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The twist will definitely be that the dragon queen caused the cataclysm.
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Sep 2, 2021 20:31
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I also am not a big fan of this one. But I read about a guy who starved to death and was reborn as an ant. Also an axe guy who kills people who is also a zombie.
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Sep 2, 2021 20:39
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TUTBAD Ch 12: So now we know what "symmetricalization" means. Interesting. Feels slightly creepy to me, but interesting.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:04
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Mulozon Empuri posted:I also am not a big fan of this one. But I read about a guy who starved to death and was reborn as an ant. Also an axe guy who kills people who is also a zombie. Axe guy is my low-brow Saturday morning cartoon favourite. No complicated relationship messes, no boring ptsd sessions, no grimdark psychopath protagonists, just a dude with his axe. It sparks joy.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:54
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Except it’s gone way off the deep end into weird Dao leveling OT6 stuff. I can’t imagine the kind of person who’s super into a fictional character getting more badass because he pops a pill to burst a magenta level thetan crystal in his Dao-self and has 30,000 words devoted to the accompanying vision quest, after which his number goes up 3.75%. I get that this is trashy stuff, but there’s trashy with a readable narrative or trashy with a million stat pages in lieu of any story or character development.
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Sep 2, 2021 22:44
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Ytlaya posted:Somewhat similarly, it doesn't seem to make sense to me that the protagonist is supposed to be "literally sadder than (as far as we know) anyone else in the world." He's dealt with terrible stuff, but nothing on the level of "having family members killed" or "being directly exposed to (or participating in) war crimes." Being (potentially permanently) cut off from your family/friends is awful, but it's kind of objectively better than "having your family/friends killed (often in front of your eyes)." The war of the Scouring would have created countless people with significantly worse circumstances than Rob. This was definitely a point of friction for me. Kinda like the big reveal about the moment of Ultimate Despair in Dangan Ronpa being some rich kids got killed by psychos in a first world country. Like, come on, you don't even need to look at the history of colonialism, there's plenty worse things going on right now. If Rob's white boy problems are the most depressing stuff to have ever happened in the history of fantasyland, what happens when a middle eastern child soldier gets yanked in? If he's a 4 or 5 on trauma, there's plenty of people who'd probably hit double digits no problem at all.
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Sep 3, 2021 18:45
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Fast. Leveling. Do you guys even read the story?
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Sep 3, 2021 19:22
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yeah rob's entire experience with leveling shows that not only do his abilities improve at a incredible rate, he gets to outright cheat in terms of ignoring prerequisites e: also when it comes to traumatic experiences, the "objective" amount of suffering you undergo has, at best, a tenuous connection to the amount of trauma you are subjected to e2: we also know for a fact that the system has it out for rob and his friends, and it easily could be giving rob such high melancholy resistance to gently caress with him personally A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Sep 4, 2021 |
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Sep 4, 2021 01:46
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Melancholy resistance basically turns you into a sociopath who literally cannot hear their own inner monologue, so it doesn't surprise me that the Og humans of the setting basically went off
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Sep 4, 2021 01:59
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Yup, Fast Learner quickens the rate at which Melancholy Resistance increases. MR is a Skill, after all. If I didn't make that clear enough, I'll fix it for the eventual published release.
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Sep 4, 2021 09:35
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It's not really possible to put personal suffering into comparable context, which is an interesting dichotomy in a genre whose foundational world is based in concrete tangible numbers. Suffering is intensely individualistic and it isn't a measurable or comparable event, so others having it worse in the past does not invalidate or lessen Rob's suffering. e: trauma bonding is definitely a thing though, and I think there's a lot of exploratory meat on the particular idea that they all became a group largely through hardship rather than shared values, once things settle down a little (if they ever do). Bhodi fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Sep 4, 2021 |
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Sep 4, 2021 13:15
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Bhodi posted:It's not really possible to put personal suffering into comparable context, which is an interesting dichotomy in a genre whose foundational world is based in concrete tangible numbers. Suffering is intensely individualistic and it isn't a measurable or comparable event, so others having it worse in the past does not invalidate or lessen Rob's suffering. That said, I still get the feeling that isekai-ing someone out of an ICE detention center would give you solid odds of beating Rob's spot on the global depression high score ladder. Abuse of immigrants is still a massive problem, and it can be a little frustrating seeing how easy it is for a lot of media to erase stuff like that. Would be nice if media made our modern social problems harder to ignore. Hmm... on the other hand, if I spend too long trying to point out who has it worst, I'm basically just a SMBC comic. And asking someone to write a character who comes from a radically different real-life social context also presents a ton of challenges. You'd have to do a ton of research to avoid offending someone with your depiction, I expect.
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Sep 4, 2021 22:11
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Sorry you know the rules, each chapter now has to start with how Rob's life is better than Darfur orphans.
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Sep 4, 2021 22:28
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Cicero posted:TUTBAD Ch 12: So now we know what "symmetricalization" means. Interesting. Feels slightly creepy to me, but interesting. I'm not caught up but there's weird references to symmetry in early chapters too like Alfric noting the two clerics are not symmetrical and that a person's guts don't have much symmetry.
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Sep 5, 2021 03:12
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TUTBAD Ch 13: I really liked seeing Isra's viewpoint, Wales does a good job showing different perspectives. Was funny in this case to see her thinking, weird that these city slickers ignore all the animals around us for some cultural reason. I could see hilarity in the future when she meets some hippie vegetarian druids: "'Course I love animals. They're tasty!"
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Sep 5, 2021 03:29
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TUTBAD 13: Neat to learn that Isra might be a feral druid. I'm enjoying the characters being fleshed out, so many murderhobo delving books don't really explain character motivations.
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Sep 5, 2021 03:36
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TWI 8.41: lmao ryoka's loving loaded
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Sep 5, 2021 04:55
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TWI 8.41 Fae stuff is consistently  and I was happy to see the court againAlso, chapter should have been titled Batman Returns edit: Technically Ryoka only delivered a message across one world because she was on Innworld when Sikeri loaded her up and her jaunt into the fae lands was an unrelated venture, but I guess she's working by taxi rules and charging for distance traveled, loving Sikeri over with magical roaming charges 
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Sep 5, 2021 10:44
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TWI 8.41 I found the ending a little hard to follow - did Oberon destroy the gate she was at and give her the remnants, or was his gift just of so much power that the gate was destroyed? If those stones are the metaphysical remains of that gateway, I bet they could be used to supercharge a certain magical doorway somewhere
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Sep 5, 2021 13:02
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I think it was separate. He fronted the payment that Sikeri owed, tossed it through the gate, and then destroyed the gate as he did so. But the potential significance of Ryoka being paid in obols is not lost on me, especially since it was described as "the cost of delivering a message between two worlds".
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Sep 5, 2021 13:05
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So the author of Warlock's Gate just quit RR because the story wasn't earning enough, and because of the criticisms/negativity the story was facing. I'm a bit surprised, honestly. The story is still relatively new, but was growing. Though the author only has so much time and has other works they'd rather focus on. Fair enough. That said, the author said the audience "smothered my enjoyment of writing this story" and the "constant negativity, nitpicking, and anonymous low rating have been non-stop" but it seems that the story was doing well with fans, at least those in the comment were polite and positive, and reviews were really good. It's their choice, and I guess there were things going on behind the scenes. Still, calling it quits after 27 chapters seems a bit premature.
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Sep 9, 2021 19:28
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People who get things for free seem to be meaner, as a general rule, than people who pay for things. I imagine you need a really thick skin to write web serials.
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Sep 9, 2021 19:48
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While I am sympathetic to the difficulties of trying to create art while engaging with and getting feedback from the audience as you're doing it, sometimes if a lot of people don't like something it might be bad.quote:This is a rough draft, and while I appreciate feedback, I’m not rewriting the entire system because people can’t handle how my percentages or health work. quote:Fallon wondered—not for the first time—what Asmodeus’s world, the realm of Dementher’s called Ancienter, looked like. The Warlock quickly shook her head and refocused on the task at hand as golden-red sparks danced around her right hand and fingers. “Cursed Body!” This is flawless writing and any criticism of it is nitpicky negativity that smothers my enjoyment of writing the story. The fault is on you if you can't understand percentages.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:21
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why does item go from 28 to 38 to 41?
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Sep 9, 2021 20:53
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The Gromulus? It's receiving damage and the "devastation" is stacking, so each time it receives a bit more damage (I think). Either that or it just does a range of damage depends on what she rolls.
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Sep 9, 2021 21:23
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I don't like the numbers parts of WG, but I don't like the numbers parts of any LitRPG. Not certain how this is any more offensive is typical for the genre, but hey-ho.  The PoVs comment I understand, even if I don't really agree, because Vera's been cutting back and forth between like half a dozen different plotlines and if you get invested in any one of them you're going to get frustrated waiting for the story to come back to it.
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Sep 9, 2021 22:59
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Obviously they shouldn't keep writing if they aren't having fun and aren't making enough money to care, but being disappointed about making $231/month after 6 weeks suggests they had some pretty unrealistic expectations. I wonder if they hit their first start of the month falloff and panicked.
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Sep 10, 2021 01:05
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Plorkyeran posted:Obviously they shouldn't keep writing if they aren't having fun and aren't making enough money to care, but being disappointed about making $231/month after 6 weeks suggests they had some pretty unrealistic expectations. I wonder if they hit their first start of the month falloff and panicked. I can't begrudge anyone for wanting to bail on an environment that feels hostile to them, but also I would poo poo my pants on camera if it meant an additional $231/month
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Sep 10, 2021 01:30
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Lunatic Sledge posted:I can't begrudge anyone for wanting to bail on an environment that feels hostile to them, but also I would poo poo my pants on camera if it meant an additional $231/month Ignoring the hostility bits as I don't know enough about that situation to comment, let's quickly break down the money the author was getting for writing the story. $231 a month, even assuming it's not the author's only source of income, is extremely cost-ineffective if you're aiming to make writing a career. Looking at the story, it was up for about 50 days and published around 83,000 words. That's 1660 words a day. A good writing pace for an author is about 1000 words an hour, although it's not guaranteed that everyone can meet that pace. Assuming they were able to, then the author of Warlock's Gate spent 1 hour and 40 minutes a day writing the story. Working 1 hour and 40 minutes a day for 50 days on the USA's minimum wage ($7.25) is equal to $603.93. Essentially, the author of Warlock's Gate was 'working' for less than half the national minimum wage when writing the story. This would put them significantly below the poverty line. If writing is just your hobby, then you can consider that money a bonus, but if you're actually trying to make a career off of it, that's not an acceptable outcome. Personally, I consider myself *extremely* fortunate with how well my Patreon has done, and I completely understand people who don't think it's financially feasible to continue their stories anymore. Economy's rough, yo.
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Sep 10, 2021 02:00
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KamikazePotato posted:Ignoring the hostility bits as I don't know enough about that situation to comment, let's quickly break down the money the author was getting for writing the story. You don't start off making the big money all at once, though--I make way more than that now, but it took me longer than six weeks to start making $230 a month. Way longer. Like, I bailed on Royal Road specifically after maybe a month+, but that's because RR added literally nothing to my already established Patreon during that period. edit: to be clear, I don't blame them, but like someone else said those expectations seem... unrealistic. I waited yeeeaaars for the opportunity to start making a career out of my dumb poo poo, I wouldn't suggest anyone gamble on getting up to minimum wage in that tight of a time frame Lunatic Sledge fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 02:08
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then again, looking purely at patreons and taking into consideration how much time I spend drawing, researching and advertising, I can almost guarantee I'm somewhere below minimum wage after like four years of it so gently caress whatever I said, I'm a god drat moron
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Sep 10, 2021 02:27
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The median wage for people who have writing independent online fiction as their primary source of income is probably below minimum wage, and I would guess that basically all of the people now making good money still took at least a few months to get over minimum wage. I mostly just find it weird to mention the money aspect at all because I would have expected anyone who was trying to make money off writing to know going in that it'll take a while to get going and that early on you're just hoping for an upward trajectory (which they had).
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Sep 10, 2021 03:15
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It is easy to look at somebody like Pirateaba (4400 subscribers, most of which are probably at the $5/month or better tier - meaning 22k/month or more) and not realize that they're standouts.
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Sep 10, 2021 03:28
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Eh I kinda feel like for Royalroad specifically, if you don't hit the mega popular status after your pass out of the trending list you're kinda hosed. It's really hard to find traction after that point.
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Sep 10, 2021 04:21
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Lol @ the HWFWM chapter today (514). This story has WAY too many complicated spell/item effects, Jesus Christ.quote:Item: [Hegemon’s Will] (silver rank [growth], legendary)
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Sep 10, 2021 04:53
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The RPG portion of HWFWM has always been garbage and that item is just the latest example.
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Sep 10, 2021 05:14
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I feel like the combat sections would read way, waayyy better if each person just had a handful of signature abilities, like Cradle.
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Sep 10, 2021 06:05
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Yu-gi-oh cards are clearly the best thing to model your magic system on.
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Sep 10, 2021 06:11
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Cicero posted:Lol @ the HWFWM chapter today (514). This story has WAY too many complicated spell/item effects, Jesus Christ. I think from skimming the 2000 words his set up now lets him slide afflictions off him and onto his sword then back onto his enemies. He also picked up another defensive ability, turning into mist? It's not as bad as trying to parse Delve's soul stuff recently but yeah, the fights with monster crew all have 16 abilities and each time they rank up it effectively doubles. Cicero posted:I feel like the combat sections would read way, waayyy better if each person just had a handful of signature abilities, like Cradle. Cradle is a very high standard for web fiction. There's a handful of characters with a lot of powers, like the MC, but most of them have 1-2 items that form the core of their fighting technique. The writing gives enough details that you know there's something logical going on under the hood but keeps most of the post learning uses of skills to an elevator pitch. In the actual fights or missions the author does a really good job of letting you understand what the PoV character's situation is, and what they think is happening in a fight, and what tools they have to do XYZ. The interesting part of lit rpgs, for me, is exploring a system and what that means for the people who live in it. If it's just numbers go up, or adding endless new skills on, the story becomes a treadmill. Whaleporn fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 13:47
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Sampatrick posted:Eh I kinda feel like for Royalroad specifically, if you don't hit the mega popular status after your pass out of the trending list you're kinda hosed. It's really hard to find traction after that point. It's doable. Gotta plug away at it, build momentum, advertise, and have a good story. I got screwed hard by the trending change - right as I was finally about to break onto the front page of trending, the algorithm changed and kicked me off forever. Still, I kept at it, and have managed to hit the front page of Popular This Week multiple times now, along with being arguably the 4th largest RR novel by the most important metric (Patreon subs)
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Sep 11, 2021 17:33
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