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Don't you mean Pee?

Why do you love the RIAA? They're not out to help you, except to the degree that you may own an interest in one of their member corporations. I'm assuming you're not one of them.

The url/comic really speaks for itself.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/09

I'm Not!

GIFT FTW. Viva /.

Oh. And King Kong dies.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/05

You mean you won't be harassing them on the phone with questions about how to remove that blinking 12:00 on the latest popular gizmo1 you bought ?...

Are you trying to help Sony's rep, Mr smith?

Red Faction had a riot shield, and Call of Duty had a similar spawning system. And the majority of your compliments about the menus are applicable only because prior games on consoles required the whole game to stop for one person to adjust his settings - that just doesn't happen in multiplayer PC games. And at the risk of starting a flame war, you sound like a corporate shill. With all the talk recently (http://www.penny-arcade.com/), that's a little weird. Unless I missed some wild sarcasm there.

I thought we were moving away from this sort of interview.

The Merch

WoW is so wonderful, it's like drinking unicorn giggles!

When did the world become so paranoid that everyone is a suspected pedophile?

About the same time it became so paranoid that every kid who plays videogames is a latent murderer.

Absolutely, but YMMV.

A lot flirting happens, both hetero, homo, and even cross-species. I've never seen anyone in the game flip out over a girl flirting with a girl. Or a male orc flirting with a male gnome. Nobody minds it at all. When you say, "Look at my club! We're gay!" I feel the same way toward them as I do toward the Christian guilds. I don't feel this is the place for that much preaching. (As a side note, I am Christian, and I believe in spreading the message, but I also believe that there is a time and place for everything) I'm fine with having a guild that's pro-homosexuality or pro-Christian or pro-Great-Green-Arkleseizure. I don't mind any of it being mentioned. But we also don't need a guild called "We Take It Up the Ass" any more than we need guys saying "I do Chicks". I guess what I'm saying is that I'd think any guild celebrating or proclaiming heterosexuality is just as stupid as one doing the same for homosexuality. Neither deserves special treatment, and I don't believe it is being given. The best comment I've seen on the subject is, "What's next? Bussing the Horde into Alliance territory to fight racial hatred?"

See. This is exactly the type of post I'm refering to. The above is complete corporate spin. All about the numbers, not about the gameplay, or the facts, nor valid comparisons with other games. Face facts. Eve as a game, while it might appeal to some people, suffers from extremely low player counts compared to the actual market leaders. I've known more people that have quit playing Eve stating that it's a boring economics simulator than actually play it. But I'm not here to slander Eve or stand for or against any game. I'm just tired of seeing a crap ton of corporate spin on public boards. I remember first seeing about this here, although I'm sure it's posted elsewhere: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/02/01

I'm guessing the parent an example of Guerilla Marketing. The when the Penny Arcade guys expounded that the marketers hung out in various popular forums, I instantly thought there might be some on /.

I'm just curious why people feel the need to bring any of this nonsense into the game.

Because MMOGs are as much a social phenomonon as they are a game. Guilds are made up of people you expect to be spending a lot of time with and getting to know during the course of the game. People naturally want to associate with others who have similar viewpoints, just like IRL. As an extreme example, there are thousands of people that play on the Dark Iron WoW server because they are fans of the Penny Arcade or PvP comic strips (who's guilds battle each other constantly and have so many members that they actually had to split into several sub-guilds each due to in-game guild size limitations). That's pretty irrelevant to anything inside WoW, but they certainly get a lot of enjoyment out of tying those out-of-game activites to their gameplay.

You will find that every guild in the end filters its members to some degree by social skills not just by game skills. For example, guilds kick people out for being jerks all the time. Many guilds have charters stating that they are made up of "friendly, family oriented players" or something similar. Some guilds are just more organized about certain traits or opinions that they desire.

Except to Gabe and Tycho

It's one of those things you wonder...

Is it just me, or is this Google==BOOGEYMAN! stuff popping up more than you'd expect?
I mean, I actually read the paper and concluded 'Is that it? I've heard this eight times already!'

No I don't *reaally* think this is an evil plot to paint Google black and make the public reflexively stab it (easy as it would be to do), but after seeing http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/02/01 I can't help wondering how long we've got left before it is.

BigBad corporations have PR spin-shield generators to bog down any attacks on their operations.
Unfortunately, Google will have to install exactly the same grade of shielding to deflect unjustified attacks.
(Have you *seen* the blast radius of a false paedo/rape accusation? It's larger than if it were true!)

However, as soon as they install the PR shields, people will point and yell "You have something to hide!!!".
They can't win.

Well, I actually trust Google. Sue me!
They're just too young to have been corrupted so fast.
China sucked, yup. Now ask the Chinese people what they would have prefered. Censored Google or no Google?
Now criticise Google again.

No I'm not a planted Google astroturfer *sigh*.
(and no, there's no such thing! Dammit!)

this post is what you call a shill.

more romero references:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/02/18
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/04/24
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/04/26

more romero references:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/02/18
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/04/24
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/04/26

more romero references:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/02/18
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/04/24
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/04/26

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/11/22Funny All by Itself.

"
Hey guys,

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I'll do it for you: that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.

Kinda spooky.

Didn't take the job. It was a fucking mill."

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/show/21589

Hmm. So you were wowed by the PS2 at launch? Can you remind us the name of the wowie-games? Oh, and learn grammar, your last sentence contradicts you.

From Penny Arcade:

The Timesink Cavern

Timesink Cavern is a four-hundred man raid instance that requires seventy-six consecutive hours to complete.

"LF399M TTC PST"

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16

Guerilla Marketing
Fri, January 27 2006 - 07:08 AM
by: Tycho
We received the following from a young man who we will call "Mr. Smith."

(CW)TB

Hey guys,

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I'll do it for you: that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.

Kinda spooky.

Didn't take the job. It was a fucking mill.

its cause there's no wang to play with when doing a late night "grind session"
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/23

I think you need a visit from Mr. Period

Don't you know? Normal person + Anonymity + Audience = Shitcock :)

I belive this is very true for this argument's sake: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

This is from a letter sent to penny-arcade.com

We received the following from a young man who we will call "Mr. Smith."

(CW)TB

Hey guys,

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I'll do it for you: that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.

Kinda spooky.

Didn't take the job. It was a fucking mill.

Should I just blame the Bush administration or should I, INSTEAD, blame the "poor American citizens" that let themselves be fooled into ignoring the horrific things America does?

I mean, dictator type guys are among the population of every country. Why is it that they are stopped by most European countries but aren't stopped by U.S.-ians?

On the other hand, maybe my opinion on U.S. slashdotters shouldn't be that bad. Maybe the consensus against opression is stronger than it looks. Maybe it just LOOKS like people are closing their eyes on this forum because a lot of the bad posts are from a "Guerilla Marketing" mill.

Who knows, we'll see how it goes. It's your fight, not mine.

The problem is that there are a ton of guilds formed due to outside groupings and such. One big example are all the WoW guilds formed over web comics, such as PvP online's Panda Attack guild or Penny Arcade's Knights of Arcadia. I know there are other guilds formed from workplaces and even church groups.

So to say that the GLBT guild is not allowed because it breaks the role-playing experience is bunk.

I think both of us are relying on anecdotal experience. Most of my friends (myself included), had little to no interest in the original Xbox. Microsoft had no experience in the console business, so we were all in a "wait and see" attitude. This time around, it's actually different, and a few of my friends have actually gotten 360s at launch (or at least tried to).

I find it hard to believe there's LESS demand for the 360, now that Microsoft has proven themselves, in some degree. Certainly from reading all the gaming press (from game magazines to your popular web comics), it seems like there's a lot more demand for the 360 than there ever was for the original Xbox. *shrugs*

I tried looking for actual launch numbers for the original console, but haven't been able to find it so far. That's probably the best way to compare releases and things like demand. If someone could find them, that would be helpful ...

Here's the Penny Arcade news item linked to the comic you're talking about. The article references this page from 1up.com which is simply a discussion of religious people playing video games. It doesn't mention any public religious demonstrations (i.e. recruiting, preaching, etc.) in Warcraft at all. One group mentioned in the site, Christian Gamers Online doesn't appear, at first glance, to even have official WoW guilds, though a post on their forums makes mention of some Christian guilds on WoW servers (with non-in-your-face Christian names like "Redeemed", "The Forgiven", "The Narrow Path" ). But I haven't seen anything to suggest that these guilds do anything but discuss their beliefs outside the game (or privately in the game).

So, in short, we have proof that there *are* Christian guilds in WoW, but no proof yet that they go about making a public statement about it in the game as Blizzard believes the GLBT was doing.

Good thing for them there is also:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/08/15

He may want to be more careful in picking his business partners. This one has a habit of not paying up.

So you expect "connectivity" to be a huge success on the PS3/PSP? Even though it failed on the GameCube/GBA, the latter being the second-highest selling portable in history?

The main criticism against GBA/GCN connectivity was the high cost of entry. I doubt the feature will succeed when each portable costs $250 (instead of $100) and each console costs $400+ (instead of $150).

If your #2 selling point of the PSP is its non-existant connectivity with the PS3, you're not trying hard enough.

I almost feel bad for not explaining all the other advantages WoW has over Guild Wars

I'm sure that WoW is "so wonderful, it's just like drinking unicorn giggles". If you're not actually getting paid by Blizzard for this post, then you should apply right away!

Even by IGN standards, that was on over-the-top fanboy post.

You know, while it may seem silly in some respects to ban the booth babes, they're really kinda silly anyway. At PAX there were occasionally booth babes. And they always seemed silly and out of place, especially since 99% of the attendees (yes, there were plenty of females around, I'd say at least 25%... check the pictures) were hardcore gamers. We're there for the games, and to game with other gamers. You don't need booth babes to attract us to your booth... just some interesting games. And maybe some swag.

E3 might be a different story, though, given the sheer banal idiocy of so many game journalists recently...

I still like the idea of the thirst bar in battlefield 1942.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/05/27

Try to keep up with the times: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/11

Serious growth potential,, that is.

...and I'm an elitist asshole.

Johnny Sailor (936454):
Wow, so Tycho really speaks like that in real life. I figured he sat there writing his post with a thesaurus website opened up in the background!

FTFA:
Tycho: An ounce. Per post. Yeah, it's definitely fluid from the very beginning to the very end. Until I have the whole thing, I see how it all sounds and looks, and I'm always goofing around. Spend some time at thesaurus.com, you know what I'm talking about. But yeah, that's basically it. What a nice young man. Gabe, you wanna get another one? I mean, it's probably for me.

Of course, speech and written word are not quite the same. I think I'm decent at communicating through writing, but I normally fail with the other.

As for Tycho, I can appreciate his skill. In the scope of the strip his crutches are obvious, but their use/overuse is definitely part of the fun.

And another one: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/06/17/

Brenna : http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/tycam.jpg http://www.penny-arcade.com/wombean.jpg She's cute... most of us geeks should be so lucky.