Comic #637: Woes of a Shaman (Patreon)

I thought it would be funny if NPCs had the same hangups that we did as players. The divide between the regard you get from NPCs versus players is pretty huge, and I liked playing with that idea.

However, I also had to bring up a real current game issue to make this joke. Namely, the current shaman issues in the upcoming expansion.

I always try to be careful when I bring up current game issues, as there are often two sides to the argument, and both sides can take it very seriously. If I've learned anything in my years as a comic creator, it's that with the gaming community, taking a position on any contentious game issue is on par with making a religious or political statement.

Because of this, I rarely ever take a stance in my comics if necessary, as it tends to come off as more like a soapbox rant than an actual joke. Usually instead, I will try to give characters realistic positions, and have the joke be part of the situation, rather than making a point that one position is superior to another. However, readers will sometimes make their own interpretations, and make assumptions on my position.

For example in #636, I got some angry messages. Some readers interpreted my comic as saying people who strive to do high DPS aren't really playing the game right. Other readers interpreted the opposite, that I was portraying people who enjoyed playing the game for fun as idiot Donalds. When really, I was making two jokes:

1: Narya sucks, and the only way he's topping any charts is if he has the highest item level.

2: The variations of dps between skill and spec are dwarfed by ilvl, and Narya wasn't specific enough in his programming, because Narya sucks.

Basically, Narya sucks.