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Dec 28, 2020 15:33
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obviously
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Dec 28, 2020 15:36
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darkgray posted:I've been enjoying Ougon no Keikenchi quite a bit. It's like a blend of Bofuri and Kumoko, where a girl starts a new VRMMO and stumbles over an extremely efficient way to gain experience points. Eventually she becomes so powerful that other players start mistaking her for a raid boss NPC, and she decides to go along with it. Bit weird to be quoting my own post perhaps, but I noticed the fan translation for this title seems to have reached a section that might actually hook readers a little, if someone's curious to check it out: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/golden-experience/
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Jan 20, 2021 19:28
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Beware of Chicken on RRL is an enjoyable read for anyone looking for something new.
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Jan 20, 2021 19:35
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I recently read the first two volumes of Cinnamon Bun and if you are scarred by bad web serials (or bad things happening in your favorite serial's characters) go read this. I won't say it's good, but it's fluffy and happy.
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Jan 20, 2021 21:04
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Fluff is a different story entirely. Dead Tired is my favourite RavensDagger story at the moment, I just can't get enough terrible skeleton puns.
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Jan 20, 2021 21:12
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Cynic Jester posted:Beware of Chicken on RRL is an enjoyable read for anyone looking for something new. Thank you for this! Only a couple chapters in so far but can't stop laughing. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/beware-of-chicken
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Jan 20, 2021 22:32
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Kyoujin posted:Thank you for this! Only a couple chapters in so far but can't stop laughing. how many more stories are people going to post where sinister forces are after the protagonist's magical cock
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Jan 21, 2021 09:16
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Cynic Jester posted:Beware of Chicken on RRL is an enjoyable read for anyone looking for something new. This is really good and lighthearted fun. Recommend to everyone.
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Jan 21, 2021 16:09
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darkgray posted:Bit weird to be quoting my own post perhaps, but I noticed the fan translation for this title seems to have reached a section that might actually hook readers a little, if someone's curious to check it out: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/golden-experience/ This is interesting (I'm 28 chapters in now). But man, the main character is kind of... cold? That might not be the right word, since she's a lot nicer to NPCs than everyone else, but at least she reminds me of "rationalist" fiction. Her whole spiel about how a gamey inventory function being commonly available would destroy society was so bizarre that it was just funny to read. I guess it works out since she's contrasted with the other human players in the two side stories.
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Jan 21, 2021 20:30
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i can never take vrmmo stories that have npcs who can recognize player weirdness but have no built-in context for it seriously. like a player levels up and a nearby npc freaks out because of how impossible that is. why it gets even weirder when the npcs are either functionally or explicitly sentient because what the heck is the point of that? there was one wn i read some of where npcs were sentient and could feel pain, but the actual game was so lovely that the best way to get exp was mass murdering npcs (who did not respawn). somehow, no one except the mc ever realized that these screaming suffering murder victims were screaming suffering murder victims. it was such dumb bullshit.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:17
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Kyoujin posted:Thank you for this! Only a couple chapters in so far but can't stop laughing. It's amusing, yeah. It also seems be being posted in a thread on Questionable Questing. There is a lot of discussion there, if you're into that.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:26
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:it gets even weirder when the npcs are either functionally or explicitly sentient because what the heck is the point of that? there was one wn i read some of where npcs were sentient and could feel pain, but the actual game was so lovely that the best way to get exp was mass murdering npcs (who did not respawn). somehow, no one except the mc ever realized that these screaming suffering murder victims were screaming suffering murder victims. it was such dumb bullshit. there was that one where actually the "VR" was telepresence to another planet, and the "game developers" presented it as a game for nefarious purposes. and then all the players hosed everything up constantly. humans are so evil, maaaaan. i think there's actually a couple where the "VRMMO" is actually interactions with another world somehow? or in "Toaru Ossan no VRMMO Katsudouki" as far as i could tell it was trying to imply that the NPC AIs were for an actual AI development project, and the game was there to... i don't know, socialize them or something. in this one (golden experience i mean) the NPCs and PCs are mostly indistinguishable, but nobody's mass murdering them much. one of the side characters is pals with a dracula NPC. pretty good imo. actually this is pretty good in the sense that it has the usual turnaround where the main character is taking all these "evil" or "dark" skills like necromancy, but she's not being particularly evil in using them so it doesn't come off as grimdark silliness.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:25
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There is also that really dumb story that manages to switch between interesting and the dumbest paragraph by paragraph. Where the MC comes from an ultra abuse orphanage(tm) and ends up in some experiment for VR that secretly transports their souls to another planet and humankind is imperialistically exploiting that other planet through the VR gear somehow. And the hero gets a super rare monster form and is also super weak. And she creates an anti-slavery uprising of nonhumans. And becomes some kind of god fairly quickly. it is this one: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/apotheosis-of-a-demon-a-monster-evolution-story/?pg=8
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Jan 22, 2021 02:51
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yeah that's the one i was thinking of with telepresence. gently caress if i can remember the deets. it is sort of interesting that some of the authors of the reincarnated as an inhuman whatever stories come off as deeply misanthropic. it's like a power fantasy of abandoning your humanity and then killing everyone
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Jan 22, 2021 03:07
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There's Galactic Dark Net. Do not read Galactic Dark Net. Unless you want to read one of the most hilariously bad pieces of fiction ever written, with an equally hilariously bad ending. Evey single thing from the start to the end was a slow trainwreck I could not put down.
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Jan 22, 2021 03:27
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that one was funny for a while because it relied on the mc being some random goober who knew what the titular galactic dark net was, but then it immediately changed from being common knowledge to a complete mystery to everyone else in the universe. no one could figure out where he kept getting stuff from! i love garbage wn's even though i rarely finish them, but i cannot handle so-called 'infinite' webnovels. those would be the crossover fan fiction stories, where some gormless loser starts entering western movies or stealing objects or abilities from them and whatnot. i've started a few lovely wn's that i didn't know were infinites and then dropped them when it became clear. i'm not sure if this is standard to the genre or just an odd coincidence, but every one of those wn's revealed itself by dipping into the movie van hellsing. of all things, van helsing.
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Jan 22, 2021 03:47
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i can never take vrmmo stories that have npcs who can recognize player weirdness but have no built-in context for it seriously. like a player levels up and a nearby npc freaks out because of how impossible that is. why This is basically the premise for Prophecy Approved Companion (not a MMO though). It's from the POV of a NPC's view of the player character. It's quite funny.
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Jan 22, 2021 03:50
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the most recent abject failure of human creativity i've been reading is doomsday online: supreme blessing. the basic premise is a standard time leap power fantasy, though there seems to be absolutely nothing that even vaguely warrants the online part of the name. it's defining quality is when 'oh no, this monster has a power level of 20!' the mc immediately gains a power level of 50,000. and it keeps going like that. it's the dumbest, most childish garbage. then, to make it very clear that the author is either a teenage nerd or has the maturity of one, it starts with the high school poo poo. every single male teacher and student associated with the school is a cowardly murderous rapist and every single female teacher and student is a hapless saintly victim turned adoring follower after the mc flexes his power levels. that's the story. the mc endlessly and effortlessly acquires vaguely described overpowered crap every five seconds while making smug teenage edgelord remarks about how he's too cool to ever help anyone. highly insulting caricatures of male authority figures wail and moan in the background about how they hate him for being so cool and smart and strong. heavily idealized caricatures of every woman the author's ever shared a sidewalk with are likewise left swooning by how deep and mature and strong he is. those he deems to be sluts are then kicked away.
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Jan 22, 2021 04:06
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Mages are too OP is the most frustrating vrmmo WN to me because its very clearly not actually VR and the mystery of what exactly is going on is quite compelling and the way in which players are generally sort of at odds with but also significantly weaker than the entrenched power structures of the 'game world' is pretty great, but it is buried in an awful translation and just, piles of wish fulfillment garbage time
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Jan 22, 2021 19:11
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I kind of like Overgeared as a vrmmo novel because the designers accounted for the people playing the game being able to do things that in game AI's can't, and even giving in game AI's ways around players logging out etc. I wouldn't call them NPCs because the characters all have motivations and even personalities and do poo poo on their own.
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Jan 22, 2021 20:05
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Anzrel posted:Heyo everyone. Author of Forge of Destiny here. I know my works been discussed a few times in this thread and others, so I thought I'd put out notice here. In addition to publishing the first portion of Forge of Destiny in e-book format with some more editing and touch ups over even the royal road version. I've also been picked up by an audiobook publisher, and said audiobook, narrated by Natalie Naudus will be up on December 22 if you have an interest. Took me a while to get around to reading Forge of Destiny but I loving loved it. It's notably slower paced than the usual sort of webnovel wuxia stuff and manages to use that pace well. It really breathes the cultivating aspect of cultivation in a way that even Cradle sort of dances around with its lightning-fast pacing and advancements. It kind of reminds me of the first arc of ISSTH but written well so there's actual suspense and poo poo.
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Jan 25, 2021 07:44
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Is there a good primer somewhere that I can read on how Cultivation works? So far, the things I've been stumbling across that use it as a theme treat it like it's something I should already be very familiar with as a genre convention.
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Jan 25, 2021 11:22
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maltesh posted:Is there a good primer somewhere that I can read on how Cultivation works? So far, the things I've been stumbling across that use it as a theme treat it like it's something I should already be very familiar with as a genre convention. Try this: https://www.wuxiaworld.com/page/general-glossary-of-terms
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Jan 25, 2021 11:47
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You eat magic pills and meditate to rank up your Qi to the gold star murder hobo level so you can gain access to a new population to slaughter.
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Jan 25, 2021 12:29
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Nalin posted:You eat magic pills and meditate to rank up your Qi to the gold star murder hobo level so you can gain access to a new population to slaughter. This right here, It does vary some from novel to novel on the particulars Some settings you must survive lightning bolts being chucked at you from heaven to level up, in other settings it only happens at particular stages or not at all.
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Jan 25, 2021 13:34
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Y'know, I've never personally had that much trouble puzzling out what's going in these stories. So, like, there's this mystical energy suffusing the universe. Or maybe it is the universe. But it's out there, and if you know the trick you can reach out and touch it, and take it into yourself. And this makes you a punch wizard. Then, if you punch wizard hard enough, you might just achieve such a spiritual oneness with the universe that you can remake yourself utterly and become a living god. Sometimes a thundercloud picks a fight in the in between. And so far this is fine, centrality of punching aside this is basically every system of occultism ever imagined. There's a bunch of jargon for the nitty gritty of punch wizardry and enough ranks and gradations between points A and B to make a game designer blush, but a lot of it maps pretty directly to western fantasy concepts. Your spiritual arts are spells, spell formations are like magic circles, etc. But then you get to "sword intent". And I'm just like what. What the gently caress is a sword intent. No one ever explains sword intent. It's not even on this list: So if you squint at it long enough you might decide that it's kind of like killing intent- a thing you "know" about from watching too much anime- but with swords instead of killing. Only it seems to be a lot more substantial than even a telepathically active bloodlust. You can run out of it, for one thing, and you have to grow your reserve slowly, over years. A lot of the time it seems to be treated as a sort of super-Qi, powering the most potent of punch wizardries. It seems to have a mind of its own, and you can give it orders and send it on missions. It gets stuck in wounds and hangs around the place cutting people millennia after the original sword intender is dead. And so on. I think at this point I have a pretty good handle on what sword intent "is", insofar as I can list off a set of traits I expect it to have and rarely be surprised by it, but I'm still completely befuddled as to what it, y'know, is. If anyone does have a good understanding of the concept, please do not tell me. I enjoy the mystery. Anyway, xianxia is basically this K6BD page but without the old woman standing at the side, going, "Y'all are dumbasses, what really matters is noodles." 
KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 13:39
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^that's a good master
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Jan 25, 2021 14:10
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Sword intent is when you're the bone of your sword.
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Jan 25, 2021 14:14
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sword intent is when you sword so hard that onlookers are very impressed by it. there's no point in swording that hard without an audience.
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Jan 25, 2021 14:25
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The way I see it, "sword" is basically an element, but it's weird because it's manmade. A sword is a tool - tools are made for a purpose, and sword cultivators are cultivating that purpose. The regular elements aren't for anything, they don't have purpose. Sword ki inherently has a purpose, thus "intent". Metal qi can make sharp objects you can use to cut somebody, sword intent cuts on its own.
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Jan 25, 2021 14:34
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Weapon <intent/essence/soul> is a translation thing. In most of this mythology it’s helpful to remember half the time you’re looking for farming or place-as-person metaphors. Think about the adjacent concepts of kami, or other spirits inhabiting stuff (everything has its own) and it makes more sense to “cultivate” (ie grow or tend) your own sword intent/essence/soul. This essentially means the punch wizard is a farmer, with his own internal field in which he has chosen to grow swords by watering his “fields” with the energy of the heavens.
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Jan 25, 2021 17:11
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that is sometimes literal
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Jan 25, 2021 17:42
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Oh absolutely. Never assume subtlety when you can churn an extra thousand words with explicit farming descriptions!
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Jan 25, 2021 17:45
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Thanks for reminding me I should eventually read k6bd.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:16
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maltesh posted:Is there a good primer somewhere that I can read on how Cultivation works? So far, the things I've been stumbling across that use it as a theme treat it like it's something I should already be very familiar with as a genre convention. When I first started reading cultivation stories, I bounced around a lot trying to find something that made sense. Forge of Destiny was the first one where cultivation mechanics clicked for me. Cradle is pretty good at this, but it also has a drastically simpler set of mechanics than most cultivation stories. Cultivation Chat Group does a good job too, and is closer to most other cultivation stories as well. Coincidentally, these are also the three best cultivation stories, so you should start with them anyways. Do stop reading Cultivation Chat Group whenever you get tired of it. Once it starts annoying you, it never gets better, only worse. Everyone's personal breakpoint for the story comes at a different place.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:59
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My Disciple Died Yet Again is also another good one. It also riffs pretty hard on the genre because the protagonist never really gets into the cultivator mindset (it's an isekai story where the protagonist clings to their morality) and dodges some standard tropes because she's basically being a troubleshooter. I read it before I really got into cultivation stories and it still holds up. It does kind of drag after a certain point and loses the plot a bit afterward.
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Jan 25, 2021 19:58
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I kind of felt the opposite about Cultivation Chat Group: it only really comes into its own a few hundred chapters in (with the tractor race). I still catch up with it every six months or so. There are some boring parts and some unfortunate offensive jokes in there, but the benefit of an extremely long webnovel is it can genuinely surprise the reader and make them laugh with a ridiculous callback to something that happened six hundred chapters ago.
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Jan 25, 2021 20:07
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Anzrel posted:Heyo everyone. Author of Forge of Destiny here. I know my works been discussed a few times in this thread and others, so I thought I'd put out notice here. In addition to publishing the first portion of Forge of Destiny in e-book format with some more editing and touch ups over even the royal road version. I've also been picked up by an audiobook publisher, and said audiobook, narrated by Natalie Naudus will be up on December 22 if you have an interest. The gently caress’s our moon T. Rex yrsillar 
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Jan 25, 2021 20:36
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Its Rinaldo posted:The gently caress’s our moon T. Rex yrsillar In your heart all along naturally.
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Feb 1, 2021 05:27
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