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This story sucks. Like... Really, really bad. I'd want to go into detail about it, but... I just feel so disgusted at thinking that I used to be like this. Albiet at age 6.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 11:58 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 16:31 |
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Angry Salami posted:Why do the Sixers even have a Mechagodzilla anyway? Isn't their whole thing meant to be 'souless corporate machine'? They should be using some untextured blob they programmed themselves that doesn't look like anything but gets the job done because they don't care about '80s poo poo, just money. And all the other sixers should be goonswarming the heroes because they don't give a gently caress about simulating a cool robot battle and are just cheesing the hell out of the respawn mechanic to win. Yeah, like the supply robots they use being some movie reference. Why the gently caress do they bother? They're working for a paycheck; they don't give a gently caress about any of this pop culture bullshit. That line is really weird because Wade is bitching about them just copying stuff from the 80s. Motherfucker had a living room modeled after the one from Family Ties, which isn't even relevant to the plot. All of the egg hunt stuff comes from sci-fi movies, tabletop rpgs, and video games, so he didn't have to bother with any sitcoms to begin with.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 12:06 |
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Angry Salami posted:Why do the Sixers even have a Mechagodzilla anyway? Isn't their whole thing meant to be 'souless corporate machine'? They should be using some untextured blob they programmed themselves that doesn't look like anything but gets the job done because they don't care about '80s poo poo, just money. If they did that, Cline would have to explain how anything gets programmed into the Oasis in the first place, who approves content, who runs the drat thing, how the game mechanics actually work, and a hundred other questions he completely ignores. "It's a magic quest drop that has arbitrary power levels because magic quest drop" is the best we're gonna get here.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 12:09 |
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I just don't get this weird thing that happens with some authors where the pattern of the story is: 1) Oh no, something exciting is about to happen! 2) Wait it's okay I fixed it with no trouble Like, what do they think a story is? Why are they so scared of conflict? Why does it have all the emotional heft of two little kids shouting 'No I shot YOU first' 'No I have a bulletproof shield!' 'Well I have a raygun that goes through the shield!' I'm just grumpy becaused Altered Carbon killed off my favourite character.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 12:52 |
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Hyrax Attack! posted:-Shouldn’t IOI have had a backup wizard with an 2nd orb? Or if it’s unique, a dozen decoy wizards with the real one entombed underground with an air tank, earning triple time? Tbf the shield is a transparent sphere, meaning you can easily tell exactly where the center is HopperUK posted:I just don't get this weird thing that happens with some authors where the pattern of the story is: Chitoryu12 was probably right when he said the part where Wade became a slave was the best part of the book, because that event was the only thing that ever happens in the entire book that manages to have enough effect to create some sort of tension and even that was just part of the protagonist's cunning 12-D chess plan I saw a Reddit post requesting an AMA from Ernest Cline, and the sample questions in the OP were all variations on the theme of "how mad are you that they changed the storyline " meanwhile I still haven't seen the movie, so I saw that and I was like "they changed the storyline? Thank God."
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 12:57 |
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Grenrow posted:Yeah, like the supply robots they use being some movie reference. Why the gently caress do they bother? They're working for a paycheck; they don't give a gently caress about any of this pop culture bullshit. That line is really weird because Wade is bitching about them just copying stuff from the 80s. Motherfucker had a living room modeled after the one from Family Ties, which isn't even relevant to the plot. All of the egg hunt stuff comes from sci-fi movies, tabletop rpgs, and video games, so he didn't have to bother with any sitcoms to begin with. A short list of more interesting things that could be referenced if Cline actually gave a poo poo about the 80's, -famous- movies and TV only, as filtered through the favorites of my nerdy friends. He may even have hit a couple of the real popular ones by accident: Die Hard Aliens The Terminator Princess Bride Night Court Full Metal Jacket Scarface The A-Team Poltergeist Top Gun Dukes of Hazzard Crocodile Dundee Spaceballs Quantum Leap Blade Runner The Blues Brothers GI Joe The Three Amigos ThunderCats Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure Uncle Buck RoboCop MacGyver Rambo Star Trek TNG Transformers Weird Science Alf Labyrinth Conan the Barbarian Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mad Max:Beyond Thunderdome
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 14:02 |
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StonecutterJoe posted:If they did that, Cline would have to explain how anything gets programmed into the Oasis in the first place, who approves content, who runs the drat thing, how the game mechanics actually work, and a hundred other questions he completely ignores. "It's a magic quest drop that has arbitrary power levels because magic quest drop" is the best we're gonna get here. The whole thing should be Second Life, where anything can happen, in both the best and worst extremes of the phrase, but it seems like your generic MMO, which asks the question, whose building all of this? Not the players and I'm not sure if we've even heard of license holders, so I'm assuming that it was Halliday and GSS making unlicensed reproductions in OASIS.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 14:06 |
There would be no SA or any other gunter clan because Urban Smurf would have cracked it on day 1
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 14:14 |
Angry Salami posted:Why do the Sixers even have a Mechagodzilla anyway? Isn't their whole thing meant to be 'souless corporate machine'? They should be using some untextured blob they programmed themselves that doesn't look like anything but gets the job done because they don't care about '80s poo poo, just money. And all the other sixers should be goonswarming the heroes because they don't give a gently caress about simulating a cool robot battle and are just cheesing the hell out of the respawn mechanic to win. All of the giant robots were rewards from getting the Crystal Key. The thing is, the book explicitly says that all of the robots' stats are listed when Wade is picking them and he ignores all of them because he really wants Leopardon. You'd think IOI (by virtue of being key farmers and some of the first to get there) would have picked all the best robots instead of the ones that get vaporized before they even enter the battle. Also, this implies that there must be some kind of upper limit to how many gunters can even get a robot. Unless Halliday just ran out of cool super robots and started putting in random poo poo to fill slots like Zaku 1s. Poops Mcgoots posted:iirc it wasn't even a random drop, it was the reward for a quest chain. So there's no reason why Sorento wouldn't have a pile of them from having a couple sixers farming them with a series of new accounts since the item clearly isn't account bound. I think the Beta Capsule is an artifact, which in OASIS terms is a completely unique item that can't be destroyed and can only be traded, put up for sale, or looted once it's in player hands. My problem with it is that if this is earned as a random drop for completing a quest line, they just took the only incentive to complete that quest. Sure, you can get money and XP from it, but it's a loving long quest (I think a week's worth of 16 hour days was mentioned?) and Aech has become independently wealthy just doing PvP tournaments so it can't be that great if you need the cash. there wolf posted:Too easy? I just wanted to spin off a version where the drone thing worked because that kind of three-steps-ahead manoeuvre is actually fun when used correctly. Either setup that part of Wayne's spy caper in IOI was to figure out a way around the shield, or have it be a surprise obstacle that Wayne, surprise, already thought of a way around. Better yet, have Morrow do it. Have him loudly declare that it's time to level the playing field and then drop that suckered starting the battle. The way I'd probably do it is to have the shield be put up partway through the battle for Wade to try and find a way around. Maybe before escaping IOI he installs a back door linked to a dark web site that only he has the URL and password for so he can hack in from Og's mansion and remotely control the supply drone? His incentive for doing something so drastic as to sell himself into slavery is in retaliation for Daito's murder. He takes that moment to decide that "gently caress up IOI" is what he really needs to be concerned about, so he breaks in for the express purpose of corporate espionage and revealing their crimes to the world. Continuing with the Hunt only becomes relevant again when he sends everything to the news and nothing happens for a day or two because IOI has enough power that they can use their legal influence to stave off investigations and arrests until they take control of GSS. When Wade realizes how slow the wheels of justice grind, he gets back into trying to stop them in the game.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 14:21 |
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Liquid Communism posted:Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure God drat. That phone booth would have been perfect for an
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 14:53 |
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The vast majority of Cline's 80s references are super basic, but it could charitably be argued that he focuses on these to appeal to his audience. Oddly enough, the only actually obscure things he's referenced as far as I remember are Japanese TV shows from the 70sProteus Jones posted:God drat. That phone booth would have been perfect for an you of course mean to say "one-time set piece that does nothing of value and is immediately forgotten"
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 14:56 |
Wait, why does Wade need to do that elaborate poo poo to get at the wizard? Didn't he previously have a ring which could teleport him anywhere he wants once a month, last seen being used several months ago?
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:10 |
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"Nuh-uh my forcefield stops your teleport ring!"
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:12 |
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Tunicate posted:Russian aluminum magnate ends the final battle by backhoeing the main trunk line What is this, Eve? We can't have real life shout outs in this book! Plus, that happened in the 2000s.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:15 |
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loquacius posted:The vast majority of Cline's 80s references are super basic, but it could charitably be argued that he focuses on these to appeal to his audience. Oddly enough, the only actually obscure things he's referenced as far as I remember are Japanese TV shows from the 70s Hell, Dragon Ball was entirely in the 80's, and DBZ started in 89.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:26 |
I think the forum is protesting against me uploading the next update. Either that or it's too much text for one post.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:29 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Also, this implies that there must be some kind of upper limit to how many gunters can even get a robot. Unless Halliday just ran out of cool super robots and started putting in random poo poo to fill slots like Zaku 1s. If it was just based of Haliday's apparently very narrow nostalgia yeah, but if it was just like nahh any mecha in history there would be plenty way stronger than anything listed there. I doubt there are even as many gunters as there are cool robots to pick from and that's not even including grunts.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:33 |
chitoryu12 posted:I think the forum is protesting against me uploading the next update. Either that or it's too much text for one post.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:33 |
quote:When your avatar gets killed, your screen doesn’t fade to black right away. Instead, your point of view automatically shifts to a third-person perspective, treating you to a brief out-of-body replay of your avatar’s final fate. Yeah I think more than one person in this thread predicted exactly what was going to happen. Comically, Wade hangs in the air like Wile E. Coyote for a few moments before crashing to the bottom of the crater, losing 1/3 of his HP. He's still at the same level and stats as before he got disintegrated, but his inventory is completely empty except for the quarter he got from beating Pac-Man. He's even in his same default skin that he used to go to school in, which would be meaningful in a better book. quote:“Hey, Z?” I heard a voice say. “Can you hear me?” The newsfeeds report on the Cataclyst detonating, which indicates the scale of the battle: over half the population of OASIS just got vaporized. According to the Scoreboard, there's still 20 Sixer avatars with the Crystal Key alive who are probably on the way to the Third Gate right now. Wade needs to get inside as fast as he can, which is a bit of a problem because he's got nothing to help him fly and is standing in a blasted wasteland. Artifacts can't be destroyed so he finds the Beta Capsule, but it can only be used once a day and he can't activate it. quote:“My Sword of the Ba’Heer was an artifact,” Aech said. “But it won’t help you reach the gate.” Wade flies up to the door, but before he goes in he stops to tell his friends that if he wins, he's going to split the prize money equally between all three of them...in return for helping him out. So remember how angry Wade was at the Sixers dishonorably using hacked rigs to assist each other in solving puzzles and feeding lines during WarGames because they weren't really winning? Yeah, he's completely abandoned all pretenses of playing fairly and wants Aech, Art3mis, and Shoto to use their direct line to his visor to help him with everything. Art3mis sarcastically asks if he can get the promise to split the prize money in writing. quote:I thought for a moment, then accessed my POV channel’s control menu. I initiated a live broadcast, so everyone watching my channel (my ratings counter said I currently had more than two hundred million viewers) could hear what I was about to say. “Greetings,” I said. “This is Wade Watts, also known as Parzival. I want to let the whole world know that if and when I find Halliday’s Easter egg, I hereby vow to split my winnings equally with Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto. Cross my heart and hope to die. Gunter’s honor. Pinky swear. All of that crap. If I’m lying, I should be forever branded as a gutless Sixer-fellating punk.” Goddammit Wade. quote:I found myself standing in a vast, dark, empty space. I couldn’t see the walls or ceiling, but there appeared to be a floor, because I was standing on something. I waited a few seconds, unsure of what to do. Then a booming electronic voice echoed through the void. It sounded as if it were being generated by a primitive speech synthesizer, like those used in Q*Bert and Gorf. “Beat the high score or be destroyed!” the voice announced. A shaft of light appeared, shining down from somewhere high above. There, in front of me, at the base of this long pillar of light, stood an old coin-operated arcade game. I recognized its distinctive, angular cabinet immediately. Tempest. Atari. 1980. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMto2HJJSSA Oh look, playing an arcade game again. Wheeee. Wade panics when he sees that he only gets one credit, but Art3mis notices the copyright on the machine is 1980 which means this is the original version of the machine so if Wade dies with a 06, 11, or 12 as the last two digits of his score as long as his score is over 180,000 it'll activate a bug in the game that grants him 40 extra credits IS THIS INTERESTING YET GUYS I KNOW THIS IS REALLY EXCITING Wade listens to the advice and she's right: Halliday recreated the game's buggy code exactly, and he dies to earn 40 extra lives. quote:“Hey, check this out,” Art3mis said, reading from her journal.“ The creator of Tempest, Dave Theurer, originally got the idea fort he game from a nightmare he had about monsters crawling up out of a hole in the ground and chasing after him.” She laughed her little musical laugh, which I hadn’t heard in so long. “Isn’t that cool, Z?” she said. “Did you know that world-renowned writer Stephen King was once hit by a car? Just something to consider.” As Wade finishes his next game, his friends tell him that the surviving Sixers have arrived and made it through the Crystal Gate. They're all in separate instances of the Tempest room so he can't see them, but it's now a race to see who can beat an arcade game the fastest. When Wade asks how they know this, it turns out Halliday wanted the finale of the Hunt to be a spectator sport so a live video feed of every avatar playing is being broadcast. As such, the entire planet has been watching Wade play Tempest. quote:“Correct,” Art3mis said. “And they’re watching you stand there and jabber back at us right now too. So watch what you say.” Finally, he gets the high score. A notice appears telling him to prepare for Level 2, and he and the game cabinet both vanish. quote:I found myself galloping across a fog-covered hillside. I assumed I was riding a horse, because I was bobbing up and down and I heard the sound of hoofbeats. Directly ahead, a familiar-looking castle had just appeared out of the fog. This is the moment where everyone who's ever played a D&D game with really lame nerds involuntarily groans and slams their head into their desk. quote:“It’s Python’s Holy Grail!” I heard Shoto whisper excitedly. The following segment is just a whole page or two of Wade reciting the dialogue from the film exactly, so we can skip it. His friends tell him to signal if he needs help. quote:I nodded and gave a thumbs-up. But I didn’t think I was going to need much help. Over the past six years, I’d watched Holy Grail exactly 157 times. I knew every word by heart. Wade that's 10 days straight of watching the film please get a life quote:And so it went. The character I was playing changed from one scene to the next, switching to whomever had the most dialogue. Incredibly, I flubbed only six or seven lines. Each time I got stumped, all I had to do was shrug and hold out my hands, palms up —my signal that I needed some help —and Aech, Art3mis, and Shoto would all gleefully feed me the correct line. "But Parzival-san, didn't we previously criticize the Sixers for cheating in this exact manner?" "Shut up and do something racist, Shoto." As Wade finishes, the screen goes black. quote:CONGRATULATIONS! The text fades away, and Wade finds himself standing in a warehouse sized oak-paneled room, with a high vaulted ceiling and polished hardwood floor. quote:The room had no windows, and only one exit—large double doors set into one of the four bare walls. An older high-end OASIS immersion rig stood in the absolute center of the expansive room. Over a hundred glass tables surrounded the rig, arranged in a large oval around it. On each table there was a different classic home computer or videogame system, accompanied by tiered racks that appeared to hold a complete collection of its peripherals, controllers, software, and games. All of it was arranged perfectly, like a museum exhibit. Looking around the circle, from one system to the next, I saw that the computers seemed to be arranged roughly by year of origin. A PDP-1. An Altair 8800. An IMSAI 8080. An Apple I, right next to an Apple II. An Atari 2600. A Commodore PET. An Intellivision. Several different TRS-80 models. An Atari 400 and 800. A ColecoVision. A TI-99/4. A Sinclair ZX80. A Commodore 64. Various Nintendo and Sega game systems. The entire lineage of Macs and PCs, PlayStations and Xboxes. Finally, completing the circle, was an OASIS console—connected to the immersion rig in the center of the room.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:33 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Yeah I think more than one person in this thread predicted exactly what was going to happen. Fun note. The quarter as extra life was featured in Scott Pilgrim Volume 3, released in 2006. He uses it in Volume 6, released in 2010. RPO released in 2011. Bit of math there...
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 15:46 |
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So this fucker read the Almanac, recognized the quote at the end as Shakespeare... but didn't bother checking what play it was from or the context it appeared in or anything to see if that was a clue? Wade, you are the worst puzzle solver in literary history.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:06 |
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When I read this book I didn't notice how many Grail challenges revolve around watching a movie and saying the lines right alongside the main character Like, I definitely remembered how much of it revolved around being able to beat old arcade games, but jesus Cline really places a lot of value on rote memorization doesn't he
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:11 |
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loquacius posted:When I read this book I didn't notice how many Grail challenges revolve around watching a movie and saying the lines right alongside the main character That's because that is all he can do.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:17 |
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Angry Salami posted:So this fucker read the Almanac, recognized the quote at the end as Shakespeare... but didn't bother checking what play it was from or the context it appeared in or anything to see if that was a clue? But he aced the game anyway, because he's Wade and he's the most amazing person on the planet ohhh wade I love you so much
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:19 |
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Yeah Wade gets other, far more incomprehensible hints than that all the time ("say these three words backward and it's almost a line from a Schoolhouse Rock song "), this is just lazy bad inconsistent characterization and/or an excuse to give Art3mis something to do
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:26 |
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Angry Salami posted:So this fucker read the Almanac, recognized the quote at the end as Shakespeare... but didn't bother checking what play it was from or the context it appeared in or anything to see if that was a clue? Yup. He played Joust for countless hours because it just appeared on that list of 5000 things Halliday liked, but in 10 years or however long he didn't think to pay attention to the needlessly cryptic end line of his bible and give it more thought than "oh it's Shakespeare, that's not an 80s movie, MOVING ON".
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:29 |
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loquacius posted:Yeah Wade gets other, far more incomprehensible hints than that all the time ("say these three words backward and it's almost a line from a Schoolhouse Rock song "), this is just lazy bad inconsistent characterization and/or an excuse to give Art3mis something to do I guess it kind of fits if you take it as a sign of Wade being a horrible dweeb who’s laser-focused in the Eighties, while Art3mis has a better-rounded understanding of art as a whole. Wade being totally clueless about Shakespeare but being able to recite the Leopardon activation sequence by heart is entirely appropriate to his character.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:29 |
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Seriously? Cline REALLY couldn't think of any other challenge then "the first one again but easier because there is no lich opponent?" There's absolutely no challenge to this grand finale because he abuses a bug to get near infinite lives and just has someone read him the answers to the last test. How is the reader supposed to be excited about this? Also what's the point of making the final door require 3 people working together if the last challenge has nothing to do with more than one person? If this was a better book I'd say its Halliday being bitter that his 2 friends married each other and ditched him so he coded the last challenge so that only one person wins but really its just Cline forgot about the 3 people opening the door thing.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:35 |
Orthodox Rabbit posted:Seriously? Cline REALLY couldn't think of any other challenge then "the first one again but easier because there is no lich opponent?" There's absolutely no challenge to this grand finale because he abuses a bug to get near infinite lives and just has someone read him the answers to the last test. How is the reader supposed to be excited about this? They talk about this when they figure out the clue, and the suggestion they come up with is that Halliday must have wanted to see the final challenge turn into a race by forcing the top three competitors to all enter at the same time.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:38 |
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It would be so much better if one of the competitors had to exclude the other two who were their buddies, just like Halliday's two friends excluded him by hooking up.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:43 |
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chitoryu12 posted:They talk about this when they figure out the clue, and the suggestion they come up with is that Halliday must have wanted to see the final challenge turn into a race by forcing the top three competitors to all enter at the same time. Since this final challenge was being broadcast around to every person in the world, it means the entire population of earth was forced to watch 20+ people all re-enacting the Holy Grail line for line for an hour and a half. Talk about edge of your seat action.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 16:59 |
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Wait, the entire planet is watching people finish off the hunt on a live broadcast? The movie he chose for this was The Holy Grail? The scene with Galahad and the nuns must be fun watching for all the younguns.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 17:18 |
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:If it was just based of Haliday's apparently very narrow nostalgia yeah, but if it was just like nahh any mecha in history there would be plenty way stronger than anything listed there. I doubt there are even as many gunters as there are cool robots to pick from and that's not even including grunts. Oh hey, it's Buster Machine-3. To channel my inner Cline here, Gunbuster ends with the Earth nations building the BM-3, which isn't a robot but a giant bomb about a quarter the size of the moon, with the condensed mass of Jupiter at it's core, making it a barely-contained weaponized singularity. The heroes send it to the center of the galaxy and face off against the space bugs in one final battle, where they set off the BM-3, destroying 100s of cubic light years and killing the galaxy so humanity may live.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 17:19 |
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DJPON3Vinyl posted:Wait, the entire planet is watching people finish off the hunt on a live broadcast? That movie's ending was an intentional anticlimax too If Cline had any grasp of actual symbolism, the use of that particular movie as the big scary Final Challenge would be foreshadowing that there is no egg and there is no prize and Halliday's ghost is laughing at the idiots who wasted their lives on this bullshit Seriously though if I had to guess, Tempest is livestreamed but Monty Python isn't
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 17:23 |
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loquacius posted:Yeah Wade gets other, far more incomprehensible hints than that all the time ("say these three words backward and it's almost a line from a Schoolhouse Rock song "), this is just lazy bad inconsistent characterization and/or an excuse to give Art3mis something to do Because, of course, Cline is woke, and Art3mis can't just be there as a reward for Wade/Parzival to win.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 17:33 |
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How this guy managed to write the ultimate showdown between the good guys and bad guys in a world of technology and magic and umptillion 80s references and he still distilled it down to "the bad guys got blasted and then I became ultraman and beat the boss" is just unbelievable. That scene could have been an entire book. Christ almighty. And yeah at this point it's getting to be more frustrating that the book isn't even bothering to try to be self consistent, never mind the lazy writing. And reciting Monty Python??? This really is "You're The Awful Nerd In The Group: The Book"
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 17:33 |
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chitoryu12 posted:They talk about this when they figure out the clue, and the suggestion they come up with is that Halliday must have wanted to see the final challenge turn into a race by forcing the top three competitors to all enter at the same time. And then immediately separate them into different rooms where they can't see or talk to each other. Liquid Communism posted:It would be so much better if one of the competitors had to exclude the other two who were their buddies, just like Halliday's two friends excluded him by hooking up. Yeah, have Halliday actually come out and admit what a toxic prick he was. "Ha, ha, it took three of you to get this far but only one can pass through. You cannot fight, but you must choose. Who goes, who stays. Who will lose."
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 17:34 |
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Gorilla Salad posted:Yeah, have Halliday actually come out and admit what a toxic prick he was. "Ha, ha, it took three of you to get this far but only one can pass through. You cannot fight, but you must choose. Who goes, who stays. Who will lose." He didn't care about limiting his references to the 80s anyway, so I'm on board with this being an elaborate hidden Saw sequel. Three people walk through the final gate, and all they see is that stupid puppet. "I want to play a game..." The whole point was supposed to be atoning for being terrible people, so now you have to face what a poo poo human being you have to have been to get that far.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 18:10 |
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I keep thinking of Harry Potter, probably because it has a lot of the same kind of lucky rear end pulls for the protagonist except they don't feel completely unearned. I like the drat coin; it's the one actually clever call back to Cline's beloved arcade games and like with everything else if you only rewrote how he got it and how it got used in a way that built suspense instead of strangling it in the crib it'd be fine. Same with the three at the end. If the Sixers are cheating there's no reason to not cheat the same way, and AECH, Artimis, and Shoto serving as guardian angels to Wade, embodiment of all gunters, could work. There could have been something poignant in them offering their artifact gear to outfit Wade after spending most of the book too proud to share anything. But Cline does nothing to make these friendships necessary. They might as well be casual acquaintances hanging around the Donkey Kong cabinet and offering tips on how to cheat the game.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 18:19 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 16:31 |
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loquacius posted:Yeah Wade gets other, far more incomprehensible hints than that all the time ("say these three words backward and it's almost a line from a Schoolhouse Rock song "), this is just lazy bad inconsistent characterization and/or an excuse to give Art3mis something to do Faith, Hope, Charity is also a good bit more recognizable as being from First Corinthians than it is from goddamn Schoolhouse Rock.
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# ? Apr 3, 2018 18:49 |