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Happy New Year! (2017 Update) (Patreon)

Published:
2017-01-03 09:44:28
Imported:
2020-10

Content

Hope everyone had a great holiday. In the short term news, we're a bit short on content for December due to Watsup being on bereavement. More is coming, especially since private commissions are almost done.

In the longterm I've posted a general resolution which you can read here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PdqjaTaGp7vNjmk8VTsJ5oK1Qth-vIzBbP9sT8_oXyM/edit?usp=sharing

TLDR: We'd like to fix the story in the comics we make here, and also increase communication.

If you want to weigh in on BnE now, here's a poll.

http://www.strawpoll.me/12018868

Comments

Anonymous

You could try and set up group chats on other platforms than discord. Skype, Telegram, something like that. As for myself, I'd love to join one of these, but can't use Discord.

corablue
>>3470199

Be my market research! What's the reason you haven't or aren't able to adopt Discord? What is the best platform for you personally?

Anonymous

Well, first off, Discord just doesn't run properly on my phone, meaning that I couldn't use it while away from home. Secondly, I just don't need all the voice chat and gaming functions it has. Telegram is the most convenient option for me, since it is very quick, allows me to switch platforms easily, and because most of the furry group chatting in my region seems to happen on there. Group chats there are easily set up and monitored as well.

Sarah Zedig

As far as story- it seems you're in a rough spot because, generally, your comics get to the action real quick, which is fantastic in the sense that you probably spend more time on the TF process than anyone. But I feel like that makes it a lot harder to get in a really memorable story. There are some comics I read that haven't had any action in twenty pages or more because of story, which I'm fine with but some people are not. Focusing more on story, I think, can't be a bad decision because it will give your comics a lot more meaning and have them stick in the brain more -but it might be a controversial decision for people, and that's definitely something to keep in mind. But I think the most challenging and potentially most rewarding thing for you now would be to stick with these characters and try to bring more story into their world. Either way, I admire your work ethic and think you've done an unequivocally fantastic job so far, and it excites me when a great artist is dissatisfied. It's always a sure sign of improvement.

Cischiral

"open polls to everyone" ....hmmm, this is just IMHO obviously, but I honestly believe that shaping comic direction is the best reward you can offer to higher level donors. Worse, people in for only a dollar or so usually aren't as invested as those paying more. Generally speaking things go awry when too much access to control or influence is given to those with too little invested. For example, on the extreme end, when their is absolutely no investment required for influence or control, you end up with bridges named after Chuck Norris ( <a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/27/slovaks-vote-overwhelmingly-to-name-bridge-after-chuck-norris/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/27/slovaks-vote-overwhelmingly-to-name-bridge-after-chuck-norris/</a> ) and boats named Boaty McBoatface ( <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html?_r=0</a> ) among so many other examples. On the less extreme end, but an example more relevant to what you are doing: the creators of Endless Space basically allowed for open community input in building their game. The result is that Endless Space is OK, but what quality is there is heavily burdened down with forced low-brow ideas, half-assed input that was 100% actioned upon, forced and ineffective humor from stale internet memes, etc…. Later in going on to create games like Endless Legends the same developers localized input to the parts of the community that were more clearly invested (though not necessarily monetarily, but in someway clearly investing themselves in caring about making a good game), and the results are considerably better. Your desire to maximize responsiveness and accepting input from everyone who has ever tossed a buck towards this project is admirable, but I am not sure it is in your best interest. Just because someone gave you $1 and complained loudly about what they got for it doesn’t mean they are invested and care about your work and B&amp;E succeeding. While the resulting complaining may look similar much of the time, and can even occasionally align on the same impetus and conclusions (such as with the current state of the story – see next paragraph), the long term input and impetus of those who are truly invested in your project v.s. those who simply want to get the most for their occasional Buck (lol) are exceedingly different. Giving too much influence and responsiveness to the former can be really dangerous for project quality. Do not let the squeaky wheel get greased purely because it is the squeaky one, do not bend over backwards for those not truly invested, and do not appeal to the lowest common denominator – indeed often when you are doing something interesting and different it is the lowest common denominator that likes it the least and vise versa. Now for my note on the story (because clearly this wall of text isn’t big enough already). The story is a bit confusing and irresolute so far *BUT* you have implied a great deal of as of yet mostly unknown history and set-up potential for backstory to fill up to this point. While it is all a little confused at the moment I am not worried, because if you do a good job of piecing or filling in the back-bits what you have could actually end up being very good. Many good books, movies, comics, games, etc… start in the middle of the action and then go back to help us figure out how we got there. Indeed movies like Pulp Fiction give us lots of little action pieces that jump back and forth in time and space and we the viewer are forced to put them together and disentangle the narrative for ourselves – and the results are fantastic! The only difference between something successful with a non-linear or temporarily shuffled narrative and what you have been doing with B&amp;E so far is those narratives are complete enough that the reader/watcher/player can get filled in on the missing backstory and history by continuing to read/watch/play. Meanwhile B&amp;E hasn’t existed long enough to start filling in the setup – which is to say it is just too new yet! Indeed the sign that people are a bit frustrated or confused about the story is a good sign you have hooked them enough that they *WANT* the backstory and history enough to be frustrated by its lack. Given the level of frustration and confusion, I would say that is a strong suggestion that the next chapter should be a flashback, jump-back, etc… that starts filling in at least some of the necessary critical history that got everything and everyone in B&amp;E to the point we find them in the first chapter. Chapter 2 doesn’t necessarily need to give as all of the critical backstory – indeed from the sound of it that would be far too rushed because there seems to be a lot more then one chapter worth of back story. But if Chapter 2 helps us figure out a bit more peoples motivations and relevant histories, even just a little bit I think it will solve the major complaints – at least for those coming from reasonable people. You will need to do a good job with such a flashback/backfill, but if you do I don’t think anything you have written so far is “wrong” or “bad”, it is just leaving people hanging, and with any sufficiently complex story that will always be the case until things are resolved (which often only happens near the end of it all). The only thing you need to worry about now, is that whether you realize it or not you have set things up to be complex (by implication lots of things have already happened: lots of narrative-relevant history, much interrelation, and a lot of unknown but strong motivations are implied, etc… and should probably be mostly back-filled into the mix at some point to get good results). Complex situations like this will always leave people confused and frustrated and they will complain loudly, so you have to choose between minimizing complaints about confusion (i.e. choosing low complexity but lowest common denominator), or more interesting story (high complexity but lots of complaints about confusion.) In addition to choosing between that trade off, high complexity stories may require some very precise and complex logistics and story telling strain when backfilling and tying up loose ends to produce things that are satisfying and not contrived or ridiculous. But again, nothing is “wrong” or “bad” yet, it is just walking the path of the complicated narrative that is being told non-linearly because we started at a major point in the middle of the action.

Cischiral

...wow that is a lot of text, sorry about that but I do believe it is important or I wouldn't have wasted the time to write it.

KangasaurusRex

I like how it's amping up so far, I like the mystery behind it all and I think you're already well equipped as an artist to handle most of the control. I signed up because I love your work and I think you are getting better with every project.

corablue
>>3470496

Janky mobile versions is a pretty good reason. I'll look into Telegram. We probably won't make the switch, but if I like it, it would at least be another way to get in touch.

corablue
>>3471243

Thanks! I wouldn't sacrifice one for the other. I think you can do both. For example, Critical Condition did a decent job of this by accident. Both TF and intriguing questions that made you want more without leaving you completely confused.

corablue
>>3473337

It's fine, I read all of it. You do have a point. There's something to be said for both options, but you've given a voice to a voiceless side of it. Either way I think this particular poll was important to give to everyone. I've heard from enough people, and I'm objective enough to know, that BnE is confusing atm. If people wanted to move on to something else then that was super important for me to know. It looks like that's not the case though, so my fears are somewhat alleviated. :)

Anonymous

You have a discord? I honestly had no idea. Maybe part of your "lack of community involvement" problem stems from the community simply not knowing *how* to engage with you? Regarding the storytelling of the comic - I think you need to either spend the time introducing these characters a bit more thoroughly (regarding BnE). As a general rule of thumb I'd like to think the comic should be "self-contained" and I should be able to follow everything that happens from beginning to end. I'm sure it makes sense and there's a good story planned if you know all the characters and their motivations and stuff, but to me, the reader who doesn't know all those things it's already difficult to follow. The first couple of pages seemed to frame it as a simple premise: group of guys go into "haunted house", get caught by witch and toyed around with. but then you threw in all this other stuff - Buck had met the witch before? He was cursed by her? It relates to his lost horn somehow. Then it's out that Husky(?) knew about her too and he spent ages training to combat her magic? Why? Why did this group of people even go into the house in the first place if they knew the witch was there - what did they hope would come of it? It's a lot of exposition to dump on the reader in 10 pages and I can't keep track of any of the character's motivations for anything which makes it difficult to become invested. I mean I'm a relatively new patron and stuff but that's my $0.02 on the matter

corablue
>>3476013

Yeah definitely. It's a problem which is why I took the time to recognize it. And in the future I might go in and touch up some dialog. But in the near term I'm just going to try and explain things better and keep it from getting worse. Also I've done what I can to advertise the Discord. I've just pinned it to the reward tiers which should help. I've advetised it here 2 or 3 times. Unfortunately it gets buried since you can't pin posts here. Would you notice it if it was on the website?

Anonymous
>>3476013

I feel like a link somewhere in a central location would be good. If there's any info in the reward tiers I can't find it, all I see is a little notification that says "Includes discord rewards". Maybe I'm just blind but I skimmed all the posts here, your site, your FA page and I couldn't find anything about it until you mentioned it in this post. EDIT: d'oh, I found it at least.

KangasaurusRex
>>3473786

If I was going to say anything constructive, I'd say you could improve with a bit of storyboarding. The guy who did Homestuck generally knew what was going to happen far in advance and only let his fans control certain aspects of the comic that had also been pre-ordained as being alterable.

James
>>3476013

Just wanted to say, I actually liked how I didn't know much about the characters until events started rolling out. I've found that a lot of storytelling includes exposition that feels unnatural, but yours was cool because it was unexpected, but well-executed. I'm not sure if you've received a lot of flak or something, but it was your mystery and buildup that hooked my attention real quick-like (besides all of the other obvious awesome TGTF stuff). I'm pretty fond of just thinking back about how all of the details fit together (but then again, I really like to think ^ _^ ). I've even considered linking your work to a few pals who talk about H with me, because I truly do view your work to be exceptional. So don't be too hard on yourself, because you're definitely doing something right!