ChronosCat

Boo to lack of brain-cloud backgrounds! I'm beginning to suspect this story's title will eventually wind up being something like "Invitation to the TF Party", with the actual party as the next story. If not that, then at the very least I expect this story to be broken into multiple parts with the party being a separate part from what came before.

http://egscomics.com/comic/party-025 So, there's a lot to unpack here... I think I'll start by going panel-by-panel (mostly).

Yay for starburst background in panel two! ...Well actually I'm much more impressed with Grace's serious face there than the background. Dan needs to involve Grace in another serious action story, so she can use that face without it being a joke.

As of the second panel I strongly suspected this was a fantasy or dream sequence, as Grace being part-alien is still classified, and while Grace doesn't like that she hasn't shown any indications she was considering breaking that masquerade. The telling about magic thing is equally out of the blue (and also in violation of Mr. Verres rules) but with Arthur "admitting" to the existence of magic, and the masquerade in the process of failing, her spilling those beans wouldn't be as big of a deal. Rhoda's reaction was unexpected, but Dan has a tendency to reuse the gag of someone reacting with little or no surprise to things that ought to be shocking, so while it contributed to the evidence of a fantasy sequence, it was far from definitive. After reading that panel I checked the panel borders, and was surprised to see that they weren't rounded. Then I scrolled down to read the second row of panels and saw the top of the third row including the edge of the thought bubble between panels 5 and 6 (I mistook it for a normal rounded border, not that it made a difference) and knew for sure it wasn't really happening. ...It's kind of funny how Grace knows/suspects that Rhoda and Catalina know magic, but the remains of the masquerade are preventing the two groups from discussing their magic with one another. The line in the last panel about Diane and Lucy being super-nice is also interesting. The fact that "Rhoda" says "secretly" implies that Grace doesn't know about their recent character development (or doesn't see Diane's announcement to the school, apology to Justin, and getting together with Lucy as proof they've changed) and yet, she's right.

Based on the title, I'd say it's specifically based on the upcoming Netflix series (which is a prequel series to the movie).

Yeah, I took advantage of that when I played it, it was rather amusing. Exactly. If you want the enemies to always be roughly the same strength relative to you (other than your weapons/armor/magic/etc. and other stat boosts not directly linked to experience points), why use a leveling system at all? Plenty of games do without one.

While I suppose it's possible Elliot and Ashley could break up I don't see her disappearing any time soon. Dan's spent too much time developing her, and from what I've seen she's extremely popular with the fans. (I know Dan doesn't follow fan hopes and demands blindly, but I would think her popularity would at least make him hesitate before dropping her.) Also, the whole point of this story is to introduce Ashley to the main 8. It wouldn't make sense to change gears suddenly, and once this story is over Ashley is going to have even more development, which would make it even more jarring for her to leave.

Which is all well and good, but as far as I know from my sister's play-through and the walkthrough I read (I haven't played the game myself), they don't make it clear in the game that you would want to focus on raising your stats in that manner rather than bothering with traditional leveling. ...I'm actually still a bit frustrated about it on my sister's behalf... ...Come to think of it, I wonder if what Carol is saying here is actual "Fantasy Wastland" dialog to warn you about over-leveling? If so, that's a nice touch.

This reminds me of Final Fantasy VIII, though the enemy leveling wasn't done as well as it apparently was in Skyrim. In FF8 the enemies didn't stop "training", and their levels were based the average strength of your entire party (both active and inactive). This made it possible to cheat the system by leaving most of your party untrained, but it also meant that if you trained everyone equally, you'd never gain a level advantage over the enemies. There were of course other ways of getting stronger, like better weapons and spells, but if your team was balanced, and you failed at getting the best weapons and spells and didn't properly optimize your stats, some of the late game bosses became next to impossible to beat. My sister actually gave up on the game close to the end because she managed to make those bosses too strong for her to handle. (In fact, it was only thanks to looking up a walk-through to try to help her that I learned about this system.)

Thanks for the explanation. I guess there's no risk of AIs developing free will in that universe... (Unless there is some way for them to acquire souls that for some reason doesn't apply to beings.) Arthur states that Kevin's goals are based on his original programming, but that he was never intended to be a thinking, sentient being. I'm guessing based on this that Kevin would have wanted to teach any untrained wizard he came across; however he could still (and I suspect does) have a special fondness for Ashley. The fact that he is supposed to "sleep" between lessons also suggests that (similar to what you were saying) once he's done teaching her he isn't going to be interacting with her much (unless his new student is around her); on the other hand, he's already surpassed his original programming, so he may be able to so in other ways... Even if his goals and desires always remain limited by his programming, that doesn't mean he couldn't have a certain amount of freedom in how he went about achieving those goals. ...Frankly, considering how much we're influenced by our genetics and upbringing, that wouldn't necessarily put him that far behind humans...

I could see saying that dwelling on an evil thought was also evil, but to blame people for random thoughts that pop into their heads or desires they have no control over is to say that some people are inherently evil by nature and there's nothing they can do about it. Which I suppose is also a position some religions/philosophies/etc. take, but it's a rather depressing one.

Thanks. I don't have Squirrel Prophet memorized, and I didn't have time to search for it. I'm not familiar with those series; care to elaborate on what you mean by "sentient, but [...] don't have free will the way humans do"?

My headcanon for the last panel is that it's part of the script Susan was given and she's reading it in an exaggerated bad-acting voice.

When did Tedd see Luke's spell? Also, would seeing a spell once be enough for Tedd to know how to reproduce a spell? I would think he would have to carefully examine it to learn all it's inner workings and commit it to memory.

In the Dragon Quest series (or at least the firs three), outside of battle your entire party is shown as separate sprites following behind you; when a party member dies, their sprite is replaced with a coffin. It's not actually shown how you're moving the coffin, for all I know it's supposed to be magically gliding along. ...Also, I've been thinking about it and remembered that in the first Final Fantasy, you also need to manually revive your characters after they're knocked out (though in this case they aren't shown outside of battle). That actually played into one of my most memorable experiences playing it, when I traveled too deep into one dungeon (Gurgu Volcano) before I was ready, and then had to make a long dangerous trip back out, my healing magic and items slowly running out along the way; even as I got close to to the exit my party members started falling, and the last character just barely made it out alive.

I think some colleges require that you live on-campus for your first semester or two. However the main reason most people don't commute to college is because unless you live in the same town as (or otherwise close to) the college you want to go to, it just isn't practical - and most towns don't actually have a college nearby. (The nearest colleges to the town I live in are an hour's drive away; I certainly wouldn't want a daily commute like that.)

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-26 What, no one who's been to the forums so far today had anything to say about this strip? Anyway, spoilers for the comic below.

Mainly talking old games 'cause that's what I know... Dragon Quest/Warrior 2 & 3 is the first thing to come to mind (there are no companions in 1, and I haven't played any past 3 yet). Not only do they stay dead after the battle ends, but you don't get the revive spells and items until well into the games; up to that point when one of your party dies you must lug around their coffin until you make it back to a town with a church (where they will revive the party member for a price). Another example would be the Pokemon games (or at least the first couple generations, which are the only ones I'm familiar with), where once a Pokemon is knocked out, you need to take them to a PokeCenter to revive them. Also, in the Final Fantasy series, while characters that run out of HP automatically revive after a battle (I think in-universe it's supposed to be just being knocked out, not killed), some status effects don't go away. At least in some games in the series petrification and paralysis are among those lasting status effects, meaning those can sideline a character more effectively than running out of HP! I'm pretty sure I've played other games that require you to revive companions, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Yay for symbolic speed-lines background in panel two! I'm not sure if it counts as "companions" since you usually have just as much control over them as the character(s) you started with, but in most classic-style JRPGs when one of your party members dies in battle, they stay dead until either a revive spell is cast on them, or the battle ends (in some games even after the battle ends you need to use a revive spell on them).

Mouse Ashley is cute. Ashley sure is going to be disappointed when she learns what Sarah's spell is (well, disappointed for herself anyway; I'm sure she'll be happy for Sarah). ...Speaking of which, I wonder if they'll tell her Sarah's spell at the party? It is a bigger secret then most of the cast's magic, after all, and while everything we've seen suggests Ashley is trustworthy, is Sarah going to be ready to trust her with a secret that they have to keep from the government (and in particular Tedd's dad)? ...Oh, by the way, yay for warm-glow backgrounds in panels three and four!

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-24 In the commentary on Patreon, Dan says: As for the comic itself...

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-23 For those who haven't heard, there's no story comic today, as Dan has been preoccupied trying to get his internet working again (NP was all set to go before his internet went down). Spoilers for the comic below:

You got me, it had nothing to do with time travel or any form of non-electronic communication. (I almost mentioned my source, but I was tired and didn't feel like saying more than I had to.) Kind of? There were actually two situations where stuff similar to what Dan's talking about occurred. First of all, there was skimpy clothing that took up more clothing slots than necessary, or which logically in real life you could wear alongside more modest fare but couldn't in the game. This was clearly deliberate, though personally I would have preferred a greater level of choice regarding the PC outfits. (It still beats all the games I grew up with where you can't change the PC's outfit at all.) Second was cases where you start out fully clothed, switch one article with an article that takes up multiple slots, then switch back to the original article to find all the other slots the second article covered are now bare. This seems like a natural result of having clothing that takes up multiple slots, so I don't think it was a deliberate attempt to be sexy. This situation also seems to be basically the same thing as Dan was describing, except that it's on the main character instead of a companion. (Frankly the fact that it was an adult game is mostly irrelevant to my point, I just felt like justifying why I wasn't naming the game.)

Yes, that's what I'm proposing. And I did gather that the way they do it in Fallout 4 is different, I just wanted to give Scotty credit for mentioning something that sounded similar.

Well, there's always been plenty of games that don't allow you to rename the main character. I'm perfectly fine with it in games where the player's actions have little or no impact on the course of the story or the personalities of the main characters (whether it's a plot-light action game where the story is an afterthought, or a highly-railroaded RPG) The types of games where I think being able to name your character are the most important are the ones where the main character is a blank slate for you to shape as you see fit, and/or where the choices you make have a big influence on the course of the story. In other words, games that put the "role play" in RPG. I'd hate to see the ability to choose your name to not be included in that sort of game just because of the voice acting challenges (particularly as I don't really care about voice acting), but on the other hand it's not like people usually get to choose their names in real life, so I don't think it would ruin the game either. (Actually, one idea that occurs to me, similar to what Scotty was mentioning with Fallout 4 but more limited if I'm understanding it correctly: the game's writers could come up with a small selection of "in theme" names for the player to choose between. If it's not too many names, it shouldn't increase the file size that much to record them in all the necessary voices.)