It’s… probably a trick. But still it’d be REALLY cool if it weren’t but then the cultists screwed things up, I mean how often do villains just stop and realize “Jeez what I’m doing is terrible and I’m terrible and I should change”?
Yeah, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Last time we saw H.R., after all, he was near-completely insane and going on about how his creation was defying his authority as its god and strongly implying he was going to to go in there himself, dragging Carol along for the ride. That he’s both apparently sane and remorseful now is suspicious. I can’t wait to see how this develops.
I’m guessing the position of “interim CEO” will actually be more like “permanent new CEO”. She’s the Pepper Potts to his… conscience-tortured Harvey Dent?
I dunno, this started out as an analogy and became more of a mixed metaphor…
Calling it now, HR is going in. He’s acting like someone with a terminal disease, putting his affairs in order before he goes. And he’s clearly not getting what this announcement is doing to Carol . . .
I think he’s always known that this was terrible. It really wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. If he didn’t object to where this all went then he easily could’ve just let this be a successful game without worrying about fixing the situation with the six.
I also think he’s making Carol interim CEO so that he can put himself in a tube and try to fix things from the inside, which may or may not involve tricking her. Needs somebody to run the company while he’s off in the game trying kill the heroes back into reality or however this pans out.
“Yes, I’m stepping back. You deserve to be CEO. I’ve already arranged your desk for you; it’s right here in this otherwise empty fluid-filled tank. Why don’t you sit down and see how it fit- er, feels? Please, I insist. No, really – I INSIST.”
Yeah, i figured he was going to go off along the lines of “The five managed to get a new guild created!!! Only I should have the authority to create new guilds!!!”
Monday’s comic: after getting her wits together, Carol realizes the best thing to do is call the police, so call them she does. HR gets an involuntary manslaughter sentence. The courts leave it to the families of each person what to do with their tube.
Last paragraph of the entire webcomic: “And what became of Guilded World? Did our heroes succeed, or – strange as it may sound – did evil succeed in the end? Perhaps we will never know. But let this be a cautionary tale to all you aspiring game developers: Beware ye of blurring too finely the line between the MMO worlds and real-world. PLTLH.”
Yes… Either the ‘take the rest of today off’ is an excuse to get her out of the way while he does something drastic, a lie to {catch her off guard for some nefarious purpose, or maybe just test her}, or he’s sincere and /she/ will snap and become the new main antagonist, possibly after killing or forcibly tubing him.
It could also be interesting to see a narrative structure in which someone’s rubber band snaps back to cold sanity and the effects stick, but long experience leads me to discount ever seeing a thing. If he’s savable, the narrative will force her to not be (regardless of what would otherwise make sense for her to do). If she’s savable, the narrative will force him to not be (regardless of what would otherwise make sense for him to do). One way or another, the narrative will shoehorn someone into the ongoing role of main antagonist.
They are both about to go take a break from managing the MMO worlds, and HR recently gave the cultists exclusive access to the cyberpunk dimension. By the time they get back to rescuing the five, it’s quite possible the Countless Limbs will have taken advantage of this in a way that makes them rather uncontrollable. HR didn’t tell Carol of this bridge between worlds either, and if he leaves things up to her without remembering to mention it, she’ll be conveniently oblivious as to how those robed guys are getting fancy vector graphics weapons in a fantasy game.
Oh frakk, I was right about the shower and clean clothes ! That’s terrifying in it’s own way. O_O Why am I only right when making crazy assumptions ?: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ?!
Aye, that’s Byron in the red tube on the far left, Syr’Nj in the green tube, Gravedust in the middle pale yellow tube, Frigg in the grey tube, and Best in the golden tube on the far right.
It would actually be pretty awesome if it wasn’t some kind of trick, if he does take some time to back off and rethink his approaches, or at least get his affairs in order and talk his course of action through with Carol before risking himself in a tube to try to get the Five out.
I like the idea of HR being a sane and calculating ‘antagonist’ as opposed to obsessed and reckless.
A sane & calculating antagonist is usually the most dangerous kind. They have an uncanny ability to rationally justify anything they do, so convincing other people to let them get away with whatever they do, regardless of how despicable it is.
Yeah. I kind of wonder (and was kind of surprised that no one said this already) if HR *isn’t* tricking her, but just wants to pass the mess off to someone else. Or something like that. Or if it’s maybe a combination of all: The cultists sent him back (with or without script to say) to take care of some things (or open more doors for them, whatever); he had a brief moment of lucidity (resembling guilt), and in preparing to leave for good decided to pass the mess (and any subsequent blame) directly on to Carol. I for sure didn’t see things going this way!
Hey y’all. Another intrusion attempt from one of your ads. Details from Norton:
Category: Intrusion Prevention
Date & Time: 8/9/2013 7:05:01 PM
Risk: High
Activity: An intrusion attempt by 72.51.47.69 was blocked.
Status: Blocked
Recommended Action: No Action Required
IPS Alert Name: Web Attack: Malicious Toolkit Website 12
Default Action: No Action Required
Action Taken: No Action Required
Attacking Computer: “72.51.47.69, 80”
Attacker URL: “72.51.47.69/adsolution10x32/metrics.php?tnzppl=109cjf&endovenafsl=mvsvsxNgQXBmXSYk1sIXSw1SYpVWAVLOI7KAeyKXMJLWShAWQGAn0uePXT9UmHKAHDO+T9kGDUGuu4al4UA7eugWax+3Qw&br=0920899”
Destination Address: *omitted*
Source Address: 72.51.47.69
Traffic Description: “TCP, www-http”
Network traffic from 72.51.47.69/adsolution10x32/metrics.php?tnzppl=109cjf&endovenafsl=mvsvsxNgQXBmXSYk1sIXSw1SYpVWAVLOI7KAeyKXMJLWShAWQGAn0uePXT9UmHKAHDO+T9kGDUGuu4al4UA7eugWax+3Qw&br=0920899 matches the signature of a known attack. The attack was resulted from \DEVICE\HARDDISKVOLUME2\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MOZILLA FIREFOX\FIREFOX.EXE.
“At least ne of them had a pet. I mean, no one had a wife or girlfriend or anything. And I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who cared about any one of them…Anyway, what was my point here?”
Well, those can feed themselves and might be happy to be rid of those geeks who chose to be put in a tube for some undefined time along with the risks going with new and untested tech instead of staying with people who might have cared for them at least a little.
Oh, talking about wives and girlfriends here. Not the cat. Cats only fits if they’re NOT lock in an appartement, at least for feeding themselves. Or if there’s a nest of mice or bugs somewhere.
best part? other shoe’s already dropped. somthin about a reporter lookin for an order of 5 circular tube-like glass and life support systems, and then a few months later an order for 2 more of the same?
It’s… probably a trick. But still it’d be REALLY cool if it weren’t but then the cultists screwed things up, I mean how often do villains just stop and realize “Jeez what I’m doing is terrible and I’m terrible and I should change”?
Yeah, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Last time we saw H.R., after all, he was near-completely insane and going on about how his creation was defying his authority as its god and strongly implying he was going to to go in there himself, dragging Carol along for the ride. That he’s both apparently sane and remorseful now is suspicious. I can’t wait to see how this develops.
I’m guessing the position of “interim CEO” will actually be more like “permanent new CEO”. She’s the Pepper Potts to his… conscience-tortured Harvey Dent?
I dunno, this started out as an analogy and became more of a mixed metaphor…
Carol is caught between the devil and a hard place, it’s true.
Calling it now, HR is going in. He’s acting like someone with a terminal disease, putting his affairs in order before he goes. And he’s clearly not getting what this announcement is doing to Carol . . .
I think he’s always known that this was terrible. It really wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. If he didn’t object to where this all went then he easily could’ve just let this be a successful game without worrying about fixing the situation with the six.
I also think he’s making Carol interim CEO so that he can put himself in a tube and try to fix things from the inside, which may or may not involve tricking her. Needs somebody to run the company while he’s off in the game trying kill the heroes back into reality or however this pans out.
How often do heroes realise it?
… Or rather how often do the heroes realise it when it is actually relevant and not just some contrived silliness?
List of errands: burn the fake HR and find the real one, feed or bury the test tube player’s pet(s) and pick up more Thai food.
“Yes, I’m stepping back. You deserve to be CEO. I’ve already arranged your desk for you; it’s right here in this otherwise empty fluid-filled tank. Why don’t you sit down and see how it fit- er, feels? Please, I insist. No, really – I INSIST.”
How about a nice tank of no ?
oh tank you fot that. i appreciate it.
tanks, but no tanks.
Carol has already been thinking about how much this job has been stressing her. Maybe she’s just all tanked out.
Yeah, I don’t think she’d make a good tank. :P
Yeah, i figured he was going to go off along the lines of “The five managed to get a new guild created!!! Only I should have the authority to create new guilds!!!”
Damn, he cleans up good. I mean he’s even got his artifacts of doom all nicely stacked and catalogued and everything.
Oh hell, he’s thinking of killing them, isn’t he?
The way he’s using past tenses, I think he feels like he already did…
With the kinds of stuff he’s tried to do in the past, I’d say he did already do that thing you said.
Well, only with more trying and less succeeding.
Yeeeah, I missed my mark there.
I know that’s right, alt text! NEVER question a day off :-D
WELL, GEE, THANKS, HR. HOW NICE OF YOU TO LEAVE ME A BASEMENT FULL OF TUBE PEOPLE.
I bet that most network admins say the same thing…
We network admins usually ask to be left alone in the basement, away from the offices full of pod people.
He just broke her. You can almost see the tic in her cheek and hear the sound of brain-snap.
She looks like she’s about to explain the tides to Bill O’Reilly.
Now she can meet her EMT man!
Gone home, showered, enjoying his last apple, tidying his affairs. Speaking in past tense about present issues.
This has suicide red flags all over it.
(Or something so risky it may as well be, like tubing himself)
Note: He cleaned the room, too
But apparently did not get around to shaving.
Some people regrow facial hair real fast, that’s why they tend to have a beard and simply trim it
Great comment-to-avatar matchup on that one, dude.
Like my father used to say to me….Be careful when shaving, you wouldn’t want to get shaving cream on your blouse.
He was a man of deep wisdom, surely.
In ya go, down the tubes~
Or maybe the apotheosis has already gone off, and that’s what’s left of him.
Monday’s comic: after getting her wits together, Carol realizes the best thing to do is call the police, so call them she does. HR gets an involuntary manslaughter sentence. The courts leave it to the families of each person what to do with their tube.
Last paragraph of the entire webcomic: “And what became of Guilded World? Did our heroes succeed, or – strange as it may sound – did evil succeed in the end? Perhaps we will never know. But let this be a cautionary tale to all you aspiring game developers: Beware ye of blurring too finely the line between the MMO worlds and real-world. PLTLH.”
ia! ia! pltlh Arkera!
Yes… Either the ‘take the rest of today off’ is an excuse to get her out of the way while he does something drastic, a lie to {catch her off guard for some nefarious purpose, or maybe just test her}, or he’s sincere and /she/ will snap and become the new main antagonist, possibly after killing or forcibly tubing him.
It could also be interesting to see a narrative structure in which someone’s rubber band snaps back to cold sanity and the effects stick, but long experience leads me to discount ever seeing a thing. If he’s savable, the narrative will force her to not be (regardless of what would otherwise make sense for her to do). If she’s savable, the narrative will force him to not be (regardless of what would otherwise make sense for him to do). One way or another, the narrative will shoehorn someone into the ongoing role of main antagonist.
They are both about to go take a break from managing the MMO worlds, and HR recently gave the cultists exclusive access to the cyberpunk dimension. By the time they get back to rescuing the five, it’s quite possible the Countless Limbs will have taken advantage of this in a way that makes them rather uncontrollable. HR didn’t tell Carol of this bridge between worlds either, and if he leaves things up to her without remembering to mention it, she’ll be conveniently oblivious as to how those robed guys are getting fancy vector graphics weapons in a fantasy game.
Oh frakk, I was right about the shower and clean clothes ! That’s terrifying in it’s own way. O_O Why am I only right when making crazy assumptions ?: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ?!
I was right in my crazy assumption about Phil being secretly replaced by his evil clone, Phill.
Yeah, that shower prediction of yours being more than correct is quite freaky actually.
WHO IS THIS PERSON WITH A SOUL AND WHAT HAS HE DONE WITH HR???
Maybe the family of Best’s player are gypsies and they cast a curse after he died in the game?
Okay, that is definately a slightly taller Gravvy Boat and Frigg in 2 of the tubes
Aye, that’s Byron in the red tube on the far left, Syr’Nj in the green tube, Gravedust in the middle pale yellow tube, Frigg in the grey tube, and Best in the golden tube on the far right.
What I want to know is, what’s in that feeding tube? Actual gravy? He’s been in there for quite some time and still looks close to 300 lbs.
It would actually be pretty awesome if it wasn’t some kind of trick, if he does take some time to back off and rethink his approaches, or at least get his affairs in order and talk his course of action through with Carol before risking himself in a tube to try to get the Five out.
I like the idea of HR being a sane and calculating ‘antagonist’ as opposed to obsessed and reckless.
Actually… yes.
A sane & calculating antagonist is usually the most dangerous kind. They have an uncanny ability to rationally justify anything they do, so convincing other people to let them get away with whatever they do, regardless of how despicable it is.
Yeah, Syr’nj has a cat IRL! It must be starving! It’s criminal, HR!
This isn’t the kind of person I wanted to be.
So why don’t you be that kind of person for a while?
Yeah. I kind of wonder (and was kind of surprised that no one said this already) if HR *isn’t* tricking her, but just wants to pass the mess off to someone else. Or something like that. Or if it’s maybe a combination of all: The cultists sent him back (with or without script to say) to take care of some things (or open more doors for them, whatever); he had a brief moment of lucidity (resembling guilt), and in preparing to leave for good decided to pass the mess (and any subsequent blame) directly on to Carol. I for sure didn’t see things going this way!
Hey y’all. Another intrusion attempt from one of your ads. Details from Norton:
Category: Intrusion Prevention
Date & Time: 8/9/2013 7:05:01 PM
Risk: High
Activity: An intrusion attempt by 72.51.47.69 was blocked.
Status: Blocked
Recommended Action: No Action Required
IPS Alert Name: Web Attack: Malicious Toolkit Website 12
Default Action: No Action Required
Action Taken: No Action Required
Attacking Computer: “72.51.47.69, 80”
Attacker URL: “72.51.47.69/adsolution10x32/metrics.php?tnzppl=109cjf&endovenafsl=mvsvsxNgQXBmXSYk1sIXSw1SYpVWAVLOI7KAeyKXMJLWShAWQGAn0uePXT9UmHKAHDO+T9kGDUGuu4al4UA7eugWax+3Qw&br=0920899”
Destination Address: *omitted*
Source Address: 72.51.47.69
Traffic Description: “TCP, www-http”
Network traffic from 72.51.47.69/adsolution10x32/metrics.php?tnzppl=109cjf&endovenafsl=mvsvsxNgQXBmXSYk1sIXSw1SYpVWAVLOI7KAeyKXMJLWShAWQGAn0uePXT9UmHKAHDO+T9kGDUGuu4al4UA7eugWax+3Qw&br=0920899 matches the signature of a known attack. The attack was resulted from \DEVICE\HARDDISKVOLUME2\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MOZILLA FIREFOX\FIREFOX.EXE.
This is mostly as a heads-up to the readers. I already shot off an email to GA.
“At least ne of them had a pet. I mean, no one had a wife or girlfriend or anything. And I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who cared about any one of them…Anyway, what was my point here?”
Also, awesome expression in that last panel.
Well, those can feed themselves and might be happy to be rid of those geeks who chose to be put in a tube for some undefined time along with the risks going with new and untested tech instead of staying with people who might have cared for them at least a little.
Oh, talking about wives and girlfriends here. Not the cat. Cats only fits if they’re NOT lock in an appartement, at least for feeding themselves. Or if there’s a nest of mice or bugs somewhere.
Okay, cats fill the bill pretty much as well.
Rachel. :S
I meant Carol. :S
Her face is the quintessence of noncomputance.
*Her expression
Nice tie!
“Where did you get the apple?”
“Oh, Steve Wozniak gave it to me.”
At least he didn’t rage quit.
Oh hey, just thinking… By “we’ll start fresh tommorow”, do you think H.R might be meaning “we’ll start getting in fresh new tubes tommorow” ? Oo
best part? other shoe’s already dropped. somthin about a reporter lookin for an order of 5 circular tube-like glass and life support systems, and then a few months later an order for 2 more of the same?
yeaa…
and ofc, apples, the forbidden fruit an all that nonsense. yeep..
luckily it was a cat though, you don’t really have to feed those, just leave a window open and it takes care of itself