OOTS Strips by Final Post Count (update 3-9-2012)

[Porthos]

#877 clocks in at 1020 posts at the 24 hr mark. Most impressive for a very deserving strip.

[Flame of Anor]

Looks like 1000 in 24 hours is fait accompli. If the next two strips are equally stunning/revealing, this 9-in-9-days series will have a huge chunk of the top 10.

I'm glad that the Giant is putting the 9-in-9 on such a momentous piece of story. I can barely imagine how much more agonizing it would be if this had played out over a month or two.

[Mordae]

Indeed.

And 878 is off to a smashing start, clearing triple digits in under 25 minutes.

[Porthos]

#877 will probably get a sprinking of posts over the next few days, but I doubt it'll be enough to overtake #406 (1048 posts). Though, who knows. Only really need one spirited discussion to do it I suppose.

Either way, getting Spot Number Five All Time is a massive acomplishment, considering it did that in 24.5 hours.

[LadyEowyn]

"Ensnared" should be above "Trial of the Century" in the ranking; it has 755 posts to the latter's 714.

[Procyonpi]

Sorta sad that "spins of the father is now off the 24 hour list. That was a great reveal, and reminiscent of 1984.

[B. Dandelion]

#877 clocks in at 1020 posts at the 24 hr mark. Most impressive for a very deserving strip.

Indeed. Front page updated.

We bumped 0659 - Flight of the Phylactery off the 24-hour chart.

"Ensnared" should be above "Trial of the Century" in the ranking; it has 755 posts to the latter's 714.

Actually, the error is in the tally rather than the rank. I accidentally stuck in "Ensnared"'s total tally and not its 24-hour count, which is 709.

In any case, fixed and thanks.

[hamishspence]

Shouldn't 877 be in the top 25 of all time as well, around 5th, at 1039 posts?

[Porthos]

Shouldn't 877 be in the top 25 of all time as well, around 5th, at 1039 posts?

B. Dandelion waits for the posting to stop on a thread before slotting it in. Understandable since it is something of a moving target right now.

[hamishspence]

Good point- maybe give it a day or two to settle down.

[B. Dandelion]

Sorta sad that "spins of the father is now off the 24 hour list. That was a great reveal, and reminiscent of 1984.

Oh yeah, I agree. The fact that we lose former winners on the main charts is the reason I put together lists by book and by year -- "Spins of the Father" ranks #4 on the 2010 list. Book 5 isn't out yet, but once it is and I have the full list of strips + commentary totals, it may chart there as well.

B. Dandelion waits for the posting to stop on a thread before slotting it in. Understandable since it is something of a moving target right now.

This, yes. It's a moving target and a hairsbreadth within the next item on the list currently. I'd rather not have to shuffle my list around more than I have to, I seem to make enough embarrassing errors as it is.

#878 - Little Brother racked up 816 posts in 24 hours (looks like Kish got in "the final word" before the deadline), so it slots as #4 on the 24 hour chart. So say farewell to 0409 - Intercession, dropping off the chart to #26.

It'll be easier to do updates to the all-time chart once the increased traffic and commenting from the one-a-day posting streak has passed -- updating once for every strip has gotten to feel a little silly. But since 879 should be the last in the series, it won't be too long.

[B. Dandelion]

All right, I think I'm caught up with the Giant's awesome 9-day streak.

On the 24-hour chart, we kicked off the old #25, 655 - With a Critical Eye..

In order to make room for the new #21, 879 - Running on Empty.

On the total chart, we bumped off the old #25 (857 - The Pit of Despair), #24 (661 - The Path of Least Expectation), and #23 (860 - Wasn't Going to Listen to Orders Anyway)...

In order to make room for the new #15 (0876 - Ensnared), #10 (0878 - Little Brother), and #5 (0877 - The Bright Side).

I definitely think the Giant knew what he was doing when he selected this run of strips for the 9-day marathon...

[B. Dandelion]

All right, so 879 - Running on Empty, with 837 posts, charts on the all-time list at #13.

We bumped 316 - The Moment of Truth off the chart.

By the way, Daylight Savings Time is giving me a huge headache. Last week I was double-checking my spreadsheet for any errors and saw a lot of my old timestamps were off by an hour. So I corrected a ton of them. After we rolled over into Daylight Savings Time those old timestamps retroactively became correct. So now my "corrected" entries are wrong again, but they'll be right when Daylight Savings Time ends. I changed my options in the control panel from "automatically detect DST settings" to "DST corrections always on" which I hope will mean I won't endure this retroactive-DST business again, but it means I have to re-correct the spreadsheet (fortunately I have backups from before the "correction" spree), and it's not done yet. Sorry for the one-hour inaccuracy many entries will have.

[B. Dandelion]

Updated... and it's a late update, but I had to fix my spreadsheet and it took an extremely long time to double-check everything. As far as times are concerned now, either there's no such thing as Daylight Savings Time or it's always Daylight Savings time, because you couldn't get an exactly accurate account of how long things were up for if you treated DST literally like time travel. Which is how the board does it too, and likely why. Anyway.

No change to the 24 hour chart, but the all time chart dropped its old #25: 655 - With a Critical Eye.

The new (or if you need to be snarky, "new") #16 is 880 - Getting the Message.

Also because of people making additional posts to old threads after new ones had been counted already I wound up having to swap numbers #12 and #13. I hope we don't make a habit of this...

[factotum]

Can't help but wonder how high up the list #885 would have been if we hadn't had several days of forum outage when that strip was first released!

[Porthos]

Missed this. Thanks for bringing it back up (and thanks as well for the work you put in it).

[B. Dandelion]

Thank you, Porthos, I really appreciate it!

#885 probably would have charted, yes. #886 - Victory Comes From Within has already cranked it up to a solid #10 on the 24-hour count, which just expired.

Sadly, this pushes #449 - Land of the Rising... off the 24-hour chart! Dammit, that's one of my favorite-ever comics! At least it was a really good comic to displace it, and we'll always have the "best of War and XPs" chart...

[ti'esar]

To be honest, I think all older comics are going to be pushed off the list eventually, simply because there's more time on average between strips these days.

[B. Dandelion]

It got knocked off the 24-hour chart, I haven't placed it in the 25 of all time chart yet. I don't think it's actually ranking just yet, but it's close and probably will ultimately. My hope was the 24 hour chart might equalize things between strips up for various lengths of time.

On the all-time chart, the newer strips do have something of an advantage. Not as much of one as you might think, since posting seems to drop off sharply after about 2-3 days, but not insignificant.

[Porthos]

886 (thanks to a thread merge) has now smashed into the Top Ten. Depending on when the next update is, it looks to have a pretty decent shot at entering the Top Five when all is said and done.

[137beth]

868 (thanks to a thread merge) has now smashed into the Top Ten. Depending on when the next update is, it looks to have a pretty decent shot at entering the Top Five when all is said and done.

Do you mean 886?

[Porthos]

Do you mean 886?

That post has always been at war with said 886, it has never been at war with said 868.

In other words, fixed.

[sam79]

Sadly, this pushes #449 - Land of the Rising... off the 24-hour chart! Dammit, that's one of my favorite-ever comics! At least it was a really good comic to displace it, and we'll always have the "best of War and XPs" chart...

Agreed; an awesome strip. Though this current one (886) is pretty darn good too.

And thanks, also.

ETA: on an unrealted note, I wonder how much of the 449 thread was people arguing over the rules implications of Ghost Martyr paladins...

[Porthos]

ETA: on an unrealted note, I wonder how much of the 449 thread was people arguing over the rules implications of Ghost Martyr paladins...

From what I recall, not too much. Most of the rules talk was centered around "Wow! Cool! It's the Risen Martyrs from Book of Exalted Deeds!" and talking about the Deathless in general.

There was some speculation about Redcloak being able to 'turn' them (which turned [no pun intended ] out to be true). But most of it was just cheering at the kickassness of the comic.

[sam79]

From what I recall, not too much. Most of the rules talk was centered around "Wow! Cool! It's the Risen Martyrs from Book of Exalted Deeds!" and talking about the Deathless in general.

There was some speculation about Redcloak being able to 'turn' them (which turned [no pun intended ] out to be true). But most of it was just cheering at the kickassness of the comic.

That's good to hear.

Oh wow, I didn't realize that the ghost martyrs were an actual D+D thing. I'd just kind of assumed it was a homebrewed story device from our author. Which leads to the question; did any of the Mad Crazy Speculation predict that Soon and his fellows would show up in the throne room before it happened?

[Porthos]

That's good to hear.

Oh wow, I didn't realize that the ghost martyrs were an actual D+D thing.

More like an 'actual DnD thing with the serial numbers filed off'.

As for anyone calling it in advance? Not that I recall. But I don't remember EVERY converstation that happened back then either.

ETA::

BTW, I had the wrong link in my original post (which is why I edited it out). The Deathless could be found in both The Book of Exalted Deeds and Eberron.

Here's the Eberron take.

The Eberron connection, naturally, led to a few fair share of jokes.

I don't recall the differences, if any, between the deathless in BoED and Eberron. But, basically, just consider them undead powered by positive energy instead of negative energy.

[Umberhulk]

It seems - judging by the strips per year count - that every year Rich releases about ten strips less than the previous year. We've got three years and 60 comics left for a story conclusion. ;)

[Bulldog Psion]

This is a very interesting thread, thank you for compiling it.

I notice that 7 of the top 25, or 1 in 3.6, relate to Miko.

[SaintRidley]

So #886 has clocked in at 1125 posts, unless people add to it for some reason (but we should be able to see in the next couple days whether it gets any more). And that means we have a new #4 of all time, a pending #3 for Book 5, and a #2 for 2013 (so far).

Not bad for a strip that takes place entirely in the characters' heads.

[factotum]

So #886 has clocked in at 1125 posts, unless people add to it for some reason

And already it has another three posts on it...