Chapter 9 – Page 5
A word about recent developments:
We know that reading a comic day after day means making an investment. It may seem right now like we’re not really going to reward the investment made when you read the first eight chapters. We hope you’ll trust us when we say we will.
Gold Farmers?
Feels bad, man.
I mean, who gets emotionally attached to characters in a video game? seriously.
guys.
Me.
Hey, the first eight chapters were /good/, and that’s why I’m excited for what the hell is going to happen here.
Carol’s kinda cute.
Yeah, she’s a breast of fresh ass.
What? All I said was that she’s a breast of fresh air.
Dear Guilded Age,
I’m trying really hard to trust you right now. Really hard. But when the first eight chapters are a happy beautiful wonderful romp with my five best pals and then my pals are killed and it’s feeling like it doesn’t even matter because they aren’t even ‘real’ in this new universe, I’m a bit gun shy. I live in the real world every damn day. There are plenty of comics that I can read about it in if I’m so inclined.
Long and short, please, don’t kick me in the balls.
Thanks.
Nay, it’s not like kicking in the balls. It’s more like putting those balls in the vise. And the screw was already turned twice. Yet, we still trust it won’t end the way it seems.
well put, respectful, and courteous. +1
I THINK EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE IF YOU JUST BROUGHT BACK THE TEXTURE.
I MISS THE TEXTURE THE MOSTEST.
I noticed the texture missing as well. But I believe (or at least am hopeful) that it will return. I suspect texture is to Guilded Age what green hue was to The Matrix (but then – I also liken that same texture as shadow and light to Film Noir). It’s possible John got tired of carrying that particular torch first set ablaze by Erica (the texture has been more and more subtle of late). But perhaps the sudden lack of texture is simply a cue.
The pages set in this “other reality” (for lack of a better term) are obviously supposed to have a wholly different style and mood to them.
It’s a design choice, not the product of whim or laziness.
shiny, shiny glass
The texture is part of the world that our heroes inhabit. A world of color and texture.
This other place is largely monochrome and without textures.
Two worlds/universes/places, two different looks.
IT’S LIKE GADDARN kansas AND **OZ**! HOLY CINEMATIC TROPES, BATMAN!
(Muted applause)
I don’t think we’re in Gotham anymore Robin.
I dunno, moustache sure looks like Gordon.
And just like that i have 100% lost interest in this comic.
Bye bye. Don’t let the door hit ya in the butt on yer way out.
If you loss interest after one page, you where never invested to begin with.
If you had had 100% interest at any one point, you’d be in total agony right now, sure, but, like the rest of us, you’d take it like a man and endure it, because, darn it, no matter how frustrating a plot twist may be, there’s still a plot going on, and we’ll see it through! *cue fireworks*
all I have to say to Phil is, this had better be worth the feeling of despair that the comic has gone to hell.
well, at the very least i got to admit i’m still hooked.
irritation counter still at 85%, though…
I gotta say that’s my reaction, too: Game Over, man! Really, I can’t think of a way they can recover from this.
I trust ya. That’s a very pretty clock.
Besides – Dedalus? That’s a name with some kind of foreshadowing.
Trusting you as far as the end of the chapter.
I may revise this if you try something tricky like not ending the chapter ever.
I suspect you will want to get to the good part of the twist sooner rather than later, though. The commentariat on the whole is not as forgiving as I am (I’m still reading MEGATOKYO ffs).
That’s not so tough. I’m still reading Sluggy Freelance. That takes stubbornness! (Barely still reading…)
Sluggy has been picking up every now and then here lately, though. Today’s strip, for example, wasn’t half bad.
I agree with Locke. Sluggy is far better than MegaTokyo.
Sluggy Freelance? Luxury! In my day you were lucky if your dad gave you Freefall for breakfast!
Back in my day, I had to put up with the ding-dang “Spiderman” newspaper comic strip! Two to three panels a day, and at least one of those was a recap! Of why he’s SPIDERMAN!
Oh, how did I learn to hate his “SWEET, GENTLE UNCLE BEN”!
ROTFL! Beautiful.
Uncle Ben? Uncle Ben??! We’d be lucky to get half a recycled OXO cube!
Oh, oh! LUXURY!
In my day we would have to invent comics by carving into chunks flint using our fingernails before we could complain about them. Then our dads would come and kick us in the nuts for being whiny little haters.
And we THANKED them for it!
…Dad? D:
… Sooner or later anything will devolve into the Four Yorkshiremen Sketch… if it hasn’t already gone Godwin’s route.
hmmm….okay, I’m going to guess that the name “Deadelus” isn’t just coinkydink…
And I’m in for the long haul…call it curiousity, or what have you. That, and probably a somewhat unhealthy connection with my characters. They are “real” even in a game…so bring it.
Aside from the mythological reference Stephen Dedalus is the main character in a few of James Joyce’s books (Ulysses being one) where he also functions as the writer’s alter ego.
Now I’m curious if the name is symbolically more related to the myth or the literature, or both?
I wish I was a more avid reader ):
right now in english, the professor keeps dicking everyone around by conflicting herself constantly about how you shoudlnt read between the lines, but then the next moment she’s talking about aymbolism and hidden meaning.
I think you mean “contradicting”?
Don’t feel bad. I have read neither “Ulysses” nor “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” nor “Dubliners”, I just sort sat through classes and faked through exams. :P
But still, ya know…I’m totally into this stuff.
*sort of
I even tried reading “Ulysses” once many, many years ago (I didn’t come further than about 20 pages). But I still didn’t make the connection with Dedalus… that’s annoying.
(“I did read “Portrait of the Artist…” and can recommend it. It’s not only a good book, but a readable one, too.)
Daedalus’ purple tie is highly suspect. I do not know why.
I noticed that too. Its the only thing with color in this world, everything else is in Sepia tones…. a kind of grey scale but in browns.
It brings up an interesting question… what would it take to bring color to this world?
Daedalus would have to fall in Wuv.
Because it’s the only color that exists in this new place?
Oh my god, he’s one of the Watchmen!
>.>
With a name like Dedalus, I think I can keep the investment going. There’s something in there.
I have faith in you guys.
it’s cause it is the only thing in color.
Well, techinically, it’s all in colour. It’s just that his tie is THAT awesome. Man’s got style.
That fuckin’ tie has to be important to the plot somehow. It’s not a coincidence that it’s purple while everything else is sepia. Purple typically denotes aristocracy and such though there has to be more to it.
Welcome to Sin City.
More like The Spirit
Seriously. H.R. Dedalus, eh? When his parents named him, did they feel the crushing weight of the plot bearing down on their shoulders, or what?
Maybe they’d just been watching H.R. Pufnstuf.
“…Whoa, dude, we should, like, name him ‘H.R.’ instead of ‘Moonweed’.”
“awwwwesommme! pass me the ripple, hey?”
Thank you for the news post. That was pretty much exactly the reassurance needed! There are certainly ways this can be handled well, it’s just… painful for the readers in a three-a-week format.
If this were a book, when the party got killed I’d rifle the remaining pages to make sure there was plenty left, for that reassurance. Having the story you were reading turn out to be something completely different than you thought after logging hours into it is jarring, and not having the entire work in front of you makes it even scarier! But between the quality of the content first presented and the guys behind it, there’s enough here to hold my interest, and I bet most people feel the same way.
That said, I’m sure you’re going to lose some readers. At least for a while, before they check back in to see where this is all going. You sold a very specific kind of story to an audience for what, two years plus? And in the last couple of weeks you guys shattered it. It was unexpected, jarring, and in another year, I bet it’ll be obvious why it needed to happen. But right now, it’s just as you said. There was a ton of build up and all of a sudden it’s like none of it even mattered, and some readers hate that beyond words.
I’m thinking of a similar experience from a while back; I picked up the book I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells a few months ago because I enjoy his work on a writing podcast.
[Mild spoilers follow.]
As you read it, you think you’re getting a somewhat straightforward YA crime novel until about halfway through, when it becomes abruptly supernatural. The things you were trying to work out in a purely scientific way get tossed out in favor of ‘well, it could be magic, so who the fuck knows.’ It’s still a good book, and he sold the twist well, but he got a fair amount of criticism when it came out because the story didn’t quite deliver as marketed.
So I’m predicting you’ll lose some regulars, but maybe make up the difference in people coming to see what all the ruckus is about. Either way, you guys aren’t coming off my check-at-midnight list.
Y’know… they WERE planning the whole meta thing from the start.
AND to be fair, at least in the very early stages of the comic, people were basically treating it like some sort of gaming campaign world… and picking up on things like the language of the characters being inconsistent with what appeared to be a fantasy setting (Frigg especially).
In other words… not only were the signs of this “twist” given very early on in the comic… but on some level the readers were at least up to considering the idea…
… SO if they’ve quit the comic over this… they’re probably just fools who couldn’t read the subtext anyway.
The shift is just so jarring, it’s hard not to bolt. I’ve got this uneasy feeling in my stomach, but I’m hoping the payoff is worth as much as you say. *fingers crossed*
And like everything T Campbell touches, it’s gone meta.
Thanks for the ride, guys. I’m out.
Does that mean he’s a super hero?! Wow, Mr. Campbell! You have the ability to cause anything to touch to defy the fourth wall?! SWEET.
Shine on, you wacky madcap f&(%tard. Shine on.
We still haven’t broken the fourth wall guys.
Show us on the doll where T Campbell touched you.
Can I borrow a knife? I’d have to cut the doll open to do that.
Breaking the fourth wall is defined as characters interacting directly with the audience, at no point has a character done this. :)
I know. :)
Metafiction is defined as a type of storytelling that self-consciously addresses the methods of fiction by exposing the fictional illusion. Breaking the fourth-wall is a type of metafiction. :)
:) :) :)
Or maybe that’s what he wants you to think!
Guided AGE Witters, don’t go down this path. It will completely ruin the comic. THe thing that made the comic so good was the characters and world. If you make it an mmorpg it ruins both of those aspects completely. Furthermore, it is incredibly unoriginal. Online comics are littered with meta-rpg and mmo reference. It is completely cliche to the comic world (in a despise-able way, not the good kind of cliche) Please do whatever it takes to fix this. At this point I am going to meta and say I don’t even care if this REALLY WAS what was going on all along. pretend it wasn’t planned and change it to something else.
preferably, without mucking things up with sci-fi, but that may be too far gone now.
Incredibly unoriginal? Shoot, the entire GENRE is one big mess of grandfathered-in garbage. What makes this one good is the quality of characterization, and I don’t think that has changed.
Things really aren’t looking all that bad to me right now. T and Phil have already shown that they’re good enough to make something like this work, and it can turn out be a very interesting direction to the whole story.
That’s pretty much my reaction, too. There’s still a *story* going on, after all.
I’m here for the plot, ’til the bloody end. I don’t care how much Phil and Campbell try to hurt me, I know that that’s just their way of saying, “we love you guys.”
And we’ll keep going back, because we love them too. And if we do what they say, maybe they’ll change. They truly are good at heart.
Oh, you’re just saying that to keep us all reading long enough that you can pay William H. Macy all the Internet attention you promised him for appearing in this chapter. Because you know how William H. Macy gets when someone tries to short him on Internet attention due.
I know this part of the story will ruffle as many feathers as possible. That’s fine with me, I enjoy the environs of affront and unease, so when I say let’s see how this plays out, my focus isn’t on the story.
Still, I am eager to see what happens next.
Actually, I like the complete color shift. It’s sets up the up the atmosphere and ‘tone’ of the scene well.
Sepia with a splash of purple? :D
Personally, i’m already finding the spectacle of (and the promise of more of) fanbois (and -grrls) drumming their heels and holding their breath ’till the turn blue…
Everyone’s really proud of you.
that is a sentence fragment
finally a comic about mmo’s! and mixed with TRON! exclamation points for everyone!!! I really think the “boredom” vibe is some sort of genuine plot point, bland colors, kicking out at a cliffhanger, business speak… it might even work since mmo fans are all about a dull grind to a shiny ding at the end.
ah well, deadwinters still fun at least.
Well, I’m with you a hundred percent, but was casting William H. Macy to do your new character the best choice? He’s a great actor, but he’s new to the webcomic field.
I thought the exact same thing
Who says the characters and world of the last eight chapters aren’t real?
My thoughts exactly.
Damn, you beat me to it. What if they’re making an MMO based on some kind of trans-dimensional observation software? That would explain why Mr. Dedalus turned off his monitor when someone came in- it’s highly confidential, probably supernatural, possibly illegal, and definitely going to make a mess of things if it gets leaked.
Brain ninja! Stop ganking my thoughts!
reaching a bit?
you do realize that if that’s the case, it makes our original cast that much harder to save. if they were just toons in an MMO, hey, server reset.
There’s an established in-world mechanic to save them.
Why that would bring the story down to superhero comic level and that would be so shitty I cannot even begin to describe it!
Is it sad i drew the same conclusions from that set of observations… Its the optimist in me.
Dedalus, that an amazingly apt name.
“H. R.” does stand for “Horned Rim,” I just know it.
I’m totally in. Even if it goes on another tangent entirely, it’s looking like it could become a very interesting tangent. I read 25+ web comics, and even if I became slightly disinterested momentarily, whats the 30 seconds a day on this web page really costing me?
What I mean is, don’t over react people. I might stop reading the comic because I prefer not to read comics that the audience is a bunch of melodramatic 13 year old girls who don’t want to handle an ever so slightly complex storly
line.
I think they’re mostly melodramatic 13 year old boys, thank you.
Two things strike me:
1.) The name, everyone here knows you just don’t name anybody ‘Dedalus’
2.) The change in colors, big hint that this is another reality but which is the ‘real’ reality?
Am I the only one who actually became MORE interested when this crazy shift happened?
Also, I find it incredibly funny that so many readers think they can just scream “CHANGE IT BACK” like it were some sort of magical light switch. I don’t know if any of you have ever actually tried crafting a story like this, but I can assure you that this shit ain’t something that just happens over night… ESPECIALLY when we’re talking about a project like this that’s being worked on by multiple people. This is a serious investment of time and energy that (I’d be willing to bet) spent months and maybe even years being fleshed out as an intangible thought LONG before it was ever seriously considered as a real project. Simply put, this isn’t something you do unless you know what you’re doing.
I mean really, what do you have to lose, anyway? What, your time is so valuable that you can’t handle a few weeks of iffy story structure? Oh ye of little faith!
I think of it more along the lines of your significant other’s ex wheels into town throwing your relationship into unsteady waters. You love what you’ve shared and want to trust your beau, but you’ve been burned before. And then some people just aren’t articulate enough to say that they feel nervous and anxious, but want to believe things will turn out okay. Instead, they throw a tantrum and end up straining the relationship further.
I really want to see where the storyline’s going to go, but I’d be lying if I said I wan’t the least bit uneasy about it.
*wasn’t
It’s one thing to be apprehensive when a story you enjoy starts treading dangerous waters. There’s nothing wrong with that. Hell, if you don’t like where it’s going, it’s perfectly acceptable to take a siesta just so you don’t have to deal with the potential bullshit a washed up creator throws at you.
But to go into the comments and start dolling out demands like you OWN the fucking place…?
It really just annoys me, not that people are expressing their opinions over something they may not like, but that they’re holding it over the creator’s heads. Seriously, “If you guys do it JUST the way I want it, and play your cards JUST right, and I’m feeling particularly FORGIVING, then MAYBE I’ll CONSIDER reading this again.”
That’s the stuff I’m taking issue with.
Yeah, I hear ya. The self-entitlement that gets thrown around in the comments gets annoying. I’ve just kind of learned to go, “Awww… poor baby needs a time out? *pat on the head*” and then let it go. Because if I didn’t, I’d end up with an ulcer.
I like guilded age, but I don’t value it on the same level as my significant other… :p
Blasphemy! :P
I’m reminded of early Erfworld, when they first introduced Parson. That was only the 14th strip, and it turned out to be an awesome and important turn of events.
This is well more than 14 strips, and I think the comic has more than earned some leeway to go an unexpected and likely awesome direction. (Though I’ll likely be disappointed if the twist turns out to be the same as Erfworld, too.)
The difference there is that Parson’s appearance was part of essentially the prologue. Here, we’re 9 chapters in. After 5-6 chapters (if you don’t know there are like 100+ total) you’re usually pretty confident you know what kind of story you’re getting.
That’s different. We know from the very onset that he’s summoned into a world, where gaming mechanics are a physical reality. That is what is fun about it- how people live their lives in turns and shit. It is what makes it [i]great[/i].
If it was to, oh I don’t know, reveal that Erfworld was a MMO with players behind shit, then I’d certainly lose a lot of its appeal.
Or if it turns out it was all a dream Parson had. Or anything.
And to all of those who doubt, keep in mind Dedalus is the shadowy figure way back in the 2010 preview. This was all planed awhile ago!
I thought that too, but someone pointed out on wednesday that it is in fact the monocle-wearing pirate and I am inclined to agree.
No it isn’t. Not only would that be weird and pointless because he didn’t even feature for more than like… 2 pages, the shadowy figure obviously has the glasses and the suit of Dedalus.
I couldn’t care less if this was planned from the beginning however, it ruins it all the same for me.
Yeah, you’re right. The pirate had a hood when he featured, my mistake (again).
The new artwork on Payet Best had already jarred me loose. I don’t really enjoy the story now and haven’t for several weeks. Am really hoping that you creators manage to pull out of the nosedive you’re in, I really am.
I think the Best redesign was worse for me. I miss old Best. :(
He was my favorite character, up there with Frigg. I love arrogant assholes, especially when they are competent. I never really realized how much of his character lay in his appearance however.
People are praising the old art, but I keep going back in the early pages, and you couldn’t even recognize Best in his first, second, and third pages were supposed to be the same character. He’s roundy-face in one page, pointier in the either, absurdly longfaced in a third.
The art was much MUCH worse in the early days than it is now.
I can see how you’d say that if you’ve got no taste and love anime, absolutely.
So if I want characters to have consistent faces from page to page (which the old art did NOT always provide) means that I got no taste?
Cute.
I can only think after reading this that you know nothing of what you speak. Seeing an artist with an original style is a breath of fresh air.
Original style is good. But ability to draw the same face more than once is also good.
I like the old art and the new art. The old art was rougher, yes, but it had charm. The new art is more polished and it has a different KIND of charm.
However, both styles of art fit the writing, and that’s all I care about. It’s nice to look at and it FITS.
Also, I’d be interested to see what actually happens to readership figures as this plays out. Any chance of making that data available when the current arc is done? No harm if not, naturally.
It’s been good enough so far that you deserve the benefit of the doubt in my case. And even if it doesn’t work out how I’d wish, I won’t be angry, just a bit irritated. You probably won’t lose me as a reader.
But, as Calen said, you essentially sold this as one thing, and no matter what you do, even if these characters are actually real (in some TRON fashion, or otherwise) it is no longer what it was presented as: a real place (or at least as real as any fiction work gets) where the things that happen matter. When you establish (or seem to establish) this other world, one very similar to our own, it diminishes the reality of the other world (at least to me) because it’s unreality becomes more apparent when compared to the world it resides in.
But hell; you are the writers. It’s your story. It doesn’t have to be acceptable to the audience.
Just… promise me this isn’t a take on that godawful Ocean Star game where they were in a video game the entire time and took on the real world to say ‘fuck you, don’t end our world because you got bored!’
Dang it. Man, if it weren’t for the plot and the fact that this is just a webcomic, I’d totally commit seppuku right now.
Just, WHATEVER YOU DO, Phil, do not, I repeat, DO NOT reveal this to be some twisted dream that a near-death Byron is having, thus resetting the status quo. That’d be awful and would make every fan angry. Yes. Totally. Do not do that.
you weren’t here much for the fan rage when the party started dying, were you? everyone was basically screaming that they wanted it all to be a bad dream in byron’s head.
The party dying was fucking epic and unexpected. If the solution to it is “THEY WILL ALL JUST RESPAWN :D” or “THE DEVS BRING THEM BACK TO LIFE” or some other bullshit, then fuck that. Fuck. that.
Solna! No! We DON’T want it to turn out to be a dream. Because that would be AWFUL. Understand? *wink wink nudge nudge*
gonna emphasize it.
so buying you dudes beers if/when you get out to the emerald city comic-con.
I vote “take their gold away, and give everyone who didn’t cheat a silly hat”.
AND SUDDENLY WORLD OF HATCRAFT.
I SMITE YOU WITH THE MERCURY-LACED GLOVES OF THE HABERDASHER!
I was right. Meta-shit or Deus Ex Machina. I was hoping that this guy might be the representation of God in their world, but the G4 reference killed it. Hope you’ve got a pot of gold at the end of this bullshit stained rainbow.
I must say I’m mighty intrigued by this development. There’s “something” in the air, a sense of something remarkable, and while it may not be love it feels like it’s going to be awesome.
I TRUST YOUUU GUYS BUT IT’S HARD.
Don’t worry Mz Jolie, everything will be alright.
Will you make it so?
If she takes off her pants I will.
Hmm. The first 8 chapters were good – a world was created with politics, bizarre cults and some characters you grew to like. You took a brave choice and killed (?) 5 of the 6 characters you had spent so much time selling to us. It still left us with many questions about where you could go from here, about a world that was still a mystery.
You could be going down the “evil mastermind uses a real world as a play thing” line but that makes most of the other things you’ve done unimportant. They become details rather than major plot points. However you wish to colour this, the size of this plot “twist” is such that it makes 90% of the comic so far redundant.
I’m sticking around, I enjoyed the 8 chapters of Guilded Age so, like many webcomics I read, when a team I like does something new I give it a go. As far as I’m concerned this is pretty much a new strip – I just wish that if you folks had become stale and didn’t want to continue a pure fantasy comic you’d have had the honesty to start a new strip rather than take this path.
This twist was planned before the first strip went up.
They haven’t ever represented this as anything but a MMO. The name of the comic is an MMO reference “Guilded” not ‘Gilded’. All of the standard player types are represented, Frigg is a script kiddie min/max’r and PVP’r who talks in l33t and internet references, Syr’nj is a casual RP’r with a complex background and a punny name, Gravedust is the old guard Rp’r – the oldest member of the group putting up with the kids and going so far as to keep journals (and probably spreadsheets offline). Bandit is the joker, Best the a-hole troll who joined your PUG but then got pissed he wasn’t in charge. Byron is likely a newer player (to this game), not knowing well how to play his class, but he’s got a good tactical head on him.
On top of that, Byron even got the drop from the last boss, an improved set of shoulders with a ridiculous large shoulder graphic.
This shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
Well it’s obvious it was an PARODY of an MMO world, or a D&D style fantasy world. This is the first hint of “the world isn’t real (or is it)” or “parallel worlds interacting” we’ve seen, though, and that can be worrisome when it’s been done so often and so poorly.
You goddamn…!
That was what was cool about it, the way it mixed MMO and modern day into a fantasy world but keeping it a real fantasy world.
Or so I thought! This is some sad development.
Yup it’s a parody. There are a few like that out there – Looking For Group blatantly started out as a WOW group, Tharol Hunt’s sublime Goblins is pretty much D&D seen from the caracters point of view. Both of these web comics manage to poke fun at the inconsistencies and logic holes of a “gaming” universe without leaving the world at all. LFG quickly moved to it’s own world and lore and stayed there, Goblins has referenced the GM “Herbert” a couple of times but has never gone beyond that. Here we’ve brought the entire process out into a new “real” world where it is evident that issues in that environment will have a significant impact on the alter-universe.
Following on from the points you have raised there are a number of fictional works that make self-defacing pokes at the conventions of their universe (think about it for 10 seconds and you ‘l have no trouble thinking of 10 examples from Die Hard movies to many books / TV shows) but very very few of them spend so long building an inner environment without even hinting that a second, macro environment is a significant plot device without giving pointers that are only “obvious” when viewed in hindsight. Guilded Age started in September 2009, fer chrissake – only the most blatant trolls are going to claim that this twist was planned since day one.
The question that comes to mind now is whether Erica left because she was told where this was going next ?
Call us the most blatant trolls, then.
Regardless, Erica left because she gained a full time job designing video games, and decided to step down rather than split her efforts and make the comic suffer. I won’t have any ugly rumors started about Erica’s departure. It was sad, but as I’ve said before, she left us for the best possible reason and we are still great friends.
Surely if the writers are saying they’ve planned out a long story, then it makes sense to just believe they’re telling the truth?
It strikes me that ‘only the most blatant trolls’ would pop in to say that the writers are lying to their audience?
I’d disagree. Still thinking we spent way too much time getting to know these characters and their backgrounds and setting up POTENTIAL character development, that went unresolved, to be completely done with them. The party will be back (remember Byron’s prophecy about leading an army? Payet turned out to actually be a badass, so there’s gotta be something to prophecy here) and we’ll see them again, somehow.
Eh, maybe. Whatever happened to this guy?
Ah curses, the link didn’t get in.
http://guildedage.net/webcomic/chapter-1/chapter-1-page-20/
Perky Junior Adventurer, there?
the REAL hero!
They nixed him from the beta.
I agree that eight chapters feels like too long a time to write off the characters featured in those chapters.
I am kind of hoping we don’t get introduced to the people playing Byron and company (if there are such people). Whereas I’m not too bothered by this current development that would be a definite turn off for me.
It’s fairly implied that Deedalus isn’t a player of this game, so much as an engineer of it :)
I never even hinted we wouldnt see our protaganists again, I expect we will soon. Mostly my point was that this was planned from day one, and not that huge a surprise. And remember, this chapter was prefaced with ‘now we’ll see the real villain’ not ‘Now we find out who’s the real protagonists’.
After all, it’s still Byron and Co. on the cast page.
There are still multiple ways they can pull this out. The first one that comes out of my twist-o-matic is that Dedalus is merely observing this other world through fluke. He then makes a fortune making a game based off a ‘fictional’ world with incredible detail and depth. Another idea is time travel; he’s observing his own planet’s past. I’ve seen stranger plots in fantasy books, never mind webcomics. I don’t care what the twist is, but the point is that it’s quite possible for us to enjoy this new twist while preserving the integrity of the first 8 chapters. If you’re not patient enough to wait for the startling events to be explained over time then why in the world are you reading a webcomic?
Now watch – Frigg comes smashing through one of those doors, screaming and shouting and smashing. xD
… And swearing and crushing and pwning!
And looting and drinking and whoring!
and making the white queen beg for more.
wow, a Guilded Age “inside joke.” I like where this is headed! anyone still have the link to all those guest artists renditions of frigg with the white queen? (still sad nobody went for the Emma Frost look for their white queen)
They’ll be in the comments for the strip I guess.
Mine is Here and NSFW
I’m with you guys 100%.
I’m thinking we’re heading into ‘the characters in the game came to life and they’re my babies and I loves them and OH NO EVIL EXEC IS PULLING THE PLUG ON FUNDING however can we save them oh I know I’ll interact with them and possibly get trapped in the game somehow’ waters.
I can’t say I didn’t see this meta development coming, but I’ve been trying to avoid it. If there were the slightest hint of foreshadowing, it’d be more tolerable, but this feels a little like we’ve lost the story we’ve signed up for. Can’t say I’m not worried. Although Meta is a potent poison that wilts almost everything it touches, I trust you guys to avoid turning my wonderful relationship with this comic into a loveless marriage like what happened with QC. I ain’t going nowhere.
Hey, come on, guys. How can this arc be bad when it has William H. Macy?
As both an avid reader and a customer of Guilded Age merchandise, I sincerely hope that Phil holds to his promise that this change isn’t as bad as it looks like it will be. It gives me pause thinking about further purchases, and I am certain I’m not the only one having a difficult time with this. Please don’t lose me as a reader AND a supporter!
Seriously people, let them tell their damn story, and read.
90% sure it will turn out awsome, like everything else they do.
If you watch Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged, you know that episode where a bunch of internet trolls start screaming how they hate change of any kind? That’s what’s going through my head readings these comments. I can tell you guys have put a lot of thought into this, and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. As of yet, you’re still doing far better than Erfworld (may the internet gods have mercy on its soul).
Shame.
I’ve been reading every update since the first week. The current storyline is actually interesting, but not nearly as much as what I signed up for when I started reading.
Am I in any position to make demands? Of course not! Guilded Age is awesome, will be awesome and I’m sure there’s plenty of people who enjoy where this is going.
But I do figure that feedback, both positive and negative, are important. Otherwise, there would be much more censoring going on here, and this isn’t the case. :)
Long story short, I’m taking a break from the comic. In a month or so, I’ll see if I’m interested enough to catch up with the archives and see how this plays out, but I’m literally bummed. Guilded Age updates have been something I was looking forward to very much, and now… no more.
I’ll probably miss you crazy comenteer guys. Keep it up! And good luck to the GA-Team. :)
That’s pretty much how I feel, GA went from #1 “looking forward to” in the mornings to maybe #8. I’m disappointed but other works have had turbulent twists before, usually once you get through them it’s readable able.
So far, it has never been AS enjoyable, but at least it could still be pretty good.
Whatever you guys do though, stick to the plan! Don’t cave, even if you lose all of your readers! Create what you wanted to create, not what you think people want to read (Definitely not bitter about other web comic cave-ins or anything).
Also, to the gentleman that pointed out how T. Campbells work always go meta, now that you mention it it’s really obvious :(
I can’t say I blame you guys for taking a break. I’ve done that with other webcomics that have frustrated me and, after coming back to them, it felt like a good idea, as they had finally gotten back into that ‘sweet spot’. I mean, the people who act as if this is the cataclysm and abandon the comic COMPLETELY irk me off, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a break and letting the plot develop. I guarantee that, when you come back to it, it will be awesome again.
As for the comment on how T. goes meta, let’s see, there’s this, there’s Fans, and then… Huh. What do you know. Can’t for the life of me name another work. And he’s written far more than two webcomics. I wonder if that claim isn’t just a wee bit exaggerated and fundamentally flawed.
I’m in, because
a) There are a lot of questions.
b) This guy’s tie seems significant
c) The carriage clock and general decor of this guy’s office are quite a big tell.
William or Giacomo?
I’d answer your question, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.
hmmmm, well, I have to say i like this guys name. It just feels far more right than if we were loosing the fully-fantasy theme, so I’ll trust phill.
afterall, who ever heard of a buisnesman called dedalus?
also, something tells me he shouldn’t be playing ;)
I really like this new turn of events… and this odd new monochrome place. In fact, this unexpectedly twist away from humdrum familiar fantasy-land comic-ness, and into odd metaphysics intrigues me a lot.
This could get seriously cool.
as someone who came into this webcomic late game, I feel that this current arc is bad for several reasons, some of which have already been addressed.
First off, Phil, making this fantasy world an MMO all of the sudden because your readers implied that it was for the longest time does not make it a good story arc, to put it simply this will be the Ctrl+alt+del miscarriage of your webcomic, many will leave (this and the last page alone were proof of that) and those still loyal will attempt to grin and bare it. There are many ways this could have been avoided as well, all of which I’m sure had been thought out long ago. Your readers are probably going to be a little scant for a while, and with good reason, hopefully your webcomic survives with many a loyal reader, but I will not be among them.
Second, “Loyal readers”, the people choosing to leave instead of accepting the sudden “dramatic” (and frankly uncalled for) shift in the webcomic is not unwarranted, as said previously this isn’t the same story they signed up for, and if they don’t want to read it it’s their choice, you telling them in no short terms that the people who can’t deal with the current arc need to leave only exacerbates that newer readers won’t feel welcome.
Honestly there was a chance for some real progress with the character Best at the start of this chapter, I thought for sure it was going to have him go and revive the party but learn something along the lines of “I am just a small cog in a larger machine” instead of striving to be the “stalwart” (and I use that term lightly) savior of the land.
What I’ve got right now is a sad sad taste of disappointment.
so as with , questionable content, mega tokyo, CTRL+ALT+DEL, and several others before you, I bid you adieu.
I wouldn’t call them “loyal readers” if they’re leaving. I’d call them “disloyal readers” :) – that’s pretty much how “loyal” is defined. :D
Oh no. We lost someone who named themselves “slaneeshi whore lord”. Who will be the lord of whores with him gone? Phil, what have you done. Oh well, guess Captain Picard and I will just have to pick up the slack.
As I’ve said before, if you’re leaving TWO STRIPS after the game-changing twist had been revealed, then clearly you never liked the webcomic enough to follow it through to the end. At least give Phil and Campbell enough faith to follow it through for one chapter.
In short, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I read a recently-completed webcomic that got halfway through its years-long run, and then pulled a gigantic “But it was all a dream!”… and made it work.
If someone can breathe life into that hoary old cliche, then I see no reason not to suppose that T and Phil can make this work, especially when there have been clear indications that they have planned this all along (as had the author of the “dream” webcomic, too, FWIW).
YU+ME was AWESOME. Are we talking about the same one? :)
Yep. And the ranting and raving among her audience when she pulled the switch was eerily similar to what’s been going on here the last few days.
Hahah I had the same comic in mind, and yes, YU+ME was quite good, but it was just never AS enjoyable as it first was.
My wife never made it past the twist, I read it through, it was a cute ending, but it was a different story, and it was just less good. Props to her for writting what she wanted to write though, regardless of any stomping of feets.
Also: How I wish Websnark were still around. Eric would be following this with interest, I’m sure (heck, he still may be, of course; I should ask him).
Now this reminds me of Tad William’s “Otherworld” cycle. Also, I like the level of detail in the new artwork. Still interested.
I dunno, I admit this shift from the fantasy world to the real world does make things interesting…but to be honest, this actually seems more like a variation of the story that has already been done through Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.
Mainly, ‘what if your world turned out to be a world created by a bunch of people purely for their entertainment?’
Did Star Ocean inspire you to go down this path?
I usually love reading GA comments because they’re so lighthearted and witty, but damn, there is suddenly so much melodrama in here. Chill out, guys. I’m sure it’ll all be okay in the end. :P
I’m sticking around myself, because really, even if the current direction is throwing me for a loop, I can spare five seconds every other day to check back~
Most of it is just the reaction to the dramatic events in the comic, I think. Or maybe forum levels of comment posting means forum levels of drama.
Hopefully when things die down a little more lighthearted comment posting will return.
This might be the most important comment on this strip. I used to enjoy reading the comments. Now we just have a bunch of squabbling. For me at least, the only part of the comic to truly become shitty has become the comments section with all this petty infighting. If people don’t like it that’s fine, its their opinion. If you like it, fine. That’s your opinion. Do yourself a favor and post an original comment. I know that reply button looks awfully tempting but you’re filling my comments section with crap. (I’m aware i’m posting this as a reply, however, I’m not blasting the original poster)
I know you weren’t directing that at me, no worries. GA is one of my favorite comics on the Internet, and the comments are often just as enjoyable as the comic itself. I am confident the GA crew will reward our (readers) investment, to borrow Phil’s vocabulary, and I hope the comments return to normal soon so I can continue lurking and laughing at all the MMO jokes and other witty pop culture references. :)
Ah, yes. That was the nail in the coffin. The goddamn fucking end of it.
Thanks for making an awesome webcomic up until this point, but the whole ‘Hah it’s just a game’ really fucks with all the things I loved about it. I mean obviously I was aware that the way Frigg talked, the name of Syrnj (and Carnj and all that). Mixing modern day talk, thinking and references into a fantasy world was fucking unique and fun, not to mention it was executed well.
When it turns out it’s a game and there are players behind all of them, it just makes me go meh.
So what do they do now? Spawn?
Like, don’t get me wrong here. I think the artist does a way better job at drawing modern day characters than fantasy, for example… and this certainly brings a major twist to guilded age, with lots of possibilities.
Will some readers stay? Evidently! And I’m sure you’ll get a bunch of new readers who love this kind of metathing (or parallel dimension shit what do I know will happen).
But, it’s not for me. If there’s something I hate it’s breaking the 4th wall and metabullshit (Man just look at the order of the stick). It breaks ALL immersion for me and turns the characters cheap. Was all the backstory we saw just shit written into their profile? Are the characters NPCs or do players control them? Are they all roleplaying or do they believe they are real people in a real world (is it all just some other dimension?)
Those are all interesting questions, BUT-
They are the wrong goddamn questions I want answered.
See what I mean?
Soo when are you going to stop commenting and gtfo?
Now.
Goodbye, Antass. You will not be missed. (Especially if you hate Order of the Stick. Geez, man.)
Aw, go fuck yourself. It’s still a great comic, even if the story’s not going in the direction you hoped. This is art, man. Accept that it’s not always going to do exactly what you wanted. Accept that it’s going in the direction the writers want it to go, and just enjoy the ride.
The sense of entitlement among so many readers is bizarre and sickening. It’s not like they can go back just for you.
As an artist myself, I have a huge level of respect for John’s work here. I mean damn he’s pulling out three pages this quality per week! That takes some talent.
I mean, I’ve been drawing for about four years now. (And when I started I sucked.) In the amount of time John has to draw one page of this comic, I can just abour produce one portrait of a lower quality, with no background content.
Lots of people ahve been ragging on the art in the last three days, mostly because they dislike the plot direction, so I feel it worth pointing out the incredible level of detail and style that we’re getting on a ridiculously tight timescale. Props man.
I don’t expect anything out of the comic, and I certainly don’t demand the writers change anything. If they’ve got a place where can I express my displeasure with the direction however, then I’ll do just that. I don’t like this at all. It wont change anything but damn I’m going to let off steam anyway. I loved this comic from the beginning up until this point. You’d be mad too if a webcomic you saw so much promise in introduced something you really, really hate.
Like imagine the outcry if all characters began to go all anime on us, with ^O^ and shit, along with powerlevels and whatnot. Man that’d suck.
Yeah, because that’d TOTALLY ruin the plot. I mean, it’d affect the story and EVERYTHING. And-
Wait, why am I even snarking at you? Just GTFO like you said you would. Dang it.
Actually, maybe I’m a really weird person. I have a tremendous respect for an artist’s right to do what they please with their work, after all, art is a form of expression of yourself. (By art, I mean any creative work.)
So if something I like moves in a direction I don’t like, I might feel a little sad. If I feel I can offer constructive criticism, I’ll generally suggest it, although usually in private. I don’t see much use in getting angry, and I’m not going to go into a public place and denounce them, that just feels a bit horrible.
You’ve told a good story for the past 8 chapters. Keep telling the story the way you see fit. I don’t need to read the rest of the comments to know what I think. You guys tell a good story, I will read.
This is Deus Ex-level mindfuckery.
Been on board since the intro, rather surprised at the crazy reaction from readers.
Yes, it’s meta. But we’re exactly two pages in. Let’s see how it actually turns out before we start burning down the internet. If it sucks, there’s plenty of other sweet free stuff out there to consume. You want a serious, realistic medieval adventure, go check out some Vinland Saga or something. By the time you catch up the story arc will be over.
I don’t often leave comments but given the huge stream of negativity going on here, eh, tossing in my two cents.
Creative cast of GA, Past and Present: I enjoyed Guilded Age from page one and I am still enjoying it. That’s not the same as not having criticisms, which are important to all forms of art in my humble opinion, but I am genuinely interested to see your take on this, whether or not it’s a ‘cliche’ as so many people are fond of saying so far.
“Cliches” tend to appear in fiction for a reason: at the heart of the cliche is a really fascinating idea. It may be overdone, it may be hackneyed, it may have been badly done a thousand times before– but they exist and endure because, Crom’s bones, sometimes they’re amazing.
‘Humble youthful protagonist from rural community inherits/finds powerful magic object with the ability to save the world… or destroy it! and embarks on quest to save world with crew of heroes’. I can’t COUNT the number of times this has been done badly in fantasy fiction, it’s practically its own (usually horrible) sub-genre….
….but at the same time: Lord of the Rings.
The beauty of Lord of the Rings rests less on the plot than on the fact that Tolkien was and remains a superb craftsman (at least in this reader’s humble opinion; obviously some people may disagree). He makes us feel, he makes us care, because we love his characters. I was incredibly pissed off when I first read LOTR. All of twelve years old and having already read and loved The Hobbit, I was very annoyed that it wasn’t about BILBO.
I almost didn’t carry on reading.
Of course, I did, and of course, the trilogy remains one of the seminal fantasy works I’ve ever read. My inherent faith in Tolkien the author (even if at 12 I didn’t realize that was why I kept reading) carried me along until I fell in love with Frodo, and from there, well. I was rewarded, past all my expectations.
This does not, of course, guarantee that Guilded Age will be a Tolkienesque-masterpiece as it takes this new and for-some disturbing direction. But for me, it does mean that because of my inherent faith in the previously-displayed abilities of the creators, I will continue to extend that faith and see where they take me, and see if it is rewarded. I don’t view the new direction as a betrayal of the characters I’ve already grown to love. Far from it. Because of the fact that I know Phil and the rest were able to make me love Syr, Byron, Gravedust– I have the justified faith to carry on reading now. If I’m proven wrong, then I’m proven wrong, but at the least I want to see what several talented writers and a talented artist are going to do with what, right now, appears to be another take on the “metafiction/gaming” idea, in the context of the beautiful world and story they’ve already created. A world and story they love. Seriously, how can it not be plain that the creators of GA love Bandit, Syr, Frigg, and all the others?
People are, of course, well within their rights to stop reading and pack up and go their seperate ways. That’s a personal choice. But I do feel it’s very ridiculous for people to be throwing around such phrases as ‘jumping the shark’ when it’s plain this was a planned path for the story (we know this from the preview). ‘Jumping the shark’ is what you do when a story has waning popularity and you take it in a suddenly crazy direction trying to hook readers with shock value. It’s obvious, from the droves of people taking their ball and going home, that this is certainly not what GA is doing– it was quite popular doing what it was doing, but because the story as the creators envisioned it was going to go a different direction, it’s going there. Regardless of the people going “BUT I WANTED BILBO.”
If you want to stop reading, go for it. If you want to tell the creators why as you go, sure. But please, at least use an accurate phrase when expressing your disappointment.
For myself I am going to trust that Phil, T, Erica, and John love the characters, and can more than likely make me love the new angle. If I’m wrong, well, golly, it sure cost me ever so much, since I get to read the comic for free.
/agree
More or less entirely my opinion, but put far better than I could have put it.
Bravo! Bravo!!
Quite. (Also, had precisely the same experience with LOTR. “You mean the ring is evil? And no Bilbo?” *RAGE QUITS*)
Hey, well spoken, and a cogent argument.
Get this man a platinum star. Gold is overated anyhow…cheesy and and to be worn around the neck of gangsta’s
Chick, actually. Common mistake with the buzz cut. :D But I’ll take platinum, sweet!
TL;DR. I assume this is a “haters shouldn’t hate” thing.
*fistbump*
I am, as I’ve said, going to continue reading the comic, because I love T’s and Phil’s writing and John’s art.
I may, however, stop reading the comments. For the first eight chapters the comments were all great, y’know, light and funny, but then they swerved in a radically new, darker and edgier direction. And there was no foreshadowing of this change in commenting. I demand the commenters make some changes and save the comments section before it’s too late! I don’t care if the shift in comments was planned from the beginning, change it NOW!
I order the commenters to provide me with comments, free of charge, that only serve up what’s familiar to me and which don’t attempt to broaden my horizons. And even though I’m LEAVING 4EVER, I will keep coming back and grousing over and over again, in slightly different words with lots of swears, because I know if I do it enough times, the commenters will see the logic in my position and govern themselves accordingly.
<3
Very good.
Alice Macher, you… You’re just great, you know that? A wonderful person.
Penny and Aggie forumites represent! Woo! ♥
Oh man, you should see your typeface.
+1
much love.
Ok, nice twist. Did not shock me that much, though. I guess nothing beats seeing Bandit chopped like a carrot.
I bet that Frigg will hang this dick by this tie sometime in th future.
Please do not leave the comments. We’re just weeding out the idiots right now. I give them about 3 or 4 more pages.
Unless you were being sarcastic and trying to make an example out of all the people throwing hissy fits. In which case, by all means, join us in lambasting the idiots.
It was the latter, yes. <_<
But that comment was the first and last of my lambasting contributions here. I got it out of my system. :)
I trust the authors and artists on this one. I’d rather experience it for what it is than complain about what I want it to be.
You know what I miss the most right now? The color. That tie is just not epic enough.
Oh, yeah. I miss those character people what got killed too, I guess.
Oh, hey, the scene on lefthand monitor is Byron getting skewered by Harky.
I’m not sure what you’re seeing on that screen, Caitlin. It is a beach scene with palm trees.
Yeah . . . I’m getting that now that someone’s pointed it out. In my defense, it’s tiny.
I love you guys! Perfect response! No other webcomic I know would have realised that, accepted it, and pointed it out. Don’t worry, personally I’m enjoying this as much as I enjoyed the other chapters.
Love you guys.
I have an uneasy feeling that we’re about to have a Mogworld-like plot twist. Please don’t rip off such an original book, please?
OK, all meta-stuff aside: The most interesting question to me right now (whether the strip is any good anymore is not an interesting question to me — it will answer itself in a few more panels) is whether, in the previous strip, Dedalus was merely reading (or watching) the action on his computer screen, or whether he was the one drawing (or animating) it. I assumed the latter, but as I’ve gone back and looked again today, I’m leaning the other way. Dedalus may not be responsible for the content of this world. Or, if he is, it’s in an indirect way.
P.S. I caught the Ulysses reference.
It says “Chief Executive Officer” on his door. He’s reviewing content and approving/rejecting it.
Also, the computer screen on the left side in panels 3 and 4 has the “Byron skewered by Harky” scene running/frozen on it. That’s more likely to be an animator’s office since it’s in a fishbowl glass office where everyone can make sure the guy is working and not goofing off. Additionally, the fellow in the office across from that screams “office worker trying to impress boss,” enforcing the idea that these are H. R.’s underlings.
It’s doubtful H. R. does any animating/programming himself (though he may have in the past, before the promotion to CEO).
I don’t see it. All I see is a generic beach and palm tree background. *Looks right over his head* Am I missing something?
No, it’s your basic desktop wallpaper of a beach and palm tree. ;-)
Darn. I think I was just so hoping to see them again that I interperted the tiny image incorrectly. Anyway, thanks for the heads-up.
I think he sent the ghost.
But that’s just my idea.
P.P.S. Re the alt text: It can’t be an Aaron Sorkin show, because you don’t have anyone saying, “OK.”
God, I half expect the guy to suddenly start talking to the audience and explain what was going on. ._.
I actually really doubt that they’ll just pull the ‘It’s all just a game’ or something of a like since it’s so over-used and cheap, and the story up to this ALMOST went the ‘over-done trope’ road… but didn’t. So I’m actually super curious about what the hell is going on. Since that’s probably what your going for, good job. I’m on the edge of my seat.
(Damn though, I miss Frigg already and she wasn’t even my favorite character.)
Wait, so there’s a game where people can’t just say they’re doing it, but can actually have huge orgies because they’re Payet Best?
And obviously, these aren’t players. They would log off. They created a world with sentient NPC’s.
I kind of like that angle. MMO company has as their main selling point “advanced NPC AI”, where the guys who normally stand around pointing you places actually adventure and quest and save the world themselves. Maybe they’re growing a world and it’s necessary lore for launch day organically, and one of the main quest lines for players is ‘find out what happened to Byron’s party’.
I could dig that. Not really the story we’ve been reading up to now, though.
Jury’s still out on this end.
But if we get the equivalent of M. Night Shamalamabingbong coming out and going, “What a tweest!”
Yeah…torches and pitchforks.
Dammit, who let T Campbell near the 4th wall? I thought we all agreed after that horrible sluggy guest week he wasn’t allowed to get close to it, ever. So, who was it? Fess up.
NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRD RAGE!!! Nah I like the direction guys keep up the good work.
I wonder who G4 are.
I’m in.
What else is there to say that needs saying and hasn’t been said?
To those throwing tantrum and rage quitting – bye.
To those sticking around – cream rises to the top, no?
To Phil and T and John:
I’m still reading, still listening to the story. Which means, y’know, shutting the fuck up and letting the story teller talk :)
So throwing a tantrum about other people throwing tantrums is cool? What about throwing a tantrum because someone is throwing a tantrum about other people having tantrums?
Also, other things that float to the top:
Ice, feces, wood, cherries.
Can’t have a hissy fit every time someone leaves, and honestly, expressing WHY they are leaving is probably more useful to the writers then just removing GA from their RSS feeds, at least they got feed back!
I’m on the fence so far, we’ll see where things go. As many others have said though, we read worse things :)
(Of course, why would you just want to be better then the worst comic…be the BEST comic guys!)
Also, other things that float to the top
“A duck!”
“Exactly.”
“So, if this new direction for GA weighs the same a duck…it’s made of wood.”
“And therefore…?”
“………………….”
“…A WITCH!”
High-five.
So, back to punfighting? At the moment I think our scores are tied.
This is great; I’m really looking forward to where this is heading. I have my suspicions, but whatever.
Anyone that feels physically punished by this new direction (did I actually read someone saying it felt like getting punched in the stomach?) should GO OUTSIDE AND GET SOME FRESH AIR.
My word, this new world is terrifying.
Mundane to the point of despair.
Something is definitely up with that tie though.
edit to add: as a longtime player of the old whitewolf game “changeling” (the first version before the went and made it about silly humans), all I can think when I see this is “WINTER”.
From your comment, I take it that (some) regular posters have been complaining about it? Webcomic readers are sometimes a little short-sighted and the epitome of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks
I, for one, am extremely excited to see where this is going. This comic is your project, and you know it’s going to be good. The kiddos will be loving it in a few weeks, the same ones that might be trashing it now. I can think of the beginning of Erfworld, for example…
And last, but not least, thank you very much for sharing this amazing project with us anonymous internetz users :-)
Yesss, I think it’s safe to say that many, many people have complained about it. Just scroll up to see examples.
Remember. People have been checking this website three days a week for two YEARS, expecting a very specific kind of content. That was yanked out from under them a week ago. Apprehension should be expected.
“Should be expected”, no less… *epic eyeroll*
I’m concerned
but as long as the color comes back I can deal! I only have room in my heart for one sepia comic: Lackadaisy
So I am afraid to keep MY interest I’M GONNA NEED THE COLORSSSS
Just recently archive-binged Lackadaisy, after T tweeted about the facial expressions tutorial. God damn is that a magnificent comic.
Facial expressions tutorial?
sorry guys, I’m going to be away for a while :)
Dang it, don’t link me to new webcomics. The last one I binged (Questionable Content, thanks to Fans making a reference) ate up three days of my life, at least. I’m like an alcoholic, only with webcomics.
This one will only take you a couple hours at most to archive-binge, because the art is of such high quality, and each individual strip the equivalent of a Sunday newspaper comic, that the cartoonist doesn’t even bother with a regular schedule. Updates happen when they’re ready. RSS is your friend.
Trust me, this is worth it, not only for the art but for the writing.
The sepia tone makes the “real world” look like Templar, Arizona.
Yes, clearly we are in Templar. Nothing can shake my fast-closing bubble of fantasy.
Am I the first one to say that is a sweet purple tie? Seriously, it’s a PURPLE TIE! How many of those do you see everyday?
It really is a sweet tie.
Wow at all the drama queens, are you all the same people that stuck their noses in the air and flounced out at ctrl alt del after the abortion page?
Let’s wait and see ^^
Wait…She had an abortion? That’s what happened? Awful.
Actually I’m pretty sure everyone sticks their noses in the air at ctrl alt del for other reasons. Like, because it sucks.
The abortion page was just icing on the whinecake.
Must… Endure… the HORROR!
You know what almost ruined this for me? And I’m not talking about the comic, but the comments themselves. I know that I can just not read them, but the comments section was something I always looked forward to in GA because, quite frankly, your guys use of puns and sense of humor was awesome…until the comic got a bit more popular and now the bottom feeders are here spewing their garbage.
Besides that I still love this comic and I’m interested in the direction it’s going. I know you guys will blow us away, like you have the last chapter. Fuck the crybaby whiners and continue doing your thing guys! You have my support all the way.
I love how none of the folks that make this comic have commented at all… virtually every single other strip has had at least one comment from Phil, T, Erica, or the new artist guy (sorry can’t remember your name yet)
Gold star!
Probably because they know better than to allow themselves to get bogged down by unsporting reader comments. That shit be a slippery ass slope.
It’s John.
William H. Macy stars in Frank Miller’s, “The Developer!”
So what, the game company is next door to a brothel and Dedalus has to kill a bunch of criminals on his way to work every morning?
Apparently, reality is in sepia tones.
And a splash of purple. Purple ties are awesome.
I am worried, but hopeful. I am not normally a fan of “Twists” like this, especially two rapid fire trope-heavy twists in a row.
I was all set and ready to see how the party kill twist was going to work, and BAM! None of it matters because the entire interesting, less-cliched fantasy world is just some Purple-Tied Schmuck’s MMO.
Yes, I’m a bitter, bitter man. I admit it. I have seen Faaaar too many good series get destroyed by their authors to not be.
So, the question I must ask myself: Will I leave in a blaze of angst-riddled glory, to dine in the halls of Whinehalla?
Or do I stay, and wait, and listen to that little voice that says “Hope!”
*Sets down his bean bag chair and folds his arms*
….Don’t let me down.
Two is a chicane, right?
I don’t know what a British trance musician has to do with anything.. but sure! *Gets his glow sticks and glow in the dark fuzzy boots*
um, a chicane is a pair of sharp turns in a road put ther artificially to slow traffic down.
Well, I’m not going anywhere yet, because I liked this comic a lot so far. :P
However, I reeeally hope the plot twist here isn’t “everything we’ve seen so far is just characters in a computer game”… And it’s really starting to look that way.
… Okay, I’ll probably keep reading even if that *is* the case, but… ugh. This is going to hurt.
Is it Monday yet?
Ooh, I wonder if this story is going to do an Inkheart on us? that’d be fun.
Inkheart kicked ass. I wonder if Byron would be Dustfinger. Then again, he doesn’t own a ferret…
it’s Bandit.
First off we know the gang’s story continues, “How do we know this oh jarhead? We know Marines can barely read, how could you possibly know this!?” Simple, read chapter 1. I’ve been here from the start and the simple reality is that we are in an extended back story/flash back after say the first six pages of chapter 1. We’re first introduced to the crew in the middle of a well “raid” for lack of a better term, kicking some lupine shaman’s ass. Byron has those shoulders he picks up off of Gigundus, the crew is working together in a familiar and practiced manner, this point is where we are going. These 8 chapters have been getting us there.
Second I think this new plot development is going to be fascinating. It has a great potential for all sorts of new things.
I’ve been here from the start and I’ll be here till the end.
Didn’t Gravedust’s journal clarify that the volcano event happened before that point in the story?
Eh, I stand by what I said before. I paid my ten tickets, I’m strapped in ’til the ride is over. No sense jumping out of the train on the first corkscrew loop-the-loop.
I certainly hope that you’re not turning this comic into Doonsbury. That would depress me. Because Doonsbury is depressing.
Depressingly bad, I mean.
Only if you see a floating sallet take the place of the Gastonian figurehead.
Well, I’m still kind of intrigued. This hasn’t hit a point yet where I feel I’m just done with it all. And I read webcomics as a way of killing time so I’ll continue reading it. I just hope my trust isn’t unfounded. I would hate to feel utterly disappointed with this comic because I really do like the characters and how distinctive they are.
So what if it’s a game/movie/alternate universe/whatever? This is all fiction anyway, the characters were no more or less “real” before all this than they are now. It’s still a great story, and one that you can really do nothing to change with moans and pleas. Maybe we should all just sit back and wait, and see what happens.
Sorry if I’m coming off as harsh; I just think that a story should be judged by what it has done, not what it might do or even seems to be doing, as often the story itself is purposely misleading. If you don’t like the story, there’s a simpler and much more respectful response than begging the writer for a change: Don’t read it.