‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 427

Colors by Jemma and Audrey except the last panel (reality memory). That and everything else is by me.

Memory time! Yes, she's typing and flicking at the same time. It's similar to working on a computer and a tablet at the same time except the tablet screen is overlayed/projected on your vision.

For those that need a memory jog.

Random Game Info:
I think I mentioned earlier that it's possible to create/form your own island. And thanks to, um, certain programmers, you can pick and choose which plants grow on your island. Unlike the real world where plants are decided by the local climate, plants in the Games are decided mainly by the esones being used to power the island.

21 Comments

Heh. Hoisted on her own petard!

Honestly, I’m hoping that “She’s invincible on her island; now you will be the same!” will end up being an example of exact wording and they end up taking him down by leading him off the island.

Wait, what plants are they looking for?

Healing plants

“Um…no, because I tweaked it that way, while teaching my dad to tweak it. This is his island. Oh yeah, I’m a hacker. Well, Hacker. The Hacker. You know what, D, delete everything after the Um, I’m calling a mulligan.”

“Wait, that’s a live feed, isn’t it. Yep, those are all the people who are watching me right now. OK, it all seem OK noooooooowwwand there we go, the panic has started. Sorry for restarting the anti-hacker hunts again guys. I’m just gonna vanish for a few more years then come back as someone else……again…”

Aw, Kat had made life harder for herself before she could have dreamt she’d play Erbana one day.

this is adorable

Karma it hits you right in the one area you never thought of…

Aside from aesthetic plants, being able to choose which plants grow on your islands directly seems like a bit much. I can understand influencing the choices with what Esones you use to power the island but with what we know of Erbana so far being utterly dependent on what materials you have, even a semi knowledgeable person could make an island(s) that is completely hostile to Erbana players.

I think that was the point, hence the “She’s invincible on her island, now you will be the same.” She also didn’t say he could choose which plants, just which type. There might be a constant number of plants, or at least a spawn rate, but by selecting which esones power the island you alter the other aspects of the climate, plants available, animals around, etc.

Keep in mind she was hacking it, rather than working within the normal game parameters. i doubt normal players can exert that kind of control over the environment, aside from extremely high-level erbanas, who may be able to plant and grow specific kinds of plants where they wish.

Also, it is a bit much, but since they are apparently the game designers, it’s not an angle most of the players would have. So far I haven’t gotten the impression your average player gets their own island.

Yes, it is a bit much, but it does seem less like a balanced ability game developers purposefully integrated into a game, and more like a backdoor sneaked in the game by a certain ambitious programmer with no moral qualms about cheating in order to “win”. Without consulting it with other Tenka programmers first, as you can see.

In fact – it doesn’t even sound exactly like a backdoor intentionally written into the game – it could very well be a bug or a side effect of certain factors.

For example, if the name of the island is a seed for determining what plants will grow, you can manipulate that such that it explicitly works with the other elements in determining the plants that grow such that only certain types grow.

Remember that “bag of holding” for plants that Erbana players get? Yeah, this is where that’s crucial.

I wonder what happened to Kat’s eyelashes?

Kat, the right answer is “I don’t know, they might have updated the Game from when I last played it”.

The obvious solution is, of course, to go to Kleia’s Mom’s island and stock up. That island is surely designed as the ultimate Erbana cornucopia.

Please Nooooo! No reality scenes please! Artificial reality is so much more interesting.

Everyone seems to think this is a broken mechanic, to me it actually feels like a rather weak one, to the point I wonder why Kat claimed it would make her father invincible.

We already saw that Ebona have an effectively limitless bag for plants. If plants are used for healing it seems like Ebona would simply stockpile the plants they need well before they go into any real battle. I would have thought that the presence or lack of plants at any island would be a minor-at-best issue since any decent Ebona would have more then enough plants to last the length of time they are in any hostile territory.

The only reason Kat is in danger is because she was tossed into the island without any time to stockpile her supplies first. But I would imagine Kats mother would just shrug at the plants present and start using her own stockpile if she ever visited her husbands island. Unless for some reason stockpiled plants are not the answer to preparing your ‘spells’. We know that plants can be stocked infinitely, so it’s not as if they can run out if they play well. Perhaps some ebona tricks require freshly picked plants that didn’t come from their bag?

I think it is really just that the average Erbana player has to harvest naturally growing and occurring plants, so stockpiling for them requires weeks of harvesting or at least several days of repeatedly walking around the same areas. If you could control your plants, then you could harvest the same amount in a couple of hours instead. It wouldn’t necessarily be more invincible than average, but with faster respawn and larger ready stock, you could replenish as fast as you ran out, even in the heaviest of combat.

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 427