@Mr. Al: .....THAT IS NOT WHAT A GOOD DEVELOPER DOES! YOU FUCKING EXPECT PLAYERS TO BREAK YOUR FUCKING GAME! THAT IS WHAT PLAYERS DO! THEY FIND OPTIMAL STRATEGIES! According to you, god is the worst developer in the world. If players break it, YOU FIX IT! You don't throw a hissy fit and walk away.

Not seeing it pointed out but Jo: "Tool" use.

Seriously though, these Nature's Balance strips are some of my favourites in a while, Jo!

"Lol, listen to this newfag! Everyone knows Intelligence is going to be nerfed into the ground, come the next evolution patch. I've said it before and I'll say it again, we should never have left the trees; solid pvp advantage, with bonuses in shit-flinging and brachiation!"

I can actually TOTALLY believe that there's an intelligent creator, be it either one who created us or just the universe.

But I still don't see how proving or disproving evolution also proves the Bible is the one true word of God. If anything it makes it even less believable to me.

Ever noticed how everytime there's a debate about the existence of god or evolution, it turns around the bible?

Blablabla, Darwin is a hack, so what, maybe, but then maybe Jesus was a hack too (cont.)

@Mr. Al: Not corrupted by satan. "Hostile Wildlife, Death, and Pain" were added as features of the Post-Eden patch - either as punishment for an exploit, or to provide greater/suitable challenge for the dramatic increase in player skill and awareness.

I think Japanese animators have this on turbo fire.

Should I be concerned that Angie has a button that makes people's clothes explode?

Also, what happened to the last comic?

What happened to the third one?
that one was the funniest one
(Also fanservice doesnt wrok when its still mostly covered)

On one hand those comic strips were really funny and you should absolutely keep up with them. On the other hand, fuck those comic strips, your fanservice is no where near enough to make up for what you did. You need to at least do Anne-marie before forgiveness can even be considered.

DONT TOUCH THAT! THAT'S THE HISTORY ERASER BUTTON YOU FOOL!

Quick! Press the emergency button and replace the comic!

Uhh, what happened to Nature's Balance 3?

Well more fanservice is always good

Oh, God, the photonotes! Won't somebody please think of the PHOTONOTES!?

Omg, I laughed so hard.

Why did you replace comics instead of adding new one, Jo?

Kind of funny since Intelligence in Dota is mostly early game oriented supports.

@Ben Ehren
There's still debate if they should be classified Homo sapiens Neanderthalensis or Homo Neanderthalensis.
It's true that they were quite intelligent, but nobody knows how smart exactly. They had bigger brains than our ancestors back then though
p.s.
I to hate Neandertal dissing

This Nature's Balance is being so good that made me need to come here and say that =D
While randon comics are good anyway, the series almost aways is even more, the continuity make it, while risk when part of the public don't like the topic or keep up with the serie, continuity is aways nice to see

@Steven Sanders The concept of animals or anything that lives having the ability to cause harm is also part of the game being corrupted, and not part of it's original design. Duh. God doesn't make bad games. Satan is a hacker who goads the community into raging and making everything worse :o

Long time lurker. Jo, this series is easily my favorite work you have ever done. Biological evolution through the lens of min-maxing build trees is fucking hilarious.

::standing ovation::

These Nature's balance comics are great :D

Great comics Jo, keep doing these! [something witty here]

Was those Spelling mistakes always there? Toll-use and Gety...
I swear they weren't when I first read the comic when it came out...

@GarketMardener: I tend to stick with what works. In a recent game with a Silencer on my team, I saw he had strangely decided to build a Daedalus instead of Aghs. I'd have done boots, mek, Aghs, & refresher myself. That said, we DID end up winning the game, so maybe he was onto something.

@Falos: "Follow the crowd" in DotA is making me sick right now
"hey im getting a dominator's"
"are you stacking ancients?"
"no wtf i just did it cause <pro carry> won with it really ez katka"
"sure i'll tell everybody and do it next game"

"if it was good everyone would be doing it"
oh god [russia intensifies]
what's next? Results mean bare power?
Show and glory are the only things needed?

Everybody IS doing it.

From the perspective of 5 trillion years from now, looking at the dominant species on every life-supporting planet. Yep, you'll see mostly int builds.

I'm not saying "follow the crowd" but meta-deduction is pretty accurate AFTER it's had a chance to deduce and optimize.

I thought this comic was about anime chicks and some obscure moba references.
But this series about Nature's Balance? I found it on Kotaku and it got me right on your webpage, as I thought "hey, the guy CAN make some amusing comics!".
So uh, dunno about your old fans but I like this series!

I have to say, these 3 strips are THE BEST comics you have done in a long time. They are smart and funny. LOVE THEM. <3

@Mr. Al: Uhhh, God made a type of animal that bores out the eyes of its host...and it ONLY goes in human eyes, mostly children. Great Game God.

All in all, I don't force anyone to share my opinion, anyone have the freedom of speech, but simply put, hate the gamer not the game. God is like the sole working combination of a developer and publishing giant with the heart of an indie developer :3

(cont.) on a new game that anyone who wants to be free of the scum-like community are free to join, when it is released. The release date is not given, as a test of faith to see who in the community are actually willing to go all the way.
God made the perfect game, then came the asshat community :p

@Platipus I'd say it's more like that God as a developer is sad as to how the community is misbehaving and ruining the game, and so has let them run rampant and do whatever they want with the now-broken product, while conveying the message through polls, blogs and admins that he is working (TBC)

I want a game based off this series. Devs, get to it now.

"I'm having way too much fun with those strips, I hope you guys been enjoying it."

Yes. Yes we have. :)

This.

We need more of this.

This is actually funny.

@RedMattis: As it turns out their are some Neanderthal genes in African populations, turns out that some of the genes from them were so successful that their was some backwards flow. This indicates that those genes were probably VERY important.

These are good, don't end it yet.
Or, at least bring it back once in a while.

I'd just like to say I'm really enjoying this mini-series/arc, it's a interesting change from your usual work.

At first I didn't get what was going on with this mini-series. But now that I know what's happening, it's pretty sweet. :)

@Mr. Al: Since trolling has started... If God is the Developer of "Nature", God is up there in the scum tier of Devs. The code is sloppy, exploitable, and full of bugs. The 'patch' rate is abysmal. Community interaction is non-existent, and relies on self-reported contact with community 'prophets'.

@RedMattis: If anything he left out a good chunk of direct observed animal intercourse behavior notes. You don't study sexual selection without watching animal getting it on.

As a huge fan of biology, these strips have been amazingly funny! Great work on these!

@SCAR MAN!!!
He is calling Darwinism unscientific. The dude is obviously trolling. Actual fundamentalists may call Darwinism a lot of things, but unscientific is hardly ever among them.

btw.
Neanderthal genes are found in all ~non-african~ populations. So not all humans, but most do have them.

Don't forget to vote Shantae for the new Smash Bros Character
https://cp.nintendo.co.jp/us/

@ Mr AL
Obvious troll is obvious

@Mr. Al

You sir, have just started an unstoppable s$@tstorm. I hope you're happy.

I have to say, even though I as a Christian see Darwinism for the blatantly unscientific poppycock it is, I'm still having a laugh from these strips. Goodness, there are too few things that comically make fun of this to justify the Atheist claim of "making fun of everything" x3

The neanderthal path is an intelligence build too. Just not as intelligent as homo sapiens sapiens, trading in late-game tool use for early game strength.

I absolutely love this Nature's Balance thing Jo, please don't stop until you run out of ideas and don't feel obligated to go back to whatever you were doing before

And thus the Internet was born...

@Xentillus: It quite probably was.
Or at least a Pseudo-Ape, of the kind that would not easily fit into any of our labels (*Stares at Platypus*)

Original and funny, I approve.

Yeah, I like those as well. If you feel like you have enough ideas to do a couple more of them, then go ahead.

@Shadow12000: Except that humans have more recent common ancestors with apes, rather than monkeys. You could argue that our common ancestor was an ape, albeit not one that exists now.
Love the arc, though I thought 'Intelligence is bad late game, they'll just get bkbs' before I could stop myself.

Those are cools continue as long as you can! (or want)

How Evolution Is Actually Is Explained: Monkeys and Humans have a common ancestor.
How Evolution Is Spread By People Who Didn't Pay Attention: Humans Came From Monkeys.

Great arc.Keep it up.

These strips are brilliant. Me and my MMO buddies love them!

Some people hate Dota2 comics, some people hate TF2 comics, and just when I thought you can't please everyone, there's this.

This current line of comics is brilliant

By god I will use these strips in whatever class I substitute for.

I love this arc.

Cont. 2
Now that I think about, we think Neanderthals were the ones to invent jewelry, so that, plus their stature, bone structure, and hairiness (they lived in snow forests and used pure muscle to stay warm), the mythical/fantasy Dwarf may have really been Neanderthals.

Cont.
Hell, they may be the reason we are so right handed. All their skeletons show that their right arms were much stronger than their left since their right arms were super-dominate and only used it for stabbing. Said stab would kill a deer on impact.

Can we have a Mark of the Ninja crossover with Neanderthals?

Those guys were freaking Ninja Dwarfs. Five feet tall of pure muscle and as silent as snowfall. Their hunting tactic was literally walking up to a deer and stabbing it with a spear.

I'm with Ben Ehren and Asa Dowdy, Neanderthals were actually the smartest of our cousins and could do some stuff better than the sapiens sapiens, but we being the violent species we are, we drove them to extinction but not before cross breeding.

Aside from that good arc.

Neanderthals weren't unintelligent.

Funny thing is, Humans are part Neanderthal, we have now confirmed that. Indeed some of the critical genes that we have that may have lead to human civilization might have come from Neanderthals, though that part is still in debate.

@MangoMaster4: Well it's like I said yesterday; I like these, but I also like Mark of the Genie and had hoped it would go more than 3 strips. That's not to say I want to switch arcs right NOW, but I hope that we eventually get more genie/ninja goodness after this is over. :)

In Nature's balance 4: they now use stone spears and have slings and are owning the place.

It might be better to save any you've got left for later, but only if you're willing to do them 'buffer' style.
As in, either way, you should draw them now, or you'll lose the 'thread'. If you feel like drawing even more comics, it'd probably be good to space these out a bit.

I'm pretty sure everyone loves these strips Jo, don't force yourself into something, enjoy making them.

hey don't diss homo sapien neanderthalensis, those guys where still very intelligent.

No man, these are absolutely awesome! it's fun to see how it kind of makes sense in this context, uaheauhea

"Toll use"?
Do you even grammar bro?
(it's tool btw)

Please no regular schedule. These "balance" series are amazing. I'm really willing to see how "all-out fangs" build goes "Fuck this game its no-pvp for pussies" extinct :p

Also, pretty sure you misused "Toll" in this comic.