS... Or the developer was an idiot. rewrite the file structure my ass.
While clearly if everything on the Internet was exactly as I want it, it would be awesome~ I do recognize we all don't have the same tastes, so I wish you all the bests. In all likely I won't be back.
Such amazingly kind words for a comic that is four strips old (at the time of this writing).
I'm tempted to assume you haven't actually read any of it, and simply came here to deposit a hate-statement (hatement, perhaps) detailing your displeasure of a particular artist. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume, then, that you're simply impatient: the sort of person that will gladly pay for freemium content that can be attained through free play, simply because it means you have to exert less effort to acquire a piece of plastic from an elder and enter a series of numbers than to properly gird yourself for battle and hunt down a dragon for a massive, steel-rending fang from which to craft a blade.
The first rule of doing something for someone else who has no idea how to do what you do: quote your time frames high. They will always demand you finish in less time (or half the time). What they said was, in essence, "We don't know, but we have an idea, and the worst case scenario is we have to do a lot of shit, so I'm gonna quote you that scenario, and hope it's something really small and insignificant like a dropped comma or a broken comment line."
Anecdotally, when I was in high school the band director would often have to confer with Important People regarding events (like graduation ceremonies, or football games). No matter what, we were expected to be ready and on the field in far less time than it takes to properly assemble, organize and lubricate an entire band's worth of equipment. The director once equated the concept as that of a radio: they believe they can flip a switch, and lo, a band is on the football field. Flip again, and the field is bare. One could produce an interesting effect were one to rapidly toggle that particular switch, I daresay.
Ever encounter someone who doesn't regularly operate a computer? The kind that, when you happen to visit, will bequeath you the title of 'Computer Guy' (or perhaps 'Computer Gal', if that's your preferred gender role) and ask you to unclog the series of tubes that connect them to their Face's books and their Tweeters and that dispenser of cat videos, the Your Tube? Imagine that sort of person in an expensive, three-piece suit, holding the reins of a wagon with nary a mind to the direction the horse would lead or even how to provoke motion, save for the meager representations they've been given in the motion picture halls. Imagine, then, that one of the wagon wheels is missing, that your wagon is propped on a rock, and unable to move anywhere until you get another wagon wheel in its' place.
You might find that explaining the act of putting the wheel on would prompt confusion, then possibly indignation, followed swiftly by a berating, exasperated cry of "Just Fix It!" (Capitalization and all.)
I'm glad that you can at least accept that you are but a mortal, with mortal failings, although at this late stage it it much alike to robbing a rich, elderly woman, then apologizing for tramping mud all over her expensive Oriental rug. A kind goodbye to you, regardless.
yeah, but you have to see it from his perspective. he already has a shitty job in an industry that involves him working for a large number of employers for short time spans. so while this one bug that's probably unlikely to happen in most players games is a big deal, he's unlikely to risk being ostracized and not working ever again for it. if you look back, how many whistle blowers have been A) temps and
on another note. yes, these guys attempt to break the game any way possible to test out worst case scenarios and such, and while this seems like a major deal, exactly how likely are you to manually save your game at the same time as the game is autosaving. thats the point of the autosave, so you don't have to save your game, i doubt many people unwittingly duplicated the bug.