The Pub Discussion Board

ChiefRock wrote:

I wonder if there was a character to run opposed to Pat might make some interesting scenes Eric?

Well, obviously someone's running against her.  If she was running unopposed, there'd hardly be a reason to have an election.

there is nothing nastier than politics so should be some material there. Of course as sick of politics as I currently am I cannot believe I am suggesting this

Keep in mind we're talking small-town politics.  They tend not to get THAT nasty, because, frankly, no one's paying attention.  (When was the last time you gave a crap who was on your city council?) 

Plus, dammit, I need SPECIFICS, man!!!  If I could come up with ideas from a concept that vague, I'd have been writing already!!!

   

Eric Storm

Eric Storm wrote:

dude8 wrote:

Random AC ideas
    -    Nick decides he needs to run the mob empire from the shadows, to remove them as a corrupting force (or at least corruption Nick agrees with), and help ensure nick/etc's safety

I've actually been considering this one... mainly as a way to help Emma's sisters and others like them.  But it would certainly protect him from the mob if he was The Godfather...  What do others think?  Might this take away too much conflict from the story?

(my musings on this part will get a bit rambly, apologies in advance)
Unclear without knowing your larger plan for the story: If this story is going to run...for a couple years of in-story time or more, I imagine that there will be larger conflicts than this...so far seemingly pretty local mob? Of course, I imagine you'd want to have what the next escalation in conflict scope would be before he can take down the local guys...energy companies? or tech companies once he gets his storage and networking stuff off the ground?

You already teased some of the FBI/Govt stuff as a possible bridge to national/global scope issues i t seems like. Perhaps some...company or cabal/cartel/whatever is directing both the mob and the fbi towards Nick. And this is only the energy stuff, presumably his other inventions may have other large scale enemies/etc rise up. Also...i dont know how scifi this whole thing is going to get. for all I know, the symbionts are opposed by some whole other race of space-thingies and that's why Nick's dad is a dick, possessed by the other side, who knows, heh. But, for the moment I'll proceed under the impression that our existing reality outside of the story world-wide scope is about what Nick could possibly be up against, in which case: his farming seems likely to be unopposed, but at some point he's probably going to have to move away from his small town...but that only starts to make sense after he's 18? Though I suppose perhaps with the right pushes, an emancipated teen could do most anything an 18 year old could do? In which case eventually he's likely to move towards the seat(s) of government (state, then federal?)...or is he more of a commuter meddler. Live out in the boonies and only commute to the seat of power to turn a few agents he can instruct and then leave running by themselves every so often? He's still got to encourage education and interesting experiences...that seems like a national or global influence operation...even if it's just to get more... XGames or other xtreme mountain dew sponsored sports going

I do agree, of what we've seen in the story, we lack a next greater scope of obvious counter-force/conflict to Nick, that being said, unless he's going to discover that his local mob is just one chapter of a global mob that is "un-turnable" somehow...not sure where to go. Nick seems like the sort that would at least capture and turn his own local chapter of the mob, if only so that he could be sure his 10 or 50mi radius is safe enough to keep working on his other tasks.

-    someone finds out about what ever it was that nick's mom did years ago in order to ask questions at a press conference of pat who whitenessed it or something?

Whitenessed?  You keep your critical race bullsh.... oh, that was a typo.

Yeah. Typo. Sorry.

Got any good ideas for what Mom did?  I actually don't have anything in mind for that yet.

Dang, I was hoping you already had something juicy planned. My only thought was...if Nick's dad was an ass at some point 15-20 years ago, and she got the cops called on her for standing up for herself to him or something, but the rest of the story largely seems to paint the Dad's attitude issues as "recent-ish"...so I dont know. The only other thing I could think of that would tie in to the story (by which I mean, it can tie in to existing present day stuff) is if she had somehow been associated with the mob..obviously nothing too big...messenger or something perhaps?

-    Start world building around the town: we know a lot about nicks 5 favorite places, and a few houses he does chores at, etc...other interesting places?

Such as?

Get sent to hobbins/etc?

Again, like what?  This is too non-specific for it to be helpful.

Sorry. Was just trying to think of...well, things that haddn't been covered yet, and one of those seems like ...settings. WAY1-8 had a lot of...random stores/bars/places with named owners and stuff. I realize that sort of thing isn't as common in America to...know shopkeeps and whatnot, but I always found that sort of thing to be pleasant stuff that helps with grounding the story. Just because I think it would be interesting to know more about that sort of thing, doesnt mean I have the creativity to be a writer

Stuff I didn't comment on wasn't necessarily bad, I just didn't have a question/response to it.  (Which includes all the WBR stuff.)

Thanks for the input.

No Problem. As I say....if any of that gets you going writing again, even if it's because you hated my suggestions which made you come up with better ideas, well, that's good enough for me

And a couple more random suggestions that occured when writing the above:

Nick hasn't seen Nina in awhile outside of work other than offhand mention in a few chapters I think...that and maybe his persuit of Joyce would be some other interesting content to work in sometime within the next few chapters I think. While the last chapter was still fun, it felt like it didn't progress many of the background storylines along, and those are always fun to see

And unless i'm mistaken the chapter that you're currently writing and/or with reviewers is december...In your various stories (camp 1, WAY1-8, etc) your characters usually seem to delight in finding all the ladies in their life interesting gifts to help him reconnect with everyone at the end of the year, would be nice to see something along those lines to see how Nick does that sort of thing...to my knowledge he hasn't really given anyone a gift in this story so far, other than his trip with mess. Hopefully no jewlery that let demons possess his lady friends


on WBR, just re-read it. excited to see how their temporary base shapes up...also hope that if they decide to stay there, they can use the truck to slowly relocate the modules to the new area....that or do some really fancy cave building. I do enjoy a good survival story, so...excited to see where WBR is headed.

Last edited by dude8 (2021-08-20 12:53:25)

If you're looking for things the Mom could have done they should be small things that most likely happened when she was a teenager. She could easily have been framed by some friend she doesn't talk to who hated her when she started dating an Ex. Something like shoplifting in a near-by town that might have sent her in front of a judge, the record of it sealed when she turned eighteen. She wouldn't be fully responsible but wouldn't like to talk about it, she might if prompted if the thing is small enough but not likely to be brought up in a conversation with everyone. It also can't involve the father, her husband, since he needs a spotless record.

While I don't think the mafia should disappear in the next chapter, having him take them over would be interesting to see play out. The group controlling the FBI should be different, possible part of a group with connections in another country. Since part of Nick's task is to be a shadow leader of the US, this other group can continue to harass him for most of the story. It could even be larger part of the same Mafia family in Nick's area. He takes over his cell and still has to handle the other part. The larger group could find out(from the FBI) of Nick's actions in the smaller mafia and start taking actions to remove key people that would link them together which could extend the time it would take for him to reach the larger group.

As for Pat running for office, you should bring up her past, why her and her husband aren't together, the new young woman living with her, it doesn't have to be nasty but brought up in a public forum where she would have to answer them. Her opponent would need connections to Mob/Mafia. This could lead to the hard questions about her life and ownership of SALT. Though I think that the Mob/Mafia would try to get someone onto her staff, which could easily be how Nick starts to take them down. A staff member would help to push her towards their ideas.

As for WBR, the difference in life style for the two groups needs to be brought up, most likely when they meet to exchange information. With the storm subsiding you have the chance to introduce some possible water borne Dinos that get caught in a land locked area or even their camp. Any amphibious Dino could also make an attack on the other groups camp. If necessary to make it harder for Tim you could see someone in the camp sabotaging the equipment and tools. A more concentrated effort of the survivors of Tim's group take a stronger stance on the prey/predator stance the dinosaurs represent, something Humans wouldn't have seen in a while in the first world countries. More evidence to the temporal accident can appear soon as it is unlikely that all of it has been spit out yet, a slow drop over time that would keep bringing Tim back to the first campsite. Mutiny in the other camp against their leader, failure to harvest necessary supplies can lead them to cannibalisms which could lead them to attack Tim's camp. They could also have been raiding it for supplies leading Tim to having to lock up the supplies as some large Dino could walk in to the camp looking for it as well, this could strain some of the relationships the other scientist have with him. With climate close to Florida they could see some of the same things including insects in a massive drove, like crop destroy locusts swarms kind of things. Their water source could start to run dry leading to them needing to dig a well. With water saturated ground the humidity should spike, to the stages where it feels like you could drown by breathing. Things like quicksand could represent a non-real threat, but you could stick someone in it near a Dino, or with one struggling to decide whether it is hunger and wants to eat or panicking and trying to get out. If they are near/in a forest a lightning strike could cause a fire, especially if the storm is the most recent source of water for a month plus. With a large group some problems could arise that would need criminal justice, it would be hard to jail someone which would then take someone else to watch them and you wouldn't necessarily want to be hanging out with someone who would do some of the things that people in larger cities would, it would be a different dynamic that Tim hasn't had to deal with yet, and TimeTrippers might not have given everyone a hundred percent pass in a stressful situation that the teams have found themselves in.

For Tim's closer relationships, things which may involve fate between Reina and Tim would help to push them together. She could catch him in compromising situations like catching him in the bath. Shannon would most likely need to see him really snap at someone in the camp before she takes any action which might push them together. In this case it would have to be some that is not really that bad, like not charging the car.

Some discussions from the future on how they plan to get them back should be seen. Since I'm not sure if the Travel Pod with Tim's family in it has one, a spare tracker that would only start broadcasting once the pod exits the Temporal rift and it doesn't receive a signal from the primary one could be a thing. This is something most engineers would do with most things and Tim would most likely try to get one after his last trip. To make it worse, it could be stuck in a loop since the first tracker would not have been planned to be removed mid-trip. Given the amount of time between them and I'm not certain it has been explained/ how time tripping works, It could be possible to leave evidence behind to point to them in time. It would be interesting to seen Tim's kids working to rescue them, but a part of me says if they try to keep people on the same time that could be bad. They could be young geniuses around the age of ten or so.

Soooo... it's the 1st. Any a new chapter for us to look forward to today?

Actually, you were supposed to get something, but I forgot, and now I'm too tired to do the final proofread, so it'll have to wait until I get up in the morning.

Eric Storm

Told you. I forgot it was the first as well… but I’m not an author… and I just worked 9 hours of boring crap… to have a meeting telling me… I am going to be working even more hours of boring crap… yay 60+ work weeks.

dude8 wrote:

Hooray! Looking forward to it Eric!

Is it one continuous loaded map? Can you break the floors up into different load screens maybe?

Eric Storm wrote:

*sigh*  Do you have any idea how annoying it is to sink a month into a project, only to have it blow up on you?

So, that walkthrough I was doing of the castle is a dead project.  The game engine keeps crashing on me now.  I don't know if it's just not capable of handling that many details in one map, or what.  (The castle has dozens of rooms in it, whereas your typical Deathmatch level, probably not so much...)

In any case, since the game literally shuts down every time I try to edit it further, I can't do anything with it.

Sorry, to anyone who was interested in seeing it.  Trust me, you're no more disappointed than I am.  I probably have a couple hundred hours of time in creating what's there already.

Eric Storm

Double post on accident.

Last edited by Elessar (2021-09-02 23:10:00)

Read the original post.  It's the Cube 2 engine, known also as Sauerbraten.  The engine is designed primarily for Deathmatch, and cooperative level editing. 

From an "editor" standpoint, the multiple sections you're talking about are nothing but multiple maps that the character can move between, without explicitly loading them, usually by stepping on a "teleport" pad, or just entering a specific floor section on the map you're currently in.  What happens, internally, is the loading of a whole new map, which the character is plunked down into.

As I said, I do not know if the game engine has the ability to move between maps seamlessly that way.  But, if it can't even handle the castle as a single layer, then the number of maps involved in the entire mountain would count into the dozens.  I mean, yes, the castle is a 9-story building (if you count the towers and the basement), but it's not insanely huge.  The interior contains a lot of rooms, and there's probably at least fifty windows, but...

I was trying to avoid having to use one of the more advanced game engines, because the learning curve on them is intense.  Cube 2 is pretty easy to learn.

I guess I just need to find a way to force my muses back to work... not sure how to do that, though.

Eric Storm

I'm sure you would.  YOU don't have to learn how to use the goddamned thing.

Eric Storm

Unreal or Unity are both top notch. I only have experience with Unity though so…

Eric Storm wrote:

I'm sure you would.  YOU don't have to learn how to use the goddamned thing.

Eric Storm

Eric Storm wrote:

Update for September 3, 2021:

Where the Brontosaurs Roam, Chapter 4, has been posted to PRM.

Sorry it's a couple days late.  I've been kind of out of it lately.

Eric Storm

Woohoo! Thanks Eric!

Glad it looks like your hard work won’t be wasted.

Enjoyed the new chapter of WBR.

Just want to make sure you did get my last email responding about brainstorming.