The Sandcastle - Let's Play Discussion and Drama (Archive info in OP!)

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Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

Let's Play Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies!

Bravely Default is a JRPG currently exclusive to the 3DS, created by small developer Silicon Studio and influenced/published by behemoth company Square Enix (published by Nintendo when released internationally). Though originally intended as a side Final Fantasy title, early in development Silicon Studio decided to make Bravely Default into a brand new franchise, mixing Final Fantasy elements with their own vibe.

What Is This Game About?
Friendship, beating up bad guys, being heroes, avenging destroyed hometowns, and saving shiny crystals.

Widely hailed at its release as being a worthy successor to SNES-era JRPGs, the truth is more rocky. Bravely Default has great strengths -- sweet background art, a lively translation, an upgrade of the Final Fantasy 5 job system, the ability to turn off random encounters -- as well as massive flaws, especially in the latter part of the game.

I can't recommend playing the game unless you are in the mood for melodrama, mind-numbing repitition, and an... awkward ending. Not as strange as a Cavia game, but odd nonetheless.

How Will This LP Work?
This will be 100% screenshots (with a few pieces of concept art) and writing. Focus will be on showing off all major events in the game, within reason, and entries from D's Journal (the in-game encyclopedia).

Spoilers?
No story spoilers. Talking about jobs mechanics is fine, just don't get into where the jobs come from until they're gotten.

Entry 3: Everything's Not Great

--

I saw this was a requested LP, so I'd like to take it on. This'll be my first LP, so -- thoughts?

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 06:26

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:14

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

tiistai posted:

The image quality seems kinda blurry and artifacted to me. The weird x1.75 zoom probably doesn't help. Why not go full x2?

Hrm. I'd tested larger sizes at the start and been unhappy with the blurriness, but checking again now, 2x seems like it might be fine, all considered.

Better?

2x:

In test LP:

Original:

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 23:21

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

All right, I'll switch to 2x and merge some of the dialogue as well. Seems like I'll be ready, then.

Thanks, guys!

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 03:36

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

Could I get some opinions about SSLP formatting? Characters are starting to routinely go into long expositions and I'm worried about readability.

Here's an example from a recent post:

quote:

What tumult?

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know.

For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague.

And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know.

Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called.

They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city.

And yet that meant blah blah cont.

I'm already editing together short lines on the advice of someone here from before I started the LP, but with this amount of dialogue, it's barely helping. Having the same character's dialogue go on more than three lines in a row, especially without a portrait change, looks clunky. But this doesn't seem much better:

quote:

My commentary

What tumult?

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know. For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague. And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know. Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called. They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city. And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred. Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that. The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save. But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine. So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise. But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world? It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose.

My commentary

Any thoughts? Or LPs where large NPC text blocks have been handled particularly well?

Greyarc fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Mar 3, 2018

# ¿ Mar 3, 2018 11:25

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

It's helpful to see different versions in action, so your example's appreciated, Really Pants.

The one problem with having the text split across several lines without an accompanying portrait is interference with LPer commentary. I use regular text, not italics for my commentary, so with Strix Nebulosa's example things might get confusing:

StrixNebulosa posted:

It was twenty years ago that villages throughout this land met their ruin, you know. For that was when the Orthodoxy ordered all roads be blocked to spare the city of Eternia from the approaching plague. And Everlast Tower and Eternian Central Command that yet stand there in the city? They were once the property of the Crystal Orthodoxy, you know.

Everlast Tower was the Temple of Earth, and Eternian Central Command was the Orthodoxy's head temple. Hmmm, yes, that was what they were once called. They were the reason the Orthodoxy sought to stem the plague's spread before it reached the city. And yet that meant the Orthodoxy sacrificed countless lives in outlying villages to save what they held sacred.

Hrmm, perhaps the templar, ever concerned for the people, could not forgive that. The day he invaded, he attacked the Temple of Earth straightaway, the very place his former masters sought to save. But the people saw his actions as heroic. For it was he who ordered the energy welling forth from the Earth Crystal be fused with white magic and used to advance medicine.

So it was that death by sickness has been nearly vanquished from our land. We can now live without fear of an untimely demise. But is he a hero who freed us from the terrors of sickness? Or a usurper who brings terrors unto the world?

It all depends upon one's perspective, I suppose.

My commentary More commentary

Hmm. Does the commentary stand out enough with an extra line break?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2018 21:23

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

I'm thinking of going with Tendales's example, mainly because it'd require the least amount of reformatting for the 70+ posts I've already done.

Blind Sally posted:

The desire to make the thread suffer through the miles of needless exposition so that they too may truly experience the horrors of a game?

Yeah, basically. Part of the fun is showing off how ridiculous the game's story gets. That full effect just won't come across through paraphrasing.

Anyway, thanks for all the ideas, guys. Hopefully this'll be helpful to other SSLPers, too, especially since there are quite a few good options to choose from.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2018 17:40

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

-What kinda things do you donate to Patreon for?
I've donated to people whose opinions I support and want to see more of.

-What kinda things would encourage you to donate to a Patreon?
General professionalism, a backlog to get a good sense of their work. Consistent quality and staying at least somewhat on a schedule with release of new content.

Honestly, consistency means a hell of a lot, especially if you want to be paid for your work.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2018 02:57

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:14

Greyarc: Dec 29, 2016

baldurk posted:

In the past I've tried to be really generous about manually massaging an LP on behalf of authors into the right form out of whatever is in the thread, but that's what takes the bulk of my time. Being realistic that's going to have to change because I clearly can't afford to do that anymore. I'll start pushing back that work onto authors - asking them to make changes in the original posts to align to what I need to be able to run the scripts, at least when those changes are non-trivial. Similarly with any formatting/spelling/grammar fixes.

[...]

I will go through the backlog this weekend and clear it out. After that I'll post guidelines on what will make my life easier - it's going to seem picky & anal in places, but I guess it's better to be picky and active than tolerant and go ages without updates.

I agree with the person above, all you're saying is completely reasonable. Decent chance I'm responsible for one of the worst LPs in your queue right now (Bravely Default SSLP), and I'd much rather do any work I can cleaning up the monster myself than have you stressing out doing it.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2019 12:16

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