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I just got to The Twist in TGAB and I'm not sure which would be sadder, if it was planned from the start or if it was made up on the spot. Way to make a cool and unique setting less cool and less unique.
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Aug 28, 2017 23:25
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bewilderment posted:But it's mostly pretty good (except when a minor number of times it (possibly ironically, possibly not) namedrops LessWrongers) It's definitely not ironically. I bounced off it real fast when it became apparent it was self insert fantasy for Scott Alexander, and he spent the whole time making it clear how much more clever he is than anyone (both as the writer and the character) and how institutions of any kind, corporate or government, only get in the way of his cleverness. Maybe it gets better later, but I couldn't get past the start.
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Sep 13, 2017 04:01
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Mother of Learning updated a couple days ago. I'm curious where it's going. It's gotten more meandery than ever now that we know there is a clock.
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Nov 3, 2017 02:36
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Lamquin posted:Exciting things happening in the latest Wanderin Inn. Yes! I came here to post this. I'm excited for the new arc, I think this will start 4.x. I also gave up on The Gods are Bastards when the twist took center stage. I'm reading those three + The Iron Teeth as they come out. And reading my way through Twig an arc or two at a time, now that it's done.
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Dec 2, 2017 11:55
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Xun posted:So I've been reading the Wandering Inn at the recommendation of the thread and while this does make me feel like one of those people, does the christianity thing become more prevalent? Or is the chapter about Pawn finding the light of Jesus the most obvious it gets? I should have more faith in the author trying to write Erin as a christian, but that chapter is giving me flashbacks to the born again idiots that shout that the only way to be cured of our evil sins is to find ~jesuses light~ Have a little faith.
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Dec 13, 2017 22:54
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Charlie Bobson posted:If I partly enjoy worm for having badass super hero fights will twig still appeal to me There are plenty of awesome action sequences. Despite the lack of direct combat prowess of the main character that blastron points out, I don't think it's structured too different from Worm.
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Dec 25, 2017 21:33
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Insurrectionist posted:I'll still be reading on for a while to see how it goes though. I think the main problem here is that a large part of what Wildbow does well are powers and action and the relation between the two, and so introducing a bunch of new characters where neither are happening seems like a terrible way for him to do it. I thought Relay and Crystalclear were more interesting in their small cameo than most of the therapy group were in the whole arc. I hope the next arc starts off with a bang. Show off the kids' powers, put them in a situation where bad things might happen to them so I care. Team dynamics for a team not doing anything just aren't interesting.
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Jan 4, 2018 20:13
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I'm so bored of Flos and the twins in The Wandering Inn. They are the least compelling protagonists in the entire cast, and this mini arc is going on way too long.
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Jan 23, 2018 23:36
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Megazver posted:Personally, I'd suggest Practical Guide to Evil and Mother of Learning. These are the two best ones, IMO. Seconded. Those, plus Worm and Twig (jury is still out on Ward) are what I'd unequivocally recommend. The Wandering Inn is also quite good but has streaks of annoying storylines. The Gods Are Bastards goes off the rails IMO.
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Jan 29, 2018 19:38
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:So Ward 4.1: Bitter Pill is Amy right? Where are you getting that from? Amy is working for The Wardens, she was the Red Queen talking to Nilbog. Milky Moor posted:Of course, I've also been told it's done deliberately to promote engagement via corrections, so, maybe I'm the fool. Maybe for others, but Prac Guide never goes back to correct them even after they've been pointed out. Practical Guide would be greatly improved by letting some fan do that and only that. Tom Clancy is Dead fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jan 30, 2018 |
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Jan 30, 2018 00:12
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Nettle Soup posted:Yeah it went through a weird patch around Christmas, it seems to be recovering now. Basically everything between Lyonette turning into a decent person and today's update sucked, sans some brief stuff with Ryoka.
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Feb 3, 2018 19:56
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The Shortest Path posted:Objection: The Toren chapter was solid loving gold. That is today's update for those of us who aren't subscribed on Patreon.
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Feb 3, 2018 20:58
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:For a while I've thought wildbows best work was his interludes Your going to love the latest chapters when you get to them. One of the reasons that Prac Guide is so good is that while it has a theme of overturning the old order in the name of efficiency, erraticerrata glories in the absolute batshit grandiose ambition of traditional Evil. He makes it awesome (in the original sense), instead of clearly dumb and dismissible.
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Feb 7, 2018 19:35
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I'm still hoping that the big bad ends up being Ashley making good on her threats about becoming the best supervillain after telling them that's the plan the whole time and getting brushed off.
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Feb 9, 2018 20:27
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Prac Guide always cracks me up hard with the undead names.
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Feb 15, 2018 10:47
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Ytlaya posted:Regarding Ward, I'm not caught up yet but one thing that's been bugging me a little is that I feel like Wildbow is trying too hard to create "unique" powers. Like half of the powers that have been introduced so far have been pretty convoluted. In Worm, even the grab-bag capes generally had a set of powers that worked together in some coherent way. An example of one of the newly introduced characters with a power that is both unique and easy to understand is the guy who you can't look or aim at from Arc 1. But a lot of these other characters have powers that are just overly complex in my opinion. I wouldn't mind if just a couple characters had powers like this, but they're so frequent it feels noticeable in comparison with Worm. Yeah I agree with that. Rain's, Tristan's, and Chris's have a ton of complexity up front. It's a pretty standard issue I think. You see it in game design too. The first few designs have mechanics that are simple at first but having deepness underneath, and then later stuff oscillates between no simplicity and no depth. It's a fine line to walk, particularly as the easy (for the designer) design space gets filled.
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Feb 16, 2018 02:03
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It's only in this last arc + interludes that Ward has started to click for me. I was pretty bored before then. It's still not at the point where I'm recommending it to anyone.
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Feb 16, 2018 02:12
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New Mother of Learning.
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Feb 19, 2018 10:42
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sunken fleet posted:A whole chapter on one conversation. It was a pretty important conversation though I guess. I will say that I've always felt like the ancient lich does not talk nearly enough like an ancient lich. It's a tone thing - he talks way too normal for a thousand year old monster, in my opinion. Tone aside I liked the chapter, it's good to be reminded that there are serious threats in the world even for our overpowered protagonists. And we finally get to see them shamelessly abusing the timeloop to rip someone off wholesale! I can't help but wonder if that's going to backfire somehow.
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Feb 19, 2018 21:29
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Sampatrick posted:You're mischaracterizing my entire statement. I'm not saying you compete with Worm specifically, I'm saying you literally compete in the web serial market by having a patreon and a paypal link prominently displayed on your page. I'm also not saying you can only read one or the other; just like you can buy both Game of Thrones and Midnight Tides, you can also support both Worm/Ward and Not All Heroes. It would be absurd, however, to suggest that Game of Thrones and Midnight Tides don't compete. I'm sorry, but it is my opinion that it's kinda lovely for a competitor in a market to criticize another work in that market publicly. Cool story dude. I don't think it's lovely at all. I think it's nice to see criticism from people within the same domain, at least in something as casual as dead comedy forum something awful dot com. While critics and analysts don't need to do the thing they criticize, the additional perspective certainly doesn't hurt. I don't wonder if there is an ulterior motive at all, as I don't think Milky Moor can move the needle appreciably against Worm/Ward, though they might pick up a few readers who share their concerns about the work. I rarely agree with Milky Moor, but they are more than welcome to contribute to the thread as far as I'm concerned. Tom Clancy is Dead fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 03:15
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I like Erin more than most of the team because she's the only character in Ward who isn't entirely self-centered in her motivations. She's caught in a lovely situation that she's trying to make the best of for the sake of her family. Everyone else, it's about what they want or need.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:35
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Prac Guide. Holy poo poo.
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Mar 5, 2018 09:18
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Insurrectionist posted:As for all the things she aren't any more, I feel like Wildbow did a good job establishing the whats and whys during the first big fight myself. The opening fight had her explicitly talking internally about being too brash and reckless and hurting people, and her focusing on being methodical to counteract that.
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Mar 18, 2018 01:16
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Ward 5.9 Why are they getting into the middle of the fight? I thought they were supposed to act around the edges of it, maybe coming in late to clean up some depending on how the fight was going. Is it that they thought Ashley was in danger, or was this the plan?
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Mar 25, 2018 00:23
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ZypherIM posted:ward 5.9 And they are incapable of moving away? I know they decided to take responsibility for the house with the kids, but were the Hollow Point people really going to bother with it after the stone went up? Plus they attacked the Fallen, who presumably would try to push Hollow Point away from the house.
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Mar 25, 2018 00:30
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Argue posted:I haven't seen the patreon chapters but I can't imagine that could be anyone other than Ryoka, since that's what she did in their encounter. Even the current free chapter has him inquiring about something that I'm pretty sure was her idea. Please use spoilers when talking about the Patreon chapters, even if you haven't seen them and are just responding to someone who has.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:49
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blastron posted:Worth the Candle I don't think it has been mentioned in this thread yet. It's good? Can you write a relatively spoiler free blurb of what it's about?
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Mar 31, 2018 01:06
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I'd go so far as to say that Prac Guide has some of the better battles/fights/action sequences in web serials.
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May 22, 2018 09:00
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Rozala of the Malanzas.
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May 24, 2018 07:38
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Hey Milky Moor, I caught up on Not All Heroes last night. It's pretty good! I bounced off it at the end of chapter 1, but got sucked in when I gave it another chance. I see where more of your criticisms with Worm are coming from, though I'm still not sure I agree.
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May 25, 2018 18:01
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Lone Goat posted:When does it actually get good? Because I tried reading it at some point and it was still boring as gently caress after like 10 entries. That's about where I stopped the first time around. I think it was sometime in the next chapter that I started liking it, and chapter 3 is where it really picks up. Edit: Thinking about it more, I think it suffers for starting off with the perspective switching. I think it would be better served by following a single character as the setting is first being introduced. While the payoff of the pieces fitting together later is nice, the switching starts before I cared about anyone. I had to read a lot more (to the point where I stopped and might never have started again) before anything happened or I was interested in their fates and I became hooked by the story Tom Clancy is Dead fucked around with this message at 21:49 on May 25, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 19:20
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Milky Moor posted:It's also a complete pain in the rear end to write sometimes. It requires a lot more planning and forethought, which means it all becomes shaky when I hit rough patches in my outline. I'm not sure if it wouldn't have been better to begin the story earlier, as opposed to being so in media res. It does, however, burn a bit slowly. But that's what amount to a first draft for you. Don't get me wrong, I like the blend that you have going now. I mostly found it hard to get started with, I think you might want a chapter or two from a single perspective to start as the hook before branching out to the trinity.
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May 26, 2018 04:41
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Ytlaya posted:This is just a general question, but do those of you who have read all the current Practical Guide to Evil get the impression that the main story beats have been planned out from the beginning? I'm asking mostly because I think that's one of the things that allowed Worm to do so well, despite its many flaws; wildbow obviously had the main ideas of "these are the main bad guys, they have these motives, etc" planned out from early on. I also think serials like this benefit strongly from always having a goal to work towards, since otherwise they just start meandering (I get the impression this may be happening with Wandering Inn, judging from people's posts). Yup. It's very clear that there was substantial planning ahead for Prac Guide.
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May 31, 2018 21:19
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Is there a web serial worth reading that updates on Thursdays regularly?
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Jun 7, 2018 23:31
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Speaking of Gobbos, the latest Wandering Inn is pretty great. The evil necromancer Goblin Lord just wants a home for goblins where they aren't monsters scrapping for survival, similar to Rags. It also brings up that we don't know what is motivating Az’kerash.
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Jun 19, 2018 20:45
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SerSpook posted:Well that was a pretty awesome and atmospheric chapter in Practical Guide. So it seems like this is northern Procer/Kingdom of the Dead area considering what we see, a dude in comments found a quote that Masego's Incubus father was first summoned by a witch-queen in northern Procer, in what is now the Lycaonese area. Seems likely the woman winning the duel is said witch-queen. It's another bit of neat symmetry along with Pilgrim's continued backing of the war against Callow being so that Procer can face the Dead King without worrying about Praes instead causing Cat to go to the Dead King for help
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Jul 6, 2018 08:19
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with better scaling, more politics, and more typos
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Jul 8, 2018 20:13
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I read The Daily Grind this week, and it's great. I'm confused on one part though, what happened to the giant orb that Lilly analyzed as Jerome?
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Jul 12, 2018 19:55
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Autonomous Monster posted:The way Prac Guide's metaphysics work this plan is guaranteed to succeed. Guards! Guards! posted:Nobby put his head on one side. “It looks promising,” he said critically. “We might be nearly there. I reckon the chances of a man with soot on his face, his tongue sticking out, standing on one leg and singing The Hedgehog Song ever hitting a dragons voonerables would be . . . whatd you say, Carrot?”
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Aug 2, 2018 00:38
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Prac Guide's update was very good. “I feel faint,” the orc added dutifully. “Like a dove. A dove that is sick.” edit: Can you not spoiler tag quotes? That's lame.
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Aug 3, 2018 09:34
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