LMPGAMES'S PROFILE

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Yo, I am like half way through this now but I wanted to say the more I read your writing style the more I love it. I think in this case since the time frame is so small, you novelized it even more. I honestly can't imagine what you would do if you wrote an actual book. I think it would be pretty badass.

Actually, I have taken a stab at book writing. I wrote a four book series in high school. It's something like 740 pages long in total and I was working on a fifth book which was pretty long (200 pages when I stopped). Haven't done much with it lately but I had wanted to attempt to re-write it now that I have a lot more experience with writing.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Appreciate the content warnings too. I am not really bothered by that stuff, but if someone is at least they can be aware that it will show up at some point or choose to skip this blog entry.

Yeah, I was thinking if I needed them or not, but decided to include them just because some of the topics are pretty heavy ones. Like you said, if someone doesn't want to read things within specific topics, they should be warned ahead of time so they can make that choice.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
I kind of like the tone you set here with Galardia and Minsor. It feels like you mixed together some of the most despicable ideological parts of fascism (the 1938 German kind), with some of the bad stuff from Communism and Capitalism. It is a really interesting take so far.

Ah good, I was not sure if that was getting across. Yeah, I wanted to meld all of them together in a way that made some sense. A lot of people consider them competing ideologies, but really they aren't. Pieces of each exist in all three and in the other political ideologies as well. I wanted to make Galardia that 1930's type of evil, but even more so in terms of the greed, and governmental segregation of wealth classes, and the distribution of stuff.

Minsor and Galardia are easily the more despicable countries in the game's lore. While Minsor slightly atones and moderates, Galardia just continues to descend into hell and it eventually destroys them both from within and with out.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
I liked the battle scene between Bjorhwhat's his name and Jerrod. It wasn't completely perfect, but it had weight to it that I don't feel in a lot of ameture writing around battles like this. There were real stakes for both sides and the events that happen seem reasonable and due to the nature of each of the individuals fighting how the battle progresses makes sense.

Like, I like how when Jerrod gets shanked there is a pause as he feels the impact that has on his body, but due to his ancestry he is able to easily fight through his pain where as Bjorndude (I know his name, not typing it right because he is a dick) gets completely wrecked and it takes him a lot of effort at the end of the fight to do anything.

Very realistic writing based on the characteristics of each participant. I will add more thoughts after I finish reading everything.

This is something I worked on really hard with my writing. I read a lot of anime fanfics as a teenager and the one thing a lot of them had in common was that the fight scenes were trash because they just mirrored what happened in the anime so you had a lot of "ahhh"ing for power ups and stuff.

The writers didn't connect that without the visual side of the fight, that stuff is boring as hell. You have to describe visually what is going on and write out the choreography of the fight as it is happening. I think that is why you felt that "weight" you were talking about. Character's actions have some kind of effect on what is going on and to do certain things, they have to put effort into it.

Like it would have been easy to make Bjornheim wave his massive sword around like it was a dagger or something, but he doesn't have that anime strength so he has to exert a lot to do anything with it and all of his time with that style of fighting made him a master in it and that was the only reason he was able to beat Jerrod.

I am way more interested in that style of writing that just giving characters tropey anime stuff unless it either fits the story or the characterization of the character. As far as Emilar goes, I am trying to ground everything as much as possible in realism within a more fantasy world.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
I will say though, that shit with Lairin was rough. Actually got a bit emotional reading through that which is nuts in and of itself, but I liked that even though she did give up for a moment, that stupid bastard said something that snapped her out of it and gave her motivation to keep going.

I thought I might have gone a bit too far with it, but at the same time I think it is necessary for her character to go through that event. It makes what she does later more reasonable. I had a hard time writing it though, I didn't want to like explicitly say what happened, but I wanted enough context clues for the reader to fill in the blanks.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
I like how Bjornass has progressed so far from a kind of (kind of is holding up the entire world here) reasonable person with a good understanding of cause and effect to being more arrogant and more apt to say things that he knows, or did recognize in the past, will come back to bite him somehow.

Geeze, I was worried about all of these things you have mentioned. I didn't think that they would come through. Glad they seem to. Yes, as Bjornheim gets more used to his role, he gets too lax and the senses he honed as a warrior on the battle field start breaking down.

He would never have said what he did to Lairin or announced what he did at the start of his lore because he would have recognized the future danger that they posed. He is his own undoing in the end by the ideology he helped to create; the way all autocrats eventually end up.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Like how at the end you state that his grand idea to deal with the Golians has made the Galardian's shooketh because their leader decide to wander outside the "Sweet Home Alabama"ed (I would assume given their ideology) gene pool.

Can't imagine that not having some kind of consequences later. I keep saying this dude because it is true, the more I read of your writing style the more I love it.

Same as I mentioned above. As for the gene pool comment, holy hell lmao. I mean I suppose that would make sense given where Galardia is going in part 2, if you will only be with those that are "pure" eventually you're dating your second cousin or something. The Hapsburgs for example; yes, that is probably a deep history cut for this site.

Glad you liked the lore blog though and that it seems, at least based on your comments, that I struck the right balance. I waited a minute or two before hitting that Submit button.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
One thing I love about your writing style is that you don't let tropes just happen, if they have to happen there is a reason. Like the Church regaining some political power. In a lot of ways this could be written, this would have just happened. A big bad coming back is a seriously overused trope. Here though, there are a specific series of events, outside of the control of those in charge, and they are only remedied by giving the Church or some organization like it some of the power back and the character calls out that it is problematic.

I absolutely hate tropes for the sake of tropes. If you are going to use one, make it make sense don't just throw it in. That is my philosophy because even if the trope your are using is one of those present in literally every story in the genre as yours, it has a unique implementation in your story that is tailored to it.

When I see writing where, using your example, the BBEG is killed but then is resurrected at the end of the story without any foreshadowing, with no build up, with no explanation other than "Oh, he back Lol!1!", I die inside at the elementary level of the writing.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
I also like the cyclical nature of some of the plot here, like how every so often a Rafard shows up to clean up the mess other people have left behind and I like that you call it a curse (although in a different context). I always cringe when people put this plot point into their story and call it something preordained to happen. You kind of did that, but in a way that makes that the perspective of individuals in the world and not an actual story fact.

You also make a point to make the Rafard characters choose to be crowned under the name Vasin for political reasons and not because that is their actual name. I will say it again, I love the way you use tropes a lot of the time.

Another thing I hate in bad writing is this too. Story facts are a powerful tool, you shouldn't just go creating crap because it makes writing what you want to write easier. Not only that, doing that makes your story shallower. There will almost never be a true "coincidence" in anything I write because not taking advantage of those moments to craft story around them to explain them is a lost opportunity to add depth and intrigue.

So the fact that there have been 3 Vasin Rafards isn't because there have been three individuals with that name (what a coincidence! *shocked face*), instead each king that was a descendent of Vasin purposeful chose to take the name for one reason or another, giving those characters more depth and adding weight to Vasin's accomplishments because these individuals wanted to emulate him. I am all about that kind of writing.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Pacing in this one seems a bit better, there are more details but some character details are still lacking. Once again, sprinkling in hints to other lore blogs which I love because it gets me more invested in wanting to learn more.

I think, at this point, unless it is very specific I don't want to go into that level of detail. Here is my reasoning. While, yes, it would help give you a better mind's eye view of what the character would look like, it would set an expectation for visual details for other important things that are mentioned. If those details are not present, it would appear that the writing quality was not consistent.

That said, general character details I will put in when I remember to. But stuff like what they are wearing in a particular scene, familial details, and stuff like that I want to avoid unless there is a purpose for it to be in the lore.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Oh, one more thing. I think you should include more pronunciations for things in these. Obviously you don't have to spam them into the lore, but for more unusual words it would be helpful.

Maybe release a pronunciation guide or something; it is one of my pet peeves for high fantasy games where there is no voice acting.

Now there is an idea..... I will think about that. I also agree with you on this point as it is once of mine too.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Cool stuff. A lot more in depth than I thought it would be. That said, some sections feel a bit badly paced, but I suspect that was due to smaller events that were left out?

I was afraid of that. Yes, one of the compromises I made was to remove anything that wasn't a major event that didn't have long-term effects. There are around 12 to 16 more things that happened just in this segment that didn't make it into the blog post.

Not sure how I am going to reconcile that going forward; I don't want to have to include those in, but then I also need a better way to make reference to them or something so that the move between time periods is smoother. Maybe I could briefly reference those vents without providing any details?

Like between the alliance formed between the Wargmat and the Valoestinians and the formation of Vastlin there were several small events where events forced the two communities closer. One of them, for example, was the kidnapping of Elaria by a group of bandits. Dardin led a small team against the Council's orders to rescue her, later on as a result of that she married him which formed the basis for the formal alliance/formation of Vastlin later.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
I also liked that you seeded in other countries and built in their influence on events relating to Felgarin. Makes the world feel very lived in, if that makes any sense. There was less visualization than I thought there would be, but at the same time I get it. Trying to break something massive down into postable and readable chunks is always hard.

Yeah, I will give the next post another review pass and see if there is anything I can do to improve this aspect of the writing. that said, I don't want to go into the deep end on it either. The goal is to do just enough to set up the scenes within the lore and the important people taking part. I do think I could have done more within this first section though.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
My main take-aways:
Pacing could be better in some sections, normally when dealing with time jumps.

The writing lacks a bit of specificity when it comes to the characters and areas they are in. I would have like some kind of description for Sandil for example; the most I know about her is that she was one of the leaders of the Wargmat, who are a mercenary army. She seems to be old at this point in the lore based on the comparison between her and Klaius. More detail could help a lot there.

I like the world-building this is showing and how it is introducing other nations and lore within this stuff for Felgarin; I really want to know more about what happened with Galardia, for example. I also found it interesting that Elvish magic is different from Human magic. That was an interesting and focused point you were making so I guess that detail is important to the story in some way.

Covered some of this above. Thanks for the comment on lore bombing. Honestly, I am the kind of writer who will rain names, places, and terminology down on you without doing much to explain right away and then fill in the details as they are needed. I find that is more effective than explaining all of the expositional references up front. It might confuse some readers, but it generates more focus on the content.

One other aspect of this I did not think about until I finished my last review pass of the post was that no matter what order I posted these in, there was likely going to be something mentioned that is more fully explained in another blog post later on. So I an fully leaning into the whole "here is some stuff you'll know nothing about until later" motif. Like how I mention the war with Galardia here; when we get to the United States of Gol, most of the first, and probably second if I need to split it, blog will be about that war.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Worlds systems are the first mechanic I think might be bloaty. Are these really needed? Or are you just adding these in the pad the play time?

What are your plans for how these are going to be used, in real terms. There is so much in the game already, I don't think this stuff outside of material gathering for crafting is needed.

Like fishing and farming? Farming maybe for crafting mats, but I don't see why fishing is here. That said, I usually detest minigames in games so take my cringe with a grain of salt.

I completely understand where you are coming from. The minigames are mainly there for world-building reasons, though some are there for the exploration and crafting systems. I tried to limit the number of these to the ones that I thought made the most sense.

Fishing is really the only one that has no practical purpose right now. I thought it would be interesting to add it in to give players something to do if they wanted to take a break from all of the normal RPG stuff.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Request Office

So each region or province will have a Request Office? Is this only in the starting country or does this apply in other nations as well?

Will there always be quests available or does each request office have a limited number? Will there be repeatable quests? If so, when do they become active again?

Will Request Offices get new quests as the game progresses or once you are done with the quests at an office, do you no longer go back to those offices?

What the hell did you eat today? All of these great questions. Each region in each country, yes. In some countries that means provinces, in others it means country-states (specifically Gol here).

There will be very few repeatable quests, ideally there will be none. Each office does have a limited number of quests at specific points in the game, but more are added as you progress through the story. My ideal is that up until the very end of the game you can revisit Request Offices and get new quests.

author=TrashCanEnthusiast
Rope Climbing
I like what I see of this so far but I have questions. How integral will these be in exploration? Given the amount you put into the Usgol Mines, it seems like very?

I know this is an evented system, but do you see this being moved to a plugin for tracking? Given the number of these you might use, it seems like that would be too many switches to have to keep track of and present a lot of bug potential (which you already have apparently lol).

Yes, this will be a core mechanic; it will even be used in some maps you go through for the main story for progress through those maps not related to exploration. In those cases, you will always find enough climbing rope within the map to set up all of the climbing points set up.

On the plugin question, I had actually thought about this recently. This is a good point and you are right, it probably should transition to a plugin, at least for tracking, as well for the reason you mentioned. At some point it will get unwieldy due to the number of switches needed and yeah, that is a hotbed for bugs when even just the simple implementation I have right now is bug-prone based on switches used in events.