Books at my door – April

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Weird order this one, I’d say.

Toll the Hounds – Steven Erikson – 1270 pages
A month ago I mail Transworld to inform them there was a mistake about the format on the page of the mass market (paperback in UK) edition of the book. I got no reply. Then the book is available on amazon.co.uk, I make my order, and a day later I read on the forums that they arbitrarily switched (AGAIN) the format to a larger one. DAMMIT! Now I have seven books in one format and one in another. Hardcovers are out of print and there isn’t one way to get this series complete in one format. They already changed the graphic of the mass market (and I got all books in the new version to have something even) now they change the damned format. There’s also absolutely no change in the way the book is set up. One could assume that they embiggen it because this is a huge book (392k words) but they just upscaled the previous format. Margins are bigger and text is bigger, the format is exactly the same, just upscaled. The decision to use a new format may also be related to the fact that when they published the hardcover they didn’t publish a trade paperback as always. So now they publish something somewhere in the middle.

It’s interesting to notice that all these three books are in the same format, also using a similar soft cover. The edition is definitely better done than classic mass market. Better paper, better cover, better binding. It looks much more solid. They are also selling it at just one pound higher, so I doubt it’s more convenient for them. But the text now is slightly too big and they could have definitely used better the space available and cut some pages.

Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson – 920 pages
Looks like a twin to Toll the Hounds, but here they used the space available. The text is tiny and fills the page (415k words in 900 pages). I decided to buy this version because I have already Quicksilver in the same style. This isn’t fantasy but it’s still epic in its own way. It also works as a “prequel” to the Baroque cycle, so I decided that I’d better start here. This book is also one of the most praised of Stephenson, and along with the full Baroque cycle will likely remain his most ambitious effort. I doubt Stephenson has equals on his field. He’s just totally insane and I crave for insane things and excessively ambitious works.

On the back cover there’s some praise talk that is quite bold:
“Mixes history and fiction in the way that Don DeLillo did in Underworld. Stephenson’s book is more successful than DeLillo’s, and much funnier.”

He is also known for having a beautiful, intelligent prose. I’ll quote the beginning of one of the first chapter as an example, even if I don’t know how representative it is, but quite a fancy introduction.

Let’s set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating
organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each
other, either by spamming their environments with rough copies of themselves, or by more direct means
which hardly need to be belabored. Most of them failed, and their genetic legacy was erased from the
universe forever, but a few found some way to survive and to propagate. After about three billion years
of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was
born, in Murdo, South Dakota, to Blanche, the wife of a Congregational preacher named Bunyan
Waterhouse. Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous
badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line
of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo–which, given the
number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of
all time. Everyone and everything that wasn’t a stupendous badass was dead.

David Copperfield – Charles Dickens – 970 pages
This should be Dickens real pageturner, so I bought it. I’m still about 170 pages into Bleak House and there are parts I like and parts that I have to struggle through. Some characters and some of the writing is pure genius. Something unparalleled still today. But I also got the impression that I understood most of the essence of the book and so it gets really redundant at times and the language is rather hard and requires to be untangled in a way that makes reading it not exactly an easy and fun task. With phrases nestled one into the other, that you start and don’t know where they end, like complex mathematical expressions. So I struggle and I go forward, knowing that if I stop I’ll never try again (as I have now both Copperfield and Great Expectations that are easier reads, without counting the multitude of other books in the reading pile). The book is still splendidly convoluted and masterly organized. It’s not Erikson but there’s plenty of foreshadowing even here and it’s interesting to notice that all descriptions aren’t just descriptions but metaphors of what is to come. It’s fascinating.

—
In the meantime I read, as I said, Bleak House (170 pages of 1000), A Game of Thrones (170 pages of 800), The Colour in the Steel (70 pages from the end) and Viriconium, but just 40-50 pages of the first novel in the book. While House of Chains (Erikson) and Reality Dysfunction (Hamilton) are sooooo tempting.

Speaking of Hamilton. I updated/recounted the wordcount of a bunch of epics (now with Hamilton and Stephenson). Hamilton’s third in the trilogy (The Naked God) is INSANE. 470k, one of the biggest books published in mass market. But I don’t want that, I want the hardcover. It’s miraculously still available. It’s huge, it has a beautiful cover. I crave it. Don’t think about buying it because there are very few copies left. And it has to be mine. My preeeecious.

George R. R. Martin and Steven Erikson

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(elaboration of a forum post)

Erikson has definitely an inhuman approach.

I’m reading Martin right now for the first time and I can assure you that the most evident difference is how he puts there the characters first, and much later the plot. In the first chapter with Bran he sets up a handy situation to present one by one all his family. Plot points and history are introduced through well placed infodumps, some of them are repeated/redundant every chapter with some more elements added so that the reader isn’t overwhelmed. In any case, even if you miss something, all the focus is on a few characters, living their life relatively unaware. Readers can connect to that, as the tricks are quite common: little boy gets puppy, little girl gets pretty horse, Sansa and Arya with sisterly rivalry and contrasting personality, adding unmotivated cruelty to move feelings. The first and foremost concern of Martin is to know where the reader stands and win him over.

Erikson gets to the plot first, characters eventually come later. Because he isn’t writing an introduction for you. You start with Bridgeburners, but you get to know them better as characters only in book 2 and 3. Martin, writing Erikson’s story, would have started presenting the Bridgeburners one by one, the plot would have come much later, with time. Instead of showing the siege of Pale from Tattersail POV, he probably would have stayed in the trenches with the Bridgeburners and use them to slowly explore the plots from their limited POV. The many of the POVs at the beginning of Martin’s book are “kids” because kids offer a simplified, unaware vision that works well as an introduction point for the reader.

What I mean is that it’s not the number of pages the problem. In fact this story written from a different perspective would take MORE pages, not less. I also think that Erikson’s way isn’t inferior to Martin’s. There isn’t one better than the other, they are just antithetic, aiming for a different result. To appreciate for their difference.

Martin will ALWAYS reach a larger public because his writing is much more approachable, making easier to connect with story and characters. Erikson, deliberately, writes in a different way and doesn’t care to win the reader over. He doesn’t care to make sympathetic characters that readers find easy to connect to. Paran and Felisin may be mistaken for that, but it’s pretty obvious how their paths make them completely alien, instead of familiar.

You can love or hate this, but you can’t mistake it for a lack of skill. Erikson isn’t trying, is non-conformist. His focus is elsewhere and works HARD to avoid making familiar, sympathetic characters. He writes to upset, disappoint and put the reader off balance. He dreads to fall in some common place or typical story. So, when he does something vaguely familiar, twists it so that it is deformed. That’s how Erikson works. He writes in spite of common feelings and writing trappings. He breaks all the rules deliberately and with deep understanding.

Many here enjoy Erikson’s plots, but can’t stand his attitude. So in the longer term they are disappointed, especially when the plot isn’t the absolute focus with its pretty fireworks and all. I may be an exception but I like Erikson for attitude first, and plot and fireworks later. I can’t predict where he goes and I’m not groaning because I see him trying hard to win my sympathy (like I do often with Martin): because he’s not a fraud. I think that the aspect I admire the most in Erikson’s writing is the absolute sincerity. I think he writes for himself more than every other writer I’ve read up to this point. So I share his intent, and follow him silently :)

Martin writes for you, and writes the story the best way to please you. The audience is the protagonist and ultimate focus. Erikson writes for himself, sincerely and without hypocrisy or desires of popularity. Without compromises. He’ll never try to do something to please a reader because that would be betraying what he is and what he does.

Some evidence of this is in the way they work. Some writers write for money or popularity. They are quite easy to recognize because after they get enough money or become popular, they lose their motivation. Martin has some of this. He struggles with the writing, doesn’t find it an easy or pleasant task. He sweats on the books. On his blog he says often that he enjoys “having written” much more than writing. This is symptom of the fact that his true moving motivation comes after, my guess is that he may enjoy more the popularity and satisfaction that comes after the book. This reflects directly in his writing style. He writes to please first and foremost and this is obvious reading his books and I’ve explained above.

I think I read in a interview that the longest vacation Erikson took between the books was ten days. He doesn’t stop writing and keeps an aggressive schedule, writing huge books almost every year. This also is reflected in his writing style. He writes in spite of the audience and I think that the real risk is that he would take his readers with so much antipathy to start doing everything possible to kick them away. I have the impression that he’s scared to meet his readers and find out they are a bunch of idiots. If he writes it is because he finds the motivation within himself only, and has demonstrated that he does absolutely nothing to meet the reader’s desires. If you follow him it is not because he dragged you forcefully down his path, but because you agreed to his work in an uncompromising way. Saying that the books and plots needed to be edited and cut is like saying that his work should be subject to manipulation in order to meet better validation. I don’t think that Erikson refuses this because of some “noble integrity”, but because that would mean lying to himself and obtain an attention he doesn’t desire.

His flaw isn’t in his skill, his flaw is being a niche writer who is exposed to a larger public than the one he writes for.

Update on Donnie Darko

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I just found out a review written by Orson Scott Card. It is quite consistent with my explanation of the movie.

He writes the best summary:

In fact, the time travel stuff is more of a smokescreen. At heart, this is the story of a young man who is doomed — and a merciful God who gives him twenty-eight days of a life that never existed, in which to become a hero and a rebel, and to find love.

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A Memory of Light rant part 4

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Discussing on the forums about the argument that too big books aren’t convenient in this economic climate and that bookshops are threatening Tor of not carrying the book (or order many less copies) because it would use up too much shelf space (and so justifying the split of the book in three), I brought a few examples with evidence of the contrary:

– The fourth book in the Wheel of Time series is still one of the best selling of the bunch today, even if it’s the biggest book.

– Tor is re-releasing Glen Cook’s Black Company books as HUGE omnibus and retiring the single-book editions. This AGAINST the will of the writer who liked better the old versions (300 pages). These new omnibus apparently sold well and more are planned to come out.

– To someone stating that Erikson’s doorstop novels weren’t selling well for Tor, at least initially, I replied that Tor is re-releasing the first book in the series as tradeback, with the original UK cover, this May.

– Tor also recently signed a deal to publish all current and upcoming books from Esslemont (Erikson’s spin-off), so proving again that Erikson is becoming quite profitable (in spite of the horrendous covers and inappropriate overall treatment at Tor).

Today someone pointed at a comment of Daniel Abraham that pretty much negates all justifications of the contrary:

For the New Fantasy Project, Tor has expressed a preference for larger volumes along the Erickson/Martin/Jordan doorstop tradition. I’m comfortable with that. There are some real advantages to the great long story that the relatively short novel doesn’t have. There are some challenges too.

As you can see, all justifications are bullshit and just an attempt to fool customers. To put all this in perspective, this is (one of) the justifications written by Sanderson:

When I’d mentioned 400k to him (Tom Doherty) once, he’d been wary. He explained to me that he felt 400k was unprintably large in today’s publishing market. Things have changed since the 90’s, and booksellers are increasingly frustrated with the fantasy genre, which tends to take up a lot of shelf space with very few books. There is constant pressure from the big chain bookstores to keep things smaller and thinner.

It’s just a convenient thing to say when your original intent is to milk a successful series for as many years to come as possible. All that is being said is secondary.

Tor: stop acting like clowns

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A Memory of Light rant part 3.

Considering how things are going, an advice to Sanderson: just shut the fuck up. It’s better.

After Tom Doherty “expressed his happiness” about how much it is cool to split a book in three (and multiply the cost for customers by the same number), and both him and Harriet tried to deceive and excuse the split by stating wrongfully that it couldn’t be made, while avoiding to answer why it couldn’t be split in two.

Now we got another blog from Sanderson explain how everyone should be grateful to Tor and Tom Doherty:

Tor is going to have to pay overtime at the printer in order to get it out in November.

SAINTS, I SAY!

How could I ever doubted of the fairness, moral integrity and dedication of a so great publisher -not publisher, SAINT- who’s willingly to pay overtime at the printers so that they could deliver this precious book to us in November? How?

How could such an extraordinary feat be achieved? Delivering a book in, let’s count, more than seven months?

I’ll tell you how. This is from Martin:

I am trying to finish the book by June. I think I can do that. If I do, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS will likely be published in September or October.

If he finishes the book in June, he expects it to be in the shops for SEPTEMBER OR OCTOBER. That’s three or four months.

Erikson is in a similar situation. He’s yet to finish the book and the publisher still aims for a release the first week of September.

INCREDIBLE! Two miracles!

Or maybe this is the kind of extraordinary feat is the norm in the industry as they are expected to do a good job, and not just a poor one. And surely those publishers aren’t going around bragging about how they can publish a book in seven months. Because doing a good work is not extraordinary, but it’s what you expect from an industry that doesn’t try to aim for mediocrity.

A Memory of Light: Follow-up to outrage

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Two aspects still stand after all the discussions on the forums and blogs:

1- I consider going above 700k excessive. Before Jordan died the book was tentatively scheduled for a late 2008 release. When he died fans expected that he was, if not near the conclusion, well into the book. So the fans were expecting another writer to be called to COMPLETE the book and fill the missing parts. Months later there was a SHOCKING revelation that no one has taken for what it meant simply out of respect. Jordan was nowhere near the end of the book. In fact he was nowhere even near the middle. He left 50k words of prose and a bunch of notes and an outline that fans suppose/hope is well detailed. The truth (and I say this because telling the truth is more respectful than telling lies) is that Jordan wouldn’t have possibly completed the book. Not a chance since he wrote 50k in two years. This means that Sanderson wasn’t going to complete some missing parts, but he was going to do the GREAT MAJORITY of the work.

Now, with the recent growth of the book to excessive levels (we moved from a target of 400k to 800k in just a few months), we are looking at a book of 800-900k against 50k written by Jordan. This can’t be anymore possibly be called “completing” a book. Not even co-writing. Since it seems that the majority of those 50k Jordan wrote are the prologue and last chapter, then it’s likely that the middle book of the new trilogy will have NO JORDAN WORDS in it. Every passing month Sanderson bit a bigger piece of the pie. If we make a proportion WITH THE WHOLE series and all eleven books Jordan wrote, Sanderson, with one book, is writing a 21.4% of the thing. More than twenty fucking percent. This isn’t about closing plot threads following Jordan’s outline, this is about taking the task to a whole new level. This is FAR from the idea of completing the book, and month after month Sanderson is taking more for himself. Way past the essence of the initial deal and respect for Jordan. It isn’t about carefully respecting the original work and write exactly what is needed to give the book a proper conclusion within what is possible with what Jordan left. It is about taking control and writing a new tangent.

Have the courage to take Jordan name off the cover. Because he is surely not the writer of THIS book.

2- I’m extremely annoyed with the rhetoric being used, including Harriet.

To the complaints about the three volumes split people across forums are replying with “it was impossible for one volume”. No one is answering WHY THE BOOK COULDN’T BE SPLIT IN TWO.

This defies logic. It’s a stupid argument and exposes a lack of truthfulness.

This piece from Harriett is offensive of intelligence:

The material that Jim left was very capacious, and Brandon saw after working with it for a while that he could not complete it in less than a total of 750,000 words. This is probably an impossible thing to bind – unless we sold it with a magnifying glass. 250,000 words is in fact a fat, or Rubensesque, novel. You will notice that 3 x 250,000 equals 750,000. So… part of the decision was based on making a book within the scope of binding technology.

The argument used to counter those who complained about the split in three is saying that the book was impossible to bind in one. So they are going to bind it in three.

“You will notice that 3 x 250,000 equals 750,000”? No. I notice that you are bullshitting me. Why, if the book couldn’t be done in one, couldn’t it be done in two? Why aren’t you answering that?

Because this is also a fraud. Because this is a deceit and “impossible thing to bind” is, obviously, NOT the TRUE reason behind the split. That’s all. And they are too cowards to admit what is the true reason. Hypocrites.

– Those are the two main points. If Jordan wrote 50k and an outline, then writing 900k means going WAY BEYOND the original intent Sanderson was given. Secondly, while the split in two was justified by a so huge book, a split in three is just evidence of publisher’s greed that trumps respect for a writer to whom they owe a lot.

Quotes from the forums:

Stego: The man stood up from his seat and shouted to a room of fans that it would be one more book, he raised his voice louder and gesticulated and stated that if it had to be the size of three phone books, so be it. He would make sure it happened, publishers be damned.

When I asked him about it later, he stated that no matter what happened, no matter what he had to do, he would make sure it was only one more book. What is hard to grasp about that? TOR and Sanderson are going against his wishes.

Have you read the garbled ramblings that were The Wheel of Time 7-10? TOR would let him get away with anything. But now that he’s dead, they feel as if they can do whatever they damn well choose.

Gyrehead: I guess my point is, for good or ill, this is no longer Robert Jordan’s A Memory of Light but rather the Estate of Robert Jordan’s A Memory of Light. If Sanderson was comign in to fill in the blanks it would be one thing. But he’s not. He is essentially writing the book with a leaping off point of Jordan’s overall scheme and a few passages already written. That is it. This book is for Jordan. Or more for Tor making money and the bleating fans who long before Jordan was even ill fretted and moaned and wet themselves in frustration as to when the series would be finished. Not how. Not how well. But just when. Now they get their wish. Because “finishing” the series is what was the most important thing. In fact such comments exist in this thread. Neverminding the head in the sand approach to the fact that the series will remain unfinished in terms of Robert Jordan writing the book and getting his clearly grandiosely deluded belief it would be one book (especially as Jordan in Atlanta was already talking about over 1200 pages post-manuscript publishing before he did more than organize the files he had left over from the last book).

I respect Jordan’s work. I even had a liking for him despite his overinflated opinion of himself. Mainly because even with all his one book more foolishness before he even put pen to paper (Jordan was the last author that should have written to order), he still took all his fame and glory as a writer as a huge unexpected privilege and never ever took that for granted. And I will even read Sanderson’s Tor Inhouse fanboi special franchised “ending”. But in terms of respecting Jordan’s wishes? Well that train left the station long ago since Tor went aahead with Harriet’s guidance and input and took the route of having Sanderon write the book. Write the book. Not edit it . Write it. The fact that the book will bear Jordan as “author” smacks more of V.C. Andrews than it doesn’t. It is Brandon Sanderson trying to pretend to be Robert Jordan and hoping that all those fans who just wanted it done no matter what , no matter by what author, will line up, baa quietly and pony up the lucre for the tome no matter how thick and no matter many volumes it takes. This was about Tor managing to make a profit and a very concerted effort to just please fans eager to suck at the teat of WoT even if it is wetnurse offering the pap. Worrying about Jordan’s wishes? Even if he had written it in full or significant part? WEll why does he get that accord? I mean WoT as it is, is still my favorite series as a whole. And it no doubt will remain so for some time to come if not in perpetuity. But I still think silly posturing and blowhard over expectations deserve to be ignored politely. Whether it is a living deluded guru like Goodkind or an author I feel we lost well before his time like Jordan. death doesn’t turn stupid, or at least in this cae foolishness, into sanctity.

I should say that regardless of the above, I think that Tor shouldn’t make any decisions until Sanderson finishes the whole book. Because it should be treated as a whole book no matter how many volumes it takes to do the final book. The approach now in what is being reported is that even with a “natural” cut off point that Sanderson seems so happy about, it ceases to become a single volume even in spirit if he stops writing.

A Memory of Light: a mountain of bullshit

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I knew I was right when I said that bad rumors were true rumors, and to expect pointless justifications.

Here’s the press release:

Harriet McDougal said on the process behind A Memory of Light: “The scope and size of the novel was such that it could not be contained in a single volume.

Bullshit.

President and Publisher of Tor Books, Tom Doherty, also expressed his happiness with A Memory of Light, saying: “It is a magnificent closure to a great American epic fantasy whose journey began almost twenty years ago. There is no way Robert Jordan would have squeezed it to a single volume, and somehow it seems fitting that what began as a trilogy will also end as one.”

Unrespectful bullshit.

Followed by Brandon Sanderson own long apology list:

By this point, I’d already warned Tom and Harriet that I saw the length being very large, but I hadn’t told Tom the 700-800k number. When I’d mentioned 400k to him once, he’d been wary. He explained to me that he felt 400k was unprintably large in today’s publishing market.

Bullshit. Their catalog is filled with similar unprintable books, even bigger.

Tom and I were on a panel together, talking about AMoL. I noted that (by that point) I had around 250k written. He said something like “Ah, so you’re almost done!” I looked chagrined and said “Actually, I feel that I’m only about 1/3 of the way there, Tom.” He blinked, shocked, and then laughed a full bellied laugh. “It’s happening again!” he exclaimed. “Jim sold me one book that somehow became three, and now it’s happening again!”

Said while his eyes were turning into dollar symbols. What an awesome way to milk all those stupid fans out there!

I started to lobby Harriet subtly, pointing out that previous Wheel of Time books had been 380k, and perhaps that would be a good length for each Volume of AMOL, if it was cut.

It is quite obvious that a book exceeding 500k is getting unhandy. I have Atlas Shrugged that is 600k crammed in 1000 pages. The book actually still sells a lot (for all the idiot claims about too long books), but it’s unhandy. You could add more pages and adjust the typeset for a better result, but I’d put a limit at 500k or so.

What ISN’T obvious at all is that A Memory of Light needed 800k. This is bullshit. This is about a writer and a publisher capering in the air to find the fanciest justification for just one thing: greed.

Greed to put the hands on someone else’s work and make it one’s own. Greed for money. Greed for publicity and attention. It’s taking advantage of someone else’s work.

One thing is to take up the job, read carefully all that is written, and try to complete the book the best way as possible. Another is to start enjoying being part of the process and decide to go all over the place. Because you feel that what you are writing is now entirely yours. And so start to see all the possibilities and enjoy adding whatever you want. The bigger the book, the more “Brandon Sanderson”‘s property grows, owning more and more of the series. He isn’t anymore a guest. He wants to be co-owner. Every month he takes another chunks and justifies another growth. Every month he asks more and rises the stakes.

800k taken out the 50k or so Jordan left isn’t anymore completing a book. It’s writing a new tangent that goes in a totally different direction.

800k doesn’t mean “cool, that gets us three books”. 800k screams for something gone wrong.

800k doesn’t mean “write more, we have three volumes to fill now”. It means, okay let’s make two. Whatever goes beyond, needs to be cut.

Boycott A Memory of Light. Do not buy it.

Confidence in Brandon Sanderson doing a good job: -100%

Saying that this is the book Jordan wanted to write is the same as saying that Kevin J. Anderson’s Dune books are the books Frank Herbert would have written.

WoW reached its peak, will decline now. Smart people at GDC are cheating you.

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1- Blizzard has no competition and they don’t need to try anymore to stay ahead. There isn’t any need to fight even on the last thousands of players. They win, everyone else lost. Game over.

The patches are getting slower and more insubstantial, filled with pages of convoluted class changes. It’s quite obvious that the there’s no creative push behind this and that they are only trying to please the current many subscribers, especially the ones still heavily invested in the game. There is no attempt to reach further.

It’s also quite obvious that resources are being moved. A while ago Blizzard was only working on WoW. Now they have WoW, Starcraft, Diablo and another MMO project. They were never able to do more than one thing at once and now the focus will start to shift. As always in this industry you only see the effect of what happens behind the scenes a few years later. It starts now, the effect will come later.

The lead designer, Jeff Kaplan, left WoW to move on the new project. We know only of the public figures but it is obvious that he is followed by many more that work in the back.

WoW is now in the (un)capable hands of Kalgan. Have fun.

2- Lum quoted various pieces from a conference (where industry people only go to feel proud, boast their cultivated shortsightedness, feel validated among equals, avoid challenges, avoid reality, shake hands, and whose game design relevance is a negative number) where Jeff Kaplan talks about quest design. Jeff Kaplan is in my “good guys book” and I’m not entirely sure if he was mocking the audience thinking that they would only grasp the superficial level anyway, and so talk in a language they could understand.

It’s not the specific of what he says to be wrong, it’s the overall sense. I only read Lum quotes but those ideas were considered good ideas “on paper” that revealed to be poor in practice. Bottom line: these ideas should be avoided.

That’s a wrong conclusion. Wrong interpretation. It’s about trying to understand aspects of the game with only one rigid model. That’s the inner flaw. It’s not in the quest ideas, it’s in the approach.

Everyone of those examples isn’t just a “good idea on paper”. Gone bad in practice. Why? Because it obviously was a bad idea even in paper? Nope. It was a possibly good idea with an inappropriate execution.

That’s the point: good ideas with bad execution. All of them.

Take the example of the quest in Stranglethorn. The idea is cool. It is also not an obligatory quest, so if you don’t like the added layers you can always skip it. Where’s the big flaw of that quest? Not in the concept. It’s in the limits of the inventory. So. You may solve the problem by erasing the quest entirely. Or you may fix the one problem. In this case you could create a container object that takes 1 slot in the inventory and that can contain all the parts that can be then taken and sold in the auction, traded or whatever.

“For a single quest to consume 19 spaces in your bags is just ridiculous.”

That’s right. That’s why you solve the one problem, as the cool concept behind the quest wasn’t to consume all those spaces, but to create an economy and add a new layer.

Now this is an example, but every one else following is the seed of the same consideration: inappropriate quest concepts because they don’t fit the standard framework. Not BAD quest concepts. Just quest concepts that step out of the limited tools given.

Problem is the framework, not the material. The problem is execution, not quest concepts. Given that implementation, the quest didn’t work. But this doesn’t make it an universally bad quest that wouldn’t or can’t work in other cases.

The “quest chains” aren’t bad because of what they are. They are bad because the quest UI is standardized and doesn’t support them properly (in fact the only way to see even a short chain quest is to use MODs like Wowhead). It’s again a flaw in the framework. You are bringing creative ideas to a framework that doesn’t support them. Either you dump all creative quest concepts, or you invest in programmers that expand the framework to support new quest types properly. But, again, the rigidness of a framework is the real true cause of a good or bad idea applied to it. Its context.

So enjoy your GDC. Either I’m overestimating Kaplan, or he was there just to deceive you with apparent sincerity. He keeps the good lessons (solutions) for himself.

P.S.
Ubiq on this as well. That would lead to think that he doesn’t get it either, but look further, deeper. That’s the hidden war he’s doing to Bioware. His purpose is there. Nowadays when devs have an hard time to impose themselves internally, they rant externally.

Famous Last (Lost) Words

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Damon Lindelof talking about Lost (TV) mythology, some time ago:

“We’re still trying to be … firmly ensconced in the world of science fact,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think we’ve shown anything on the show yet … that has no rational explanation in the real world that we all function within. We certainly hint at psychic phenomena, happenstance and … things being in a place where they probably shouldn’t be. But nothing is flat-out impossible. There are no spaceships. There isn’t any time travel.”

Then I guess I’m quite right when I said that Lost degraded into a silly sci-fi hack as an excuse to pan the plot further.

The last season is entirely a jump on the place. No going forward. The last episode (“He’s Our You”) was splendidly written and executed. But it was also a fraud.

There’s only one true theme in this show, self-referential and metalinguistic: it’s about the vanity of its writers. It’s about how much and for how long they can cheat you.

Masterful work.