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Penny Arcade - Comic - The Royal Treatment

DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
edited March 2022 in The Penny Arcade Hub
imagePenny Arcade - Comic - The Royal Treatment

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

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Posts

  • Anon von ZilchAnon von Zilch Registered User regular
    I, for one, don't give two shits about the rich tactical combat if it's not given context by archduchies, envoys, and shadow alliances.

  • Johnny17Johnny17 Registered User regular
    I, for one, don't give two shits about the rich tactical combat if it's not given context by archduchies, envoys, and shadow alliances.

    This reminds me of the porn-without-plot vs. porn-with-plot discussion.

  • LazyDogJumperLazyDogJumper Registered User regular
    There's been an awful lot of "This game isn't made the way I want it to be" coming from Gabe these days. God-forbid a game about war have some context about the war.

  • DjiemDjiem Registered User regular
    This is why I love the Disgaea series, as far as tactical combat games go. Disgaea never takes itself too seriously (or seriously at all).

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    I wasn't really inspired by the first DioField trailer, but Triangle Strategy sure is hitting that tactical RPG spot for me.

  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    I wasn't really inspired by the first DioField trailer, but Triangle Strategy sure is hitting that tactical RPG spot for me.

    Yeah you could swap DioField for TS in the comic and it still works

  • tgbennett30tgbennett30 Registered User regular
    The more things change, the more they stay the same :-)

    mdutfbspuwj1.jpg

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    My mind went to this one:

    421224174_y7qmj-L-2.jpg

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    There's been an awful lot of "This game isn't made the way I want it to be" coming from Gabe these days. God-forbid a game about war have some context about the war.

    So what you're saying is this comic isn't made the way you want it to be.

  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    There's been an awful lot of "This game isn't made the way I want it to be" coming from Gabe these days. God-forbid a game about war have some context about the war.

    So what you're saying is this comic isn't made the way you want it to be.
    It's almost as if Gabe is a flawed caricature of a certain type of gamer, exaggerated for comedic effect.

    8i1dt37buh2m.png
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Hahnsoo1 wrote: »
    dennis wrote: »
    There's been an awful lot of "This game isn't made the way I want it to be" coming from Gabe these days. God-forbid a game about war have some context about the war.

    So what you're saying is this comic isn't made the way you want it to be.
    It's almost as if Gabe is a flawed caricature of a certain type of gamer, exaggerated for comedic effect.

    No, that's not quite accurate. Let's see...

    It's almost as if Gabe is a flawed caricature of a certain type of gamer who complains about things without regard for it being part of the traditions of that thing, exaggerated for comedic effect.

    I think maybe that covers it.

  • MarcinMNMarcinMN Registered User regular
    There's been an awful lot of "This game isn't made the way I want it to be" coming from Gabe these days. God-forbid a game about war have some context about the war.

    Your profile says you joined in 2012, but apparently you are still new here. Welcome to Penny Arcade! ;)

    "It's just as I've always said. We are being digested by an amoral universe."

    -Tycho Brahe
  • GrendusGrendus Registered User regular
    edited March 2022
    Eh, I don't blame him for being frustrated that games he likes for one reason or another have parts that he hates that makes them unplayable.

    I feel the same way about a lot of JRPG's. While I love the RPG and adventure in many of them, it's rare that I can actually find one I like enough to actually dig into (usually GOAT titles like Persona 5 Royal or FF X) because the story is full of tropes I just don't connect with and don't really appreciate or enjoy. That doesn't make them bad games, but it does mean that no matter how good, say, Fire Emblem is, I'm probably not going to pick it up. I'm sure they're fantastic quality games (hard to have such a long running series with such great reviews if they aren't), but they don't appeal to me. Same goes for some WRPG's - never was able to get into Assassins Creed. Not knocking the quality of the series, it's just not for me.

    Fortunately, I'm so far behind on my gaming to-do list (and getting worse - Elden Ring is denser than I thought it would be, and I already expected it to be as dense as Skyrim) that I'm almost glad when a game comes out that I'm not interested in so I can skip it. Hurray, Babylon's Fall sucks! I can skip it which means I might get through Elden Ring, Horizon: Forbidden West, and another Elden Ring run before God of War: Ragnarok...

    Grendus on
  • zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    edited March 2022
    Square Enix,

    Tactical rpg
    Hours of Dialog

    Yeah I’m in.

    zepherin on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    On the way to trying to find

    60va2zjh9uoz.png

    I wound up finding

    nd52zj1p44ij.png

    That's how hard it is to not find Gabe griping about plot in the PA archives.

  • palidine40palidine40 Registered User regular
    Buh buh but... final fantasy tactics... DX

  • BropocalypseBropocalypse Registered User regular
    I think the main issue is that games' stories are usually pointless.

    It's more of a problem in big-budget games since they're just creating a product, I think. They try to elevate the gameplay by giving it context, but most of the time they don't really have much in the way of character arcs, or strong themes, or suspense regarding threat to something we care about, or clever twists... The things that make a story worth paying attention to.
    These stories usually have little to do with the gameplay. Which is to say, the gameplay is not affected by what's occurring in the story. This is true even if the story tries to make us feel a certain way about, say, fighting some guy? Is this my brother? Okay. Well, I have to kill him to continue the game, I guess. That'd be the objective whether or not the story tried to add some kind of narrative impact to the event. But he was a cardboard cutout anyway, so... I feel nothing anyway. Deplete the HP, move on.
    That kind of pattern in games is common enough that I think it's entirely reasonable to not even give the story a chance. Are you playing a game for the story? Or are you playing a game for the gameplay? To me, it makes more sense to play games for gameplay.

  • demeter699demeter699 Registered User new member
    In the 90s I was a kid and watched this older kid who had a Playstation 1 play Parasite Eve 1 with jealousy. It was a turn based horror RPG with a female main character. And he skipped through all the dialogue! I thought that it was terrible he was missing it and I was so curious about the storyline, but he was all "grab this ammo here" and "shoot this monster here" in his playstyle.

    So Gabe's attitude does exist with a lot of gamers and it's an immense risk for game companies to invest in making a game with hours of text, and we have to appreciate that.

  • OverkillengineOverkillengine Registered User regular
    edited March 2022
    I think the main issue is that games' stories are usually pointless.

    Or unforgivably bad/cringe in execution. For example, I'm enjoying the hell out of Shin Megami Tensei V's combat. But I almost wish they had taken a DOOM 2016 approach to the writing in that they made the awful shonen trope bullshit exposition easily ignorable in favor of KILL MORE DEMONS.

    I like story. *When* it is well done. But it has to be well done. Not overdone.

    Overkillengine on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    A lot of game stories told purely through talking heads next to text have all the narrative impact of a wiki.

    Actually, scratch that. They're worse. I've much more often got stuck into deep dives of wikis than I have of than the typical game writing. I don't skip past it because I... can't. But I'm almost never the better for having read it.

    Just for emphasis, I use the word "typical". There are exceptions, and no one needs to point out how some specific game isn't typical.

  • LazyDogJumperLazyDogJumper Registered User regular
    Yeah, you guys are hilarious. Thanks for pointing out to me that I am not bothered by Gabe complaining about the game, I'm tired of Gabe using the same stale joke he has used many times before. I have always enjoyed their insight and their humor. This is him pulling out the "I don't like game dialogue" joke again, just like the other comics you guys pull out of the archives. This comic is completely replaceable with any of the others. It's Garfield kicking Odie off the table.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Oh man, I loved when Garfield kicked Odie off the table

    Classic comedy

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • LazyDogJumperLazyDogJumper Registered User regular
    Glad you are a fan of Garfield, I'm a huge fan too. Even Jim Davis admitted how old and played out that bit was.

  • Armored ChocoboArmored Chocobo Registered User regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    I wasn't really inspired by the first DioField trailer, but Triangle Strategy sure is hitting that tactical RPG spot for me.

    Yeah you could swap DioField for TS in the comic and it still works

    To be honest, by the 2nd panel I forgot it was about DioField and thought he was talking about Triangle Strategy.

  • Anon von ZilchAnon von Zilch Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    60va2zjh9uoz.png

    Thanks a lot, now I'm bummed out about this rad lion game not being real all over again.

  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    Gust, we need Atelier Cyberpit - get on it.

  • WestprogWestprog Registered User new member
    There's a reason why cut scenes and exposition in video games are regarded as boring. It goes to the basics of writing stories. It doesn't matter if it's a video game, a role-playing game, a novel or a film, the requirements for a good story are the same. The reader/viewer/player is invested in a particular character or group of characters, and what they are going to do, and what is going to happen to them. The purpose of back-story and world-building is to set up the circumstances in which they interact, to explain the rules and the aims and the motivations. The back-story has to change something. If the back-story can be skipped and the player can go straight into the fighting, then the back-story, no matter how rich and thought through and carefully designed, is pointless.

    When a back story is well designed, it tells the player/reader/viewer things that they will need to know for the future. It's not setting a context of history - it's building a framework for the future. In a game, the player should be frantically noting down everything said about the Vice-Prince of Rubbadubb because when they meet, this knowledge will be important. When the player knows that it doesn't matter about what the envoys want to discuss, then they are bored.

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    The original Deus Ex had a good system where if you got mechanically relevant information in a cut scene / email / etc. a summary of it would be automatically saved to your notes that you could refer to in game

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Yeah, you guys are hilarious. Thanks for pointing out to me that I am not bothered by Gabe complaining about the game, I'm tired of Gabe using the same stale joke he has used many times before. I have always enjoyed their insight and their humor. This is him pulling out the "I don't like game dialogue" joke again, just like the other comics you guys pull out of the archives. This comic is completely replaceable with any of the others. It's Garfield kicking Odie off the table.

    You know they've been writing this comic three times a week for over twenty-three years, right? That's over 3500 comics. And you're coming in here whining that five of them were the same joke? If you're wondering, 5 comics out of 3500 = 0.15%. Your criticism about this free webcomic they've given you thousands of strips of for absolutely free just comes off as the worst kind of whining. This is why people are making fun of you, and why doubling down makes you look even more like a goose.

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    czvc5a3nv5lp.jpeg

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    It clearly does weigh ham

  • NightslyrNightslyr Registered User regular
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    czvc5a3nv5lp.jpeg

    Anyone else saddened by the realization that this comic is old enough to vote?

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    I'm more saddened by the paucity of Twisp and Catsby since

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