Updated, plus I added some subcategories for additional organization, and moved the info about Elan's Rapiers and Haley's Boots of Speed to the D&D section under "Character Items".
__________________ Thanks, Bradakhan, for the avatar!
"You are what you do. Choose again, and change." --Miles Vorkosigan
"The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in the future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present--they are real." --Aral Vorkosigan
...In a new "Reasons to despair for humanity: This needed to be pointed out" category, perhaps?
__________________
Spoiler
"You are what you do. Choose again, and change." --Miles Vorkosigan
"The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in the future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present--they are real." --Aral Vorkosigan
...In a new "Reasons to despair for humanity: This needed to be pointed out" category, perhaps?
Yeah, that seems very appropriate . I haven't tried to keep up with that thread since last night, because it's simply going too fast, but wow, I cannot believe that the post the Giant quoted in that one was actually made.
Zevox
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Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
"We each decide our own sense of right and wrong. The rest, I leave to my sword." - Yuri Lowell, Tales of Vesperia
I thought about not including it, because I thought "surely something like that will never be brought up again in a thread, and thus the quote won't be needed, right?"
Then despair hit.
It is under Prequels (SPOILERS).
__________________ Thanks, Bradakhan, for the avatar!
I'm transcribing the Geekademia interview to have as reference. I think this would probably be the best place to post it.
If anyone from Geekademia doesn't like this, let me know and I'll take it down.
Intro and commentary on the Kickstarter Drive:
Spoiler
J - Hello this is Geekademia on the Non-productive Network, my name is Jesse Baruffi
D - I'm David Lawrence
J - and we're here with another special guest, Rich Burlew, the author and artist of Order of the Stick, hello Rich!
R - Hey, how's it going?
J - Pretty good. So, the reason... I think the reason we were able to get you on today is the fact that you're going through a very large donation drive at the moment on the website Kickstarter
R - Yes, yes I am.
J - So, to anyone who might not know about this, why don't you tell us a little bit about it?
R - Alright, well. For a while I've published my own books, of the Order of the Stick, and because I'm a small one person company, I ran out, essentially, of all the existing books, which isn't just a problem for selling those books, but also for selling any future books, because people like to have things in whole sets, so I was worried about what would happen when I put out my next book if my entire back catalog was unavailable, so I had heard about Kickstarter, I had followed some projects and I thought "Well, I'll put up a little Kickstarter and we'll try to get..." I get people bugging me all the time to... not bugging, you know... asking all the time when the next reprint would be of one of my books in particular, War and XPs, which is the biggest, fattest, most expensive book to print so far. So I was like... and I absolutely did not have the money for it. And so I thought "Well, I'll put up a Kickstarter for it, and if it goes well, I get to reprint the book, and if it doesn't go well, I'll have something to say next time somebody asks me isn't War and XPs in print". And I thought that was worth it right there. So I set up this Kickstarter project drive and it's... pretty good so far. We got it funded enough to reprint that book in about... 36 hours I'd say, and it's gone on from there to funding the reprinting of every single book that I have, six, the ones that are regularily in print, and it's been pretty amazing, I had no idea that I'd get this sort of response from my readers. Yeah, it's been a ride, to say the least.
On the fans, the forum, and some of the things that go on here:
Spoiler
J - As someone who goes on the forums on your website from time to time, it seems you've got some extremely devoted fans
R - Yes, that would be an extremely charitable description. No, it's wonderful, I love my fans, I do have fans that are very dedicated, often more dedicated than I am. You know, they're dedicated to some of the minutiae about the comic that has never crossed my mind, and... but that's great, I mean, I'm happy that they can get that enjoyment from it, even though I don't want to even worry about it (J interrupts, get cut off) like the number of character appearances or who has the most number of kills in the comic, you know. Good for them. (mumbles)
J - Yeah, you've got bigger things to worry about, like what happens in the story
R - Story, yeah.
J - One thing I noticed recently on the forum that I thought was kinda interesting is the fact that people have started to... sort of making a soundtrack to the series
R - I saw the thread title, but I haven't been... I haven't been on the forums as much as I should since this started, been having to put up an update almost every single day for the past two weeks, so I haven't actually caught exactly what's going on there but it's an interesting idea, I mean, I know that Homestuck does similar sort of things with the fans creating soundtracks and he actually uses them in his animation which I don't think is gonna happen for the Stick but it's still a great idea to be able to have something to listen to... I don't know, it's an interesting idea.
On social networking and OotS:
Spoiler
J - One thing that I really wanted to ask you about, 'cause I think this is kinda fascinating... I've noticed most people in the webcomics... I guess, field?, are... basically kinda throw themselves on every social networking site there is whether it's like Facebook or Twitter or Tumbler or any of that stuff.
R - And you're saying I'm a backwards luddite hermit.
J - Well, yes but I mean it as a compliment.
R - I had to download Skype in order to have this conversation.
J - I certainly don't mean that as an insult, it seems to me that it's something we here at Geekademia don't even use a lot of that stuff, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to have a Facebook page for the podcast. But I was just wondering if that was a conscious decision on your part or is that something you're just too busy for.
R - Yeah, it's pretty much a conscious decision, I mean, I am a technologically backwards luddite, that makes it easy, but second, I think, if I want people to see my content I want them to sort of come to my website, instead of mantaining different websites at 15 different social networks. I don't want to have to worry about whether my Facebook page is updated in addition to my website. And some of these I'm just a late arrival to, in the sense that there is an Order of the Stick website that somebody created, a fan created, and it's been out there and everybody's linked to it, and everyone liked it in their profiles or whatever and I don't have control of that, so rather than there being two competing Facebook pages I just sort of let that live it's own life as a fan created thing and I'll concentrate on my own website. I will probably get dragged into Twitter very soon but, ah,not yet, haven't crossed that threshold yet, and every thing else, either I'm oblivious to it or I just haven't had the time to learn and figure out whether it works for me
J - Ok
R - I think I'm also a little bit older than a lot of the other webcomic- I mean, I'm not OLD old, I'm 37, but I think a lot of the webcomic creators out there are college or just there after, and therefore are a lot more 'up' on these technologies than I am. And I use a Mac, which is not always up to speed up until very recently with the iPad explosion coming and such.
J - Gotcha. Well that makes sense and, I'm only a little bit younger than you, but yeah, I kinda feel similarly if I was going to do something creative, I'd focus on that instead of the endless, like, updating of other things, personally.
R - Yeah, I have enough trouble keeping my own website updated, so it seems like I would just be adding more work on myself. And I had a fairly large audience before Facebook became "the" thing that everybody had to be on. I started this in 2003, I don't know exactly when Facebook started peaking, but I know that I already had a substantial audience by that point, so I don't know that I saw right away what the benefit would be, and now that I do, it looks like somebody already did a page for me, so... I let it be.
I'll keep going when I get the chance and come back to post it.
__________________
Proud Owner of a copy of the OotS Game
Thank you, Xapi. I don't have time to analyze the transcript now but perhaps when you've posted some more of it we can discuss what might be pertinent information for the Index and how best to catalog it.
__________________ Thanks, Bradakhan, for the avatar!
I'm happy that they can get that enjoyment form it, even though I don't want to even worry about it (J interrupts, get cut off) like the number of character appearances
That's me!!
__________________ Here is a numbering of all character appearances in OOTS
I'm transcribing the Geekademia interview to have as reference. I think this would probably be the best place to post it.
If anyone from Geekademia doesn't like this, let me know and I'll take it down.
Intro and commentary on the Kickstarter Drive:
Spoiler
J - Hello this is Geekademia on the Non-productive Network, my name is Jesse (...)
D - I'm David (...)
J - and we're here with another special guest, Rich Burlew, the author and artist of Order of the Stick, hello Rich!
R - Hey, how's it going?
J - Pretty good. So, the reason... I think the reason we were able to get you on today is the fact that you're going through a very large donation drive at the moment on the website Kickstarter
R - Yes, yes I am.
J - So, to anyone who might not know about this, why don't you tells us a little bit about it?
R - Alright, well. For a while I've published my own books, of the Order of the Stick, and because I'm a small one person company, I ran out, esentially, of all the preexistent books, wich isn't just a problem for selling those books, but also for selling any future books, because people like to have things in whole sets, so I was worried about what would happen when I put out my next book if my entire back catalog was unavailable, so I had heard about Kickstarter, I had followed some projects and I thought "Well, I'll put up a little Kickstarter and we'll try (...)" I get people bugging me all the time to... not bugging, you know... asking all the time when the next reprint would be of one of my books in particular, War and XPs, wich is the biggest, fattest, most expensive book to print so far. (Mumbles) and I absolutely did not have the money for it. And so I thought "Well, I'll put up a Kickstarter for it, and if it goes well, I get to reprint the book, and if it doesn't go well, I'll have something to say next time somebody asks me isn't War and XPs in print". And I thought that was worth the (???) there. So I set up this Kickstarter project drive and it's... pretty good so far. We got it funded enough to reprint that book in about... 36 hours I'd say, and it's gone on from there to funding the reprinting of every single book that I have, six, the ones that are regularily in print, and it's been pretty amazing, I had no idea that I'd get this sort of response from my readers. Yeah, it's been a ride, to say the least.
On the fans, the forum, and some of the things that go on here:
Spoiler
J - As someone who goes on the forums from time to time, it seems you've got some extremely devoted fans
R - Yes, that would be the an extremely charitable description. No, it's wonderful, I love my fans, I do have fans that are very dedicated, often more dedicated than I am. You know, they're dedicated to some of the minutiae about the comic that has never cross my mind, and... but that's great, I mean, I'm happy that they can get that enjoyment form it, even though I don't want to even worry about it (J interrupts, get cut off) like the number of character appearences or who has the most number of kills in the comic, you know. Good for them. (mumbles)
J - Yeah, you've got bigger things to worry about, like what happens in the story
R - Story, yeah.
J - One thing I noticed recently on the forum that I thought was kinda interesting is the fact that people have started to... sort of making a soundtrack to the series
R - I saw the thread title, but I haven't been... I haven't been on the forums as much as I should since this started, been having to put up an update almost every single day for the past two weeks, so I haven't actually caught exactly what's going on there but it's an interesting idea, I mean, I know that Homestuck did a similar sort of thing with he fans getting soundtracks and he actually uses them in his animation wich I don't think is gonna happen for the Stick butit's still a great idea to be able to have something to listen to... I don't know, it's an interesting idea.
On social networking and OotS:
Spoiler
J - One thing that I really wanted to ask you about, 'cause I think this is kinda fascinating... I've noticed most people in the webcomics... I guess, field?, are... basically kinda throw themselves on every social networking site there is weather it's like Facebook or Twitter or Tumbler or any of that stuff.
R - And you're saying I'm a backwards (uninteligible) hermit.
J - Well, yes but I mean it as a compliment.
R - I had to download Skype in order to have this conversation.
J - I certainly don't mean that as an insult, it seems to me that it's something we here at Geekademia don't even use a lot of that stuff, I had to be draged kicking and screaming to have a Facebook page for the podcast. But I was just wondering if that was a concious desition on your part or is that something you're just too busy for.
R - Yeah, it's pretty much a concious desition, I mean, I am a technologically backwards (...), that makes it easy, but second, I think, if I want people to see my content I want them to sort of come to my website, instead of mantaining different websites at 15 different social networks. I don't want to have to worry about weather my Facebook page is updated in adition to my website. And some of these I'm just a late arrival to, in the sense that there is an Order of the Stick website that somebody created, a fan created, and it's been out there and everybody's linked to it, and everyone liked it in their profiles or whatever and I don't have control of that, so rather than there being two competing Facebook pages I just sort of let that live it's own life as a fan created thing and I'll concentrate on my own website. I will probably get dragged into Twitter very soon but, ah,not yet, haven't crossed that threshold yet, and every thing else, either I'm oblivious to it or I just haven't had the time to learn and figure out weather it works for me
J - Ok
R - I think I'm also a little bit older than a lot of the other webcomic- I mean, I'm not OLD old, I'm 37, but I think a lot of the webcomic creators out there are college or just there after, and therefore are a lot more up there in these technologies than I am. And I use a Mac, wich is not always up to speed up until very recently with the iPad explosion coming and such.
J - Gotcha. Well that makes sense and, I'm only a little bit younger than you, but yeah, I kinda feel similarly if I was going to do something creative, I'd focus on that instead of the endless, like, updating of other things, personally.
R - Yeah, I have enough trouble getting my own website updated, so it seems like I would just be adding more work on myself. And I had a fairly large audience before Facebook became "the" thing that everybody had to be on. I started this in 2003, I don't know exactly when Facebook started peaking, but I know that I already had a substantial audience by that point, so I don't know if I was at the time what the benefit would be, and now that I do, it looks like somebody already did a page for me, so... I let it be.
I'll keep going when I get the chance and come back to post it.
Hey, I'm Jesse from Geekademia, and I think it's totally awesome that you transcribed our interview. Thanks a bunch!
I don't know if we want to include this since it's also a direct reply to a certain poster, but Rich talks about visuals a bit here.
Just added it under Story / Plot.
Xapi, I'm not sure what to do with some of the quotes from the interview that you posted. I think the social networking one might be valuable to add, since that question does arise now and again ("Why isn't Rich on x website?"). The one about Kickstarter is interesting but won't be all that useful I think after the drive is over. The one about the fans doesn't supply any new info as far as I can tell.
Thanks very much for the transcript so far though!
Rich, thanks for the clarification.
__________________ Thanks, Bradakhan, for the avatar!
Xapi, I'm not sure what to do with some of the quotes from the interview that you posted. I think the social networking one might be valuable to add, since that question does arise now and again ("Why isn't Rich on x website?"). The one about Kickstarter is interesting but won't be all that useful I think after the drive is over. The one about the fans doesn't supply any new info as far as I can tell.
Thanks very much for the transcript so far though!
Rich, thanks for the clarification.
You could have a seperate section to link interviews if you want?
You could have a seperate section to link interviews if you want?
I thought about that... that would be one way to incorporate everything. But if someone is looking for a particular thing the Giant said, and they don't know if it is in a comment or an interview, how would they find it? That's the issue I got hung up on.
What does everyone think? Separate section for interviews for the sake of completeness, or categorize select interview quotes alongside forum comments? I'm open to either option. Which would you all prefer?
__________________ Thanks, Bradakhan, for the avatar!
I thought about that... that would be one way to incorporate everything. But if someone is looking for a particular thing the Giant said, and they don't know if it is in a comment or an interview, how would they find it? That's the issue I got hung up on.
What does everyone think? Separate section for interviews for the sake of completeness, or categorize select interview quotes alongside forum comments? I'm open to either option. Which would you all prefer?
You could go with both. Have the specific quotes in your index, and then just link to the interview itself.
I thought about that... that would be one way to incorporate everything. But if someone is looking for a particular thing the Giant said, and they don't know if it is in a comment or an interview, how would they find it? That's the issue I got hung up on.
What does everyone think? Separate section for interviews for the sake of completeness, or categorize select interview quotes alongside forum comments? I'm open to either option. Which would you all prefer?
I think it makes more sense to categorize things as forum posts and interviews. So long as the first post remains well-organized anyone should be able to find what they're looking for, whether or not they remember if it was from a comment on the forums or an interview. It might take them a few moments longer, but they'd be able to find it without too much trouble.
@ The Giant: Thanks a lot, if you keep reading this let me know of any other mistake or thing I didn't catch if you feel like it.
@ThePhantasm: I don't have a strong opinion on where in the Index this would go, I'm just posting it here and we'll see what happens with it later.
@everyone:
Here are a couple more questions. There are two questions regarding roleplaying and OotS campaign world that I started transcribing at work, so I'll finish and post those on wednesday. Chronologically, those two would be befoire the batch I'm posting now.
On the OotS storyline getting darker
Spoiler
J - As far as the storyline of the OotS goes, one thing that has definitely happened as time goes on is that despite continuing to be funny and continuing to be a humor comic on some level, there have been some much darker elements introduced.
R - Yes
J - So what made you decide to take that shift and still remain with the same characters and story?
R - I don't know, I think I've always had a draw to that shock reveal. Not shock for the sake of shocking, but that dramatic sudden moment when something happens in the story you absolutely did not see coming and perhaps as an either darker or more impactful moment that you ever thought was possible in a work, in the work you were seeing. I used to do that as a DM, I used to set up situations where the players thought one thing was happening the entire time, they walk in the door and see a scene that threw all their preconceptions on the ground and stomped down on them, I think I really enjoy that, I think it creates powerful moments in the story, and sometimes that means doing something dark, sometimes that means taking your comedy villain who is bored and having him slaughter a room full of Paladins with a bouncy ball. You know, because it's so perverse, and it's such a violation of their honor and law mindset, where they're these noble Paladins who will defend to the last man, and they just get destroyed like that. The goal is sort of, not offend, but bother the reader, it should bother them. You should look at Xykon and say "He's a horrible monster". He can still crack a funny joke, but you shouldn't be sympathetic to him, and if you are, I don't know if I necessarily I want to know about it, because that's a little scary. And that was one of the problems with SoD, "here's the story of Xykon", but I'm not going to make him even slightly sympathetic, if anything, you're going to think worse of him by the time you're done with this. So, I think I have an affection for writing the villains, because of that ability to sort of make your jaw drop, you know, heroes can't really do that without.. you know it's going to be... no one's gonna gasp when they do something specially heroic or kind. And I really don't want my heroes to be dark, with the exception of Belkar, but that's another story. I don't want Roy to suddenly do something out of character or shocking, the closest thing I got to that was I had Haley kill off the assassin that had been harassing her, and that was still pretty surprising, and I think a lot of people didn't see it coming, but I also sort of goofed there in the sense that I cut the scene that made it more obvious that Crystal was still actively trying to kill Haley, truce or no truce, so, that was something I fixed in the book, but it's still, it was a fairly surprising, but again, like I said, I still have to go darker to be surprising like that, so, I think that's where it comes from really.
J - Ok
On the Giant being excesively wordy, how he likes to talk about the creative process, and on the commentary from the books.
Spoiler
R - You see I'm just as wordy in my interviews as I am in the comic, it all flows naturally from me.
J - Believe me, we'll have you on as long as you want to stay, if you want to just talk for twenty minutes, that's awesome. I will take one bit of fanboyish break from the interview, when we started this podcast, I had a couple of people who were sort of my long shot goals of people to get on the show, and you were towards the top of people I didn't think I'd get but I was gonna try anyway. So I thought you might want to know that. Again, we don't mind to listen to you talk.
R - Honestly, I was excited at the chance to talk about something other than Kickstarter, because I've done a bunch of interviews and they're all about Kickstarter sometimes to the point of not even mentioning what my comic is about, they say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but at a certain point you want people to find out, I mean, the people who already know what my comic is about, already know what my comic is about, so they don't need to get the spiel but I like being able to talk about it, actually about my comic and not how much money I can raise.
J - Sure. As someone who writes as well, not professionally unfortunately, I know it is sort of fun to be able to talk about the creative process, because it one of those things the readers never see, they don't know what's going on in your head while you're doing it.
R - Sure, that's why I do the commentary in the books, they're sort of what I would think to talk about, that's not always what someone who is reading would think to talk about or want to know about, so they're not always exactly what people are looking for in terms of behind the scenes.
__________________
Proud Owner of a copy of the OotS Game
I thought about that... that would be one way to incorporate everything. But if someone is looking for a particular thing the Giant said, and they don't know if it is in a comment or an interview, how would they find it? That's the issue I got hung up on.
What does everyone think? Separate section for interviews for the sake of completeness, or categorize select interview quotes alongside forum comments? I'm open to either option. Which would you all prefer?
Personally, I say do both. Have the relevant part of the interview quoted or paraphrased where the answer would normally go, with a link to the full interview, as well as have a separate section listing all the interviews.
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Re: The Index of the Giant's Comments
I updated it with all 3 of Rich's comments from that thread.
. I haven't tried to keep up with that thread since last night, because it's simply going too fast, but wow, I cannot believe that the post the Giant quoted in that one was actually made.
