Editing 91: Pwned

{{comic
| number    = 91
| date      = April 19, 2006
| title     = Pwned
| image     = Pwned.png
| imagesize = 
| titletext = I'm sure a discussion of the reason for the disappearance of adventure games in favor of RPGs would be fascinating.
}}

==Explanation==

First off, three references have to be explained:
* "Counterstrike" is a reference to either the expansion of the {{w|Half-Life (series)|Half-Life}} franchise, or the {{w|Command and Conquer}} franchise. Either way, it describes a graphical game which runs in “real-time” and thus asks the player to make decisions to survive in the game in “real-time”.
* "[[Wiktionary:pwned|Pwned]]" is a typical online gaming term meaning beaten, killed or trapped/tricked.
* The “grue” is a predator in the game franchise {{w|Zork}}. Grues fear light, but love to devour adventurers entering the dark. Therefore, you cannot win the game without owning some light source.

Zork is a typical text-adventure, in which you play turn-based (like chess). The computer spits out some textical context, you enter a command (GO <direction>, TAKE <object>, KILL <person>), and the computer responds by giving the outcome of your command. This scarce context arose from the fact that games in the 1970s and 1980s needed to run on limited memory and microprocessor capacity. During the last 20 years, these barriers were broken down, and games in graphical context, and running in real-time were made possible.

Randall returns Counterstrike to the text-context of Zork, stating thereby that no player used to the real-time, graphical atmosphere of the former would have any appeal to the turn and text-based dynamics of the latter. And yes, that indeed is an initiation to the discussion mentioned in the image text. 

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics|0091]]
@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 | date      = April 19, 2006
 | title     = Pwned
-| image     = pwned.png
+| image     = Pwned.png
+| imagesize =
 | titletext = I'm sure a discussion of the reason for the disappearance of adventure games in favor of RPGs would be fascinating.
 }}
@@ Line 9: / Line 10: @@
 ==Explanation==
-In the days of early personal computers, such as the IBM-XT, Atari, or C64, games were largely text-based {{w|Adventure game|adventure games}}. Those games were based on an interactive story, and the player had to solve a puzzle on this by communicating to the application using only a keyboard or, later, a mouse. Play was turn-based (like chess): the computer displayed some textual context, you entered a command (GO <direction>, TAKE <object>, KILL <person>, LOOK AT <object>, etc.), and the computer responded by giving the outcome of your command. This sparse context arose from the fact that games in the 1970s and 1980s needed to run on limited memory and microprocessor capacity, and on basic displays.
+First off, three references have to be explained:
+* "Counterstrike" is a reference to either the expansion of the {{w|Half-Life (series)|Half-Life}} franchise, or the {{w|Command and Conquer}} franchise. Either way, it describes a graphical game which runs in “real-time” and thus asks the player to make decisions to survive in the game in “real-time”.
+* "[[Wiktionary:pwned|Pwned]]" is a typical online gaming term meaning beaten, killed or trapped/tricked.
+* The “grue” is a predator in the game franchise {{w|Zork}}. Grues fear light, but love to devour adventurers entering the dark. Therefore, you cannot win the game without owning some light source.
-Over the following 20 years, technical advances allowed games to run in a real-time graphical context. Adventure games were largely displaced by other genres, including {{w|Role-playing video game|Role Playing Games (RPG)}}, where the player navigates a character through a graphical environment to achieve goals or gain in abilities, often involving a combat component. While the broad structure of these has a lot of similarity to adventure games, the experience is very different.
+Zork is a typical text-adventure, in which you play turn-based (like chess). The computer spits out some textical context, you enter a command (GO <direction>, TAKE <object>, KILL <person>), and the computer responds by giving the outcome of your command. This scarce context arose from the fact that games in the 1970s and 1980s needed to run on limited memory and microprocessor capacity. During the last 20 years, these barriers were broken down, and games in graphical context, and running in real-time were made possible.
-{{w|Zork}} is a classic example of a text-adventure game franchise. In the Zork games, players have to evade predators known as grues, which fear light, but love to devour adventurers entering the dark. Therefore, you cannot win the game without owning some light source.
+Randall returns Counterstrike to the text-context of Zork, stating thereby that no player used to the real-time, graphical atmosphere of the former would have any appeal to the turn and text-based dynamics of the latter. And yes, that indeed is an initiation to the discussion mentioned in the image text.
-"Counterstrike" is a reference to the {{w|Half-Life (series)|Half-Life}} mod {{w|Counter-Strike}} and its subsequent sequel. In the Counter-Strike series, you are either a terrorist or a counter-terrorist operative, and your goal is to stop the other from completing their objective. On a dark map, players would generally use night vision goggles, which don't produce light that would give away their position to the enemy.
+{{Comic discussion}}
-Randall imagines a version of Counterstrike played in the text-context of Zork. Ironically, the outcome is not so different to what might be a typical experience of Counterstrike gameplay, particularly for inexperienced players: on starting the game, the player moves to another room and is immediately "{{Wiktionary|pwned}}" (a typical online gaming term meaning beaten, killed, or trapped/tricked, originating as a typo of "owned") by an enemy.
+[[Category:Comics|0091]]
-In the title text, Randall suggests that a comparison of the genres, analyzing the reasons why RPGs have proved more popular, would make an interesting study. His imagined example suggests that what has been gained in immersive environments may have been lost in complexity of story and gameplay.
-==Transcript==
-:Welcome to text-only Counterstrike.
-:You are in a dark, outdoor map.
-:> GO NORTH
-:You have been pwned by a grue.
-{{comic discussion}}
-[[Category:Video games]]
-[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]