'Not A Villain' Webcomic - Kat has a mini freak out.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 300

300th page (main-story-wise)! Woo!

46 Comments

Dear Kleya,

I love ya to bits but do you remember when you said that you didn’t really care if Bloody Mary stayed with the group or not? Did it not occur to you that she would be doing the evil route? Hmm? If you didn’t want to be part of an evil group maybe you should have had a bit more care in checking who your members were.

For such a smart girl you can be terribly short sighted. Like when you gave away the fact that you knew that you are in a villain group despite not being told about it. Bandit almost certainly noticed that too, even if no one else did.

she had other things bothering her so she hadent payed attention plus other variables

Keep in mind, though, that even if she’d gotten on board with ditching Jane in favor of Waterman, there’s no guarantee that Waterman would be good. As mentioned before, it’s all too easy to end up Morto.

I know that, but, face it, not kicking out Bloody Jane was a guarantee of having at least one evil member and she was all, “well a *hero* wouldn’t do that sort of thing”, or something like that.

She put 0% thought into what kind of party she would be ending up with and that was clearly a huge mistake on her part, now that she is scared enough to seriously contemplate giving up on her current character.

She was like that when fighting Jane too, even though she could have researched her opponent beforehand, she went into the battle blind and got beat because of it. She is extremely dismissive of the harm others can do to her and her goals until it’s too late. She needs to make plans that account for others and not just concentrate on what she is capable of doing.

Huh, I know it’s late to say this but Kleya is REALLY hung up on the hero thing…her world’s a little too black and white, though I guess with all the hate I’m assuming she got that’s natural…looking forward to seeing how that perception will be shaken up.

Also why did Bandit want to be a villain group? Is it just to shake up Kleya? I guess it kind of goes with his persona in game, but…eh maybe I’m just expecting too much out of him; we don’t know what his agenda is beyond figuring out what Kleya’s up to. Then again I don’t really know how the game will actually work, there’s definitely the possibility of them becoming anti-heroes.

Congratulations on 300 chapters!

She’s not hung up, she’s neurotic. Why? Because it’s how she’s dealing with stress. The end, the circumstances of her direct involvement in the hacker wars the consequences of said wars on the world and her own personal life, and finally her own self induced isolation in the real world. She’s a stubborn girl, very strong will, but the ideal that she can do better, be better so as to redeem herself for what she did in the real better, it’s one of the main things keeping her going.

The problem is of course, the world isn’t black and white, especially the world of entertainment. But of course, she’s forced herself into some very narrow guidelines because of her bad habits and tendancies in the real world. Could she be a very popular successful villain, yes, could she do so without hacking, yes, she’s talented enough, the problem is, when you project an image about breaking the rules it’s harder to know which rules to stop at, and how far she would go.

As for the Bandit, I’m pretty sure he’s been designed by Tenka to be the Anti-Saisuke. Just as popular, but on the opposite side. Why? Because clearly Saisuke doesn’t work for them, and they don’t like it. Of course competing directly with Saisuke is much harder then doing so from the opposite end, the villain end.

Saisuke doesn’t have to be a free agent. They could just be trying to cover all their bases by having popular members in all categories. But your right about the rest I think. Kleya is having a melt down over something as temporary as alignment. Danni can change her alignment fairly easily I bet. It is pretty low. Dude might stay in his. I figure such is up his alley. Bandit…he has such a soft spot for Kleya that I figure that now he knows she didn’t want to be a villian that he might try to change his. But still instead of trying to ask people to change Kleya is worrying herself down to a nub over it.

What makes you think Saisuke doesn’t work for TENka?

Bandit is out there as bait, as part of a TENka plan to try to catch Kleya. Dr. Grace said as much.

I still think Saisuke and Bandit are both played by Jake, anyway. Either that, or Saisuke was played by Dr. Grace’s son, and the reason Saisuke is now on hiatus is that the “Virus” (a.k.a. D) killed him, and TENka doesn’t want anyone to know. At least, not yet. If Kleya’s Kat character becomes popular and TENka needs to take her down, pinning the death of Saisuke’s player on Kleya should do it….

Congrats on 300 pages!

Poor Kleya, that didn’t work out as she hoped for…

I like the expressions on panel 3 and 4!

Congratulations on 300 pages, too!

*sniff*
Smell’s still there. Especially with Bandit’s facial expression there in that 4th panel. Something tells me we’re not all the way down the rabbit hole just yet…

I figure Bandit wants it to be a villain group because there are less rules and more fun. Hopefully Kleya realizes this is actually a better scenario for her. She can actually be Erbana and gain fans. The drama/angst and how she can still accomplish the groups goals. Also in an all hero group she’d blend in and have to do some evil or encourage others to in order to gain fans and stand out. In a villain group her hero pursuit is exactly what will make her stand out and be noticed for being good since she’ll be virtually the only one doing it… possibly one of only a few in the game.

It could also work to her advantage if she’s doing good in comparison to specific teammates. It could create drama and suspense for watcher’s to see what’s going to happen next between the teammates.

Being a “villain group” doesn’t have to be bad. She could play the batman angle (the hero this world deserves) or “where angels fear to tread”.

Yay for 300!

Bandit’s expression in panel 4 is great. Thought you were so smart, eh? Now your she’s-not-my-girlfriend is miserable, and it’s your fault.

(Well, it is partly his fault, and he knows it. And I think it took him by surprise. He probably expected her to go with Demoli as well, at least in the original plan.)

Bet he does something soon to rectify the problem. Note how low on alignment Danni is.

Hmm, if Morto is the default alignment for new players and is evil, then most initial groups are going to be villain groups. Is it reallt such a surprise to Kleya?

It should since only one persons a noob in the group so that’s that

Its not default, its what most get because they don’t know what they are doing. Morto is just the easiest to get. If you had a clue before going in then you would do what you needed to to get another alignment.

300? Madness? No. THIS. IS. NAV-A!

Poor Kitty needs a hug. 🙁

Just a quick note. Danni’s eyes look odd in panel 2. As do The Dude’s.

The art quality, as compared to, say, Page 254 (http://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-254/) (Note the bottom two panels) has gotten worse. It’s been noticeably so since the “winter hiatus”. (Before that, it was starting to become truly beautiful. Now, lots of small details such as the face shape and eyes are not quite the right shape, too elongated, or out of proportion otherwise.)

Just something the artist might find of interest.

Nice catch. I didn’t notice it initially (I haven’t read through the comic since the hiatus) but now that you point it out there’s a clear difference.

i guessed it was because patty didnt focus on the eyes when drawing the characters

I wonder how the machines that they use to interact with the game world work? They needed some with particular functions in order to play. I would theorize that in order to increase ease of interactivity even standard devices can translate real facial expressions onto the avatar. Everyone walking around with a creepy doll smile would be unnerving.

Why creepy doll? Your avatar’s smile can be as adorable as you or your artist can draw it.

And if I were doing this I’d have players with keyboards use smilies (= to change expressions. Pre-set map of smilies to expressions for each avatar, simple enough to do. Animating changes is a more interesting question, but it pretty much boils down to the artist’s capabilities, too.

Of course, there’s also the fact that they use simple drawings as avatars instead of animation sets… and the weird fact that there’s no character creator like in every d*** roleplaying game ever. Sure, that way everyone gets to be more unique, but the lack of standard avatars, free or cheap, is really weird.

What he means by creepy doll smile is a fixed smile that doesn’t reflect real emotion. Hits the uncanny valley pretty hard.

Anyone in the Game has to be using a Kido unit, which presumably picks up facial expressions along with other muscle movements. (Kleya, of course, has even more wiring.)

The “drawing converts to 3D avatar” concept isn’t very logical, but it’s such a cool way for Aneeka to work her own artistic growth into the story that I’ve decided to just suspend disbelief on that. 🙂

Well, you’d need to have a 360 degree turn around of the figure, but it would be possible. Some games use imaging to incorporate the users picture in game from photos now, so the idea of a drawn avatar being used isn’t that far fetched, I find.

Actually what I thought was interesting was we had one of each role path. The diversity and tension that entails would make it a popular group if they can maintain and still progress through the game.

Kleya is doing the hardest route and at odds with Jane and Bandit. Danni is a villan, but only by default. Dude is Cardista which doesn’t seem all that evil.
Clearly Kleya has to maintain her popularity AND flip Danni and the Dude to good ratings. That would change the overall rating to good. ( 3 good > 2 bad) Also the relationship between her and Bandit is obviously going to complicate things. Kleya has an interesting time ahead. MUAHAHAHA.

Sounds like something that would be good for the ratings. 😉

I’m curious to know about Jane there. She seemed to know what Kleya was about to say when, logically for them, she shouldn’t know.

She just ‘ported in AFTER they all got there. The only way Kleya knew they were a Villain Group was by Hacker Vision. No one told her.

How would Jane know what she was about to declare?

Good question! Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

On page 228, Bandit already revealed that Kleya was using her special to essentially manipulate the trials because of the emotional limits, which implies that she already can see the code in the game, much like Bandit (and presumably Jane) can do.

While the code may not leak as well for them as it does for her, it’s reasonable for them to realize that because she gasped, she must have seen the same values.

Furthermore, it looks like page 238 implies Jane’s in with Sandra’s conspiracy to try and get Kleya to her side versus TENka, and we don’t know how much either of them suspect of Kleya to be able to do.

Cardista is already a Good alignment I think. Dude is the only other good aligned character.

I’m kind of expecting Kleya to sabotage all efforts to be evil. Just so that she can stay good. It’ll be interesting to see what happens!

Ah, but isn’t sabotage, no matter the reason, an act of evil in itself?

If you sabotage a terrorist’s bomb so it doesn’t go off in the subway and kill 100 people, is it an act of evil or good?

Look like villains, act like heroes? That’s ok, that’s what the terms anti-villain and anti-hero are for

It seems Jake Bandit only wanted to be a Villain because he thought our dear Miss Pink Overlord Cyborg Smith would have liked him better that way.

So, he’s caught up in confusion over why she looks sad about being a Villain Group.

Meanwhile, Dance Star Daniella runs up to repay the favor of the Pink Overlord Cyborg from when she defended her honor. How she’s going to do it? By using the dreaded vile technique known by all Morto Villains, The Dreaded Hug of Comfort.

That’s what I think will happen in the next page. Daniella hugs the Pink Overlord Cyborg and Jake looks confused. As this happens, the Pink Overlord Cyborg becomes comforted and decides to not “delete Kleya Smith” and instead she’ll stay in the group of Mary Jane the Bloodthirsty Poet-Mother.

Meanwhile, Bandit Jake feels bad and the Dude mocks him in order to make himself feel better for only getting 57% completion.

And then they all live happily ever after.
And by “ever after,” I mean “for the next three pages.”

Technology questions.

Apart from hacking, do the character-avatars always convey the exact facial expression of the person playing, or are there simply (legal) ways of bypassing it?
Also, what about the voice? Is everything a person says spoken into the game world, or are there filters/options to withhold certain things a person says?
And does the game relay what they say in their own voice, or does it have a voice for their avatar, and takes what they say and says it in that voice?
(I suspect that little miss main character has her voice altered anyway, but I wonder about the others.)

Also, does using a headset instead of a Kido change any of these answers?

Dunno why, but I find myself liking Jane’s outfit and her overall look. Vampy Morticia Addams? Not so keen on the ‘evil’ part though. 🙂

And what happened in the staging area that delayed Kat’s return? Any guesses? Hopefully we’ll get a flashback…. I’m betting it was a lecture from Sandra, maybe about the difficulty of maintaining ratings as Erbana. Whatever it was, Kleya might be able to use it to cover why she knew the alignments of the others, if she’s quick on the uptake.

(Kleya, how long will it take you to realize you need to ditch the Game, accept Sandra’s amnesty, and put your programming skill to work on saving real lives in a City? Including helping your friends who need to get to a City to stay alive? That’s the path of a true hero.)

Currently they’re 3 villain / 2 hero. Danni was morto by default for the simple reason she wasn’t familiar with the game mechanics so let some NPCs die. Jane and Bandit are likely to remain on the villain track (Jane especially so given the persona she presents, while the name Bandit carries associations of a villanous path).

Perhaps they could walk the vigilante path – not conforming to typical notions of either hero or villain. It would be the road less well travelled, and of course they’d find themselves up against both heroic and villanous groups, but, especially with such a diverse range of personalities, could make them one to watch. Maybe even Kleya can pass on some tips to Danni about exploiting aspects of game physics which don’t match up to real world physics – which, when combined with Danni’s gymnastic abilities, could give viewers something amazing to look at, even if it’s only on an opponent already weakened by the rest.

After all, one of the main keys to the team’s survival is giving Danni a huge popularity boost.

strange. Kleya did the pacifist route. i would have thought that would count as hero, not villian. or did she meant to say “you’re all villians”?

Eric: Although Kleya and Dude followed Heroic paths, as Danni, Jane and The Bandit did villanous paths, by a 3:2 majority the group as a whole will be considered villanous – in The Game, the group as a whole has an alignment, although as individual members of the group can change their path based on their decisions in The Game, it may be that a villanous group can turn heroic and vice versa.

Their group is the first new group to be allowed into The Game for a while, so Sandra decided to let them choose their route by doing the alignment section of the Tutorial, rather than taking a vote; thus introducing the audience to the characters and getting a few viewers before they start The Game for real.

Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 300