May 17, 2013 Under Arrest

[friedkitty]

Methinks Thunt has been reading posts and has found a way to give us fillerish goodness while getting caught up on his workload.

I like it.

If anyone can think of a better title for this thread, feel free to change it, My brain is fried from being at work.

[Insane Kitty]

mmm, waffles and maple syrup!

[Pjerrot]

Shouldn't this have been named 'Arrested Development'?

[friedkitty]

And no comments about how the felines are playing with this thread...

Oh wait... I just did.

**ducks**

[SamWiser]

That's awesome. I wonder if this is THunts attempt to start another Tempts Fate pledge drive? I don't think it would be the best time with the kickstarter though.

[friedkitty]

It strikes me more as an "I know I've been reaaaaaly busy, but I haven't forgotten the generosity of my fans, so here's a little extra" with the big reveal of the final Tempts 11 at the end. (At least that's what I'm hoping)

[RJJ7]

If one reads the May 17th blog post (or whatever those things are that show up under the comic page), Thunt explains precisely what he's doing and why, and friedkitty is correct down to the last detail. Thunt's throwing this penciled interlude in as a bit of extra stuff for us, that's easy to do (so it won't take too much time away from the main comic), with the final Tempt's Fate page at the end.

[ThroughTheWell]

I like the sketches and the extra side story. I do hope it is not too much for THunt to do, and that he is able to finish this and put TF 11 behind him. I think extra story is a worthy guilt payment. And some people actualy like sketches as they typicaly show an intermediate beheind the scenes reveal into how the artist does their work. And hey, I'm all about the story(ies). I'll add that I applaud THunts humility.

http://www.goblinscomic.com/05172013/
http://www.goblinscomic.com/the-search-for-tempts-fate/

[zennyrpg]

I, for one, am happy to get more tempts fate. Tempts fate makes me feel good, main story makes me feel depressed. Not that I don't love the main story-- I do. But tempts fate is like a really well written fanfic that makes you squeal with delight.

Normally I would find the joke in the last couple of panels pretty lame, (those sort of jokes usually have lame punchlines I don't think are funny) but for this one I pretty much laughed my ass off.

[willpell]

Dear Thunt: Please do not feel guilty. You are awesome, and it seems like you beat yourself up over not-much, and end up making things worse when you didn't have anything much to apologize for in the first place. It's great that you want to do right by us, but you need not worry so much; we will continue to enjoy your work as long as you are able to provide it, and you don't need to burn yourself out trying to go above and beyond for our sake; we're more interested in continuing to have you around.

People were asking "where's TF11", but you could have just told us that it was taking time you didn't have, and I'm pretty sure we'd all have been cool with waiting however long it took. In the meantime, this little lagniappe is neat, but you didn't have to do it (and I wouldn't have minded the characters introducing themselves, as we have no idea who they are). I'm absolutely not complaining in any event; just keep on keeping on, and we'll be glad to have you.

To the rest of the forum: I'd like more Altsplanations eventually, but this was a neat surprise when I wasn't expecting to find anything (seems like just yesterday we got a new main comic). And I for one hope that, on that distant future day when Goblins' main story arc is completely finished, Thunt might move on to further adventures in his setting, perhaps including more tales of Tempts Fate (not as donation drives, just as more story).

[SamWiser]

If one reads the May 17th blog post (or whatever those things are that show up under the comic page), Thunt explains precisely what he's doing and why, and friedkitty is correct down to the last detail. Thunt's throwing this penciled interlude in as a bit of extra stuff for us, that's easy to do (so it won't take too much time away from the main comic), with the final Tempt's Fate page at the end.

Ok, that explains it. The blog post wasn't up when I first read it.

[mnementh]

Shouldn't this have been named ''Arrested Development''?

Yeah, like we don't already have a thread like that...


mnem
*Only slightly Arrested*

[BeanDip]

Shouldn't this have been named ''Arrested Development''?

Yeah, like we don't already have a thread like that...


mnem
*Only slightly Arrested*

Mnementh: shamelessly plugging his own game thread since 1876

I like this update though I'd rather see what was going on with the AltKins.

And surely I can't be the only that thinks that Thunt's "lazy", quick sketches are still amazing artwork, right?

That thinks that Thunt. Say that ten times fast.

[Liesmith]

And surely I can't be the only that thinks that Thunt's "lazy", quick sketches are still amazing artwork, right?

I quite enjoy them, but I think he could make them look even better by making the lines bright green, and the background black; he could write Shadowrun matrix comics that way, and the visuals would fit perfectly.

This is not a shameless attempt to get a Goblins/Shadowrun crossover.

Yes it is.

[ThroughTheWell]

I think he could make them look even better by making the lines bright green, and the background black; he could write Shadowrun matrix comics that way,

Maybe INSIDE the prison?

[Liesmith]

I think he could make them look even better by making the lines bright green, and the background black; he could write Shadowrun matrix comics that way,

Maybe INSIDE the prison?

Like they have to do a matrix run to bust him out? So much yes.

[Arydra]

I actually liked the Mass Effect 3 ending
This was a nice and entertaining read, thank you Thunt for remembering poor little Tempts Fate.

[BeanDip]

I actually liked the Mass Effect 3 ending

Same. Thought that I was the only one.

[Liesmith]

I actually liked the Mass Effect 3 ending

Same. Thought that I was the only one.

At the risk of a Total Thread Derail:
I was greatly disappointed by the ending, but only because the rest of the series was so phenomenal in comparison, and it was the exact kind of ending they said they wouldn't do. It did have a great benefit, though, in that it got many people talking about what makes a good story, and those are discussions I absolutely love. It also created my new most favoritest YouTuber.

[mulespace1]

Long time reader, joined forum just to say: Yes, ME3's original ending was criminal. Even after the Extended Cut it was still criminal, but perhaps no longer worth capital punishment. Under Ashes and Citadel DLC should have been included (and some of the ending dialogue added by Leviathan) as it was story-crucial content. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Anyways.

Glad to see Tempts Fate may be getting out of limbo soon!

[mnementh]

Shouldn't this have been named ''Arrested Development''?

Yeah, like we don't already have a thread like that...


mnem
*Only slightly Arrested*

Mnementh: shamelessly plugging his own game thread since 1876

I like this update though I'd rather see what was going on with the AltKins.

And surely I can't be the only that thinks that Thunt's "lazy", quick sketches are still amazing artwork, right?

That thinks that Thunt. Say that ten times fast.

Oh, come ON. How often does someone come on and BEG you to refer back to a thread you started?

That thinks that THunt... That thinks that THunt... That thinks that THunt... Thakk kinks cat... Sonuvacrap.


mnem
STILL didn't purge that '80s Paul Young tune that's been rattling around my head since I heard it in line at the grocery store this morning... *Sigh*

*Hums*

"You said you'd return; you said that you'd be mine 'til the end of time... Don't wait any longer.
Why don't you come back? Please hurry! Why don't you come back? Please hurry!
Come back and stay for good this time; Come back and stay for good this time..."

*Starts looking for a drill to let the demons out*

[Your.Master]

Digression alert: Here's my problem with Mass Effect 3's ending.

The first Mass Effect was mostly in a self-consistent and interesting setting, although the notion that "negative current" changes gravity opposite to "positive current" is as nonsensical as saying tapping a button with your left hand has different effects from tapping it with your right hand. Oh, and the outgoing pansexual space chicks were ridiculous. And the eezo mass thing infecting different species' brains or whatever shouldn't cause every species to be access the Force, because that's nonsense. I'll accept these as interesting "applied phlebotinum", except I have to insert my own explanation for "negative current" which is total nonsense. Similarly, I can accept Psimax's oblivion engine, and the idea of fake surface oblivion, but the idea that proving "1 + 1 = 0" is at all relevant to oblivionating a pocket universe is too much so I just take it as symbolic language on Psimax's part. That's okay. I still like Goblins and I still like Mass Effect and it's mostly self-consistent. Even if I disagree with parts of THunt's rope-through-Kore-Axe trick, or with some of the extrapolations Mass Effect makes. Still cool and interesting.

Mass Effect 2 appeared to stop trying. And when it was trying it was making basic mistakes like the negative/positive current thing, like when they argued that firing mass drivers at high velocity was going to give somebody a bad day in the far future. As if there were such a thing as absolute velocity. Also the gameplay was boring. The Vorcha were as nonsensical as the space lesbians, and seem to have a video-gamey special ability, except that it doesn't actually come up in this video game.

Mass Effect 3 was much better than 2, and vs. 1 -- it had ups and downs. I prefer 1 because it was a fresh and unique setting to explore and wasn't hell-bent on giving an obvious cameo to every last dialog character you met in two previous games, and I *like* sophisticated RPG mechanics, but 3 did improve some things and held its own. It also started to try to make sense for a while. Also it made it very clear that they were being Dragon Age in space, in that just like Dragon Age has a darkspawn version of every species (which is pretty much stupid), so too do the reapers have one footsoldier type for every species whose mechanics are quite different from the base race. Oh, and the Kinect integration was cool except when they auto-selected an option based on my own TV speakers. No other Kinect-enabled game seems to have this problem in my experience.... Also I prefer infinite ammo with cooldown and finite health, to the reversed model in later Mass Effects, with finite ammo and infinite health with cooldown.

Then we got to the ending. And it didn't make any sense. Less than the things in Mass Effect 2. The green option that I ultimately chose turns everybody into cyborgs magically? What? The blue one makes you the deux ex machina that controls all toasters universe-wide, which still doesn't make sense, and essentially enslaves the Geth that I just spent a huge portion of the game finally reconciling with the Quarians. The red one somehow seeks and destroys synthetics, so screw you EDI. And again, the Geth I just finished saving and who repaid the favour by helping out in the battle for Earth, are rewarded with holocaust. What is the threshold for that, anyway? Does my iPhone cease functioning? The star child thought it would kill you because of your electronic prostheses, but it doesn't (if you have a high score). Each of the three endings corresponds to one of the villainous plots, too -- Green for Mass Effect 1's Saren. Blue for Mass Effect 2's illusive man. Red, inverted, for the Reapers themselves. The hypocrisy is never addressed. Not one word about why what you're doing is better.

Imagine the goblins comic ends with Psimax and Kore turning out to be heroes misunderstood all along, teaming up, and they do one of the following (MinMax's choice): True Oblivioning all the monsters of reality 156, or mind controlling all the monsters and directing them to do good works, or making everybody into monsters. What's more, imagine that happens in the next few weeks, after we built things up as if this made sense.

The funny thing is, I thought back in Mass Effect 1 that one of the sequels would probably have a subplot where you're indoctrinated, though I kind of figured it would resolved around the mid-game. You're certainly around reaper artifacts more than a lot of other people who succumb. I didn't need to see the indoctrination video for that. Though it did point out a couple things I'd missed, some of which seemed like ridiculous nitpicks but some seemed legit. However, the second-last mission had quashed the idea that I was indoctrinated because the thingamajig didn't detect indoctrination in me.

The extended cut DLC didn't really address any of that. It still didn't make any sense. How do you have a doomsday mechanism that "destroys all synthetics", "controls all synthetics", or "converts all organics and synthetics into cyborgs". They're like cards in Magic: The Gathering moreso than actual choices. The other DLC with the organic precursors to the Reapers did more to address that by at least providing a slightly saner motivation to the reaper / 50k year cycle / star child setup. But on the other hand it's kind of cheap because we have yet another last survivor ancient race that exactly corresponds to a reaper robot. Ugh.

I think the Quarian vs. Geth thing would have made a better ending, honestly. That one actually does take into account you decisions in each release, and has a climactic and satisfying end. Sure, it leaves Earth doomed, but so did the pre-extended cut, considering the mass effect gates were dead with no indication it was repairable and the combined fleets of many antagonistic races are orbiting a devastated Earth.

To me, the "official ending" that is the most acceptable of the extended cut DLC where you shoot the star child and you lose against the reapers. That's the only one where you're a semi-believable hero rather than an omnipotent magic-using supervillain (in a setting that isn't supposed to have "magic" other than biotics). My head-canon remains that all three choices were BS and you were indoctrinated, and each choice was one way to fail spectacularly. I'm fine with an ending that isn't happy, but is shocking. I don't believe for a minute that's what the writers have in mind and I expect any future Mass-Effect universe media to contradict that all over the place. That's okay. By the same token, head-canon version of the Star Wars prequels isn't that bad either. For a start, you remove virtually all of the scenes with either Anakin and Padme, and definitely all of the ones with both.

I've seen worse endings. But I don't think I've seen a worse ending to something that was so good before the ending, despite my earlier complaints. Penny Arcade's Tycho thought it was in the grand tradition of sci-fi endings, but I just can't accept that when it made no sense. I know I'm nerd-nitpicking when I talk about the mass drivers thing. It's not nerd-nitpicking to ask what the hell the green energy wave of turning things into cyborgs is all about. It's a lower bar than common sense even. It's "what am I even looking at?". I'm pretty sure I'm not an idiot who just isn't getting it.

Penny-Arcade's Gabe, on the other hand, was just a dick who made it out to be people wanting saccharine happy endings. I don't think I agree with Gabe's opinion on many things at all.

But if ME4 comes out and it's basically ME3 again, complete with a crap ending, I'll buy it.

[wonderdrow]

So did the ME3 game manage to indoctrinate you as a player?

[Krulle]

I don't even know what Mass Effect is about. Whether it's a film, game, or book...

Is it wrong for me to be here?


Also, if you write that much about an ending, you should spoiler-tag it.

[BeanDip]

Its a series of video games with some tie in novels and (i think) a movie in the works. Plays like a space opera with a well done if fairly standard sci fi setting, fascinating writing and story arcs, interesting characters and good dialogue. I greatly enjoy it.