Beta 0 Released

The next problem, however, is that avatars don’t die easily.

Now, for example, Beragamos is incarnated and his body can actually die. However, he’s powerful enough that he’d just reform a mana body upon death of the body, just like all the other avatars currently have.

They are pure energy beings, and centuries old, they regenerate and can immediately heal as Tom did. So you really need to get them down on the ropes or use soul sucking magic.

BTW, they will be vulnerable again, once this magic is known, people will keep using it. Exador will certainly be using this against his enemies. When he realized that people were relaying, he began thinking of using an oscillating mechanism that would flip between blocking local and off plane links. If you get the time right, the people inside won’t be able to reestablish their links fast enough. I.e. you break the connection, they try to reset to the other route and then it gets broken.

I don’t think he can realistically do it, live, in battle. He’s no Lenamare, after all, but he will be thinking about it between battles.

[quote=Iume;5267]Basically the Rupert/Fer Rog, the Tal Gar, and Ragala-nargoloth parts.

Also, the Inferno scenes unless it is actually going somewhere in this book.I presume it meant to be part of an as-of-yet unread cliffhanger but since that cliffhanger moment hasn’t happened…

Basically these journeys happen and only minimally intersect with Tom’s story, and then…they just end.Right now they are more like separate stories rather than an interwoven tale and that was RJ’s sin.I skipped the boring stories a character had within each book and stuck to the interesting ones.[/quote]

I agree on RJ, it really drove me nuts, and I am having trouble keeping it together. There are reasons for all of these things, but making them relevant in any single book is very difficult.

This is one reason for CoW:ITA, move some stuff into separate books.

The problem with this is making sure readers know what books go where, and what order do you need to read in?

Plus, the other point to these stories is so you get the other side’s perspective.

So in large part the Jenn & Hilda stories are to show you what “the others are doing”

Jenn/Tal Gor etc that will come in to play the next book as the battle with the elves heats up. Something that I had thought would be more in this book (hence Apostles of Doom).

However, in the HH Beta, we moved both the Storm Lords and Knights of Chaos up to inject excitement, that pulls the Dark Apostle story forward and pushes the Nimbus/Elves back.

So, this answers the other thing people don’t like: The short attention span/short sections. This is designed to avoid RJSyndrome, and not let people zone out due to impatience.

[quote=Iume;5308]The big things that still need to be handled in this book:
– Talarius’s final resolution
– Jenn
– Inferno (unless moved to Bk4)
– Tiernon’s choice
– Doomalogue journey (unless moved to Into the Wilds) need to actually reach the base of the volcanos.Maybe not restart, but at least reach and find occupants.Then in Tom needs to make a choice.Support his own people or support deals/oaths made with allied forces?[/quote]

I am not sure on the Talarius final resolution, or what you mean specifically, I sort of see that as hanging. He’s battling things out, but I would see aftermath in book 4

Yes, Jenn and the Tal Gor wrap up. Do we want Jenn’s epiphany in this book? Or should it slide. It almost has to happen during the battle or close to it.

Does the Inferno need a wrap? At this point, they are off searching again. Do they feel like they are hanging too much, assuming they stay here.

What was Tiernon’s choice? You mean on Sentir Fallon? If so, that’s going to get complicated by Sentir’s storyline, he may be need to find a new employer….

Doomalogue Journey is Book 4…CoA:ITA is a completely new story line that intersects with this story line. The first intersection of which has already happened in this book. There will be more interaction in Book 4. I see it as intersecting and then maybe splitting off, criss crossing.

Unfortunately, the real Apostles of Doom story sort of got away from this book. Stuff that was supposed to happen here is getting postponed by Nysegard and the Storm Lords.

As far as sliding things, at this point, if it helps us build a better climax to stay focused on the battle, I am willing to let concurrent stuff elsewhere (like Jenn, Inferno) slide into book 4 and back date those sections like I did at the beginning of those books.

Lots of options on the table.

Great stuff!

Going to go over in the morning!

Thanks

So thinking more on this, and it’s tied to balancing many factors, “getting down and dirty” with the battle has these key problems for me.

1) Before Doom arrives, I don’t have that many POV’s on the ground to observe down and dirty battle. I basically have Teragdor, I could add Rasmeth, and I could do Leighton soon.

2) There is a real problem when dealing with super powered combatants in mass combat. I have to make it believable, but not overwhelming (or its a Cakewalk) so I need to balance big things on both sides.

2b) What we sort of have here is symmetrical-asymetrical warfare. Both sides have some very big hitters that can do massive damage to little guys, (once Orcus shows up). Blood and guts is much easier to do for the guys in the trenches. Things like the battles for the Doomalogues are easier/going to be easier. This huge combat, with a bazillion little guys on both sides and potentially devastating hitters on both sides is much harder to believable balance.

And to be honest, that’s a lot of what’s been holding me up on getting to this point: How to deal with symmetrically-asymmetric warfare.

It is much easier to describe at a distance than up close and personal in a situation like this.