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[Anslol]

The difference is, it would have given the Amarr some agency in their own salvation, not made it the province of some shadowy Jovian saving the day. In this game, the players can actually be Amarr, they can't be shadowy Jovians. A good tie-in novel should make players feel like they can be part of the bigger picture, not that they are forever going to be held to the whims of whatever mysterious forces run the universe. Of all the games where this should be have to be made clear, Eve is the last one you'd expect to have to remind the writers to do so.

The thing is that we ARE subject to the whims of things in the background. I thought it was great to show that, no matter how powerful capsuleers are or how widespread their influence is, there will always being something going on, somewhere, to remind them that they are not all powerful gods, and that one turn of events can royally screw them over. The world does not and should not always revolve around the capsuleers. Capsuleers are a part of the world.

Why did Jamyl scare you? She barely did anything in TEA except cower within her own mind and beg big strong mens for help. Fuuuuuuck that. And Oritsuu was incompetent, at least the way she was portrayed in TEA. Now she might be scary, after the development she's had since then, but in TEA she gets her company stolen from under her by a fucking forklift operator, and evidently never saw it coming, and then just gives up. Fuuuuuuuck that. And yes, I agree, Eve has far too few strong female characters. Especially after you take a steaming crap on the few that are there. And I did complain. I wrote that review in July 2008.

Oh I don't know, the part where she threw a few slaves around like rag dolls for shits and giggles? The part where she forces her way into people's heads and tells them what to do and could (implied) kill them if she wanted? The fact that she knew where to find, how to implement, and used a giant TERRAN CANNON TO EFF UP A TITAN FLEET? I don't care if Sarum was a man or a woman in this situation. If ANYONE did all that kind of crap, you know they aren't to be crossed.

As for Oritsuu, 'giving up' was the smartest thing she did, and that scared me. Think about it. What should she do, go out in a blaze of gunfire and glory? Never getting her megacorp back? Hell no. She was crafty, she bid her time, she kotowed for the time being and slowly built up her network and influence even beyond her prison home. You might think she was 'helpless' at the time, but that was the single most intelligent thing anyone could have done in that situation. She was prepared, she was equiped, and she was patient to get her revenge. Now look at her, she has Heth on her little finger about any information she might have. From start to finish, Oritsuu earned the fear people had for her. Just because she didn't go out guns a-blazin' doesn't mean she was 'weak.' If I think about it, she might have been the most intelligent of all in that fiasco.

Except that CCP has been pushing the line that the player characters in Eve are the hottest thing since sliced bread since the dawn of time. To write a book where they are largely irrelevant (and to have the gall to call it The Empyrean Age of all things) is incredibly backwards.

OK, so they didn't talk about Eggers directly. Big whoop. Not everything we the capsuleers do is interesting. We go out, we kill, we kill some more. I could read the news for information like that.

Also, a number of the characters WERE eggers, just not player controlled. If they had put an actual player in there, don't you think they would have had to deal with accusations of bias from everyone and their mom? People accuse CCP of bias at the slightest whim. Putting a real player character in TEA could have lead to multiple forum threadnaughts alphaing mods and ISD as well as a whole lot of angry players.

I think the larger question you're missing, Anslo, is why did Jamyl need a Terran cannon to win the day?
From what I read in TEA, the Minmatar force was simply overwhelming. There were too many ships striking at too many different places. To top that off, the current government (lolKarsoth) wasn't doing that much because .

Jamyl comes in with a BS sized doomsday and one shots the fleet. The people see her not only return, but return with "God" given powers to eliminate the vile Minmatar threat etc etc.

I thought that was a good introduction for the return of someone who's supposed to be dead.

[Kyoko Sakoda]

I don't suppose someone should chime in to remind people that Tony doesn't work for CCP any longer?

Lasting damage, yes. Ability to salvage and clean it up for a stronger IP, also yes.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

I give up. This is an argument I've already had a hundred times before and I'm exhausted now.

And yes, I know Kyoko, and I really don't enjoy dwelling on this sort of thing, but the kind of attitude where we should be happy with any amount of story is what makes me angry, and makes me call out mistakes of the past to hopefully avoid them in the future.

[Merdaneth]

I'm still reading that (regardless if people like the TonyG writing style), what was written hasn't been inspiring for EVE RP. Primary due to plot devices used, which seem to take away power from most people and give them to a select few main characters, and to the tone used, which is more black-and-white than shades of grey.

However, I still think people shouldn't let this influence their RP this much. Yeah, I know, what has been seen cannot be unseen etc. This is partly the reason why I don't read lots of blogs that give away IC 'secrets'.

Just try and play how you would like EVE to be, and odds are that it will become more like that just because your playstyle will be influencing others and making them think what you do is what real Caldari are like, for example.

[Hamish Grayson]

Svetlana's review was not elitest.   She used the standards by which professional writing is measured.  How else would you have her measure a book that was marketed and sold as professional writing?

Off the top of my head, here are a few reasons I feel like it wasn't a good story:

-Most of the conflicts are resolved by Dues ex instead of the characters.

-Uninteresting, unlikable, unrealistic, undefined characters.

-Unrealistic dialogue.

-Many unnecessary scenes.

-Poor plot structure

-Poor Scene Structure

-Poor paragraph structure

-Poor sentence structure

-Over use of exposition

-The Space Opera theme of the book does not fit in with the theme of Eve.

-Ran roughshod over all existing cannon and completely retconn’d the entire Caldari State into a evil space nazi caricature.

[Vincent Pryce]

Svetlana's review was spot on. I find myself these days agreeing with it more than I did back then.

With all the TonyG hate going around again. Abraxas has done some seriously stupid shit too*.

*[spoiler]Angel Cartel is lead by a paranoid space witch hermit who lives inside a magic asteroid. I shit you not.[/spoiler]

[Silver Night]

Everyone makes mistakes. Most people don't make them to the exclusion of nearly all else. I think that's why the strong reactions to Tony G, when other CCP writers have certainly made the occasional poor judgement.

[Vincent Pryce]

True that.

[Anslol]

Whelp. I'm not going to stop liking the stories. It just annoys me that the attitude about him seems to be, "you can like him, but you're wrong for liking him."

Maybe I'm just reading too much into the situation.

[Silver Night]

It's more "You can like him, but many other people don't, and here's why."

Stitch and I used to have similar debates about his work.

[Anslol]

See, if people just don't like him for taste, then whatever. But I've heard others just speak poorly about anyone who likes TonyG's books in the most acidic ways and it's like....seriously, come on. Questioning someone's competence in RL for liking his books? Jeesh.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

See, if people just don't like him for taste, then whatever. But I've heard others just speak poorly about anyone who likes TonyG's books in the most acidic ways and it's like....seriously, come on. Questioning someone's competence in RL for liking his books? Jeesh.

Sorry, you're never going to convince me the book is well written. I have read too many other books which achieved the goals he was trying to achieve in far better ways (I hate to harp on it, but Shadowrun's Burning Bright is an excellent example of the same kind of thing done better) and it frustrates me when I feel like I put more effort into trying to be consistent with established world details in things I do purely for fun than someone who is paid to do so. I have read freshman writing seminar work that was far superior to TEA.

[Silas Vitalia]

By the way, the solution for all of these novels is to not try and tell 8 different plots across 4 different empires at once.

Shorter novels, sharper focus.  One each for an adventure in each empire with crossover for another perhaps. An over-arching story set in 4 parts with a focus on each in turn.

[Publius Valerius]

By the way, the solution for all of these novels is to not try and tell 8 different plots across 4 different empires at once.

Shorter novels, sharper focus.  One each for an adventure in each empire with crossover for another perhaps. An over-arching story set in 4 parts with a focus on each in turn.

True. But I would add before the those tools another thing. The goal of the novel. As for TEA and TO was it to tell the storyline and move it forward. As for the TBL was it to give a round up of EVE to new players. Both goals are in need of different tools.

As for Abraxes, I can understand that he has a lot of description in the book. As it those explain the background to NEW PLAYERS; thats the reason why it for us "older players" reads like a repetition of some Chronicles. As for this goal, it makes sense to split the story in four parts (The empire factions) or as Abraxes had it done in two parts (empire-, pirate-factions).

As for TonyG he should go save. Just use the dramatic structure of Aristotle (Prol, ActI-III, Epil, conflict and catharsis, etc....). A german adage says: Erst die Pflicht, dann die Kür./ First the obligatory/mandator part, then you can show up with extras (flashback, more then three acts etc....). As for TonyG; many have already mention alot of things which they would make differently. As for me, I would advise him to use "easy" tools; and not to try to invent the wheel new. Also to Hamish Grayson list:

cut
-Uninteresting, unlikable, unrealistic, undefined characters.

-Unrealistic dialogue.
cut

You can also add to those points, something which I dont like the most: The show up from false choices. What I mean with it? I mean, that he most of the time, where a Character can make a choice he writes just few of them down and moreover he lets the character choice the move which brings HIS PLOT forward; but isnt the best, or even a good choice for the character. He even sometimes find it out by himself, and dont fix it. He just add on those case, which are even obvious for him, just a "she choose wisely x" to excuse a moronic decision of a character. And yes, I can give examples for that, so people just ask  .


As for the overall topic, I wouldnt count me as a bitter vet, because Im not long enough in the game to be a vet. So call me: Bitter-newcomer
Joke aside, he had a lot of errors and unnecessary plot elements, like the terrorist fly by. Which could be easy be fix, and/or the dialogue in those scene could be totally cut or bring up on anther place of the book. I will stop now, as I can feel the bitterness coming  .

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

See, if people just don't like him for taste, then whatever. But I've heard others just speak poorly about anyone who likes TonyG's books in the most acidic ways and it's like....seriously, come on. Questioning someone's competence in RL for liking his books? Jeesh.

OK, you like them. If they make you happy then fine. I have my own reasons for disliking them but I doubt you'd agree with them either.

But, have you never liked something and then seen someone make a change that you felt was bad to that thing? Didn't that upset you at all?