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I felt that the practical limits were more on the production side of things rather than R&D. He has way too much stuff (as in literal things that he makes) given the time constraints he's operating under. Some of the narrative decisions also felt really weird to me. It was weird to introduce the Primordial as a character and then have that go nowhere in the end. Then there's the the part where the cultists plans are mentioned with the addendum that it would require truly spectacular mind magic to work, but Zorian never plans for that fail state. The shifter ritual was even mentioned around the same time in the story, which would seem like a good basis to attempt subdue the Primordial.
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Feb 12, 2020 05:15
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Omi no Kami posted:Yeah and that's a shame, because driven but average jerkwad is a much more interesting platform than Wizard Tony Stark to see the world from. This is one of the few things that I think would actually be pretty easy to fix. The loop could've lasted much longer (so Zorian did in 50 years what a prodigy could've done in 15), although that would probably screw him up pretty badly like it did Zach. It could've also more explicitly made Zorian intellectually gifted but magically mediocre, since engineering and artisan stuff is basically the one field where he could make that combo work for him. I think part of the in-story explanation was supposed to be that a lot of magic was easier than people realized, but the extreme levels of secrecy meant that no one person saw more than a small percentage of the whole before their burgeoning talent caused other mages to shut them out. But there's really no explanation for Zorian's growth beyond "He was an awesome mage all along," which goes directly against a ton of canonical statements about his competence. I feel like the empath and mind mage stuff + him being able to do some fancy stuff like the dimensional projects were basically a "reasonable" level of special abilities for him to develop. A Zorian who mostly uses his mind powers to manipulate things from behind the scenes and maybe had some tricks for dealing with certain enemies, would make more sense. The extent to which he took the golem stuff bugs me because it doesn't really make sense for major nations to not have just produced a ton of powerful combat golems if they're that effective. Though it mostly bugs me in the sense that it should require a level of expertise that it doesn't make much sense for him to have acquired. On the other hand, I like Zach a lot and think the things he can do make sense. In general I really like Zach as a character and feel like he goes a long way towards making the series unique.
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Feb 12, 2020 06:07
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are you fuckin dumbasses talking about plausibility in a story about MAGIC from the thread that brought you "i can't believe a traumatised girl can be rational"
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Feb 12, 2020 06:08
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Lone Goat posted:are you fuckin dumbasses talking about plausibility in a story about MAGIC A fantasy story can still be internally consistent, and can be more or less enjoyable depending upon the story's characters and events. And Mother of Learning is good enough that the relatively few things that bug me stand out more.
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Feb 12, 2020 07:19
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Lone Goat posted:are you fuckin dumbasses talking about plausibility in a story about MAGIC that's a dumb thing to say
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Feb 12, 2020 12:16
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I kind of assumed the golems were designed over a ton of restarts where Zorian repeatedly hired/coerced/idk the top experts he could find to help work on it and the mental enhancements helped him actually pull it off, the golem code not being obufuscted probably helped with that. That's still pretty ridiculous, but I tend to find implementing someone else's super cool research way easier than trying to figure it all out on my own
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Feb 12, 2020 13:19
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I'm pretty sure his custom golems are expansive as gently caress and only sustainable by him robbing all those cultist. He even mentioned at the epilouge that he is starting to run out of money because the restart installed in him some profligate tendencies. I agree that the power curve broke a bit compared to how Zorian was meant to slightly sub-average guy, but the in-setting explanation is that he threw a fuckton of money around and built on the works of others (the mental enhancements were originally the product of Spear Of Resolve's research for example)
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Feb 12, 2020 18:54
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Is there estimate how long they were in the loop? The author kind of glossed over it at a certain point, but they also had the black rooms giving them more time as well.
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Feb 12, 2020 22:38
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I just got around to reading the last 3-4 chapters. I wish Zach got to do more! He didn't even get an end scene! edit: The entire fight with Oganj was off-screen and involved him receiving aid from people, and he was even injured by Jornak (I get the reason for this - Jornak having a bullshit primordial power - but it stands in contrast to Zorian strutting around being a badass and owning people for the past few chapters). This bugs me because one of the more unique things MoL does is having the series' main character pairing be a platonic one between two guys who are very different in their personalities. Also, my name IRL is Zach so I'm biased. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 00:28
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asur posted:Is there estimate how long they were in the loop? The author kind of glossed over it at a certain point, but they also had the black rooms giving them more time as well. When Zorian first goes to Koth he says that he's been in the loop for almost 6 years, and I believe they spend another 2-4 years screwing around, then a final 1-year push marking all of his friends and preparing their exit. So 8-10ish years total? I think Zorian is in his late 20s, and Zach is like 60.
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Feb 13, 2020 01:26
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I'm mad that they spent so much time marking their friends and not a single one made it out
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Feb 13, 2020 04:12
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Argue posted:I'm mad that they spent so much time marking their friends and not a single one made it out To be fair, they probably wouldn't have been cool with murdering their not-time-loop selves to do it like Zorian did.
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Feb 13, 2020 04:18
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biracial bear for uncut posted:To be fair, they probably wouldn't have been cool with murdering their not-time-loop selves to do it like Zorian did. Damien explicitly states that he totally would have done what Zorian did, and that's why he wasn't really bothered by Zorian telling him about that. edit: one other thing that bugged me about the finale is that Zorian apparently produced *hundreds* of golems, in addition to the Super Golem. As well as his crazy cube thing. And the city-wide mind control thing. And dealing with all the typical money-harvesting he has to do to fund this stuff. To be honest it's frankly hard to believe that he would have had time to do all of that in less than a month, even if he had the capability and had planned out exactly how to do everything before leaving the time loop. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 04:48
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biracial bear for uncut posted:To be fair, they probably wouldn't have been cool with murdering their not-time-loop selves to do it like Zorian did. True, though that wasn't the original plan- they were intending to all physically step into the world, the murder thing was only because Zorian's sim body got destroyed at the last minute. Also, I'm glad he told at least one person, but I was surprised at how low-key the whole "Yeah, so the person all of Zorian's friends and family knew and kinda liked got horribly murdered last night" conversation went. Speaking of which, it's kinda weird to me how they made a whole big deal of Zorian's mana regulation being dangerously unstable for like 5 days on account of losing his blood magic frog thing when his body got shredded, but then they just kinda went "And then a few days passed and he recovered." It was given enough weight that I assumed it was going to complicate something somewhere along the way.
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Feb 13, 2020 04:51
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MoL I feel like Zorian's Golems are fair. They're one of the first signs he's getting tough and they improve in a steady and mostly reasonable fashion. Story laid more than enough groundwork and repeatedly explained how he got all the design work done for them (mostly by hiring genius's and looping their own designs back to them). The early chapters also say he has a talent for it.
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Feb 13, 2020 05:05
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LLSix posted:MoL I think part of the problem is one of storytelling: logically, his golems feel like the upper end of barely plausible to me. The problem is that it isn't very interesting to read every single step of his iteratively improving their design, so around the time he started getting battle-worthy models the story stopped really bringing them up, while he was presumably still assigning multiple simulacrums to tinker with them 24/7 in the background. As a result, we basically went like 30% of the book without hearing about them beyond casual references to his improving the bodies of his simulacrums, and then out of nowhere he has an army of giant murderbots for the grand finale.
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Feb 13, 2020 05:30
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MoL is a power fantasy that went through the insanity ceiling. About halfway though you can tell the author finally noticed that Zorian had become a God in roughly 10 years of time. He starts wrapping things up but in a DBZ-like sense it is too late and now Zorian can do anything he wants and it gets awkward. It is a good story, but you can really tell the author let the plot get away from them. Peachfart fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 06:30
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Hey web serial megathread, I wanted to ask you guys something. I've been making on-and-off attempts to try and get off the ground with a serial since like, 2016, and have tried a dozen different ideas at different levels of cynicism about the audience - I made a couple attempts serious mystery, a couple of short-lived attempts at a LitRPG and fantasy, and and currently posting something that's kinda messy middle ground. However, no matter how I seem to approach, they never been to get off the ground very well, and my readership tapers off to being very low after 6-10 updates. This had become super frustrating to me, since it's a format that I really have fun with, and no one who I try and get to read them really gives me negative feedback other than petty stuff. So I wanted to ask - though this kinda a goofy question - what are some of the unifying factors really get you invested in a serial and make you stay with it? I've read most of the popular ones like Wildbows work, MoL, PGtE, and a whole bunch of stuff on royalroad, but even after all this time I still don't feel like I fully grasp what I'm missing that hooks people? General thoughts on what you read serials for would help too, I think.
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Feb 13, 2020 06:32
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I need to care about the characters. That's basically the most important thing for me, and I can forgive a lot of crap if there's a really compelling character or two (not even necessarily the protagonist) whose narrative and arc I care a lot about. Make them interesting, make them sympathetic, make them relatable - or just make them a tremendously funny and entertaining mess.
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Feb 13, 2020 06:37
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PoorWeather posted:Hey web serial megathread, I wanted to ask you guys something. I've been making on-and-off attempts to try and get off the ground with a serial since like, 2016, and have tried a dozen different ideas at different levels of cynicism about the audience - I made a couple attempts serious mystery, a couple of short-lived attempts at a LitRPG and fantasy, and and currently posting something that's kinda messy middle ground. However, no matter how I seem to approach, they never been to get off the ground very well, and my readership tapers off to being very low after 6-10 updates. This had become super frustrating to me, since it's a format that I really have fun with, and no one who I try and get to read them really gives me negative feedback other than petty stuff. A situation or scenario that grabs me and holds me during the exposition.(Don't make anymore leveling or superhero stories, there are a billion of them and you will blend into the background) Strong characters that each have their own voice, and avoid Mary Sueisms. Grammar is more important than you think, I hate being pulled out of a story when I don't understand what the author is saying. But then again I love TWI so what do I know about good stories?
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Feb 13, 2020 06:37
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The Shortest Path posted:I need to care about the characters. That's basically the most important thing for me, and I can forgive a lot of crap if there's a really compelling character or two (not even necessarily the protagonist) whose narrative and arc I care a lot about. Make them interesting, make them sympathetic, make them relatable - or just make them a tremendously funny and entertaining mess. I usually do character-focused writing, so I don't think that's the problem? But it's hard to tell, I guess. Peachfart posted:But then again I love TWI so what do I know about good stories? What do you like about the Wandering Inn, if you don't mind me asking? It's always the seemed the most inexplicable to me of the big ones, since it has such a slow start. For a lot time I thought it was because it signals a lot of tropes and imagery familiar to its audience of nerdy readers with some anime fandom overlap, but I've also seen a lot of stories in that mold that crash and burn that didn't read too differently to me - and when I toyed with that tone, it didn't work at all. I hope I don't come across as being critical of you for enjoying it. That's not my intention.
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Feb 13, 2020 06:48
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I don't know about Peachfart's reasons but for me it's because the characters have very well defined voices and personalities, and it's fun to see them do whatever they're up to. I would compare it--some people offered this up as a criticism, but I think it's a point in its favor--to MCU movies, in that you get to see characters you like being funny and doing cool things. It also helps that it's one of the few web serials I've seen that isn't ashamed to have a political stance. Having the main character espouse very clear anti war anti racism values goes a long way towards mitigating any annoying Mary Sueness about her.
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Feb 13, 2020 07:15
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LLSix posted:MoL I don't mean in terms of skill, but in terms of the time it would take to produce them (particularly taking into account the other stuff he also produced).
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Feb 13, 2020 07:19
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I found the MoL ending pretty weak, but I think the problem isn't actually the ending. Going into the last 5 chapters (which I read in one shot), there just weren't really any plot threads left that I particularly cared about. The big mysteries driving the bulk of the story had all already been resolved, so there just wasn't anything left for the ending to do other than be a big fight. The fight scenes were mildly interesting to read and had some neat bits, but I feel like I could have skipped straight to the epilogue without missing anything important.
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Feb 13, 2020 08:42
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The parts of the story I found most universally engaging were the slice of life bits, although I like slice of life stories so that might just be personal taste. The progression fantasy stuff worked as a narrative spine, but I honestly don't think it needed a final confrontation of any kind- if the big climax was "We only have 30 days to get out of the loop before Zorian's marker expires, oh no," and the rest was just him stepping out and living that month with all of his buddies for real, I think it would've been a lot more satisfying. Even if you kept the action beats, I think grandiose action in particular was a bad choice- I get wanting to showcase all the cool stuff Zorian can do now, but I always felt that the story's fights were at their best early on, when it was a scared and freaked-out teenager ducking behind corners and throwing gas and telekinetic knives at people. So yeah- I don't quite wanna call the ending bad, but it felt like in a lot of ways the author chose to focus on the story's weakest elements.
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Feb 13, 2020 09:26
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PoorWeather posted:Hey web serial megathread, I wanted to ask you guys something. I've been making on-and-off attempts to try and get off the ground with a serial since like, 2016, and have tried a dozen different ideas at different levels of cynicism about the audience - I made a couple attempts serious mystery, a couple of short-lived attempts at a LitRPG and fantasy, and and currently posting something that's kinda messy middle ground. However, no matter how I seem to approach, they never been to get off the ground very well, and my readership tapers off to being very low after 6-10 updates. This had become super frustrating to me, since it's a format that I really have fun with, and no one who I try and get to read them really gives me negative feedback other than petty stuff. Well, first things first - this thread doesn't really discuss serials or look at them in-depth. You're asking them a question they're fundamentally unable to answer beyond, like, 'I like the characters' or 'it's fun' - like, wow, no poo poo. But that won't tell you what actually hooks the average serial reader and makes a serial get big, which is the real question here. Luckily, I compiled a whole bunch of information on this very topic over on the decaying WebFictionGuide forums about a year ago and, despite big ripples going through the serial community, it still holds true enough. It comes down to a number of factors. First, the big three: 1. Toybox worldbuilding - think Worm's systems of power classification. The worldbuilding must be definitively spelled out and it must be a simple matter for the average reader to tinker with it. That way, the reader can 'play with' a serial between updates. One could consider this how 'toyetic' or 'fanficable' a serial is. 2. Gradual progression - consider how, in Worm, Taylor is always pulling out new abilities out of her hat. Consider how LitRPGs make this explicit with experience and levels. It's the MMO loot cycle treadmill, not anything like the typical heroes' journey. The story should always feel like it is moving upwards and onwards. 3. Broken wish fulfillment - sort of two things simultaneously and, again, we'll look at Worm. Your protagonist should simultaneously be an underdog who everyone underestimates, but also be outrageously powerful whenever the situation requires it. Your protagonist isn't there to explore pathos or themes - those are for eight-grade book reports. Your protagonist is there to kick butt and take names and be cool - just like you would be, dear reader, if you were in the story. Just about all of the big serials - Worm, PGTE, MoL, etc. - do this. LitRPGs/GameLit do this, too, and make it far more explicit. Then there are certain other components: 1. Keep your writing as simple as possible - this comes from a number of different things, like, how that a lot of web serial readers aren't from English-speaking countries and come to them via unofficial translations. The web serial audience is also surprisingly young - younger than it was even a few years ago. Most serial readers are reading their serials on a morning commute or in class or at some kind of office job - they don't have the attention to spare for anything that requires them to pay close attention. The ideal authors to imitate are Meyer and Sanderson. If in doubt, tell don't show. 2. Consistency is key, but... - Set an update schedule and stick to it religiously. If you miss even one update after a year of never missing one, your readership numbers will crater. 3. ...update as much as physically possible - simply put, if you can update once a day, every day of the week, you're golden. This helps especially on RoyalRoad. While the conventional wisdom used to be 'have a schedule, stick to it' in the serial community, it's been turning towards '1000-2000 words a day, every weekday.' 4. Game the algorithms - RoyalRoad's trending system is absurdly easy to game and they seem to have no desire to patch it even though it seems most people know about it. If you're launching on RoyalRoad without knowing this, then you're fighting blind. 5. Write to a pre-existing community, or highjack one - self-explanatory aka 'know the audience.' 6. Luck/Context/Circumstance - obviously. Along these lines, the 'independent' web serial community is a lot less healthy than it was back when Worm started, which is what everyone thinks it still is. It was smaller, sure, but it was a lot more active. WFG is on its way out and, when it goes, TWF will go with it. I have read the most web serials of anyone in this thread, and Not All Heroes peaked at #2 on TopWebFiction.
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Feb 13, 2020 15:58
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I feel like the Toybox Worldbuilding thing is a huge deal, but my personal take on it is that it helps if the worldbuilding is at least slightly broken in a way that'll frustrate people into arguing about it, and for bigger series, writing millions of words of fanfiction to fix it. But yeah it's not like I can answer "what makes a good web serial good and successful" beyond grunting and pointing in some vague direction.
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Feb 13, 2020 16:12
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Interesting analysis that makes it clear that many of the stories I want to write won't get massively popular. But I've already accepted that.
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Feb 13, 2020 16:14
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Specifically some of the things I want to write are fairly niche, especially the porn.
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Feb 13, 2020 16:15
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You'd be extremely surprised at how popular even the most niche of porn can get, tbh. You just gotta market it the right way and to the right audience.
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Feb 13, 2020 17:26
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Kaja Rainbow posted:Specifically some of the things I want to write are fairly niche, especially the porn. Honestly, as far as I know the most reliable to profit from serial-ish fiction writing is to take the most niche porn concept you can think of, make it ten times narrower and more niche, then add dinosaurs and cowboy hats. Publish 25 pages for $2.99 four times a month on amazon, and profit!
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Feb 13, 2020 17:49
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The more niche your porn, the more loyal your reader base, and it will only grow over time. Just, uh, I guess engage with whatever community you're marketing the story to and make sure you're pushing all their buttons, since porn is probably the one genre where the audience would prefer they got what they were asking for instead of the writer taking things in a surprising and interesting new direction.
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Feb 13, 2020 18:05
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PracGuide: Procer... Procer never changes...
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Feb 14, 2020 06:56
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SerSpook posted:PracGuide: Procer... Procer never changes... PracGuide: PracGuide has always been upfront about the fact that people with power are usually loathe to give it up under any circumstances; Kairos mocked the Helime court for thus when they tried to use him against Dorian, it was true for Malicia and Cat too. The most stark example of it was the Princes Graveyard where the Procerian princes had to be threatened to give up their power so that everyone could be saved. It's not a unique Procerian characteristic.
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Feb 14, 2020 10:58
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Slammed through Delve on RR in a few days. Decent enough isekai LitRPG, very stat/chart heavy, fairly typical "Protagonist Discovers One Weird Trick to a Broken-As-gently caress Build" trope shenanigans, characters have a good amount of depth to them. One unusual thing is that the protagonist can't talk to anyone when he arrives, no "everyone mysteriously speaks English" or "how convenient, I already have a translation ability" cop out, though that phase doesn't last super long either. Not in love with it, but it was a fun enough ride.
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Feb 14, 2020 21:16
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Cicero posted:Slammed through Delve on RR in a few days. Decent enough isekai LitRPG, very stat/chart heavy, fairly typical "Protagonist Discovers One Weird Trick to a Broken-As-gently caress Build" trope shenanigans, characters have a good amount of depth to them. One unusual thing is that the protagonist can't talk to anyone when he arrives, no "everyone mysteriously speaks English" or "how convenient, I already have a translation ability" cop out, though that phase doesn't last super long either. Yeah i've been enjoying it too but make sure to aggressively scroll past the parts where he's theory crafting Also it's funny now that this is the third or fourth character named Rain(e) in stories mentioned in this thread.
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Feb 14, 2020 21:58
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I've been reading Delve also and while it's decent I agree with Lone Goat, I just scroll right past every stupid stat block cause that poo poo is dumb. I like the characters though I feel like his supporting cast is way too OP and has prevented a lot of potential hardship the character should have had.
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Feb 14, 2020 22:24
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SITB posted:PracGuide: PracGuide has always been upfront about the fact that people with power are usually loathe to give it up under any circumstances; Kairos mocked the Helime court for thus when they tried to use him against Dorian, it was true for Malicia and Cat too. The most stark example of it was the Princes Graveyard where the Procerian princes had to be threatened to give up their power so that everyone could be saved. But this isn't about giving up power at all. It's about backstabbing allies to accumulate more power, which is a different thing. My joke was unfair to Procer because the actual leadership of Procer isn't backing it at all and plans on stopping it.
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Feb 14, 2020 22:29
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Cinara posted:I've been reading Delve also and while it's decent I agree with Lone Goat, I just scroll right past every stupid stat block cause that poo poo is dumb. I almost always hate this stuff. It was also terrible in "I'm a Spider, so what?" The stats at least make sense and are applied in a reasonable way in Forge of Destiny, though I also don't pay much attention to them there (the only "gameplay" stuff I pay attention to in FoD are the arts and what they do). In most of these things they're just an excuse to quantify how "OP" the protagonist is, though, and there's no real rhyme or reason to how they operate. edit: They also serve an actual purpose of sorts in FoD; the whole "dice leading to some level of randomization to encounters" thing can be pretty neat if the author is good enough. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Feb 14, 2020 |
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Feb 14, 2020 23:15
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Related to an early topic I was talking about, what're good sites to post porn on?
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Feb 15, 2020 00:31
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