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

[McNum]

A practical guide to evil
"The Empire stands triumphant.

For twenty years the Dread Empress has ruled over the lands that were once the Kingdom of Callow, but behind the scenes of this dawning golden age threats to the crown are rising. The nobles of the Wasteland, denied the power they crave, weave their plots behind pleasant smiles. In the north the Forever King eyes the ever-expanding borders of the Empire and ponders war. The greatest danger lies to the west, where the First Prince of Procer has finally claimed her throne: her people sundered, she wonders if a crusade might not be the way to secure her reign. Yet none of this matters, for in the heart of the conquered lands the most dangerous man alive sat across an orphan girl and offered her a knife.

Her name is Catherine Foundling, and she has a plan"

Seconded!

Catherine is a gift to villaindom and must be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

The story proper starts here if you want to go from the start.

[tomaO2]

On the subject of stories. I read them all the time online. Mainly fanfictions of other works. You don't need to know the source material for them all either. My first experience with both Fate Stay Night, and Familiar of Zero, is "Hill of Swords". Which I thoroughly enjoyed. I've also really gotten into japanese light novels that people have translated. The Japanese have gone way beyond the stale boredom of superheroes, and their stuff is beyond easy to find online. I have to give them credit for how much change they are willing to take. There is a little show, you may have heard of it, called One Punch Man, that was originally created by some guy, that didn't even have the advantages Rob has had, crap art, no promotion, that somehow got popular enough to just blow up to a massive, world wide phenomenon. The only series I can think of where an online writer has done that in the west is, <shudders> Twilight.

As a recommendation of an original story, there is an absolutely hilarious story about a guy that got tossed into the world's most buggy video game of all time.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/...ga-****te-iru/
What the... Oh, that's funny. censor blocked out some of the text because it thinks the link, that was written in Japanese, is swearing (it's a word that refers to poop). I'll try this then.
https://sekaigamethetranslation.word...me-1/prologue/


It's just a really funny story, and it does a good job with the protagonist. A lot of these sorts of stories make the protagonist uber powerful, but this guy is not that strong, he just uses knowledge in really creative ways that will keep you guessing as to how he will succeed.

I'll also mention a really interesting fanfic, called "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". It drags on after awhile (story is over a million words, I believe) but I loved the focus on psychology.

This text update was horrible IMO. There was no story content at all, it was a sort of worldbuilding, but there was no plot whatever. Looks like total writer's block.

No one is expecting full on updates anymore. He said he doesn't have to time to do it, so he likely won't. That said, he seems to have given up on the kickstarters, so now he's moving to informational updates instead.

I'm personally fine with that, and I think most of his Tools will be as well. They just want SOMETHING to tide them over. He should have been doing this anyway, because it was one of his Tool Milestone rewards that he would "spend an hour a week adding, editing and improving articles in the wiki." Needless to say, he has NOT delivered on that promise. As is shown by his contribution history.
https://wiki.erfworld.com/Special:Contributions/Balder

It's annoying that he never did it before now, but now that he's in a crunch, maybe he'll remember that this is a valid option for getting the Tool money with a minimum of work involved.

[tigerusthegreat]

Speaking of the toolshed rewards, did this ever happen?

Rob will write an Erfworld bedtime story, and release a video of him reading it to everyone

[tomaO2]

Haha. Nah.

Hamstard.com did actually happen though.

[Anteros]

I'm just going to chime in about all of the "Practical Guide to Evil" recommendations with a warning that the protagonist is a bit of Mary-Sue power fantasy. And by "a bit" I mean even her antagonists can't help themselves but constantly gush about how special, awesome, and dangerous she is. It got stale for me somewhere around halfway and I had to give up on it. I don't have a ton of tolerance for those kinds of characters anymore though.

I enjoy watching characters make mistakes, acknowledge them, and grow. That way it's actually satisfying when they overcome obstacles. One of the absolute best moments in Erfworld is when Parson takes a calculated gamble during his dragon gambit in book one and gets punished for it. No magical bull****. No excuses. Just the protagonist making a mistake that he's punished harshly for and has to grow to overcome.

[deuterio12]

I'm just going to chime in about all of the "Practical Guide to Evil" recommendations with a warning that the protagonist is a bit of Mary-Sue power fantasy. And by "a bit" I mean even her antagonists can't help themselves but constantly gush about how special, awesome, and dangerous she is. It got stale for me somewhere around halfway and I had to give up on it. I don't have a ton of tolerance for those kinds of characters anymore though.

I enjoy watching characters make mistakes, acknowledge them, and grow. That way it's actually satisfying when they overcome obstacles. One of the absolute best moments in Erfworld is when Parson takes a calculated gamble during his dragon gambit in book one and gets punished for it. No magical bull****. No excuses. Just the protagonist making a mistake that he's punished harshly for and has to grow to overcome.

To be fair, that was less of "a mistake" and more "didn't know the rules properly yet". In particular Hammster trusted Wanda's word that Jillian was properly charmed by magic, but turned out that Wanda did have great talent for thinkmancy but lacked experience to fry Jillian's brain when she managed to snap out of the charm and Wanda was the one eating the backlash (or Wanda was so deep in love with Jillian that the croakmancer refused to apply the backlash). Either way Hamster didn't have a realistic way of figuring that out, and if Wanda had been a trustworthy source then Jillian wouldn't have found the dwagons (or turned to GK and shived the archons, Ansom and Vinnie).

Mind you, another sign of the Mary Sue is precisely meeting a new situation and somehow automatically figring out the best soultion just with a glance, automatically knowing all the mechanics behind it perfectly regardless of background.

Now Jillian herself had pretty strong Mary Sue vibes since book 1. The royals love her, Wanda loves her, the predictmancers love her, archons give her free advice while Charlie would go on to bend backwards to support her, pretty much only Stanley dislikes her in the whole of Erfworld. Oh, and Caesar too, but Caesar eventually goes down like a sack of potatoes for daring to question Jillian's holyness. Jillian's also the only character who gets cameos in the side stories and even got her super special prequel story where she basically solo'd the biggest empire Erfworld has ever seen. And she never grows, never aknowledges her mistakes, just charge forward in whatever new uber flying mount fate gifts her swinging her sword like a maniac and and crush all in her path. Jillian even has a literal plot shield that can deflect arkentool attacks!

[Leewei]

I'm a great fan of A Practical Guide to Evil, as well as The Wandering Inn.

I'll also add The Gods are Bastards (https://tiraas.net) and Mother of Learning (https://www.fictionpress.com/s/29618...er-of-Learning) to the list of recommended reading.

[tigerusthegreat]

Magic kingdom is busy changing the signamancy of the whole world into potatos (if the last update is an indication of the future)

[-D-]

Magic kingdom is busy changing the signamancy of the whole world into potatos (if the last update is an indication of the future)

Understatement of the week. Looks like Xin didn't work on this.

[NEO|Phyte]

If I were a guessing man, I'd guess that what we're seeing is some of their new 3d model art, that's been heavily photoshopped so it doesn't steal the Arkentools' thunder by looking obviously 3d model.

[tigerusthegreat]

If I were a guessing man, I'd guess that what we're seeing is some of their new 3d model art, that's been heavily photoshopped so it doesn't steal the Arkentools' thunder by looking obviously 3d model.

That's the part that makes zero sense to me. "Hey, we made a deliberate decision to 3d render these pieces to make them look special, why don't we do the same thing to the whole comic....it's genius"

[-D-]

That's the part that makes zero sense to me. "Hey, we made a deliberate decision to 3d render these pieces to make them look special, why don't we do the same thing to the whole comic....it's genius"

It will save us money in the long run!!

Oh, God. Whenever I think this comic can't sink lower, it breaks new ground in horribleness.

[Divayth Fyr]

Magic kingdom is busy changing the signamancy of the whole world into potatos (if the last update is an indication of the future)

Maybe Rob discovered and fell in love with TES IV: Oblivion?

[Aquillion]

Now I'm tempted to photoshop the page where Parson arrives in Erfworld to have Wanda saying "Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."

Although those graphics might be a little beyond current Erfworld, yeah. Oblivion is probably closer.

[Divayth Fyr]

Both faces seen on the latest page are not that far from Oblivion standards ;)

[halfeye]

Both faces seen on the latest page are not that far from Oblivion standards ;)

That's not how I saw Oblivion. You needed a strong graphics card for the time, or a lower resolution.

[-D-]

The theory that Rob pissed of his artist seems more credible by the second. I refuse to believe Xin had any input in this...

[Kantaki]

I'm pretty sure I just took SAN-Damage from looking at the new "art"...

[Vinyadan]

Now I'm tempted to photoshop the page where Parson arrives in Erfworld to have Wanda saying "Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."

"Ahh yes, we've been expecting you." (Wanda)
"You! I have seen you. Let me see your face-- you are the one from my dreams". (Stanley)

[lord_khaine]

I'm just going to chime in about all of the "Practical Guide to Evil" recommendations with a warning that the protagonist is a bit of Mary-Sue power fantasy. And by "a bit" I mean even her antagonists can't help themselves but constantly gush about how special, awesome, and dangerous she is. It got stale for me somewhere around halfway and I had to give up on it. I don't have a ton of tolerance for those kinds of characters anymore though.

I think thats perhaps at places a bit of exageration.
Yes a lot of people are genuinly scared of her because at the end of the serie she has gathered a lot of power.
And she are good at bluffing herself up to appear even stronger.

But she has also been at danger of drowning in her own vommit after being trashed and crippled.

[The Glyphstone]

It's also off topic for the thread, as we have a perfectly good PGtE thread in Media Discussions.

Cough

[Divayth Fyr]

That's not how I saw Oblivion. You needed a strong graphics card for the time, or a lower resolution.

I won't comment on this, since I wasn't much of a fan of TES IV (... understatement of the millenium), but (at least some) of the faces were... less than stellar.

Spoiler

Show

[The Glyphstone]

Looks like a pig went Super Saiyan...

[halfeye]

I won't comment on this, since I wasn't much of a fan of TES IV (... understatement of the millenium), but (at least some) of the faces were... less than stellar.

Well I did like TES 4, and I think what happened with the faces was the uncanny valley. The faces in TES 5 were similar, but they always had hair, beards or something that looked really out of place, just so nobody did get half-fooled and go "urg what's that" because they were half-fooled.

[HorizonWalker]

I would honestly prefer stick figures to this. I don't mean these stick figures, I mean these stick figures.

[-D-]

Looks like a pig went Super Saiyan...

Super Saiyan Bacon

[Anteros]

It's also off topic for the thread, as we have a perfectly good PGtE thread in Media Discussions.

Cough

Looks like a pig went Super Saiyan...

My fault. I apologize for wandering off of the thread topic of...Oblivion?

[Doran]

I guess we could discuss some of the Erfworld fanfics?

What are your guys thoughts on the fic I posted earlier, The Last Turn

I enjoyed the Mass Effect references, and the turn exploitation mechanic.

[Kantaki]

I won't comment on this, since I wasn't much of a fan of TES IV (... understatement of the millenium), but (at least some) of the faces were... less than stellar.

Still less horrid looking than the new Erf-Art.
This guy just looks like he had a horrific accident.
Erfworld 5.0 (at least) would give CoC Monsters the creeps.

[tigerusthegreat]

I guess we could discuss some of the Erfworld fanfics?

What are your guys thoughts on the fic I posted earlier, The Last Turn

I enjoyed the Mass Effect references, and the turn exploitation mechanic.

I can put my own into the ring Prehendo Victoria It explores Retconjuration, though it looks like now I'll never be able to finish it since i'm banned from the forums.