Lord of Azure Flame: Chat

[Ansem]

....

Ruby want revenge, she can care less about the sword.

And yes, it is in character

Edited July 19, 2010 by Kai

[Snowy_One]

I'm sure the other demons are gonna be really happy about that. Anyways...

[Ansem]

Ikr

Anyways wanna take over Damian and do another love post?

[Phoenix]

<.< >.>

Yeah I'm going to go ahead and write that essay since I have to go in five hours and turn it in.

[Snowy_One]

Another love post? Why would I need to CC Damian for that?

[Balcerzak]

I wasn't aware during what happened last night that I was doing anything wrong.

My posts are typically detailed, and cover the bases on what my characters need to say, think, etc. They're not on Bal level detailed or wall of texty, but they're good. Probably Snike or Sage level.

The graveyard thing, Sage is just getting angry because apparently I didn't prepare, which is a lie. The skeleton issue was solved in a matter of minutes, and everything else ran smoothly from there.

Nothing you did stuck out that much to me, last night, until you refused to let the NPC die. I probably should have been more specific when I first wrote up the rant, but I wasn't, for whatever reason (I don't actually remember it anymore).

Your post content is generally good, as far as detail and writing go, yes.

I think if you seriously believe that is why he, and others, were upset about the graveyard, you have selective glasses on, and are only seeing a small part of the bigger picture. There were a combination of factors that combined together that really made it stick out as distasteful. Railroading and character bias, actually likely played a larger role than planning or lack thereof.

@ Bal: I retconned since i was ninja'd and confused as hell. It all ended up well in the end but its kind of hard to figh twhen you have more the one foe on you back.

@ Damian: No one relived me of his CC? Can i take Aiya over for a sec to get him out of here?

@ Lucielle: Oh (Hey). She's been traveling on this road to long. (too long) Just trying to find her way back home. (Back home) Now she is dead and gone, dead and gone

Retconning happens, and I can understand it. Hell, I've had to do it myself on several. But please, for the sake of having people know what the hell happened, don't just leave "Will Edit Later", and then never go fix it. This is why I at least leave my text up with strikethroughs while trying to figure out what to do with it. (Also because I'm almost always proud of my efforts and want people to read them even if they end up not taking place in actuality.)

@ The battle

Okay I'll just start by saying that I agree with most of what you said. I have no intention of vindicating myself despite how this will likely come across. As far as the attack itself, things got off track due to the urgency. I'd planned for most if not all of my characters to be severely injured in the attack(which is why Shanice turned into something big enough to accomplish just that). Since the battle was managed by just Kai and me initially, we(I) had a lot of CCs in our laps. I'll admit straight out that I was in a huge rush to accomplish the following:

Kill at least one character (One of my own)

Steal at least one CW (GM approved)

Injure most if not all characters under my control (Self explanatory)

...

I'll also admit that my part of the plan was a little too inflexible(though everything but the injury count was accomplished). But at least I can take a lot away from this. For one I've learned that these attacks can't just be settled on(and then expected to go off without a hitch just because the in-rp timing was good). Also, no offense, Kai, but you've really gotta work on your execution. Also, I learned that we should never engage Psych's characters because the threat of those damn shadow mages is still being dangled over our heads. What else? Oh yeah, though Cynthia doesn't prevent these kinds of things from falling apart, we should still wait til she's online(especially since Petros suggested the attack).

Overall, the first part went according to plan(speaking of what I was involved in), the middle of the battle screwed everything up(at which point I had to improvise due to being rushed), and the end of the battle was decent enough for me(improvision worked well enough). But seriously, in the future, can we please not launch any attacks unless everyone involved on the enemy's side is online? That took way too much effort and nearly dragged the whole thing down all on its own.

@ CCs

I was WAY too overworked yesterday(I wouldn't have taken on so many CCs if I knew the battle would be so badly rushed). Normally I can handle a lot of characters, but the pace of the battle was way too damn fast for me to post the way I wanted to(content, context, and relevance). As I said before, I wanted to wait until more people were online(wait til the next day), but the battle started pretty much at the same time I mentioned that, so I had to just roll with it, and hope for the best.

I'm actually against using CCs in battle(unless too many people are gone, but in that case it should be postponed anyway), but there would be no way to explain why half of the party just sat back and watched while the other half was overpowered by demons. I tried my best, but there was too much to do, and not nearly enough time. By the time I realized that they were ready to call off the attack, Shanice was too mixed up in the events(And suddenly retreating while winning the battle made absolutely no sense). It was way too mixed up at that point to look like anything short of a random withdrawal.

Okay. So if even some of the people primarily in charge of running the events felt it was too rushed, to me, that really speaks volumes. I don't know what the solution is, but we need to find some way to manage to avoid hyping ourselves up into a false sense of urgency. A battle doesn't necessarily have to be introduced, decided, and resolved all in a single session, and perhaps if we can all buy and accept this realization, we won't feel quite so rushed. I could understand this issue a lot more when it comes up in battles where XP is on the line, but I never expected to see it devolve to levels like this in purely plot combat (though perhaps I should have).

Phoenix, just to reiterate: I have no real issues with your overall goals, plans or whatever. The plot events that were accomplished were fine, didn't feel forced, and were overall generally agreeable.

The main thing I was trying to get across as being unhappy with was the pace and the CCs, which seem to be an intimately related issue. If the pace were slower, and we spread the battle out over a couple of IRL days (I mean seriously, we have dialogue chunks and stretches of other random business that carry over that long as well, so there shouldn't be real complaints there I wouldn't think. Maybe I'm wrong.), that would allow not only for a little more luxury for you to not be overwhelmed, as well as allowing the longer cycle to actually let everyone's normal posting schedules give them a chance to interact appropriately. I fully agree, that if the battle had just been resolved completely without Snikepeople or Etherpeople or Lightningpeople doing anything, that would have shattered suspension of disbelief. But it wouldn't necessarily have to be like that.

[Ansem]

@ Snowy: Because im not going to do it......

@ Bal: I forgot. I was going to have her go after Esphyr. Esphyr came after her so i didnt really have to do anything.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Kai

[Balcerzak]

Oh, Snike, for the record. Only Tessa was shot. Charlotte may have been knocked out by the collapsing tent or something, but she should be healthy enough.

At least, this was my intention.

[Snike]

I'm aware of that. but, I'm going to assume she was knocked out as well.

[Phoenix]

@ Bal

Well I still have no ideas on how to fix any of this(other than to simply take my time and retcon as necessary). Maybe the urgency comes from countered intentions. I know that I was in a hurry partly because I felt that sooner or later I would have had to make an extremely long post covering every single attack that was thrown Shanice(in the span of about ten second) while he was severing Morgan, fighting, Iso and Conrad, and strangling the peggies. There's always the chance he could have been countered too if someone just happened to notice the peggies at the bottom of the slope. I don't actually have a problem with that normally but in this instance I had specific goals that I wanted to accomplish early on. The longer I waited, the higher the chance people would start to unravel my plans through concerted attacks and the like. It also kind of felt like the longer I waited to cover certain things, the more difficult it was going to be to do so later on(Example: Shanice changes forms constantly, I'd have to post exact points in between attacks when he does this. Imagine the bull wyvern to demi-hydra transformation. If I'd waited an hour or two, I'd have to retcon about ten attacks aimed at a downed bull wyvern when by that time, he'd have already transformed into the demi-hydra. I like to avoid stuff like that if possible).

[-Cynthia-]

Part of this was my fault, since I started it (although Kai was going to start it anyway), since I wanted to start the battle by knocking out Morgan. I thought most people would go to bed though and there would just be a few posts.

Oh well I'm fine with the general results, Petros was fairly in character.

My characters both got knocked out, so I didn't mind missing it I guess. Also that Damian/Esphyr scene had to be stopped somehow, it was really awkward IMO.

Edited July 19, 2010 by -Cynthia-

[Dark Sage]

I was going to stop it anyway.

And is Alfie truly useless?

[Phoenix]

I was going to stop it anyway.

And is Alfie truly useless?

Emo? Yes. Useless? Hardly. He just needs more friends maybe?

[Ansem]

Should Morgan show emotion now?

[Phoenix]

Should Morgan show emotion now?

Why?

[Snike]

>.> Psych should log back in and post healing stuff.

Speculate what losing her tome is going to do to Morgan?

[Ansem]

@ Snike: Morgan: Gah. I lost my tome. Go on without me

Group: Support

Helios: If you go away then we will have to give it to Cess

Morgan: Good point

[riariadne]

He's more interested in Morgan now for some reason :/

Something gives me the feeling he doesn't like Chase too much.

Also. I only am reading the first few pages of feedback since I left since I might miss something funny, but apparently I haven't.

Summary of what happened plz.

[Ansem]

Plot battle. Morgan got severed.

[riariadne]

... So what's gonna happen to her CW? Is it permanently gone or what?

[Ansem]

You can wait and find out

Oh hai Ether. Did i do good with Damian?

[Phoenix]

@ Lightning

I know it's a hassle but please just read what happened. Conrad and Chase were heavily involved in that battle. A summary isn't going to cut it.

[Ether]

So,I'm a little confused.

Phoenix handled Aiya fine,and it looks like Damian beat Petros,and knows that Morgan was severed,I'll need clarification on that.

As for Damian's combat,it wasn't bad.A little OoC,since against someone like Petros,who is clearly slow and defensive,his first action would have been a curse field,then setting up a second one around his own body,so while he looks defenseless,if another demon tries to hit him,they get trapped.The lancework wasn't bad,but he had no armour on at the time,so melee wouldn't be the natural first choice.

Overall,I'm not all that annoyed at how my CCs were handled,but I'll agree that the whole fiasco should have been held off until more people were there.

[Ansem]

Yeah, I borrowed Aiya to tell Damian that and retreat.

[Inactive Account]

~catching up~

...Oh shit, did Kelas accidentally Tessa? Oh lord, I've got a freakout to write then... two of them actually.

@Character controls: So I think most character-controllage in that last battle was unjustified, yes. The possible exceptions are the demons, because anyone who got handed a demon was someone who knew the plan. But yeah, my head was kind of exploding... especially since the main conspirators had been passed the most characters, I could barely separate the things I had to concentrate on from unrelated things.

We've never done that sort of thing before; usually when there's a battle, if someone's not there, they just don't feature much (unless they're highly relevant, and it's usually just a character or two.)

So I guess the solution... is just to not do that again. Character-controllage in battles, even plot battles, should be kept to a bare minimum, and at no point should we EVER have someone running so many characters that it's hard to keep track of them all.