Erfworld Thread XI: Finally, it's HAMMER-TIME!

[sherlock]

Honestly, I continue to NOT understand why on hell going on 3D modeling, with all the expenses and effort it takes.
3D modeling makes sense if you have to do an animations, where drawing each of thousands of frames like in the old times of animation is a pointless effort and it's best to go for 3D modeling (although "old style" animations are still my preferred).

But for a 2D webcomic that has just a handful of drawings and is updated 2 times per week in the best of times ... this seems to me an absurd waste of resources, also detrimental to final art of the webcomic (if we will ever see some updates with this "wonderful" 3D models).

It's comics! They are born 2D! You, as a writer, just need a good illustrator who gives life, with his own imagination, to the world you create!

[cervidal]

The end is here.

I can't tell if your post is from 2019, 2016, 2012? Every time he's pronounced DOA, his fanatics keep pulling him up.

[tigerusthegreat]

I can't tell if your post is from 2019, 2016, 2012? Every time he's pronounced DOA, his fanatics keep pulling him up.

A fool and his money.

There's a good reason he doesnt want to talk about what he owes backers. It might convince people not to give him money.

There's also this pretty ****ed up forum thread with some pretty fanatic, foaming at the mouth followers of the cult of Rob.

[cervidal]

A fool and his money.

That may be the most pathetic opening post I've ever seen. Asking permission to be at another site? FFS, really? The second post is just as bad. And greycat is simply deluded.

In what world has Balder ever been tolerant of criticism?

[tomaO2]

I certainly understand why the OP made that thread, given his fears. I do almost all my criticising of Rob here now, because I got to the point where I became convinced that if I kept posting criticism on Erfworld, I would get banned, and I do have an on/off hobby of trying to format game rules for Erfworld, so I'd rather not not be kicked off the Erfworld forums. I'm also leaning towards not posting on the subreddit either. It feels a little too 'in your face' for my liking. I'll just keep my criticism contained to this little thread of which I am the original thread starter of.

Ah yes, back in the days of Erfworld The Thread. It was around the end of... 2010? Wow. We didn't need no quippy title to gain views (it's not because I just wasn't creative enough to come up with anything OKAY?). It was the exciting times of book 2. How optimistic I was for the future back then...

He's had a ton of kickstarter projects, failed to provide the things promised, taken more downtime than any other comic I can think....the list goes on.

Eh, he's not really unique. Goblins, and OOTS, are two related webcomics that have also had massive downtimes (and are also extremely bad at handling criticism). Rich is a class act on not overpromising though. He never set a schedule that failed to deliver on, and is extremely admirable about not monetizing ever. Thunt, however, had screwed up on a few promises though, wonder how that animated episode is going? I assume everyone remembers how Thunt raised 270k for a 5 minute animation that somehow is not done, after a YEAR AND A HALF, despite all this A list talent he brought on board. I was a big fan of newgrounds back in the day, and I've seen quality 5 minute animations that would not take anywhere NEAR that long to make.

MegaTokyo is another bad updater, it even had a kickstarter that raised 299k in 2013 for a visual novel, and NOTHING has been done with it. If I had a limited amount of rage to spend on failed promises I would dump a lot of it into that, or would if I'd originally had even an ounce of faith that Fred was capable of delivering, which I didn't, because I knew how horrible he was at updating. No one had any particular reason to think that this project would succeed. I swear, Kickstarter needs to cap funds to something like a max of 2-3 times the goal to limit losses from scams like this. Maybe it would be fine to uncap it for proven creators that successfully deliver on previous kickstarters, but not for new companies. They should set a goal and then work within that framework, instead of just adding on additional promises that will never be delivered in order to get more money.

Rob showed long ago that the rot in his business starts with him. The fact has long since been made that there are better webcomics with fewer staff producing more consistent and on time strips out there.

I still maintain, for all my criticism of Rob, that there isn't a single story anywhere that has done a better job of bringing a wargame to life (if there is one though, I'd be interested in reading it). There are plenty that have brought video games or D&D stuff to life but a WARGAME? I love all the touches he's done with the mentality of the soldier units, making them chare ahead, turns, hexes, hit points (no bleeding), popping units, etc. When it focuses on that, I still love this story, but there is just so much that has nothing to do with it, mostly magic stuff, which could have worked a lot better if Rob had kept it limited and structured, instead of using it as the answer for every question.

[tigerusthegreat]

What Thunt dud was wrong too, but at least he didn't keep begging for more money.

I think the point being raised is that Rob shouldn't be doing more kickstarters the way he is doing them. It makes him seem like he is trying to grab as much as he can while people will still pay him (and the failure if his last one and some of the comments on it shows that "wallet fatigue" is setting in.)

Webcomics without regular update schedules lose regular readership. I know I can check them on a particular day and get an update. Those with erratic schedules get checked once a week or less. That means less ad revenue for them (and less chance I will buy things or donate to their kickstarters).

[deuterio12]

I still maintain, for all my criticism of Rob, that there isn't a single story anywhere that has done a better job of bringing a wargame to life (if there is one though, I'd be interested in reading it). There are plenty that have brought video games or D&D stuff to life but a WARGAME? I love all the touches he's done with the mentality of the soldier units, making them chare ahead, turns, hexes, hit points (no bleeding), popping units, etc. When it focuses on that, I still love this story, but there is just so much that has nothing to do with it, mostly magic stuff, which could have worked a lot better if Rob had kept it limited and structured, instead of using it as the answer for every question.

To be fair, the end of book 1 is literally "and then Hamster started abusing the heck out of the magic system to pull a victory despite being horribly outnumbered". Then Wanda attunes to the pliers for haxxorz decrypted magic.

Book 2 showed a ray of hope since the whole food fight exploit was actually 100% caster-free. Harvest dwagons for rations, promote units to heavies whose flying mounts can't fly anymore, it was beautiful, truly something that would only make sense in a wargame world.

But then we find out that decrypted casters get to keep all their magic mojo and welp, from there it was basically a matter for "how long until GK gets all the casters with OP pliers".

Followed by Hamster literally camping at the magic kingdom seeking even more magic exploits, and it's been mostly downhill from there.

[tomaO2]

The end of book 1 was an extremely cool moment, and nothing that happened after can take that away from it. During book 2, I was still under the impression that thinkamancy link magic still had significant drawbacks, even for Charlie, and I'll admit that I just found the idea of decryption to be really cool, and figured that it would be fine since GK had a lot of enemies to fight. I was happy to see Jack alive again, and thought that Parson's escape from Jetstone into the MK was interesting. My main gripe was how Parson got stuck in the MK and became basically useless for a large portion of the story.

Then book 3 rolled around. The original battle of Stanley VS Jillian was good, and I liked Parson experimenting, and how the story seemed to be spreading into a more international focus, which is what you would want if you are playing a wargame with the goal of a military victory. Then Wanda fugged up again. Charlie was revealed and he started getting undercut much more than the main antagonist really should have been, Wanda's antics were getting to the point where I had decided that she was my least favourite character in Erfworld, and I gradually became disenchanted with the magic system, which was overly powerful and broad in its scope, especially with the thinkamancers and their danged strings.

I think book 4 was when I realized that I just wasn't enjoying the story anymore. It took all the bad aspects and just ramped them all up. I can look back now and see the seeds to this problem, the biggest of which was the magic system, and how the story floundered under the weight of WAYYY too many characters, and introspection (along with Parson being completely sidelined), but I didn't really realize now damaging it was until later on. This is why I so enjoyed the beginning of Fumo, which was the most interesting bit of worldbuilding I had read in years, until that story also descended into a different type of supermagic.

Having all the thinkamancers get killed off might have been an encouraging sign that things might get more reasonable but, before they died, they created all these freaking towers, which have been even more annoying, especially Charlie's Tower, Shirley, who is tied with Wanda for my least favourite character. Really hard to decide whom I hate more.

I mean, she made Charlie into a total joke. How am I supposed to respect him as an antagonist when he's being babied by his own city?

What Thunt did was wrong too, but at least he didn't keep begging for more money.

I think the point being raised is that Rob shouldn't be doing more kickstarters the way he is doing them.

Ehhh, Thunt does have a patreon as well and makes 1,045$ per comic page, he's also done the Tempts Fate donation drives, which is basically on the same level of reward (digital art) as Rob's recent kickstarters. One of those drives he canceled and rolled the money earned into a different, easier, donation drive (kind of like how he changed from his original failed animated kickstarter to a cheaper one, that he still can't seem to get finished), and he didn't even finish the promised storyline for his final one, because his art standards are just so darn high that it would take too long to make it and he would rather work on the actual comic. Still, it's true that he hasn't been begging for money much since the animation was funded.

While comparing to Thunt isn't the best comparison, it's a fair point to make that Rob puts an unusually large amount of effort to try every possible method to squeeze money out of the comic. That said, the crypto mining experiment I thought was an interesting concept, and I haven't heard of any CPU's burning out from people doing it either, which was a worry when it was first brought up. I also haven't had any particular issues with other kickstarters after the first, as he seemed to learn his lesson and made sure he didn't overpromise. The only real objection I have to the latest run of kickstarters is him saying that the comic will be canceled if they keep failing.

In my opinion, that goes way over the line, especially when I think Rob does have alternatives, plus I think it's a fake threat.

[tigerusthegreat]

I also think its a bad sign that Rob didnt address the failure on his site at all. He posted a comment on the kickstarter itself but I didn't see anything else.

[Leewei]

I've written off Erfworld at this point. PoV characters are unrecognizable. The site itself is lousy with adult content game ads to the point where it's NSFW, even if the comic itself isn't NSFW.

I wish Rob the best. I hope his attempts to monetize his work allow him to live well. Until the site is cleaned up and the storyline gets back to anywhere at all in Parson's neighborhood, though, it's just not accessible to me.

[halfeye]

Why are people talking about Erfworld now? There won't be any content for six months as I understand it, so there's nothing to talk about.

I don't do Patreons, or Paypals, so I suppose I'm not the market anyway, but why is anybody concerned about this, there won't be any more content for a long while, so what is there to talk about?

[Willie the Duck]

Why are people talking about Erfworld now? There won't be any content for six months as I understand it, so there's nothing to talk about.

I don't do Patreons, or Paypals, so I suppose I'm not the market anyway, but why is anybody concerned about this, there won't be any more content for a long while, so what is there to talk about?

Well, people discuss things that are genuinely completed and done (either just brought to supposed conclusion or 'author has been dead for centuries' level of 'done'). Lord of the Rings is still discussed, as are sitcoms of the 90s, or things where new additions are specifically outside the parameters of discussion ('Let's Watch'/'Let's Discuss' threads specifically for the TNG episodes of Star Trek, or the original 3 Star Wars movies).

But yes, most of this thread is now just complaining about what has happened/how it has become such, etc.

[Vinyadan]

Why are people talking about Erfworld now? There won't be any content for six months as I understand it, so there's nothing to talk about.

I don't do Patreons, or Paypals, so I suppose I'm not the market anyway, but why is anybody concerned about this, there won't be any more content for a long while, so what is there to talk about?

D R A M A hhghgghghgvg

[tigerusthegreat]

D R A M A hhghgghghgvg

It's like watching the cars wreck in nascar. You dont want anyone hurt, but it is fascinating to watch.

Once the new subreddit and banning drama is over I probably wont visit erfworld.com until next year (maybe once every few months to see if there's any new news)

[McNum]

This latest break kind of made me realize something about Erfworld. I don't miss it.

Oh, sure, I miss Parson and his crazy ways of beating impossible odds, but that's not really what Erfworld is about anymore, is it? I'm not even sure it's about anything in particular. Tons and tons of characters, few of any importance. I couldn't even name half of them. Long, convoluted side-plots that go nowhere, until suddenly one of them maybe does.

I mean, my reaction to Wanda croaking was kind of just a meh. There goes one of the ties to Parson, I guess the protagonist became a little less relevant now.

I miss Parson Gotti. I do not miss Erfworld. The world doesn't matter to me.

[tigerusthegreat]

This latest break kind of made me realize something about Erfworld. I don't miss it.

Oh, sure, I miss Parson and his crazy ways of beating impossible odds, but that's not really what Erfworld is about anymore, is it? I'm not even sure it's about anything in particular. Tons and tons of characters, few of any importance. I couldn't even name half of them. Long, convoluted side-plots that go nowhere, until suddenly one of them maybe does.

I mean, my reaction to Wanda croaking was kind of just a meh. There goes one of the ties to Parson, I guess the protagonist became a little less relevant now.

I miss Parson Gotti. I do not miss Erfworld. The world doesn't matter to me.

Webcomic pacing is a very difficult thing to get right. Too slow and everyone checks back once a month to get their fix. Too fast, and you burn through your story, don't have dramatic tension, and burn out your candle before you become relevant.

Erfworld has had glacial pacing even with 2 a week updates. There were way too many people, and Rob never did figure out a good way to give all the information he needed to make things "make sense" without long text updates explaining mechanics. That's where those originally came from, not from an inability to create comic updates. The world he created is very interesting, but it covers up his inability to communicate effectively through the comic medium. The text updates are super informative, but they drop the pace to a standstill.

Part of it reminds me of Sherlock Holmes. If you carefully read a Holmes story, you'll realize that there's zero way for you to definitively know the end until Holmes reveals it. This is done through the lens of John Watson being a worse detective than Holmes, and Holmes having to point out right before the reveal that "the dust on his trousers was gray, which, due to a geologic study I did on London, can only come from the west bank of the Thames." or some other thing. Holmes seems like a genius because of this, but the mystery of the detective story gets undermined completely by this fact.

Erfworld's mechanics, largely shrouded in mystery, were Rob's gray dust. In the first book, it worked and made sense (Parson's great "We can veil our units?" and "Of course, they use hats!" moments) because Parson was a fish out of water, and quickly learning the system. But as Parson exploited more and more (using his relationship with the Great Minds to safely perform 3 caster links all the time) and understood the system more and more, the leaps needed were larger, and the actual logic of what was happening became diminished.

Let's take Carnys for example. Everyone knows what carnies do (twist the truth, manipulate rules, etc) but they are perfectly willing to listen to anything JoJo says and take it at face value. Even if nobody knew he was working for Charlie, they all knew he came from a side that GK wiped out, so he has very clear motivations to cause them harm. Nobody should trust JoJo on GK, and that's before you consider the fact that he might be manipulating you with magic.

Or how about Fate. Parson has experienced Fate messing with him several times (not being able to cast the scroll, for example), but he's done nothing to try to use/abuse/exploit/understand Fate. The way Fate exists in the universe, it should be a major player. People should try to manipulate it (more than Jillian just trying to avoid it). We've had stories of people trying, but nobody in the main story seems to care except that fate "must happen" eventually. Because of this, Fate is not a player in the story, but a Deus Ex Machina that is a convenient way out of any hole.

Don't get me started on the Towers.....that's just all kinds of stupid, and upends every rule we've spent 3.5 books learning about and makes them pointless (free juice, the letter of contracts doesn't matter, etc).

Erfworld's really lost the thread of the story somewhere after book 1.

[deuterio12]

Don't get me started on the Towers.....that's just all kinds of stupid, and upends every rule we've spent 3.5 books learning about and makes them pointless (free juice, the letter of contracts doesn't matter, etc).

Agree with most of your post and agree even more with that last bit in particular. Contracts were supposed to be this unbreakable mechanic. You could try to cheat through loopholes, but still had to follow the rules to the letter. But now towers can just go "lol nope" and rip them in half when they feel like it.

Free juice however was already heavily hinted in book 1 with the mention that Charlie can use Unlimited Thinkgram Works and Wanda's own arkenpliers that can decrypt until the cow comes home.

[tomaO2]

Part of it reminds me of Sherlock Holmes. If you carefully read a Holmes story, you'll realize that there's zero way for you to definitively know the end until Holmes reveals it. This is done through the lens of John Watson being a worse detective than Holmes, and Holmes having to point out right before the reveal that "the dust on his trousers was gray, which, due to a geologic study I did on London, can only come from the west bank of the Thames." or some other thing. Holmes seems like a genius because of this, but the mystery of the detective story gets undermined completely by this fact.

On the topic of fair play detective stories, I would just like to mention the absolute most wild ride into the topic that I have ever seen. Umineko. It is a time loop with one main perpetrator, but the method and accomplices change from loop to loop. It plays by the rules, even if it does not seem like it at times, and it even introduces a character that is the embodiment of fair play detective stories.

Episode 5 is some of the best give and take of a detective story I have ever read in my life, because it brings in Knox's Decalogue, which are basically laws that the story may not break, since a mystery would not be fair to the reader if it strayed outside those bounds. It's so perfectly meta. We got blue dialogue which represents questions/theories that must be answered by red truths, which are always true things in the context of the mystery.

This link has a really good rundown of Knox's Rules, and why they are important.
https://keikakudoori.wordpress.com/2...-the-9th-move/

[McNum]

Webcomic pacing is a very difficult thing to get right. Too slow and everyone checks back once a month to get their fix. Too fast, and you burn through your story, don't have dramatic tension, and burn out your candle before you become relevant.

Erfworld has had glacial pacing even with 2 a week updates. There were way too many people, and Rob never did figure out a good way to give all the information he needed to make things "make sense" without long text updates explaining mechanics. That's where those originally came from, not from an inability to create comic updates. The world he created is very interesting, but it covers up his inability to communicate effectively through the comic medium. The text updates are super informative, but they drop the pace to a standstill.

Part of it reminds me of Sherlock Holmes. If you carefully read a Holmes story, you'll realize that there's zero way for you to definitively know the end until Holmes reveals it. This is done through the lens of John Watson being a worse detective than Holmes, and Holmes having to point out right before the reveal that "the dust on his trousers was gray, which, due to a geologic study I did on London, can only come from the west bank of the Thames." or some other thing. Holmes seems like a genius because of this, but the mystery of the detective story gets undermined completely by this fact.

Erfworld's mechanics, largely shrouded in mystery, were Rob's gray dust. In the first book, it worked and made sense (Parson's great "We can veil our units?" and "Of course, they use hats!" moments) because Parson was a fish out of water, and quickly learning the system. But as Parson exploited more and more (using his relationship with the Great Minds to safely perform 3 caster links all the time) and understood the system more and more, the leaps needed were larger, and the actual logic of what was happening became diminished.

Let's take Carnys for example. Everyone knows what carnies do (twist the truth, manipulate rules, etc) but they are perfectly willing to listen to anything JoJo says and take it at face value. Even if nobody knew he was working for Charlie, they all knew he came from a side that GK wiped out, so he has very clear motivations to cause them harm. Nobody should trust JoJo on GK, and that's before you consider the fact that he might be manipulating you with magic.

Or how about Fate. Parson has experienced Fate messing with him several times (not being able to cast the scroll, for example), but he's done nothing to try to use/abuse/exploit/understand Fate. The way Fate exists in the universe, it should be a major player. People should try to manipulate it (more than Jillian just trying to avoid it). We've had stories of people trying, but nobody in the main story seems to care except that fate "must happen" eventually. Because of this, Fate is not a player in the story, but a Deus Ex Machina that is a convenient way out of any hole.

Don't get me started on the Towers.....that's just all kinds of stupid, and upends every rule we've spent 3.5 books learning about and makes them pointless (free juice, the letter of contracts doesn't matter, etc).

Erfworld's really lost the thread of the story somewhere after book 1.

I didn't even touch on the towers. Those seem like the kind of game breaking exploit that Parson would do except he barely had anything to do with it. And yes, the moment he learned that he has a Fate, he should be going all in on learning how that works and how to exploit it. Jojo had a point there, if you are Fated, and the world gives you good rolls to keep you alive until your Fate is done, then why would you ever do it? Those numbers are borrowed, zero always calls. You do your Fate and all the bad rolls will arrive.

The fun exploit there, of course, if finding other Fated units, preferably hostile ones, and as long as you can live with the Fate they have, try to help them accomplish it quickly so they can get into the storm of bad rolls and you can win easily. Parson with a Predictamancer scouting for enemy Fated units to destroy would have been fun.

But no. We get stories about a city made of ads, and isn't that strangely on topic, and a whole host of new characters again. Not like we left Gobwin Knob on a cliffhanger or anything.

I miss Parson doing his thing. I miss the clever duels between him and Charlie. That was fun when they were definitely enemies, but still cordial. Sending trolling messages via eyebook and all that.

And honestly, I miss the pre-guns era of Erfworld. Seems like everything is guns and strings these days and it's boring.

[pendell]

I didn't even touch on the towers. Those seem like the kind of game breaking exploit that Parson would do except he barely had anything to do with it. And yes, the moment he learned that he has a Fate, he should be going all in on learning how that works and how to exploit it. Jojo had a point there, if you are Fated, and the world gives you good rolls to keep you alive until your Fate is done, then why would you ever do it? Those numbers are borrowed, zero always calls. You do your Fate and all the bad rolls will arrive.

The fun exploit there, of course, if finding other Fated units, preferably hostile ones, and as long as you can live with the Fate they have, try to help them accomplish it quickly so they can get into the storm of bad rolls and you can win easily. Parson with a Predictamancer scouting for enemy Fated units to destroy would have been fun.

But no. We get stories about a city made of ads, and isn't that strangely on topic, and a whole host of new characters again. Not like we left Gobwin Knob on a cliffhanger or anything.

I miss Parson doing his thing. I miss the clever duels between him and Charlie. That was fun when they were definitely enemies, but still cordial. Sending trolling messages via eyebook and all that.

And honestly, I miss the pre-guns era of Erfworld. Seems like everything is guns and strings these days and it's boring.

I've been following Erfworld for more than ten years, since book 1 when it shared space on this board with OOTS.

Book 1 was great. Book 2, less so. Book 4 was a mess than Parson hardly ever got to do anything; as I recall, the major occurrence was him firing off the send-me-home spell and being propelled through the air like a human cannonball.

Since the end of book 4 it seems like we've lost all coherence; now we're looking at a bunch of new sides and new characters and I don't frankly care about any of them.

Now?

Well ... I suspect this is the end of erfworld. Not with a bang but with a whimper. Maybe not, but there are no new slides and, what with medical issues and other unspoken issues, it seems increasingly difficult for Rob and co. to field a comic. Even if they do, they're going to have a lot of work to do to recapture my interest.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[tigerusthegreat]

Rob has been silent since his kickstarter failed.....is this it? Is erfworld done?

[Ubiq]

Rob has been silent since his kickstarter failed.....is this it? Is erfworld done?

Isn't there a one week cooldown period between Kickstarters? I don't think it ends until today at 3PM EST.

[tigerusthegreat]

Isn't there a one week cooldown period between Kickstarters? I don't think it ends until today at 3PM EST.

No idea. I'm more concerned with the fact that we haven't heard anything at all than that there's not another kickstarter

[thomaszwanzinge]

I would like to point out that Erfworld also has a lot of sunk costs in the form of its overly complicated website. He should have done Patreon, and saved 1-2 persons managing the website. Those guys deserve to be paid, too.

Again, it is about grand ideas, with little consequence to the comic reader. If he would have followed through just one great idea beside the comic, but non of his ideas had any lasting impact on me. The Fanfic is nice, so maybe this one (but no one every got paid for that as promised, I think).

It remembers me a little of a small company that has too many employees during a time when Business was hot. Now that problems accumulate, there are simply too many mouths to feed. The fact he needs to raise so much money consistently is surprising, looking at how Burlew manages his comic, as a comparison.

[tigerusthegreat]

I would like to point out that Erfworld also has a lot of sunk costs in the form of its overly complicated website. He should have done Patreon, and saved 1-2 persons managing the website. Those guys deserve to be paid, too.

Again, it is about grand ideas, with little consequence to the comic reader. If he would have followed through just one great idea beside the comic, but non of his ideas had any lasting impact on me. The Fanfic is nice, so maybe this one (but no one every got paid for that as promised, I think).

It remembers me a little of a small company that has too many employees during a time when Business was hot. Now that problems accumulate, there are simply too many mouths to feed. The fact he needs to raise so much money consistently is surprising, looking at how Burlew manages his comic, as a comparison.

If Rich were to launch a kickstarter for an animated feature for OOTS, it would be funded surprisingly fast. I also think it would actually get accomplished.

[deuterio12]

If Rich were to launch a kickstarter for an animated feature for OOTS, it would be funded surprisingly fast. I also think it would actually get accomplished.

I don't doubt the funding bit, but good animation's hard. I would be bet that Rich (wisely) never decided to try anything like that because he knows it could easily go wrong, either eternally delayed or ending with something fugly.

[Aquillion]

Agree with most of your post and agree even more with that last bit in particular. Contracts were supposed to be this unbreakable mechanic. You could try to cheat through loopholes, but still had to follow the rules to the letter. But now towers can just go "lol nope" and rip them in half when they feel like it.

My reading is that they can't just violate them whenever they feel like it. In this particular case, Translvito's tower was able to negate the contract because he basically forged the signature on it (creating a "fake ruler" because his real one wasn't able to sign as a captive); canceling the fake also canceled the contract. It's not something that could be done under normal circumstances.

(Although I agree that narratively it was clumsy and served little purpose. Huge parts of the last book felt like they were just shuffling people and contracts around to no real end, trying to get them into whatever configuration the author wanted.)

[Anteros]

My reading is that they can't just violate them whenever they feel like it. In this particular case, Translvito's tower was able to negate the contract because he basically forged the signature on it (creating a "fake ruler" because his real one wasn't able to sign as a captive); canceling the fake also canceled the contract. It's not something that could be done under normal circumstances.

(Although I agree that narratively it was clumsy and served little purpose. Huge parts of the last book felt like they were just shuffling people and contracts around to no real end, trying to get them into whatever configuration the author wanted.)

Even if they can't Rob will just change the rules on the fly to fit the story if he needs them to be able to do so in the future. Not much point in trying to figure the rules out anymore since he openly just changes them.

[tigerusthegreat]

Even if they can't Rob will just change the rules on the fly to fit the story if he needs them to be able to do so in the future. Not much point in trying to figure the rules out anymore since he openly just changes them.

Yeah, two things really ruined some of the story for me: the first was the infinite juice hack. Charlie having it just made him the big bad, and he set up significant infrastructure to have it (and it was lost very easily with a little explosion). Jed being able to send it to Maggie and Not-Isaac being able to juice up just touching the portals made so much of it pointless. Magic is utterly meaningless as a plot device if everyone can have infinite juice.

The other is the ability of the temples to cheat contracts. I think we've gone into enough detail about that.

Maybe there'll be some big payoff about Retconjuration that'll make it all make sense. I doubt it though.

[Paladine]

I think we are missing a great learning opportunity here

Erfworld did something very right in book one , and later on something very wrong .

Id like to know what do you think was it that they did right in book one , what caught your attention
and what do you think Rob did wrong later on .