Homesuck: Vriska Rising

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Specterbane

Sure it's not as good as the full thing, but it's better than it dieing off like Bard's Tale or Prison Break.

That's not how this stuff works. When something becomes crappy, "Well, it's better being crappy than over," is not an argument in its defense. It's a weak excuse at best, and treating it as anything more than that is ridiculous, especially when this is a thing Hussie is making some form of money off of. If he's gonna make money off of it, one would hope he'd not just become a lazy asshole partway through. I think I'd be a tad more forgiving if I didn't already know that whenever someone tries to complain about this he's going to call them idiots for disagreeing with him or not thinking MSPA is all great all the time, and then he'll probably compare himself to a famous historical artist a few times.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Specterbane

Sure, in so far as the mexican-stand-offs and flashy fights are plot. It's like DBZ if you cut out all multi season fights that take eight episodes to finish screaming up their power level before they start fighting.

Except that what we have here is the eight episodes of screaming followed by skipping the very thing all that screaming was building up to. It's completely ass-backwards and unsatisfying, and yes this is exactly the Cliff's Notes version of the plot because we're simply getting told what happened instead of shown, which is in direct violation of rule #1 of good storytelling. This isn't even some clever Douglas Adamsian "for comedic purposes I'm going to tell you the end result to spoil the drama and then show you the scene anyway" bits. It's just an end result of wasting weeks on this "scratched disc" crap that ended up not only not going anywhere, but serving as a means to an end of skipping the very thing that the story had been building toward for a long time now.

It's bad writing.

[lazy man]

...ok, it just hit me. All this talk of summarizing stuff on disc 2 is reminding me of Xenogears.

Disc 1: Awesome. Disc 2: SUMMARY!

Somehow that just makes too much goddamn sense. Least to me, anyway.

[Loyal]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

unsatisfying,

This is the key word, paramount to all others. No matter where the story's going, good or bad, it has been unsatisfying. He gives tons of buildup to a plot point, and then resolves it in an unceremonious puff before moving on to the next. It's becoming increasingly difficult to care about the story because it appears, more and more, as though the author doesn't care either.

I think I'd be a tad more forgiving if I didn't already know that whenever someone tries to complain about this he's going to call them idiots for disagreeing with him or not thinking MSPA is all great all the time, and then he'll probably compare himself to a famous historical artist a few times.

Between him and the MSPA forum hivemind (To which Hussie's ego has no doubt contributed), yes. It's a tad frustrating.

[Fifthfiend]

I'm enjoying how it's taking more updates to tell us all this than it would to just show it to us.

[Specterbane]

For Non, and POS. Rather than reference the two quotes to make a huge chunk of text I'm not referencing. I see your points, and they're well made. I guess ultimately though I don't care that he's doing it this way. It's interesting to see in the forum spring he's almost admitted to taking on something that's more than he can handle and has to deal with it this way.

But yeah, NonCon's got the best point that he's being paid so I can see why this is unacceptable. But I'm still enjoying it over all, and it's not like I'M paying for it out of my wallet.

Overall, it's a shame this is how he's handling it, and I can see people being justifiably bent out of shape over it. But I guess I'm just willing to let it slide. *shrug*

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Loyal

We are getting on with the plot by introducing as many new plot elements as humanly possible while simultaneously resolving as few as humanly possible.

Let me tell you about oceans

let me tell you how they are moving

(hint: they are not)

Originally Posted by POS Industries

It's just an end result of wasting weeks on this "scratched disc" crap that ended up not only not going anywhere, but serving as a means to an end of skipping the very thing that the story had been building toward for a long time now.

In fairness, the Vriska/Terezi thing would have been awful regardless of how it was shown to us.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Loyal

Between him and the MSPA forum hivemind (To which Hussie's ego has no doubt contributed), yes. It's a tad frustrating.

Of the many things I'm proud of from my tenure as a moderator, my staunch record of defending the right of people to say that Brian Clevinger's comics were terrible is a standout.

[Archbio]

Originally Posted by Loyal

We are getting on with the plot by introducing as many new plot elements as humanly possible while simultaneously resolving as few as humanly possible. Eventually all the accumulated plot threads will gather together under their own gravity and form a black hole that consumes space-time.

Lost.

[Red Mage Black]

While I do agree with all of this, my general opinion is that he should have left the Terezi/Vriska thing to gifs and single frames, saving a flash animation for the Jack and Rose fight. It would have been a whole lot better and more satisfying. That or start it off with a sequence like the Eridan and Sollux fight with the first few chips at Rose's bar before going back to single panels. Wouldn't have been AS good as a big flash animation for the fight, but I think people would be a little LESS disappointed.

On a somewhat separate note and yes, I know it'd never happen, but it would have been amusing to have something of a fighting game. While it would be impossible to beat Jack, I think it would be amusing to see people actually try.