SPOILER I'm not really feeling the Fruma story line.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I disagree vehemently.

 

and yet you don't address anything else i said in my reply. typical !

 

There's The Breaking point, where you have branching paths asking King Draani about ice dragons, true ice, the Doguns, what he had for breakfast, his favorite color, and whether he's read any good books lately. Then the part where the story stops to tell you about Maxie's wedding, and you have the option of asking why you weren't invited.

You do you.

I'm bothered that he doesn't seem to have Distant Horizons installed.

My BiC, everyone has been saying the exact opposite of basically everything I've been saying the whole thread, even when I lay it out in plain English. At some point, I have to conclude you're all arguing with someone else, and I'm just a vessel for that argument.

Case in point: The thread is about Fruma. Romance doesn't come up once in the actual OP. Are you under the sincere impression something I mention halfway through page 3 as a response is such an important topic to me it supersedes the wall of text on page 1? Is this really your signal that that's the thing to focus on in all of this?

There's a guy on here who tries to talk to me, then somehow manages to tell me the exact, explicit point I was making...while saying it's not the point I was making.

 

One quest with negligible impacts and more than likely existing for no reason other than writers thought it would be funny, kinda like the gag of Mrs. Death.

I have never shipped myself with characters, I'm just saying you can... I'm sure people still ship Barney and Robin even though Robin remarried and Barney quite literally found out.

Arguments tend to be linear. That's probably even one of Gryce's maxims idk. besides, everyone has already talked at length about the original post, I'll call PEETA if you want to beat a dead horse

 

You know, you'd think when at least 36 people disagree with you and there doesn't seem to be anyone who agrees with anything but small parts of your argument might make someone realize that whatever their opinion was probably wasn't great.
I don't get how you could continue to act like you've somehow got everything solved and you know better than everyone else when an increasing sum of players and storywriters keep showing up to point out that this is an incredibly weird stance.
My earnest advice, any ad hominem or anything else aside, is to just drop it. You're not forced to change your opinions or anything, but this clearly hasn't been productive (like I imagine you wished it would be) and won't become productive

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I brought up locking the thread earlier but it might just be best to have that done anyways given I don't think this going on is going to be beneficial to anyone, and will just continue to be a back and forth.

 

That was just a funny meme I was using. If I'm being honest, I think out of everyone that has "dogpiled" on you, I am giving you a quite massive amount of benefit of the doubt. I just think you have a lot of unreasonable hatred towards the story for not very good reasons. There are problems I myself have towards certain parts of the Fruma storyline, particularly towards the dam scene in Overture to Despair and towards several level gaps between quests (sometimes multiple level gaps), but it seems to me that literally every single aspect of Fruma in your eyes is utterly atrocious, and that's something I cannot in any way relate to.
I mean, I've literally compared it to Shadowbringers. I have problems with Fruma, sure, but I still think it's unequivocally the best story Wynncraft has ever told by an utterly leviathanic margin.

There are times where our opinions overlap in some way, but it's about the reason why you hate it that's just as important as what you hate about it.
As an example, we both hate the Aledar and Tasim romance. But I hate it because I think platonic love is just as important as romantic love and should be just as represented, and Tasim and Aledar would be absolutely perfect to show that relationship since we'd essentially be one big group of best friends from the very beginning and with more early-to-midgame quests to showcase it (please guys make that happen I beg of you it could be absolute cinema).
You however seem to hate it because you just dislike how many romances Wynncraft has in general. Also the only relationships I saw you list were the gay or lesbian ones which to be honest looks more than a little suspicious that you might have a different reason entirely.

Aside from Tasim and Aledar specifically, your opinions on romance are essentially the exact opposite of mine; you hate there being a lot of romances in Wynncraft, while I am apparently Wynncraft's largest advocate for it.

...anyways, I feel I've come dangerously close to derailing this thread, if I haven't derailed it already.

 

this rewrite inspire me so much to make this fanart however the absolute insanity of this rewrite is impossible to accurately capture in art. So my work is my best attempt to represent whatever the fuck I just read.

 

I've read this, and uh... I dunno what to say.

Really I don't.

You skip so much plot, you seem to have a very specific idea in mind for this (what that is I have no idea), you don't seem to like certain relationships or types of people based on how you disregarded events in quests and in this "re write" certain characters never show up or are just mentioned once.

None of this makes any amount of sense and it's all confusing and... like... honestly I agree with everyone else in that "this is all too much."

 

I'm curious, what are your thoughts on the Realm of Light questline? Would you ever consider doing a rewrite of that?

 

I can't tell if you're arguing here. You're not the guy who brought up the player not talking before Fruma. I'm sure the GM doesn't literally mean it that way, but then the circle remains unsquared when the response is essentially that the player's words and actions weren't intended to characterize him any specific way.

The closest anyone's come to talking about the actual post is Spaghetti man. I agree it's back and forth, but the solution to the issue is to actually talk about the topic.

Like, for example: When I mention I fought Orphion, then killed the tick, not telling me Orphion would totally kick my ass, as if I was saying I'm the most powerful being in existence, single-handedly banishing the Light.

Biff did the reasonable thing and told me you don't actually kill the tick yourself. And you know what? Fair. Consider it struck from the record. Could you have? Not relevant. The question is open.

When I ask why you submit to arrest and give up your tactical advantage over mooks, we could talk about the reason why you decided to literally let them walk you out on to the exact middle of the fortress, in view of all their other soldiers, and only fought back after the captain left...instead of telling me they might, hypothetically, be able to do something if they ganked me.

We'd have a talk about that if it's what happened, but it didn't. And you're not the only one to bring up this hypothetical as if it addresses the actual scene in question.

If the thread gets locked because this has turned into a circular mess, fine. But “a lot of people disagree with you” does not mean the actual argument got answered. After five pages of people telling me I believe things I’ve explicitly said I don’t, I’m not especially bothered that nobody likes the arguments and story they made up.

Weirdly enough, this is the closest the thread's actually come to actually returning to the topic at hand. I don't sense any romance with Tasim and Aledar, but if there is one, then yes, I'd have an issue with it if it were part of a quest out of nowhere. Things should be included in a story because they help it, not because someone's got a checklist, or they really like this random idea they got. I've written things before; I'm no stranger to realizing the thing I want to add in does nothing for the story and giving up on it. Or realizing the story actually needs something and going back and re-doing everything to actually make it happen naturally.

The thing with Elise? Syndra can get motivation from the relationship, but I found the idea that the Roughworks are just considered inherently bad because the story shoves a few worst case scenarios in my face to be weak. I felt that the real way to sell how awful they are would be to give you the best case scenario: You make it to retirement and actually find a way to make life there work for you. All it cost you was your health, your reason for living, and you can be tossed out the moment you're inconvenient. It's easy to point to the losers to make the case that a place is bad. When the "winners" aren't much better off, that makes it clear that this is no cherry pick.

That said, dial it back with the "hate". I get the feeling you're not using the word hyperbolically, and that image of a guy seething because his looting rampages aren't canon and people are hooking up is not helpful here. Fruma's got the parts needed for something with more narrative drive. So I wrote it out in a way that I thought fit better with the context of the rest of the game.

 

I have a question: How come the Canopy was completely ommitted in this rewrite? I feel that they're pretty important to that segment of the storyline, what with Azael being siblings with the Sovereign of the area and all.

 

cough.

 

It's been a while since I sat down to think about it, so no rewrite in mind. But from what I remember, it struck me as alright. The juxtaposition of Irish culture and mythology with the more English elven people as opposed to leprechauns was interesting to see, what with "Achara" being a recurring word, the Dullahan actually being a canonical figure in the setting, and making good use of the decayed vibe to make it work in universe without just appealing to "and then there was a dullahan" when it easily could have happened.

Though I have to ask why it took this long for Lari to get with the program. Far be it for me to complain that your protagonist's personal flaws lead to catastrophic consequences for a province; I'm sure if I could live forever, I'd spend plenty of time running from my problems. But given how easily she panics and lashes out, you'd think Orphion would have given her "the talk" at some point after killing something in another one of her fits, like "Yeah, see that? Do it more. And harder. And get your elf ass in here and do it all over me". You, the player, get a test, and you literally can't fail it because he places you right back at the start until you choose right. Sounds like prime brainwashing territory here. Just lock her in a room until she gets it. And if she doesn't, we find a new champion.

Later arcs build on what you've finally, personally seen to establish that you're now aware of forces beyond the world, and how it all hangs in the balance. As an aside, I feel the elves being responsible for the gate itself is a bit strained, given the introduction of Anathema, but with a bit more thought about the exact current state of metaphysics in the lore, it could probably be smoothed out.

The thing is that Fruma retconned the Light to also be a danger to the world, and while I'm all for it, it does leave the question of the flashback Orphion sent us on. By all means, the old forest seemed like an absolute peach to live in, far from the barren angelic hell(heaven?)scape from the visions Two gave us. I suppose you can just say it's selective storytelling, but then that implies that primordial beasts are interested in deceiving mortals now. They seem pretty capable of just gathering followers without deception, so that seems like it might be a stretch.

Also, there's a pillar of light in the Silent Expanse. is this also a problem we need to clear to preserve the balance or whatever? Does the Dern Beast have a light pillar stuck in his butt or something now? Or do we just have a one-sided attack on the light, the pillar is good, and we're just trying to purge the Dernic influence from the world?

I think The Canopy were done right from the start. They were a bit annoying, but "annoying" isn't "bad". The moment you show up, they're putting you to good use attacking their targets, testing your loyalty, and finally realizing you're good for more than panicking with them every time a foot soldier looks at their tree funny. There's an assault on the castle? They've got intel, tunnels, plans, etc. Bless 'em.

 

In short, we're not gonna throw our story in the trash.

What you want out of it is totally different than what we intended, seeming to be a lot closer to a straight power fantasy than anything else. And it's honestly really insulting the way you butcher these characters' intricacies in your rewrite. Like, yeah- I majorly helped write Zhiraok and his whole deal, so there's a bit of protectiveness there, but you really did just totally lobotomize him and lose every bit of nuance he has, and this extends to basically everyone you touched. Your rewrite isn't focusing on what the characters are, just as a means to an end and a way to get the player on to the next objective, and in doing so are turning them into props. That goes to show how much attention you paid to the characters as well- they have their motivations, but you mention a lot of things as being random or inexplicable when the characters themselves very explicitly outline their motivations, or else have things hinted and foreshadowed at in such a way that they can accessibly be considered and realized with some examination.

If you don't like the way it was written, that's fine- it's like, welp. Can't please everyone.

But I really can't tell you in good faith that you have good ideas here, or that your rewrite will be an improvement in any respect, except on a you-personally type of level. There's not a good amount of logic or intrigue here- this feels like the way Fruma could possibly have been written back in 2017 if that were ever to have happened. That's the general level of "things happen and the player is there" this feels like, because back then we weren't really writing big storylines for the most part. Everything was a lot more self-contained, and if we'd tried to write a big ol' 13 part storyline I think this would've been the general level of quality involved...which is to say, low.

We've learned a lot by doing all this over the years, and it definitely feels like you haven't. Who would remember these characters? Who would remember Rex? Who would remember Zhiraok? No one would remember them at all, because they'd be unremarkable since so much of the focus is on deifying the player and treating them as nothing but a destructive force of nature whose only real goal is getting more power. That's actively something that we are moving away from in stories, or at the very least adding nuance and genuine justification for when it does come up. We don't want to dive harder into something that the community has complained about, and that's exactly what you're suggesting we do- dive in harder.

I don't feel like there's much productive that can be said here, as it really does feel like you've got your mind made up. Like I said, what you want out of the story is just completely at odds with the story we want to write. There's no real fixing that.

 

I'm glad at least ONE resistance team passes your inspection here, but I am curious how they're annoying? Just the excess tasks or something? And I know you were listing out potential people to be romancable - why not Fuhue? Morbid curiosity and all that jazz.

 

Stuff like this is either poorly worded at best or is extremely creepy at worst, and your whole rewrite makes me lean a lot more towards one of those options. It is very hard to take any of your arguments in good faith with replies like these, especially considering the fact this suggestion is pretty much a power fantasy.

 

The issue with removing Elise is that it kinda messes up Syndra's entire motivation (she got banished to Auburn forest and Zhiraok became sovereign instead of her because she refused to kill (? I can't remember) Elise, and was subsequently cut off from Elise, therefore she wants to kill the Queen to get revenge for what she did). I think it would be better to add a different quest that's not apart of the main storyline, like Through the Pipes or Burning Bonds or something like that, since the rewrite you wrote has a different goal than the current quest. The Missing Piece is about uh. Finding the missing piece (of her memory) while yours aims to show more the futility of the Roughworks.

 

Accidentally deleted so I posted it again because the player being utterly insane need art of its own.

 

This rewrite is the embodiment of the realm of Larping