THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

[Simon_Jester]

Isn't it a bit like watching A New Hope and learn Chewbacca is rumoured to tear droids apart when losing the holochess game? That was cute scene, but pretty insignificant in the overall picture. Ditto for learning Durkon had handicapped mom, it's cute, but has little to do with overall plot.

You're right.

What I'm saying is, I'd rather get a page that at least slightly advances a subplot than get a page that advanced no plot elements and is in fact nothing but a two-page spread of pretty scenery drawn in cartoonish stick-figure style. And which arguably is directly thumbing its nose at the readers who wait two weeks for an update and then get... a two-page spread of pretty scenery.

[Jub]

I don't mind, but to me this is one of a dozen web comics I read on a regular basis. I'm used to it updating slowly so I don't stress over it.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not so much stress as it is that this is... mildly offensive poor form on the artist's part.

[Jub]

It's not so much stress as it is that this is... mildly offensive poor form on the artist's part.

Yeah, but I imagine he's as sick of hearing about it as we are of complaining about it.

[Irbis]

Yes, but to him, it's job. He isn't a hobbyist doing it in spare time. And in work, we are generally expected to behave professionally and not spite customers. Well, unless you get to the stage TvTropes calls 'protection from editors' (of all kinds). Which sadly might be the case.

[Alkaloid]

You know, it's not like we got no plot relevant information in the last few panels. We know they arrived at a new city/the north. We know the crew of the Mechane aren't thrilled to be working with the,. We know that Roy and the party (sans Belkar) not only think Durkula is their friend, but that he still actively worships Thor, and we know that Durkon now has an actual weapon he can use against Durkula (Durkula relies on accessing memories to keep convincing people he's Durkon, but has no idea how mortal memories actually work, meaning Durkon can misdirect him fairly easily to try to reveal to the party that something is very wrong)

It's not so much stress as it is that this is... mildly offensive poor form on the artist's part.

FFS, the only time he asks you to pay for it is if you want it in a book. Suck it up, it's his story. This is like people bitching that they didn't like the ending to mass effect. If you don't like the story, say it's crap and move on. We're an audience here, not a focus group.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not so much stress as it is that this is... mildly offensive poor form on the artist's part.

Yeah, but I imagine he's as sick of hearing about it as we are of complaining about it.

I'm not complaining about the low posting rate. I'm very sure that if he was physically able to deliver the strips faster, he would.

What bothers me is that at this rate, we only get about 25 strips a year... and then 10-15 of those strips turn out to be, for all intents and purposes, filler. That's not a problem when you're getting updates three times a week... but it becomes a problem when the net effect is that your readers go three months without any noticeable plot advancement other than "more of Durkon playing mind games with Durkula. And oh look, scenery!"

FFS, the only time he asks you to pay for it is if you want it in a book. Suck it up, it's his story. This is like people bitching that they didn't like the ending to mass effect. If you don't like the story, say it's crap and move on. We're an audience here, not a focus group.

He sells the books by the drawing power of the comic. If the comic becomes boring and people stop wanting to follow it and recommend it to their friends, it's going to eat into his sales.

The serial format is a longstanding thing in literature and comics, but it's become far more common with the rise of the webcomic. And one of the biggest problems with serialization is making sure that the story advances in a timely fashion; otherwise the story stops being a story at all and becomes a string of vaguely connected vignettes.

[Rogue 9]

965 is up.

[Crazedwraith]

Things happened!

Hmmm. You reckon that's just comedy and Haley having a real high charisma/bargin skill/whatever. Or is that supposed to be suspicious?

[Rogue 9]

I'm pretty sure it's yet another play on Haley having a crazy high Bluff modifier.

[Bedlam]

And the new books up for pre-ordering.

[Simon_Jester]

Haley almost invariably succeeds at Bluff checks as far as I can remember; I imagine she's about as good at, uh, whatever skill 3.5 uses for haggling.

Also a riff on the Diplomancer problem from 3.5th edition where you can basically do this. I think Burlew came up with a homebrew rule for handling that problem that was interesting.

[Grumman]

Also a riff on the Diplomancer problem from 3.5th edition where you can basically do this.

Alternatively, the mechanic was trying to rip them off and blamed their mechanic's bodge job so they wouldn't take Andi's word for it that it was an easy fix. One Sense Motive check to see through the con and one Bluff check about how what Durkula would do to him when she told the others would leave them short one repair job, and you get the new, discounted price.

[Raesene]

966 is up.

[Simon_Jester]

Huh. OK, if he was planning to start moving this fast, then I can actually forgive the wisecrack in 964- he's poking fun at his earlier slowness and saying "look, I know it's aggravating, here, let me get the lead out."

[Terralthra]

3 points are not a line, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

[Crazedwraith]

Huh. OK, if he was planning to start moving this fast, then I can actually forgive the wisecrack in 964- he's poking fun at his earlier slowness and saying "look, I know it's aggravating, here, let me get the lead out."

I don't know. IF you can only get that point a couple of strips later still seems like bad writing/counter productive to me.

[Irbis]

I don't know. IF you can only get that point a couple of strips later still seems like bad writing/counter productive to me.

Yeah. It just doesn't seem very... professional. Or funny.

Anyway, I took a look at new book. Is it me, or is it there page creep here? Like previous books, it has 10 pages of new material, but dwarfs them in both pagecount and price. It is also by far the least amount %-wise of new content - when you take into account that Start of Darkness + last book before that one combined are cheaper, have more pages, and have 12x more new content, well... I think I will honestly skip this one

And the lack of communication is again waving dick at audience. If he had said "next 2-3 weeks updates will be slower because I have to tie up last details with BRITF" no one would mind, but silence does no one any favours...

[Jub]

I don't know. IF you can only get that point a couple of strips later still seems like bad writing/counter productive to me.

Yeah. It just doesn't seem very... professional. Or funny.

Anyway, I took a look at new book. Is it me, or is it there page creep here? Like previous books, it has 10 pages of new material, but dwarfs them in both pagecount and price. It is also by far the least amount %-wise of new content - when you take into account that Start of Darkness + last book before that one combined are cheaper, have more pages, and have 12x more new content, well... I think I will honestly skip this one

And the lack of communication is again waving dick at audience. If he had said "next 2-3 weeks updates will be slower because I have to tie up last details with BRITF" no one would mind, but silence does no one any favours...

So you're saying you don't place any value on having old strips in physical form and demand that he constantly keep the ratio of old content to unreleased strips high to justify you supporting a comic that you otherwise have no financial commitment to? You do realize how cheap and petty that sort of complaint makes you seem right?

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know.

The argument here is that Burlew is trying to sell roughly the same amount of new content for a higher price, relying on the fact that he's selling you a larger amount of the same content you could get for free. And that the same price would be more appealing if, say, it were split among two smaller books each with the ten pages' new content.

We could equally well argue that Burlew has no grounds to expect readers to support the comic, if he persists in updating once every two weeks (often with what amounts to filler material), if he's refusing to communicate with readers about why he does so, and summarily banning him from his own forum for even discussing the matter. At some point, he's simply not putting in enough creative effort to constitute a full time job, in which case it's debatable whether he should expect to get paid a sum equivalent to a full time salary by loyal readers who are disappointed in the declining (perceived) quality of his product.

The relationship between content creator and fanbase is supposed to be commensal. The creator can reasonably expect financial support for doing good work professionally, and the fanbase can reasonably expect good work done professionally in exchange for their support.

IF Burlew is in fact alienating parts of his fanbase by updating slowly, failing to communicate with readers, and reducing the average perceived quality of his strips... well, that can and will be reflected in terms of whether or not he makes enough money at this thing to support himself.

[Terralthra]

The relationship between content creator and fanbase is supposed to be commensal. The creator can reasonably expect financial support for doing good work professionally, and the fanbase can reasonably expect good work done professionally in exchange for their support.

That seems like mutualism (both benefit), not commensalism (one benefits, one is unaffected).

[LadyTevar]

Can we ignore the growing argument over when/how often he posts, and just get back to "Hey, he posted! Let's analyze it!"

SO... Durkula's wanting to go to a temple, and has convinced Roy it's to be resurrected. Good way to throw Roy off track of his true intentions, which I believe was to get in contact with some of Hel's clerics? Roy sends V off to look for magic transport, Bandana-girl shut down the "FinalFantasy Airship Run" idea (Face it, that was all you really needed the Airship for at EndGame, to get those final levels/magic items/storylines).

[Ralin]

SO... Durkula's wanting to go to a temple, and has convinced Roy it's to be resurrected. Good way to throw Roy off track of his true intentions, which I believe was to get in contact with some of Hel's clerics?

I expect it's more along the lines of surprise murder-killing the senior clerics of Thor and others. No particular reason for him to get in touch with Hel's clerics when it's already established that he's in direct contact with her and much more powerful than her regular clergy to boot.

[Simon_Jester]

The relationship between content creator and fanbase is supposed to be commensal. The creator can reasonably expect financial support for doing good work professionally, and the fanbase can reasonably expect good work done professionally in exchange for their support.

That seems like mutualism (both benefit), not commensalism (one benefits, one is unaffected).

I got that mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

SO... Durkula's wanting to go to a temple, and has convinced Roy it's to be resurrected. Good way to throw Roy off track of his true intentions, which I believe was to get in contact with some of Hel's clerics?

I'm honestly going to be surprised if Durkon can bring this one, although to be fair people seem pretty easily fooled about theology to the extent that "uh, why are you talking to that priest of Loki" might be waved off...

I expect it's more along the lines of surprise murder-killing the senior clerics of Thor and others.

That seems unlikely and hazardous; it would be very easy for him to be discovered. While I'm sure Durkula could still cause all sorts of chaos and serve Hel's interests even if it were known that he was in fact totally evil, his specific mission is to act as a mole within the Order of the Stick.

Random killings, aside from being risky (an undead walks into a temple full of Good clerics and tries to kill them by surprise, I mean really), would compromise his actual mission.

[Ralin]

That seems unlikely and hazardous; it would be very easy for him to be discovered. While I'm sure Durkula could still cause all sorts of chaos and serve Hel's interests even if it were known that he was in fact totally evil, his specific mission is to act as a mole within the Order of the Stick.

Random killings, aside from being risky (an undead walks into a temple full of Good clerics and tries to kill them by surprise, I mean really), would compromise his actual mission.

I think you're underestimating just how much of an advantage Durkula has here. Early to mid teens cleric with the vampire template starts picking off non-adventuring clerics who think he's one of them? That's a recipe for a temple of Hel in very short order.

Or I guess he could be aiming to steal some vital artifact/information/open a gate let something horrible escape. Which would still probably involve a considerable amount of surprise murder-killing.

I mean, his stated intention is to walk into the temple, tell them he's undead and ask them to rez him. Hard to get more hazardous to Durkula and his mission than that.