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

[-D-]

That's before or after the new Game of Thrones book releases?

Martin didn't promise anyone cameo for their Game of Thrones Kickstarter.

[halfeye]

That's before or after the new Game of Thrones book releases?

Yes.

lalalalala

[Welf]

Don't forget that Stanley gathers competent advisors to cover his weaknesses-and then makes sure said advisors stick with him come heaven or hell.

Whereas most people that Rob gets in his team end up leaving pretty soon.

Also Stanley knowing when to perform a tactical retreat instead of making an hopeless stand and dying would make him considerably smarter than your average Erfworld ruler.

That Stanley listens to his advisers is both a strength and a weakness. If he has reliable people like Parson or loyal people like Ted or Odie that is good. But he also listen to Wanda, and she really screwed his side up. The quest for the tools was her idea and it put him in direct conflict with Charley and Spacerock, not to mention all the royalists.

I'd say Rob is an incompetent Warlord, that threw every member of his staff under the bus, but rolled really good on Luckamancy and ended up with both great PR and Ruler status.

I disagree. Everything you said is true, but Rob would make an excellent CEO. His abilities to gather money are legendary. And isn't that what CEO is really all about? I.e. getting more money for your fake programming firm?


The only good thing about this Kickstarter, is that Rob *promised* if successful there won't be any more 24hrs Kickstarters. Luckily, for the two legged sheep that follow Rob around, all that promises is that next cash grab Kickstarter won't have exactly 24hrs. Maybe 25 or 36, or maybe even 720 hours with a bonus story for his biggest sheep. A story in about 10-10000 years from now.

I concur, he is great at raising funds. That is a big part of a CEO. But that isn't "managing" for me. It's a variant of CEO that leaves the actual running of the company to someone else. Plus Rob burns through the money faster than he can get new cash. See tomaO2's comment. He has been getting prepayments for close to a decade and probably is massively in deb because of this. He can't even put anything of value on the shop because he'd be ruined if he had to pay the cost of producing anything. This is some Elon Musk level of CEOing.

[Aquillion]

That Stanley listens to his advisers is both a strength and a weakness. If he has reliable people like Parson or loyal people like Ted or Odie that is good. But he also listen to Wanda, and she really screwed his side up. The quest for the tools was her idea and it put him in direct conflict with Charley and Spacerock, not to mention all the royalists.

It's debatable, I think. Wanda believes in Fate, and her belief isn't groundless. When Stanley trusts her he's broadly trusting her knowledge as a caster, including her understanding of Fate. And in the long run, that has generally worked out so far, even if it's lead to setbacks in the short term.

I think it's fair to say that Wanda's loyalty is dubious, of course (and I don't think Stanley is totally unaware of this - see his discussion with Parson about avoiding a situation where Jillian gets decrypted. He's more insightful than he seems; to quote you-know-who, never confuse not caring with not knowing.)

But, also, he has limited options. He's not good at big-picture stuff and he knows that. Wanda is one of his side's best assets (even before she got an Arkentool.) He relied on her because he had to, not just out of blind faith or physical attraction or the like.

(That said, I have a sneaking suspicion that Wanda arranged the trimancer linkup in order to intentionally remove Maggie and Jack from the picture, since they were potential rivals for Stanley's ear. While she said it was one of his best ideas - and it did seem amazing at the time - now that we've seen some of what Maggie and Jack can do individually I'm not so sure it was a net plus, especially since Misty could have presumably done a lot of Lookamancy scouting on her own. In particular, locking Maggie in a permanent link cost them much of their ability to communicate with other sides, which probably contributed to their political isolation.)

[deuterio12]

Martin didn't promise anyone cameo for their Game of Thrones Kickstarter.

Let's be honest, who would want to be a cameo in the Game of "People have horrible lifes and ends" story?

That Stanley listens to his advisers is both a strength and a weakness. If he has reliable people like Parson or loyal people like Ted or Odie that is good. But he also listen to Wanda, and she really screwed his side up. The quest for the tools was her idea and it put him in direct conflict with Charley and Spacerock, not to mention all the royalists.

Stanley listens to Wanda yes, but he does not blindly obeys to her words.

This is, book 1starts with Wanda going "let's put the fate of our side in a bunch of mercenary casters while burning all of our treasury" and Stanley is "I agree with buying that fancy scroll but you'll do the casting yourself, that'll save money". They're negotiating and reach a middle term compromise. That was quite leader-like from Stanley, your subordinate says they need all the money and you figure out a way to do it at a fraction of the cost.

And in book 2 when Wanda asks to kill a crippled Jack just to save up on healing scrolls, Stanley goes "Let me think.... No."

Plus hey, they did end up crushing the royal coalition.

I concur, he is great at raising funds. That is a big part of a CEO. But that isn't "managing" for me. It's a variant of CEO that leaves the actual running of the company to someone else. Plus Rob burns through the money faster than he can get new cash. See tomaO2's comment. He has been getting prepayments for close to a decade and probably is massively in deb because of this. He can't even put anything of value on the shop because he'd be ruined if he had to pay the cost of producing anything. This is some Elon Musk level of CEOing.

Hey, Stanley's pretty good at getting and managing money! Every other side but Charlescom is struggling with finances most of the time, including TV that has an actual moneymancer, but GK under Stanley's leadership is always rolling in dough.

[-D-]

Let's be honest, who would want to be a cameo in the Game of "People have horrible lifes and ends" story?

*Raises hand* You get to hang around some famous stars and possibly a small non-speaking role? Sign me up.

I concur, he is great at raising funds. That is a big part of a CEO. But that isn't "managing" for me. It's a variant of CEO that leaves the actual running of the company to someone else. Plus Rob burns through the money faster than he can get new cash. See tomaO2's comment. He has been getting prepayments for close to a decade and probably is massively in deb because of this. He can't even put anything of value on the shop because he'd be ruined if he had to pay the cost of producing anything. This is some Elon Musk level of CEOing.

I was kinda making fun of the whole CEOs are basically scam artists. But yeah, I wouldn't doubt it is some Elon Musk level of crazy and irresponsible.

[halfeye]

I was kinda making fun of the whole CEOs are basically scam artists. But yeah, I wouldn't doubt it is some Elon Musk level of crazy and irresponsible.

Did Musk inherit that much?

[keybounce]

Don't forget that Stanley gathers competent advisors to cover his weaknesses-and then makes sure said advisors stick with him come heaven or hell.

Whereas most people that Rob gets in his team end up leaving pretty soon.

Also Stanley knowing when to perform a tactical retreat instead of making an hopeless stand and dying would make him considerably smarter than your average Erfworld ruler.

I would point out that this is only AFTER the start of book 1.

Start of book 1 it's a very different thing.

Heck, just look at how various fanfics handled book 1. One had a Warlord that negotiated a way out.

... well, of course, that also had them remove Stanley from the picture, so stanley might not have liked that :-). Hmm.

[HorizonWalker]

I would point out that this is only AFTER the start of book 1.

Start of book 1 it's a very different thing.

Heck, just look at how various fanfics handled book 1. One had a Warlord that negotiated a way out.

... well, of course, that also had them remove Stanley from the picture, so stanley might not have liked that :-). Hmm.

Huh. I thought toma02's fic was the only one that went that route. Out of curiosity, do you mind linking the other ones?

[tomaO2]

In terms of redoing book 1, I can recall 3 stories. Mine, Bandaid's, and... Mysterymancer.

The Imperfect Warlord
https://erfworld.com/blog/view/46631...lord-chapter-1

Yet Another Insert Fan Fiction
https://erfworld.com/blog/view/49426...rt-fan-fiction

Fraying Fate
https://forums.erfworld.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7701

Of the three, I have to say that Fraying Fate is, by far the best of the three, even if it cuts out way too early. It's about a human that appears a month or so Parson is supposed to show up as a Predictamancer. The insert is NOT afraid to tear down stations of canon, and he's added a ton of interesting stuff to chew on. It's one of my all time favourite Erfworld fanfics. I'm really sad that it got abandoned.

[tigerusthegreat]

Rob is apparently having a bit of a fit today, as he shut down the erfworld subreddit and banned some people from the erfworld site too. Wonder what triggered this.

I've heard from a handful of people that the "kickstarter every week" thing is causing them to withdraw financial support altogether. I definitely don't want erfworld to die, and I want to see the end of the storylines, but I get their reasoning.

[Anteros]

Wonder what triggered this.

It's the same way he always behaves in the face of any kind of criticism. Probably the main reason why this forum is so overwhelmingly negative towards the comic is that he doesn't allow any form of criticism on the main site.

[tigerusthegreat]

It's the same way he always behaves in the face of any kind of criticism. Probably the main reason why this forum is so overwhelmingly negative towards the comic is that he doesn't allow any form of criticism on the main site.

My personal theory on why there's not any updates is that Rob wrote himself into a corner and has no idea where to go. There's zero reason why we couldn't get some good text updates if there's problems with the art team, so there must be a problem with the writer.

[deuterio12]

My personal theory on why there's not any updates is that Rob wrote himself into a corner and has no idea where to go. There's zero reason why we couldn't get some good text updates if there's problems with the art team, so there must be a problem with the writer.

Yeah, like we even named this thread HAMMER-TIME because it seemed like Stanley would finally see some action, and now 25 forum posts later the plot didn't move a single inch.

What's even more disturbing is that Rob can't even make side-stories/prequels anymore. Even the whole fumo thingy went downhill relatively fast.

[tigerusthegreat]

Yeah, like we even named this thread HAMMER-TIME because it seemed like Stanley would finally see some action, and now 25 forum posts later the plot didn't move a single inch.

What's even more disturbing is that Rob can't even make side-stories/prequels anymore. Even the whole fumo thingy went downhill relatively fast.

Yeah the whole Fumo thing had potential (hinted ties into TV with Carpool being involved and other bits) and that just died. Given how little involvement there is in the main story, and that it is largely text, those should have been a piece of cake.

He could have just done 4 updates instead of 2 kickstarters, not had to create the 3d art assets he promised, and would have made the same amount of money (maybe more? not sure what kickstarter takes vs patreon) and gotten good will out of it.

I do feel bad for him if "Big Nasty Thing #2" is a serious thing they have to deal with and not just a time intensive one, but I am dubious about it. Hell, they shared cancer with us, what could be worse than that?

[Vinyadan]

Seems to have worked though. I remember looking at this and there were... two hours I think, and I am pretty sure it was around 2,000$ to go. I didn't think it would make it, however, a new look shows it successfully raised 5,700$, well over the goal.

It's a question that interests me, how many times can you keep going back to the well of your supporters? When does it finally break? Anyone got any examples of authors that went too far in asking for money?

Blind Ferret had a similar moment with their Kickstarters. They wanted to develop a videogame for LFG, and it fell very, very short of expectations (around 200k of 500k). I don't exactly remember what was going on back then, but the LFG forums had been taken down during a previous hacker attack, and not put back into place yet -- the same forums had previously been increasingly critical of the direction the comic was going. Anyway, during the Kickstarter drive, the forums were put back online, probably because BF became aware of the importance of having a place for their community. However, that was a very high target, and it's not strange that they couldn't reach it. It felt much worse when the only got some 45k out of 130k for the pilot of a TV series. This was less than what they had obtained just some months earlier for a short animated film of Richard singing a Disney parody (which raised over 130k).

The point is, they had made six Kickstarter drives in a single year (2013). They didn't do a new one until 2015.

And, last month, BF revealed that they now have an animation department, which is working on a LFG series.

...may it fare better than

CAD

ANIMATED

SERIES

which, as far as I remember, was financed by BF on texts by Buckley.


BTW, wow, rough thread.

[tigerusthegreat]

I have a love hate relationship with TB and CAD. I feel like he jumped the shark quite significantly a number of times, but I don't think I've had a more emotional experience than the miscarriage arc or the ending arc of the original series. I know the miscarriage arc was not well received overall, but it hit a certain emotional spot for me.

I think it's pretty telling that rob almost failed on his second make 100 drive. A lot of people I've talked to are not happy about the kickstarters and feel like it's a money grab. It's really sad, since there's a clear path to funding (just produce SOMETHING within the same world, doesn't have to have anything to do with the main story) that actually builds good will.

[PhantomFox]

This seems vaguely similar to bubbles and people getting into trouble with them. Y'know the pattern, something gets hot, everyone bandwagons on it, it makes a ton of money, and then it crashes hard because it doesn't have a good foundation. But when it comes to comics, when something death spirals, it just fades away. Rob seems to be fighting this tooth and nail, but the sheer weight of everything he built (the more costly creative pipeline, merch, website, etc) is just too heavy for the struggling inherent comic quality to support. Which is sad, because it WAS good earlier on, and I can see the struggle to slow the collapse by making changes, trying new things, etc. But at this point... the lowered quality reduces readership, which forces concessions, which lowers quality, which reduces readership... a death spiral. Honestly, I think Rob's going to reach Chapter 13 before the story does. Hopefully it doesn't get THAT dire for him, but something's gotta give.

Part of me is wondering if this would have happened if the illness hadn't struck, and honestly, I'm not sure. If it's possible he can make a comeback, it'll take a truckload of work, but it'd be a great tale to tell if he could pull it off.

[Morgaln]

Yeah the whole Fumo thing had potential (hinted ties into TV with Carpool being involved and other bits) and that just died. Given how little involvement there is in the main story, and that it is largely text, those should have been a piece of cake.

He could have just done 4 updates instead of 2 kickstarters, not had to create the 3d art assets he promised, and would have made the same amount of money (maybe more? not sure what kickstarter takes vs patreon) and gotten good will out of it.

I do feel bad for him if "Big Nasty Thing #2" is a serious thing they have to deal with and not just a time intensive one, but I am dubious about it. Hell, they shared cancer with us, what could be worse than that?

It might be some kind of legal issue (not necessarily related to Erfworld). Talking about that publicly can be turned against them, so it would be better to keep silent in that case. That's a complete shot into the dark, though, I have no more information about the situation than you (and possibly less).

[tigerusthegreat]

It might be some kind of legal issue (not necessarily related to Erfworld). Talking about that publicly can be turned against them, so it would be better to keep silent in that case. That's a complete shot into the dark, though, I have no more information about the situation than you (and possibly less).

"We have a legal battle that is taking up most of our time and focus. Unfortunately it is preventing us from publishing updates due to the drain. We will be back as soon as we can, but it looks like that is at least 6 months away"

Something like that would be better and draws sympathy without revealing much information.

My personal guess is that big nasty 2 electric boogaloo is Rob's depression/mental state. His responses seem to indicate a number of potential issues there, likely on the manic depressive side of things (or paranoid delusions that everyone is out to get him or he is better than everyone else).

This came across my reddit feed today too: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErfworldAscending/

[Vinyadan]

I have a love hate relationship with TB and CAD. I feel like he jumped the shark quite significantly a number of times, but I don't think I've had a more emotional experience than the miscarriage arc or the ending arc of the original series. I know the miscarriage arc was not well received overall, but it hit a certain emotional spot for me.

While I am estranged from CAD now, back when I read it I still was patient enough with stories to let myself slip into their internal logic and overlook their flaws. So I also felt a strong emotive reaction to the miscarriage arc.

The miscarriage arc had two reaction areas -- one is the actual reader reaction, which Buckley admitted was mixed, because it was felt that it was outside the normal comic focus (I think I actually liked it because it was outside the usual focus, and gave the characters some RL background to relate to). The other one were the memes and jokes. What is unusual is that some other webcomics, like Sandra and Woo, actually integrated parodies of loss.jpg. (Also, more generally, portrayals of miscarriage are an odd thing to make fun of; it didn't look unintentionally funny to me).

[tigerusthegreat]

While I am estranged from CAD now, back when I read it I still was patient enough with stories to let myself slip into their internal logic and overlook their flaws. So I also felt a strong emotive reaction to the miscarriage arc.

The miscarriage arc had two reaction areas -- one is the actual reader reaction, which Buckley admitted was mixed, because it was felt that it was outside the normal comic focus (I think I actually liked it because it was outside the usual focus, and gave the characters some RL background to relate to). The other one were the memes and jokes. What is unusual is that some other webcomics, like Sandra and Woo, actually integrated parodies of loss.jpg. (Also, more generally, portrayals of miscarriage are an odd thing to make fun of; it didn't look unintentionally funny to me).

I know zero punctuation did a joke on it.

I actually really like the new superhero reboot if CAD. I think it is well done.

[DigoDragon]

Hell, they shared cancer with us, what could be worse than that?

It might be some kind of legal issue (not necessarily related to Erfworld).

Legal issue was my guess.

It is depressing to watch this comic slowly spiral to death. I discovered GitP through Erfworld way back in the day.

[Willie the Duck]

I know zero punctuation did a joke on it.

I actually really like the new superhero reboot if CAD. I think it is well done.

Bigger than Cheeses made their last year almost 50% CAD-miscarriage(/ham-handedness) jokes. I don't actually know any of the backstory, but TB must have done something to make himself an acceptable target, because (regardless of the storyline being a somewhat Cerebus-like jog into seriousness for unserious characters) the critique seemed to be wholly disproportional.

[The Glyphstone]

Heck, Tim himself ended up getting on the meme train. The....10? year anniversary of Lost, for 24 hours he swapped the archive URL out for 'Found', which was an identical comic except Ethan sported a gigantic trollface grin.

[tigerusthegreat]

Heck, Tim himself ended up getting on the meme train. The....10? year anniversary of Lost, for 24 hours he swapped the archive URL out for 'Found', which was an identical comic except Ethan sported a gigantic trollface grin.

Yeah that was disturbing

[(_|_)]

Rob on the reddit thing:

Spoiler

Show

Uncool times call for uncool measures. In the years of having the subreddit do its thing, it's been hard to argue that the benefits outweigh the problems.

It's not a great discovery mechanism for new readers, so there's no real growth or marketing value in it.

The post discussions there are generally kind of diluted and short, but they can be helpful. The main benefit of having the subreddit is to get a second set of update reactions from a group with less enthusiasm and mental investment in the story. If you're writing a serial and you get all your fan feedback from superfans, you can end up going down a rabbit hole and telling a more convoluted story than the average reader can follow. That subreddit is one way to check that.

The tradeoff is that Reddit's the happy home of a lot of echo chambers for throwing crap at things, like /r/****tykickstarters and /r/buttcoin. The fan subreddits for most shows, games, and things that I've followed usually get real ugly, real often. So it can be kind of a low-barrier space for Erfworld haters to post and reinforce each other's "Balder did 9/11" theories.

That alone wouldn't hurt anything. The main problem is that /r/erfworld is one of the few places those people will intermingle with people who actually do enjoy the story and support the team. And they love to lie to those people. Every time there's a meta issue with making the comic, somebody starts a fire over there with the special kind of inflammatory, made-up "I'm just asking questions" horse**** that the internet specializes in. Then that post and any reactions I might make to it will get used as a link to start fires in other channels. You'll see those kept as catalogs and get thrown back years later when something else is going wrong.

All of that is to say, the benefit/cost of the subreddit has always been a neck-and-neck race. Right now, that race is not close. Nothing good that has or will come out of /r/erfworld while we are not updating. There's only one thing we can do that will save the Erfworld community, story, and enterprise. "Get back to updating." Start Book 5 with better frequency and quality than before. Get the story moving. Make it fun to read again, and keep it coming.

That's the place we're aiming. That's what we're working on, every day and night. Anything that takes my time away from that stuff is delaying the day when that switch is thrown, and we abruptly reverse direction from decline to growth again. During this span, you can expect me (or the mods) to shut down threads and delete comments. I've already banned one user on these forums "until we begin updating again" and I expect to do that again. The cost of doing uncool **** is less than the cost of trying to make it cool.

Tl;DR I'm just going to hit things until they stop making distracting noises. It's actually kind of liberating to have other problems so big that the drama **** looks small and solvable with a hammer.

This thread is locked in a really uncool way. 8-)

[Aquillion]

Bigger than Cheeses made their last year almost 50% CAD-miscarriage(/ham-handedness) jokes. I don't actually know any of the backstory, but TB must have done something to make himself an acceptable target, because (regardless of the storyline being a somewhat Cerebus-like jog into seriousness for unserious characters) the critique seemed to be wholly disproportional.

I think that past a certain point the meme got legs of its own and no longer really had anything to do with him or with any part of CAD beyond that specific page.

(Although TB did tend to have an over-the-top take on stuff that was easy to mock. Cringe-inducing stuff like this.)

[-D-]

Rob on the reddit thing:

Oh wow, Rob. Reddit is an echo chamber? His lack of self-reflection is stunning. He pretty much pushed out anyone that was even moderately critic from his site.

Yeah, #RobDidNothingWrong, except the Kickstarter rewards that he promised and were unfulfilled, oh and getting his readers to mine Etherium for him, because he can't survive without ads... Despite getting on a single update more than some Patreon comics earn in the whole month. Oh, and 100hrs Kickstarters that he uses to finance something secret... Like at this point, I'm not surprised people are making conspiracy theories.

[tigerusthegreat]

Rob on the reddit thing:

Spoiler

Show

Uncool times call for uncool measures. In the years of having the subreddit do its thing, it's been hard to argue that the benefits outweigh the problems.

It's not a great discovery mechanism for new readers, so there's no real growth or marketing value in it.

The post discussions there are generally kind of diluted and short, but they can be helpful. The main benefit of having the subreddit is to get a second set of update reactions from a group with less enthusiasm and mental investment in the story. If you're writing a serial and you get all your fan feedback from superfans, you can end up going down a rabbit hole and telling a more convoluted story than the average reader can follow. That subreddit is one way to check that.

The tradeoff is that Reddit's the happy home of a lot of echo chambers for throwing crap at things, like /r/****tykickstarters and /r/buttcoin. The fan subreddits for most shows, games, and things that I've followed usually get real ugly, real often. So it can be kind of a low-barrier space for Erfworld haters to post and reinforce each other's "Balder did 9/11" theories.

That alone wouldn't hurt anything. The main problem is that /r/erfworld is one of the few places those people will intermingle with people who actually do enjoy the story and support the team. And they love to lie to those people. Every time there's a meta issue with making the comic, somebody starts a fire over there with the special kind of inflammatory, made-up "I'm just asking questions" horse**** that the internet specializes in. Then that post and any reactions I might make to it will get used as a link to start fires in other channels. You'll see those kept as catalogs and get thrown back years later when something else is going wrong.

All of that is to say, the benefit/cost of the subreddit has always been a neck-and-neck race. Right now, that race is not close. Nothing good that has or will come out of /r/erfworld while we are not updating. There's only one thing we can do that will save the Erfworld community, story, and enterprise. "Get back to updating." Start Book 5 with better frequency and quality than before. Get the story moving. Make it fun to read again, and keep it coming.

That's the place we're aiming. That's what we're working on, every day and night. Anything that takes my time away from that stuff is delaying the day when that switch is thrown, and we abruptly reverse direction from decline to growth again. During this span, you can expect me (or the mods) to shut down threads and delete comments. I've already banned one user on these forums "until we begin updating again" and I expect to do that again. The cost of doing uncool **** is less than the cost of trying to make it cool.

Tl;DR I'm just going to hit things until they stop making distracting noises. It's actually kind of liberating to have other problems so big that the drama **** looks small and solvable with a hammer.

This thread is locked in a really uncool way. 8-)

Yet another overreaction on his part.