The Noob

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The Noob is yet another gaming Web Comic, which sets itself apart from most others by focusing almost entirely on parodying MMORPGs. The story originally revolves around Ohforf'Sake, the Player Character of an Everyman gamer who wanders aimlessly and cluelessly around the world of Clichequest, a brutally stereotypical fantasy MMORPG and gets into and barely survives (or not) all kinds of shenanigans.

As the comic has gone on, the focus has shifted from Ohforf himself to various other characters in the game world, including the Outcasts (a band of Player Killers/Heroic Comedic Sociopaths whose storyline included a pastiche of The Warriors), another, smarter, female newbie called Hypatia, Sir Bob the veteran player, the hapless members of a roleplaying guild and the game developers themselves. The comic spends much of its time mocking MMORPG tropes and the absurdities of the genre, along with the players and developers of such games, but with far too much insight to be truly malicious.

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The comic provides examples of:

• An Adventurer Is You: Clichequest uses, as expected, pretty typical MMORPG classes.
  • Rangers are incredibly overpowered, due to the lead developer's liking for playing them- something many real game devs are accused of doing, true or not.
• AI Is a Crapshoot

"The AI in this game is starting to worry me. It's so advanced, it whines."

• Always Someone Better: Cyrus to Fred the Dread.
• Bowdlerize: Parodied. When a player named himself Dick Tracy, a GM changed his name to !@%& Tracy (and banned him for a week).
  • The Devs briefly introduced a filter to censor all homophobic comments, which rendered D34dly incomprehensible. It was gay.
• Bullying a Dragon: Baron Wolfgang Von Epeen became the leader of Efficient Omniscience and decided to talk trash to Absolute Endgame - even after he was told that one of the developers was in their guild.
• Call Back: Arsemode has shown up several times, in increasingly elaborate variants.
  • Quantum-arsemode!
• Death Is Cheap: Like most MMORPGs
  • We have seen the PVP'ers heavily de-level someone by camping their corpse, though.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Don't sass the devs.
• Dulcinea Effect: "So, when are we leaving?"
• Even Evil Has Standards: Fred the Dread and Your Name Here consider it bad form to trash talk well matched or undermatched opponents. Subverted by D34dly, who... doesn't.
• Expospeak: In-universe example: The developers use these as 'lore-nukes' to put players in coma, to hide that the game content isn't done yet.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Ohforf has become this completely by accident, killing a new raid boss through a series of coincidences.
  • Ohforf didn't even kill the raid boss. It swallowed the new GM, burned its insides on the GM's flaming staff and killed itself on the stalactites, then landed at Ohforf's feet. That's why the new GM got the uber-buff, not Ohforf'.
• Five-Bad Band: The PKers, although the band's lineup could be interpreted one of two ways.
  • The Big Bad: Fred the Dread (main leader of the PKers and causer of the most mayhem) or Drakoola (the actual Guild Leader)
  • The Dragon: Dakilla (if Fred is the Big Bad) or Fred the Dread (if Drakoola is the Big Bad)
  • The Evil Genius: D34dly D34dly (as the spellcaster) or Dakilla (the guy who pays attention to the game lore)
  • The Brute: Your Name Here (both versions)
  • The Dark Chick: Drakoola (he's mostly off doing his own thing and rarely with the rest of the PKers), or D34dly D34dly (as the comic relief and stupid one)
• Flanderization: D34dly D34dly started out as a bit ditzy. He evolved into someone who seems to be functionally retarded about everything that isn't PvP.
• Genius Ditz: D34dly D34dly. He's pretty damn good at PVP, but doesn't seem to have even the slightest bit of common sense about anything else.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Around 80% of the things the devs do. Hilarity Ensues.
• Idiot Hero: Ohforf, from the start.
  • This is lampshaded when Hypatia convince the roleplayer guild's leader to let Ohforf in...on the basis he's roleplaying a retard. He's fooled immediately
  • His later actions reflect more ignorance and naiveté than actual stupidity, though.
• Jerkass Gods: The GM's and developers are only godlike in-game, of course, but apart from this they are a prime example (when they're not just plain lazy).
• Karma Houdini: The Pking pros kills almost everyone without repercussions.
  • Not for lack of trying; their opponents are just too clueless to actually hurt them.
  • And there was the time the devs included Limb-Loss (a parody of Stat-Loss as was used in a real game) for PKers when they were killed as a form of karmic retribution. This is the reason Fred the Dread has a hooked hand. And Drakoola had killed so many players before dying himself, he is literally only a nose by this point.
• Loud of War: OhForf is punished by listening to the bards, and temporarily goes crazy.
• Old Shame: Before he became a PKer, Dakilla was part of a role-playing guild.
• Overused Copycat Character: Spoofed, with all the elves trying to think of new ways to call themselves Legolas).
  • Ohforf got his name because the guy playing him got frustrated after being unable to find a new version of a famous fantasy character.
• Patchwork Map: The Crossroads!
• Personal Effects Reveal: The first rat that Ohforf kills has a tiny little wallet with a crayon drawing of his son expressing his love for his daddy.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: The lead developer of the game, not that his employees are much better. Some are even worse.
• Poop Socking: Parodied.
• Purple Prose: Many roleplayers talk like this.
• Rainbow Pimp Gear: Lampshaded of course, but Sir Bob's outfit actually wouldn't look out of place as a medieval noble.
  • A later bit character (a raid leader) is wearing so many shoulder pads, one on top of another, that his guildmates require a ladder to help him put a new pair on.
• Reset Button: CLICHEQUEST.EXE ERROR: SERVER CONNECTION LOST appears whenever the story gets a bit too far from the status quo.
  • Rather literally, with how the devs use that button.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: It's a MMORPG, what do you expect? The beginners quest building has a floor for "Rogues and Rouges"
• Running Gag: Powerful characters are always getting Killed Off for Real by Clichemon.
• Sexy Packaging: The expansion pack.
• "Stop Having Fun!" Guys: (In-Universe). Al, one of the developers, is also a PvPer who despises all non-PVP content and constantly fights with the other developers when forced to work on "carebear content". He later gets his revenge.
• Stripperific: Parodied. Hypatia complains about it, and not to mention the cover for the game's patch...
• Shout-Out: Directly to City of Heroes at one early point. Not to mention that in many ways Clichequest seems to share a little too much in common with Ultima Online and Ever Quest to be a coincidence.
  • Given the name of Clichequest, it's not exactly likely to be a coincidence...
    • The Noob shouts out to Everquest repeatedly. Over and over again. From the gag about the elven population dwindling because the newbies walk out of the treetop city and fall to their deaths (city of Kelethin), or when the new expansion was marketed by including a 3D bustline on the package (Firiona Vie), to the author acknowledging that one of the strips was based on an experience of "camping" a monster for 17 days...
  • Allusions to movies are pretty frequent as well - there have been references to, at least, Blade Runner, Doctor Strangelove, Forbidden Planet, The Graduate, The Warriors and probably some others too.
  • Dwarf Fortress: seen on a dev's computer
    • And the cofounder as well.
• Shoulders of Doom: Apparently, the lead dev trying to outdo World of Warcraft in bigger shoulder pads. One rejected design had cranes on it to assist lifting epic weapons.
• Small Name, Big Ego: The lead developer, and several players.
• Stealth Pun: "Switch yourself off, fool! You'll attract attention!" - Sir Bob to a spy disguised as a lampshade.
• Took a Level In Dumbass: D34dly D34dly.
• Twenty Bear Asses: Hilariously lampooned in an early strip.
• Unfortunate Implications: In-universe; the GM default model looks an awful lot like a Klan member. Other moments from the devs like this are a Running Gag.
  • The Klan-costumes are intentional. The Alt Text mentions how the GMs in early MMOs really looked so intimidating. And it's also used as a Running Gag
• Vendor Trash: Lampshaded in this strip.
• Walking the Earth