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Stephenls posted:Maybe we can preview that after the in-depth (so much depth you guys) preview of Bureaucracy I promised ages ago. God, could you please give these people something concrete? Anything. poo poo.
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Feb 6, 2014 02:39
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We have something concrete: the assurance that the particular subsystem which most worried me, Ferrinus, are still being worked on and are potentially subject to change! What else could we want? I've got my arms crossed behind my head and my feet kicked up on my desk over here.
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Feb 6, 2014 02:45
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Stephenls posted:And establishing that cultural variance was the point of Compass: Autochthonia. (Well, one of them.) So I don't know why you'd object to the idea. A culturally homogenous Autochthonia is a less fun setting. If the only purpose for the Autochthonians showing up in your game is to pop up and start a Locust War, then it might be useful not to use this book and describe the whole situation like an alien invasion.
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Feb 6, 2014 03:00
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Lioness posted:I find it more useful to think of Compass: Autochthonia as an alternate setting rather than another place for your PCs to go. Or if they end up deciding to trade instead! 
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Feb 6, 2014 03:02
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Lioness posted:I find it more useful to think of Compass: Autochthonia as an alternate setting rather than another place for your PCs to go. The Locust War is so awful! But contact between Autochthonia and Creation need not be war. That's why the Locust War scenario didn't get coverage in the Compass.
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Feb 6, 2014 03:02
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Bedlamdan posted:Or if they end up deciding to trade instead! Stephenls posted:The Locust War is so awful!
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Feb 6, 2014 03:08
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Stephenls posted:No, I get it. That's reasonable. I'm not asking for faith in our competence. I don't think we're going to gently caress it up but given that I'm on the team, I wouldn't; I've admitted multiple times throughout this thread that I might be completely off-base about the way the material will be received. I really don't get this at all. You are simultaneously saying both that a negative impression of the book will ruin it, and that only the game can speak for itself. You can't have both stances on this. The problem is, the Exalted devs got seven hundred thousand dollars from over four thousand people to make a book that, according to the Kickstarter page, might take longer than expected to make. This is obviously fine, or people wouldn't have backed it (or shouldn't be mad about it, since it was their own fault to not read the whole page). What's not fine is that your Kickstarter page promises an open flow of communication between the devs and the backers of your project, and updates once a week. Since the project funded, there have been fourteen updates in eight months that actually contain any information about Exalted, and here I'm counting literally anything: a picture, a few words about progress, whatever. This wouldn't be a problem if any of them were more substantial or gave more insight into how things worked, how the game was going to be different than previous incarnations, or when it's going to be ready. Very few of them do. And so instead of judging the game on its own merits, like you said, backers who might feel substantially invested in this game now both because of wanting to play it and because they've already paid money for it are picking it apart based on what little information they have. You can call this negative, but it's disingenuous, because most of the negative commentary I've seen in this thread is mostly about things we don't actually know about yet. How can it be so surprising that people who really, really want to like Exalted are worried when they can't hear about any of the important parts of the system and all they've had to sate their desire for knowledge is a couple of Sail charms?
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Feb 6, 2014 04:53
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Also Stephen, with all due respect if your goal in this thread is to keep the shift the tone of the community away from negativity then you're doing a terrible job at it. Several times now in the course of this latest spate of posting you've painted the SA tradgames poster base with the sort of uncharitable broad-brush that as an RPGnet moderator you really ought to know better than to do if your aim here is to actually shift anyone's perception of things or convince them of anything. If you really do feel like SA is an echo-chamber hivemind bound and determined to find fault with your super-secret do-not-open-until-Xmas labor of love then why the hell are you posting here in the first place? You're clearly unconcerned with any of the feedback you've gotten here and practically everybody's concerns get brushed off with some variation of "well we don't think that's a problem" or "you'll just have to see when it's done." So if you aren't interested in engaging the discussion except to insinuate that the community here is an echo-chamber and you can't or won't actually show any of the game itself then why are you acting as Ex3's PR flak over here again?
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Feb 6, 2014 05:14
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Zarick posted:I really don't get this at all. You are simultaneously saying both that a negative impression of the book will ruin it, and that only the game can speak for itself. You can't have both stances on this. The problem is, the Exalted devs got seven hundred thousand dollars from over four thousand people to make a book that, according to the Kickstarter page, might take longer than expected to make. This is obviously fine, or people wouldn't have backed it (or shouldn't be mad about it, since it was their own fault to not read the whole page). What's not fine is that your Kickstarter page promises an open flow of communication between the devs and the backers of your project, and updates once a week. And people have been telling you exactly this for months now. I mean I like Exalted, I think 3E's going to be pretty good, but so much of your justification for keeping things secret makes no sense at all. I mean that quote Zarick brought up is just complete nonsense for so many reasons. Like this: "The tone of the community before the book launches will affect people's reads of it..." Based on what evidence? To what extent? For how long? What community? Whose reads? "...we want people to read the thing without negative impressions going in." What relevance does someone's impression of the game have to how the game actually turns out? I mean you'd have to believe people can't change their minds about something to argue that our preconceptions of the game are actually an issue. And even if you believed that, do you think your current strategy is preventing people from getting a negative impression? So many people have been telling you otherwise for months on end but you just keep on with it.
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Feb 6, 2014 05:41
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We are beginning to rapidly approach that point in a very special episode of Zero Punctuation where men in serious looking suits start asking questions about just what exactly all these monkeys are actually up to. We aren't quite there YET. But we are getting there.
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Feb 6, 2014 05:53
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I would hope that Stephenls posts here because he likes correcting people and setting records straight re: Exalted rather than because he believes he has some kind of professional obligation to maintain a social media presence. I mean, if it's the latter then he's gotta be super wasting his time because the slice of Exalted's market that exists on Something Awful's gotta be smaller than the slice on Twitter or wherever. He's my favorite character in the ongoing Exalted 3e development chronicles, though, so I'm glad he's sticking around. I'd like to be able to regularly wheedle the actual developers/writers to a greater extent, but, ehhh, the White Wolf forums...
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Feb 6, 2014 06:51
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Well I mean, the echochamber thing feels real, to his credit. I don't think it's a phenomenon that's unique to SA and I certainly don't know if it has any actual effect on sales, but yeah. People like drama. They like to laugh. I read the D&D Next thread for the thrill of seeing what terrible thing happens next. I say this despite being a fan of the last 3 editions of D&D - I have decided Next is a source of comedy and pretty much only return to it for laughs. I share those laughs with my friends. We laugh about it together. My community only visits the topic of Next to discuss terrible design and for laughs. An echo chamber basically created a series of toxic (and largely untrue) memes about 4e D&D that still persist even now and I am probably engaging in the very same thing (serious introspection time) whenever I discuss Next. I'm not saying we're giving birth to grognard D&Disms here, because baby-eating and sexual violence are totally not on the same scale as martial healing or whatever. But I can see a developer being interested in cutting off that sort of thing at the pass; people are pretty much making up their mind now about whether or not Exalted 3 is something they are into and the justifications they give for it are going to hang over the game for a while or possible for the entire life of the game, depending on the popularity of that community member or the strength of her/his justification. I don't think SA is a hivemind and I think it's silly to paint us that way, but having a guy out here making sure we haven't already decided we hate it is probably a good move. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 08:39
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Strength of Many posted:They want to keep an XP system but do not wish to test it. I see. This is the type of poo poo they are talking about. Something released and taken out of context.
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Feb 6, 2014 08:51
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Ferrinus posted:He's my favorite character in the ongoing Exalted 3e development chronicles, though, so I'm glad he's sticking around. I'd like to be able to regularly wheedle the actual developers/writers to a greater extent, but, ehhh, the White Wolf forums... I agree, as a character I thought that he had an interesting backstory and I could empathize with his point of view. The White Wolf forums as a setting really needs some work though: it should feel like a place that's worth visiting with your party, maybe even worth saving. As it stands, there's very little value in either the inhabitants or the content and you're better off ignoring it altogether.
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Feb 6, 2014 08:52
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Mendrian posted:Well I mean, the echochamber thing feels real, to his credit. I don't think it's a phenomenon that's unique to SA and I certainly don't know if it has any actual effect on sales, but yeah. People like drama. They like to laugh. I read the D&D Next thread for the thrill of seeing what terrible thing happens next. I say this despite being a fan of the last 3 editions of D&D - I have decided Next is a source of comedy and pretty much only return to it for laughs. I share those laughs with my friends. We laugh about it together. My community only visits the topic of Next to discuss terrible design and for laughs. An echo chamber basically created a series of toxic (and largely untrue) memes about 4e D&D that still persist even now and I am probably engaging in the very same thing (serious introspection time) whenever I discuss Next. And yet people here on this very board run and play Next, not even in some "ironic" fashion but "let's play this and see what happens good or bad." This board also has people who like D&D4E and Pathfinder coexisting without being lovely to each other alongside fans of GURPS and fans of FATE and plenty of Games Workshop fans despite the 25% GW stock drop being a topic of much amusement. I'm not saying this forum doesn't have its echo-y moments because it absolutely does, but the idea put forth by Stephen that SA as a whole takes some "we don't care about context" stance is A). disingenuous and B). not helping his cause whatever his cause here is exactly, and as he's someone who's had to step in and ban dumb dorks who think "well I can see this place is just an echo-chamber!" constitutes worthwhile discourse before on another forum I would like to think he knows better. Mendrian posted:I don't think SA is a hivemind and I think it's silly to paint us that way, but having a guy out here making sure we haven't already decided we hate it is probably a good move. Why? SA isn't a make-or-break demographic plus the Kickstarter already funded, they have the money, anyone who was going to pull out did so when they could and anyone who didn't is committed to seeing it through regardless. It seems pretty apparent to me that minds have been made up regarding SA tradgames and the party line is "all will be revealed when the book comes out" so why bother at this point? Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 09:17
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Kai Tave posted:Why? SA isn't a make-or-break demographic plus the Kickstarter already funded, they have the money, anyone who was going to pull out did so when they could and anyone who didn't is committed to seeing it through regardless. It seems pretty apparent to me that minds have been made up regarding SA tradgames and the party line is "all will be revealed when the book comes out" so why bother at this point? Why does the kickstarter already being funded matter? He's helping to make a book he is putting a bunch of time and effort into, and he probably is proud of his work, from everything we've seen he is, at least. Why would he then go 'Whelp, we got the Kickstarter people, that's good enough' and not try to continue to expand the audience? He wants people to get the book because he helped make it and thinks it's going to be a good thing and an enjoyable game so of course he comes back to take about it when people start getting down on it to at least try and remind people who might be feeling disheartened that 'Hey, I'm still here and doing stuff', regardless of if they believe it or not. I don't think I've ever seen a business strategy for anything that was 'okay, make a bunch of pre-sells, then never promote it or do anything else' unless it's like Games Workshop Limited Edition Games or some poo poo, which I'm pretty sure Exalted isn't.
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Feb 6, 2014 15:32
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"Not wasting time at one internet forum" doesn't equal "not promoting a project past the Kickstarter." The issue isn't that Stephen wants to be Ex3's champion, it's his time to spend, but if his aim here really is to shift some attitudes the problem is that he's mainly hitting a brick wall over and over with how he goes about it. I'm doing him the courtesy of taking him at face value when he says "I don't want [Exalted 3E being a doomed endeavor] to be the preconception people have when they read the book," but if all we're getting out of that is the same old same old then who, besides fans of shadenfreude, is really winning here?
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Feb 6, 2014 15:45
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I'm glad to have any of the devs posting here and communicating with us, to be honest, and I certainly don't want him to go anywhere. I even get that they're just not going to stop being so opaque about the whole process - even though I think that is seriously an awful promotion strategy. I just want to stop reading "wait and see" and tortured Christmas present metaphors. We got it, that's your strategy-- if you wanna talk to the community here, talk to us about what you can talk about, and stop spending so much posting about what you can't/won't.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:06
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Nightskye posted:I'm glad to have any of the devs posting here and communicating with us, to be honest, and I certainly don't want him to go anywhere. I even get that they're just not going to stop being so opaque about the whole process - even though I think that is seriously an awful promotion strategy. Mostly I've been fine with StephenLS's posts in this thread; they're much better than the tortured metaphors and shilling some residents of the WW forums seem to feel duty-bound to come here and spout. I certainly think they could stand to reassess their stance on sharing information, especially as snippets on setting changes revealed through kickstarter updates - like the empire of the winged serpent - have been pretty well received here, and given the pretty positive end to the Raksi discussion.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:30
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Exalted is basically un-fixable (and maybe that was part of its charm) and the glory of 1st edition will never return. I realize that's kind of a crappy opinion but I think that's where I am at after thinking about it for awhile.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:41
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Sexpansion posted:Exalted is basically un-fixable (and maybe that was part of its charm) and the glory of 1st edition will never return. I realize that's kind of a crappy opinion but I think that's where I am at after thinking about it for awhile. So basically, Exalted started in a golden age, then slid into darkness and depravity following a huge upset, and now a few individuals are trying to pull it out of the muck even though almost no one believes it can be done?
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Feb 6, 2014 17:50
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Sionak posted:So basically, Exalted started in a golden age, then slid into darkness and depravity following a huge upset, and now a few individuals are trying to pull it out of the muck even though almost no one believes it can be done? I never meta-joke I didn't like, after all.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:53
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Sionak posted:So basically, Exalted started in a golden age, then slid into darkness and depravity following a huge upset, and now a few individuals are trying to pull it out of the muck even though almost no one believes it can be done? I made it too obvious with "glory of the 1st edition", didn't I?
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Feb 6, 2014 17:58
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well if you think about it, how are we supposed to know that Jenna Moran is not in fact a Reincarnation, and not the same person.
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Feb 6, 2014 18:02
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Sionak posted:So basically, Exalted started in a golden age, then slid into darkness and depravity following a huge upset, and now a few individuals are trying to pull it out of the muck even though almost no one believes it can be done?
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Feb 6, 2014 18:16
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So getting aside of being angry about 3E can we be angry about 1E? I think that introducing places like Heaven and Hell really damaged Exalted and took it away from the game I was interested in (I really dislike Jenna Moran, too, but that's an aside here). I feel the same way about the oWoD, the otherworlds and Umbra in the oWoD are really uninteresting and kind of insipid. The Shadowlands are good and the Underworld in Exalted has the potential to be way interesting if its more Odysseus slaying a black sheep than it is metal album cover R rated puerility. The nWoD's otherworlds on the other hand are fantastic and creepy. If there needs to be a heaven in E3 I'd prefer it comes in a new form other than "whee we have a boat trolly system and the internet kind of!"
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Feb 6, 2014 22:23
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Sionak posted:So basically, Exalted started in a golden age, then slid into darkness and depravity following a huge upset, and now a few individuals are trying to pull it out of the muck even though almost no one believes it can be done?
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Feb 6, 2014 23:10
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Mexcillent posted:So getting aside of being angry about 3E can we be angry about 1E? Can't say this is an opinion I share honestly. As much as Exalted draws from mythological elements that don't get much play, many of them eastern, I honestly can't picture it without a Celestial Bureaucracy.
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Feb 7, 2014 01:30
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I don't remember Yu-Shan having an internet, just a fantastic transit system involving fast-moving boats. I assume the former's a 2E thing?
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Feb 7, 2014 01:45
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Mexcillent posted:So getting aside of being angry about 3E can we be angry about 1E? I didn't mind Yu-Shan itself as much as I minded the Sidereals being based there. They lived in a space station with the ability to land anywhere in Creation within a short amount of time; they chose who, when and how to strike and you were forced to react. All that stood between a Sidereal Elder deciding to take your skull to use as a paperweight on his desk was arbitrary amounts of paperwork and busywork, none of which had obvious setting effects. They had no antagonists to speak of, since no one could really do much to them. I found this to be terribly lame. The lack of opposition faced by standard (loyalist) Abyssals in their home domain also makes it lame: it's really hard to make the Underworld interesting unless there are challenges that require your constant attention. One of the main things that the Underworld as a setting needs to flesh out and emphasize is domestic unrest in the Deathlords' fiefs and serious, active conflict between the Deathlords themselves. Lymond fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 02:16
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The Sids always kinda did feel like they didn't really have a proper counter for all the terrible, lovely things they've done in the past. Making their own splat their enemies was a bit of a copout. I like the idea of the Taolist Fate Sorcerer exalts being a rebel faction that has basically gone 'gently caress all your poo poo.'
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Feb 7, 2014 02:30
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Ferrinus posted:I don't remember Yu-Shan having an internet, just a fantastic transit system involving fast-moving boats. I assume the former's a 2E thing? No, no heavenly internet provider. There was an internet equivalent during the First Age for 2E, though.
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Feb 7, 2014 02:42
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Bedlamdan posted:No, no heavenly internet provider. There was an internet equivalent during the First Age for 2E, though. What am I thinking about then? An uncharitable reading of the Loom of Fate? All I know is that my eyes glazed over reading Moran/Borgstrom outside of Nobilis2.
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Feb 7, 2014 03:14
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While I don't mind the slow pace of development all that much, it is disappointing that there's just not many backer updates.
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Feb 7, 2014 05:27
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Mexcillent posted:What am I thinking about then? An uncharitable reading of the Loom of Fate? All I know is that my eyes glazed over reading Moran/Borgstrom outside of Nobilis2. Efficient Secretary Technique, maybe. The Sidereals have Webcrawler. Lymond posted:I didn't mind Yu-Shan itself as much as I minded the Sidereals being based there. They lived in a space station with the ability to land anywhere in Creation within a short amount of time; they chose who, when and how to strike and you were forced to react. All that stood between a Sidereal Elder deciding to take your skull to use as a paperweight on his desk was arbitrary amounts of paperwork and busywork, none of which had obvious setting effects. They had no antagonists to speak of, since no one could really do much to them. I found this to be terribly lame. Sidereals work perfectly well as their own thing, but trying to play a game of any other Exalt type yet include Sidereal machinations runs afoul of all their systemic advantages. They know about you, you don't know about them, etc. Since all their advantages are hard and crunchy, yet their disadvantages are soft and based solely on RP, it can definitely feel like "why don't they just ninja-murder all the Solars/Deathlords/whatever personally". Hopefully 3E will address some of that by making fights way less certain between elders and the newly Exalted (so Sidereal elders have an unsatisfactory level of risk in direct intervention), at least.
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Feb 7, 2014 05:50
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Calde posted:Hopefully 3E will address some of that by making fights way less certain between elders and the newly Exalted (so Sidereal elders have an unsatisfactory level of risk in direct intervention), at least. I remember an early developer quote saying that one of the reasons Chejop Kejak doesn't just personally ice any newly-exalted Solar that pops up is that there's a non-zero chance that he would not come out on the winning side of that confrontation. If that remains true, I'll be very happy. There's also the fact that another developer or freelancer commented that the most common killer of any given Sidereal is the sudden appearance of five feet of moonsilver going through their chest. I think Siddies will have a lot more reason to be careful where they tread in Third Edition. Which will really just make Sidereal campaigns more fun, too, so win-win.
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Feb 7, 2014 05:57
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BryanChavez posted:I remember an early developer quote saying that one of the reasons Chejop Kejak doesn't just personally ice any newly-exalted Solar that pops up is that there's a non-zero chance that he would not come out on the winning side of that confrontation. If that remains true, I'll be very happy. There's also the fact that another developer or freelancer commented that the most common killer of any given Sidereal is the sudden appearance of five feet of moonsilver going through their chest. I think Siddies will have a lot more reason to be careful where they tread in Third Edition. Which will really just make Sidereal campaigns more fun, too, so win-win. Yeah everything I recall of Lunars in 3E suggests they are declaring a more open war on the Sidereals so, looks like the Xanatos Roulette loving sons of bitches will have a check for once 
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Feb 7, 2014 06:44
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Personally, I always based the survival of the Solars in a world containing Chejop off the fact that killing Solars is illegal - the broken Mask alone won't conceal things if an Elder Sidereal bounces down to Creation and waxes a bunch of them. The fact that the Gold Faction would gladly use any such move as a reason to crucify any Bronzes they could pin it on counts for a lot, too. Being entrenched in the Celestial Bureaucracy comes with some downsides.
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Feb 7, 2014 07:06
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I think that's the case, too, and that the meme that Chejop Kejak should just go down and decapitate every Solar immediately after they Exalt is a little overblown. I imagine that there are loads of reasons not to kill them right off the bat, but I like that 'Chejop isn't willing to roll the dice on him winning that fight, because he doesn't really need to right now' might be emphasized in third edition. That if a young Sidereal asks him why he doesn't do that, his response is, "Because I think I can do more good for our cause when my head is attached to the rest of my body.", before he moves on to the more subtle and nuanced reasons. I also like the idea that often, a living Solar is actually a net boon to the Bronze cause, eliminating more important threats while still not causing enough damage to justify a hit squad. Balancing how powerful that new Solar is growing against how much said Solar is taking care of problems that the Bronze Faction no longer has to deal with must involve a lot of tense meetings between the Five-Fold Fellowship.
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Feb 7, 2014 07:27
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And, of course, Sidereal hubris will lead to them leaving the Solar alone for juuuust a little too long, so when they get around to acting, it's not such any easy fight anymore. . .
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Feb 7, 2014 07:33
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