1-22 – My Fault?
Monday, April 2nd, 2007– Commentary –
Craig: Leon’s closet is much like mine was in college. A nice suit hanging up, and everything else in a heap on the floor.
J.D.: For a college student — a male college student — I’m actually impressed with how clean his apartment is. I mean, all the clothes may be in a heap, but they’re in the closet! That’s more than I could say for your freshman year!
Craig: Yeah, my room was my closet. My roommate was rather a neat-freak, so it was almost physically painful for him to share a room with me. We didn’t actually have one of those strips of tape between the sides, but we may as well have.
J.D.: I could always tell when he was having guests, because the room was clean on both sides. What inspired you to actually keep your clothes in the closet?
Craig: ANY-way, I like how Leon defuses the Maintainer’s original anger, only to refuel it by blaming the whole situation on him.
J.D.: Yeah, I think I’d respond about how like the Maintainer does. In fact I usually do, when I’m blamed for something that’s not my fault.
Craig: I find most touching how Leon appeals to the Maintainer by explaining how he’s part of the family. He’s contributed to the Mythband community, contributed to the source code, and so —
J.D.: — he’s lonely. You can see how just utterly lonely he really is.
Craig: Right — and his actions really aren’t motivated mainly by greed or pride, but more by a sense of being separated from a family and then doing whatever it takes to get back with that family.
J.D.: Which is an admirable quality in itself. But then he says something stupid. If he had stopped there, the Maintainer might have forgiven him and gone home.
Craig: Ah, but that’s what makes Leon Leon. He takes it to the edge —
J.D.: — and then pushes it over!
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:09 am
Hmm. Looks like I’m still the one person who can understand Leon. His logic sounds perfectly right to me. It was not Leon who banned him from Mythband, nor was it Leon who made it so hard for him to get back. Leon never made anything to make Mythband forbidden for him (save-scumming doesn’t count. What bad is it to anyone? Just some fun for Leon: fun for 1, bad for 0, therefore the right thing to do.). What did the Maintainer do? Ban him from Mythband for life, which was very bad for Leon and furthermore didn’t do anyone any good and was therefore stupid and the wrong thing to do. Not Leon’s fault, is it? It’s Maintainer’s fault. Also Maintainer’s fault for not following this logic, admitting his mistake and letting Leon back into Mythband. (Although as far as I recall it won’t be long until he does “accept” Leon into Mythband…)
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:43 am
In a single-player *band, save-scumming harms nobody (except, maybe, the player). In a multi-player *band (as Mythband appears to be), things change. Consider artifacts. There’s only one of each. If my character has the Phial, your character has no chance of finding it – until my character dies. Save-scumming would rob your character of it’s fair chance to find the Phial, and any other artifacts my character has.
Now that I’m commenting anyway, I’ll also take the opportunity to thank JD and Craig for reposting the comics (great to read them again) and for adding the comments (they make me notice a lot of details I woould otherwise have missed). I’m really looking forward to the new episodes. Keep up the good work!
Best, Hugo
April 3rd, 2007 at 5:32 am
Except that Leon goes around killing people and taking their stuff and lies to newbies and then kills them and steals their stuff when they realize he’s leaching off them.
That’s why PVP sucks. It brings the jerks out.
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
OK, that’s one factor against him, but it’s apparently allowed within Mythband rules. Anyway, it’s quite realistic. That’s why our world sucks, too. It brings the jerks out.
April 11th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Yes, the real world has jerks and back stabbers. However, the video game world brings them out. Most jerks in the video game world are, or would be, jerks in the real world. Here’s the thing, in order to be a jerk in the real world you have to have the power to back it up because people aren’t going to stand for being pushed around if they don’t have to. Jerks of all physical sizes can be jerks in the video game world when they don’t care about the game because there are no out-of-game consequences. People who are jerks in a more behind-the-scenes way in real life, as opposed to your classic bully, might not have to have the physical size to be that kind of jerk, but they have to be careful who the use and who they stab in the back. Even if they are careful to not back stab someone bigger than themselves, word will usually get around as to what kind of person they are and they will run out of people to use. On top of this, they will eventually find themselves alone without any real friends. Pertaining to the comic: Leon is telling the maintainer that it’s his fault for having rules and enforcing them. How would it go over if you tried to get out of a speeding ticket by saying that it’s the government’s fault for having the speed limit there? MAYBE a lifetime ban was too harsh, but it’s the Maintainer’s game and therefore he can make the rules and the consequences. In playing the game, Leon is agreeing to abide by the rules or face the consequences. Leon doesn’t even say that he went through the proper channels to try to appeal his lifetime ban and make it a temporary ban followed by probation. He immediately tried to find other ways in. That’s why he is at fault and not the Maintainer.
Haha, ok, I’m done now. On the subject of the comic specifically: I’m continuing to enjoy the recap and commentary. The storyline draws you in and the artwork is superb on all fronts. I enjoy the insight into the creation of each page that the commentary gives. It also make me, like Hugo, notice a lot more details that I didn’t notice the last time around.