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love too introduce a major plot point, keep it bubbling in the foreground for 2.5 years, build tons of drama and super high stakes as characters vie to bring it about, hinge major sections of the plot on it, then resolve it as a complete wet fart of nothing in like 3 pages
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Jan 14, 2018 02:21
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There's actually a pretty big implication. Gobwin Knob's last real potential ally may well be rubble in the next week. And didn't Parson leave a bunch of gems on their table?
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Jan 14, 2018 03:43
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PMush Perfect posted:There's actually a pretty big implication. Gobwin Knob's last real potential ally may well be rubble in the next week. And didn't Parson leave a bunch of gems on their table? GK still has commander units at TV so they can still utilize the bat stacks method of fighting CC. They can probably recover the gems as well, doubt you need to be Chief Warlord to claim schmuckers. CC is almost certainly going to move TV up the hit list with that 19m bounty though, as Caesar realized right away. Real advantages gained: Parson has access to thinkagrams again via Bonnie and can start getting the MK situation unfucked. He can start working on the ICFYS situation. He can provide CW bonus in combat which may be important for dealing with Jillian.
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Jan 14, 2018 04:48
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He can coordinate moving Wanda and the Arkenpliers back into the same place.
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Jan 14, 2018 05:03
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PMush Perfect posted:Yeah, it's predictable as hell, but Erfworld was getting pretty close to Wheel Of Time levels of 'too many dangling plot threads that will never get resolved'. It also doesn't help that Balder thinks every scene needs to be viewed from the perspective of nearly every character present. Better to just stick to the most relevant character and move on to the next plot beat before doing a scene that fleshes out another character. DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:love too introduce a major plot point, keep it bubbling in the foreground for 2.5 years, build tons of drama and super high stakes as characters vie to bring it about, hinge major sections of the plot on it, then resolve it as a complete wet fart of nothing in like 3 pages It was obvious it'd be one from the start. The only other option besides him getting sent back to Spacerock or back to Earth so he could have one of those character building "My real home is the fantasy world" scenes that have been done to death would be to have the scroll get destroyed somehow.
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Jan 14, 2018 12:46
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super sweet best pal posted:It was obvious it'd be one from the start. The only other option besides him getting sent back to Spacerock or back to Earth so he could have one of those character building "My real home is the fantasy world" scenes that have been done to death would be to have the scroll get destroyed somehow. As someone already pointed out, they’re done an awful lot of building up the fact that Parson’s the second person from earth to enter erfworld, and that the last one both has an arkentool that allows unrestricted movement as well as some unspecified additional knowledge of Charlie’s machcinations. I definitely thought he was going to end up back on earth, tracking down “Dorothy” so he could get the arkenshoes and return with more knowledge and power Gandalf the White style.
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Jan 14, 2018 15:22
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I'll take it as a net positive. They foreshadowed this a while back, even back before the scroll showed up, and it's one less thing for the audience to keep track of. I am slightly disappointed that he didn't respawn in I'm Coming For You Stanley, though.
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Jan 14, 2018 15:57
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isndl posted:GK still has commander units at TV so they can still utilize the bat stacks method of fighting CC. They can probably recover the gems as well, doubt you need to be Chief Warlord to claim schmuckers. CC is almost certainly going to move TV up the hit list with that 19m bounty though, as Caesar realized right away. I'm really not convinced Charlescomm wants to attack Transylvito or in fact be aggressive at all. Even Charlie's strike at Gobwin Knob units was a direct response to GK aggression and was only aiming to croak or capture Parson. Charlie doesn't want to conquer the world, he wants to be Halliburton to the world's wars. He has no interest in breaking his neutrality unless it's for a very, very good reason. Charlie just wants Parson off the board, because he views him as an existential threat. TV was in zero danger until it got bamboozled into teaming up with Parson.
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Jan 14, 2018 17:50
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RolandTower posted:As someone already pointed out, they’re done an awful lot of building up the fact that Parson’s the second person from earth to enter erfworld, and that the last one both has an arkentool that allows unrestricted movement as well as some unspecified additional knowledge of Charlie’s machcinations. I expected that too, but I'm saying that saving an extra decade-and-two-chapters by not doing that ultimately serves the story better, outweighing the wet fart. I'd rather have one storyline anticlimax than head in a direction that inevitably adds another seven storylines, each facing the same dilemma. Erfworld keeps falling into the trap of exponential storytelling.
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Jan 14, 2018 19:52
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I'm just glad they finally got on with a plotline they'd been building up.
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Jan 15, 2018 01:19
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It was pretty clear that scroll was never going to work as intended, last time he tried to use it fate dropped a flaming crossbeam on him.
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Jan 15, 2018 08:57
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I think it would have served the story a lot better if the scroll burnt up then and there.
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Jan 15, 2018 13:56
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reignonyourparade posted:It was pretty clear that scroll was never going to work as intended, last time he tried to use it fate dropped a flaming crossbeam on him. Now that you remind of me of that scene, it actually looks out of place now. If the scroll was only going to take him back to GK's capital, why would Fate have bothered to dissuade him from casting it (through the bracer's false numbers and the falling beam)? He was definitely already thinking of Erfworld as home by that point. (I guess without Jed in place the fall would have croaked him, but that seems like an incredibly lame justification.)
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Jan 15, 2018 15:02
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Honestly this is the best possible turn of events just for getting Stanley back on something resembling the main stage.
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Jan 15, 2018 15:03
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NihilCredo posted:Now that you remind of me of that scene, it actually looks out of place now. If the scroll was only going to take him back to GK's capital, why would Fate have bothered to dissuade him from casting it (through the bracer's false numbers and the falling beam)? He was definitely already thinking of Erfworld as home by that point. There is the possibility that the spell was botched due to sudden death.
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Jan 15, 2018 15:18
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if you have a plot item that’s basically a bomb that will kill the main character if he uses it 1) it makes no sense for him to just carry it around all the time cause “I won’t blow it up!” (or even just to keep it in storage— throw the drat thing out!) 2) if you ignore 1 for some reason and find yourself needing to get rid of it, “it turned out to be a dud” is the worst possible way to do that since it retroactively makes the enormous amount of tension raised around the scroll’s use stupid and pointless The scroll has always been dumb as hell and even “this is your real home now!” is a dumb loving dodge for it to fail, since it doesn’t work like that— it doesn’t return Parson to the place he believes is home, it undoes the spell that brought him in the first place. Having said all that, returning him to Earth and requiring him to get the arkenshoes to return is actually a fairly reasonable plot development. It makes sense in universe and also gets an item to him that we know he needs to end up with eventually. It also creates good storytelling opportunities for him to adjust to Earth again and his Erf friends to get on without him. So of course balder didn’t do it. If I am wrong about this and he did end up doing this, then good, although putting his return first kind of undercuts any possible tension. Balder is a moderately clever writer but a very bad storyteller.
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Jan 15, 2018 15:18
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I mean, we haven't seen his feet. There's still a possibility that he's already been to Stupidworld and got the Arkenshoes on.
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Jan 15, 2018 15:38
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:It also creates good storytelling opportunities for Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jan 15, 2018 |
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Jan 15, 2018 16:01
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Ditocoaf posted:This, this right here is the flaw in your argument. The last thing Erfworld needs is more storytelling opportunities, of any kind. It's already developed into a bloated worldbuilding exercise with two dozen point-of-view characters. I'll take an anticlimactic turn (that offers a chance at more focus) over further spiraling off into further layers of subplots and parallel story branches. my problem with erfworld isn’t that it has too many stories running concurrently, it’s that the stories are bad and uninteresting. with backer stories he obviously has this idea about developing erfworld as a sandbox that many stories could be set in. however he himself does not know how to craft a compelling narrative, preferring instead to meander around making puns while events are vaguely hinted at in the background and either resolve themselves or just go nowhere and peter out. the song of ice and fire books have two or three times as many concurrent plot lines as erfworld, they’re just fun to read because those plots go somewhere and are interesting and dynamic and feed into each other intelligently. it’s not just “here’s a lot of stuff happening, let me show you it a bit at a time”
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Jan 15, 2018 17:22
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, we haven't seen his feet. There's still a possibility that he's already been to Stupidworld and got the Arkenshoes on. 1) There was a timeskip, and he does have the 'shoes. 2) The scroll didn't work as intended specifically because of something Jed and/or Maggy did that they couldn't before.
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Jan 15, 2018 20:40
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:my problem with erfworld isn’t that it has too many stories running concurrently, it’s that the stories are bad and uninteresting. with backer stories he obviously has this idea about developing erfworld as a sandbox that many stories could be set in. however he himself does not know how to craft a compelling narrative, preferring instead to meander around making puns while events are vaguely hinted at in the background and either resolve themselves or just go nowhere and peter out. I guess my theory is that he's more likely to tell stronger stories if he prunes then down somewhat. And I feel that ASoIaF has suffered for spreading itself out so thin, despite GRRM being a better storyteller. If nothing else, it's why the series will be nearly impossible to finish.
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Jan 15, 2018 23:00
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the worst thing balder does out of a lot of bad things is he has no idea how to pace a story. literal months of leadup, dozens of comics, and then major events like the fall of gobwin knob are glossed over in like two pages, or happen offscreen, or get presented in this weirdass out of order way like the fall of faq. the one time he put in an appropriately timed and appropriately long payoff to a long arc was the death of Don King, which was the strongest comic he’s done in years (certainly the best in book 3). then after that we get poo poo like “by the way here’s our whole treasury in gem form” and “oh, the portals are sealed (a while ago).”
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Jan 16, 2018 00:46
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The pacing being poo poo is more of an artifact of the webcomic format and us getting the updates as they're written. I'm sure the aforementioned GRR Martin would also look like an incredibly poo poo writer if he didn't have an editor to look at his drafts and telling him when to get his rear end in gear.
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Jan 16, 2018 00:58
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PMush Perfect posted:There's two possibilities I see that make this whole thing worthwhile. 3) The scroll didn't work as intended because it was cast by a state 3. Linked casters can do some very different things that single casters, and that may extend to the effects of scrolls. In particular, linking with a Turnamancer is a good way to justify giving a unit extra time, if Parson went home, got the shoes, and came back without a turn passing on Erfworld.
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Jan 16, 2018 08:47
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What would the interaction between Jed and Shirley be like..?
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Jan 17, 2018 07:07
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Well there's some answers.
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Jan 17, 2018 07:17
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That's actually really really cute 
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Jan 17, 2018 07:48
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Jed is a good friend who has already figured everyone out. Also city heads can just smash the ATM and bail with as much Mana they need in a pinch? Gonna be some shenanigans. Now that I think about it I'm surprised big think hasn't tried to form a Tiki in the MK while they're throwing poo poo at the wall before they die. Edit: Hey, wait. "stealing juice to create themselves", Jed's the reason for GK head? And presumably more? Does the timing for that work out? Caidin fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jan 17, 2018 |
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Jan 17, 2018 08:00
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Caidin posted:Edit: Hey, wait. "stealing juice to create themselves", Jed's the reason for GK head? And presumably more? Does the timing for that work out? Also, 'Tutelaries' appears to be their official name? Neat.
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Jan 17, 2018 08:27
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Rather than teaching other cities to make towers, I think it's just the DeIsaac going around popping more of them as with CC. This update highlights why the writing process takes so long though, you can't just bang out an update with a completely different style and lexicon in a day.
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Jan 17, 2018 09:15
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I find it interesting they straight up call it mana, a classic fantasy term, rather than the more familiar juice. Fits with how Shirley's knowledge seems to be rooted on Earth rather than Erf, and the general use of earthen cultural cues. Makes me wonder about the underpinnings of Erfworld (and the roots of signamancy)
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Jan 17, 2018 13:04
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Kyte posted:I find it interesting they straight up call it mana, a classic fantasy term, rather than the more familiar juice. Fits with how Shirley's knowledge seems to be rooted on Earth rather than Erf, and the general use of earthen cultural cues. Makes me wonder about the underpinnings of Erfworld (and the roots of signamancy) Jed uses it because it's a Polynesian word.
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Jan 17, 2018 13:06
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NihilCredo posted:Jed uses it because it's a Polynesian word. Oh I had no idea. That's neat.
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Jan 17, 2018 13:29
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Well that story waa adorable and well done. Parenthesis got a bit obnoxious, but needed since I didnt want a scratch piece of paper and another window on Hawaii terms open.
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Jan 17, 2018 13:32
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So it turns out the answer was the friends Parson made along the way.
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Jan 17, 2018 14:25
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Geocities Homepage King posted:So it turns out the answer was the friends Parson made along the way. And it's actually the best answer
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Jan 17, 2018 15:42
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Thread title's more appropriate than ever.
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Jan 17, 2018 16:00
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Erfworld: Welcome Back To Erf Stealing that juice from the source, and using it to reverse-Spirit Bomb Parson by playing their strings directly, is gonna have a lot of consequences down the line about revealing the true nature of Erfworld.
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Jan 17, 2018 16:39
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It also has some implications for Jed's future as a game-breaking tool. His ability to give his casters more juice per turn (or refill them off-turn) seemed pretty OP, but this passage makes it seem like he's essentially pocketing bills from the register at 'work'. Sure, you'll get a benefit from it, but the risk is probably higher than pocket-change you get, and if he gets caught, it could be very bad for him.
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Jan 17, 2018 16:52
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It's not that different from what Charlie was doing to his hotwired portal to power his entire citadel.
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Jan 17, 2018 17:09
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