06-22-2020, 12:24 AM
There are a lot more things to cover as far as telling the story goes.
At times, it's a lot more difficult to keep writing a cohesive story of a certain kind because something unexpected can happen to it - for all you know, you can be looking for a conclusion of certain story, but another player goes AFK, has a sudden shift in IC (whether justified or not is entirely different story), or people just lose interest over time in general. It's a lot easier to just sit down and write a book in which you narrate what happens and how it happens, but this isn't a book.
This is a place where everybody contributes a piece of their own story. Sometimes, as result, it turns into a mess.
In my opinion, one of the biggest flaws as to why this keeps happening is what Tattles said - the story rarely has a satisfying climax and conclusion, but in my opinion, I attribute the fact that certain arcs can be often ham-fisted before another even came to conclusion. I remember the time when Spires had Dawn v Huangzhou climax coming up - whatever side would lose, it's honestly whatever at that point, but...
Suddenly, vampires arrive in the middle of that war arc.
Bear with me in this, because I'm talking from my own perspective. As someone who benefited from arriving vampires more than getting harm (see: alliance of Dawn), I'd say the addition of vampires was very poorly timed. We had Dawn v Huangzhou soon to be coming to resolution, then... suddenly vampires are shoved in. Suddenly, Dawn and Huangzhou are united against common enemy - sure, you can argue it's a good twist, but in the end it prolonged time as everyone was trying to survive (for understandable reasons), and it gave an unnecessary powerspike to Dawn that dragged out this war even further. The same was arrival of Demi-Angels, honestly - but this time, a powerspike to Huangzhou. You can argue Demi-Angels were their own entities, and they were, but they were also allies to Huangzhou.
Then we had Moonfall Witches arc pre-timeskip.
It was announced practically out of nowhere. Syndicate arc never saw true resolution, and it just fell flat out of sudden (despite its members still lingering after) - while plenty players from there went AFK, I do not blame them. Being Syndicate at a time was rough and poorly organized in general, and there were many issues with that in general, but before we could get any Syndicate resolution given (be it narrated or otherwise), we already had influx of witches.
Are you beginning to see pattern? Not yet? Very well.
Same about Barsburg & Meteorite. After the resolution of war between cities, we had Barsburg arc to look forward to. I'm more than certain a lot of people were going to enjoy it - but it just didn't really go anywhere. Before we knew it, a sudden introduction of Meteorite. After seeing the coming results of it, this could be broken down as Nebula's showdown (which is okay to draw resolution to her), but..
After that, not much. Two arcs, stacked on top of each other. Just like Dawn v Huangzhou arc with arrival of vampires, and then demi-angels. Just like Osrona v Syndicate, with arrival of Moonfall shoved in.
The point I'm trying to make is that arcs never see any real resolution for the most part, and it often becomes convoluted mess in which the short attention span is fed into for the sake of having more things - but it does not create the climax that people are looking for, or the appropriate end to something.
TL;DR
Arcs should end proper before new one is introduced. They should also have more of a build-up (preferably a bit more public), before they're suddenly dropped onto everyone. Note that it does not have to be obvious - subtle build up is okay too. It creates the smooth episodes, where the veiled threat starts to appear (people don't know what it is yet), then the thing arrives, and then we kick it off from there - only to reach climax of the story and its resolution.
This would help having these episodes.
At least that's how I see it.
At times, it's a lot more difficult to keep writing a cohesive story of a certain kind because something unexpected can happen to it - for all you know, you can be looking for a conclusion of certain story, but another player goes AFK, has a sudden shift in IC (whether justified or not is entirely different story), or people just lose interest over time in general. It's a lot easier to just sit down and write a book in which you narrate what happens and how it happens, but this isn't a book.
This is a place where everybody contributes a piece of their own story. Sometimes, as result, it turns into a mess.
In my opinion, one of the biggest flaws as to why this keeps happening is what Tattles said - the story rarely has a satisfying climax and conclusion, but in my opinion, I attribute the fact that certain arcs can be often ham-fisted before another even came to conclusion. I remember the time when Spires had Dawn v Huangzhou climax coming up - whatever side would lose, it's honestly whatever at that point, but...
Suddenly, vampires arrive in the middle of that war arc.
Bear with me in this, because I'm talking from my own perspective. As someone who benefited from arriving vampires more than getting harm (see: alliance of Dawn), I'd say the addition of vampires was very poorly timed. We had Dawn v Huangzhou soon to be coming to resolution, then... suddenly vampires are shoved in. Suddenly, Dawn and Huangzhou are united against common enemy - sure, you can argue it's a good twist, but in the end it prolonged time as everyone was trying to survive (for understandable reasons), and it gave an unnecessary powerspike to Dawn that dragged out this war even further. The same was arrival of Demi-Angels, honestly - but this time, a powerspike to Huangzhou. You can argue Demi-Angels were their own entities, and they were, but they were also allies to Huangzhou.
Then we had Moonfall Witches arc pre-timeskip.
It was announced practically out of nowhere. Syndicate arc never saw true resolution, and it just fell flat out of sudden (despite its members still lingering after) - while plenty players from there went AFK, I do not blame them. Being Syndicate at a time was rough and poorly organized in general, and there were many issues with that in general, but before we could get any Syndicate resolution given (be it narrated or otherwise), we already had influx of witches.
Are you beginning to see pattern? Not yet? Very well.
Same about Barsburg & Meteorite. After the resolution of war between cities, we had Barsburg arc to look forward to. I'm more than certain a lot of people were going to enjoy it - but it just didn't really go anywhere. Before we knew it, a sudden introduction of Meteorite. After seeing the coming results of it, this could be broken down as Nebula's showdown (which is okay to draw resolution to her), but..
After that, not much. Two arcs, stacked on top of each other. Just like Dawn v Huangzhou arc with arrival of vampires, and then demi-angels. Just like Osrona v Syndicate, with arrival of Moonfall shoved in.
The point I'm trying to make is that arcs never see any real resolution for the most part, and it often becomes convoluted mess in which the short attention span is fed into for the sake of having more things - but it does not create the climax that people are looking for, or the appropriate end to something.
TL;DR
Arcs should end proper before new one is introduced. They should also have more of a build-up (preferably a bit more public), before they're suddenly dropped onto everyone. Note that it does not have to be obvious - subtle build up is okay too. It creates the smooth episodes, where the veiled threat starts to appear (people don't know what it is yet), then the thing arrives, and then we kick it off from there - only to reach climax of the story and its resolution.
This would help having these episodes.
At least that's how I see it.