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  1. - Top - End - #271
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by Grubsnik View Post
    The real question, has the authors ever changed the direction of the story, simply because the forum members figured it out too soon?
    Short answer, no.

    Slightly longer answer, if you guys have correctly guessed at bits and pieces of where we are going, we're doing our job. At this point in time, there are no real original stories. There may be original ways of telling a story, but it's the same few stories over and over again. The key is tell a good story and tell it in a way that readers may not have seen before.

    We're not out to trick our readers or pull some sort of twist that is impossible to see coming. We want to tell a good story. So if some of you have correctly figured out where it's going, that's perfectly fine. We hope it's entertaining enough to see it through, to see how we tell our version of this story. And if you do stick with us to the end, we've done our job.

    So no, we don't change things because you guess correctly. We kind of slyly grin and continue on.
    Jamie Noguchi, artist and co-creator of Erfworld and evil monkey responsible for Angry Zen Master.

  2. - Top - End - #272
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by dr pepper View Post
    Clue please-- AoE?
    Area of Effect

    Typically means any attack that has multiple targets.

  3. - Top - End - #273
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by fendrin View Post
    Area of Effect

    Typically means any attack that has multiple targets.
    Within a certain area. A fireball that explodes and fries anythign within a certain radius for example. One that just can hit any X targets you chose, where X is a number greater than 1, is not an AoE bacause it has a predetermined number of targets.
    Last edited by Zolem; 2008-09-25 at 09:32 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Keld Denar View Post
    If the players figure out and try to stop this from occuring, the wizard instantly crafts a HUGE mound of quarterstaves and clubs to obscure himself before teleporting out.

  4. - Top - End - #274
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by Zolem View Post
    Within a certain area. A fireball that explodes and fries anythign within a certain radius for example. One that just can hit any X targets you chose, where X is a number greater than 1, is not an AoE bacause it has a predetermined number of targets.
    By the specific meaning of the terms, yes.

    I have seen it used both ways, though.

  5. - Top - End - #275
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by jami View Post
    Short answer, no.

    Slightly longer answer, if you guys have correctly guessed at bits and pieces of where we are going, we're doing our job. At this point in time, there are no real original stories. There may be original ways of telling a story, but it's the same few stories over and over again. The key is tell a good story and tell it in a way that readers may not have seen before.

    We're not out to trick our readers or pull some sort of twist that is impossible to see coming. We want to tell a good story. So if some of you have correctly figured out where it's going, that's perfectly fine. We hope it's entertaining enough to see it through, to see how we tell our version of this story. And if you do stick with us to the end, we've done our job.

    So no, we don't change things because you guess correctly. We kind of slyly grin and continue on.
    Well, there are no new real original stories once they have been published and read but at the moment we've seen them some of them were both original and new and we do not know what might come next, do we? I mean some poor Author somewhere might just be writing something completely new.

    Besides that I feel the need to tell you guys that you have a very good story here. Some things have been guessed by the readers - some were not. Sometimes a situation has several possible (with different degrees of probability) outcomes, sometimes a random thing just happens and changes history and most times we didn't have all the facts about Erfworld before things happened. Keep it going and I really hope there will be a part 2.

    So.. I did not speculate for a long time on the forum but since I post again let me try once more... I think the Tool wins the current encounter cause wouldn't that be an anti-climatic end if Parson was just disbanded (or turn barbarian and go home)? On the other hand, once the Tool croaks, Parson can start a new side. I mean, why not? Then there is a 3rd possibilty: Tool game over, parson barbarian, Charlie buys GK with his vast treasury (gaining Sizemore, W.nda and Parson and the best defensive position in the world in the bargain). Huh, too many possible outcomes...
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  6. - Top - End - #276
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by Krelon View Post
    Well, there are no new real original stories once they have been published and read but at the moment we've seen them some of them were both original and new and we do not know what might come next, do we? I mean some poor Author somewhere might just be writing something completely new.
    An Egyptian guy by the nome of Khakhepersenb complained about there being nothing to say that hadn't been said before, in a text written close to 3900 years ago. So even claiming this kind of stuff is old news.

    I'll settle for things being new enough.

    Quote Originally Posted by ishnar View Post
    Sigh, please read what I say before you reply. Yes it was DISCUSSED, but it was never EXPLAINED. The discussion involved a lot of people that got the joke saying how funny and awesome the joke was. No one ever explained it.
    The thing was in fact explained in the first page about that strip, in one of the first comments:

    Quote Originally Posted by Kronk View Post
    There used to be an rumor that KISS stood for "Knights in Satan's Service." The rumor was used to try to persuade young impressionable kids from listening to the devil's music.
    There's no way that someone would miss the chance to explain something like this...

    Quote Originally Posted by ishnar View Post
    Every time I googled it, it just referred me back to the thread where it wasn't explained, just discussed. Again, Thanks to Cainen for being the first to explain and not sneer like the above poster.
    I agree that he could have been more helpful, but you're overreacting a bit. Let's keep this friendly guys.
    Last edited by teratorn; 2008-09-25 at 07:18 PM.
    Avatar: ruthless Parson (Erfworld).

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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by teratorn View Post
    An Egyptian guy by the nome of Khakhepersenb complained about there being nothing to say that hadn't been said before, in a text written close to 3900 years ago. So even claiming this kind of stuff is old news.

    ...
    I bet he would be surprised that about 3900 years later people start talking about computers, relativity theory and quantum mechanics. I'd wager this topics have not been discussed when he was around.

    Anyway, what I really want to say is that Erfworld, The Battle of Gobwin Knob is a real original story besides being good story. There might have been stories about warlords, about people transfered to another worlds, stories told as a graphic novel; but the combination of the all together with the fact that Erfworld with its own rules is an original world that this not exist in the fantasy of the authors/readers before makes the story unique.

    The AoE thing (area of effect) I have also seen both interpretations (area covered by an effect and/or multiple targets affected with a certain area)

    The KISS reference has already been talked about in the thread for page 76 http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0082.html. Which reminds me ... it was about that time when discussions started about the pace/updating being to slow and that the comic doesn't move forward and stuff, that the story might be over now that the Tool walks away... Well, we are on issue 123! And it is as interesting as can be. Way to go dear authors. I do hope you can surprise me more.

    About targeting the catser in the tunnels.. I bet the radish troops seen him work and should know by now there is only now. Basically all losses there go on Sizemore's account plus he heals his golems. Small wonder they want to go for him nomatter what, no matter who he is.
    Last edited by Krelon; 2008-09-26 at 05:50 AM.
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  8. - Top - End - #278
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by Krelon View Post
    I bet he would be surprised that about 3900 years later people start talking about computers, relativity theory and quantum mechanics. I'd wager this topics have not been discussed when he was around.
    The common claim that "everything original is already been told" is not about topics, but tropes. There is no original story, as every concatenation of events has been used, abused, adverted and subverted. Changing the item or place doesn't make a story new, it's just recycling.
    Computer? Everything a computer represent, has been already covered by magic mirrors or demon-in-a-box. Relativity theory makes no great story, outside of "older/younger twin", that has been used in tons of very old time-travel stories. Quantum mechanic is used, in narrative, just where magic would be out of place.

  9. - Top - End - #279
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by Laurentio II View Post
    The common claim that "everything original is already been told" is not about topics, but tropes. There is no original story, as every concatenation of events has been used, abused, adverted and subverted. Changing the item or place doesn't make a story new, it's just recycling.
    Computer? Everything a computer represent, has been already covered by magic mirrors or demon-in-a-box. Relativity theory makes no great story, outside of "older/younger twin", that has been used in tons of very old time-travel stories. Quantum mechanic is used, in narrative, just where magic would be out of place.
    But that's my point exactly. Even if there is a single original thing to be told every hundreds years it is still more than nothing. (As your example with space travel near light speed and younger/older twin) Even very old time travel stories tend to be newer than 3900 years. To accept the fact that there will be no new original is unacceptable since it imposes the complete knowledge of future which is ridiculous. Sometimes it just takes longer to produce new ideas, one example is the "Achilles and the turtle problem" where Achilles never reaches the turtle if we start to divide the time into smaller parts. It took more than thousand years to prove mathematically that this kind of thinking does not hold thanks to new ideas in mathematic (limes, differentiation, integration). New ideas develop and with new facts in life that "we" are aware of our thinking changes as well and with new ways of thinking new topics and tropes will develop. Even things that have been already told, have been told a first time back in the past. At that moment they were new but not now. I can accept that the claim you are citing holds in part "Everything that we already heard back in the past has been told before the present" which at least for me implies .. "but the future may bring new things that have not been told yet".

    That magic=science (not in my eyes anyway) reduces the amount of original stories can be an approach to reduce new stories to old ones but it adds at least one new .. in which a technological civilization meets a medieval one and science seems like magic (a story by the russian brothers Strugacki for example). Again something new at the time is was published.

    Such "common claims" may be nice to show a common trend but by no means do they hold once someone tries to look at them sceptically. However, they are something to think about for sure.
    Last edited by Krelon; 2008-09-26 at 08:54 AM.
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  10. - Top - End - #280
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    In 1904 i think it was, the director of the US patent office stated that he believed their job would be done within the next 1-2 years. Since everything worth inventing had already been invented by now.

    Man is still coming up with new things, this goes for stories as well as inventions. The only that hasn't changed, is the fact that people still assume that "evolution" is done.

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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by Krelon View Post
    I bet he would be surprised that about 3900 years later people start talking about computers, relativity theory and quantum mechanics. I'd wager this topics have not been discussed when he was around.
    I think he would be surprised to learn that Egypt would last way over 1000 years. He was trying to make the point that Egypt was living the worst times ever but was worried that people wouldn't take him seriously because every generation said the same thing... Apparently we still do that today.

    Khakhepersenb didn't need such modern technology to get a shock, he lived during the bronze age. Even non-chariot cavalry would be a surprise to him.

    I'm not trying to say that there aren't innovations in story telling, but often these are on the setting and on the tools the characters will use to achieve their goals. Many of the underlying stories have been defined a long time ago. The 2,500 year old story of the slave Rhodopis marrying the pharaoh may not have a fairy godmother turning pumpkins into carriages, but it is the same story as Cinderella.
    Avatar: ruthless Parson (Erfworld).

  12. - Top - End - #282
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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Technology has indeed affected storytelling. The basic stories of boy meets girl, knight vanquishes dragon, etc - those all stay the same. Shakespeare still works, because it is about basic human interactions. In that sense, there are no new stories to tell, because people are still people and there aren't that many roles for them to play.

    But the trappings around the stories change, and the reader's mindset changes, too.

    Before extremely fast technological changes, generations of people would live essentially the same life, and would 'get' essentially the same stories. They lived in the same society as their parents, and as their kids.

    But now technology changes lives at an extremely rapid rate. Generations live completely different lives. My grandmother was born into a house without indoor plumbing. My parents read newspapers and magazines for their news, and invited friends over to play cards and socialize. My kids get their news from the Daily Show, and usually get together with their friends online to digitally kill each other.

    Storytelling like science fiction became a coping mechanism for rapid change. An "OK, here's what tomorrow might actually look like, get ready for it." There's no new stories, and people are still just people, but we deal with the world differently than our grandparents. So what makes an interesting story changes, and what we get out of the stories changes, too.

    In my grandmother's day, putting one person's body parts into another was madness, hubris, and the stuff of horror stories as in Frankenstein.

    In my day, science fiction writer Larry Niven predicted carving prisoners up for their body parts, and kidnapping people to sell them piecemeal. Organ transplants were becoming commonplace, so treating people as replacements parts began to seem inevitable.

    For my kids, knowledge that China is harvesting their prisoners is yesterday's news. Organ-legging might the basis of a detective story, but it is no longer a science-fiction premise.

    It's gone one step beyond that, too. Fiction has become a major force in what we build, and how it works. What Hollywood imagines today, scientists will invent tomorrow because they want to have an R2D2, or phasers, or teleporters, just like they saw on TV.
    Dibs on his dice.

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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by CaptC View Post
    T
    But the trappings around the stories change, and the reader's mindset changes, too.
    Even something apparently as simple as cell phones made many "not so old" shows to look completely outdated. All those scenes where the psycho cuts the phone lines. And all those "futuristic" movies where people talked to their wrist watches...

    In this regard Parson's eyebooks are a terrible advantage over his enemies. I wonder why he doesn't use them to ask for Wanda. Is he afraid of security issues related to Charlie?

    I've been looking at the big view of the 30 dwagons surrounded by bats. Is Stanley's dawgon much bigger than any other, or is it just flying way above the others? (there are obvious height/distance effects with the other dwagons).
    Last edited by teratorn; 2008-09-26 at 12:01 PM.
    Avatar: ruthless Parson (Erfworld).

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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111



    I've been enjoying that series too. When a foolamancer says "I think that I think therefore...I think that I am!" Not only does it sound like a mantra warm up to a spell, but it gives you the perspective of someone who literally thinks up their own reality and perceived existence....what Descartes would have said if he was a foolamancer.

    Jack is supposed to be a very talented foolamancer who could hide entire cities (per Jillian) and I think he did babble the the 'medium was the problem' in his last conversation with Parson. It would be interesting if Jack actually created an illusion so realistic and all encompassing ('the medium') that Transylvito and Stanley just thought they were about to engage in combat when actually Stanley is unknowingly (due to foolamancy) on his way back to Gobwin Knob.

    If you look carefully at the page, Jack speaks his spell like words and then remains quiet as Stanley keeps talking...and talking, only to end up pointing and saying "See what I see!" He is a foolamancer. I suspect something is up.


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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    Quote Originally Posted by teratorn View Post
    I'm not trying to say that there aren't innovations in story telling, but often these are on the setting and on the tools the characters will use to achieve their goals. Many of the underlying stories have been defined a long time ago. The 2,500 year old story of the slave Rhodopis marrying the pharaoh may not have a fairy godmother turning pumpkins into carriages, but it is the same story as Cinderella.
    Speaking of which, she actually lost her shoe in that. In fact, every culture on the planet developed a Cinderela story of it's own even without contact with other cultures around the world. Adn they are all very ancient. So not only are there no truly origional stories, but people tell the exact same story wihtout even realizing it. Although certain things, such as how the prince get's the shoe (and it is always a shoe) changes. In Egypt an eagle drops it while he's praying for a sign of who he should marry. In China and Japan, both get the shoe from the river (in China, the wicked stepmother threw the girls shoes in the river to keep her from running off, in Japan it mearly fell off her foot into the river). In one Native American tale, Cyotie agreed to help the chieftans son find the most beutiful woman in the world, stole one of her shoes in the dead of night, and gave it to the son, telling him that whomever this shoe fit was the most beautiful woman in the world.
    Quote Originally Posted by Keld Denar View Post
    If the players figure out and try to stop this from occuring, the wizard instantly crafts a HUGE mound of quarterstaves and clubs to obscure himself before teleporting out.

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    Default Re: 123, The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 111

    The idea of no contact and no diffusion (between widely separated cultures) is getting pretty shaky as a concept, as we find more and more evidence of ancient travels.

    And even before that, we know that people generally diffused enough in pre-history that one successful line of mothers was able to leave their genetic marks on all of us. So why must we assume that the various Cinderella stories are not related, influenced, or traded? Shoes would be very important possessions for nomads hoofing it about the hinterlands, so why can't that story be one of the first ever told? I would expect the language capable people of the diffusion era to have tales and fiction, everyone else did. The earliest isolates are the Australian Aborigines, I wonder if they have a Cinderella Story. If they don't, we may even be able to date the ur-tale.

    Wow I am off topic.

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