I do not appreciate you making all encompassing statements about my opinions, I would not have read so far, or commented at all if I did not enjoy this story.
When I said I wasted my time I meant it, but only in that I wished I had waited longer for this ark to have ended. I caught up and got reinvested only for it to end where it began, and I felt and feel like I almost shouldn't have picked it up again at all.
When I mentioned bloated paragraphs I didn't mean 'make them less words' I meant 'press the space bar and separate the them it's hurting my eyes on my phone'
My apologies, but considering the sheer significant contribution to characterization and overall experience for the quest's purposes as a writer and for readers, stripping Karak Ungor out entirely is a rather strong condemnation of my writing and the quest as a whole. You yourself said that you practically skipped most of it, and as a writer of the quest? That's really, really not a great thing, considering the fact that this section is shaping up to potentially have the same sorts of lengthier content. It's a solid limb of the entire edifice, and previous mentions of skimming in the post are easily misconstrued as to mean skimming in general due to lack of interest in the quest overall.
And I acknowledged that you wasted your time, and apologized to you that you felt you had, because I recognized that you meant it. The issue is, you wanting me to just skip forward or otherwise just isn't what's been happening, or going to happen. I sincerely wished that you didn't get reinvested if it's going to cause you continued pain, because I genuinely do not want that for you, and I know that it's liable to happen at this rate given how the quest is currently traveling.
Bloated paragraphs is a difficult thing to parse for specifics, but pressing the enter key and breaking up the paragraphs is a piece of potentially constructive criticism that just saying 'bloated' doesn't communicate. Plenty of those paragraphs do not function necessarily nearly as well if haphazardly chopped into halves or further fractions.
Lie was admittedly a poor word choice, but all of the bonuses save the martial ones are pulled from the narrative, which means they are made up. And even without touching the actual rolls or bonuses you choose how those failures effect the plot and what happens.
It wasn't the dice who decided to throw Fredrick back into basically the same situation he was earlier, it was you. There were a myriad of ways the failure could have played out that would have been different or more interesting than putting him in another prison.
If we're going that route, yes, everything is made up. Including the parts where certain preparations and prior narrative decisions have to, by right, impact the bonuses and maluses that are potentially provided. Such as one character being more tired, the power of rage, investment by Slaanesh, desperation, wounds, and so on. In general, I try to keep these things reasonably understandable in terms of addition or subtraction as averaged and described in every other past encounter. So again, simply deciding that a bonus should, be so much higher isn't a decision that can just be decided on an idle whim. Other actions causing stress, failing concentration, pride, and otherwise as well. I'm not going to decide that a character who is a powerful Cultist of Slaanesh and a Supreme Sorceress is going to simply have worse preparations and bonuses for herself, and I'm not going to decide that the player's sorceress ally should somehow have huge power with which to completely overpower her sister or the other sorceresses presence, especially while exhausted.
"it wasn't the dice who decided to throw" is exactly and precisely incorrect. It
was the dice, with me writing along with the results of a particularly prideful sorceress who has long taken sadistic joy in fucking with her sister's life and possessions, as well as transferring anger and a desire to cause pain to one of the main links remaining to said sister who has for the moment disappeared from her perception. It was the dice deciding that she was prideful enough to have Frederick dragged away while she alone tried to target the rest of the escapees, and as a result, failed. You can say that there were a myriad of ways that the failure could have played out, and be correct, but where this issue falters is where the dice ended up going. If the rolls had been better by a good margin, the escape would have been complete into the streets. If they had been worse, they would possibly not have made it out of the temple at all. If they had been stunningly good, they could have gotten all the way to the enclave and then possibly headed towards the docks immediately. But that's not where the dice decided to go, and where I ended up writing the results. Because there are different possible margins for differences in success and failure, and different results that come about based on what the dice roll. Also, I think you might have skimmed the update this time, because saying that it's basically the same situation is incredibly, extremely wrong.
In the first, Frederick had an ally, a strong one, with connections and resources and knowledge about the Ark and its inhabitants. His wife and few allies were estranged, alone, trapped, and without any recourse but to go down fighting if help didn't come for them. The Druchii were restoring order and control, and reasserting themselves slowly but surely and squeezing down on the throats of those who would do otherwise. Frederick was able to go about as he wished, drink, sleep, discuss, plot, and more, plus ended up being able to rescue yet another ally, for a time, as well as help a child keep her soul, which is something that Frederick would as characterized by player decisions for 9 years now, probably be pretty loathe to not do.
In the second, Frederick is isolated, yes, but the overall commander of the entire Ark has just kicked off a massive anarchic rebellion but isn't actually running it because of her neuroses and mind being cracked by the effects of Frederick+allies, her sorceresses are depleted in numbers somewhat, part of the Ark outright broke, there is massive fighting going on everywhere, and the party including his wife has boosted up massively with rescued Asur slaves, a Handmaiden, Kerillian, and are on an Ark falling into chaos such that they are able to actively go out and fight in the streets.
These are radically different situations in every single regard save for the fact that Frederick is in the Tor of Dominance, and even then, very different circumstances as well.
You and I have absolutely different beliefs about the dice, I think, and that may well be irreconcilable between how I write and what you prefer.
I don't care about your update speed, I only mentioned how it affects how the story feels and mentioned a way it wouldn't have felt like that with exactly the same update speed. I.E not having the updates be this and have it happen off screen.
You can't say you don't care, and then mention how it affects how the story feels, a way that you specifically dislike. The specific centering of the main POV at this time is the one it has been, and switching it may well have ameliorated your distaste, it may well not. But saying that you don't like how the story feels, and mentioning the update speed, and bemoaning the months it has been, does rather strongly imply a connection there. Even if there isn't one for you, the construction of your words would imply otherwise when I'm reading them.
I did in fact read this, I brought up having the story focus on him specifically because these parts were my favorite. I was upset earlier in this arc that the dwarfs arriving after the battle was skipped over. I love the fighting with Logan as well.
And the beastmen preventing empire building is patently untrue, it'd be army management sure but that's also a fun part of this quest. And it's not like the province stops doing things when beastmen show up or no one in the setting would get anything done.
That's great, but that's still only going to be a part of what is happening going forward. The Ark is still going to feature, and quite heavily. I'm glad that you're enjoying the portions not focusing on Frederick and the Ark, but I'm sorry to say that it's just not the sole focus of what the writing is at the moment.
This is needless, and not what I was complaining about, take as long as you need to write or update. I enjoy the way you write I wouldn't read it if I didn't, I dislike choice sections that are currently getting far more focus than I'd prefer. If we had one section with Fredrick and Co and the rest of the chapter were magnus POV (the inverse of what we have now) I would have had no complaints and the same things would be happening in the story over the same time period irl and in universe.
As you yourself mentioned, others have complained about the amount of time the arc overall has been taking, and I'll admit, reading your comments finally got it to bubble into a solid bit of emotional response meant for a wider spread than you, so in that regard, my apologies, but I've gotten pricked and poked about update speeds before in the past, and after nine odd years, it starts to add up. At this point, reading your comments is just telling me that you just aren't engaged with Frederick and the rest, and that's fine, but coming in and saying that things are uninteresting and boring and you're sick of it and you've wasted hours of your life because of it? What am I supposed to do with that? I mean, truly? The paragraph lengths are written on a laptop, not mobile, so shaping them for the latter just isn't really high on my list of priorities, so on that front I'm sorry but I really don't think that'll be changing much at all. I feel engaged writing what I write, and at least some larger portion of the quest's readership do as well, so flipping out and away entirely isn't really something that I feel tremendously engaged or inspired to do. On the one hand, it's technically constructive to know that a percentage of the readers of the quest do not care for the majority main focus of the quest. On the other, the only reason this quest has actually lasted as long as it has is because of passion for it, and if I started directly shifting heavily away from the topics that I'm still passionate about and care about and think are interesting or at least engaging enough to write about, then I probably just won't be writing much at all.
This is untrue, I wouldn't have read this much of it if I did. Even with how the quest is going I plan on returning to read more, and will likely take a look at the canon side-stories.
I want to believe this, and I'm happy that you feel interested enough to engage in it again at some point in the probably distant future given how this arc has been going, but you don't like Karak Ungor, you don't like the Twins, and you really, really don't seem to like this arc either. One has massive implications for the rest of the universe and quest and dynasty as a whole, another is a pair of characters that I put a good bit of effort and care into crafting and writing for, and this latter portion is a mixture of both considering the whole cast of characters outside of the dynasty involved that I've tried to dig into and invest the players into. Telling me that you dislike, disregard, and have a distaste for these things is a strong indictment against my writing, even if you like other portions, one way or the other.
However.
You are not required to like 100% of what I do, and that's perfectly fine, as I said. And I still maintain what I said earlier, that you should
not feel like an ass for not liking a piece of fiction. There are plenty of works on SV and SB and beyond that plenty of people go gaga for that I just bounce right off of, or find too gritty, or too squishy, or simply so complex that I'm bewildered to a point beyond being able to enjoy it. So I really do sympathize with you here. But honestly, I just don't know how much you're going to like or enjoy about what's going to be written for at least the next few updates except for the Magnus sections which I intend to include. And I don't want to waste your time, or anyone's time, if they don't care for my writing or the quest. There are wonderful Warhammer quests on this site who most likely don't have nearly the issues that I apparently do in engaging your interest.
But truly, at this point, it's just...like...you really don't like how things have gone.
I accept that, but disagree that they 'should' have gone some other way given the dice.
There's really nowhere to go from here except just kind of wave at each other, and accept these differences, and...move on, I think.
