Book 2 – Page 72

[Jorgath]

Here's a silly situation to explain my point that you should ignore if you get where I'm coming from already

The only nitpick I have with your situation is that you assume that the bad doods will always recover a magic sword when they kill a good dood. What if another good dood recovers it instead? He probably can't dual-use them, but removing it from the combat altogether is better than having the bad doods start using them. So say there's even odds that any of the non-casters will recover the magic sword -- after your first round, you have 3 good doods and 6 bad doods, and two swords. The bad doods have a 2/3 chance of recovering one sword, but only a 4/9 chance of recovering both. The good doods have a 1/3 chance of recovering one sword, and a 1/9 chance of recovering both. Although your point stands, it's easier to assume that after round 1, the bad doods only recover one of the two swords. So you have effective dood strength 6 on the good side and effective dood strength 7 on the bad side.

[Beeskee]

There may be other mechanics at play too, they might not be able to loot specific items during a battle. We did see one hobgobwin gathering arrows during combat, but he may not have been able to go after specific ones, just whatever he could get. (If there even ARE magic arrows, I dunno.)

Also the Turn-based nature of the world comes into play too. A side that loses a battle on their turn can bring more forces into play and possibly win control of the hex before the next side gets to go.


I get the feeling magic items have a more rock-paper-scissors nature to them. As in, an item might have a strong magic defense but no combat ability, or an attack bonus against flying units but not so much against infantry. Etc. Everything else we've seen in Erfworld is relatively balanced like this.

There seem to be a LOT of magic items too. At least, that we've seen. Stanley's KISS guys seemed to have magic weapons. Wanda's "Bride of Frankenstein" hair helmet was magical. Jillian's golden top hat seemed to be, too. There's LOTS of magic hats in this 'game' hehe.

[Housellama]

Second, we learned something about the Decrypted. Ossomer is debatably the lowest loyaly Decrypted that we know of. And yet when offered the explicit chance to turn, he didn't say I won't, he said I can't. Specifically "It isn't possible." That's potential confirmation of forced loyalty to the Pliers.

No, that's abusive interpretation of Ossomer's speech pattern. The Turnamancy attempt to turn Ansom was a MUCH more substantial proof of that particular theory. Not to mention it may not be possible to simply ask a warlord to turn given Loyalty and Duty, decrypted or not.
So that might a bit to discussions, but isn't really important.
WHICH IS IRRELEVANT ANYWAY. Even if it is something interesting to learn (which it isn't) it's still not the plot of the story moving forward, it's exposition. So double fail on that point.

Since I'm sure people are getting tired of the back and forth and it's obvious that nobody's changing their point of view, I'll address a different thing.

I don't feel that it is abusing the language. For two reasons.

One, Rob picks his words with care. There are a lot of responses that Ossomer COULD have given. A lot of specific words that could have been used. Especially after a hesitation such as what Oss showed. When people hesitate, it means that they are giving additional thought to what they are saying, because they don't want to say it or they want to say it a different way or a variety of other reasons. Regardless, if Ossomer was fully comfortable with his instinctual word choice, he would have continued. But he didn't. Which means what he said came after a moment's thought. If Rob didn't pick those words to convey a very specific meaning, I'll eat my hat. Now, I said potential confirmation because it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. It could be that Oss's sense of honor simply will not allow him to turn, or that duty compels him not to turn, or it could be related to the pliers. But whatever it is, there is something actually PREVENTING Oss from turning. It's not that he's unwilling, it's that he is actually unable due to some set of circumstances.

The second reason is simple. Words have meaning. It's not abusive to take a particular set of words in context and speculate on the reason why THOSE words was used instead of others. In that context, the response "it isn't possible" conveys a very different meaning than "I don't want to". Now, you can say that my speculation is a bit wild, but I didn't claim it was DEFINITELY confirmation. I said it was possible, and with the phrasing of the response, it IS possible. It's more plausible than some other explanations, less plausible than others.

Close reading? Sure. Abusive of the language? Not hardly. Merely precise, with some speculation thrown in. Shoot down the speculation, by all means, but don't say I'm abusing the language.

[Sojiko]

Not abusive of the language, abusive interpretation.
Very different things.

[effataigus]

Not abusive of the language, abusive interpretation.
Very different things.

Indeed. "I can't" could just as easily be short for "I can't do that in good conscience."

Here's a silly situation to explain my point that you should ignore if you get where I'm coming from already

The only nitpick I have with your situation is that you assume that the bad doods will always recover a magic sword when they kill a good dood. What if another good dood recovers it instead? He probably can't dual-use them, but removing it from the combat altogether is better than having the bad doods start using them. So say there's even odds that any of the non-casters will recover the magic sword -- after your first round, you have 3 good doods and 6 bad doods, and two swords. The bad doods have a 2/3 chance of recovering one sword, but only a 4/9 chance of recovering both. The good doods have a 1/3 chance of recovering one sword, and a 1/9 chance of recovering both. Although your point stands, it's easier to assume that after round 1, the bad doods only recover one of the two swords. So you have effective dood strength 6 on the good side and effective dood strength 7 on the bad side.

Nope, Bad-Doods are much better at recovering weapons than Good-Doods since they have all of the extra tentacles.

Kidding, but would you believe I actually initially planned to include all of what you just mentioned, but decided against it since it seemed to be more than needed to convey the point?

[Sojiko]

Not abusive of the language, abusive interpretation.
Very different things.

Indeed. "I can't" could just as easily be short for "I can't do that in good conscience."

Precisely, thank you effataigus.
It can also mean "it isn't possible" ... "to prove I have honor by turning a second time", for example.

Not to mention it assumes that it is possible for a warlord unit to decide to turn by himself regardless of his Loyalty (and Duty). If it isn't, it simply means that the pliers provide enough Loyalty to prevent them from turning spontaneously.
The fact that Turnamancy doesn't work (or doesn't appear to) is a much more substantial argument if you want to argue lack of free will for the decrytped. We don't know enough about loyalty or what Ossomer meant here to derive actual information from that.
We can build an hypothesis, but that's one we already had, so it's at most a clue that tend to go in one direction.

[mcw0933]

Why do people assume that the various characters AREN'T decked out in magical bling?

You have it backwards. What some people (like me) are saying is "if a Dollamancer can make enough items to cover a King in awesome weaponry in one turn, how come it's not EVERYONE who's decked out in magical bling?" (Answer, a Dollamancer cannot make enough items in one turn)

There are people asking "if A were true it would lead to B which is false, and therefore 1 is false" (a fine reasoning ad absurdum) and I am pointing out that as far as we know B actually IS true.

On the magical bling bit of violent agreement: fair enough, it's a fair question to ask what magical qualities the gear everyone is sporting has. Assuming it were magical, who made it? If it's the local Dollamancer, then presumably it comes cheaper than what may be purchased via MK. But what really got this debate started was Slately (low-levelled unit btw), all at once, receiving a boopton of items the likes of which we've rarely seen. They grant flight, increased defense, ranged Shockamancy attacks, make foolamancy useless ... and it seemed (seemed being the key word here) to be made at the drop of a hat before the drop of a tower.

Kinda equals or surpasses the Staff of Suckage and Ruthless Sword, for no apparent effort. And the thing is we have NOT seen bling the likes of which Slately appeared to obtain at a moment's notice crop up that often*. Given that, it's fair to assume B is in fact false, and we're no longer interested in establishing its veracity. We're interested to know why B is false.

Looking back at Book 2 - Text Update 30, it seems like Ace and Cubbins have been working for quite some time to build up the set of accessories they have to offer the amassed troops. And only most of it works.

Ace gestured at the wooden table, full of hooks, rope, looking glasses, backpacks, chains, horseshoes, bows, missiles, and odd parts. "Almost everything you see here, Cubbins helped me put together in our spare time. Some of it's unfinished junk, but most of it works and you can take it into battle. Which today, this turn...we're finally gonna do. This is a great day! A great day!"

Granted that since this effort was extracurricular and required juice, it's entirely possible that the crafting duration is instantaneous, and the "spare time" really refers to "spare juice." But I don't read it that way.

The jetpack was already crafted before the siege began. So I would venture that the scene of Ace and Cubbins outfitting the king occurred so quickly because they were simply choosing from among their other pre-crafted items. They then only had to apply some final tweaks to create Slately's ensemble.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Nope, Bad-Doods are much better at recovering weapons than Good-Doods since they have all of the extra tentacles.

I don't understand. Are you describing a battle or a hentai situation?

The jetpack was already crafted before the siege began. So I would venture that the scene of Ace and Cubbins outfitting the king occurred so quickly because they were simply choosing from among their other pre-crafted items. They then only had to apply some final tweaks to create Slately's ensemble.

In one of my many ramblings in this thread here, I indicated that there being many items already existing was the main factor that helped Slately get new bling. I said something like, since those items were lying about, most likely, it was easy for them to be fitted to the regalia.

Incidentally, if we drop references to cultural cruft from Stupidworld, how's this for Imperial battle gear: nada. Zilch. Nothing. Have Slately go into battle au naturel, all the while the courtiers and casters insisting that he is in fact clothed in the finest items. There are no children in Erfworld, so that would work.

Think about that. How much more buff than in the buff can Slately get?

THINK ABOUT ITT!!

[Ptharien's Flame]

Think about that. How much more buff than in the buff can Slately get?

THINK ABOUT ITT!!

I'm not sure I want to think about it!!!!

[Anias]

Okay, since the whole "magic items vs. extra units" debate is going nowhere, I figure I'll bring up an older (if no more likely to be resolvable) line of thought:

So we know that:
-Slately intends to attack Ossomer and the GK fliers (archons).
-Ossomer has already considered this possibility (well, in part, when Slately started talking like he wanted to fight - before Slately got his magic items), and came to the conclusion that it was ridiculous.
-He could fell Slately with a kick to the knee, and with 27 archons, Ossomer (and his level 9 leadership), Jetstone could not possibly field enough fliers to escape.
-Ossomer doesn't want to kill Slately, Slately has no such compunctions (as far as I can tell, though that may change if he realizes just how much Ossomer really is still his son).
-Slately wants to fight, regardless of whether or not he dies, to earn enough to promote Tramennis (through archon-kills), to promote Tramennis, and to buy Tramennis the time to escape, so that Jetstone can survive.
-Tramennis, however, is incapacitated, and will croak on the next turn, according to one of the text updates. As far as I can tell, Slately has no knowledge of this fact.
-Clearly (at least to me), the Jetstone casters, at a minimum, hope to aid Slately in escaping, rather than allowing him to fight to the death. Though they do not know all the details of the kill-archons-promote-Tramennis-buy-Tramennis-time-to-escape plan (or the fact that Tramennis is near death) either.
-We have a potential Chekov's Gun - the healomancer, Pierce. He appears to be the only one who could save Tramennis (without decryption), but he doesn't seem to know that his services are needed - though the character he's based on would happily ignore his leader's orders in order to go heal the person (Tramennis) who needs it.
-The tower appears to be crumbling (I take this to mean that it's beginning to actually collapse, but this has been debated.), which means that time's up. The decisions have to be made, and made NOW.
-So, though I have no idea of what effects the Magic Kingdom Debacle is going to produce, the situation appears to be that Jetstone is about to fall, as its King is about to fight a superior enemy force to the death in order to promote his Chief Warlord to Heir, not knowing that said Chief Warlord is dying, and the only force that could save him is unaware of his condition.

My predictions? I'd guess that Slately and co. fight the GK fliers, kill enough archons to promote Tramennis, but Slately is captured by Ossomer, who refuses to kill him on grounds of nobility. Slately promotes Tramennis (at some point during this mess), and sends any surviving troops to help him (Pierce among them) as soon as enough archons are killed for the bounty. Pierce finds and heals Tramennis, who (at least attempts to) escape from the city, potentially meeting Parson and co. on his way out.

And then everyone pauses for afternoon tea and crumpets. Just because.

[teratorn]

Think about that. How much more buff than in the buff can Slately get?

THINK ABOUT ITT!!

And then he is met by 27 archons also in the buff!

[BakaGrappler]

Since my main computer blew up and I have not been able to read the reactions in this thread, I am only going to say a few things.

1. Rob, I'm certain a lot of people are saying this, but I am fine if you have the 3 Friends Archons get taken out. Like many people, I despised Friends back in the day. You either loved it or wanted to kill everyone involved with it.

2. I am assuming that the mechanics for being on top of a building as it collapses are similar to falling off a mount in mid-air. It will be interesting to see who survives.

3. Please do not kill off the two surviving Archons that were teamed up with Gillian in Book 1. I personally enjoyed the fact that even though their names were not jokes, they still had distinct personalities, or should I say stances, on the idea of following Charlie's rules. I've actually missed not seeing them since Book 1.

4. And most important, please do not bury Artemis' body under the tower's rubble and then make her non-reclaimable. In the short time you had us get to know her, I think 70% of your readers have become people that like her. I would also be very interested in seeing if she will ever be able to attain her dream of bringing glory to her name, probably in a misplaced desire to do right by Prince Forthewin. Hell, the fact that she has a backstory that can be even further explored in the future is intriging. I have also said it before, but when Erfworld starts moving towards more complicated tactics and the like, having as many Leadership units that we know and care about will be very helpful to everyone remembering who is where during the 6 months it will take for the battle to play out. Who is more memorable in the unit holding the left flank, the guy with the odd hat or a character we've seen fight (and die) before?

And, to sum up, BOO-YAA! Pages like this are what make grown men squeel in delight like they were Ren and Stimpy. JOOOOOOOOOY....

[Hiai]

Okay, let me 'splain...

No, there is no time, let me sum up...

1. There is no schmucker cost for making Slately's regalia at this time- Slately's treasury is empty, he has no schmuckers. It's merely that Ace has been crafting a ton of crap on the side for ages. Any possible schmucker cost would have been in the past when it was originally crafted, not now when it's being adapted on the fly.

2. Top units DO have magical items, fairly often. They are obviously not mass-produced for low level units.

3. Therefore, x amount of juice for 1 seige unit is lower than x amount of juice required for multiple low-level crafted magic items. Otherwise, city production would be on Seige Unit, with Dollamancers set to crafting items. Instead of how it is- multiple low level units on city production while Seige is being created by Dollamancer juice.

QED.

No need to argue upkeep, item loss attrition, etc. The fact that low level units do not have magic items is proof in and of itself that it's less efficient to outfit units with items than it is to create Seige. Is there really an argument here about it not having occurrred to anyone? I don't believe so...it was a posit by someone who was warning that they'd be disappointed if that were the argument made...no one actually tried to hold forth such a ridiculous notion. You're all batting at phantoms here.

And for you Negative Nellies that insist on pointing out "how little action" is going on, or the plot moving, or whatever.... take a few months off the comic. Heck, take a couple years. Go read it in book format where all the pages are together at one time, and I guarantee that you won't consider it "slow exposition" at all. The fact of the matter is, you are reading a book for free, and the only drawback is that it takes a long time to collect the pages. Go buy the Wheel of Time series or something and then come back to the comic later, I'm sure you will find it a much better value for your entertainment dollar than you seem to think it is now.

If you decide, like I, to continue checking for updates as they come, instead, then please do us all a favor and quit griping about the same damn thing every single thread. Believe me, your frustration with the "slowness" of everything pales in comparison with the frustration of having someone hang around whining all the time. Try having a two year old, sometime, to understand the sensation.

[OvaltinePatrol]

I'm sure it's already been said; but I hope the tower doesn't get knocked down, resulting in the portal turning off, ultimately leading to Jack being cut into two bits.

[effataigus]

Okay, let me 'splain...

No, there is no time, let me sum up...

1. There is no schmucker cost for making Slately's regalia at this time- Slately's treasury is empty, he has no schmuckers. It's merely that Ace has been crafting a ton of crap on the side for ages. Any possible schmucker cost would have been in the past when it was originally crafted, not now when it's being adapted on the fly.

2. Top units DO have magical items, fairly often. They are obviously not mass-produced for low level units.

3. Therefore, x amount of juice for 1 seige unit is lower than x amount of juice required for multiple low-level crafted magic items. Otherwise, city production would be on Seige Unit, with Dollamancers set to crafting items. Instead of how it is- multiple low level units on city production while Seige is being created by Dollamancer juice.

QED.

No need to argue upkeep, item loss attrition, etc. The fact that low level units do not have magic items is proof in and of itself that it's less efficient to outfit units with items than it is to create Seige. Is there really an argument here about it not having occurrred to anyone? I don't believe so...it was a posit by someone who was warning that they'd be disappointed if that were the argument made...no one actually tried to hold forth such a ridiculous notion. You're all batting at phantoms here.

And for you Negative Nellies that insist on pointing out "how little action" is going on, or the plot moving, or whatever.... take a few months off the comic. Heck, take a couple years. Go read it in book format where all the pages are together at one time, and I guarantee that you won't consider it "slow exposition" at all. The fact of the matter is, you are reading a book for free, and the only drawback is that it takes a long time to collect the pages. Go buy the Wheel of Time series or something and then come back to the comic later, I'm sure you will find it a much better value for your entertainment dollar than you seem to think it is now.

If you decide, like I, to continue checking for updates as they come, instead, then please do us all a favor and quit griping about the same damn thing every single thread. Believe me, your frustration with the "slowness" of everything pales in comparison with the frustration of having someone hang around whining all the time. Try having a two year old, sometime, to understand the sensation.

Please don't take following highly negative response as an insult or sleight against you. In fact, I only take time to criticize the posts of posters that I expect good things from... much like I only take the time to criticize webcomics I care very deeply about.

Hmm, to the degree I follow your logic, it is wrong... both in your assumptions and the trajectory from there to conclusion land. Please consult earlier forum discussion.

The idea that Erfworlders are not doing things optimally for their own side's benefit is a central premise of this comic.

Keep in mind also that Ace believes his talents are better used for items, and it was only Holly's love of cloth golems that has him pigeon-holed into his current siege-making job.

x is lower than x? x>x?

The suggestion that those of us that express negative reactions on the reactions thread go find something better to do is almost as trite as it is unhelpful. The argument carries as much weight as me suggesting that if you don't like what you read on the reactions thread, then perhaps you should go read the xkcd forums. Or less even, since I didn't set up a thread for people to post reactions to my posts.

The suggestion that we go read Wheel of Time if we don't like the story's pacing is especially poignant when one considers that Robert Jordan, whose writing was often criticised for incorporating too much extraneous material, died before he could finish his own series.

[Jorgath]

Nope, Bad-Doods are much better at recovering weapons than Good-Doods since they have all of the extra tentacles.

Kidding, but would you believe I actually initially planned to include all of what you just mentioned, but decided against it since it seemed to be more than needed to convey the point?

Considering you took the time to come up with the situation to begin with, yeah, I'll take your word for it. Besides, the Good-Doods have the advantage of the Heroic Last Stand if the Bad-Doods have tentacles!

[effataigus]

Considering you took the time to come up with the situation to begin with, yeah, I'll take your word for it. Besides, the Good-Doods have the advantage of the Heroic Last Stand if the Bad-Doods have tentacles!

Gah, I can't believe I forgot about that! Every hentai situation needs a heroic last stand...

[BLANDCorporatio]

Think about that. How much more buff than in the buff can Slately get?

THINK ABOUT ITT!!

And then he is met by 27 archons also in the buff!

Slately will go down a hero.

[drachefly]

Considering you took the time to come up with the situation to begin with, yeah, I'll take your word for it. Besides, the Good-Doods have the advantage of the Heroic Last Stand if the Bad-Doods have tentacles!

Gah, I can't believe I forgot about that! Every hentai situation needs a heroic last stand...

Well, not all of them. But the tentacle ones, I guess. I haven't actually seen any tentacle anime. Individual frames here and there, many parodies, and a card game, yes. But I haven't been subjected to an actual tentacle hentai anime.

[Housellama]

Not abusive of the language, abusive interpretation.
Very different things.

Indeed. "I can't" could just as easily be short for "I can't do that in good conscience."

Precisely, thank you effataigus.
It can also mean "it isn't possible" ... "to prove I have honor by turning a second time", for example.

Not to mention it assumes that it is possible for a warlord unit to decide to turn by himself regardless of his Loyalty (and Duty). If it isn't, it simply means that the pliers provide enough Loyalty to prevent them from turning spontaneously.
The fact that Turnamancy doesn't work (or doesn't appear to) is a much more substantial argument if you want to argue lack of free will for the decrytped. We don't know enough about loyalty or what Ossomer meant here to derive actual information from that.
We can build an hypothesis, but that's one we already had, so it's at most a clue that tend to go in one direction.

What's the difference between lacking the will to turn and lacking the ability to turn? Pretty booping academic. "I can't do that IN GOOD CONSCIENCE" is short for either making a choice (I choose not to do so because I choose not to violate my conscience) in which case we're back to "I'm unwilling to change", OR a lack of ABILITY to change (I lack the will to overcome my conscience to make this choice), which is the same thing as "I cannot change." Either he's making a choice, in which case the phrasing is intentionally ambiguous, or he is actually prevented from doing so, in which case the phrasing is very clear.

It is also possible he's implying something else, but to take the meaning that way from the context would be reaching, in my opinion. He was given a direct command: "turn back to me now." Yes, it is in relationship to honor, but it is STILL a direct command. It makes sense that his first answer would be a response to that direct command. "No it... it isn't possible." Sure, it's POSSIBLE he means something else, but circumstances make it unlikely.

But that's irrelevant at this point. I believe that what you are meaning to say is that you find my SPECULATION on the meaning of the phrase abusive. Which I have no problems with. I freely admit that it's an out there kind of thing. However, the way you stated your point was unclear. I took it to mean that you found that the way I interpreted the words themselves to be abusive. My interpretation of the words was based on logical assumptions based on a shared language. That wasn't anywhere near abusive. However, it seems that what you meant was that you take exception to my speculation of what those words MEAN.

If that's what you mean, then that's perfectly fine. Like I said, I'm reaching on that one, so I'm okay with people disagreeing. But I will go to the wall about my actual interpretation of words themselves, as opposed to my speculation on what they imply within the context.