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Post by Herdy on Apr 9, 2018 16:34:40 GMT -5
Only longer plot is Champions of Meridell - we'll pass that in July. Or late May/June if you count the Faerie Festival as part of this plot.
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Post by Huntress on Apr 10, 2018 6:38:55 GMT -5
In fairness, there's no hard-and-fast standard for how long a plot should be; what it needs to be is the right length for the amount of content in it. Pacing will suffer if you try to squeeze a big plot into a short timeframe and also if you stretch a small plot over a long period of time. I've seen shades of it happen on this forum; we have this steadily-ingrained expectation that the annual summer roleplay event has to be two months long, to the point where I was genuinely surprised to learn that Medieval only lasted two months (and not at all surprised to learn that it was far too big for that schedule and people spent the next three years exhausting the creative motherlode). When we ran Wrighton, we kept expanding the deadlines to fit the story that was unfolding and it ended up comfortably filling five months instead of the anticipated two.
That said, this one here is a small plot xP Not in terms of challenges and battledoming and games - that's all big-plot material but doesn't actually make a plot big. The comfortable time the content itself would fill up is maybe a week for the initial festival (I forget, did we get any kind of activities at the start?), then a weekabouts for the resulting chaos, progressively longer deadlines for each new challenger because the activities compound a bit thanks to the infirmary, and Malum and Kaia do need longer availability to get properly buried in throw pillows. But in order to actually fill up half a year, we would've needed more content. Most past plots have introduced a new world or upgrade or some other similar creative motherlode to explore and cut our teeth on, but unless this one ends with New Darkest Faerieland, we're pretty much just battledoming and reading some dialogue snippets.
(I don't personally mind, because it's kinda become a casual daily to smoosh the wraiths and cook up whatever ingredients I still get, but I suspect that they never intended for it to become this drawn-out background event.)
Also, the Tale of Woe seriously only lasted a month? o__O That stands out in my memory as one of the Big Plots.
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Post by Herdy on Apr 10, 2018 7:14:01 GMT -5
It was almost two months - started right at the start of October and lasted towards the tail end of November. But yeah, very quick for the amount of content. Tale of Woe had like three steps + comic chapters released per week. Most of the Viacom era plots trended towards one step and two comics a week, in contrast.
I think Tale of Woe's timing was mostly them rushing to keep it all happening around Halloween though, since the town's ghost form reappearing then each year was a plot point. The only other plots that have had concrete calendar events to work around have had them right at the start, so they were free to spread the plot out a bit afterwards.
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Post by Breakingchains on Apr 10, 2018 9:10:17 GMT -5
Wow, I did NOT realize we'd been at this for six months.
I recall hearing through the grapevine that Neopets' coding looks like it was written by a mad hermit directly onto a cave wall, and this plot has had a rather wide array of features which I'm sure were fighting them every step of the way, so I can kinda see how it happened but dang... six months.
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Post by doctortomoe on Apr 10, 2018 12:48:26 GMT -5
I'm shocked by the length of time as well.
Honestly I thought Tale of Woe and Faeries Ruin were longer, but wow o.o
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Post by Ziporen on Apr 10, 2018 17:04:26 GMT -5
I wasn't really surprised by the time, but then I remembered that The Forgotten Graveyard was leaked almost a year before the story actually started... I think I was burned-out before this even began.
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Post by Breakingchains on Apr 12, 2018 11:12:47 GMT -5
New step: - Go to the clearing
- Go back to the forgotten graveyard and pick up all the shards (they're all visible but you might need to zoom in on some of them to get the click to actually register)
- Go back to the clearing and put all the shards in the lock
- Remember to grab your achievement
As for where the storyline just went What even the crap
I mean, for one, that is the wackiest, most Adam-West-esque evil plot I've ever seen
Second, Kaia wasn't TDF, she was replaced by TDF--the real Kaia we were introduced to at the beginning of the plot is a real person, so that clears that up.
But third, who to heck is Reizo? Was he even mentioned before now? |
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Post by Liou on Apr 12, 2018 11:48:04 GMT -5
BreakingchainsReizo was mentioned in Kaia's Neopedia entry, all those years ago - oops, just months ago.
He was the friend that poor lonely misunderstood Kaia left in Shenkuu.
(To anyone still wondering what character we'd call a "broom" in medieverse, I think that could be an example. Reizo could have been a broom with a label saying "Reizo" on its handle, what difference would that have made?) *shakes head* Poor Darkie. To say that all she could come up with was poison in an hourglass is basically slander.
Not to mention leaving the victims tied to the trap and frolicking away without watching their demise, instead of vaporising them on the spot. I mean, that's basically one of the laws of villainy, but... TDF should be above that!
Well, I am glad that Kaia was real, because that confirms TDF would never bother to invent the likes of her as a persona. The one thing I am really pleased about is that we finally got to see what Fyora looks like from behind!! Also, I now know what to do with canon if I write anything.
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Post by Breakingchains on Apr 12, 2018 12:23:03 GMT -5
Liou You're right--I had totally forgotten that character's existence. That does help matters that he's not completely pulled out of nowhere. But... the hourglass trap. xD I have so many questions right now? Why don't you just shoot them, why put such an easy deactivating mechanism on your trap, why not hide the pieces of the lock better if you're going to break it, where did it even come from, why place it in an empty clearing where it's so easy to spot, does poison even work on faeries...
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Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Apr 12, 2018 13:30:36 GMT -5
Also Malum is Reizo, corrupted by TDF somehow. Now we know why Malum said he was innocent when we battled him earlier.
Still a lot of questions left unanswered, though. |
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Post by Huntress on Apr 12, 2018 14:44:52 GMT -5
Yeah, the broom origin is the only reason why it makes sense at all that Malum is suddenly called Reizo or vice versa; he could just as well have stayed Malum and it's not like he was wearing a nametag for Kaia to recognize earlier, not to mention we still don't know when she got swapped out. But then he would've been connected with the neopedia article too soon.
Still, considering how the dialogue is about the only plot input we get, all these people could really use being more verbose. Channel some Tolkien and wax poetic about your background and motives for the benefit of the audience, fercryingoutloud.
I reckon we'll get more exposition later to fill up the holes and I really hope we get to see TDF proper, because you don't feature as a brief flash in your own twisty villainous if somewhat questionably cliché scheme. *is rather hoping for a proper Fyora-TDF standoff to finally give our passive Galadriel a moment of onscreen glory* |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Apr 12, 2018 14:51:01 GMT -5
WARNING: Lengthy Rant So Kaia isn't The Darkest Faerie, she was indeed just replaced by her probably after rushing into the Wild Woods. While certainly an interesting plot twist... well now that only means we've spent even less time with Kaia. Once again, for a character they were actively advertising, she doesn't do a lot of have much of a character arc. Actually worst, in the end she became a damsel in distress. Though this also means we haven't seen how Kaia acts toward Aethia upon disobeying her, and considering the trouble she got into doing so, would be an opportunity to show she grew from the experience depending on how the interaction goes. And Malum being Reizo is an interesting twist... if you knew who Reizo was. And even then, as Liou said, the connection between them was something we were told. If Reizo was, say, just a Petpet she occasionally fed it would have just as much of an impact for the viewer. Let's think back to other plots which had best friends as characters and how they established them: Garin and Jacques, we see them as kids playing and then pirates doing pirate things. When attacked by The Revenge we see them helping each other out and worried about each other when things start going badly. Thus when Garin rescues Jacques it felt gratifying. Tomos and Nabile, throughout most of the comic we see them together. Helping each other, arguing, and comforting each other. So when Nabile married Jazan and both went off, that panel with Tomos trying to reach her was heartbreaking and then the panel of her returning to Sakhmet and him being front and semi-center felt gratifying. Brynn and Hanso, we see a flashback of how their sort of caustic relationship started. Throughout the plot we see them constantly interact with each other, helping and arguing with each other. So when we get to the scenes where we think Hanso had joined Xandra's side only to reveal he's tricking her and their interaction after Fyora unpetrified Hanso it felt gratifying. Their friendship was not only talked about but shown, reinforced how they both helped and argued with one another. If they wanted us to have any feeling toward Reizo, Kaia should have known he had gone missing. We could have then gotten a moment where Kaia maybe recounted an experience she and Reizo had and maybe made it a plot step. While it wouldn't be that much since Reizo isn't a main character so we can only form so much of a relation to him, it would have been something. Also, if Reizo was trying to contact Kaia, why was he calling himself Malum? BTW, what was with the "hearing an explosion" thing? First off, what explosion did Fyora think she heard? Second, if there was an explosion, why didn't Taelia hear it? It's like they thought they needed a reason why Fyora would know where to go, but they already had one. Though we found Fyora in the Wild Woods, that doesn't mean she was there the entire time. She could have found the hourglass, been attacked but fought off TDF, and wandered wounded into the Wild Woods trying to get back to HQ. There, that's how she knew about the hourglass. Speaking of which, what was TDF's plan again? So, she had this hourglass full of poison gas and when the timer ran out it'll explode and... what? Kill all the Faeries at the HQ? Alright, why did she break her disguise as Kaia then? Like, assuming as soon as Reizo/Malum woke up he went after her, by the time we found her she had already dealt with Reizo/Malum. Why did she attack everyone else when we arrived, why didn't she pretend to be injured so they'd take her back to the HQ (the hourglass was hidden by an invisibility spell so she shouldn't have been worried they'd discovered it if they went looking for Malum). She could have then been able to keep Fyora knocked out/tried killing her again while buying time for the hourglass to run out. But why did she even need the hourglass? Does this poison need time to stew? And why did she have a deactivation device right in front of it. She didn't plan on using it as she shattered the key into pieces. We're lucky we somehow got all the pieces and recreated the key (you'd think she'd be strong enough to just completely vaporize it). And what was with her using the Wraiths? If she could disguise herself and wanted to plan a poison gas bomb, why not disguise herself up as a basic Faerie, set the bomb up in secret as close to the castle as possible, and leave witout no one being the wiser until it was too late. Or was this bomb a last minute plan, in which case what was her original plan A? Why did she attack the Faerie Festival? Why was she turning Neopets into Wraiths? I'm sad this was how they brought back TDF. She's smarter than this and the ONLY reason JS brought her into this plot was because she was mentioned as a cliffhanger note at the end of the Faeries' Ruin. Had it not mentioned Altador was looking for her I highly doubt they would have included her. She was an afterthought, and something as big as the return of The Darkest Faerie should not be an afterthought. Finally, we still have the Skeith healing in the Infirmary. What else is possibly left? A final boss battle? |
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Post by Ziporen on Apr 12, 2018 15:08:28 GMT -5
"I missed you, so I decided to work for the most evil Faerie in the history of Neopia so I could visit."
At what point was this ever a good idea???
"I totally didn't expect her to catch on to me."
Darkest. Faerie.
Anyway, I'm done with the new steps. Edit (debunked ideas/rambling): But I guess I'm not done typing.
They could have done so much more.
Fair warning: I'm running on zero sleep, so there's a decent chance that half of this makes no sense.
The other night I was thinking about how TDF could gave gotten Kaia out of the way, because I was 99% positive that a real Kaia was coming back.
I realized that the the only way TDF should be back was if Jerdana's Orb fell off again, which could have happened when Faerieland crashed. The last time it fell off, TDF left it at the bottom of Maraqua for Jerdana to recover (or maybe she had a spare, in which case there are now two of the things floating around Neopia), so I doubt she would just leave it again. Stone Kaia, anyone? And maybe hide her statue in a shallow grave to make sure no one would find her and the orb couldn't fall off again, or is that too dark? She'd be stone, it's not like it would actually hurt her... I think.
All the Baelia talk the other day got me wondering if Kaia could turn up as a Grey Faerie to stop her Sight from messing with TDF's plans, but that was definitely a long shot. Maybe TDF stuck Kaia in a bottle, like she did to Fyora in the PS2 game. Maybe Kaia wasn't captured at all and just ran off under the pressure or got horribly lost deep in the Wild Woods, leaving an opening for TDF.
Anything but "And then they were tied to a BOMB!" (That may or may not kill everyone in... the Forgotten Graveyard? Faerieland? Neopia? The universe? The least they could have done was specify.) That's not even getting into Malum/Reizo.
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Post by Herdy on Apr 12, 2018 15:25:32 GMT -5
WARNING: Lengthy Rant So Kaia isn't The Darkest Faerie, she was indeed just replaced by her probably after rushing into the Wild Woods. While certainly an interesting plot twist... well now that only means we've spent even less time with Kaia. Once again, for a character they were actively advertising, she doesn't do a lot of have much of a character arc. Actually worst, in the end she became a damsel in distress. Though this also means we haven't seen how Kaia acts toward Aethia upon disobeying her, and considering the trouble she got into doing so, would be an opportunity to show she grew from the experience depending on how the interaction goes. And Malum being Reizo is an interesting twist... if you knew who Reizo was. And even then, as Liou said, the connection between them was something we were told. If Reizo was, say, just a Petpet she occasionally fed it would have just as much of an impact for the viewer. Let's think back to other plots which had best friends as characters and how they established them: Garin and Jacques, we see them as kids playing and then pirates doing pirate things. When attacked by The Revenge we see them helping each other out and worried about each other when things start going badly. Thus when Garin rescues Jacques it felt gratifying. Tomos and Nabile, throughout most of the comic we see them together. Helping each other, arguing, and comforting each other. So when Nabile married Jazan and both went off, that panel with Tomos trying to reach her was heartbreaking and then the panel of her returning to Sakhmet and him being front and semi-center felt gratifying. Brynn and Hanso, we see a flashback of how their sort of caustic relationship started. Throughout the plot we see them constantly interact with each other, helping and arguing with each other. So when we get to the scenes where we think Hanso had joined Xandra's side only to reveal he's tricking her and their interaction after Fyora unpetrified Hanso it felt gratifying. Their friendship was not only talked about but shown, reinforced how they both helped and argued with one another. If they wanted us to have any feeling toward Reizo, Kaia should have known he had gone missing. We could have then gotten a moment where Kaia maybe recounted an experience she and Reizo had and maybe made it a plot step. While it wouldn't be that much since Reizo isn't a main character so we can only form so much of a relation to him, it would have been something. Also, if Reizo was trying to contact Kaia, why was he calling himself Malum? BTW, what was with the "hearing an explosion" thing? First off, what explosion did Fyora think she heard? Second, if there was an explosion, why didn't Taelia hear it? It's like they thought they needed a reason why Fyora would know where to go, but they already had one. Though we found Fyora in the Wild Woods, that doesn't mean she was there the entire time. She could have found the hourglass, been attacked but fought off TDF, and wandered wounded into the Wild Woods trying to get back to HQ. There, that's how she knew about the hourglass. Speaking of which, what was TDF's plan again? So, she had this hourglass full of poison gas and when the timer ran out it'll explode and... what? Kill all the Faeries at the HQ? Alright, why did she break her disguise as Kaia then? Like, assuming as soon as Reizo/Malum woke up he went after her, by the time we found her she had already dealt with Reizo/Malum. Why did she attack everyone else when we arrived, why didn't she pretend to be injured so they'd take her back to the HQ (the hourglass was hidden by an invisibility spell so she shouldn't have been worried they'd discovered it if they went looking for Malum). She could have then been able to keep Fyora knocked out/tried killing her again while buying time for the hourglass to run out. But why did she even need the hourglass? Does this poison need time to stew? And why did she have a deactivation device right in front of it. She didn't plan on using it as she shattered the key into pieces. We're lucky we somehow got all the pieces and recreated the key (you'd think she'd be strong enough to just completely vaporize it). And what was with her using the Wraiths? If she could disguise herself and wanted to plan a poison gas bomb, why not disguise herself up as a basic Faerie, set the bomb up in secret as close to the castle as possible, and leave witout no one being the wiser until it was too late. Or was this bomb a last minute plan, in which case what was her original plan A? Why did she attack the Faerie Festival? Why was she turning Neopets into Wraiths? I'm sad this was how they brought back TDF. She's smarter than this and the ONLY reason JS brought her into this plot was because she was mentioned as a cliffhanger note at the end of the Faeries' Ruin. Had it not mentioned Altador was looking for her I highly doubt they would have included her. She was an afterthought, and something as big as the return of The Darkest Faerie should not be an afterthought. Finally, we still have the Skeith healing in the Infirmary. What else is possibly left? A final boss battle? I don't want to defend this since it is *awful*, but:
The explosion was caused when Kaia attempted to escape. Fyora says that when we first arrive in the Clearing - the bits of stone we collect are parts of the lock which exploded, thanks to Kaia's efforts (in other words, Kaia attempting to escape only makes things worse). However, if we assume Kaia's been missing since the Wild Woods, that does raise the question of what she only tried to escape now. Guess you can hand wave it by claiming she was unconscious until the DF ran away, maybe?
I would also guess the explosion Fyora heard was also her sensing it rather than hearing it - since she was catatonic and Taelia didn't hear anything.
But yeah, the rest of it is pure nonsense.
I think they were trying to aim for a ToW Bruno cursed-monster-but-good-guy thing with Malum/Reizo rather than an emotional best friends reunuion thing. But, because Malum/Reizo came out of nowhere and did basically nothing after arriving, there's no connection there so no audience sympathy.
Edit: It also feels like while they were planning this someone suggested 'And then the DF straps Kaia and Malum to a bomb!' and they went with it until they thought that maybe that's a bit violent for Neopets, so changed it to the gas - forgetting that they are *outside* and that many places in Neopia, and you know, a whole section of Faeries, can *control the weather* to stop the gas spreading. Never mind places like Maraqua or Kreludor. |
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Post by Allison on Apr 12, 2018 22:31:53 GMT -5
New step: - Go to the clearing
- Go back to the forgotten graveyard and pick up all the shards (they're all visible but you might need to zoom in on some of them to get the click to actually register)
- Go back to the clearing and put all the shards in the lock
- Remember to grab your achievement
As for where the storyline just went What even the crap
I mean, for one, that is the wackiest, most Adam-West-esque evil plot I've ever seen
Second, Kaia wasn't TDF, she was replaced by TDF--the real Kaia we were introduced to at the beginning of the plot is a real person, so that clears that up.
But third, who to heck is Reizo? Was he even mentioned before now? With the new step, it’s not time sensitive as in must be done today, right? Because I don’t know if I want to try on my phone. Well at least not tonight. Might be better on my phone since I can zoom in though? |
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