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MeanGreenStompa wrote:You got a good many ideas jaggedjaw, I think you need to refine and refine and refine some more on them and work out how things work together.

Also, you are victim, as so many of us are, of being influenced by similar sources of scifi around you. It's difficult, I know from writing adventures as a DM and Storyteller, that you set everything down, reread it and then boggle at how things ended up sounding exactly like something off a show you watch.

Be your own worst critic, be most severe and try to find influence from outside the scifi genre. Consider 2 of the best 40k novel lines around, Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain, they are both directly influenced by the Sharpe novels (gaunts) and the Flashman novels (cain). Both work extremely well but are heavily influenced. It works because it has distance.

Keep at it and don't let the naysayers drag you down. Just be a little more reserved in who you show your work to until you have a far more polished end result than what you're linking here.

For the fan flutterers here who decided to be doubly vitriolic to score points... Well done lads, you just rained down merciless bitching on a 15 year old's initial faltering steps into creative writing, aren't you all very very fething clever... This is for you.

Prudence often demands calling a spade a spade. This is not the work of an ambitious but capable young writer that simply needs refinement or direction. A 15, even the bare minimal amount of paying attention in English class should instill in oneself the basics of writing, like basic elementary grammar, or even the ability to hit F7 and spellcheck things. This is the work of some brat with typographical diarrhea who thinks it's okay to blatantly and unapologetically rip off every component of all the other Sci-Fi settings he likes. It is is beyond atrocious. It is past the point where it can be redeemed. And in the wolrd of writing fiction - where, inherently, you care about how other people view your work - if he can't take some well-deserved flaming and chooses to give up rather than trying to understand why what he did is so bad, then he probably shouldn't be trying to write at all.

*slow clap (the admiring kind not the ironic)

This is dakka at its finest: critical, mean spirited and unnecessarily insulting.

Keep up the good work.

Avantegarde there is an ignore button. In fact this is what I have just used for the first time for Ostrakon.

Why? He's right. There is nothing redeeming about the crap linked.

doomworcs wrote:Avantgarde there is an ignore button. In fact this is what I have just used for the first time for Ostrakon.

I'm not being sarcastic. I thought I made that clear at the beginning of my post. I approve of his actions and those of anyone else who was harshly ripping on the OP. It has nothing to do with the quality of the blog, although it is lacking, but more with the idea that posters should be free to flame anyone they want at the drop of a hat for any pretext no matter how flimsy it may be.

And what gives him the right to treat someone so poorly?

When someone brings a badly painted model to the painting section, do people say this is utter crap, don't show your face here again oh and by the way your a waste of human life. He is talking crap about this poor kid because he thinks its funny.

We shouldn't coddle people and their work if its bad, but you can tell someone that you don't like there work without resorting to insults just because you find insulting people fun.

doomworcs wrote:

When someone brings a badly painted model to the painting section, do people say this is utter crap

...I do...

Fafnir, I am not saying don't tell people there work is bad when its bad. Thats ok. I'm just saying leave the personal attacks out of it.

doomworcs wrote:And what gives him the right to treat someone so poorly?

When someone brings a badly painted model to the painting section, do people say this is utter crap, don't show your face here again oh and by the way your a waste of human life. He is talking crap about this poor kid because he thinks its funny.

We shouldn't coddle people and their work if its bad, but you can tell someone that you don't like there work without resorting to insults just because you find insulting people fun. :soapbox

I have the right to flame people how I please as long as I'm within the rules of the forum. Sometimes you just need to flame someone to express how truly terrible their ideas or abilities are. Dakka has, or I should say had, a history of being nasty which was one of the things that made Dakka great. Lately the forums have been going soft with Rule No. 1 creeping in more and more with the mods quick to lock whenever someone has their feelings hurt.

I know this is a site catering to adults playing with toys but at some point they need to grow some thick skin and man up. Either you learn to take criticism no matter how harsh it is and improve yourself or be a whiny quitter.

doomworcs wrote:And what gives him the right to treat someone so poorly?

The same rights that let people post whatever half-baked nonsense that pops into their heads, perhaps?

I love how style has come to outweigh substance in our culture. Politeness for its own sake is meaningless, and is cultivating a generation of thin-skinned narcissists and omphaloskeptics who are incapable of taking any form of criticism.

The OP has created something so abysmal that the only way to criticize it is to give a proportionately intense reply. It reads like an 8 year old wrote it, and if the OP was actually a little kid I would understand that. (Actually, I should have asked before I started flaming it, but I was way too perturbed by that nonsense to think straight.)

But he isn't. He's 15. He's past the point where he needs to be coddled and told his "work" needs a couple revisions when it should be scrapped entirely.

Who set you up as an arbiter of style?

If you don't think something is good, either give constructive criticism or stay out of the thread.

People can make their own mind up about things, they don't need you telling everyone it's bad, you're only doing that for selfish enjoyment.

Dakka Dakka isn't a forum for people to rip the crap out of other people.

Ostrakon wrote:You have raped Fiction, and forced her little brother Setting to watch as you manhandle her. You taped this debauchery and sent it to her cousin, Game Mechanics.

You have done something few have been able to do. Make a comment awesome enough for me to sig it.


P.S. This about sums up your question of "is it good?" :



It lacks plot, setting, creativity...it lacks everything. I can't give very detailed criticism because, quite frankly, the whole thing needs to be reworked, almost completely.

...I didn't know there were books on making games. Thanks that will help ALOT!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ok that book is awesome. Monkeys on banana surf boards wow.

I'm sorry jaggedjaw, but what you are trying to do isn't working out. Work on it a lot, and then when you think it is done work on it some more. Take some courses on creative writing or something that will help with the fluff.

The best way to have a good ideas is to have a lot of ideas.
– Linus Pauling
can anyone explain that to me?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You’ve got your fancy pens, your fancy paper, your fancy coffee, some toys,
some modeling clay, everything you think you might need to be creative. Now you
are waiting for that brilliant idea to come. Mistake! Don’t wait — just start writing
down everything you can think of that is remotely connected to your problem.
Write down every stupid idea that comes into your head. And a lot of them will be
stupid. But you have to get the stupid ones out of the way before the good ones
start showing up. And sometimes a stupid idea becomes the inspiration for a genius
idea, so write it all down. Don’t censor yourself. You have to give up your fear of
being wrong and your fear of looking silly. This is hard for most of us to do, but it
comes with practice. And if you are brainstorming with other people, certainly don’t
censor them — their stupid ideas are just as good as your stupid ideas!

jaggedjaw wrote:The best way to have a good ideas is to have a lot of ideas.
– Linus Pauling
can anyone explain that to me?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You’ve got your fancy pens, your fancy paper, your fancy coffee, some toys,
some modeling clay, everything you think you might need to be creative. Now you
are waiting for that brilliant idea to come. Mistake! Don’t wait — just start writing
down everything you can think of that is remotely connected to your problem.
Write down every stupid idea that comes into your head. And a lot of them will be
stupid. But you have to get the stupid ones out of the way before the good ones
start showing up. And sometimes a stupid idea becomes the inspiration for a genius
idea, so write it all down. Don’t censor yourself. You have to give up your fear of
being wrong and your fear of looking silly. This is hard for most of us to do, but it
comes with practice. And if you are brainstorming with other people, certainly don’t
censor them — their stupid ideas are just as good as your stupid ideas!

These aren't especially areas where you are lacking imho. You have plenty of ideas, and clearly you have no issue spilling them out everywhere. Unfortunately, you seem to stop there.

The implication in that second quote is that while you shouldn't censor yourself... some of your ideas will be stupid and silly and untenable. You need to go through your work and strip out all of that. You've gotten through step 1: you have your ideas written down. Now is the time to flesh them out fully. There's a difference between not censoring yourself, and just spewing ideas onto your medium. Start at the beginning, now that your ideas have manifested. Think about the direction you want to take your narrative (rules for a game will follow after this process). Strip out ideas and flaws - look at your work as if you had never heard of it before... think like someone from this forum (and try to tear your work apart). Then go through the "good" ideas that are left, and look at how to make your ideas unique, especially if you're ripping stuff from existing canon. Change things, add twists, do anything and everything you can to make the story different. Add intrigue, add slow development. Governments don't spring up overnight, and neither does technology. Often we take a step back before taking a couple steps forward. Characters don't lead inherently happy lives - or if they do, it's extremely boring. Again, I find myself rambling, as there is a great deal of your work that is "unreadable" and I cannot contain all my critique in one post. I'm sorry about that.

Since you seem to have a lot of focus on fictional histories and intergalactic politics, I recommend reading up on a few things, such as Political Science, Creative Writing, and World History. Oh, and perfect spelling is mandatory. This is absolutely serious.

ok.


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I just randomly brainstormed tecno zombies. should I use them?

jaggedjaw wrote:The best way to have a good ideas is to have a lot of ideas.
– Linus Pauling
can anyone explain that to me?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You’ve got your fancy pens, your fancy paper, your fancy coffee, some toys,
some modeling clay, everything you think you might need to be creative. Now you
are waiting for that brilliant idea to come. Mistake! Don’t wait — just start writing
down everything you can think of that is remotely connected to your problem.
Write down every stupid idea that comes into your head. And a lot of them will be
stupid. But you have to get the stupid ones out of the way before the good ones
start showing up. And sometimes a stupid idea becomes the inspiration for a genius
idea, so write it all down. Don’t censor yourself. You have to give up your fear of
being wrong and your fear of looking silly. This is hard for most of us to do, but it
comes with practice. And if you are brainstorming with other people, certainly don’t
censor them — their stupid ideas are just as good as your stupid ideas!

Why would you need this explained to you? This is really cut and dry.

jaggedjaw wrote:ok.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just randomly brainstormed tecno zombies. should I use them?

Oh my...

jaggedjaw wrote:The best way to have a good ideas is to have a lot of ideas.
– Linus Pauling
can anyone explain that to me?

You have to try a little harder, man. For starters, when you are quoting something, don't typo "a good idea" as "a good ideas". Take things a bit slower.

Ordo Dakka wrote:

jaggedjaw wrote:ok.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just randomly brainstormed tecno zombies. should I use them?

Oh my...

Been done before...

http://games.rackham-e.com/en/at-43/oni#

Actually even samurai punk zombies has already been done...

http://wyrd-games.net/shop/product.php?productid=16170&cat=259&page=1

well i thought id ask.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
come to think of it aren't servetors robot zombies?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
updated the page. added new phase.

jaggedjaw wrote:...I didn't know there were books on making games. Thanks that will help ALOT!!!

I don't think Alots are very good game designers.

As to how to make a wiki: Much the same way you make a blog, but on a different site. Try http://www.wikia.com/Wikia

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!


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http://shadowwar.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_War_Wiki
heres the wiki. better move the stuff over


Automatically Appended Next Post:
can someone help me with it?

Good.

You seem to have plenty of feedback, so I suggest you go and do some reading and writing before you come back with your revised materials.