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yeah is there actually a mythical ad provider who doesn't serve lovely ads? it seems pretty endemic to every site with ads that i've ever seen
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Dec 1, 2018 02:15
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ninjewtsu posted:yeah is there actually a mythical ad provider who doesn't serve lovely ads? it seems pretty endemic to every site with ads that i've ever seen Is that true? I don't do a ton of actual Chrome browsing on my phone, but I don't usually have invasive ads unless I'm going to some weirdo site (or dailymotion, for some reason.) I guess my ad-blocker prevents me from noticing this stuff on PC?
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Dec 1, 2018 05:01
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You know I think this prologue may kill Earworld. Or cause it to begin spiralling (insert "argument about it already spiralling" here). Even with book 4's glacial pace and sudden perspective changes, there was a lot of "what is going to happen next?!". There were a number of updates I refreshed on ton on Tuesdays and fridays! Now youve got all these things that won't be resolved in 5 or 6 months. What is replacing them is stuff we have no emotional interest in, and their addition isn't going to mean jack diddly for a year or more. it takes a half a year for prologue and then what, 4 months to catch up with main characters, then some way to tie them all in. In addition it is all multiple perspectives, so there won't be any time to create emotional attachment to any of these new characters. I really want Erfworld to succeed but I can't see it succeeding with this course of action.
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Dec 1, 2018 08:09
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My main issue will be that he's going to focus even harder on world building by taking the focus off the story he's telling. Side stories are fine for fleshing things out, but it can't start to be a main focus. Leaving some mystery is good, we're already used to seemingly Deus Ex Machinae so there's no real need to justify everything that'll happen in advance. Imagine if Star Wars had a 10 minute segment in the middle of the movie where we saw what various background characters got the spotlight cause George Lucas named them all.
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Dec 1, 2018 09:18
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Yeah, this just confirms that he's fully committed to worldbuilding at the expense of narrative, and will take that tradeoff tonits furthest extremes. I hope things work out financially in all this poo poo, but I'm not on board for these storytelling decisions. It's a real shame that such a good writer is such a bad self-editor.
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Dec 1, 2018 10:12
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Phenotype posted:Is that true? I don't do a ton of actual Chrome browsing on my phone, but I don't usually have invasive ads unless I'm going to some weirdo site (or dailymotion, for some reason.) I guess my ad-blocker prevents me from noticing this stuff on PC? i mean i recall this very website that you're posting on having issues with lovely ads several times any time i turn my adblocker off on any site i just get barraged by bullshit
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Dec 1, 2018 11:42
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My major issue with this is... this is the opposite way you should be treating this, your response should be "Okay, we've had problems, we're going to narrow the focus." Because, I think for me at least, and I know a lot of readers... It's about the characters, the world is neat but the major running theme of Book 4 was "Parson doesn't feel like the protagonist anymore, he feels unnecessary." I still like Erfworld but... I didn't read Book 0, I didn't bother with the Digdug stuff, I mostly skip over the updates focusing on non GK stuff... I'm just not reading for that. Another way to look at it is, imagine if Rich, who's his contemporary, devoted... so much time in his comic not to follow at least one member of the Order. And he does do the backer stories and all that with like O-Chul or Red Cloak and what not. But in the main comic, it's always about the Order, at least one member. If you are going to do a 5-6 month interlude exploring the world, it should be about Ansem or Sizemore or someone else apart of Gobwin Knob acting as ambassador as apart of the "Grand Strategy" of "We need more allies." Which is something Parson was pushing for at the start of Book 3. And in two books we have... Transylvito? Except it's now basically a completely different side. And it's so weird because there are things in need of answering. What happened to Vinny and Ansem? What's up with the Faq heir? What is Jetstone's reaction to all of this? Remember when we thought Jetstone was going to actually play a part in the story because Ansem was pushing for peace with them? If in a fantasy world, I was heading up Erfworld or I was Balder's editor. I would give him a directive. "Wrap up all those side plots, and bring the main cast back together. You are allowed an A plot and a B plot. Maybe if you're good a C plot. Whatever Parson is doing is the A plot. Whatever the not-with Parson Gobwin Knob guys are doing, and they should be together, they're the B plot. You want to do a Jillian interlude or a Charlie interlude? It has to be directly related to the A or B plot." Because honestly, that is the problem I have with Erfworld any update is a roulette wheel on where the gently caress it's gonna be next time. And the strength of Book 1 and 2 was having 1 maybe 2 locations where things happened, and they were focused stories. 1 is about Gobwin Knob the city, and the Coalition advancing upon it, even though the fighting takes place out of the city, it's all about the city. Book 2 was about Spacerock and the Magic Kingdom, with minor breaks back to Gobwin Knob. Book 3? Magic Kingdom, Transylvito, Charlescomm, Faq, Jetstone, Gobwin Knob, How is this story simultaneously feeling slow as molasses and yet rushed? It didn't even take a book for the Magic Kingdom to go to poo poo. Transylvito lost two rulers and is now almost completely reshaped, Faq we sparely got to see before Transylvito took it and they had to relocate to Gobwin Knob.
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Dec 1, 2018 13:45
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if he's going to expand the cast by introducing a bunch of other sides, the least he could do is use characters from jetstone or the magic kingdom or something to introduce them. have trammenis be conducting diplomacy with some sides when their towers suddenly pop up or something. at the very least, attach whatever's going on to a tertiary character that's already been developed. 6 months before we see a character we've even heard of before is a bit much
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Dec 1, 2018 14:46
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Personally, I'd prefer if he introduced them when he needed them, rather than doing everything up-front. That'd help him boil it down to what he actually needs to present. At this point, I think we might already know more about Generica than we do about, say, Haggar or Unaroyal. And there's still a couple of Royal Crown Coalition members that we know nothing at all about other than the name and the fact that they rejected Parson's diplomatic overtures. Yet he got by just fine with that, and I've never thought that we're missing out on something critical because we don't know what kind of casters Foxmud has or what the Sofa King's primary export is.
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Dec 1, 2018 19:14
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Looking through my post history, I mentioned two years ago that ErfWorld felt like a sourcebook for a campaign setting more than a comic. ...hell, that might actually be a decent bail-out for him. Get Paizo to let him make an ErfWorld campaign setting book for Pathfinder, and then buy a life raft so he doesn't drown in all the money that will pour in.
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Dec 1, 2018 20:42
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PMush Perfect posted:Looking through my post history, I mentioned two years ago that ErfWorld felt like a sourcebook for a campaign setting more than a comic. Can you imagine how convoluted the rules would have to be? The book would be 1000s of pages long. It might end up being as complicated as the rules for grappling.
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Dec 1, 2018 23:09
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It's Pathfinder players. Give them a two-thousand page book full of rules with the explicit instruction to find holes in it, and they will cum rocket themselves into outer space.
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Dec 2, 2018 02:53
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The DM guide's portion on magic will be a single sentence that reads "Just let them do whatever as long as they talk about strings or some random gibberish"
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Dec 2, 2018 18:15
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Another new side, presumably this long spiel is going to lead into them getting a Temple too. Another point for the "Dateamancy being undervalued makes no sense" argument. Seems having one on retainer would be useful for sides that heavily emphasized beast taming and handling in their doctrine.
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Dec 5, 2018 14:23
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Date-a-Mancy is the Numbers equivalent of Hippiemancy's Flower Power. I guess I'm just unclear on Hippiemancy in general.
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Dec 6, 2018 03:29
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super sweet best pal posted:Another new side, presumably this long spiel is going to lead into them getting a Temple too. I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've ever heard about these essentially mercenary beasts, which don't join your side even when fed and instead essentially sell individual services in exchange for individual meals. The only thing that even comes close is the Lord Forecastle backer story. And even that clashes with this current story, because both major seafaring sides in Lord Forecastle were completely unaware of these birds (or even the tameability of sea birds in general), which this story claims are widely covered by seafaring sides.
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Dec 6, 2018 03:57
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I think Lord Forecastle may have taken place some time in the past.
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Dec 6, 2018 04:12
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The forecastle epilogue is 1600 turns later, yeah, which is a decent chunk of time in erfworld. So that's a floor on how long ago forecastle happened, it could be even longer.
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Dec 6, 2018 10:35
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reignonyourparade posted:The forecastle epilogue is 1600 turns later, yeah, which is a decent chunk of time in erfworld. So that's a floor on how long ago forecastle happened, it could be even longer. Four years and a few months. Not that long ago at all, even in a world where people are born fully grown. However, we don't know how large Erfworld is, do we? Forecastle could have been set in the equivalent of Gobwin Knob's antipodes.
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Dec 6, 2018 18:22
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what's the average lifespan in erfworld? i thought 1000 turns was around the lifespan of a non-caster/ruler who wasn't immediately thrown into the frontlines (how long did those garrison archers live?). "a lifetime and a half" isn't too bad for the progression of knowledge, i guess
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Dec 7, 2018 11:29
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ninjewtsu posted:what's the average lifespan in erfworld? i thought 1000 turns was around the lifespan of a non-caster/ruler who wasn't immediately thrown into the frontlines (how long did those garrison archers live?). "a lifetime and a half" isn't too bad for the progression of knowledge, i guess IIRC, there's no such thing as dying from old age in Erfworld, and a unit can theoretically stick around forever as long as they're still motivated and happy and useful to their side. If those conditions aren't met, though, their Signamancy will degrade (and their physical and mental abilities with it), making it much more likely that they'll be the one to get killed the next time the winds of war blow in their direction.
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Dec 7, 2018 14:24
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yeah, theoretically there's no dying of old age, but realistically that's extremely rare, even for rulers. what's the actual life expectancy of your average erfworld denizen?
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Dec 7, 2018 15:39
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ninjewtsu posted:yeah, theoretically there's no dying of old age, but realistically that's extremely rare, even for rulers. what's the actual life expectancy of your average erfworld denizen? Is that a worthwhile question when you're talking about a "species" that doesn't age? The average life expectancy basically means how long till you die in combat, which is entirely dependent on other factors. Is it useful to average up all the people who get thrown into the meatgrinder their first battle with all the people who pull guard duty for years and years?
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Dec 8, 2018 17:23
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I mean, you also have to consider that 1600 turns can potentially mean "the rise and fall of five civilizations". What does that even do to continuity of history?
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Dec 8, 2018 18:03
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It makes the cultural focus on the Titans make a lot of sense. When it's the only thing you don't know that hasn't changed in the equivalent of five years, you're gonna rely pretty heavily on that to make sense of the world.
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Dec 8, 2018 18:25
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ninjewtsu posted:yeah, theoretically there's no dying of old age, but realistically that's extremely rare, even for rulers. what's the actual life expectancy of your average erfworld denizen? I don't think Erfworld has 'average citizens'. You're either a unit attached to a side, a barbarian unit that has to scrounge for upkeep, or you're wildlife.
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Dec 9, 2018 02:03
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Yeah, I meant that what would you actually call the "life expectancy" of a unit to be, given that they technically can live forever but generally live for a very small amount of time. Or, more to the point: "5ish years" isn't very long for us and how long it takes for tech to develop, but on erfworld that's a ton of lives going from birth to death. Or, to make the point better:Rand Brittain posted:I mean, you also have to consider that 1600 turns can potentially mean "the rise and fall of five civilizations". What does that even do to continuity of history?
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Dec 10, 2018 02:32
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After a multi month hiatus, I read a new comic about some old guy and a bird and then made a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt to catch up to wtf is even going on with the plot (apparently, nothing). Had a hearty lol about bit coins and then the facepalm to end all facepalms at the fact he's now abandoning the plot entirely to meander aimlessly around with a bunch of unrelated new characters, and I've now concluded the most ideal and efficient way to experience this trainwreck is just by following the reactions in this thread.
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Dec 10, 2018 02:50
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Could someone give me the tl;dr version why art team is learning 3D modeling tools now? Because - artist retention has been terrible for this comic. We started getting text updates originally because artists couldn't keep up with schedule. What's the guarantee people will stick around this time? - 3D art is terrible, especially when done by people with little experience, compared to hand drawn stuff. - the problems with delays and stuff are not easing up with this move. They'll be worse because new tools, new work processes, new things to figure out. - and personally I really don't give a flying gently caress about a city modeled full with ad puns and parodies. Cities have always been basically palace, walls and boxes that looks vaguely like houses which gave them the same toy-like look that all the people have, and it has worked really well. I want to like the comic and I still regularly check for updates but goddamn it's made hard. This world-building stuff better have a huge payoff.
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Dec 11, 2018 21:39
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Hob_Gadling posted:This world-building stuff better have a huge payoff. I feel like there should be a term for the specific sunk cost fallacy involved in following webcomics as they go into a downward spiral.
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Dec 11, 2018 22:13
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Sluggy Freelancing?
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Dec 11, 2018 23:03
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Hob_Gadling posted:Could someone give me the tl;dr version why art team is learning 3D modeling tools now? Because He went over it in the previous State of the Erfworld post. The tl;dr is: - drawing big wide shots of cities for the backgrounds of aerial battles over Spacerocm took a lot of artist time - they tried simplifying these shots in Book 2 and didn't like it, so they went back to the more time-consuming way before the end of Book 2 - their last inker got so sick of waiting for the penciled art that they started making 3D models of the cities so that the cities would no longer need penciling and the inker could do them instead. this saved a lot of time, especially since it could be done by someone who would otherwise be sitting around waiting for sketches to ink - that inker and penciler are both gone, so Rob tried to teach himself 3D modeling, and has been doing 3D models for everything ever since, even though he constantly complains about how he's too busy to do all the other things he needs to do - now he's adding a zillion cities all at once and wants to have each one fully designed and 3D modeled by the time they make their first appearance, which will be soon because he's introducing them all one after another before he even starts on the real book - rather than admit that's a bad idea, he hired a dedicated 3D modeler to join the art team and handle that workload. also, the 3D modeler appears to be a great salesperson and/or scammer and has sold Rob on a bunch of crazy poo poo regarding the potential of 3D, so now Rob is paying his entire team to take 3D classes from the 3D modeler, who he is also paying to teach the class - what, you say this is a huge waste of money? welp, time to beg the readers to buy more poo poo
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Dec 11, 2018 23:18
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just gotta hodl and it’ll all work out
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Dec 12, 2018 04:46
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gooninawell.txt
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Dec 12, 2018 09:03
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What's the countdown to him making his own game based on Erfworld? Or an animated show?
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Dec 12, 2018 11:12
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Main Paineframe posted:- rather than admit that's a bad idea, he hired a dedicated 3D modeler to join the art team and handle that workload. also, the 3D modeler appears to be a great salesperson and/or scammer and has sold Rob on a bunch of crazy poo poo regarding the potential of 3D, so now Rob is paying his entire team to take 3D classes from the 3D modeler, who he is also paying to teach the class What the gently caress.
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Dec 12, 2018 16:18
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I wanted to see what Paineframe meant by potential of 3D andhttps://erfworld.com/blog/view/70468/state-of-the-erf-follow-up posted:Ideally, we're going to be able to create a city generating engine, so that new locales barely even need a concept beyond "Old Jetstone Signamancy, near the edge of lake" or some other vague input like that. rob...
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Dec 12, 2018 16:30
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So now he's into procedural generation, too? Why the hell not. Pile it on.
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Dec 12, 2018 16:37
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Developing a procedural 3D city generation engine for your 2D webcomic's art is definitely a...bold...idea... I mean, drawing establishing shots of cities is a pain. It sucks drawing a thousand tiny boxes with consistent scale and perspective, it's a nightmare that's Escherian in scope. But perhaps the solution might be fewer establishing shots of cities?
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Dec 12, 2018 17:11
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I think Rob's issue is that he can't even conceive of the idea of compromising his vision, so not only does he never think about what's impractical, he's also a sucker for anything that will supposedly being him closer to ErfWorld as he imagines it.
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Dec 12, 2018 17:55
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