Erfworld

The red cape is new, the white skulls on black were red turnips on blue (I think), and the pants were missing below the knee.

edited 29th Apr '09 10:30:15 PM by Neep

Damn. That's not just an uncroaking, that's flat out resurrection. Is Wanda going to be able to keep on doing that now that she has the Arkenpliers? That seems downright broken.

But then, they are aiming to rule the world.

I just read through almost the entire archive, and I have to say, everything makes a lot more sense when you get to read it all in one sitting. And it's also far more entertaining. I guess it's necessary to get to the audience at all, but Erfworld shouldn't be a webcomic. Episodic doesn't work for it, large chunks do.

So yeah. I highly recommend an Archive Binge of this comic rather than just following it, especially if you don't think you like it.

Why shouldn't it be a webcomic? The entire archives are always there for viewing.

In any case, that's why I frequently go for months without checking comics for updates. It allows me to take them in a more fluid, storylike manner, rather than an episodic format.

Most comics work episodically. OOTS works episodically. Girl Genius works episodically. Anything with humor as the main goal works episodically. They also work in a binge (maybe a bit less on some than others), but they work if you read every update. But there's some that just do not work like that. Goblins doesn't work episodically at all, excepting a few specific scenes. Gunnerkrigg Court only very occasionally pulls it off satisfyingly, usually for the silly arcs or right at the climax of one that's revealing a lot of information. And Erfworld doesn't really work episodically either. You really can't appreciate it unless you read twenty pages at once.

What I meant about not being a webcomic is that it really wants to be a book. I mean yeah, it's being released as a book as well, but almost everybody is going to read it as a webcomic first and only the already-fans tend to buy the books, as far as I know. Then again, maybe I just started reading it too early in its run, before there was an archive to read throuh and get into the story—entirely because it was hosted on Burlew's site, of course. Also the first dozen or so (everything before Parson arrives, and some of the stuff focusing on the enemy immediately after) is kinda lame compared to the later ones.

Oh, by the way. You know what else makes this comic more fun to read? Not having to wait on Rich Burlew's server to do so! Maybe this'll split the traffic enough to heal Burlew's as well as giving *goes to check* Rob Balder the space he needs. Hmm, as names go he's definitely got the type that means you don't need to come up with a screenname to be remembered by. Balder. Lord knows if I ran/made anything on the internet I'd have to invent a new name to take the credit; my real name doesn't have any ring to it at all.

I dunno, I've never thought Erfworld worked less well episodically than Order Of The Stick. Some comics clearly don't work as well episodically, but I've never felt it was one of them.

On the other hand, I think almost all comics, including humorous ones, are better when not taken episodically. I've never understood the idea of Archive Panic. For me it's always been a matter of Archive Joy, so much of the comic just waiting for me to take in all at once. Unless the beginning shows the wrong end of a major case of Art Evolution, in which case my feelings are more mixed.

@Desertopia: I agree, on both counts. I know that whenever I reread Questionable Content, I tend to skip the first hundred-odd strips.

But yes, when I get into a new comic, I like having a nice, long archive to trawl through.

edited 6th May '09 8:28:58 AM by GG Crono

Re: The latest comic.

I think that just about sums it up. Wow.

That was a surprise. First time I've ever seen Heroic Willpower applied to swearing. So now the rules are being broken. It's rather cosmetic so far, but if he can break one rule he can break others. I predict at some point in the future a bit of trickery will rely on Parson himself (and by himself) physically breaking the rule against moving between hexes at night. I'm also predicting that while he'll be able to start breaking rules himself, he still won't be able to get anyone under him to do the same. So he can't use any cheats that require the whole army to cheat.

Interesting that he ended the book with Stanley in transit. The fallout from this battle's obviously not gonna be over. I mean, in a sense the fallout from this battle is the entire rest of the story, right? But the falling action isn't really complete either. Stanley's return and his reaction is something I certainly expected to appear in this book. Instead, he's still in the air, a couple turns away, and we've seen every person's reaction and aftermath except Parson's boss, the only person whose reaction really matters. What that means is that his arrival will be shoved into the next book, when it'll be separated from the events he's reacting to by a good deal of real time plus the distinction of being in a different book. When you think about it that way it's no wonder most authors would cram it in before the end of the book. The only other way of dealing with it is to entirely skip over Stanley's return and begin the next book some weeks into the future when the next big thing happens—but while we could've made do without the upbraiding for the destruction of the fortress, not getting to see Stanley's meeting with a decrypted Prince Ansom declaring Stanley to have been right all along is just lame. That's a scene we really, really wanna see, right? Even if we see it in flashback it'd be a letdown.

Oh, wow. That is certainly a way to end Book 1. I especially like how the whole focus is on Parson and his freedom, rather than the ingame plot. It pulls everything out to a new/old perspective of this being all a "game" and Parson being trapped there.

As for Archive Binge... I rarely feel that a webcomic working better through Archive Binge is a flaw, as much as it is a sign of how the author writes. I remember reading and interview Peter O'Donnel made for the 12th Modesty Blaise album, where he talked about he basically had to reintroduce all immediate plotlines in every single strip since he was writing for a newspaper. Now, O'Donnel was pretty good at pulling this off, but it basically means he has to include exposition in every strip.

Aw, man. That sword could've been useful.

People on the Erfworld forums speculated that since it's no longer glowing its bonuses to Parson have become innate, so he doesn't need it. But regardless, that sword needed to go, because the "ruthlessness" ability it gave was one more avenue through which the game could control his actions.

He could have sold it, though. That's what you do in a game, you sell the crap you can't use.

edited 24th May '09 8:22:03 AM by English Ivy

That's what you do in an RPG. It doesn't tend to be an option in RTS or TBS games, unless the item you're selling is on the scale of a condemned building.

So, the comic proper hasn't resumed yet, but over on http://www.erfworld.com/ there have been text updates. The fortress has been rebuilt, and Stanley has just arrived back.

Cool. I like these updates. And what better way to get to see Stanley's reaction than through his own narration?

I guess whoever said the tower was gonna be easy to fix was right. Interesting about the new design. I wonder whether how a lake of lava will come in handy. Can Sizemore manipulate it? Lava golems would be pretty damn cool.

...so how long do you think they've been waiting to use that "warlord formerly known as Prince" line?

Well, I'm not going to track down the exact date of the update where Wanda decrypted Ansom, but I'd say at least since then? And I say "at least" because it's entirely possible that they came up with that joke long before that actual page was finished.

edited 18th Jun '09 8:13:50 AM by Lull The Conqueror

Since Stanley's side looks more or less unstoppable right now, and is also fairly evil, I predict Hamster is going to end up taking another side and fighting to undo what he's wrought. Maybe not immediately, but eventually he's going to conclude that he's created a monster, and he'll have to put it down.

Any word on when we'll get another comic?

Pretty sure they said they'd be doing these "summer updates" twice a week 'til fall, then Book 2 would start. Although I don't remember where that was said. Possibly at giantitp.com.

So has anyone else been following the summer updates? I'm liking them a lot. They're well written, they're advancing the plot but in a way that won't leave you confused if you skip them, and we get to explore Jillian, Vinny and Ceasar, interesting characters (ok, maybe not Ceasar so much as the other two). You can't really look into people's minds in a comic page like you can when writing prose.

Yes, the prose updates are interesting, especially because the change in perspective really lets us get into the characters' heads a lot more. The only concern I have is that part of what made Book 1 of Erfworld so intriguing is that we as readers didn't have that kind of inside perspective; we had to guess at what was going on every bit as much as (and sometimes more than) the characters.

They do keep me interested until major updates resume, however, which is probably the point. :-)

And in the news today (which doesn't seem to have permanent links so don't bother)... total win! Retconjuration is going to replace one of the schools of magic to account for the author fixing some of the mistakes in the original. Retconjuration is going to replace Deletionism. Brilliant!

I am going to make a more drastic change. A change to the magic table. If you now look at Klog 2, you will see that the branch of magic I called "Deletionism" is no longer there. It has been deleted.

In its place is a new branch of magic: "Retconjuration." (The name was also Rich's idea.) This is a theoretical branch of magic, like an undiscovered element on the periodical table. No ordinary caster can practice it; there are no Retconjurers in Erfworld. It is reserved for the Titans. And I can tell you, they don't like it much and use it as seldom as possible. I apologize for invoking it now, especially to the wiki editors.

So, any differences you notice between the printed book and the old archives you can chalk up to Retconjuration, the ultimate form of Naughtymancy.

Heh, that is pretty awesome.