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Pash posted:Best part about the whole thing is that his definition of completely written turned out to be something silly to the point where I read a blog post years back when Book 2 was delayed that he was stressing to get the book finished but still had entire chapters where the only thing written was "Ambrose does something." That was part of the backpedaling. It started as "completely written, just needs some editing," moved on to "mostly written, but some chapters just have instructions for what I need to write" (basically what you just posted), and culminated with "nah man it was mostly just an outline." It takes more effort than I care to devote to it right now, but between his blog and reddit AMAs, you can find him saying all of these things (while also getting mad at anyone that mentions the previous statements).
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Feb 13, 2017 22:05
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vseslav.botkin posted:I think he's gonna finish the book, but probably not until his son is in college. You gotta have priorities, and what's more important than raising your child? Hang on... you forgot about grandkids! The reward for raising kids!
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Feb 13, 2017 22:14
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Oh! I almost forgot! I played Tak at my friend's house this weekend. It's an alright game, but it certainly isn't "beautiful" or anything like that. It's basically Connect Four with a couple more rules. I don't see how any amazingly close well played games could ever take place in it, but it was something half cooked up by a fantasy writer that they had to turn into a fully fledged game to cash in on nerd game nights. Drinking game wise it was pretty alright as well (we had to take a drink every time you 'capped' the other player's piece). Not horrible, but not great either.
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Feb 14, 2017 00:31
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Solice Kirsk posted:Oh! I almost forgot! I played Tak at my friend's house this weekend. It's an alright game, but it certainly isn't "beautiful" or anything like that. It's basically Connect Four with a couple more rules. I don't see how any amazingly close well played games could ever take place in it, but it was something half cooked up by a fantasy writer that they had to turn into a fully fledged game to cash in on nerd game nights. Drinking game wise it was pretty alright as well (we had to take a drink every time you 'capped' the other player's piece). Not horrible, but not great either. Man, the pizza delivery guy must've been so excited when he saw it.
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Feb 14, 2017 00:40
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Turns out it's really hard to create a game of substantial depth when instead of narrating its results you have to come up with actual rules. It's the same problem fantasy authors have when trying to emulate Tolkien with their gobbledygook languages- they don't put in the same work, but they expect the same results.
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Feb 14, 2017 00:50
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Benson Cunningham posted:Turns out it's really hard to create a game of substantial depth when instead of narrating its results you have to come up with actual rules. That actually came up in this thread when someone tried to respond to the criticisms about the bog standard languages not going beyond a few fake words and weird names and they were arguing "oh well most readers won't get it or make the connection so it''s not relevant" Once you start looking for it and paying attention it's incredible how some authors can take the fantasy "make up words" concept and run with it in a way to make it amazing. Gene Wolfe famously didn't used a single made up word (though you'd assume he did on first read) in his Book of the New Sun and between 1980-83 wrote 4 books of what are arguably the best fantasy ever written. Some writers are true geniuses (Wolfe, Abercrombie), some are great genre fiction writers(Sanderson, Lynch), some are jumped up hacks who've forgotten their fundamentals and are up their own rear end (Rothfuss, Orson Scott Card). The truly sad part is the last category are people wholly capable of doing/being better but are so consumed with their personal ideas and opinions they will make that leap to the next level. pentyne fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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Feb 14, 2017 02:21
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One of his priorities is to skype with an illustrator about illustrations for the 20 illustrations for the 10th anniversary book for book 1? I can't sigh deeply enough. I just want him to finish soon so I can see the trilogy to its conclusion.
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Feb 14, 2017 06:18
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TV Zombie posted:One of his priorities is to skype with an illustrator about illustrations for the 20 illustrations for the 10th anniversary book for book 1? Awww, you think it will be a trilogy still? The storyline hasn't actually progressed anywhere since the first half of book one. Literally you could make up a list of all the things mentioned in the Tavern scenes and I don't think a single one had been resolved, with the entirety of book 2 just adding to it. I don't think you could finish the series even with a Tad Williams To Green Angel Tower sized book. Oh and don't forget a book 2.5, to tell the story of "cool poo poo happened but I'm not going to tell you about it" pirate adventure.
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Feb 14, 2017 07:08
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pentyne posted:Some writers are true geniuses (Wolfe, Abercrombie), I'm not sure what makes Abercrombie a genius but because why First Law was decent it definitely wasn't earth-shattering genius.
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Feb 14, 2017 08:50
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Evil Fluffy posted:I'm not sure what makes Abercrombie a genius but because why First Law was decent it definitely wasn't earth-shattering genius. It's difficult to agree on who's a genius. For me, speculative fiction has two geniuses, Tolkien and Frank Herbert, and that's it. Others have a different opinion. But at least in this thread there's a consensus that Rothfuss belongs into the "hacks" category, together with people like Goodkind and Orson Card.
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Feb 14, 2017 10:50
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Robert Jordan also made the right call in making his fantasy board game just be Go with a different name.
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Feb 14, 2017 13:33
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Atlas Hugged posted:Robert Jordan also made the right call in making his fantasy board game just be Go with a different name. You mean the in-universe game? Or did he release a Go clone for WoT fans like Rothfuss did with Tak?
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Feb 14, 2017 14:45
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Torrannor posted:You mean the in-universe game? Or did he release a Go clone for WoT fans like Rothfuss did with Tak? The in-universe game that he needed royalty and politicians to play as something to do in a scene. Jordan was famously bad at licensing the Wheel of Time, but not for lack of trying. This was before Game of Thrones or Kickstarter or the miniature games resurgence we've seen over the last year, so the people the license went to were usually people in it for a quick buck. There was a weird first person shooter PC game. Someone recorded an official soundtrack. Someone was doing comics that stalled. And so on. Usually though the rights holders would just squander whatever license they'd bought and sit on it. This came to a head recently with the film and TV rights where the holder needed to prove they were doing something with the license so it wouldn't lapse and made a fifteen minute "pilot" for a show and aired it in the middle of the night as paid programming. His widow has spent most of her time since his death working to get the various rights back (when not working on mediocre cash in books of her own).
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Feb 14, 2017 18:12
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Have there been any fictional games that haven't been terribly portrayed? Quidditch is a joke, Cyvasse is chess. The only vaguely interesting one is Iain M Banks's Damage - and as that's poker with electrocution and cyanide capsules it's probably not going to get approved by Hasbro.
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Feb 14, 2017 19:28
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Have there been any fictional games that haven't been terribly portrayed? Quidditch is a joke, Cyvasse is chess. The only vaguely interesting one is Iain M Banks's Damage - and as that's poker with electrocution and cyanide capsules it's probably not going to get approved by Hasbro. Are you saying they are poorly portrayed in real life, or in their respective books? Because Quidditch loving owns in the books. But yeah, obviously without the same technology or magic present in the book, the real world adaptation isn't gonna be great. But if the game relies only on things that can be duplicated in actual reality (as tak does), then it seems fair to cast aspersions on it if it sucks in real life. Benson Cunningham fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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Feb 14, 2017 19:32
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Have there been any fictional games that haven't been terribly portrayed? Quidditch is a joke, Cyvasse is chess. The only vaguely interesting one is Iain M Banks's Damage - and as that's poker with electrocution and cyanide capsules it's probably not going to get approved by Hasbro. There was also stuff you could do to mess with your opponents emotions and stuff while they tried to play their cards.
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Feb 14, 2017 19:32
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Have there been any fictional games that haven't been terribly portrayed? Quidditch is a joke, Cyvasse is chess. The only vaguely interesting one is Iain M Banks's Damage - and as that's poker with electrocution and cyanide capsules it's probably not going to get approved by Hasbro. I summon the blue-eyes white dragon
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Feb 14, 2017 20:37
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Torrannor posted:It's difficult to agree on who's a genius. For me, speculative fiction has two geniuses, Tolkien and Frank Herbert, and that's it. Others have a different opinion. But at least in this thread there's a consensus that Rothfuss belongs into the "hacks" category, together with people like Goodkind and Orson Card. Have you read any of Herbert's later, post-Dune poo poo? Because hooboy.
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Feb 14, 2017 20:38
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I'd take Wolfe and Zelazny over pretty much anyone.
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Feb 14, 2017 21:27
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Benson Cunningham posted:Are you saying they are poorly portrayed in real life, or in their respective books? Because Quidditch loving owns in the books. I like when standards like Chess, Go, or Poker show up because it suggests those games are basically a universal and would be derived even in fantasy worlds or preserved/rediscovered even into the distant eons in a sci-fi setting.
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Feb 14, 2017 21:43
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Lottery of Babylon posted:I summon the blue-eyes white dragon Exodia, destroy the fantasy game debate.
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Feb 14, 2017 21:52
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Have there been any fictional games that haven't been terribly portrayed? Quidditch is a joke, Cyvasse is chess. The only vaguely interesting one is Iain M Banks's Damage - and as that's poker with electrocution and cyanide capsules it's probably not going to get approved by Hasbro. Dragon Poker? Pyramid? Only two I can think of.
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Feb 14, 2017 22:27
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Nakar posted:...Quidditch sucks... Quidditch's purpose in the books is not to translate directly to real life as a sport. 1) it can't (magic isn't real). 2) It isn't meant to be judged on its ruleset, it's a tool to incept sport and varsity team experiences into the novel. To judge Quidditch on it's merit as a functional sport would be like judging a talking sword on its ability to cut things- just because its shaped like a sword doesn't mean that's what it's supposed to do. The reason it's different from Tak is that Patrick Rothfuss is on record as saying Tak is a legit, beautiful game that can exist (and now does) in the real world. So it's fair to judge it by the same standards you would judge any other board game by. That's how I feel about it at least. Quidditch fulfills the purposes it was created to fulfill. Rothfuss got too ambitious with Tak and because of that, its flaws now flow both ways- lessening its believability in the book and providing an unsatisfying experience in real life.
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Feb 14, 2017 22:42
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Nakar posted:I like when standards like Chess, Go, or Poker show up because it suggests those games are basically a universal and would be derived even in fantasy worlds or preserved/rediscovered even into the distant eons in a sci-fi setting. My favorite is still Tonk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonk_(card_game)
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Feb 14, 2017 23:24
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Yeah Quidditch isn't really supposed to be a sport that makes sense, it's an illustration of how hidebound and insular wizard culture as a whole is
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Feb 14, 2017 23:35
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Did Star Trek invent 3d chess?
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Feb 15, 2017 00:10
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Solice Kirsk posted:Did Star Trek invent 3d chess? No - that dates to 1907. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dimensional_chess
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Feb 15, 2017 00:17
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Benson Cunningham posted:Are you saying they are poorly portrayed in real life, or in their respective books? Because Quidditch loving owns in the books. Quidditch is obviously awful if you understand arithmetic and team sport dynamics. The stats of Harry Potter fans run 95% (allowing for age) and 15% on these independent variables, so few notice.
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Feb 15, 2017 00:40
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Have there been any fictional games that haven't been terribly portrayed? Quidditch is a joke, Cyvasse is chess. The only vaguely interesting one is Iain M Banks's Damage - and as that's poker with electrocution and cyanide capsules it's probably not going to get approved by Hasbro. Would the game played in the Witcher series count, or was that game just inside the Witcher games and not something that ever got mentioned in the novels?
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Feb 15, 2017 01:03
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Quidditch is obviously awful if you understand arithmetic and team sport dynamics. The stats of Harry Potter fans run 95% (allowing for age) and 15% on these independent variables, so few notice. Oh wait of course I get it now. Quidditch is awful. Also, I don't think Voldemort was a very good teacher in book one. In the real world he would never have been hired.
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Feb 15, 2017 01:47
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Nakar posted:The rules of Quidditch would make for a phenomenally terrible sport even if all the magic existed to let people fly on brooms and such. You'd just be watching it for the spectacle at that point, but even then something like Airborne Lacrosse would be more interesting as a sport. Rowling is on record as saying that she deliberately wrote the rules of Quidditch in such a way to annoy the kind of man who who would be annoyed by a magic sport with rules that don't make logical sense.
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Feb 15, 2017 03:55
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Trin Tragula posted:Rowling is on record as saying that she deliberately wrote the rules of Quidditch in such a way to annoy the kind of man who who would be annoyed by a magic sport with rules that don't make logical sense. ...and that doesn't sound like the puppetmaster defense at all.
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Feb 15, 2017 03:58
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Trin Tragula posted:Rowling is on record as saying that she deliberately wrote the rules of Quidditch in such a way to annoy the kind of man who who would be annoyed by a magic sport with rules that don't make logical sense. I thought it was a jab at how stupid she found real life sports.
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Feb 15, 2017 05:31
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I know we're way off topic (par for the course, right?) but can people honestly not see that the rules of magic basketball are entirely ancillary to any points the game is used to make in the narrative? I feel like I'm the crazy one or something.
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Feb 15, 2017 05:39
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Have there been any fictional games that haven't been terribly portrayed? Quidditch is a joke, Cyvasse is chess. The only vaguely interesting one is Iain M Banks's Damage - and as that's poker with electrocution and cyanide capsules it's probably not going to get approved by Hasbro. Although obviously rather vaguely described, I thought Azad was a neat concept too. Kind of like a super complicated RTS from before those were really a thing.
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Feb 15, 2017 05:45
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Benson Cunningham posted:I know we're way off topic (par for the course, right?) but can people honestly not see that the rules of magic basketball are entirely ancillary to any points the game is used to make in the narrative? Yes. However, coming up with rules for magic basketball that manifestly make no sense ruins the suspension of disbelief for some. Personally what drives me nuts is when some outside with no experience stands up, makes a speech or two, and cuts through all the gordian knots that have been stopping the two political camps from just compromising on the Right Solution. ...or anything* referencing the judicial system, either way. *Craft Sequence excepted, to the extent it counts.
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Feb 15, 2017 06:04
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There is no way you read Harry Potter and actually thought, "oh my god my immersion" because you had so mastered the rules of Quidditch that you ceased to follow the story and obsessed over the rules of wizard basketball. That's like the literal definition of autism.
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Feb 15, 2017 06:47
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wrong topic
i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 06:48
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I was trying so hard to understand how that post should follow from mine.
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Feb 15, 2017 06:52
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Benson Cunningham posted:There is no way you read Harry Potter and actually thought, "oh my god my immersion" No. I haven't read the series. I do have similar problems with political and legal descriptions and I can see how others could have problems with the rules. Benson Cunningham posted:That's like the literal definition of autism. I think you will find that is "a variable developmental disorder that appears by age three and is characterized by impairment of the ability to form normal social relationships, by impairment of the ability to communicate with others, and by repetitive behavior patterns —called also autistic disorder "
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Feb 15, 2017 07:24
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