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This thread's unlife keeps me shambling ever onward in spite of all the terrible wounds I've suffered in the psychic wars.  I'm weirdly glad that Hiveswap's delays keep Homestuck grudgingly relevant. This strange thread requires regular check-ins with a doctor, it looks pretty bad by all accounts, but it (and you all) are still here after so many years. Oh, Homosuck thread, you are the part that was bit out of me by an alligator, but somehow I survived. 
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Aug 24, 2017 22:22
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CAST THIS THREAD INTO THE FIRE DESTROY IT
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Aug 24, 2017 23:06
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Even if you did, another would come in its place. This thread is with us to the end. An end only Hussie can decide.
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Aug 24, 2017 23:07
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In theory, Calliope and Caliborn are a pretty neat idea and the way they interact with the game mechanics in weird ways to produce unexpected outcomes are pretty clever, but in practice there were a host of implementation issues, not the least of which being they weren't properly introduced (or probably fully conceived of) until very late in the story. It also doesn't help that the field became severely crowded with characters by then, many of whom went on to not matter much at all, so we were all a little worn out. Calliope falling into a weird "is she a parody of a Mary Sue or an actual one?" box wasn't great either, by the end the story seemed to struggle with indulging a lot of cliches "ironically". Not to mention Jade was sort of the original Mary Sue parody before the story forgot about her. I think a hypothetical heavy editing pass on Homestuck could keep Caliborn and Calliope in the story, they're a good origin and weak-spot for Lord English, just massage some of their personal details and events. I think it wouldn't have hurt to introduce them earlier and tie them in much more directly with Doc Scratch. They both needed more points of contact with the rest of the cast and chances to do things proactively that made their animosity and friendship seem more earned. Caliborn would feel more like the main villain if he actively had a hand in the misfortune the players went through, and the others liking Calliope would make more sense if she'd been working quietly to help them from the start. The story had a weird unresolved plot wrinkle where it never felt like Caliborn, Calliope or even Lord English were really at the wheel of their own destiny or anyone else's, which made it hard to sell the audience and even some of the heroes on there being any kind of "final boss" at all. Doc Scratch was the closest to a master manipulator villain and he also interacted with the cast enough for some of them to dislike him, while Bec Noir was the actual terror who they should've hated for killing so many people close to them but weirdly everyone stopped caring about. Introducing Caliborn as a rogue player creating these misfortunes and lesser antagonists on their road to godhood (and with the "already here" proof that he'll succeed to hang over everyone's heads) would've helped focus the narrative much earlier.
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Aug 24, 2017 23:48
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Oxxidation posted:CAST THIS THREAD INTO THE FIRE This thread stands as monument to some forgotten primordial war. A scar upon the internet. An eon's old crater in which we build our cities and mine the walls for radioactive glass, building new technology from the fragments of bygone relics, AKA at least we got Undertale. Dolash posted:In theory, Calliope and Caliborn are a pretty neat idea and the way they interact with the game mechanics in weird ways to produce unexpected outcomes are pretty clever, but in practice there were a host of implementation issues, not the least of which being they weren't properly introduced (or probably fully conceived of) until very late in the story. It also doesn't help that the field became severely crowded with characters by then, many of whom went on to not matter much at all, so we were all a little worn out. Calliope falling into a weird "is she a parody of a Mary Sue or an actual one?" box wasn't great either, by the end the story seemed to struggle with indulging a lot of cliches "ironically". Not to mention Jade was sort of the original Mary Sue parody before the story forgot about her. I feel that losing track of Noir as a primary villain was the turning point away from tight narrative flow. I liked Homestuck to the very bitter end, but I acknowledge fully that its peak was at the end of Act 5.
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Aug 25, 2017 00:16
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The Empress was the most relevant villain in Act 6 onwards. Her going out as chumpily and anticlimactically as she did still strikes me as the oddest beat. ominous music note shot of her downed body contractual immortality wait no she's dead and out of the story Clawtopsy fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 01:03
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I mean, at least she had an actual boss fight where she posed some kind of threat to heroes that were invested in defeating her, unlike Jade just shrugging and ditching Bec Noir as a pointless sideshow. But yeah she has plenty of villain cred and she goes out in an awkward chump way just to give the comic some sort of climactic battle to end on, that still feels wrong because the actual final battle isn't even shown. The Condesce had a touch of that Starscream unwilling lieutenant style, like her big backstab move in the pre-retcon timeline that just fucks everything up, that would've been more interesting to lean into if we actually saw them interacting. In a more coherent story she'd be more clearly Lord English's agent and defeating her would be a stepping stone to get to him. Ending on a boss rush where the players have to take down various nemeses from across the story who hosed up their lives and enabled Lord English in order to get to the guy himself isn't a terrible idea, but it could use a few tweaks like "the players know who Lord English is and care at all about defeating him" and "there's some sort of coherent progression where defeating Lord English's agents will get them closer to defeating Lord English himself". I guess this is eventually going to lead back to the larger meta-discussion about the ending and ideas like "escaping the story" or whatever, but this is mostly in service of making Caliborn and Calliope more interesting central antagonist/secret weakspot characters by organizing the villains and plot a little more around them, rather than what we got where villains would rise and fall in relevance at random and there was no rhyme or reason to how they'd go down.
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Aug 25, 2017 01:15
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Why would you treat a "normal boss fight" as an obvious move in that situation? Homestuck doesn't do normal boss fights, and the fact that Collide was basically a straightforward boss fight with no tricks was the main reason the ending was so disappointing.
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Aug 25, 2017 01:17
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I think the problem is more that it was a badly executed boss fight that the story hadn't really built up to properly and didn't come to a satisfying conclusion, not that the very idea of the players fighting Lord English and his agents or pawns was bad. There's nothing inherently wrong with ending on a climactic confrontation, and since the original angle of discussion was why Caliborn and Calliope didn't work and how they could've worked better I think the main issue is they'd make more sense in a story that was building up to a final showdown. Caliborn put a face on Lord English as a specific bad player whose selfish personal motivation was at the heart of everyone's misfortune. There were theories earlier in Homestuck that Lord English would be a force of nature or a natural phenomenon closer to the game itself rather than a literal bad guy boss to beat up. Pretty much everything after his appearance though tilted toward the idea that he was a straightforward main antagonist and doubly so once the story explored his origin and weak spot, so making the Cherubs work is mostly an exercise in making that part of the story work. Homestuck might've been better off without them at all and going in a very different direction.
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Aug 25, 2017 01:45
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Homestuck would've been better without adding twenty or so utterly worthless side characters. 
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Aug 25, 2017 02:08
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I just found it odd how many flags they were throwing up for the Empress not being a straightforward case. Developing Meenah, the comments about her suspiciously not attacking or acting aggressive, the contractual immortality, the frequent references to her dissatisfaction and schemes to rebel against English...
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Aug 25, 2017 02:32
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i like that defeat has been admitted on the half life 3 front before hiveswap dropped lmao
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Aug 25, 2017 13:41
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having "lure out lord english to confront him" and "defeat everyone lord english is using as a pawn" be two separate, disconnected (though simultaneous) events was the biggest narrative problem i think if all of that had been more directly tied together, if they were pulling his minions to a particular place for the purpose of luring him there by killing them all or whatever, i think it would have felt more coherent and satisfying its the difference between a confusing clusterfuck and a satisfying, cool clusterfuck edit: also i felt like the narrative's weirdest dropped thing is that meenah and jane seemed to both have these arcs building to the two of them meeting up and having some sort of substantial personal revelation from it about themselves and the empress but that never went anywhere. i might have just been reading into things wrong though
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Aug 25, 2017 15:09
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Meenah, on a whole, pretty much went nowhere. e: as did Jane actually
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Aug 25, 2017 15:13
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They seriously were building up to SOMETHING with Meenah but it's There were too many characters with poo poo going on or poo poo that seemed like it was going on. They even glossed over the fact that John was basically fighting his grandmother who was also Betty Crocker. Just, that could have been a lot of fun and they did nothing with it. I think me mentioned it off handedly once. Homestuck just kind of stopped having fun with its own narrative by the end.
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Aug 25, 2017 15:18
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which would be worse 1) we never find out what the hell happened with the black hole and all those characters are just gone for good because an epilogue is about as likely as hl2ep3 at this point 2) the black hole opened into the hiveswap timeline and those characters are all there now, including beloved fan favorites jasprose and davepeta
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Aug 25, 2017 15:28
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welp i'm going to reread problem sleuth instead of continuing to wait for this nonsense
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Aug 25, 2017 16:06
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Clawtopsy posted:I just found it odd how many flags they were throwing up for the Empress not being a straightforward case. Developing Meenah, the comments about her suspiciously not attacking or acting aggressive, the contractual immortality, the frequent references to her dissatisfaction and schemes to rebel against English... Burkion posted:They seriously were building up to SOMETHING with Meenah but it's No they ended like every other major character arc/narrative thread, with a large fart and anti-climax. Homestuck is a narrative that got too involved with the writers own desperate need to be subversive. It's incredibly irony poisoned but also still trying to be a coherent narrative so basically things have to fit that irony into inconsequential places, which means things go like they should in a story, but no one gets anything close to a satisfactory end which in a story that was entirely carried by it's character writing and it's humor is the worst. The joke is "Haha that character's struggle and growth meant nothing" which might have been fine once but it then repeats it for the entire cast which ruins whatever humor it might have had. It's just lovely writing, basically.
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Aug 25, 2017 19:27
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Clawtopsy posted:which would be worse Jasprose didn't go into the blackhole, she stayed behind and went to Universe C. She was last seen hanging out with fellow ghost feline Gcatavros at a Halloween party, it seems like she's doing pretty well. And as for Davepeta they are currently ????????
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Aug 25, 2017 22:38
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Rand Brittain posted:Why would you treat a "normal boss fight" as an obvious move in that situation? Homestuck doesn't do normal boss fights, and the fact that Collide was basically a straightforward boss fight with no tricks was the main reason the ending was so disappointing.
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Aug 25, 2017 23:08
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Jasprose didn't go into the blackhole, she stayed behind and went to Universe C. She was last seen hanging out with fellow ghost feline Gcatavros at a Halloween party, it seems like she's doing pretty well. davepeta can be in calliope's spaceship and also die on the way back to their home planet e: jasprose too
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Aug 26, 2017 01:28
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everyone died on the way back to their home planet which was also dead
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Aug 26, 2017 03:38
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Clawtopsy posted:i like that defeat has been admitted on the half life 3 front before hiveswap dropped lmao Wait. WHAT?!
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Aug 26, 2017 06:20
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Samovar posted:Wait. Some writer on HL2 episode 3 posted an "anonymous letter", which he later edited in the real names revealing it was basically the plot of episode 3. Posting it is basically a tacit admission that, at the very least, episode 3 is kaput; for some reason people are assuming it means HL3 is gone too? Idk.
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Aug 26, 2017 06:28
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You think Half Life 3 is still coming out?
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Aug 26, 2017 06:54
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Hemingway To Go! posted:You think Half Life 3 is still coming out? I mean lmao, but this specific thing is not a nail in the coffin for that like it is for E3, which some people were still holding out hope for.
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Aug 26, 2017 06:57
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Oxxidation posted:CAST THIS THREAD INTO THE FIRE This thread cannot be destroyed by mere fire. It has to be unmade in the shitposts from which it was forged.
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Aug 26, 2017 08:11
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Enourmo posted:I mean lmao, but this specific thing is not a nail in the coffin for that like it is for E3, which some people were still holding out hope for. episode 3 has long been since turned to hl3, if im not misremembering also, its not some writer, it's marc laidlaw, aka the guy who wrote all of half life. Granted, hes left valve earlier this year, so his ending is not particularly canonical, as he has said he hadnt really planned anything. This is like a big pseudo official what if
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Aug 26, 2017 15:23
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ArfJason posted:episode 3 has long been since turned to hl3, if im not misremembering HL3 and HLE3 are both vaporware because Valve's management structure has created total paralysis among its staff. At this point the company is pretty much incapable of actually releasing a game, much like What Pumpkin.
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Aug 26, 2017 15:31
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yea
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Aug 26, 2017 15:59
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ArfJason posted:episode 3 has long been since turned to hl3, if im not misremembering You're correct. At some point Gabe basically said that they didn't feel the episodic structure was successful and that any continuation of the story would not be another episode but rather the next full numbered game. Of course in actuality anything they ever said is meaningless because it's been clear for ages that as others have said, Valve has completely lost interest in making any games whatsoever.
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Aug 26, 2017 17:17
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Oxxidation posted:HL3 and HLE3 are both vaporware because Valve's management structure has created total paralysis among its staff. At this point the company is pretty much incapable of actually releasing a game, much like What Pumpkin. Hey they finally announced a new game! It's a card game based on Dota. Even the people at the Dota Grand Final Tournament of the Year booed it. Valve's so loving bad.
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Aug 26, 2017 17:18
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Hey they finally announced a new game! ...please tell me it's a physical card game.
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Aug 26, 2017 17:21
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Burkion posted:...please tell me it's a physical card game. Nah, more money in digital card games. Gabe wants that Hearthstone money. No better time to go get it, what with how badly Blizzard is managing to mismanage that game. Cabbit fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Aug 26, 2017 |
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Aug 26, 2017 17:25
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so what do the guys at valve do all day do they just masturbate at their desks for 4 hours and then go for sandwiches
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Aug 27, 2017 02:05
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ArgumentatumE.C.T. posted:so what do the guys at valve do all day no you are thinking of whatpumpkin valve do that with the added step of 'make money'
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Aug 27, 2017 02:14
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ArgumentatumE.C.T. posted:so what do the guys at valve do all day Well they certainly don't do any actual work on anything like quality control for Steam that's for sure
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Aug 27, 2017 03:17
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Regy Rusty posted:Well they certainly don't do any actual work on anything like quality control for Steam that's for sure they let any old rubbish get greenlit
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Aug 27, 2017 03:43
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So what's the date we're waiting on now? 31st August/1st September?
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Aug 27, 2017 06:14
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Zeruel posted:So what's the date we're waiting on now? 31st August/1st September? yeah sure why not
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