|
Yeah, Charlie has evidently sucked up a lot of free juice without causing any problems (or possibly he's already so high on Erfworld's poo poo list that it can't actually get worse).
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2018 17:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 11:13 |
|
|
see, this is actually a reasonable explanation, except the story is still totally hosed up by having 1) parson come back first and 2) the whole thing from jed's perspective, rather than parson's (parson getting flung into the void and us seeing jed connect him to each of these people, maybe with a little vision of them thinking of parson and not being sure why, would be totally sweet). i like the "jed tells a hawaiian fable!" format, but it should have been used elsewhere, not for this totally pivotal plot moment. it's a failure of storytelling that possibly the most important thing to happen to the main character since his arrival on erfworld features him not at all. i should stop kvetching but seriously, erfworld is consistently so close to being good (and it certainly used to be great), it chaps my rear end when balder makes these weird rear end storytelling decisions
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2018 18:26
|
|
|
Dunno if it'd been actually shown it would've been glurgy as hell. Also a lot of it was, like, metaphorical.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2018 22:03
|
|
|
It would also have taken weeks for everybody to do the "let's all lend Parson the power of our hearts!" in real-time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2018 22:10
|
|
|
He could've done it like that one strings-everywhere comic. But I don't know if it would have been better.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2018 22:13
|
|
|
This was an obvious place for a full-page image with Parson in the middle, all his friends (and Jed) pulling him one way and Charlie & co. pulling the other way. Shame the drawing department seems to be the place which slows the entire thing down, it's very effective when used in proper places. Like the fall of Jetstone? And even that would've worked better if they had the faith to go with just one big image.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2018 14:24
|
|
|
one big comic with Parson and Jed and lots of little strings. or gently caress man, this is a pivotal story moment that’s been built up to for more than two years, do it as two full pages, posted at once. skip a week if you have to. once you’re done it exists forever. don’t do it like this. even a loving Parson-centered text update would be better than this. this is some of the weakest poo poo imaginable. I reread it to see if my opinion would change, and it did, I hate it more now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2018 15:12
|
|
|
Chill, dude. If it infuriates you so much, perhaps you should just drop the comic?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2018 15:18
|
|
|
I should, but book 1 erfworld was so good, it kind of bugs me to know that balder is capable of that quality but not doing it
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2018 15:37
|
|
|
DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:I should, but book 1 erfworld was so good, it kind of bugs me to know that balder is capable of that quality but not doing it It makes one wonder how much of that first book as influenced by Jamie Noguchi mitigating Baldur's worst tendencies, ya know?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2018 17:43
|
|
|
I think the format change is to blame there. While it was all comic, it had to be written in a form that made sense as a comic. There's a limit on how much speech you can fit into one page without it becoming a Wolverine comic. Once the format changed into half writing half comic I think all the parts that don't make sense in a comic (too many characters, sprawling subplots etc) started. It'd almost be smarter to drop the comic bits altogether and just write a book... but then, all the pun stuff would be horrible and who in their right mind would read it? I wish Erfworld would return to a comic form. That's when it was at its best and still can be.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2018 22:07
|
|
|
Sorry, the non-comic bits are still the best part.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2018 23:38
|
|
|
Only because he started to rely on those to actually explain the plot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2018 00:18
|
|
|
Several of the text only side stories have been pretty good themselves, the commonality is it's all things with a clear beginning-middle-end. Once he's at the point where things just extend on forever is where we get.... this. Which is why I think it's wrong to say that Balder is capable of that quality, at least in this context.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2018 01:05
|
|
|
Book 1 was exactly 150 pages. There was some kind of plan/outline in place. Since then, it feels like it's either bloating tremendously, or just completely off whatever rails there might have originally been, Homestuck style.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2018 01:13
|
|
|
He's just getting way too caught up in explaining the perspective of every single "important" character while completely ignoring everyone else. It was fun when we could see what was going on in Parson's head, see all the plans and what-ifs he went through whenever something happened. It was fun to have that window into Charlie's thoughts. Occasionally it was good for certain suspenseful moments, like when Jack and Wanda were stuck in Spacerock's airspace by the End Turn spell. As time passes, though, he's been using that more and more, sometimes to the point of overusing it and dragging the main story to a crawl. Right before the casting of the scroll, we got an entire page dedicated to explaining why Jack showed up at the portal room just in time to see the Makaleka's message, and then another page dedicated to just explaining why Jed hacked the Makaleka instead of just telling Maggie directly. And then the entire scroll-casting and caster betrayal is all crammed into a single comic panel, with the croaking of Roger being squeezed into half a panel. There have been a number of times where the written panels were a huge boost to the story, but lately hasn't been one of those times. In fact, it's become a constraint of its own - he's been adding a lot of odd communication styles that are difficult to express visually (such as Jack's silent-speak, Jeb's imageless communication to Maggie, Charlie's imageless dialogue with Charlie, and the Maggie Golem's writing in the air), and instead of coming up with ways to express them visually, he just uses a text page every time he needs to express them. It's even starting to bleed into the comic pages - just look at page 292, which is essentially a text page except that he didn't feel like writing anything to go with the dialogue.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2018 04:59
|
|
|
I have no idea what happened on the new page. Help?
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 03:58
|
|
|
Hob_Gadling posted:I have no idea what happened on the new page. Help? The pet of that one predictamancer dropped a rock on the dirtamancer who had dug down next to the collar of Spacerock's portal column, and he broke the collar in surprise. Breaking the collar projects a bunch of portal shards around the column, which is what Wanda's group is seeing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 04:08
|
|
|
Nope, still lost.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 05:02
|
|
|
aegof posted:The pet of that one predictamancer dropped a rock on the dirtamancer who had dug down next to the collar of Spacerock's portal column, and he broke the collar in surprise. Breaking the collar projects a bunch of portal shards around the column, which is what Wanda's group is seeing. Oh! I think I get it. The predictomancer bamboozled the dirtomancers. By using the pet he caused all the portals to appear in front of them, which allows wanda's group to escape. The question is where too? I am assuming throwing the rock at the portal was the dangerous part. Alternatively, simply going through the portal was the dangerous bit. Prediction: They go through the portal which dusts claude and ivan. Portal leads Wanda to Faq, who then converts over to their side. End of the issue. What massive plot threads did I leave dangling though?
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 05:25
|
|
|
portal is to ICFYS (color) and Wanda is fated to serve Jillian Sue so that’s what we’re looking at
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 05:45
|
|
|
I actually enjoy this kinda bullshit so: This guy has been telling Buck he's going to stop Wanda, which Jojo and Charlie pounced on. Charlie's given the dirtamancers scrolls to get through bedrock, and they started digging. Here they've found the collar of the column they're next to, and we learn a bit about the collar and breaking it on this page. The "dangerous part" Ivan mentions is probably breaking the collar, to get the projected portals. You can see how they cut through the nearby tracks and wires, and I imagine they do something similar to any people in the way. I said Spacerock, but the color says I'm Coming For You, Stanley/previously Gobwin Knob. I'm pretty sure casters somehow know their side's portal by sight, so barring a sudden change in circumstance, (say a bunch of dirtamancers carrying guns showing up,) Wanda's group probably won't go through them. (Marie already showed us that casters can go through other side's portals, even when decrypted*, so dropping through one of these projected portals is, itself, pretty safe for Claude and Ivan.) *(this has actually happened a few times before, since Jack and Wanda did it in the fight for Spacerock and Parson dragged Maggie and Jack through to Transylvito. Marie was just the first one I remembered.) aegof fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jan 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 05:56
|
|
|
That would have been a lot easier to parse if it didn't happen over 17 different points of view and didn't culminate in something happening off-screen (collar breaking).
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 06:45
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:He's just getting way too caught up in explaining the perspective of every single "important" character while completely ignoring everyone else. It was fun when we could see what was going on in Parson's head, see all the plans and what-ifs he went through whenever something happened. It was fun to have that window into Charlie's thoughts. Occasionally it was good for certain suspenseful moments, like when Jack and Wanda were stuck in Spacerock's airspace by the End Turn spell. Balder has a lot of story to tell and some of it is pretty darn good, but there is a lot of truth to this. Jumping into a characters head, and especially a number of characters really doesn't make as good a story as many authors seem to think. Once we've been in characters' heads they lose a hell of a lot of mystery since we've just read their mind and it pushes the reader further away from feeling like a participant in the conflict into a observer watching a bunch of stuff happen. Instances where we are following a side character from the outside are almost as bad but at least there is some barrier left there. These things work if they are woven in well, are SPARING, and in pursuit of telling the story proper. For instance, Chapter 1 would tend to splash in a page of side characters but then go back to Parson for several pages and it was mostly all in furtherance of an ultimate goal, the conquest or defense of Gobwin Knob. There were rough patches but it was relatively good, tight, and compelling story telling. At this point, who are are going to check in with next feels like a drat See n' Say. There is always a valid question in asking why the author is telling or showing the audience any particular thing and I feel like I am increasingly scratching my head. Fictional stories don't need to be highly detailed historical accounts, because frankly, if I'm reading an actual historical account at least whatever is being described actually loving happened.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 08:56
|
|
|
Charlie is an underhanded cock.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2018 14:59
|
|
|
I stopped feeling bad for Bill a long, long time ago.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 08:09
|
|
|
Honestly, Bill comes across as mentally ill, and the only treatment he’s received is being told to live in the basement with the objects of his obsession.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 16:37
|
|
|
Well, yes, but he also, you know, sexually abused two women.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 20:47
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:Well, yes, but he also, you know, sexually abused two women. I'm not saying he didn't; I'm just saying he's a product of his environment. (Note that Bill is himself a victim of sexual abuse; he was already an abuser before that happened but it says something about Transylvito under Prince Ponzie.) Sadly, Erfworld does not have a mechanism for sending crazy weirdo casters off to the Hippiemancers to get very high and do some therapy, which, honestly, would have helped a lot of the casters we've seen so far.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 22:03
|
|
|
Sizemore kind of already does that unofficially, and you can't tell me the Hippies wouldn't be up for making Erfworld's casters more stable. Hell, they could even make house calls for rulers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 23:16
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:Sizemore kind of already does that unofficially, and you can't tell me the Hippies wouldn't be up for making Erfworld's casters more stable. Oh, the Hippies would absolutely do it; it's the Rulers who'd pose an objection. "Why am I paying upkeep for this Dollamancer if you're telling me he should leave the Dollamancy alone for a while, and why am I paying for him to go off and chase spiritual wellness when he's supposed to be making me dolls at 100% of all times?"
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 23:18
|
|
|
Spend all his juice in the morning, wander off to the Glade when he's done?
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 23:25
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:Spend all his juice in the morning, wander off to the Glade when he's done? I'm not sure if Erfworld time actually lets you do that. Plus, what if you need him for something late in the day?
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 23:32
|
|
|
Doesn't have to be daily. Maybe once a tenturn or twentyturn.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2018 01:00
|
|
|
Seemed like Sizemore got there pretty regularly, and, hobby or not, I doubt Stanley gave him many breaks from dealing with GK's crap.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2018 16:04
|
|
|
Bill is not interesting to me at all, because there's only two things he's ever done "on camera": interrogating Maggie with the hide golem, and betraying Transylvito for the sake of every malicious schemer who asks. For all the POV stuff we've gotten from him, the only personality he's ever shown is "a creep, with strong opinions about Dollamancy, and is perpetually terrified enough that he will go along with basically anyone who tolerates him enough to ask him to do things". I don't care about Bill and I'm not really interested in whatever crap he pulls with Charlie, except to see Caesar react to it and probably be uberscrewed. Come to think of it, the Roger betrayal wasn't that interesting either. Not only has the reader known that he was up to no good since possibly his first speaking appearance, but that's still pretty much all we ever knew about him, since he was never brought up except to mention how he was messing up everyone else's plans or scheming against Parson.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2018 13:36
|
|
|
Roger and Jojo have been inevitable obstacles crashing into Parsons plans, but slow as molasses cause the story plods on. I don't know how long we as readers have seen them coming, a couple of years? There was little tension left by the time their plan collided with Parson. Jojo also doesn't seem to accomplish a whole lot that actually matters in the end. At least not enough in my opinion to warrant so much attention.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2018 14:01
|
|
|
Okay the tower thing definitely seems to be happening at random now.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2018 07:08
|
|
|
Caidin posted:Okay the tower thing definitely seems to be happening at random now. Time in hexes is asynchronous so who knows? What it really means is things happen at the speed of plot.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2018 11:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 11:13 |
|
|
Caidin posted:Okay the tower thing definitely seems to be happening at random now. I'm not sure if it's the tower happening or the heir popping.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2018 11:22
|
|