The DYOS Consul

[choxorn]

Well, after getting y'all hyped, I'm belaying the order. Turns out two years is too long to make the Promise List in the first place.

Kan' warned me about this.

Why didn't I listen?

What's the Promise List again?

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Curt's doing a bunch of gift art for his various colleagues and patrons. I thought given how he's been teasing me since '14 at least with promises of a DYOS tribute, I was on the list. Apparently I'm not.

 

[GenMarshall]

Curt's doing a bunch of gift art for his various colleagues and patrons. I thought given how he's been teasing me since '14 at least with promises of a DYOS tribute, I was on the list. Apparently I'm not.

Would this:



Make up for it? :3

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

​

...Sorry. What I'm trying to say is

​

Whenever you're ready...

CG says we're ready.

​

I'd say sorry for nicking TB's tagline, but I think he won't mind.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Good news and bad news on the OpenRA front. The infantry pack I'd planned to use for some of the Uniques is scaled to the original C&C, not Red Alert, meaning to use them I'll be spending inordinate time to clean up the rescaled sprite sequences, so don't expect a demo any time soon.

The good news is, zombies mostly work as I'd hoped, save that they'll still opt to charge infantry rather than use ranged weapons.

Not-yet-tested but theoretically possible: different garrisonable actors using different garrison-defined weapons. This way, the same lowly rifleman that is such a nightmare in a pillbox won't turn a Warthog into a blob-gardener, garrisoned towers can always shoot over walls, &c.

 

[Omega124]

Seeing how WYOS revivial bombed, I should probably get back to DYOS again, especially since all the cool kids are and I need to justify thor including me in the christmas cmic despite only making one comic last year.

I have a nice, unexpected break on Wednesday. Perfect time to camp out in a computer lab and sprite.

 

[gay_Aleks]

I should probably also get that WYOS manuscript done.

So much to write, so few time!

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

GOOD NEWS EVERYCHOX

It only took me two years but I finally have a new desktop computer, meaning I can at last resume work on the Civ3 mod. Priority as always remains finishing the World Map, but given how certain people can barely remember where they were last week, I'm curious as to whether I should adapt the tech trees to incorporate the various developments from DYOS XI on, in advance of/complementing the late-game supertech and CG's reorientation toward open fascism.

also I may be brainstorming a HoI4 mod.

 

[GenMarshall]

Is this thread still being used? I thought it died a while ago.

To be honest, by the look of things with your Civ3 Mod, it's gonna be a continual development akin to Windows 10 or development of indie games like Minecraft and Stellaria.

Though I take it that this mod update only covers up to the present date of the post so I don't have to worry about the Republic of Nova Terra being left out of being a continuator state of the Old Republic of Coruscant.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

What's the current story, what's the best way to ignore it, and how do I write a story into it?

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

What's the current story, what's the best way to ignore it, and how do I write a story into it?

1. Initial Premise is following the tomfoolery of DYOS XI, prosecution powers for cybercrime were expanded into a carte blanche warrant to crack down on Internet use for any reason. This has basically turned Coruscant and the FWA into Orwellian police states, with the rest of the world forced to toe the line or risk "special investigation". Related subplots are a government cover-up on the Empty Vacuum Formerly Known as Planet Hiram, CG going full Fascist, and the "Faceless Man" (which may in fact be a groupmind) fighting back through digital terrorism.

2. Basically, do anything outside the Three Empires and you should be safe.

3. oh jeez I dunno, I thought you were my sensei!

 

[choxorn]

There's still a story at this point? Our update pace dropped from "once a blue moon" to "once a presidential election" and I've long since lost track of what was going on.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

1. Initial Premise is following the tomfoolery of DYOS XI, prosecution powers for cybercrime were expanded into a carte blanche warrant to crack down on Internet use for any reason. This has basically turned Coruscant and the FWA into Orwellian police states, with the rest of the world forced to toe the line or risk "special investigation". Related subplots are a government cover-up on the Empty Vacuum Formerly Known as Planet Hiram, CG going full Fascist, and the "Faceless Man" (which may in fact be a groupmind) fighting back through digital terrorism.

Thank you for the summary. I'm going to ignore it.

2. Basically, do anything outside the Three Empires and you should be safe.

Three Empires?

3. oh jeez I dunno, I thought you were my sensei!

Oh shush, you know I only draw stuff to make you happy.

 

[JohannaK]

I should draw something, four years later. What do you mean I never posted those? They are drawn...

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Nice try, Joan, but everyone knows Page 3 is just an urban myth!

Three Empires?

The Union, Coruscant, and the FWA, i.e. the New World Order.

 

[GenMarshall]

There's still a story at this point? Our update pace dropped from "once a blue moon" to "once a presidential election" and I've long since lost track of what was going on.

I've pretty much lost any motivation to contribute. Plus Overwatch has nabbed my attention these days.

 

[GenMarshall]

So yeah, I was thinking of returning to DYOS... but not with my current roster of characters and story. I was thinking of just starting my contributions anew with a different roster of characters and work with the plot that way.

I think the main reason why I just stopped contributing was because I just wrote myself into a corner and I want to back out of it.

TBH, I'm having a strong feeling of taking this route. Since I have a strong hunch that no matter what I do people are still going to find my current plot/arc incomprehensible and/or losing track of what's going on (or worse, unfunny and uninteresting).

On one hand, I want to explore and experiment on a rise of a villain (Something that I haven't seen in the likes with Kulade becoming the Avatar Suprime Commander), yet also want to renter the fray as a rebooted main character. I have an idea in mind to have two "CG" in the field and have some sense of how to make it work. Yet concerned that I'd be way over people's heads in a metaphysical, cyberpunkish & philosophical sense.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

> worried the plot's incomprehensible
> wants to multiply avatars
> mfw

 

[Gruekiller]

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to wrestle myself into continuing my own story. As I left it, it was already pretty simple, I think I can keep rolling with it... if I ever make myself work!

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Thor . I will make it work!

I don't see any appeal for me to be the main main villain anymore and I really don't have any interest in having myself be the villain in the arc. Hell, I see the current incarnation of my character as something that I don't like (a present day "I hate my past/future self" trope) and that I don't see as a reflection of myself.

The part I am worried about the idea of it incomprehensible is bringing the concept down so that even a goldfish can understand without going all mumbojumbo technobabble stuff. Ideally, would be simple enough that people would go; "Oh, there's two CGs now, but one is on the path of Evil!CG and the other is on the good side" and through character development and as the plot progresses would be two completely different people w/ different names.

Except you aren't even the villain yet.

I don't know if you've ever seen the series Once Upon a Time, but I can pinpoint the moment Kitsis and Horowitz took the last shard of hope I had that they knew what they were doing, dashed it against an obsidian outcropping, burned the slivers, and then huffed the ashes:

Spoiler Seasons 4–6 :

By the end of Season 4, it looked like Regina had finally come to terms with her past: yes, she was the Evil Queen, but People Can Change, and who she used to be shouldn't predetermine who she can be. It was a good conclusion to an arc about Challenging Fate and reaffirming the human spirit.

The very next season has her doubting this almost immediately, with the end result of her physically splitting off her Dark Side, and thus, reducing morality back to a childish black-and-white Heroes and Villains, completely destroying Regina's previous character arc for the sake of a contrived plot twist. The writers did somewhat compensate later with the twist that killing one would kill the other, but the arc still concluded with a premise that Good and Bad are physically quantifiable. As is so too-tragically-often in this show, they took what could have been a deep theme and made it insultingly shallow.

I thought we had done the opposite: ReichsGeneral was a minor detour in XI, and Richtofen literally said morality is more than a character stat, and then this long-arc we've been planning for literally years now was going to take that last shard of lazy moral determinism, dash it against an obsidian outcropping, burn the slivers, and then huff the ashes. But no, having barely dipped your toe into that plot, you're seventh-guessing yourself and abandoning actual depth for feel-good convenience despite having told me incessantly how you don't want to be the "new Stylesrj".

It's not about who's-who, it's about crafting a story people actually want to read. The fact that you're even saying you'll dumb it down to the lowest rung pretty much proves you've taken none of my counsel seriously. You won't make it work, because you're too lazy to make it work: I've told you a million times good storytelling is an investment, and once again you're leaping for the nearest shortcut instead of actually trying. You want to know why Kan' ditched you? You want to know why tailless blocked you? They couldn't put up with this god-damned carousel any longer, and it really is a testament to masochism that I've held out to this point. I don't admit mistakes easily, but I'm finally ready to accept that you can't change, you won't change, and I was a fool for thinking I could actually help.

That said, I hitched almost every consequential idea I had for XII to this plot, so you will understand when I carry it forward in your stead. DYOS is more than any single contributor, and I can still see the value in your ideas, especially when you can't. If XII really was to be CivGeneral's retirement, then he deserves a proper send-off, not a middle-finger cop-out, and I sincerely hope that I will do you proud. Good luck in your future endeavours, but do not expect advice from me in future, as you are clearly intent on squandering it.

Plus, on the back of my mind I have been seriously considering on changing my nick on this board due to the infamy of the nick that it has carried.

Call yourself whatever you want; that won't change who you are.