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

The weakly blessed ones are the possessions of the lowest ranking type of guard (below the constabulary)

 

Ah hell nah

 

bait used to be believable

 

Even obvious bait can be baiting. Like this. Or when my friend calls Pride and Prejudice a pedophile book.

 

I'm not sure there's a single MMORPG that has a mostly linear relationship between canonical strength and statistical/in-game strength, due to the nature of plot arcs and expansion updates. It's also rather common place, especially in games with little to no meaningful player impact on the plot, for the player character to be a blank slate the player can project their own motivations and explanations onto. It's pretty clear that there isn't meant to be a definitive reading of a character beyond what the game tells you.

It's astounding that in your two big threads, you've hard-focused on parts of the game that aren't fully immersive, while completely ignoring the practical reasons for why these mechanics/design choices are the way they are, and how those parts are commonplace in most other games of the same genre, for similar practical reasons. In other threads, there have been plenty of critiques of parts of Fruma and Wynncraft more broadly that many people, including myself, would agree with. Obviously you have a right to your opinions, but stop assuming people disagree with you simply because they aren't reading your posts, and maybe consider accepting that your ideas (and combativeness) aren't winners in the eyes of most.

 

Let's try something different:


I don't think “people disagree with you” and “people are responding to things you didn't say” are the same complaint.

There have been people in this thread who disagreed with me while actually addressing what I wrote. Status, for example, raised questions about the rewrite that I explicitly admitted I hadn't considered. Selvut has made arguments about the consequences of the changes I'm proposing that I've spent quite a lot of time responding to. I obviously don't think disagreement itself means somebody hasn't read what I said.

What I've objected to are things like:

• I say I knocked the parasite off Orphion; somebody responds that I couldn't defeat Orphion.
  
  
• I say giving Sui a focus would make her more powerful; somebody responds that she doesn't need a focus to cast magic.
  
  
• I propose fighting Soosu's golem army; somebody responds by explaining why fighting Soosu herself wouldn't work.
  
  
• I say Tasim appears briefly near the beginning and then disappears for almost the entire game; somebody responds that he technically appears in five quests.
  

Those aren't examples of “people disagreeing with me.” They're examples of the response changing the proposition before arguing against it.

And yes, saying there has been no constructive criticism in this thread was too broad. There has been. What I should have said is that a very large amount of the criticism I've been arguing with hasn't addressed the point I was making.

As for the Player being a blank slate: I understand that this is the intent. My argument is that a protagonist can be open to player interpretation while still accumulating characterization through the things the game itself forces them to do. “There isn't meant to be a definitive reading beyond what the game tells you” doesn't really answer that, because I'm specifically talking about what the game has spent hundreds of quests telling us through the Player's actions.

Likewise, I am not arguing that MMO statistics constitute a canonical power level. I'm arguing from canonical events. If the story repeatedly establishes that this character has survived and defeated extraordinary threats, and then wants ordinary soldiers to successfully coerce them, I think the story needs to establish why those soldiers are capable of doing that. Poison, magical suppression, some Fruman ability we haven't encountered before—any of those would work. “MMOs have weird scaling” explains why the writing problem exists; it doesn't make the scene internally coherent.

You can think my interpretation of the Player is wrong. You can think my rewrite is worse. You can think the compromises I'm asking for would be impractical in an MMO. Those are all arguments I'm perfectly capable of disagreeing with without claiming you didn't read the post.

But if the response to “X” is repeatedly an argument against “Y,” pointing that out isn't refusing to accept criticism. It's asking for criticism of X.

 

• I was making it clear that it wasn't as big of a feat as you seemed to believe it was, which was relevant because one of the core elements of your argument is that the player is an epic gigachad god
• It reduces her to another caster instead of highlighting that she is a unique case and furthers her sense of othering, as in spite of learning magic isn't as bad as she was lead to believe, she still sees herself as different in a negative way. Although what she is is only given a name at the very end of Apotheosis, it's significant to her character, and taking it from her makes your ideas of what the character should be (which is already as bland as cardboard pulp, I should add) even less interesting. What makes your Sui at all an interesting character? She's just someone the player emotionally abuses.
• Because it doesn't make sense for you to piss off Soosu to the point she'd send her Golem army on you but not just ... fight her yourself. Her Golems aren't enforcers, they're effectively toys.
• He's literally been a major character since before Fruma. Yes, he should have more quests, I agree, and that is planned, but you write him off as if he's a nobody, so I felt it necessary to outline that he didn't just show up at the very beginning and at the very end

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they aren't examples of "people disagree f with [you]" because all of your examples are from a single post. Don't know why you have a hateboner for me specifically, but I suppose I'm flattered.

 

This doesn't really resolve the issue I was pointing out.

On Orphion: I never said “I beat Orphion,” and I wasn't presenting that one feat as standalone proof that the Player is an unstoppable god. It was one item in a cumulative list of things the Player has canonically done. “You only fought the thing that successfully parasitized the embodiment of Light and knocked it off him” is certainly less impressive than defeating Orphion himself, but that doesn't make it unimpressive, especially when the Player goes on to do things like kill Saphanis' Eye in the Silent Expanse. If your point was merely that I was overstating that particular feat, then that's the argument you needed to make. “You couldn't defeat Orphion” was answering a claim I hadn't made.

The Sui point here is at least an actual argument, but it's also a different argument from “she doesn't need a focus to cast magic.” I know she doesn't need one. That was the point. She can already perform magic innately, and giving her equipment that amplifies it doesn't suddenly make that fact disappear. If you think her using conventional caster equipment would undermine the thematic significance of her being able to cast without it, that's something we can actually disagree about. But “she doesn't need one” wasn't an answer to “it would make her stronger.”

The Soosu point is still changing the scenario.

I didn't write that I “piss off Soosu” until she decides to send an army after me. The Player has already been tearing apart the Roughworks, the Crown is concentrating what remains around the surviving assets, Soosu is told that her residence is obviously going to become a target, and she prepares her golems there before the Player arrives.

She is defending a fixed location with disposable constructs she can apparently keep replacing. Why would she personally walk into danger if sitting in her workshop and throwing endless “toys” at me already accomplishes the objective of making me leave? Them being toys makes using them as expendable defensive bodies make more sense, not less.

And Tasim being labeled a “major character” doesn't answer what I said either.

My point was never “Tasim appears once in the tutorial and then literally doesn't exist until Fruma.” My point is that he gets several appearances concentrated around the very beginning of the game and then disappears for almost the entirety of the Player's journey before Fruma suddenly asks the Player to have an enormous emotional investment in him.

Saying “he's been a major character since before Fruma” is a label. It doesn't fill that enormous absence with relationship development. And when you immediately follow it with “yes, he should have more quests,” you're conceding the actual problem I'm describing.

Finally:

What does the number of people have to do with anything?

I wasn't claiming those four bullets were four separate people. I was distinguishing two categories of response:

“Someone disagreed with my argument.”

versus

“Someone changed what my argument was and disagreed with that instead.”

All four examples could come from one person. All forty could come from one person. That has absolutely nothing to do with the distinction.

In fact, this reply is kind of demonstrating the thing I'm talking about. I said “these are not examples of disagreement; they're examples of the proposition being changed,” and your response is about whether the examples came from one poster or several.

That's not the proposition I was making.

 

ok

 

At some point I have to wonder why you bother pretending to make a point in the first place. There's never a concession about anything, just more of the same, followed by an instant disengage to start again another day as though you walked away victorious the last time.

 

yea

 

The levels of adghkurdfjydesdhj are almost unbearable.

 

Not 100% sure what that means but context and it sounds right

 

Jobless cornball needs to bait to vent out real life frustration and lack of direction. Keep it up!

 

Maybe that's why there was that whole tangent about dating in video games...

 

you know what fuck it heres my fruma storyline. i made this to impress a whom i have a crush on:

Spoiler: the royal invitation

so after wacky hijinks with the comedic elven female and tossing shampoo in an eye you meet up with tasim in detlas. you try to doom the yaoi but some soldier shows up and summons you and tasim to ragni. you get a chance to meet with people who will probably have expanded roles in the story later on. the king then starts a meeting about fruma and forces you all to go. you join tasim with him on the seaskipper trying to start a new yaoi while dooming the old one. you fail. you then show up at the gates where a guy introduces who is a sovereign like the governor of an area- Zhiraok and you get a cool cutscene of auburn and the highlands. you then go into the queen's palace and she introduces herself to you alongside the not reasonable majin. you then eat dinner with everyone and the queen reveals she summoned you for a tournament. you then settle into your rooms but then quickly regroup and decide to learn info about fruma. after some fights you spy on Zhiraok and non reasonable Majin talking with 2. after this everyone gets exiled except tasim. you get one more dinner. no more bc being the she/her lawful evil player requires minimal nutrition. you then get one more chance to doom the yaoi before it gets doomed later on. you still fight tasim regardless. you then meet with 2 and then get exiled and want to know what happened.

so now you gotta get back into fruma to search for tasim so you back to ragni's king. he lets you do the tutorial in reverse and kooky activities ensue as everyone puts pressure on you to turn back. you then complete a dungeon and avoid several recruits before the caravan driver reveals hes a part of a conspiracy and lets you get to fort torann. the commander knows youre not allowed but you then realize this could be a setup for good punchline in that one minecraft joke book. you then walk out of torann now a terrorist and into the auburn forest.

Spoiler: auburn

so now you gotta look for the city in the region. a guard stops you for not having a passport and a kind stranger helps you avoid the guards. you then go to a government building and steal records on yourself while also spying on that Zhiroak fella. the kind stranger from earlier returns and reveals his name is zeph and gets an archer called rex to help. zeph then tells you to look at the results of deforestation and you go and find a woman with fire powers. this is not the aforementioned hilarious high-fantasy-race feminine person, this one is named syndra. after fighting you then get introduced to your new friends which also includes a deer with ice powers- wait wrong route- a purple haired woman with magic named sui and a kind guy called mora whos the brother of sui. you and zeph go on a mission and spy on Shiraok and learn that hes working with syndra.

after a few days zeph gets interested in magic so you go to a cave with a bunch of bugs and get this thing called a focus. you then go back to the base and reenact that one gif. you then get some wood to turn it into a weapon indulging in the evil part of the she/her lawful evil player side of you. you then further indulge that area by sneaking around espren and learning that the government is homing in on you. you later return to the base only to find your new friends are traitorous scum who abandoned you and went to a festival. at the festival you then create a dark fountain and go to san frand- wait wrong game. at the festival you do some minigames and then you listen to a speech from the queen and Shiroak. you then realize that 2 has been talking with Sheeroak about a new sovereign.

so now after your manipulative friends abandoned you for the slime you are, they all say you need to leave auburn. you first hop around buildings with zeph and learn he was homeless, and then have a neat character building moment with sui. you then beat up mora for doing nothing in the previous parts and later have rex explain that she had a brother. after syndra gathers everyones things you leave for the roughworks but uh oh ZhiZhi knows you are associating with a bad group of people. you defeat him with the power of peer pressure but syndra fucking kills him. but a charm works and starts to revive him. you learn in a cutscene that syndra worked with Z to find someone.

Spoiler: roughworks

so now you gotta find a new group to make sure your friends dont abandon you anymore. you meet the steel feather lead by quill and 3 guys whose names all start with y for some reason idk maybe their parents didnt get high rolls in creativity when creating their characters. so you settle in and all but immediately go on a mission to rescue someone who doesnt show up later on as an npc or smth. but bc zeph wasnt quiet or anything two not to be confused with 2 things now happen. first is that there is a new yaoi that cannot be doomed. second is that the government now knows that terrorism has got into the roughworks. one guy is really mad about this and he dips. you later watch one of y bros perform. you then learn through a cutscene that KaroZhiZhi is meeting with the sovereign of the region soosu.

rex grows suspicious that another y bro is pulling a syndra. after watching everyone partake in dark arts except the aforementioned another y bro, you and rex sneak out of the base and follow him to soosus mansion. you learn that hes been working with her to protect the region but after terrorism became viral in the area she can no longer let you all stay in the base. you naturally confront the aforementioned another y bro and get back into the mansion. i forgot to mention this but theres dubstep music in the elevator which a super important lore fact. you then sneak thorughout the mansion again and steal this weird device. soosu and Sovereign Forest then show up and you gotta avoid them. theres also extra lore showing soosu is like super depressed. after getting out you then have a meeting where syndra reveals shes gonna kill the queen. the angry guy from earliers back and hes acting very w e i r d. the first y bro then does another performance. a cutscene plays showing the queen is mad at soosu bc she didnt protect the device.

now its chapter 5. you sneak around along timasca and find guard schedules. you then tap even deeper into the evil side and make a bomb. you then scope out some points and escape routes. with one of these you learn that that tasim guy from earlier is actually a sovereign now. you then have a meeting again and you fight syndra. after the fight you can talk with her and learn that she is also a fellow she/her lawful evil player. now its festival time and there must be a banger music track. syndra fights the queen and shit but you later learn that someone probably that weird guy from earlier ratted out your plan from tasim, who acts a bit differently depending on the net yaoi counter. you then fight Guy Whose Name I Turned Into A Running Gag And Will Not Be As Such Anymore a second time and kill him not again bc its once and you gotta give that lawful side some time to breathe. soosu also shows up and she decides to stop him after realizing she cant get an out. sadly he revives himself so you sui and second y bro go to the mistwoods. back at the festival the queen aurafarms and mogs syndra to the point where she dies. everyone else is captured.

Spoiler: mistwoods

so like the mistwoods are fucking hell and are not known to the people of fruma. a group of people attack you but are then stopped by their leader rurie. rurie then tells you to do some shit. after doing some shit he realizes that 1 indulgence in lawful must be made up with for 3 evil. so you kidnap some purple guy whose actually a changeling. you then go into a big treehouse and meet everyone in this new group called the canopy.

the canopy later learns that unfortunately the she/her lawful evil player counter in fruma has gone back down to 1 after spiking to two recently. you then go to the deraj bridge to bust out your friends but tasim is there instead. he then does loredumping if the yaoi was doomed and warns that the sovereign of the mistwoods gikyo is about to attack the canopy. so you go back and try to evacuate but learn that gikyo has already attacked the base and youre now imprisoned in some fort. you bust out and try to escape with your friends but after seeing a bloodstained ticket from the steel feather sui realizes whats probably happened and you gotta go kill gikyo. oh yeah mora also died after being tortured by gikyo because theyre kinda quirky like that. a really cool boss fight then happens where they transform into every leaves member except syndra and sui. noelle then does a spell she doesnt know and lashes out at you reasonably so with all the big sad news that just happened. you later get out of the fort and sui abandons the second y bro and rurie as you go to the highlands.

Spoiler: highlands

bc you and sui are now stranded you go into the city hyloch and idk sui mugged a chaotic good he/him player offscreen or smth and you get new clothes and a hotel room. sui then sees windchimes which makes her realize a resistance group is probably in the highlands. you follow them and are given a meeting time. you then get some more neat character building with sui. you then go into the meeting but then realize most of them cannot get rid of their stupid fat fucking chud lives. you and sui then decide to go straight to rescuing rex and zeph and storm the non reasonable majin's castle. while sui does the rescuing, the non reasonable majin gives you a non reasonable tour that ends at a garden. you meet with 2 again and she reveals why the world sucks now- its because the queen is literally war. not war, but war. itll make sense in-game. you then fight your way out of the castle and then head back to the hotel room where rex and zeph were rescued. you also get a letter from tasim and he confronts you at the dam. if you didnt doom the yaoi, guess what buster brown it is now doomed by the queen who got mad she couldnt have tasim as a romance option and he pretty much says fuck you for dooming the yaoi. if you already doomed the yaoi, then tasim uses the power of already having heard about this before but still sides with the queen bc hes still kinda mad you doomed the yaoi. a cutscene then plays showing the queen and tasim having some discussion, which is actually the attempt for the queen to add tasim as a romance option.

in the hotel room you later come up with a plan and head back to the mistwoods to find the canopy. everyone else you met before is there and you later reveal the lore nuke from the last quest. no one really cares though bc theyre not avid perusers of #lore_discussion. a plan is made though to kill the queen and it involves you going back to being lawful and turning yourself in. a cutscene then plays of all the remaining loyal sovereigns discussing how, with you being the she/her lawful evil player, could actually outmog the queen who is kinda like the idyllic she/her lawful evil player. 2 then leaves to meet you in prison along with soosu. 2 then brings you to everyone else and the queen pretty much says fuck you. a big guy then comes in and mentions that a sovereign will become reasonable soon. everyone else then dips except 2 who shows you whats to come if war is stopped. after the visions she then leaves and you do the grand aisles room in wtp without hubert and end up in aelumia. everyone else except rex zeph sui and someone else are fine.

you then go back to hyloch and aurafarm with your friends to the festival. the queen then mentions that auburn will be flooded again. zhiraok deserts bc hes actually goated, and the queen leaves with tasim to oversee the flooding. the non reasonable majin then confronts you, while you being the she/her lawful evil player convince the non reasonable majin to become reasonable. you fail and you get enamored in gay as you go to space. you then make majin reasonable which creates a paradox the universe fixes by killing majin. you rex and sui then head to the dam to stop the queen. sui tries to stop the water. tasim is still kinda miffed that the yaoi in fruma is only zeph and the first y guy so he fights you and reveals he also has butterfly powers. you stop him and rex takes the fight from there. you then fight the queen and crack her shell. rex then fires a killshot at the queen but tasim wanted rex to move to try and 360 noscope her so he kills rex. the queens shell breaks open to reveal the wtp boss which then flies through a rift. tasim then realizes 360 noscopes died like 15 years ago- holy fucking shit time flies- and then does dialogue with an option that celebrates doomsdale unless you doomed the yaoi all the way back then. zhiraok and soosu then show up at the dam. soosu patches it up and sui goes up to celebrate only to realize rex fucking died. zhiraok decides to sacrifice himself and lets himself die of exhaustion while giving his charm to save rex. everyone else then decides that he cant die cuz he shows up in the next part the butterfly effect i think. here you can either be lawful and reach into a metaphysical thing or be evil and use your halcyon. either way zhiraok is revived. you then go to aelumia and meet up with everyone else. sui then shows up and highlights how she has gone down a self-destructive path, but at least the second y guy discovered the runes are actually elements. in front of the wtp you meet with tasim again before sui tries to do what rex couldnt but she stops herself. zeph also joins in for some reason. at the gate of the wtp 2 then leaves parting words of how zany this adventure was. maybe there could be a teaser here for the next part called the butterfly effect it may be cool. anyways the wtp is now unlocked and the storyline ends.

let me know what u guys think i worked really hard on it ^v^

 

I haven't read to Ensemble yet (bc I haven't done it alt yet) but this could also be one of those explained badly videos I never watch

 

'getting formal autism diagnosis as an adult and holy shit a lot of things make sense now' moment
(in case not clear this is meant as support for deus argument)