The DYOS Consul

Once upon a time, Thorvald played OpenRA.

One day, he discovered it was ultra-moddable.

Who wants a DYOS?!

Thorvald of Lym said:

Once upon a time, Thorvald played OpenRA.

One day, he discovered it was ultra-moddable.[/I][/B]

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And thus, Thor was consumed in another project that takes him away from comicing for DYOS .

Do it Thor. Go with my blessing.

I'd like to let you folks know that I discovered DYOS a few months ago, and I've enjoyed it hugely and want to encourage you to keep up the good work.

I've done some reading on what previous efforts still exist, and perhaps a few observations would be helpful. I perceive that there are billions and billions of references to games I'm not familiar with sailing right over my head, which is not to say not to make those jokes - they're easter eggs, or something, for those who do, and that's fine.

DYOS tends to suck a little taken as straight adventure by the nature of the collaborative format that produced it, alas; the beauty of it is in the humor -Stylesjr has gotten quite good with the witty titles asides and captions- and the art at its best -CivGeneral does genuinely good-looking stuff, even leaving aside any in-need-of-calming and quite decorative succubus bosoms- is a delight.

I was involved in a roundtable forum-written story six years ago that faced similar problems w/ regard to making sense, and our solution in that case was -well, we fought ferociously over whether Melinda was a toaster, for one thing- but the user who ended up the primary contributor was an ESL German who tended to post a little drunk and I fell into editing his stuff for English fluency as we went, and that helped consistency, too. -Also that participation dwindled to the two of us, leading to more focus and less throwing the others wacky/weird cliffhanger hurdles to have to write past - and we increasingly liked our story and tried harder for good. It ended up a credibly fun, funny, novella-length space adventure -w/ constant twists and some hot PG13 romance, to boot- that I'm not ashamed at all to be associated with, and even ends up mostly making sense despite the abrupt Hitler cameo and suicide. -I desperately need to finish whipping it into shape, actually, so I can post in in the fanfic subforum at AC2; it would be worthwhile content.

-But with the DYOS format that approach isn't really workable the way it is with pure text, and I suggest you not beat yourselves up over it - it's an inherent problem that comes with a collaborative free-for-all like roundtable story writing, and doesn't really harm the charming inherent high-energy twist-a-minute laugh-a-minute quality that the current story surely has.

(HowEVER - do consider a project to take a completed DYOS and put your heads together with intent to tart the ol' girl up into something polished and beautiful and that makes sense. I'd suggest setting arguments by giving Thorvald, who seems to pass for the token adult in this circle, the final decisions where consensus is a problem. Whether or not anything was done about art consistency would be up to y'all, but once the plot arch is completed, mistakes, explanations and missed opportunities could be fixed while preserving the zany energy of the chaotic creative process, provided the patience and the willingness to do the [very long and hard extended and difficult, I know] work.)

One final thing - I believe it was this story in which one of Perfection's arcologies was stolen and flown off to apparently be landed at Plot Hole Port. I just want to remind Stylesjr -or whoever did it- 'cause something just strikes me haha funny about the idea of Perfection's stolen archology turning out to be really important after sitting there forgotten for so long (assuming I'm not blowing a long-planned twist, in which case ping Plotinus for surgery of this paragraph, and my apology).

You, sir, are a godsend. I don't know how often I've said how much I wish the non-participating audience would chip in, and with the possible exception of JoanK, you are the first to offer an in-depth analysis.

Some people have floated spinning two unresolved arcs (DYOS 10.5 and a scrapped story for 11) into fully-mapped stand-alones, but revisiting past stories is something I never considered. I know my old sketches are almost shameful now, but deference to the Historical Record has stopped me from actually redoing pages beyond minor textual corrections; this would be the perfect excuse.

despite the abrupt Hitler cameo and suicide

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That reminds me, I'm years overdue for a new Hitler Rant...

Thanks for the kind words Buster's uncle. Although to be honest, DYOS has been one of those things that seems to be more of a chore than something exciting. My last comic was to tell myself I don't have to spend hours getting it all right, and that I can shoot, compile and post a comic in under an hour, including the distractions of other video games.

But I guess I can still try and persevere as I know there's still a wider audience out there

One final thing - I believe it was this story in which one of Perfection's arcologies was stolen and flown off to apparently be landed at Plot Hole Port. I just want to remind Stylesjr -or whoever did it- 'cause something just strikes me haha funny about the idea of Perfection's stolen archology turning out to be really important after sitting there forgotten for so long (assuming I'm not blowing a long-planned twist, in which case ping Plotinus for surgery of this paragraph, and my apology).

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Oh right, that still exists...
No really, I forgot all about it. Now come to think of it, I have an idea the Delia & Greg side of matters.

Thorvald, the historical record need not be abused - a polished, improved draft would deserve showcasing its own thread. I would hope everyone would make helpful suggestions about how to make everyone else's work better as itself -as well as more consistent with each other's. I don't know what you'd want to do about contributions from people no longer contributing -pinging them and trying to pull them back in would be an obvious first step- but that would tend to be easy to write around, anyway.

Buster's Uncle said:

I'd like to let you folks know that I discovered DYOS a few months ago, and I've enjoyed it hugely and want to encourage you to keep up the good work.

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To be honest, this is kind of unexpected yet appreciate the comment and encouragement. For a year or so, I Didn't have much confidence in my comics.

the beauty of it is in the humor

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Though that's kind of my weakest in comicing.

and the art at its best -CivGeneral does genuinely good-looking stuff, even leaving aside any in-need-of-calming and quite decorative succubus bosoms- is a delight.

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Thanks for the kind comment ^^.

To be honest, aside from writers block, I haven't been much motivated to make as much comics as I used to. Largely stemming from certain people hating my comics.

I see it more as a chore now and don't see it fun anymore to contribute for DYOS if my work is going to be hated or I get scapegoated for the downward quality and direction of DYOS.

I know if I stop, certain people will win.

CivGeneral said:

To be honest, this is kind of unexpected yet appreciate the comment and encouragement. For a year or so, I Didn't have much confidence in my comics.


Though that's kind of my weakest in comicing.


Thanks for the kind comment ^^.

To be honest, aside from writers block, I haven't been much motivated to make as much comics as I used to. Largely stemming from certain people hating my comics.

I see it more as a chore now and don't see it fun anymore to contribute for DYOS if my work is going to be hated or I get scapegoated for the downward quality and direction of DYOS.

I know if I stop, certain people will win.

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CivGeneral, the first person you should be concerned with pleasing with your art is YOU. You are the person who knows what ideas you intend to express, and you are the person who ultimately knows if the finished result has lived up to that. And even if you don't think it does, your audience may disagree with you.


I have little talent for drawing - my artistic strengths are more in the realm of needlework, music, and writing. Some of what I've produced has pleased me, but other people might look at it and have a "meh" reaction. Sometimes it's been the opposite - something I might consider quite ordinary turned out to really grab someone else's imagination. You never know just how it's going to go.

Of course the best combination is when your art pleases both you and your audience. But just remember that the first person who matters in this is the artist him/herself.

All of you here are artists, with varying styles and strengths. Whether you're working on solo projects or a team project, don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough. And if you want or need help, I hope you won't be too reticent to ask for it. I know I should have, with my last couple of NaNoWriMo efforts - they were terrible. Maybe someone might have been able to help me out of the corner I wrote myself into and couldn't find a way out of; the story just kept spinning its wheels and going nowhere.

And if anyone does ask for help, I hope that others who can offer it would do so without judgment. After all, we all have times of writer's block or when we're just not feeling creative. That's part of the reason this forum exists - so the artistic community of CFC can support each other.


One other thought I have about art:

My grandfather told me something that happened when he was a little kid. One of his school teachers told him, "You sing like a horse." My grandfather was so humiliated, he never sang another note... for many decades. But one night I asked him to translate some words to a Swedish song from one of my organ music books. He read the words, and evidently knew the song... and without even thinking about it, he started to sing.

You know what? It turns out that he had a good singing voice. If I had a time machine, I'd go back 100 years or so and smack the teacher who insulted him - because that insult deprived my grandfather of a lifetime of pleasure he missed out on by being too embarrassed to sing.

The moral of this is that constructive criticism is okay. But judgmental, mean-spirited criticism can have long-term damaging effects. That's not what we should be aiming for here, in my opinion.

^
This.

I got into the community because of suddenly falling into SMACX modding -my custom faction leader avatar began life as a painting of Tse Ven Soong, a chubby old man with a pleasant expression (and a pity Americans don't remember him any more)- and wanting to share and talk about it -- and not so much luck with the talking. You have to do the work for the love of the work. I'm good, but SMACer non-artists -and I was the only one until I trained a lot of people- just didn't have the artistic vocabulary. You gotta do it for the joy of the work - there is joy in it.

...A technical style suggestion - I'd forgotten Delia's name, and it would be a good idea for everyone to try to have characters addressed by name at least once early in their appearance in each installment as an audience-friendly measure. No need to belabor the exposition recaps, but little bits like that. As they like to say in writing guides for comic book companies, each issue is someone's first...

Considering how long it takes between comics and that in the span of one or two comics, people forget what happened last week, I think I should do more than just mention everyone by name and instead do a recap every comic.

But yeah, maybe I should have everyone call each other by name at some point rather than "Sis" and "Greg"

By the way, I'd love to play OpenRA with you guys.

What's OpenRA?

red alert and i think its a rad idea

Valka D'Ur said:

CivGeneral, the first person you should be concerned with pleasing with your art is YOU. You are the person who knows what ideas you intend to express, and you are the person who ultimately knows if the finished result has lived up to that. And even if you don't think it does, your audience may disagree with you.

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Well, what hurt the most (and what robbed me of my motivation to contribute) was that many of my former supporters that used to like my contributions, suddenly turned around and said that they strongly dislike my contributions and brandish them as drivel. Some even defrended me both here and on Steam .

But judgmental, mean-spirited criticism can have long-term damaging effects. That's not what we should be aiming for here, in my opinion.

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In the recent months and a year or so. That's the only thing that I've received here while contributing to DYOS. So much so that my only motivation is to pop out a comic once a month just to not let the haters win. Just comicking for the sakes of comicking, as with Stylesrj's motivation.

Do it to please me?

It does...

I'm unable to recover my password for the DYOS Wiki and I cannot log in since I forgot my password (and apperently Firefox didn't recorded it).

Can we have it so that E-mails are required and not optional? Because I tried to use the reset password feture and it only works if the account has an E-mail attached to it.

Umm, can anyone access the DYOS wiki? Because I'm getting a 502 Bad Gateway error message.

Occasionally, if I'm lucky. I get an Error 503 Service Unavailable message/.

I was able to browse there a couple-three months ago, but you're talking about logging on, aren't you?