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I want a cat car.
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May 3, 2012 03:47
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Roger Explosion posted:I say do it. I'm half tempted to sign up as "Sense of Hunger" and constantly pester Katia to eat things. It lets her cast a really neat spell called Oblivion Gate! Now she'll make that mean ol' Sigrid pay.
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May 3, 2012 04:09
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TPNMVZ posted:I noticed this little comic linked from that webcast interview with Kaz, and I felt it deserves to be linked here again: I like that comic, but I'd like it a lot more if people would stop bringing it up as if it somehow invalidates everyone's ideas of railroading. People think Prequel gets railroaded because the way it's presented at first glance is option A, where everyone's driving the car at the same time. From a storytelling perspective that is the worst idea ever because people are idiots and there would be no guarantee that you would ever get to your goal, which is why option C is the way it actually works. But look at it like this, let's pretend I'm a random person who reads Prequel, and let's also assume I know how mspa fan adventures work. Coming across Prequel initially and reading from the beginning, actions that Katia will do are pretty much anything suggested unless they're something really weird or dumb. But as the story goes on, it becomes more and more clear to me that no matter what the suggestion is, Katia will fail eventually. Well, whatever. That could just be the theme of the story, right? But what just happened was completely unavoidable. There was no way for Katia to not end up in this current situation and not for evident lack of trying on the commands that actually got posted, not counting anything that may have been in the suggestion thread that didn't make it. Any character introduced so far that the Kvatch mages guild has been brought up with has replied in a very negative light, and ~90% of the suggestions made dealing with the guild were mentioning that Katia should probably get the gently caress out of there. Katia decided, against all efforts that I as an average reader have seen, to stay in this situation. The problem is that in this situation involving an average reader, that person very likely will never make suggestions or input commands, and as they are not following the mspa thread will not know whether the majority of commands are trying to screw over Katia or if Kaz is just cherry-picking commands that followed the theme of "something's wrong here, you should probably get out but if you're staying...". To anyone like this, yes, Prequel would seem railroaded as gently caress. It also doesn't help that the link on the page says "Submit Commands", implying that Katia will actually, you know, follow what they're saying. It would be a better fit to have "Submit Suggestions" instead, or "Click this link to put subconscious thoughts in Katia's head that she may or may not follow, since most people don't act on every single impulse that runs through their head anyway".
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May 3, 2012 04:45
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It's interesting how this is kind of a microcosm of how the game industry (with stuff like Mass Effect etc) is struggling with how narrative and player agency end up being at odds with each other. Letting people do what they want ruins the fun of the story, not letting people do what they want ruins the fun of the game.
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May 3, 2012 05:15
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Maple Leaf posted:Were the animations for Katia's feet hitting the ground and for her epic round-the-corner swing reused from when she was escaping the roadside ruin? Or were they re-drawn? Thank you! It's just straight-up reused; the whole scene is somewhat of a visual callback to Katia's last "race against time". The whole idea of reusing panels (or edits thereof) to establish thematic or emotional callbacks was one of the things MS Paint Adventures did that I really wanted to imitate, pretty much for the exact reasons you described. It's not the first time I've done this, either; I think we can all be pretty certain this panel will be making a comeback soon.
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May 3, 2012 05:45
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I wish more people in the submit commands thread would do callbacks to previous commands. God knows, there's enough of them. Ha ha ha, yes!
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May 3, 2012 06:43
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I just watched "Bridesmaids" and Kristen Wiig's character has some uncanny similarities with Katia here
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May 3, 2012 19:03
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Wrist Watch posted:I like that comic, but I'd like it a lot more if people would stop bringing it up as if it somehow invalidates everyone's ideas of railroading. Or, to summarize the counter-argument, 
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May 3, 2012 21:00
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I can't say I'm that excited about it, given that I think it might be just a tad bit too contrived. But benefit of doubt and all that.
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May 3, 2012 21:26
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Hey, this just means possibly exciting new places to black out and wake up in!
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May 3, 2012 23:11
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Seriously, if Katia just gets drunk again and boinks some other random guy, I'll probably be done.
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May 5, 2012 23:03
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rotinaj posted:Seriously, if Katia just gets drunk again and boinks some other random guy, I'll probably be done.
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May 5, 2012 23:05
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I suspect Kazerad knows that the pattern has been well-established by this point, and it's time to start breaking it little by little, but we'll see, I guess.
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May 5, 2012 23:23
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Katia will get blackout drunk, wake up the next morning in bed with Sigrid, the elf, and the Clannfear. She'll be able to steal all her stuff back and get out of the guild none the worse. 
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May 5, 2012 23:40
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My money is on her getting blackout drunk and waking up in NAH's place - having engaged in nothing more sexual than indulging in Nah's neck jam fetish. Progress!
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May 6, 2012 02:41
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Mortal Sword posted:I suspect Kazerad knows that the pattern has been well-established by this point, and it's time to start breaking it little by little, but we'll see, I guess. The whole rule of three thing makes me suspect she may wake up drunk in someone's bed again, but it'll be the last time, but yeah. Kazerad has been talking about the story being circular with small improvements, and I think Katia actually refusing to take a drink when she is at her lowest here will establish the incremental progress towards ending up in the imperial dungeon
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May 7, 2012 01:11
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I'm hoping she brings the drink up close to her mouth before she's interrupted by something like what happened at the party before Asotil stomped in and stole the show.
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May 7, 2012 01:57
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Wrist Watch posted:I like that comic, but I'd like it a lot more if people would stop bringing it up as if it somehow invalidates everyone's ideas of railroading. It also really doesn't help that most of the submitted commands seem to be entirely missing the point of storytelling. Like, 90% of the commands that are posted seem to be some variant of "Do everything completely perfectly and live happily ever after". If Kazerad didn't deviate from the suggestions there wouldn't be a story.
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May 7, 2012 03:15
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rotinaj posted:Seriously, if Katia just gets drunk again and boinks some other random guy, I'll probably be done.
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May 7, 2012 04:16
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Even if she doesn't reach for the bottle it sort of feels like too little too late. Not digging her latest hole even deeper isn't the same thing as a bold step forward or really any kind of step forward. It almost feels like the story could be easily wrapped up from this point. Katia has the personal victory of turning down the booze. She feels she has made some small personal improvement as a result. She is then arrested for some reason and thrown in Imperial jail, credits roll. What pressing plot points are really flapping in the breeze? If the story's really about circles, Katia just has to break out of them (by not sinking into a dark, drunken depression) to free herself of the cycle and thus end the driving conflict of the story.
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May 7, 2012 04:29
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KingKalamari posted:It also really doesn't help that most of the submitted commands seem to be entirely missing the point of storytelling. Like, 90% of the commands that are posted seem to be some variant of "Do everything completely perfectly and live happily ever after". If Kazerad didn't deviate from the suggestions there wouldn't be a story. I know that, and you know that. The average person who finds the comic and reads through isn't going to know that, and isn't going to know that the comic is going in circles intentionally. When I find a comic I give it a read through and then decide if I want to keep reading or not. What I don't do is scour the internet for any information regarding the author and his intent and thoughts tackling the comic. If I wasn't reading this thread and looking at how Kaz is deliberately working this, I would have stopped reading a while ago. The point I'm trying to make is that while people crying that Kaz is railroading the comic are wrong, from their perspective they have a point and calling them idiots for not following every word that comes out of Kaz's mouth is also incorrect. I'm not saying that people don't realize if Katia just suddenly did everything perfectly that there wouldn't be a story, I'm saying that circular storytelling in a format where readers help drive the story has all its faults magnified and is generally frustrating. Even if people realize that the cycle has to continue, it makes contributions feel like they have less value. Sure, we can have some funnier stuff happen like Katia deciding to jump out of a window, but at the end of the cycle the same situation will take place no matter what anyone suggests. E: didn't refresh the page and see that there were more posts between what I was responding to because I am stupid
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May 7, 2012 04:31
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Someone just finding the comic and reading it probably won't care about the suggestions and therefore won't care about railroading. They'll just read through it and treat the suggestions like part of the narrative.
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May 7, 2012 04:36
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E: Actually never mind, I don't want to poo poo up the thread so I'll just drop it. Wrist Watch fucked around with this message at 05:43 on May 7, 2012 |
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May 7, 2012 04:50
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I think one important thing is that, circular storytelling or no, the rule of three is pretty applicable here and the story's reached a point where it needs a really major development. If it just wheels back around again and the situation worsens or improves incrementally it's gonna be like narrative blue balls.
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May 7, 2012 06:18
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Obviously that bottle is actually a potion of invisibility and Katia can just steal the stuff she needs 
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May 7, 2012 06:24
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Of course she is going to attempt to drink the bottle, which will be empty or filled with water or something. This will make her cry more and make the rest of us cold-hearted bastards laugh.
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May 7, 2012 06:38
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If it's back to square one, I won't defend it. I mean, I've defended the comic from assertions of railroading, "being furry", "being a sad story (no story should be sad)", which I generally think are inane and superficial complaints to apply to anything. But yeah if she drinks and ends up in bed with Sam Gamgee yeahhhh I'll keep reading but I won't get on your case for dropping.
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May 7, 2012 06:48
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Yonic Symbolism posted:If it's back to square one, I won't defend it. I've seen a few people talk about Katia being 'back to square one'. But I just don't see it. Square one Katia couldn't even dream of casting a spell. This Katia is under the atronach sign, and did you see what she was unleashing on the door? Granted, it didn't get through the shielding, but remember that Katia had trouble setting anything but herself and objects she wasn't even aiming at on fire until recently. She was torching the drat thing like a TF2 Pyro. Also, what did she lose? I ask this seriously, because I forget. Her robe of course, which sucks. Quill-Weave's Package, which also sucks. Her money, but she had screw-all money. Wasn't the rest some random near-trash she picked up? I think the biggest loss here was her optimism and self-worth, which is hopefully temporary. But otherwise it really seems to me that Katia's still far, far ahead of where she started out. And hey, maybe she's going to also pick up how to deal with getting dumped on this severely. If she learns that, (temporarily, hopefully) losing a package and some clothing is going to seem like a bargain trade. That said, I really hope what comes next is Katia losing her poo poo at someone who deserves it. Like smacking around one of those bitchy khajits in the city, or setting a certain orc on fire.
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May 7, 2012 07:29
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VictorGrunn posted:Also, what did she lose? I ask this seriously, because I forget. Her robe of course, which sucks. Quill-Weave's Package, which also sucks. Her money, but she had screw-all money. Wasn't the rest some random near-trash she picked up?
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May 7, 2012 07:50
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VictorGrunn posted:Quill-Weave's Package, which also sucks. That's really the key thing, I think. She has so much of her self-worth tied up in being able to repay the one person who's been good to her right now. The rest of it doesn't matter so much.
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May 7, 2012 08:31
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MikeJF posted:That's really the key thing, I think. She has so much of her self-worth tied up in being able to repay the one person who's been good to her right now. The rest of it doesn't matter so much. Sure. I'm not saying Katia's in great shape. It's just I've seen more than once (and not just in this thread) 'back to square one'. Square one Katia didn't have a friend, even a disappointed friend. And I think the rest does matter, since her self-worth jumped just from her finding out she could cast one spell, very poorly. Now she's a flamethrower. Maybe I'm just being optimistic. I'm seeing how Katia's developed as a character and thinking, screw-overs aside, she's still forged ahead. But yeah, right now she's not even thinking of that, for obvious reasons. Hopefully she'll realize it soon.
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May 7, 2012 08:47
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Honestly, if she's ever going to permanently dig herself out of the hole she's in, she has to address the seeming true source of her issues: being uncomfortable with who she is. The big thing is being Khajiit. She's so disassociated from that that she no common ground (yet desperately tries to make some!) with every cat-person she met in Kvatch. She gave up her original name because it was too Khajiit-sounding and is desperately trying to hide behind a new, phony name. Not to mention she gets her fire powers from degrading herself with stupid cat-puns. In her darkest, most truthful moments, she considers herself a friggin' non-person, for crying out loud! There's probably some other stuff going on with, you know, being uncomfortable with her pre-Oblivion career history and stuff, but that's small potatoes next to thinking of yourself as some sort of animal. 
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May 7, 2012 09:49
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The use of "cats" plural means that the next update will involve the other Khajiit in kvatch coming to the aid of their friend! everyone is happy!  yay!
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May 8, 2012 08:33
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There is also Dmitri's kitten full of blood who is presumably trying to necromance him.
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May 8, 2012 09:26
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Why's everybody gettin down on the orc so much? He seems like a cool enough dude while still technically being an antagonist and is probably my favorite character.
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May 8, 2012 09:54
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I just want to see more of the Also, she's generally rad.
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May 8, 2012 11:03
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I almost want to see Katia just become the world's worst vampire.
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May 8, 2012 20:35
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Haledjian posted:I almost want to see Katia just become the world's worst vampire. She's already got fangs and the fur would hide any paleness issues. No one would ever suspect. ...Except for the eyes, I suppose.
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May 9, 2012 00:26
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Syphilicious! posted:Why's everybody gettin down on the orc so much? He seems like a cool enough dude while still technically being an antagonist and is probably my favorite character. In what way are people down on him that you think they shouldn't be? Hoping the antagonist is defeated because we don't root for them is a pretty typical response for most any story. There's also the fact that the driving motivation of the story is an emotional investment in a sad, pathetic character whom the Orc victimizes while also representing her opposite (brimming with confidence and success). Hell the whole Dmitri interlude existed almost solely to show us some potential good turn for the protagonist which the antagonist dashes, still a sore point with a lot of fans until something actually comes of that subplot. I can't even see there being much to like about him, he's less a character and more a narrative tool, a one-dimensional bludgeon in the tool-box of things used on Katia.
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May 9, 2012 00:52
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No way, gro-Upp is actually a pretty decent character in and of himself. His confidence and success isn't necessarily an inborn trait -- he's developed a system that gives him a certain professional pleasure at doing his job well. His job just happens to be robbing people. The main difference between him and Katia is that he always capitalizes on his opportunities. I would say he's nowhere near a narrative club, just because of his intelligence, which he cultivated along with his physical strength and professional skill. Gharug gro-Upp could easily be revealed as a fairly nuanced character. You could say that he's Katia's opposite, but if she would get a grip she could be just as successful and happy a wizard as he is a brigand. Which is what I want to see. Hell, they could even end up friends if she wasn't so rob-able. Anyway, after fixing these immediate problems she should go to that secret door that was in one of the buildings during that interactive mode. Although the narrative train has probably left the station or whatever bullshit metaphor we're using.
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May 9, 2012 04:18
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