 Monday, May 1st 2006 - [578]The Solar Globe (7 of 24)
Original Commentary
Yes, Robert has interacted with Silver_Blossom before. He introduced them. Isabel pointed this out to me and I may explain it in future comics. But the short version is that while she's been in a group with Robert, they haven't actually talked much. She actually knows Brisbane, while Robert has her filed as "ok person to game with", and vice versa - Terrence Modern Commentary
In FBAO, at this point, level 55 is pretty high and getting that last 4% will take an hour or so of grinding.
Also, Joy knows about the Solar Globe too. She's probably on all the same FBAO messageboards that Jake is.
- Terrence
 Tuesday, May 2nd 2006 - [579]The Solar Globe (8 of 24)
Original Commentary
The challenge: come up with a name that seemed cool at the time but is now embarassing, yet isn't dirty. GodzillaTheMovie was the best thing I could come up with. I'm glad to switch back to regular word bubbles. It took a bit of work to get the colors in the text. I was planning on Joy either not having a microphone or being embarassed to start talking to strangers, but Isabel pointed out that she's been playing the game for a while and had one. Brisbane, on the other hand, wouldn't - Terrence Modern Commentary
Jake's character, GodzillaTheMovie, is a reference to the 1998 American Godzilla movie. He grabbed the character name when the trailer first dropped and expected great things from it. Then he saw the movie on release day and hasn't played the character since.
I hear there have been some Godzilla movies released since then that have been actually good. Maybe he's started playing that character again - Terrence
 Wednesday, May 3rd 2006 - [580]The Solar Globe (9 of 24)
Original Commentary
Without going into game mechanics, the brass dagger is the kind of weapon you can get at the first store you go to and pay for it with your starting money. It may be the kind of weapon you can get for free. And yes, Joy is calling him "Mr. Godzillathemovie". That was Isabel's idea. No, we haven't seen the earrings before and we're not going to see them again. What does it add 6 to? Don't worry about it. It's probably some stat that Brisbane can't even use- Terrence Modern Commentary
We were using a very old version of Photoshop, even back then. So the red character names had to be done on a separate layer from the rest of the text then we had to manually line things up. It was pretty cool at first but ended up being a hassle long-term.
So of course when we had a chance to stop doing that, we decided it'd be more fun to have Brisbane not own a microphone - Terrence
 Thursday, May 4th 2006 - [581]The Solar Globe (10 of 24)
Original Commentary
Brisbane's line in the second panel got rewritten a lot. Isabel was mildly annoyed that she had to design Brisbane's character a new outfit, but it kinda needed to be done to show how under-prepared he is. And no, the counter isn't a running feature. It'd take up too much space and require me to figure out the timing - Terrence Modern Commentary
The knapsack-on-a-stick was a novelty weapon from a few events ago. Brisbane just has really lousy gear.
Also, the technical term for such a thing is a bindle. I'm still not sure which term is funnier - Terrence
 Friday, May 5th 2006 - [582]The Solar Globe (11 of 24)  Happy Webcomics Appreciation Day!
Original Commentary
And here we introduce the drama. And Jane. It'd be a good gaming comic if I just kept it all in-game. But it wouldn't be You Say it First. I figure there are more people here for the relationships than for a game that I'm making up as I go along that's kind of a mixture of Maple Story, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy Tactics, .hack, and a few others that I can't recall at the moment. Anyhow. Relationships - Terrence
Modern Commentary
So why is there a mostly-in-game storyline centering around our fictional MMO? Well, gaming comics were really popular in the early 2000s and I really wanted a piece of that.
It didn't help. I mean, it was a fun storyline and we did some cool things in the game, but if you're trying to read things related to your favorite video games and we're coming at you with comics about a game that doesn't exist, you're maybe not here for that - Terrence
 Sunday, May 7th 2006 - [583]The Solar Globe (12 of 24)
Original Commentary
I was going to have her get him a hot chocolate. Then I remembered who I was dealing with. This comic was drawn before it was written, but I knew the basic idea. Compare/contrast Jane and Kimberly's reactions to all this. It's all a matter of support and respect for their boyfriends' hobbies - Terrence Modern Commentary
Speaking of gaming comics, I'm sure other folks have used this same punchline before us. Hopefully to greater success. I probably thought we had switched the joke enough to put our own stamp on it...
- Terrence
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