Comic #946: Wish List (Patreon)

This started out as a comic where players were responding to a new patch note that stated further class balance would be proportional to how often each class complains. I had a couple versions. In one version, Keydar and Nyte spent the entire comic complaining about the change and then ended up fully nerfed, and some where they ended up fully buffed (depending on the wording of the patch note).

It was kind of a funny premise, but it was a little too over-the-top. It would be one thing if a silly patch note was a punchline, but having the setup be something that ridiculous kind of telegraphed the inevitable joke.

I then played around with introducing AI into the concept, especially with Blizzard's use of AI being recent headlines. I liked it so much I decided to work it into the punchline rather than the setup. Then the idea of making a wish came to me and I brought back the Monkey's Paw from #884.

At first I tried to work in some exposition about how the paw ended up in Nyte's possession from Krom, but I quickly realized I didn't need that at all.

I thought about excluding the "Network for Evaluating Reactive Feedback", but it was too funny to me to exclude. At first I just had some generic technical term: "Player Frustration Indicators," but it quickly occurred to me that this term HAD to be an acronym and I spent WAY too long trying to come up with one.

I don't feel like any of them were really perfect enough, and I settled for NERF, but these are some other examples that were left on the cutting room floor:

Metrics Of Audience Negativity

Community Reaction Yields

Negative Engagement Rage Factors

Algorithmic Log of Loud Community-Authored Player Sentiment