This is the official storytelling critique thread. Since so many of our story threads are getting bogged down in the quality of the storytelling rather than a discussion of the story itself, I feel it's necessary to split off a separate thread where people can gripe without derailing other threads.
This thread is for talking about the how the story is told, not about the story itself. Tired of filler? Complain about it here. Like the weekly content? Talk about that here.
So would threads like "Would the Eldrazi losing be bad writing" be just a post here rather than its own topic?
Yes.
Think of this like the Storyline Equivalent of the Commander Banlist thread. Our goal is to contain all the negativity to a single nexus of disappointment rather than dragging down the forum as a whole.
EDIT: I'm going to go ahead and sticky this to make it all official and such.
Does that not severely limit discussion? If anything resembling a complaint is formed in a new story happening, it would immediately get relegated to here, and NOBODY is going to go to a thread meant to be just for whiners.
I think this thread should be for dedicated discussions about the quality of the story and shouldn't restrict what types of threads get made.
Obviously, if your thread is "The story sucks, and here's why" you should be posting here, but if your thread is something like "Vampirism" and eventually it goes to talk of the retconned nature of vampires, I don't think it's fair to tell that/those poster(s) to leave the thread and come here.
I think this thread should be for dedicated discussions about the quality of the story and shouldn't restrict what types of threads get made.
Obviously, if your thread is "The story sucks, and here's why" you should be posting here, but if your thread is something like "Vampirism" and eventually it goes to talk of the retconned nature of vampires, I don't think it's fair to tell that/those poster(s) to leave the thread and come here.
So there is some nuance here, and while I'll allow your kingship here ( ), it honestly isn't just you.
If it relates to the topic at hand and doesn't become distracting, it's okay. Posting in a vampire thread that 'Man, I can't believe they ninja retconned vampires on Zendikar' is okay. But it shouldn't be the focus of discussion, nor should it turn a thread about the nature of vampires into a thread about how bad creative is. Basically, this is the place for off-topic conversations to be moved to. The kinds of thread derailments have always been off-topic, but we're hesitant to infract anyone for it.
It's been incredibly hard to talk about the story recently because the discussion focuses primarily on the quality of the storytelling, not the story itself. This thread is for those discussions on the quality of the storytelling.
Edit: For instance, in the Uncharted Realms thread, we get around 47 views for every post, but it's the same 5-10 people posting all the time. I can't help but feel if we kept the discussion more focused we could bring in new people, and the way the current discussion is going it discourages new people from participating.
Shouldn't this be merged with just about every thread from the last few years in this subforum?
My complaint if anything is that they needed to be even more clearer about the location of Kozilek and Emrakul, cards like Vestige of Emrakul are great for giving us a big picture view but then this gets muddied by cards like Kozilek's Channeler.
Shouldn't this be merged with just about every thread from the last few years in this subforum?
My complaint if anything is that they needed to be even more clearer about the location of Kozilek and Emrakul, cards like Vestige of Emrakul are great for giving us a big picture view but then this gets muddied by cards like Kozilek's Channeler.
The reason for this - and I don't agree with it - is that I think creative wants to leave their options open. We'll have to see in Gatewatch, but Kozilek is somewhere IN Zendikar why Emrakul is
Part of that ambiguity is probably because they want to keep their options open for future blocks, but I'd rather they just plot things out far enough in advance (not details, but at least broad strokes) so that we get an idea where things are going.
I will say the current direction for UR is pretty disappointing compared to the pretty good stories from BFZ.
Edit: For instance, in the Uncharted Realms thread, we get around 47 views for every post, but it's the same 5-10 people posting all the time. I can't help but feel if we kept the discussion more focused we could bring in new people, and the way the current discussion is going it discourages new people from participating.
I've for the most part stopped posting in Storyline because of the negativity, and I'm a freaking Mod. That's how bad it is. Every thread that goes up I know is just going to be the same five or six people complaining about how "creative sux" "this was stupid" "I hate creative" "Raaa retcons" etc. I read every thread in Storyline, because that's my job, but there's no point in responding to most things because these posts don't want to encourage discussion. They just want to complain.
Edit: For instance, in the Uncharted Realms thread, we get around 47 views for every post, but it's the same 5-10 people posting all the time. I can't help but feel if we kept the discussion more focused we could bring in new people, and the way the current discussion is going it discourages new people from participating.
I've for the most part stopped posting in Storyline because of the negativity, and I'm a freaking Mod. That's how bad it is. Every thread that goes up I know is just going to be the same five or six people complaining about how "creative sux" "this was stupid" "I hate creative" "Raaa retcons" etc. I read every thread in Storyline, because that's my job, but there's no point in responding to most things because these posts don't want to encourage discussion. They just want to complain.
Most people don't "just want to complain", and most people are not exclaiming "creative sux". You're making it sound like we're constantly flaming how bad the story and creative are, when usually there is constructive criticism and suggestions/ideas for what people would like to see as an improvement. Yes, there are more criticisms than compliments, but that is the nature of any discussion board. Yet there are still articles that are widely regarded as good, such as the recent Drana one, which prompted more positive and intriguing discussion than complaints. If the quality of URs goes up, there will be a lot less complaining - it's typically not just for the sake of it.
I don't see how complaining about the complaints in the forum and insulting the users is going to help decrease negativity at all, especially when you've indicated you don't even attempt to contribute more positive discussion. It's nothing personal, but it's sad to see a mod essentially give up on a section and bemoan its users.
UR writers should read up on RA Salvatore's Drizzt series for ideas on breathtaking duels. i appreciate what they are doing, but Magic is all about the clash of planeswalkers, and so far, battles have not been satisfactory.
i expected Nissa flinging spells and summoning creatures and Ob Nix using his physical might and battle prowess to overpower her.
instead, they ended up in something like a boring magical tug of war.
now that i thought about it, how come PWs in (recent) URs don't even summon creatures from beyond? PW cards make tokens of creatures, players (representing planeswalkers) summon creatures, but PW's in UR stories don't.
kind of disappointing in the context of what Magic: The Gathering for the most part is.
UR writers should read up on RA Salvatore's Drizzt series for ideas on breathtaking duels. i appreciate what they are doing, but Magic is all about the clash of planeswalkers, and so far, battles have not been satisfactory.
i expected Nissa flinging spells and summoning creatures and Ob Nix using his physical might and battle prowess to overpower her.
instead, they ended up in something like a boring magical tug of war.
now that i thought about it, how come PWs in (recent) URs don't even summon creatures from beyond? PW cards make tokens of creatures, players (representing planeswalkers) summon creatures, but PW's in UR stories don't.
kind of disappointing in the context of what Magic: The Gathering for the most part is.
While I kind of do agree with that, at least from a story-gameplay separation thing, I do think it's kind of weird to have planeswalkers summon creatures. It just seems... off. This is however just my personal opinion.
In my own little headcanon, a deck doesn't really represent a planeswalker, but rather a faction or location. It's just visually much more pleasing to imagine an elf-deck to represent an elven fortress that spits out elves to defend their forest against an intruder, rather than a planeswalker who actually physically summons a bunch of elves. Not to mention that the summoning aspect opens up a whole can of worms, like are the summoned creatures real or just aether doubles, and are they capapable of thought, and if not, why not just summon some elementals.
Nissa, to me, represents the "new era of storytelling". She's essentially a new character now, kicked out Garruk and all her stories are self-important facsimiles of depth and nuance. It's emblematic of what the Creative team considers good writing. Just as Nissa supplanted Garruk, their new plot supplants all the older ones in that the past no longer matters.
Just as Nissa's stories pretend to be deep with their endless "I'm such a terrible person. Oh wait, no I'm not!" so does Creative carry an annoying air of "We're infallible". Take Design, for example. MaRo will freely talk about mistakes they've made, even for things as recent as Dragons of Tarkir. Creative, on the other hand, pretends everything they put out is gold. They never acknowledge when they do something wrong, and they have no voice to the public.
Nissa represents everything wrong with the current story, as far as I'm concerned.
Does Wizard's have an overseer for UR? I get that having multiple writers makes it easier but we have had some major inconsistencies.
Inconsistencies? Impossible! This new era of storytelling means a streamlined canon!
Man, people from back in May sure had a lot of faith that amounted to nothing. If creative can't respect the past, what would make anyone believe in them going forward?
Well, Nissa's writing has been subpar to say the least. The problem is that now it's starting to drip into other characters. That worries me a lot, as I predict it will generate a problem of multiple personalities for important characters that are not Origins 5.
This last Nissa story didn't start bad to me, honestly. I found interesting the comparisons that they made with the sucked-dry landscape now with what Nissa remembered (though I feel some parts were a little too stretched), I actively liked that. The problems started with the 'source of power' that Nissa started to access (which is a problem with the story itself) and then they extended to the writing when she finds Nixilis. The fight was messy. Things were described when it was possible and left obscure when inconveninet to explain (how Nissa 'flung' Nixilis away using that power? Super strengh? Blasts from her eyes? How is that even possible?). Nixilis was very unimpressive, specially after I compared this version of him with the version of the other two URs that I've read (one indicated by TerrorKingA). The Nixilis that fought Nissa was a 'one-liner' villain. You could barely understand his motivations, and literally any random demon would have been the same there, and it is almost easier to believe that a random eldrazi or swarm of eldrazi would have been more interesting than him, which is very very very sad.
The writing is mediocre. I feel less and less interested in reading URs now, specially after knowing that Magic does not care about spoiling everything. I will give Jace and Kiora another shots, because Jace's stories have been interesting to me at least (they usually involve things that are not random eldrazi fights), and if they don't pay out I guess that will be it. No more URs. I stop reading books from the start if they are bad. I already gave uncharted realms many more chances of redemption.
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UR writers should read up on RA Salvatore's Drizzt series for ideas on breathtaking duels. i appreciate what they are doing, but Magic is all about the clash of planeswalkers, and so far, battles have not been satisfactory.
i expected Nissa flinging spells and summoning creatures and Ob Nix using his physical might and battle prowess to overpower her.
instead, they ended up in something like a boring magical tug of war.
now that i thought about it, how come PWs in (recent) URs don't even summon creatures from beyond? PW cards make tokens of creatures, players (representing planeswalkers) summon creatures, but PW's in UR stories don't.
kind of disappointing in the context of what Magic: The Gathering for the most part is.
I agree with taking a lesson from R.A Salvatore when it comes to a fantasy fight. The way things are being written now, I don't feel as if I am getting a clear picture of the fight. I also wish the Planeswalkers used more of their trade mark magic during fights, even if it's summoning creatures. Right now the only walker in recent memory that has summoned creatures has been Kiora, and I enjoyed that fight.
I also appreciate this thread, as I'm sure the mods remember the "Coffee" argument a short time ago. Really killed the story discussion for a while, all to argue whether or not Wizards should incorporate real world terms in their fantasy novels. I apologize for my participation in that....
My current biggest problem with Nissa is that I can't figure out which traits and motivations are central for her and which are there for one story. Latest article messed up with why she's searching for Ashaya, how self-centered she is and introduced a whole new internal conflict. Should I take that new info as true description of Nissa, or the next installment will take her in another direction as well?
Btw it's showing how, for all the moping about her past self being flawed, she embraced her "wilder side" when fighting Ob Nixilis, felt she became in-between her past and present self when preparing to restore the power, but never thought about that again? Not even a line in conclusion, just riding in sunset.
Most people don't "just want to complain", and most people are not exclaiming "creative sux". You're making it sound like we're constantly flaming how bad the story and creative are, when usually there is constructive criticism and suggestions/ideas for what people would like to see as an improvement. Yes, there are more criticisms than compliments, but that is the nature of any discussion board. Yet there are still articles that are widely regarded as good, such as the recent Drana one, which prompted more positive and intriguing discussion than complaints. If the quality of URs goes up, there will be a lot less complaining - it's typically not just for the sake of it.
I don't see how complaining about the complaints in the forum and insulting the users is going to help decrease negativity at all, especially when you've indicated you don't even attempt to contribute more positive discussion. It's nothing personal, but it's sad to see a mod essentially give up on a section and bemoan its users.
Kaburi put it indelicately, but we've received a fair amount of complaints from other users about how the UR thread was going. We just want people to focus on the story, not the storytelling, which is obviously much poorer than it was even five years ago but which frequently threatens to derail threads.
Btw it's showing how, for all the moping about her past self being flawed, she embraced her "wilder side" when fighting Ob Nixilis, felt she became in-between her past and present self when preparing to restore the power, but never thought about that again? Not even a line in conclusion, just riding in sunset.
I mean, she had already had her 'epiphany', but the story itself was repetitive enough in following Nissa' thoughts. I don't think repeating it again would have added any value.
I've for the most part stopped posting in Storyline because of the negativity, and I'm a freaking Mod. That's how bad it is. Every thread that goes up I know is just going to be the same five or six people complaining about how "creative sux" "this was stupid" "I hate creative" "Raaa retcons" etc. They just want to complain.
I skipped over this post for some reason.
Well when the story's good, it gets praise or generates discussion. When it isn't, the missteps generate discussion. Don't blame the posters; blame Creative for having more missteps than good stories.
I've for the most part stopped posting in Storyline because of the negativity, and I'm a freaking Mod. That's how bad it is. Every thread that goes up I know is just going to be the same five or six people complaining about how "creative sux" "this was stupid" "I hate creative" "Raaa retcons" etc. They just want to complain.
I skipped over this post for some reason.
Well when the story's good, it gets praise or generates discussion. When it isn't, the missteps generate discussion. Don't blame the posters; blame Creative for having more missteps than good stories.
There are constructive complaints (which is what this thread is for) and there are unconstructive complaints.
Example: Constructive Complaint:
"I don't like how they characterized Nissa's 'secret power' she's been 'suppressing'. It's never been mentioned before, and it makes her sound more green/red (primal, uncontrolled energy) than green/black."
Example: Unconstructive Complaint:
"I should know better by now, but I'm tired of creative yet again retconning Nissa. Which of their stable of idiots wrote this piece of garbage this week. Nissa's never had some secret well of power to suppress. What the ****? It's like Creative doesn't even know how the color pie works."
To me at least, it seems like most of what we get is Unconstructive Complaints that derail every thread. Less enfranchised Vorthosi come into the storyline forum, and instead of seeing us talk about Nissa and Ob fighting (which was a great scene), they find a bunch of angry posts about how much the story sucks. It's not welcoming, and it's not how you build up a community. We're supposed to be the place to celebrate the Vorthos aspects of Magic. We shouldn't be driving away the next generation of Vorthosi just because there are things we don't like. I'm not saying our complaints are invalid, but the constant negativity defeats the very purpose of this forum and turns off new people from coming in.
And this is the last thing I'm going to say about the subject, because now I'm derailing the Complaint Thread with a complaint about complaints. It's getting too Complaint-ception in here.
That's a bit of an understatement. I screwed up and let my frustration show, and I opened my mouth without thinking. I should have phrased my post better, and I apologize if I offended anyone. It wasn't meant as a personal attack against any particular poster(s).
I leaned too hard on the R side of UR and let my passion run too hot.
You know what the current way the stories are being told fee like? They feel like those Saturday morning cartoons from the eighties.G.I Joe,transformers,etc,were the episodes felt like a half hour commercial,no meat or much of anything just filler until the next line of toys came out.I understand that they are a company and are trying to sell a product,but what's wrong with adding some nice characters and stories?
I'm starting to think if they want to adopt the superhero-route to sell product, might as well go all the way and just make MTG lore into Comic-Style only. I'm not saying "Dack Fayden" paper-only comics (since I don't think that fared that well), but the online comics they used to do years back - perhaps if they wanted to do a paper product, they can then compile the entire block's worth of Comics and release it at one go. They're already doing an artbook for Battle for Zendikar, I don't think that's that far off.
I really don't think Serial Literature is really doing the job nicely, since there's multiple people involved - people are more forgiving with multiple creators when it comes to comics and TV shows, but not so much when it comes to written literature.
Remember when they didn't like it that much when the authors had "free rein" over the novels, resulting in "inconsistencies" in the large picture? It's actually pretty much the same now, except the "inconsistencies" are in the "small" details, rather than the overarching stories. Before Origins, it meant retcons and could still be seen as "restructuring", but BFZ is starting to show they have trouble maintaining these small detail consistencies.
There are constructive complaints (which is what this thread is for) and there are unconstructive complaints.
Example: Constructive Complaint:
"I don't like how they characterized Nissa's 'secret power' she's been 'suppressing'. It's never been mentioned before, and it makes her sound more green/red (primal, uncontrolled energy) than green/black."
Example: Unconstructive Complaint:
"I should know better by now, but I'm tired of creative yet again retconning Nissa. Which of their stable of idiots wrote this piece of garbage this week. Nissa's never had some secret well of power to suppress. What the ****? It's like Creative doesn't even know how the color pie works."
I'm more disturbed that the poster got a curse word in. Ha.
But anyway, both are essentially saying the same thing to me. Maybe I'm weird. Probably. Most likely.
To me at least, it seems like most of what we get is Unconstructive Complaints that derail every thread. Less enfranchised Vorthosi come into the storyline forum, and instead of seeing us talk about Nissa and Ob fighting (which was a great scene), they find a bunch of angry posts about how much the story sucks. It's not welcoming, and it's not how you build up a community. We're supposed to be the place to celebrate the Vorthos aspects of Magic. We shouldn't be driving away the next generation of Vorthosi just because there are things we don't like. I'm not saying our complaints are invalid, but the constant negativity defeats the very purpose of this forum and turns off new people from coming in.
Yeah, I completely understand that, but I disagree. Discussion's discussion, and if someone feels strongly about something, they're gonna post. If someone likes the story enough, they'll defend it. I mean, I started posting regularly because I saw people saying "Zurgo should die for killing Narset, even though she attacked him!"
Regardless, I'll just post my thoughts on the Uncharted Realms when they're bad here and link the post in the UR thread so readers can choose to access my thoughts. I can be reasonable. Sometimes.
And this is the last thing I'm going to say about the subject, because now I'm derailing the Complaint Thread with a complaint about complaints. It's getting too Complaint-ception in here.
This thread is for talking about the how the story is told, not about the story itself. Tired of filler? Complain about it here. Like the weekly content? Talk about that here.
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--------------------------------
So would threads like "Would the Eldrazi losing be bad writing" be just a post here rather than its own topic?
Your mods are terrified of me.
Think of this like the Storyline Equivalent of the Commander Banlist thread. Our goal is to contain all the negativity to a single nexus of disappointment rather than dragging down the forum as a whole.
EDIT: I'm going to go ahead and sticky this to make it all official and such.
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I think this thread should be for dedicated discussions about the quality of the story and shouldn't restrict what types of threads get made.
Obviously, if your thread is "The story sucks, and here's why" you should be posting here, but if your thread is something like "Vampirism" and eventually it goes to talk of the retconned nature of vampires, I don't think it's fair to tell that/those poster(s) to leave the thread and come here.
Your mods are terrified of me.
If it relates to the topic at hand and doesn't become distracting, it's okay. Posting in a vampire thread that 'Man, I can't believe they ninja retconned vampires on Zendikar' is okay. But it shouldn't be the focus of discussion, nor should it turn a thread about the nature of vampires into a thread about how bad creative is. Basically, this is the place for off-topic conversations to be moved to. The kinds of thread derailments have always been off-topic, but we're hesitant to infract anyone for it.
It's been incredibly hard to talk about the story recently because the discussion focuses primarily on the quality of the storytelling, not the story itself. This thread is for those discussions on the quality of the storytelling.
Edit: For instance, in the Uncharted Realms thread, we get around 47 views for every post, but it's the same 5-10 people posting all the time. I can't help but feel if we kept the discussion more focused we could bring in new people, and the way the current discussion is going it discourages new people from participating.
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
I personally started commenting to join the complaints.
My complaint if anything is that they needed to be even more clearer about the location of Kozilek and Emrakul, cards like Vestige of Emrakul are great for giving us a big picture view but then this gets muddied by cards like Kozilek's Channeler.
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I mean, I don't mind complaining, I really don't, it's just gotten distracting and overshadowed actual story discussion a little too often.
The reason for this - and I don't agree with it - is that I think creative wants to leave their options open. We'll have to see in Gatewatch, but Kozilek is somewhere IN Zendikar why Emrakul is
Part of that ambiguity is probably because they want to keep their options open for future blocks, but I'd rather they just plot things out far enough in advance (not details, but at least broad strokes) so that we get an idea where things are going.
I will say the current direction for UR is pretty disappointing compared to the pretty good stories from BFZ.
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Most people don't "just want to complain", and most people are not exclaiming "creative sux". You're making it sound like we're constantly flaming how bad the story and creative are, when usually there is constructive criticism and suggestions/ideas for what people would like to see as an improvement. Yes, there are more criticisms than compliments, but that is the nature of any discussion board. Yet there are still articles that are widely regarded as good, such as the recent Drana one, which prompted more positive and intriguing discussion than complaints. If the quality of URs goes up, there will be a lot less complaining - it's typically not just for the sake of it.
I don't see how complaining about the complaints in the forum and insulting the users is going to help decrease negativity at all, especially when you've indicated you don't even attempt to contribute more positive discussion. It's nothing personal, but it's sad to see a mod essentially give up on a section and bemoan its users.
UR writers should read up on RA Salvatore's Drizzt series for ideas on breathtaking duels. i appreciate what they are doing, but Magic is all about the clash of planeswalkers, and so far, battles have not been satisfactory.
i expected Nissa flinging spells and summoning creatures and Ob Nix using his physical might and battle prowess to overpower her.
instead, they ended up in something like a boring magical tug of war.
now that i thought about it, how come PWs in (recent) URs don't even summon creatures from beyond? PW cards make tokens of creatures, players (representing planeswalkers) summon creatures, but PW's in UR stories don't.
kind of disappointing in the context of what Magic: The Gathering for the most part is.
While I kind of do agree with that, at least from a story-gameplay separation thing, I do think it's kind of weird to have planeswalkers summon creatures. It just seems... off. This is however just my personal opinion.
In my own little headcanon, a deck doesn't really represent a planeswalker, but rather a faction or location. It's just visually much more pleasing to imagine an elf-deck to represent an elven fortress that spits out elves to defend their forest against an intruder, rather than a planeswalker who actually physically summons a bunch of elves. Not to mention that the summoning aspect opens up a whole can of worms, like are the summoned creatures real or just aether doubles, and are they capapable of thought, and if not, why not just summon some elementals.
Nissa, to me, represents the "new era of storytelling". She's essentially a new character now, kicked out Garruk and all her stories are self-important facsimiles of depth and nuance. It's emblematic of what the Creative team considers good writing. Just as Nissa supplanted Garruk, their new plot supplants all the older ones in that the past no longer matters.
Just as Nissa's stories pretend to be deep with their endless "I'm such a terrible person. Oh wait, no I'm not!" so does Creative carry an annoying air of "We're infallible". Take Design, for example. MaRo will freely talk about mistakes they've made, even for things as recent as Dragons of Tarkir. Creative, on the other hand, pretends everything they put out is gold. They never acknowledge when they do something wrong, and they have no voice to the public.
Nissa represents everything wrong with the current story, as far as I'm concerned.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Inconsistencies? Impossible! This new era of storytelling means a streamlined canon!
Man, people from back in May sure had a lot of faith that amounted to nothing. If creative can't respect the past, what would make anyone believe in them going forward?
Your mods are terrified of me.
This last Nissa story didn't start bad to me, honestly. I found interesting the comparisons that they made with the sucked-dry landscape now with what Nissa remembered (though I feel some parts were a little too stretched), I actively liked that. The problems started with the 'source of power' that Nissa started to access (which is a problem with the story itself) and then they extended to the writing when she finds Nixilis. The fight was messy. Things were described when it was possible and left obscure when inconveninet to explain (how Nissa 'flung' Nixilis away using that power? Super strengh? Blasts from her eyes? How is that even possible?). Nixilis was very unimpressive, specially after I compared this version of him with the version of the other two URs that I've read (one indicated by TerrorKingA). The Nixilis that fought Nissa was a 'one-liner' villain. You could barely understand his motivations, and literally any random demon would have been the same there, and it is almost easier to believe that a random eldrazi or swarm of eldrazi would have been more interesting than him, which is very very very sad.
The writing is mediocre. I feel less and less interested in reading URs now, specially after knowing that Magic does not care about spoiling everything. I will give Jace and Kiora another shots, because Jace's stories have been interesting to me at least (they usually involve things that are not random eldrazi fights), and if they don't pay out I guess that will be it. No more URs. I stop reading books from the start if they are bad. I already gave uncharted realms many more chances of redemption.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
I agree with taking a lesson from R.A Salvatore when it comes to a fantasy fight. The way things are being written now, I don't feel as if I am getting a clear picture of the fight. I also wish the Planeswalkers used more of their trade mark magic during fights, even if it's summoning creatures. Right now the only walker in recent memory that has summoned creatures has been Kiora, and I enjoyed that fight.
I also appreciate this thread, as I'm sure the mods remember the "Coffee" argument a short time ago. Really killed the story discussion for a while, all to argue whether or not Wizards should incorporate real world terms in their fantasy novels. I apologize for my participation in that....
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Alt+0198=Æ
Btw it's showing how, for all the moping about her past self being flawed, she embraced her "wilder side" when fighting Ob Nixilis, felt she became in-between her past and present self when preparing to restore the power, but never thought about that again? Not even a line in conclusion, just riding in sunset.
I mean, she had already had her 'epiphany', but the story itself was repetitive enough in following Nissa' thoughts. I don't think repeating it again would have added any value.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
I skipped over this post for some reason.
Well when the story's good, it gets praise or generates discussion. When it isn't, the missteps generate discussion. Don't blame the posters; blame Creative for having more missteps than good stories.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Example: Constructive Complaint:
"I don't like how they characterized Nissa's 'secret power' she's been 'suppressing'. It's never been mentioned before, and it makes her sound more green/red (primal, uncontrolled energy) than green/black."
Example: Unconstructive Complaint:
"I should know better by now, but I'm tired of creative yet again retconning Nissa. Which of their stable of idiots wrote this piece of garbage this week. Nissa's never had some secret well of power to suppress. What the ****? It's like Creative doesn't even know how the color pie works."
To me at least, it seems like most of what we get is Unconstructive Complaints that derail every thread. Less enfranchised Vorthosi come into the storyline forum, and instead of seeing us talk about Nissa and Ob fighting (which was a great scene), they find a bunch of angry posts about how much the story sucks. It's not welcoming, and it's not how you build up a community. We're supposed to be the place to celebrate the Vorthos aspects of Magic. We shouldn't be driving away the next generation of Vorthosi just because there are things we don't like. I'm not saying our complaints are invalid, but the constant negativity defeats the very purpose of this forum and turns off new people from coming in.
And this is the last thing I'm going to say about the subject, because now I'm derailing the Complaint Thread with a complaint about complaints. It's getting too Complaint-ception in here.
EDIT:
That's a bit of an understatement. I screwed up and let my frustration show, and I opened my mouth without thinking. I should have phrased my post better, and I apologize if I offended anyone. It wasn't meant as a personal attack against any particular poster(s).
I leaned too hard on the R side of UR and let my passion run too hot.
@_kaburi_ on Twitter
Special thanks to Serrot_29 for Catbug'mrakul!
I really don't think Serial Literature is really doing the job nicely, since there's multiple people involved - people are more forgiving with multiple creators when it comes to comics and TV shows, but not so much when it comes to written literature.
Remember when they didn't like it that much when the authors had "free rein" over the novels, resulting in "inconsistencies" in the large picture? It's actually pretty much the same now, except the "inconsistencies" are in the "small" details, rather than the overarching stories. Before Origins, it meant retcons and could still be seen as "restructuring", but BFZ is starting to show they have trouble maintaining these small detail consistencies.
I'm glad there's this official complaint thread.
I'm more disturbed that the poster got a curse word in. Ha.
But anyway, both are essentially saying the same thing to me. Maybe I'm weird. Probably. Most likely.
Yeah, I completely understand that, but I disagree. Discussion's discussion, and if someone feels strongly about something, they're gonna post. If someone likes the story enough, they'll defend it. I mean, I started posting regularly because I saw people saying "Zurgo should die for killing Narset, even though she attacked him!"
Regardless, I'll just post my thoughts on the Uncharted Realms when they're bad here and link the post in the UR thread so readers can choose to access my thoughts. I can be reasonable. Sometimes.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM
Your mods are terrified of me.
I think BFZ, at least so far, is having problems because of the amount of restructuring they've had to do to meet the two blocks a year schedule.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath