OOTS 1328: Facing Rules

[hamishspence]

1328 Facing Rules - Giant in the Playground Games

Nice moment from Nale.

 

[Voadam]

I thought for a moment he was going to gank Sabine instead of Thog.

 

[James Gasik]

I think I like the new Nale.

 

[Celebrim]

Bringing Nale back is I think the first big narrative misstep in the OotS. I feel like this final "book" is dragging out too long and the pacing is slowing to a crawl, and Nale already had a story with good closure. Bringing him back feels extraneous as it's time now to be bringing the PC's narrative arcs to conclusion, and Nale is just muddying up the finale that already has too many moving parts.

 

[Rabulias]

I liked how "Facing Rules" had two double meanings in this strip.

Bringing Nale back is I think the first big narrative misstep in the OotS. I feel like this final "book" is dragging out too long and the pacing is slowing to a crawl, and Nale already had a story with good closure. Bringing him back feels extraneous as it's time now to be bringing the PC's narrative arcs to conclusion, and Nale is just muddying up the finale that already has too many moving parts.

I feel the slow pace of release makes the story feel slow. I read through the strips again recently and the pacing felt fine. YMMV.

As for Nale, I agree that Nale's previous ending was satisfactory, but I have faith in Rich and his storytelling. This strip shows both Rich and Nale are not going for the same "Nale poses as Elan" scheme, so we should see something different.

 

[Deset Gled]

Bringing Nale back is I think the first big narrative misstep in the OotS. I feel like this final "book" is dragging out too long and the pacing is slowing to a crawl, and Nale already had a story with good closure. Bringing him back feels extraneous as it's time now to be bringing the PC's narrative arcs to conclusion, and Nale is just muddying up the finale that already has too many moving parts.

At this point I file OotS under the same category as Song of Ice and Fire or Name of the Wind. No intention of concluding anything, and so much empty movement has happened that even if they sneak in endings to an earlier plot it will be devoid of meaning.

I will enter this thread about OotS episode 888 from 2013 as evidence: OotS 888

 

[The Firebird]

At this point I file OotS under the same category as Song of Ice and Fire or Name of the Wind. No intention of concluding anything, and so much empty movement has happened that even if they sneak in endings to an earlier plot it will be devoid of meaning.

I will enter this thread about OotS episode 888 from 2013 as evidence: OotS 888

I don't agree here. Definitely the pace is quite slow, but it's still making meaningful progress. Maybe we just can't see the progress for those other properties...but as you say, there were complaints back in 2013. Blood Runs in the Family was a lot slower than previous books; Don't Split the Party took not much more than a year while Blood Runs in the Family took 5. Utterly Dwarfed took another 5.

There's been another slowdown; we're almost 5 years in and the last book is clearly not final. But we're about 130 strips in. For previous book sizes, that's about halfway. The last one might be longer, but then we'd be about a third.

Anyway, the worries about pacing before didn't stop Blood Runs or Utterly Dwarfed from being completed, and they haven't stopped progress here. And I agree that the pacing feels good when reading through directly. Blood Runs is the best of the series, imo.