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Author Topic: Marooned in Morrowind (FINISHED)  (Read 432779 times)

Baffler

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2040 on: May 14, 2014, 09:45:48 am »

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this is probably among, if not the best forum game I've participated in.

Seconded. I know I've complained, but my quibbles are minor compared to the enjoyment I get out of reading this. I wouldn't mind a longer time between updates either, especially if it's easier on you that way. There's not many people who could keep something like this going so long, and so well.
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Descan

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2041 on: May 14, 2014, 11:22:59 am »

The only complaint I've had is the pseudo-railroading.

Sure, you'll let us DO something, like join the Legion. But it takes out a huge chunk of time, and doesn't -really- accomplish much (or at least, not much that we could have done in an easier way) . If we had known how different it would have been from vanilla-Legion then we probably wouldn't have done it.

It's happened a fair bit, where we want to do something because it helps in the vanilla game, and you let us, but don't tell us how it is different until we've already wasted a week or two on it. After a while it felt kind of rail-roady, like "Sure, you can do whatever you want, it just won't accomplish anything unless you do what I want you to do~"

Er... Yeah.
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LordBucket

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2042 on: May 14, 2014, 02:15:12 pm »

you'll let us DO something, like join the Legion. But it takes out a huge chunk of time, and doesn't -really- accomplish much (or at least, not much that we could have done in an easier way) . If we had known how different it would have been from vanilla-Legion then we probably wouldn't have done it.

...the way I remember it the only reason you even joined at all was specifically because you knew it would be different from vanilla. Remember, the primary motivation for joining was to get free skill training. The legion doesn't do that in vanilla.

In any case, General Darius explained exactly what joining the legion would entail:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You guys knew it was a bad deal and that's why you changed your minds after talking to him. You didn't join the Legion until 7 episodes later when you rather suddenly changed your mind for reasons I never understood.

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It's happened a fair bit, where we want to do something because it helps in the vanilla game, and you let us, but don't tell us how it is different until we've already wasted a week or two on it.

Some of the "MorrowReal" aspects of the game have played out that way. Like when you first ran into backpack space issues collecting mushrooms, not being able to train magic, the non-vanilla economy and intelligent shopkeepers, etc. Yes, training to 100 alchemy while simultaneously getting rich on day one by buying infinite reagents from a vendor and selling the resulting infinite potions back to her...that's a "vanilla Morrowind" kind of thing, and no it doesn't work here. But all of that was established in the first month or two of the game. Other than the Legion, which you had every reason to know would be a bad deal, alchemy is the only "thing that helps in vanilla" you've really invested energy into that hasn't paid off. And you could have resolved the alchemy situation a long time ago if you'd focused on it, but there have been other things you collectively decided were more important to do.

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"Sure, you can do whatever you want, it just won't accomplish anything unless you do what I want you to do~"

From my point of view most of the things that don't work for you fail because you either forget about them, or simply don't follow through with your own plans.

Learning necromancy wasn't my idea. You guys came up with that and I went along with it. Then you immediately abandoned it after being given an intro quest. Seeking out Clover? After going to all the trouble of going to Tel Fyr you never bothered to go look for her. Divayth told you exactly where she was, but you just never bothered to go talk to her despite spending six episodes at Tel Fyr.  You guys promised Edwinna that you'd ask Yagrum some questions for her. But again, you totally dropped it once you got there. Making that promise to retrieve the ring for Thavere? Totally your idea. But then after swearing an oath, you abandoned it the following episode.

On the other hand, Draren? Not my idea, but that worked out rather well. The treasure in the stump in Seyda neen? I didn't even know that was there until you guys decided to go loot it. Vivec? Sure, I expected you'd talk to him eventually but short-cutting everything and slipping a letter under his door? Not my idea, and that worked out very well. Getting Processsus' murderer to confess with a guard in earshot? That worked, and you collected the bounty for it. Swimming to Tel Fyr? I completely expected that to end badly but you got to where you wanted and made some allies in the process.

Plenty of things you've tried have worked when you set your minds to actually doing them.

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2043 on: May 14, 2014, 03:25:39 pm »

Yeah, you have to kindof expect that though, this whole thing is done by comittee and its a lot harder to remember in game goings-on then your own personal plans.

It isnt even a totally consistent pool of decision makers.  Your right though life would be a lot easier for us if we stuck with our prior plans more.  Ill stop hre its a bitch to type on my phone.
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Descan

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2044 on: May 14, 2014, 03:28:14 pm »

Alright, I'll give you that.

But I take issue with the idea of us abandoning ideas. Maybe yes for the necromancy thing, I didn't post saying I wanted to do that but I did want to follow through with it, I guess that's on mine and others like me heads. But things like talking to Yagrum about Edwinna seem too obvious to say "Yes we want to do that," about, they seem like things that should be followed through on without our needing to provide input unless we explicitly say "No, we should not do that any more," whether because we changed our minds or some other information has come up to say it's a bad idea.

I don't recall the ring part so it's hard to say, but depending on the circumstances surrounding it I think that's another situation where it seems obvious we want to do so so no one feels the need to explicitly say we want to do it.


And yeah, it's kind of hard because it's not like there's only one person on our end, it's a whole lot of people. You've dealt with it admirably for most cases, such as waiting for multiple people to support something (so there's not just a tyranny of the one or two people most vocal) but it does lead to the idea that we just don't explicitly mention things that seem fairly obvious. Especially with the added idea that we could think "Eh, someone else will mention it".

And the inexplicable joining the legion could probably be explained the same way, with others joining who do want to (or weren't around to see the reasons not to join) so they won out, despite the majority of people (who feel that is fairly obvious to not join the legion, and so don't speak up) not wanting to.

The only way I could see fixing that is a running tally of who wants to do what, and have votes like "Don't join the legion" cross-episodes. So you would have like, 15 people have at some point said "Don't join!" and you need 16 people to say they do, rather than just the luck of the draw of who posts what between episodes. But that is again more work for you. And it doesn't exactly help with things that we feel are too obvious to explicitly mention.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2014, 03:31:10 pm by Descan »
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LordBucket

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2045 on: May 14, 2014, 04:24:56 pm »

With over 100 thread pages and individual updates over ten pages each...it's generally impractical for me to dredge up things that somebody said real life months ago to add them to an episode. Or in the case of the Edwinna-Yagrum thing, it was pretty obvious that you guys simply forgot about it. So Michael forgot too.

In most cases I don't go check further back than the previous episode for suggestions in the next episode. Though there have been some exceptions. Like for example the decision to learn destruction rather than restoration was settled by votes from an extra episode prior. Or like Episode 44 which is actually titled after a particularly memorable quote from May of last year I was waited ages to finally get to use. :)

Descan

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2046 on: May 14, 2014, 04:37:06 pm »

I wasn't expecting you to look back 100 episodes, but only as an idea going forward.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2047 on: May 14, 2014, 05:26:01 pm »

If only Michael had some kind of waterproof journal to keep reminders in.

And I wholeheartedly agree about seemingly obvious things not being mentioned, and thus getting forgotten. When that one person suggested seducing the orc lady, none of us took it seriously and so didn't voice an objection. But because that was one for and none against, it happened, much to our dismay (though amusement when no lasting ill effects occurred.)

Remember at the beginning, when Michael interpreted every command as "DO THIS NOW" and yelled at us for telling him to waste his money bouncing all over the map constantly? We thought that "do this when you're in the place to do it" would be obvious, but it wasn't.

About Tel Fyr: I am pretty disappointed that we didn't get to do find out about clover, or ask questions for Edwinna, but the constant reminders about the boat seemed to be "Guys get out now or you'll be stuck at Tel Fyr until Cinnia returns at an indeterminate time."
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syvarris

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2048 on: May 14, 2014, 06:01:07 pm »

Well, I'm pretty much the person who started the pony dissent, so... Sorry for that.  I feel like a real jerk now.

LB, I greatly apologize for that.  I was unreasonably angry at the time.  As others have said, this is one of the best forum games I've seen on these forums.  You've thought everything out to an impressive extent, and crafted a very believable world, with characters that usually feel real.  Michael, at least at the times that he isn't being controlled by the hivemind, acts like an actual person.

To be perfectly honest, yes, my enjoyment does decrease somewhat knowing there's ponies; I really, really dislike that fandom.  And that's a problem with me, yes.  But despite that, this story is good enough to keep me around.  The many good aspects of it by far outweigh the things I perceive as negative.

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2049 on: May 14, 2014, 06:19:05 pm »

To be fair, you had ample warning if you didn't like the ponies.  The very first episode mentions Michael being a brony, and the shirt was also an indication that to some extent that they would be in here.  If neither of those caught your eyes, LordBucket's avatar is also a pretty big warning sign.

That being said, I have no problem with the ponies, they're just another story element in an already great story; it's not even like they were modded into the game itself (there are some true atrocities in Skyrim, I tell you what), so the most you have to deal with is their personalities.

Other than that, thanks LordBucket for putting up with us for so long.  The story's great and the effort you put out is immense.  I'd be disappointed if this ended, but it's always up to the author to decide what they want to do. 

WillowLuman

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2050 on: May 14, 2014, 06:49:15 pm »

I think we had a sort of knee-jerk reaction to the ponies thing. At the onset of its popularity, MLP had a massive, terrible fun-dumb that literally spread all across the internet, trying to jam ponies down everyone elses' throats and make everything about ponies. So, many of us non-fans are wary whenever we see ponies. LB doesn't seem like part of the fan-dumb, though, just the fandom, and we had no idea how subtle this game would be, so going in we thought that Michael's bronyism was characterization. Just something to help establish his personality.

So, being over the knee-jerk reaction, the more interesting explaination presented itself, that the presence of pony-inspired elements is a clue to how we ended up here and what's been going on. The fan-dumb fear, that this had been about ponies (or leading up to being about ponies) the whole time, has been thankfully debunked. Are these elements here because of something in Michael's head? Or something on his computer? Is Michael on a trauma/drug/stroke induced dream-coma journey through his own psyche (a la many fantasy books)? Or something even stranger or more unexpected?

As long as an actual pony didn't zap Michael into Morrowind for MLP reasons (which LB denies, thank goodness), I'd probably be perfectly fine with whatever happens. And even if that's what happened, it wouldn't invalidate all the good story that came before it.
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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2052 on: May 14, 2014, 07:02:38 pm »

Michael is to become an amaranth*. Makes sense to me that what he likes is around.

* Most likely not, but the thought amuses me.

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2053 on: May 14, 2014, 07:22:45 pm »

...that asterisk seemed like it was going to explain what Amaranth is but instead continued your post in a logical way >_>

Amaranth is the Dreamer, for those who don't know, one who dreams their own universe. Think of them as like the boxes containing universes from Futurama. The universes aren't any less real for being dreamt and any problems with the Dreamer's Dreamer probably won't cause problems in the Amaranth's dream. The dreamer of the Aurbis is the Anu in the Anuad. It is fully possible that Michael is the Amaranth for this Aurbis, though I... really don't think so.

Xanmyral

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Re: Marooned in Morrowind, a suggestion game Ep.60
« Reply #2054 on: May 14, 2014, 08:59:18 pm »

Amaranth for those who (understandably) don't delve too deep into the insanity that is Kirkbride, shorthand version: you chim so hard you become your own god head and dream your own world.

The dream becomes the dreamer.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2014, 09:01:18 pm by Xanmyral »
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