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Anzrel posted:I actually find this criticism pretty interesting. Mostly because everyone else I've talked too about it reported the opposite. I was told by quite a few people that they found my original opening dull and that they had bounced off of it several times, and that the first chapter with Ling Qi was much more engaging. Oh wow! I didn't know you had an SA account. Thanks a lot for your work on FoD/ToD; it's probably the most enjoyable web novel I follow and is basically what I wish other "progression" WNs were like. One thing I've always been curious about is how things could have ended up if people had chosen a starting template like Scholar. Would the story just have not involved much combat and instead somehow dealt with crafting talismans or something? It's hard to imagine someone with that template ending up in the Inner Sect as a non-crafter.
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Jul 28, 2019 06:53
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Anzrel posted:I actually find this criticism pretty interesting. Mostly because everyone else I've talked too about it reported the opposite. I was told by quite a few people that they found my original opening dull and that they had bounced off of it several times, and that the first chapter with Ling Qi was much more engaging. Awesome, I also had no idea you had an account here. That said I walked into the original Forge of Destiny quest without ever having encountered xianxia or cultivation before, after I caught up I was thinking 'this is pretty neat! I wonder what else exists in the genre?' The answer seems to be a morass of machine translated drek and a few western attempts that ape the originals all too closely, you set my expectations all too high! It also inspired me to run 'quest' type forum game/stories and I am amazed how you have managed to keep yours going so consistently for so long. Just how much prep work did you put into the setting and your plans for the system before starting? Because it held together really well even if he system itself did start to have issues by the end of the last thread.
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Jul 28, 2019 10:46
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I am not the most active goon, but I have been one for awhile. I mostly lurk around in the LP subforum reading CKII LPs. More recently I've also followed threads like this since folks talk about FoD. I'm glad you've enjoyed things so far. As for the other starting choices, its a little hard to say, going that far back the setting was not nearly as developed, so I can't quite say how things would have gone. To use your example, if the scholar or the craftsman had been chosen I would have had to develop the formations and crafting systems much more clearly and that would have probably changed how I devised the rest of it around the main focus. It's possible that things would have leaned more toward the lower key plans I originally had, but given that there still would have been at least a dozen nerds crawling all over the system minmaxing it, so that was probably always a bit silly of me to assume I could do without hard limiting growth. The original system was basically NWoD with some half understood bits taken from exalted the early stages of it were fairly well planned out, but there were definitely a lot of hasty changes to accommodate the players growth and power creep. The setting itself I would say was moderately developed. I've DMed a lot, so I mostly run of that experience. Thus Argent Sect and its history were mostly fleshed out from day one, and I had a few ideas about broad history and themes, but things were definitely less developed the further you got from PC central. That said I did use an old campaign setting of mine as the baseline, so the world itself does have a fair amount of detail scattered around, it's just that until I wrote FoD the Celestial Empire was basically just a big mostly empty china expy in those notes. The consistency is just a matter of practice, though the patreon certainly helps, since its a lot easier to slot writing FoD into the 'responsibility' category and not just get lazy or lose interest. I figure if I keep at it one day I might manage to be at least as good as one of the better YA authors. Anzrel fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Jul 28, 2019 |
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Jul 28, 2019 15:14
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Anzrel posted:I actually find this criticism pretty interesting. Mostly because everyone else I've talked too about it reported the opposite. I was told by quite a few people that they found my original opening dull and that they had bounced off of it several times, and that the first chapter with Ling Qi was much more engaging. Oh, um, hi! I really enjoy your writing, it got me through an otherwise horribly boring year. Nitpicks aside, I like it enough that I'm rereading it. I've been flipping back and forth between the original and RR version, and I do think the RR version is stronger overall. I'm one week away from Zhu's first test now and I think you're doing a good job of reordering events so they flow smoother. I wish someone would turn it into a Long Live the Queen or Academagia style game. I find it really surprising that anyone found the original opening dull. I know at least a few readers liked the spirit farmer vignette enough to try to tie the character backstory to it. As good as the story we got was, I'm a little disappointed that didn't win. Writing is art though, and ultimately different people like different things. I'm certainly not any sort of authority. Rereading it, one thing that really stands out to me, is how developed all the characters were from day one. Miezhen, Jian, and Liling are all immediately recognizable. Elder Sima Jiao is already wearing his eye-searing robes in the first lecture and his personality is noticeably obnoxious right from the start, although maybe not as obnoxious as I remember him being later on. The attention to detail and characterization is really impressive. For the latter part, I think you're being too hard on yourself. I remember reading complaints in the forum towards the end of the year that the pace was sagging. (I switched over after I ran out of RR content and kept reading until I caught up with Threads of Destiny.) Objectively I guess that's true, but I think it's acceptable in a cultivation story where long power up sequences are a major component of the genre. I'd also put some of the responsibility for the lack of excitement on the voters who seemed to be resting on their laurels and avoiding experimenting. Quests (or CYOAs as they're referred to on SA) tend to get stuck with fairly static voting blocks that play things safer than is good for tight writing here too. It'll be interesting to see what cuts or additions you make to spice things up. The changes you made with Threads certainly seem to have helped, although I stopped reading to soon after they'd been implemented to really see how they played out. Was the "Possible hidden ability?" from the street rat background ever discovered? I don't remember seeing anything like that on RR, unless it was making friends with the Moon spirits? Anzrel posted:I would have had to develop the formations and crafting systems much more clearly and that would have probably changed how I devised the rest of it around the main focus. The bone birds were nicely creepy. That's a lot of words, but at the end of the day it's really cool to hear from you here and I'm greatly enjoying my reread. LLSix fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Jul 29, 2019 |
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Jul 28, 2019 21:11
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I’m pleased there is now a third vector I can yell where’s the Moon T. Rex you son of a bitch?  at YrsillarI do recall the moment of dawning horror when I realized you were using nWoD and Exalted when I looked at all the dice rolls after I started I think right after Dark Dreams Man I’m so glad you moved away from that poo poo Its Rinaldo fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jul 28, 2019 |
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Jul 28, 2019 21:50
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LLSix posted:Was the "Possible hidden ability?" from the street rat background ever discovered? I don't remember seeing anything like that on RR, unless it was making friends with the Moon spirits? I'm still kinda melancholy about Jiao because he reminds me that my least favorite of the three routes was chosen. Cai's cool, but she's the least cool of the three. One of the big problems with the antagonists is that the players' answer to the ones on our level was usually just "Okay, we've got more talent than them, let's just advance until they aren't on our level." which was both correct tactically and made for a lousy dynamic to build a story out of. Perverse incentives are a motherfucker. Bikindok fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jul 29, 2019 |
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Jul 29, 2019 01:58
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LLSix posted:For the latter part, I think you're being too hard on yourself. I remember reading complaints in the forum towards the end of the year that the pace was sagging. (I switched over after I ran out of RR content and kept reading until I caught up with Threads of Destiny.) Objectively I guess that's true, but I think it's acceptable in a cultivation story where long power up sequences are a major component of the genre. I'd also put some of the responsibility for the lack of excitement on the voters who seemed to be resting on their laurels and avoiding experimenting. Quests (or CYOAs as they're referred to on SA) tend to get stuck with fairly static voting blocks that play things safer than is good for tight writing here too. It'll be interesting to see what cuts or additions you make to spice things up. The changes you made with Threads certainly seem to have helped, although I stopped reading to soon after they'd been implemented to really see how they played out. I didn't notice the pace difference at the time, but ToD and the parts near the end of FoD have been so dense with substantive content that in retrospect it's pretty noticeable how there was a long period of just "training + hanging out with people" around the middle of FoD. I've been very impressed with how the content has actually gotten notably better as things have progressed. Now it seems like it's just back to back cool events that only happened every once in a while during most of FoD. Bikindok posted:The hidden ability is Ling Qi's free Wind Cultivation Bonus. Regarding the hidden ability, I thought that everyone had a (insert element) cultivation bonus tied to an element most closely corresponding to their "nature." Anzrel posted:The consistency is just a matter of practice, though the patreon certainly helps, since its a lot easier to slot writing FoD into the 'responsibility' category and not just get lazy or lose interest. I figure if I keep at it one day I might manage to be at least as good as one of the better YA authors. While reaching a "professional" level of prose/dialogue is one thing (and is always going to be difficult for a format like this where material is rapidly published without much editing), I would actually argue that the characters, setting, imagery, etc are all generally better than what you see in most fantasy novels. In particular, it feels like characters have a remarkable level of consistency to their behavior (with the possible exception of Ling Qi herself, due to the player choice element). With other writing I can often "feel" the author's choices impacting events, but in FoD it feels like characters act in ways that make sense given what we know about their personalities and motivations.
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Jul 29, 2019 02:20
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Thanks for the feedback everyone. In regards to Ling Qi's secret bonus it hasn't been explicitly laid out, but yes, its the interest and affinity for moon spirits, and general spirit related stuff. The problem with the latter half I think is rooted in the 'event fatigue' I was starting to notice among voters where people just wanted to get back to the regular updates. I overcorrected though and ended up with a long stretch of basically slice of life. Which is partially on the choices of the voters, but I'm the architect of those choices so it still kinda falls on me. I had a similar problem with a recent arc in threads where I structured and paced it badly and as a result things didn't go as intended.
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Jul 29, 2019 03:31
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Continuing my Royal Road adventure, I'm 28 chapters into The Eagle's Flight and it's pretty good!  It could do with an editor, and I think the very high register it's written in chokes out the emotion in some places, but otherwise it's a solid feudal intrigue story. A bit like a less cynical ASOIAF (I'm not an ASOIAF fan, for the record). I'm glad things are working out for Leander and Theodora, at least. I am sort of worried this means Iselwald and Valerie are hosed, though. It can't all be sunshine and roses, right? 
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Jul 29, 2019 22:17
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https://forum.webnovel.com/d/26934-update-to-the-ban-on-house-of-horrors/3 the ghoulish march of pooh continues
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Aug 1, 2019 17:23
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atrus50 posted:https://forum.webnovel.com/d/26934-update-to-the-ban-on-house-of-horrors/3 Dang. My House of Horrors one of my favorites too. Glad the author found a way to keep it going, and at least the translation so far won't be affected.
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Aug 1, 2019 18:07
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quote:2. Gory and bloody scenes have been written out  about nanomachines
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Aug 1, 2019 18:54
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Thanks for recommending Forge of Destiny! I binged it and ToD over the last few days and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I'd never really been able to get into xianxia stuff so I was dubious, but it was a great read. I wouldn't have made some of the same choices for Ling Qi's development and path as the voting audience did if I were in control, but it turned out nicely. Seeing other people talk about the genre had given me the impression that all xianxia protagonists were arrogant male psychopaths, so I was pleasantly surprised by Ling Qi and how developed and relatable she was. My only real regret is that there isn't more of it. Patrat posted:Awesome, I also had no idea you had an account here. That said I walked into the original Forge of Destiny quest without ever having encountered xianxia or cultivation before, after I caught up I was thinking 'this is pretty neat! I wonder what else exists in the genre?' The answer seems to be a morass of machine translated drek and a few western attempts that ape the originals all too closely, you set my expectations all too high! This, on the other hand, has me worried. Any recommendations? I was planning on checking out My Disciple Died Yet Again, and I've heard A Will Eternal or Cultivator Chat Group are worth a look?
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Aug 2, 2019 06:24
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Bakanogami posted:This, on the other hand, has me worried. Any recommendations? I was planning on checking out My Disciple Died Yet Again, and I've heard A Will Eternal or Cultivator Chat Group are worth a look? Those are all good choices, but I would read a few more Xianxia stories before My Disciple Died Yet Again, as it mostly makes fun of tropes and psychopathic Xianxia protagonists. If you're relatively new to the genre you'll miss a lot of subtext. AWE and CCG are comedies with fun characters and occasional fight scenes. For serious Xianxia stories with likeable characters, I would recommend Ze Tian Ji/Way of Choices and The Path Toward Heaven. If you just want to read about muscle wizards getting buff and fighting each other, and you don't care much about the story try Coiling Dragon or Desolate Era. They're inoffensive. For serious Xianxia stories with unlikeable characters, go to any xianxia site and sort by most popular. I wouldn't recommend forcing yourself to read more than a few chapters. If you don't enjoy something, drop it and try something else. There's no shortage of bad web serials to waste your time. Avulsion fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 06:55
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Bakanogami posted:This, on the other hand, has me worried. Any recommendations? I was planning on checking out My Disciple Died Yet Again, and I've heard A Will Eternal or Cultivator Chat Group are worth a look? Try Lady Lin’s First-ever Journey to Immortality. Modern Lady stumbles into cultivation by way of a family heirloom. So far just a chill story where she tries to improve herself and her family/friends. Maybe look into the Xuanhuan genre. Less focused on rear end in a top hat immortals trying to out rear end in a top hat each other and more general fantasy stories with a Chinese focus.
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Aug 2, 2019 07:30
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Okay, what I dont get is... cant they try release their stuff elsewhere without having to go through all these dumb requirements now?
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Aug 2, 2019 07:37
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Bakanogami posted:Thanks for recommending Forge of Destiny! I binged it and ToD over the last few days and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I'd never really been able to get into xianxia stuff so I was dubious, but it was a great read. I wouldn't have made some of the same choices for Ling Qi's development and path as the voting audience did if I were in control, but it turned out nicely. Seeing other people talk about the genre had given me the impression that all xianxia protagonists were arrogant male psychopaths, so I was pleasantly surprised by Ling Qi and how developed and relatable she was. If you're fine with a non-serial format, Will Wight's Cradle series (starts with Unsouled) is also very solid. Every book feels just the right length but leaves you wanting more. It does kind of proceed fast, jumping through training chapters and whatnot while a more typical xianxia webnovel would make sure to painstakingly cover most of the protagonist's training. My Disciple Died Yet Again is very good because it pretty much plays with and clowns on a lot of xianxia tropes. It's still a xianxia story deep down but the protagonist never really enters the cultivator mindset. Cultivator Chat Group is sort of similar but the protagonist does embrace the cultivator mindset. It's mostly the context and regular cast of colorful characters that makes it work, because Song Shuhang is basically getting power leveled by a bunch of high level players who got bored and like to dote on their loveable newbie, and the fact that it's set in the real world and the author clearly doesn't want to completely overturn the order of things. A Will Eternal, while more comedic than Er Gen's other works, is still very much more typical of the xianxia story. It's basically about a risk-averse cultivator trying to gain immortality. There's a few objectionable scenes.
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Aug 2, 2019 07:51
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cultivation chat group posted:"I ate the seeds of the Virtuous Golden Lotus in the past. Will everything be okay if I now eat a seed of the Sinful Black Lotus?" Song Shuhang asked. still good
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Aug 2, 2019 07:54
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CCG is cool and good. generic xianxia, on the other hand, takes poo poo that should be hilarious and makes it boring quote:The roaring trumpet of a megamammoth suddenly erupted inside of Yang Qi as he unleashed the ultimate level of fist strike possible for him. Afterward, he reined in his energy, which collected behind him to form the shadowy image of a megamammoth that then exploded, sending out a rushing wind that caused the leaves to rustle left and right on the low-lying mountain.
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Aug 2, 2019 08:10
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embryonic megamammoths embryonic megamammoths
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Aug 2, 2019 08:58
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Yinlock posted:embryonic megamammoths Got nothing on Godmammoths.....
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Aug 2, 2019 09:15
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Tunicate posted:generic xianxia, on the other hand, takes poo poo that should be hilarious and makes it boring I bounced off Coiling Dragon and I Shall Seal the Heavens because of this. Earnest 'early' xianxia is... kind of boring, tbh.
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Aug 2, 2019 11:22
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Synthbuttrange posted:Okay, what I dont get is... cant they try release their stuff elsewhere without having to go through all these dumb requirements now? lol, its loving china, everything is under the boot of Winnie the Pooh.
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Aug 2, 2019 12:40
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Tunicate posted:generic xianxia, on the other hand, takes poo poo that should be hilarious and makes it boring I dunno man, I laughed. We’re about five seconds away from “overcoming pachydermic jellyfish” here
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Aug 2, 2019 17:31
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Tunicate posted:CCG is cool and good. This is actually why I enjoy some of the stuff on LNMTL more than the actual human efforts at translating the same works. It just leans into the incomprehensibly silly side of things.
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Aug 2, 2019 19:46
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When is Uncrowned Tl;dr: Uncrowned coming sometime before Halloween
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Aug 2, 2019 23:20
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Tunicate posted:CCG is cool and good. My god, I picked that up after AWE and it's so boring but I had hope since Deathblade was translating. At this point it's just a case study in endless powerups, every 'bad' thing being a benefit instead and it's like a kid going through an RPG with cheats enabled. Also everything is 2-4 words smashed together and used over and over. It's so bad but I still follow it as a bizarre study in The Perfect Protagonist. Way of the Devil is actually very pleasant though. At first it was a novelty read suggestion from this thread of the guy who turned himself into a xenomorph by cheat-maxing physical stats but overall it's gotten a lot better in world building. It actually sort of reminds me of if Ainz started out as mortal on his way to being his current overpowered self since it's a rough world but he works with others to try to expand his power in the smoothest way. He's just refreshingly pragmatic which is nice because he's literally a walking nightmare in disguise at this point but is still a pillar of the community and keeps a low profile.
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Aug 3, 2019 00:46
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Did the WoD guy ever find a way to gently caress his wife, or is he still worried about his highly corrosive bodily fluids xenomorphing her.
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Aug 3, 2019 01:16
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Silynt posted:When is Uncrowned Shouldn't it be "A dragon advances"?
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Aug 3, 2019 01:30
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Tunicate posted:Did the WoD guy ever find a way to gently caress his wife, or is he still worried about his highly corrosive bodily fluids xenomorphing her. Yes. He had felt guilty about her loving him when he was trying to secure the safety and success of his family which took him away for a long time. She was treated well in his family but she was ultimately depressed from the failed marriage. The guy after a bunch of years learned about how powerful demons hooked up with mortals from his crew of various ancient monsters who tagged along with him and had a kid with her finally after trying to rekindle their marriage. It wasn't super romantic but ultimately sweet considering the genre norms.
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Aug 3, 2019 01:51
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Synthbuttrange posted:Okay, what I dont get is... cant they try release their stuff elsewhere without having to go through all these dumb requirements now? creative freedom is for losers who don't already live in paradise aka the glorious people's republic of china
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Aug 3, 2019 02:52
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i entirely forgot that way of the devil existed, likely because it went paid on qidian while i was reading it. i'll have to catch back up.
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Aug 3, 2019 08:22
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lmao, way of the devil is just so incredibly weird at times. a society based on a cultivation pyramid scheme!
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Aug 3, 2019 11:56
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Release that Witch is finished, that was quite the abrupt ending. I guess that's what happens when the thought police gets a hold of you.
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Aug 3, 2019 12:55
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SugarAddict posted:Release that Witch is finished, that was quite the abrupt ending. I guess that's what happens when the thought police gets a hold of you. The author, at least, said he was burning out and out of ideas, so he ended it. And, I think, he already either mostly wrapped it up or was done with it when the whole guidelines thing happened. I'm reading it right now after stopping 100 chapters before the ending to wait for it to get translated and boy, I forgot how terrible the translation was. I hope whoever translated this never gets hired to do this again. House of Horrors, on the other hand, was shut down for a while and is now back but need to, cough, [url=https://forum.webnovel.com/d/26934-update-to-the-ban-on-house-of-horrors]cut out all the gore and blood and give 'Scientific' explanations to certain supernatural scene so they appear less 'supernatural'. I must admit I am curious to see what scientific explanations the author can pull out of his rear end for a j-horror story about a parallel blood dimension of evil where mad ghosts hunt the living. Megazver fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Aug 3, 2019 |
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Aug 3, 2019 18:35
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you can just say yin and yang a lot, and because the thought police aren't allowed to disparage tcm it'll pass as scientific.
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Aug 3, 2019 21:48
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Megazver posted:I'm reading it right now after stopping 100 chapters before the ending to wait for it to get translated and boy, I forgot how terrible the translation was. I hope whoever translated this never gets hired to do this again.
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Aug 4, 2019 00:44
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lurksion posted:I thought the initial translation guys (in the pre-Qidian days - volare was the guy I think?) were fine - did they change people when they swept in? Haven't followed since they started doing the mental world superhero wtfery. I suppose it depends on one's standards, but no, RTW was always translated like poo poo. EDIT: Finished it. I suppose it get wrapped fairly quickly, but only by webnovel standards - it's still, like, a couple of regular novels' worth of writing. I thought it was adequately resolved, I don't regret reading the whole thing and I'll check out whatever the author writes next. Megazver fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Aug 4, 2019 |
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Aug 4, 2019 01:07
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I finally took the plunge and worked through Forge of Destiny and Threads of Destiny over the past few weeks, and I have to agree with all the praise it has received here. Rather than echo everything that has been said already, I'll just hit a few particular highs in a story that was, for me, primarily highs. The characters absolutely make the story, and the author's mixing of all the random garbage the munchkins over there threw at them to make a genuinely interesting character arc for Ling Qi deserves some serious kudos. Other big hits were Bai Meizhen; Gu Xiulan, who I really didn't expect to like; Cai Renxiang, the Beam-Spam Goddess; and Gan Guangli, because he is HUGE, and LOUD, and VERY POLITE. I didn't think anything would top the all out brawl at the pavilion, and then I hit the spar between the Elder Cai and Elder Bai and wow. ToD's biggest highlight so far has to be the conclusion of Ling Qi's arc with Zeqing and Hanyi. It hit a lot of thematic points that had been built up to in a really satisfying albeit very bittersweet way. Hitting the end of the available content on these things is always a bit of a bummer, but I definitely plan on sticking with this series for the long haul.
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Aug 14, 2019 08:07
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Avulsion posted:For serious Xianxia stories with unlikeable characters, go to any xianxia site and sort by most popular. I wouldn't recommend forcing yourself to read more than a few chapters. If you don't enjoy something, drop it and try something else. There's no shortage of bad web serials to waste your time. For comedy Xianxia with unlikeable characters you have The God King's legacy, first book is basically the biggest murder hobos that ever murder hobo'd generic western fantasy land. They murder hobo so hard that their is nothing left for them to do so they go to cultivator land and...find an evil sect and immediately proceed to vastly out evil them and become it's new top disciple, and it's just a barrel of fun. God King's Legacy posted:
Ladies and gentlemen this is one of the more reasonable characters in the protagonists party. Another crowning achievement was before their tribulation(to sky realm expert or something of the sort), they snuck into the treasure room of a rival sect, held their most precious treasures hostage in order to for the sect to help her with with her tribulation. So after that they were exhausted protecting their treasure room and also well her who locked herself inside of it. So of course she stabbed them in the back and stole their entire treasury. All of this is done with the protagonist believing they are 100% in the moral right and completely convinced they are a good person and doing the right thing. ShinsoBEAM! fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Aug 14, 2019 |
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Aug 14, 2019 20:58
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