I’m kind of surprised that the Sepia World aspect of the Corruptor Beast isn’t major server issues that Hurricane actually notices (but can’t do anything about)…
That’s a screenshot.
She made it her background, because at the bottom is the start bar and the notification panel. Plus, no loading screen has action bars and health/mana meters.
I don’t think Penk on her screen implies anything. It could be a screen of her last known location (the quarry), and Penk is within view of her camera.
I think it depends on whether the game is an ‘interface’ to Arkerra, or a kind of magic mirror. Though the fact that characters of non-tubed players appear in Arkerra, and are, as shown here, affected by the events there, shows at least some interaction.
I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say, but the point is that we just found out that those events happened while the player wasn’t even playing.
Also, you weren’t listening very hard during H.R.’s talk about shadows.
I think what Nathanyel was trying to describe is a possible distinction between the world of Arkerra that people play as a game on their PCs, and the (virtual, magical, alternate, etc) reality Arkerra that our main characters inhabit and the comic portrays.
It still isn’t clear in the comic if ‘real world’ players are directly controlling the characters we see in the comic (interface option) or if these characters are merely patterned off the characters being played in the game, but exist separately in the virtual reality (magic mirror option)
The last thing Nathanyel points out is that either way we now know that events in virtual/comic Arkerra can affect the accounts of people playing the game in the sepia world.
As you say, these events happened without gamer Rachel being logged in, so maybe that’s evidence supporting the magic mirror theory.
To help with questions and answers is the game is changing. We found that scripted events can be altered as seen with the “torched forest” event. That moment had been released when it wasn’t supposed to and even then the events had changed. Now with the character Bios and actions made by the players… their PC characters have started to become altered. Now they are getting the NPC evolution treatment when their not in control so while she may have had one of the “main” story npcs. She did not make it’s actions like the relationship with the half-elf or the co-op assault against the beast.
The magic is getting stronger as the world itself is growing/changing. It’s like Dot Hack (1st one) except the players aren’t dying or playing the NPCs.
I think I need another page before I determine whether or not she was actually present for her characters death. It is possible that the woman logged off in response to the bad outcome in the game, and found herself in the situation she’s in now after trying to log back in. It’s less likey than your theory, but still valid.
That’s… problematic. In Toy Story, the toys were aware of their nature and had an idea of what the kid was doing while playing with them. In Arkerra, the characters seem totally oblivious.
If Rachel the character has a life of her own when her player is AFK, what happens when the player returns to the keyboard?
Is it possession, like the loa riding you? If so, does the character find it weird later, when self-control is reestablished?
Is it that the two entities somehow blend seamlessly into one? If so, does the player temporarily gain awareness of Rachel’s off-the-books experiences and memories? And forget them instantly when she logs off?
That’s why I think KoA is “merely” a game world, but magically linked to Arkerra. At least the main characters are influenced by their players, possibly shaping their *puts on sunglasses* character by RP, but the players can still play the normal quests, grind mobs, die and respawn, etc. – this page shows Lia doesn’t seem to think of herself as a “special” player.
That’s exactly the divide that I actively dislike. I don’t want there to be a real Arkerra out there somewhere, totally separate from Sepia except that HR somehow taps into it via magical game design. That’s not in line with the Plato’s cave allegory at all, because Plato is not talking about two distinct worlds with shadows as some gimmicky link between them – he’s talking about a single world but two different perceptions, one of which is intentionally limited (people chained in a cave) so as to seem more real, actively refusing the higher, sunlit version of reality.
OK, so maybe Arkerra as you describe it didn’t exist at all until the Five were plugged in, so there’s more of a hereditary connection there, but still. I’d hoped for a deeper involvement of the Sepia characters, not some superficial bit along the lines of “Uh, I went to sleep and I guess my character came to life then or something, I dunno. I thought it was all just RP.”
I took both pills, so I can do all kinds of amazing things, without waking up and realizing that spoiler spoiler battery, spoiler spoiler future, spoiler spoiler Aaaaah! The spoiler is gonna spoiler me!
Wait… HR chewed up the red pill and the blue pill together, and then he drooled all over his tie. This comic and The Matrix finally make perfect sense! See, the deal with this comic is that — ——- — — —— —- —- —-! —– —- — —- — –. — —- —– —– —– — – — ——! — —– —— — — —- —–!!! — — –?
This is why one should never trust the “cloud” alone. The only secure backups are backups you can touch the storage enclosure for… well the several storage enclosures for data redundancy. Sadly online “service ” based games like MMOs don’t like people having local copies of player data. Partly for processing and bandwidth reasons, partly for data security on their end (fighting off dem hackers).
Listen, not that I disagree, but ‘because the CEO of the company might be a wizard bent on achieving godhood through an MMORPG and your character might be wiped in the process of his attempts’ is NOT a valid reason to need to backup files.
Well, the alternative is to encode your character data into the “junk” segments of your DNA. I mean, it’s pretty effective, but the retroviruses always make me puke. x-p
Also, this suggests that the other people devoured by the beast are either PCs, or they exist only in the living Arkherra, not within the game…I’m sure Hurricane would notice if a bunch of NPC data disappeared.
MUDs do still exist, and the software is free. But even if he means something bigger, it’s an accurate statement. Moreso, in fact, because of the larger database. As long as the database remains consistent (no pointers to missing data) it’s just not something that would show up until you explicitly look for it, and you can’t just constantly scan the whole DB (performance reasons) so it would take a direct access attempt for that specific record — e.g., the user trying to log in — before anyone could know it was missing.
It is a MUD, yeah. It’s also a pretty big one, in terms of the size of the game; other than the lack of graphics it’s probably similar in scope to how big a typical MMO would be at launch. (In terms of the size of the playerbase… not so much. We have thirteen players online right now.)
It’s based on the worlds of Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana, and uses the job system from Final Fantasy Tactics, if you want to look into it. And it’s completely 100% free to play, with no ads, we do not make money, it’s all just something we do cause it’s fun. http://uossmud.sandwich.net
Regarding the comic: A game like Kingdoms of Arkherra or World of Warcraft obviously will have much better tools to monitor parts of the game than we do, but they’re still not going to be checking for things that are impossible. I mean, how do you code the subroutine that checks to see if a file deletion was performed by an extradimensional virus?
Ya know, most game company CEOs would consider a bug that deletes all character data backups then locks the user account when a character dies in battle to be a BAD THING.
HR, you suck at your job.
…
It might sell well to the super l33t H4RDC0R3 G4M3R crowd who like being pushed hard for failure, though. All twenty of them.
I don’t think HR considers running Hurricane and Arkerra (the game) to be his job any more. Right now his job is to be the god of Arkerra (the world) and get the Five out of there.
Meanwhile the people that DO consider running the game their job are likely completely baffled and don’t ACTUALLY know how the game’s programming works (even if they think they do). Sucks to be them.
A bit late on the comment here, but I’m guessing considering all the talk of nondisclosure and secrecy that portions of the game are very specific with whom is working on what, and they are NOT supposed to share what they are doing with others. Heck, the game’s been described as skyrim but more elaborate, so “Hey, where’s NPC (example, Little Troll Boy)” probably doesn’t even come up as a tech support, cause anybody interactin gin the area probably ends up going “Oh wait, in game now Little Troll Girl NPC is talking about how her friend died when a monster attacked. This game has some good writing.”. Even if it came up I doubt the support person responding to this bug report is going to go try and hunt down just who removed little troll boy NPC from the area in an apparent story way only to uncover a vast conspiracy when they realize nobody did it. As mentioned by Lockez no check of the system is going to say “wait a minute, data was seamlessly removed in a way that didn’t cause any problems at all!”
Interesting. Not exactly what I expected of Rachel’s IRL persona, but certainly not disappointing. Someone seems a little strung out, and permanently removing her only outlet of that stress isn’t likely to improve things.
From personal experience, even for non-role players, even when there’s no suspension of disbelief and you’re treating the game on a technical, mechanical and realistic level, there will always be a bit of RP when playing any MMO. Your character will always be someone at least a little different from you in personality.
At the same time, agreeing with and following your logic and thus operating from the opposite point of view:
the game does allow for us to (usually) healthily and safely let out parts of us we usually don’t get to, such as aggression or nobility. Rachel is different from yet true to her IRL player.
The comment system seems to be eating links today, but we did see Lia before, in Chapter 33 – Page 14 (or: go back two pages, click on Xan’s tag, go to page 3, first strip)
While I can understand the frustration, as someone who worked in customer service (deliveries -shudder-), I HATE when someone asks for their time back. Yes it sucks that you waited two months for something that hasn’t shown up, yes the extra week for us to replace your sofa is a pain. We can do credit or money or other options, but if we could funnel time around this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place!
So… the conversation portrayed here is realistic, and so is the fact that she was put on hold before she could finish her sentence (imagining the frustration of the customer service person on the other end).
So… a creepy question. If her character data truly is gone, but Rachel Al-Abinya is recreated stat for stat, XP for XP, achievement for achievement… will she live again? At the game level a character is set of variables selected from a known data set. For examples see the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, which if you played in PC you could edit the character files down to the choices made in some chat dialogs. The Dragonage Keep offers this as web based UI version.
So, even thought she was deleted, if she was recreated bit for byte, would she live again or be a different person?
My guess is no, because my understanding is that Arkerra is a real world, and the game is only a reflection of it. Rachel died for reals, and a programmer in SepiaWorld wouldn’t be able to recreate her.
That seems like the obvious answer, but I’m not so sure. After all, it seems to have happened before. Bandit apparently died that time Byron went berserk, but she was alive and well when everyone made it back home. I don’t remember that ever being adequately explained, but it sure seems to imply strongly that existence in Arkerra is closely tied to the game.
Not sure that qualifies as a philosophical discussion, at least within the last few centuries. Does anyone take dualism seriously anymore, without entangling religion in the argument? The pressing topic now is how to deal with the looming possibility of humans with non-traditional origins!
Yes, in academic philosophy dualism is still taken seriously very much. I’m talking about continental philosophy though.
I myself don’t care that much for metaphysics.
“Academic philosophy” in what sense? Giving the historical context is not the same as taking it seriously in the present. For all other cases, I’m going to reiterate my qualifier: “without entangling religion in the argument.”
I studied at one of the biggest philosophy faculties in Europe. Until recently. I’m not sure whether more Profs tend to monism or dualism. If you propose a paper about dualism for a philosophy symposium it will be accepted (if the topic fits and it is a good paper, of course.) That for me counts as being taken seriously.
I myself am no fan of cartesian dualism, but monism doesn’t convince me neither. (The problem of consciousness is probably not going to be solved so I don’t care to much.)
No, it isn’t, because a clone of a human (using modern technology) will not have the memories or the experiences of its parent. It’s not exactly the same person.
If you mean “is the clone a person”, then yes, 100%. Biologically, there is no difference between that human and any other human.
So… I’m not totally sure what you meant, but either way it’s not the same philosophical question.
Although… it is not possible to recreate a character *exactly* the same. If nothing else, the file creation history will be different. Even if the files looked exactly the same… no two computer cycles are alike. So just like a clone without the memories of the person who donated the DNA, it is biologically the same but not *exactly* the same.
Honestly, if Lia tried that I think the in game world if Rachel was recreated it would be a different person. Might have the same face, name, and skills and her player roleplay here the same way, but if the avvies do function when not being played and/or have sentience not determined by their player than that would likely function differently. Though if the player has complete control than she can roleplay Rachel as if she remembered the others and is the same Rachel.
Buuuut I am thinking that since Frigg and Gravedust (and possibly Fr’nj) know for a fact that Rachel can’t comeback the others wouldn’t accept her as the same Rachel anyways.
@Dorje Sylas: there are a few stories that deal with attempting to recreate a person by making a clone and giving it the same life experiences. I can think of two titles right off the bat: “Cyteen” and “Joshua, son of None”.
Also, back in the late 70’s there was a series of incidents known as the “Wish Wars” among the D&D community i played in. It was all about rival characters attempting to destroy each other for good. It soon reached the point of wishing that someone had never been born and furthermore could not have ever been born. This was countered by someone else wishing for a diary that detailed the life said character would have had if they had been born, creating a flesh golem, turning it into a living body, giving it language, and making it read the diary.
Interesting, earlier her character profile was shown in color on Xan’s computer, and H.R.’s monitors are always shown in color. But now her monitor is Sepia.
Okay… I get that the character was deleted due to the encounter with the Digi-Cracken… but what gives with the account being locked out for 30 days? It’s like… “Have some urine tea to wash down that poop potpie I just served you! … AND LIKE IT!”
I guess it’s a way for Akherra Game to stay consistant with Akherra World and prevent the player to make the exact same character right after her supposedly total disappearance….
More than likely, her account either got wiped out with the character data because it was associated with the delete-beast’s prey, or it got locked out because of the drastic alteration to data in a manner not meant to be… and the account got locked out for hacking or some other protective measure/response.
Or, HR set it up to where users whose characters got wiped by the Beast would have their accounts locked for 30 days. He probably figures that that’s enough time for him to accomplish what he wants to do, and anyone who complains about their character being wiped won’t be taken seriously by anyone outside the company, once it’s learned that their account has been locked.
When someone says their account has been locked, people assume they were trying to cheat or that they violated the terms of service in some other way. They’d be like, “Try getting a life for 30 days, and don’t break the rules again, when your account is unlocked.”
Customer service at Hurricane could have even been instructed to blow off any complaints from users who report such problems.
Penk could be an alt of hers and not an NPC. maybe when she found Rachel deleted she tried to log into her secondary toon and found she was locked out.
Hmmm. Interesting. Age of Wushu has an option for players to have their characters do tasks while the player is logged off. You can even be kidnapped. I wonder if that’s an option in this game? Either way, if I were in Hurricane. I give her a toon with the equivalent class, level and gear to quiet her down. Cause you know she will rage on the forums.
…”cursing rage monster”? No, she’s just a person who is frustrated by something happening to her account outside of her control. Her reaction is quite common for people dealing with Customer Service.
Man…she was running autonomous the whole time…didn’t even get to see her own noble sacrifice.
… … ..thinking…was the flirting with e-merl also from autonomous mode?
there was a game that did that…can’t remember the name…think it was a space sim. Basically you built a personality profile for your character and it followed those patterns while you were logged off. Buying/selling/hunting/mining/whatever.
Interesting that all of you read this and concluded that the fight with the Beast and Rachel’s death occurred while Lia was asleep. That’s not how I read it at first. I figured she was “playing” Rachel during the battle, died, and assumed that she would be able to respawn in the morning (just as Bandit did), because to her, the Beast was just another monster (though oddly not in keeping with the game’s theme).
Now that I read it again I guess it’s a little strange that she wouldn’t mention Rachel’s death to the customer service agent, and I can see how you got the other interpretation. And if Arkerra really is a real, independent world, than it’s logical that Rachel would still be running around even while Lia sleeps.
Still, I think both interpretations are possible so far.
I have to say I do like your interpretation better. But it raises the question of whether the SepiaWorld “players” really have any influence on what goes on in Arkerra at ALL. Is there any evidence that they do?? Obviously they THINK that they do, but do they actually?
You know, we might only be seeing the times when the characters are interacting with the Peacemakers. Rachel might’ve died dozens of times a day, when soloing or teaming in random groups. She might not even realize that this is the first time in a while that she’s died in the presence of one of the Five.
Also, I noticed the line “eight months”. Do you think that only 8 months have passed (in SepiaWorld and perhaps Arkerra) since we met Rachel? I suppose it’s possible that it’s actually been a much shorter time in Arkerra. However it feels to me like it’s been a much longer time … although that may just be because I’ve been reading this comic for years!
I imagine the day we met Rachel was not also the day Rachel’s player first created her character (as we already know she had a backstory prior to us meeting her)
She went to bed and woke up to a deleted character. IN GAME RACHEL was her own entity, acting on her own when not being played. Real world Rachel doesn’t seem to know what happened.
That’s the popular theory ATM, but it’s not really a sure thing yet. I kind of don’t like this Toy Story theory, avatars running around without any user input. It divorces the basic premise from reality. Arkerra becomes just a boilerplate fantasy world of wizards & warriors, with little (if any) connection to the Sepia world players.
…it IS a boilerplate fantasy world of wizards and warriors. It’s an MMO. It’s already established that players around the four can do things that others can’t and that the four’s influence is expanding; NPCs and other players have been gaining unusual capabilities due to their association with the four.
But it (meaning the comic) wasn’t boilerplate fantasy, not really. I grew bored with stuff like LFG after 50 pages or so, because it’s standard MMO+ stuff.
Guilded Age, on the other hand, described an MMO unlike anything we have in the RW, so immersive that the players found themselves unable to break character, at least those who hung around The Four regularly. Now if it turns out they were just halfway there, unaware of what their character was doing while they were AFK… it’s huge Arkerra/Sepia cutoff. Instead of one interesting mesh of RW-FantasyWorld, we’re getting two distinct halves, one boilerplate fantasy, one boilerplate RW gaming.
I just, you know, have a baaad feeling about this…
Hello “Rachel”. (Or should I say “Lia”?)
Nice to finally meet you in person.
I just hope that 1) the real “E-Merl” appears soon and 2) Shanna pays Lia a visit to get her side of this story.
“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.”
Speaking as a worker in a network operations center, I can assure you that data loss due to eldritch abomination is a very rare occurrence, our engineers will be engaged in mitigation efforts immediately, and the next update will be at 13:00 UTC.
What I find interesting is that she doesn’t seem to be aware of what happened the night before – she doesn’t say her character got killed, or anything. She’s just gone. She went to bed. Woke up. Girl gone.
They might log off, but the characters and the world don’t disappear – especially not with the Five around to interact with them…
This world’s game may correlate with their world, but it still is definitely functioning as its own world.
*You have been eaten by a Grue*
Well played!
“Would you like to play again? Y / N”
“YES! Gods damn you!”
I’m kind of surprised that the Sepia World aspect of the Corruptor Beast isn’t major server issues that Hurricane actually notices (but can’t do anything about)…
Seems to me that it’s only unnoticed because the beast wiped the character out of the backups as well.
Or maybe this is an “interacting with tube people means you now play in hardcore mode” thing.
Bandit is pretty hardcore, yes, but not [i]that[/i]hardcore. Remember the respawn?
..Could we please have a comment preview? Or an edit function? Please?
Wait… but Harky didn’t get destroyed. So… Did they lock the owner out to control the character to manipulate the five?
Oh, wait, Axemas special, right.
Where does Harky enter into this?
This is Rachel’s player, and that’s Penk on the loading screen (thus telling us Penk is an NPC).
Maybe it’s a main / title screen, rather than a character selection screen.
She’s getting trolled on top of getting her char deleted and acount blocked ! XD
I normally hate to spell things out like this, but it’s not Penk. It’s just supposed to be a generic troll PC model on a loading screen.
but…it has harky’s lobster armour and funky symbol O.o
sure it’s not a easter egg?:D
Phil is the creator sir
Yes, we’ve noticed your distaste for spelling things out. :p
That’s a screenshot.
She made it her background, because at the bottom is the start bar and the notification panel. Plus, no loading screen has action bars and health/mana meters.
I don’t think Penk on her screen implies anything. It could be a screen of her last known location (the quarry), and Penk is within view of her camera.
Hey, a partial answer to the question of sapience of the non-tubed within Arkerra.
I think it depends on whether the game is an ‘interface’ to Arkerra, or a kind of magic mirror. Though the fact that characters of non-tubed players appear in Arkerra, and are, as shown here, affected by the events there, shows at least some interaction.
I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say, but the point is that we just found out that those events happened while the player wasn’t even playing.
Also, you weren’t listening very hard during H.R.’s talk about shadows.
I think what Nathanyel was trying to describe is a possible distinction between the world of Arkerra that people play as a game on their PCs, and the (virtual, magical, alternate, etc) reality Arkerra that our main characters inhabit and the comic portrays.
It still isn’t clear in the comic if ‘real world’ players are directly controlling the characters we see in the comic (interface option) or if these characters are merely patterned off the characters being played in the game, but exist separately in the virtual reality (magic mirror option)
The last thing Nathanyel points out is that either way we now know that events in virtual/comic Arkerra can affect the accounts of people playing the game in the sepia world.
As you say, these events happened without gamer Rachel being logged in, so maybe that’s evidence supporting the magic mirror theory.
To help with questions and answers is the game is changing. We found that scripted events can be altered as seen with the “torched forest” event. That moment had been released when it wasn’t supposed to and even then the events had changed. Now with the character Bios and actions made by the players… their PC characters have started to become altered. Now they are getting the NPC evolution treatment when their not in control so while she may have had one of the “main” story npcs. She did not make it’s actions like the relationship with the half-elf or the co-op assault against the beast.
The magic is getting stronger as the world itself is growing/changing. It’s like Dot Hack (1st one) except the players aren’t dying or playing the NPCs.
Thanks. I do admit I strayed from the topic of Alex’ post to get a bit of my grand theory across. Good work tying it together :D
I think I need another page before I determine whether or not she was actually present for her characters death. It is possible that the woman logged off in response to the bad outcome in the game, and found herself in the situation she’s in now after trying to log back in. It’s less likey than your theory, but still valid.
That answers that.
Also kind of answers whether or not the players are roleplaying all that out, or if the characters have their own lives when they’re not logged in.
It’s like Toy Story with logged-out-PCs-turned-NPCs…
That’s a pretty cool way of thinking of it.
Buzz Lightyear is Best! (What? You’re saying Buzz isn’t tanked?)
(Sorry, ignore this comment. Move along, move along)
I think the players create/influence the characters’ personalities, but in the actual Arkerra, they are their own entities.
That’s… problematic. In Toy Story, the toys were aware of their nature and had an idea of what the kid was doing while playing with them. In Arkerra, the characters seem totally oblivious.
If Rachel the character has a life of her own when her player is AFK, what happens when the player returns to the keyboard?
Is it possession, like the loa riding you? If so, does the character find it weird later, when self-control is reestablished?
Is it that the two entities somehow blend seamlessly into one? If so, does the player temporarily gain awareness of Rachel’s off-the-books experiences and memories? And forget them instantly when she logs off?
That’s why I think KoA is “merely” a game world, but magically linked to Arkerra. At least the main characters are influenced by their players, possibly shaping their *puts on sunglasses* character by RP, but the players can still play the normal quests, grind mobs, die and respawn, etc. – this page shows Lia doesn’t seem to think of herself as a “special” player.
That’s exactly the divide that I actively dislike. I don’t want there to be a real Arkerra out there somewhere, totally separate from Sepia except that HR somehow taps into it via magical game design. That’s not in line with the Plato’s cave allegory at all, because Plato is not talking about two distinct worlds with shadows as some gimmicky link between them – he’s talking about a single world but two different perceptions, one of which is intentionally limited (people chained in a cave) so as to seem more real, actively refusing the higher, sunlit version of reality.
OK, so maybe Arkerra as you describe it didn’t exist at all until the Five were plugged in, so there’s more of a hereditary connection there, but still. I’d hoped for a deeper involvement of the Sepia characters, not some superficial bit along the lines of “Uh, I went to sleep and I guess my character came to life then or something, I dunno. I thought it was all just RP.”
Matrix poster. Nice.
Choose the red pill for a more colourful life.
I took both pills, so I can do all kinds of amazing things, without waking up and realizing that spoiler spoiler battery, spoiler spoiler future, spoiler spoiler Aaaaah! The spoiler is gonna spoiler me!
Wait… HR chewed up the red pill and the blue pill together, and then he drooled all over his tie. This comic and The Matrix finally make perfect sense! See, the deal with this comic is that — ——- — — —— —- —- —-! —– —- — —- — –. — —- —– —– —– — – — ——! — —– —— — — —- —–!!! — — –?
Ya see? thats why you should make a copy of your character’s save file as a back up, or if you cant companies should give you the option to do so!!!
This is why one should never trust the “cloud” alone. The only secure backups are backups you can touch the storage enclosure for… well the several storage enclosures for data redundancy. Sadly online “service ” based games like MMOs don’t like people having local copies of player data. Partly for processing and bandwidth reasons, partly for data security on their end (fighting off dem hackers).
Listen, not that I disagree, but ‘because the CEO of the company might be a wizard bent on achieving godhood through an MMORPG and your character might be wiped in the process of his attempts’ is NOT a valid reason to need to backup files.
Ok, you win an internets for that reply.
Also, I now want insurance for just this occasion.
Lloyd’s will happily write you a policy for that. Won’t be cheap though :)
But it’s expensive to buy the natural-disaster-proof reinforced boxes and ship them to separate continents.
Well, the alternative is to encode your character data into the “junk” segments of your DNA. I mean, it’s pretty effective, but the retroviruses always make me puke. x-p
Also, this suggests that the other people devoured by the beast are either PCs, or they exist only in the living Arkherra, not within the game…I’m sure Hurricane would notice if a bunch of NPC data disappeared.
Maybe they have noticed the disappearing data at Huricane. This is only page one. Give it some time.
As someone who runs an online RPG… no, we likely wouldn’t notice random missing NPCs unless a player submitted a bug report about it.
…you do what now? 0_0
MUDs do still exist, and the software is free. But even if he means something bigger, it’s an accurate statement. Moreso, in fact, because of the larger database. As long as the database remains consistent (no pointers to missing data) it’s just not something that would show up until you explicitly look for it, and you can’t just constantly scan the whole DB (performance reasons) so it would take a direct access attempt for that specific record — e.g., the user trying to log in — before anyone could know it was missing.
It is a MUD, yeah. It’s also a pretty big one, in terms of the size of the game; other than the lack of graphics it’s probably similar in scope to how big a typical MMO would be at launch. (In terms of the size of the playerbase… not so much. We have thirteen players online right now.)
It’s based on the worlds of Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana, and uses the job system from Final Fantasy Tactics, if you want to look into it. And it’s completely 100% free to play, with no ads, we do not make money, it’s all just something we do cause it’s fun. http://uossmud.sandwich.net
Regarding the comic: A game like Kingdoms of Arkherra or World of Warcraft obviously will have much better tools to monitor parts of the game than we do, but they’re still not going to be checking for things that are impossible. I mean, how do you code the subroutine that checks to see if a file deletion was performed by an extradimensional virus?
…suddenly I have a new MUD to check out for some reason. Though it has been years since my last…
Goodness, I had no idea. I’ll give it a look later this week.
Ya know, most game company CEOs would consider a bug that deletes all character data backups then locks the user account when a character dies in battle to be a BAD THING.
HR, you suck at your job.
…
It might sell well to the super l33t H4RDC0R3 G4M3R crowd who like being pushed hard for failure, though. All twenty of them.
I don’t think HR considers running Hurricane and Arkerra (the game) to be his job any more. Right now his job is to be the god of Arkerra (the world) and get the Five out of there.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Meanwhile the people that DO consider running the game their job are likely completely baffled and don’t ACTUALLY know how the game’s programming works (even if they think they do). Sucks to be them.
A bit late on the comment here, but I’m guessing considering all the talk of nondisclosure and secrecy that portions of the game are very specific with whom is working on what, and they are NOT supposed to share what they are doing with others. Heck, the game’s been described as skyrim but more elaborate, so “Hey, where’s NPC (example, Little Troll Boy)” probably doesn’t even come up as a tech support, cause anybody interactin gin the area probably ends up going “Oh wait, in game now Little Troll Girl NPC is talking about how her friend died when a monster attacked. This game has some good writing.”. Even if it came up I doubt the support person responding to this bug report is going to go try and hunt down just who removed little troll boy NPC from the area in an apparent story way only to uncover a vast conspiracy when they realize nobody did it. As mentioned by Lockez no check of the system is going to say “wait a minute, data was seamlessly removed in a way that didn’t cause any problems at all!”
Interesting. Not exactly what I expected of Rachel’s IRL persona, but certainly not disappointing. Someone seems a little strung out, and permanently removing her only outlet of that stress isn’t likely to improve things.
I look forward to how this develops.
And my gravatar just made me really sad…
From personal experience, even for non-role players, even when there’s no suspension of disbelief and you’re treating the game on a technical, mechanical and realistic level, there will always be a bit of RP when playing any MMO. Your character will always be someone at least a little different from you in personality.
At the same time, agreeing with and following your logic and thus operating from the opposite point of view:
the game does allow for us to (usually) healthily and safely let out parts of us we usually don’t get to, such as aggression or nobility. Rachel is different from yet true to her IRL player.
Just started RPing in an MMO (ESO) for the first time recently, and this just screams Truth at me.
The comment system seems to be eating links today, but we did see Lia before, in Chapter 33 – Page 14 (or: go back two pages, click on Xan’s tag, go to page 3, first strip)
While I can understand the frustration, as someone who worked in customer service (deliveries -shudder-), I HATE when someone asks for their time back. Yes it sucks that you waited two months for something that hasn’t shown up, yes the extra week for us to replace your sofa is a pain. We can do credit or money or other options, but if we could funnel time around this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place!
…I’ve said too much.
Nah, asking for time back is sarcastic. Asking for money back is dumb.
So… the conversation portrayed here is realistic, and so is the fact that she was put on hold before she could finish her sentence (imagining the frustration of the customer service person on the other end).
Obviously, my memory is playing tricks on me. I thought Rachels´ player was much older.
So… a creepy question. If her character data truly is gone, but Rachel Al-Abinya is recreated stat for stat, XP for XP, achievement for achievement… will she live again? At the game level a character is set of variables selected from a known data set. For examples see the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, which if you played in PC you could edit the character files down to the choices made in some chat dialogs. The Dragonage Keep offers this as web based UI version.
So, even thought she was deleted, if she was recreated bit for byte, would she live again or be a different person?
Accursed reply system that was supposed to post under yours.
My guess is no, because my understanding is that Arkerra is a real world, and the game is only a reflection of it. Rachel died for reals, and a programmer in SepiaWorld wouldn’t be able to recreate her.
That seems like the obvious answer, but I’m not so sure. After all, it seems to have happened before. Bandit apparently died that time Byron went berserk, but she was alive and well when everyone made it back home. I don’t remember that ever being adequately explained, but it sure seems to imply strongly that existence in Arkerra is closely tied to the game.
I feel like this is the exact same philosophical discussion re: Is a clone of a human just as human as the original?
Yes.
Not sure that qualifies as a philosophical discussion, at least within the last few centuries. Does anyone take dualism seriously anymore, without entangling religion in the argument? The pressing topic now is how to deal with the looming possibility of humans with non-traditional origins!
Yes, in academic philosophy dualism is still taken seriously very much. I’m talking about continental philosophy though.
I myself don’t care that much for metaphysics.
“Academic philosophy” in what sense? Giving the historical context is not the same as taking it seriously in the present. For all other cases, I’m going to reiterate my qualifier: “without entangling religion in the argument.”
I studied at one of the biggest philosophy faculties in Europe. Until recently. I’m not sure whether more Profs tend to monism or dualism. If you propose a paper about dualism for a philosophy symposium it will be accepted (if the topic fits and it is a good paper, of course.) That for me counts as being taken seriously.
I myself am no fan of cartesian dualism, but monism doesn’t convince me neither. (The problem of consciousness is probably not going to be solved so I don’t care to much.)
Oh, and your qualifier doesn’t apply neither, as far as I can tell.
Welp, if it’s a Hollywood clone (basically a ghola), one that springs into being all grown up, with most of the original’s memories… then yes.
It’s kind of a variant of the Ship of Theseus.
No, it isn’t, because a clone of a human (using modern technology) will not have the memories or the experiences of its parent. It’s not exactly the same person.
If you mean “is the clone a person”, then yes, 100%. Biologically, there is no difference between that human and any other human.
So… I’m not totally sure what you meant, but either way it’s not the same philosophical question.
Although… it is not possible to recreate a character *exactly* the same. If nothing else, the file creation history will be different. Even if the files looked exactly the same… no two computer cycles are alike. So just like a clone without the memories of the person who donated the DNA, it is biologically the same but not *exactly* the same.
Honestly, if Lia tried that I think the in game world if Rachel was recreated it would be a different person. Might have the same face, name, and skills and her player roleplay here the same way, but if the avvies do function when not being played and/or have sentience not determined by their player than that would likely function differently. Though if the player has complete control than she can roleplay Rachel as if she remembered the others and is the same Rachel.
Buuuut I am thinking that since Frigg and Gravedust (and possibly Fr’nj) know for a fact that Rachel can’t comeback the others wouldn’t accept her as the same Rachel anyways.
@Dorje Sylas: there are a few stories that deal with attempting to recreate a person by making a clone and giving it the same life experiences. I can think of two titles right off the bat: “Cyteen” and “Joshua, son of None”.
Also, back in the late 70’s there was a series of incidents known as the “Wish Wars” among the D&D community i played in. It was all about rival characters attempting to destroy each other for good. It soon reached the point of wishing that someone had never been born and furthermore could not have ever been born. This was countered by someone else wishing for a diary that detailed the life said character would have had if they had been born, creating a flesh golem, turning it into a living body, giving it language, and making it read the diary.
I’m just glad the character deletion effects don’t extend to the real world, ie. Rachel’s player isn’t dead ala Matrix.
And… only now do I notice the Matrix poster behind her PC…
You noticed it before. You just didn’t notice that you noticed it.
Thank the Heart-Of-All for Lia! I suspected I might like Rachel more on first seeing the woman behind the avvie!
Yeah, I really love the Rachwl-Lia dichotomy we’re e already seeing here.
….at first I thought Penk was her character…THAT would have been a surprise.
Interesting, earlier her character profile was shown in color on Xan’s computer, and H.R.’s monitors are always shown in color. But now her monitor is Sepia.
She’s been disconnected from the other world.
Okay… I get that the character was deleted due to the encounter with the Digi-Cracken… but what gives with the account being locked out for 30 days? It’s like… “Have some urine tea to wash down that poop potpie I just served you! … AND LIKE IT!”
I guess it’s a way for Akherra Game to stay consistant with Akherra World and prevent the player to make the exact same character right after her supposedly total disappearance….
More than likely, her account either got wiped out with the character data because it was associated with the delete-beast’s prey, or it got locked out because of the drastic alteration to data in a manner not meant to be… and the account got locked out for hacking or some other protective measure/response.
Or, HR set it up to where users whose characters got wiped by the Beast would have their accounts locked for 30 days. He probably figures that that’s enough time for him to accomplish what he wants to do, and anyone who complains about their character being wiped won’t be taken seriously by anyone outside the company, once it’s learned that their account has been locked.
When someone says their account has been locked, people assume they were trying to cheat or that they violated the terms of service in some other way. They’d be like, “Try getting a life for 30 days, and don’t break the rules again, when your account is unlocked.”
Customer service at Hurricane could have even been instructed to blow off any complaints from users who report such problems.
Penk could be an alt of hers and not an NPC. maybe when she found Rachel deleted she tried to log into her secondary toon and found she was locked out.
That would explain why Penk suddenly had to go fiddle with himself, the whole time Rachel and the others were fighting. xD
Of course if Penk’s user is Xan, then the whole fleeing for his life thing kept Xan AFK that whole time.
Hmmm. Interesting. Age of Wushu has an option for players to have their characters do tasks while the player is logged off. You can even be kidnapped. I wonder if that’s an option in this game? Either way, if I were in Hurricane. I give her a toon with the equivalent class, level and gear to quiet her down. Cause you know she will rage on the forums.
RAchels players is a cursing rage monster?
Uh…okay, so, Frigg’s player was some kind of zen master before entering game then?
…”cursing rage monster”? No, she’s just a person who is frustrated by something happening to her account outside of her control. Her reaction is quite common for people dealing with Customer Service.
Uh no, we saw her. Definitely not.
And Rachel was a “cursing rage monster” at times too. I recall for instance the word “fucktard”.
Man…she was running autonomous the whole time…didn’t even get to see her own noble sacrifice.
… … ..thinking…was the flirting with e-merl also from autonomous mode?
That would be trippy if your online character completed random quests while you were offline.
there was a game that did that…can’t remember the name…think it was a space sim. Basically you built a personality profile for your character and it followed those patterns while you were logged off. Buying/selling/hunting/mining/whatever.
Interesting that all of you read this and concluded that the fight with the Beast and Rachel’s death occurred while Lia was asleep. That’s not how I read it at first. I figured she was “playing” Rachel during the battle, died, and assumed that she would be able to respawn in the morning (just as Bandit did), because to her, the Beast was just another monster (though oddly not in keeping with the game’s theme).
Now that I read it again I guess it’s a little strange that she wouldn’t mention Rachel’s death to the customer service agent, and I can see how you got the other interpretation. And if Arkerra really is a real, independent world, than it’s logical that Rachel would still be running around even while Lia sleeps.
Still, I think both interpretations are possible so far.
I have to say I do like your interpretation better. But it raises the question of whether the SepiaWorld “players” really have any influence on what goes on in Arkerra at ALL. Is there any evidence that they do?? Obviously they THINK that they do, but do they actually?
Did a comment get deleted or are you agreeing with yourself? :P
LOL. “your” = “everyone else but me”. As in I prefer everyone else’s read to my own initial one. Sorry for the confusion.
You know, we might only be seeing the times when the characters are interacting with the Peacemakers. Rachel might’ve died dozens of times a day, when soloing or teaming in random groups. She might not even realize that this is the first time in a while that she’s died in the presence of one of the Five.
Also, I noticed the line “eight months”. Do you think that only 8 months have passed (in SepiaWorld and perhaps Arkerra) since we met Rachel? I suppose it’s possible that it’s actually been a much shorter time in Arkerra. However it feels to me like it’s been a much longer time … although that may just be because I’ve been reading this comic for years!
I imagine the day we met Rachel was not also the day Rachel’s player first created her character (as we already know she had a backstory prior to us meeting her)
Interest levels: still rising.
She went to bed and woke up to a deleted character. IN GAME RACHEL was her own entity, acting on her own when not being played. Real world Rachel doesn’t seem to know what happened.
Rachel really did die. Stakes raised.
That’s the popular theory ATM, but it’s not really a sure thing yet. I kind of don’t like this Toy Story theory, avatars running around without any user input. It divorces the basic premise from reality. Arkerra becomes just a boilerplate fantasy world of wizards & warriors, with little (if any) connection to the Sepia world players.
…it IS a boilerplate fantasy world of wizards and warriors. It’s an MMO. It’s already established that players around the four can do things that others can’t and that the four’s influence is expanding; NPCs and other players have been gaining unusual capabilities due to their association with the four.
A more appropriate comparison would be Tron.
But it (meaning the comic) wasn’t boilerplate fantasy, not really. I grew bored with stuff like LFG after 50 pages or so, because it’s standard MMO+ stuff.
Guilded Age, on the other hand, described an MMO unlike anything we have in the RW, so immersive that the players found themselves unable to break character, at least those who hung around The Four regularly. Now if it turns out they were just halfway there, unaware of what their character was doing while they were AFK… it’s huge Arkerra/Sepia cutoff. Instead of one interesting mesh of RW-FantasyWorld, we’re getting two distinct halves, one boilerplate fantasy, one boilerplate RW gaming.
I just, you know, have a baaad feeling about this…
Hello “Rachel”. (Or should I say “Lia”?)
Nice to finally meet you in person.
I just hope that 1) the real “E-Merl” appears soon and 2) Shanna pays Lia a visit to get her side of this story.
“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.”
Speaking as a worker in a network operations center, I can assure you that data loss due to eldritch abomination is a very rare occurrence, our engineers will be engaged in mitigation efforts immediately, and the next update will be at 13:00 UTC.
What I find interesting is that she doesn’t seem to be aware of what happened the night before – she doesn’t say her character got killed, or anything. She’s just gone. She went to bed. Woke up. Girl gone.
They might log off, but the characters and the world don’t disappear – especially not with the Five around to interact with them…
This world’s game may correlate with their world, but it still is definitely functioning as its own world.