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Manuel Calavera posted:Had, he had them. And he was valid then. Yes.
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Mar 7, 2019 22:03
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Manuel Calavera posted:Had, he had them. And he was valid then. Yes. It was an early gag where they found one in the dungeon and Elan discreetly grabbed it after the others left. Then Roy used it during the hotel arc when he was escaping the assassins trying to kill the king of Nowhere. Ended up being used as a bit of character growth for Roy as he realized how lovely he had been being to women.
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Mar 7, 2019 22:19
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Raenir Salazar posted:Oots sorta swerved around a bit there but sometimes the "Evil characters can have loved one too" has been an interested subtheme of the comic. Completely off-topic: I've been playing a lot of Destiny lately, and my absolute favourite parts of the lore are the diaries of the immortal omnicidal Hive Gods talking lovingly about their close family: quote:Look at you! quote:Xivu upon Oryx —
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Mar 7, 2019 22:24
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Proud Dad posted:I made you by cutting one larvae in half. It would not die. Each half grew into one of you. My sword is named Willbreaker, but it never broke you.  dawwww
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Mar 7, 2019 23:01
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Raenir Salazar posted:And don't forget how Loki is actually something of a decent son in his own way and means looking out for his dad. My 10yo daughter is obsessed with oots and we've had some interesting discussions about what evil and good really mean come out of it.
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Mar 7, 2019 23:01
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NihilCredo posted:Completely off-topic: I've been playing a lot of Destiny lately, and my absolute favourite parts of the lore are the diaries of the immortal omnicidal Hive Gods talking lovingly about their close family: I legit love that kind of overcooked nonsense, it's very satisfying to read.
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Mar 8, 2019 00:09
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So what should that thing be? Ps: 2011 Eifert Posting posted:Well after Belkar's most recent speech I think it's pretty much a sure thing that he dies in 5-10 strips. Eifert Posting fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Mar 8, 2019 |
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Mar 8, 2019 02:09
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sebmojo posted:My 10yo daughter is obsessed with oots and we've had some interesting discussions about what evil and good really mean come out of it. That's really sweet. Burlew should be proud.
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Mar 8, 2019 03:28
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Eifert Posting posted:Ps: 2011
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Mar 8, 2019 08:37
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ikanreed posted:We've already met that character. He had a terrible ending. Awhile back, but I can't figure out who you're talking about.
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Mar 8, 2019 09:13
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Cuntellectual posted:Awhile back, but I can't figure out who you're talking about. Tarquin. He had a terrible ending, in that it wasn't much of one.
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Mar 8, 2019 09:28
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SlothfulCobra posted:Erfworld was really good back in the day, just when it ran out of easy jokes on game mechanics, the story that was left really fell flat, whereas Order of the Stick matured very well into a story with drama you care about and characters that really fit well together. What happened with Erfworld?
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Mar 8, 2019 09:53
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ikanreed posted:I know it's not relevant to your point, but it's not a "purple worm" which we've already seen the desert arc I think it's a Nightcrawler: which is basically just an evil undead Purple Worm.
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Mar 8, 2019 09:57
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Cuntellectual posted:What happened with Erfworld? Also, art troubles, long delays, an increasingly ballooning cast, a lack of any coherent theme, and an unfailing dedication to spending entire updates seeing the same events through the eyes of different characters as they explain every thought they have. Also also, Charlie is literally the Wizard of Oz. And I don't mean that he has the same character arc. Also also also Rob keeps trying to use get rich quick schemes to fund the site, including his weird proprietary Patreon knockoff, and more recently, getting his readers to mine crypto for him in exchange for pictures of gem stones. (It actually even worked for a while. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.) He does this instead of using one of the several possible avenues at his disposal for streamlining costs and/or production. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Mar 8, 2019 |
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Mar 8, 2019 10:13
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Also currently Erfworld is in the Infinite Prologue Crisis, in that Rob decided the next book would be about Erfworld's geopolitics and thought the best way to do that was to introduce every single other side and faction by spending a few pages presenting them before the action actually starts; and he has also decided to mix it up with what I guess are backers stories, so right now it's about some barbarian warlord captured by a side looking for Atlantis or something.
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Mar 8, 2019 11:52
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Pope Guilty posted:That's really sweet. Burlew should be proud. I think OOTS is genuine pop literature so I'm p happy about it.
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Mar 8, 2019 12:06
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sebmojo posted:I legit love that kind of overcooked nonsense, it's very satisfying to read. General Battuta did that, he also wrote/is writing the Baru Cormorant series.
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Mar 8, 2019 14:58
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sebmojo posted:My 10yo daughter is obsessed with oots and we've had some interesting discussions about what evil and good really mean come out of it. How old was she when (she started on it / you decided she was ready for it)? Is there anything that particularly bothered her?
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Mar 8, 2019 16:11
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PMush Perfect posted:You know how every time Parson cleverly loopholed the rules, it required explaining rules on a slightly larger scale and with slightly more minutiae every time to keep it impressive? Yeah, that never stopped, and now it's a nuclear arms race between every major faction on who can exploit the basic laws of the universe harder. Charlie found a way to get underneath bedrock like it's loving Minecraft and used that to invent geothermal Juice so now his entire side has infinite magic, and this is a relatively minor plot point. I stopped reading Erfworld years ago, but it's one of the best examples of a work deciding to be lovely fanwank instead of putting itself first. In the finale of the first arc, the hero prince is the antagonist of the our neckbearded main character. The prince is a great warrior, handsome, well-regarded, etc. Neckbeard is a complete failure in our world, but he's been transported to this world, where his only skill, being good at RPGs and the like, is useful. As the finale looms, the prince is getting the best of neckbeard, and the fans on the forums are freaking out. They really identify with neckbeard, and keep putting out all these posts like how he should be winning (based on *logic*) and threatening to quit reading the comic if things don't get more "realistic." The loving AUTHOR actually posts on the board to tell them not to worry, he's going to give them what they want. And of course, neckbeard does win, and next arc the hero prince is now a zombie slave. The comic could've made an amazing point about how living your life only for games is a waste of time, and an even stronger point about wish fulfillment. It would've made for a legitimately great comic. But instead he catered to the wish fulfillment of his fans, and now he'll never be a real artist, just a schmuck with a half-successful webcomic.
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Mar 8, 2019 16:38
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Nah, I liked the ending of book 1. Parson WAS bested. Straight up the only way he was able to win was with a crazy gambit that was also probably a weapon of mass destruction, and definitely a war crime. I think the misstep came with the ending rewarding this action by giving Wanda her own world-breaking superpower. So, not only does Parson not have to deal with the consequences of that action in later books, his side continues their upward climb towards being an unstoppable superpower.
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Mar 8, 2019 16:56
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Are we bitching about Erfworld here? Someone complained at me for being negative in the actual Erfworld thread, but drat if that comic isn't the most frustrating thing. I really, really loved the first book or two, but that was because it was going to be a story about how a human can see through the logic of the wargame world to win battles. And then, after laying down this whole logical framework and showing how the wargame works, the next dozen plot points are decided by unpredictable asspulls that just ignore all the rules. And then everything that happens needs to be shown from a dozen different viewpoints while you're reading twenty pages about how the magic is killing the plot.
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Mar 8, 2019 17:05
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ride the worm
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Mar 8, 2019 17:08
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I gave up on Erfworld pretty early, when they started doing important plot bits in huge walls of text, and it sounds like I made the right decision.
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Mar 8, 2019 17:09
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Seldom Posts posted:I stopped reading Erfworld years ago, but it's one of the best examples of a work deciding to be lovely fanwank instead of putting itself first. I don't really agree with the assessment that this is what happened (the author changing his plans to cater to his audience), or that every work has to be some sort of deconstruction to be meaningful. Also some people do make successful livings playing games 24/7 and have functioning relationships so I'm not even sure if its even agreeable on that level either. Erfworld was early enough for me that I'm not going to retroactively blame it for like, the isekai anime genre being poo poo for the most part, but writing is more complicated then the idea that he absolutely should have had to write his comic a certain way. It sounds more like he stumbled the execution of his story not that the writing had some inherent flaw due to at least somewhat running with the wishfulfillment aspect and playing that part straight (Though I remember at the end of Part 1 when Parson could finally swear he had a realization that the people here were also people and that he was disgusted with how the RPG mechanics screwed with the people living there, so there was some amount of subversion to that). I'm also think "he'll never be a real artist" is unnecessary gate keeping, all artists are valid, I just wouldn't pay money to most of them.
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Mar 8, 2019 17:17
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Raenir Salazar posted:I don't really agree with the assessment that this is what happened (the author changing his plans to cater to his audience), or that every work has to be some sort of deconstruction to be meaningful. Also some people do make successful livings playing games 24/7 and have functioning relationships so I'm not even sure if its even agreeable on that level either. Who said anything about deconstruction?
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Mar 8, 2019 17:32
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Schwarzwald posted:Who said anything about deconstruction? They described a common understanding as to what constitutes deconstructive fiction? Writing a work of wish fulfillment only to take it apart and undermine it and challenge the readers escapism is a common part of that. Edit: It's why I said "some sort of".
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Mar 8, 2019 17:40
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What pushed me away was the increasing drama, which happens to a lot of webcomics as they accumulate lore and backstory. Drama is a gravitational field that develops with size. Erfworld's drama always seemed weird and out of place, because it tended to forget how the setting and terminology were inherently silly. It's weird for these otherwise sexless meeples who pop out of the ether to have complicated sadomasochistic trysts. At first it was easier to just skim over the weird asides because they were in a different format, but when the comic stopped...being a comic, there was nothing left to really differentiate them, and the main narrative had already lost a lot of its comedic aspects and I didn't really care much for the characters and their conflict. Order of the Stick finds a better balance. In a way, getting too wrapped up in the drama of your own narrative is its own kind of immaturity. The characters all dip in and out between comedy and drama, and where once joking around was a sign of their lack of professionalism, it becomes part of their strength, their mastery over their own situation, and their comradery with eachother. Roy's mastery over his anger goes the other way, it was what gave him strength, but it also made him reckless, and as time has gone on, he learned to control his anger and call upon it at will without being carried away by it.
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Mar 8, 2019 18:34
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ultrafilter posted:I gave up on Erfworld pretty early, when they started doing important plot bits in huge walls of text, and it sounds like I made the right decision. I gave up after interacting with the author once.
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Mar 8, 2019 19:54
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Seldom Posts posted:The comic could've made an amazing point about how living your life only for games is a waste of time, and an even stronger point about wish fulfillment. It would've made for a legitimately great comic. But instead he catered to the wish fulfillment of his fans, and now he'll never be a real artist, just a schmuck with a half-successful webcomic. And then he's disgusted at the consequences of his win, because after winning the game he stops seeing it as a game. If there's anything that looks like a point about wish fulfillment in the comic, it's that : there's no fulfillment in wish fulfillment. He got what he wanted and that makes him horrified that he wanted it. ikanreed posted:I gave up after interacting with the author once. Heh. Yeah, Rob Balder's personality is probably the worst part of Erfworld.
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Mar 8, 2019 20:47
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Cat Mattress posted:That was always the plan, though. The whole thing mirrored Parson's own game plan, which was to make an unfair and unwinnable scenario where the players could only win if they pulled some bullshit gambit he could never predict. So that what happened to him and he had to pull some bullshit gambit nobody in the game world could predict. I read through to the end of the next book, and I didn't see any consequences of the wish fulfillment. He actually finds out he's even more special from a cabal of wizards who all resemble famous cool people from our world. It may have been the author's plan from the beginning, I will grant that, but the whole thing is about making neckbeards feel special, so it's never really going to be good. And it could've been, that what bugs me, I guess.
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Mar 8, 2019 22:17
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Yeah, I was just talking about the end of the first book, where he is disgusted at himself, throw away one of the cool cosplay gizmos he got (the sword), and curses the world. Then Balder needed to keep the story running and things started going to poo poo, story-wise.
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Mar 8, 2019 22:37
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PMush Perfect posted:Nah, I liked the ending of book 1. Parson WAS bested. Straight up the only way he was able to win was with a crazy gambit that was also probably a weapon of mass destruction, and definitely a war crime. I think the misstep came with the ending rewarding this action by giving Wanda her own world-breaking superpower. So, not only does Parson not have to deal with the consequences of that action in later books, his side continues their upward climb towards being an unstoppable superpower. To be fair, at that point it was pretty unambiguously not a reward for Parson. It was mostly just really disturbing that he enabled a sadistic zombie queen's rise to power and potentially created an apocalyptic scenario where the entire world becomes her slaves. But then he more or less treats it as "woo, look at all the cool things I can do with all these people I've had murdered and brainwashed!" I mostly just think of the story after that as fanfic of decreasing quality, lol. PMush Perfect posted:Also also also Rob keeps trying to use get rich quick schemes to fund the site, including his weird proprietary Patreon knockoff, and more recently, getting his readers to mine crypto for him in exchange for pictures of gem stones. (It actually even worked for a while. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.) He does this instead of using one of the several possible avenues at his disposal for streamlining costs and/or production. Somehow this is this worst. He's hiring someone to teach his whole team how to do 3D modeling of cities for establishing shots, but printing a book and then selling it? That's just so hard. And he gets really personal whenever anyone says it's a bad idea, too.
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Mar 9, 2019 04:17
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sebmojo posted:My 10yo daughter is obsessed with oots and we've had some interesting discussions about what evil and good really mean come out of it. So, your daughter was born around the time Roy got resurrected...
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Mar 9, 2019 15:03
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I used to really like Partially Clips and it's sad that this is where Rob Balder's come to.
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Mar 9, 2019 15:18
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As far as I'm concerned Erfworld never stopped being good, and the only thing it lacks is a business model that doesn't make my face wrinkle up with concern, and an extended monologue from Cubbins about how hats are the foundation of all reality and how much he wants to smooch Ace Hardware.
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Mar 10, 2019 21:51
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The first book I think is solid and ends well, it has a payoff to it; the switch from webcomic to a proto-Light Novel format made me lose interest to keep up with it as I already have many things to read.
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Mar 10, 2019 22:48
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The sad part about ErfWorld for me is that there are still sparks of something great every so often, especially with some of the original Gobwin Knob crew. Stanley's been going through a whole arc of learning to respect and trust his underlings (as well as angst about rapidly becoming no-longer-the-most-important-person-in-the-room), and meanwhile Charlie is starting to get hit by the fallout of building his entire side around a cult of personality. If somebody went at Erfworld's plot with a chainsaw, there's probably still a good story under all the cancerous fanwank growths.
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Mar 10, 2019 23:37
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The thing about webcomics is that you don't have an editor. Many of the greatest science fiction or fantasy writers had access to dedicated editors who could tell them no or to rewrite unworkable aspects of the writing. Precious few webcomic authors have the skill to write and be able to restrain themselves and I think of that as an, mitigating context. I personally think sloppy writing can be in the Web novel/webcomic context is forgivable since they don't have those tools; so we can better appreciate the rare few like Rich that end up writing amazing narratives despite lacking an editor that happens to hold up well years later. It's a part of the charm that the writing is a bit of a stream of consciousness and ad hoc; its a labour of love writing them and a labour of love to trudge through the muck to find the not-bad ones to the pretty drat good ones.
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Mar 11, 2019 00:05
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I didn't mind the shift to becoming more of an illustrated novel -- the world is charming and interesting enough that I usually prefer the text updates to the comics just because there's so much more room to share stuff. But over time, they turned into a chore to read through because less and less would happen during each one, and half the time they'd just be a boring treatise on how powerful magic was. PMush Perfect posted:The sad part about ErfWorld for me is that there are still sparks of something great every so often... If somebody went at Erfworld's plot with a chainsaw, there's probably still a good story under all the cancerous fanwank growths. This sums it up perfectly. Despite everything, I still want to know more about the world and why it was made and how the cast is going to deal with Charlie and Wanda. We've just spent so long with the plot deep in the weeds that its hard to care anymore. I would love an abridged Erfworld where they just cut out almost all the viewpoints of people who weren't in the first book. He needs to figure out how to tell his story from the perspective of the people we care about without involving the innermost thoughts of all the people we don't. And it looks like he's planning on doing exactly the opposite of this. 
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Mar 11, 2019 00:20
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I was a big fan of Erfworld for the longest time and it's only the most recent chapters that caused me to give it up. The new text dump pages that are introducing new sides and characters are just bloating the story even more and it's hard to care anymore. I feel for Balder due to his wife's health issues and the hell they've gone through in recent years, which makes it all the harder to give up on the series, but I've lost interest. If the story returns to the cast of the series instead of random goobers on islands in the middle of the nowhere, then I may pick it up again.
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Mar 11, 2019 01:25
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