Wytefang said:

SF: tournament held by a megalomaniac. people come beat each other up to then try and beat up the megalomaniac who invited them to get beat up by him. a jamaican who nobody invited in thrown into the mix.

SC: people fighting over weapons infected with the t-virus.

samsho: samurais fighting. one dude's 9'2" but fights like he's 4'5"

darkstalkers: monsters fighting

KoF: everyone fight. and some people are god.

so... some very interesting stuff here. yeah, SW can't possibly be interesting at all since we have these to compare it to.
(before the slings and arrows: i really like the KoF universe, soooooo much story there, but i had to be evenhanded in my hatespeech)

The story is slightly interesting but the writing is bad in my opinion. It would be better to just giving stats and basic backgrounds on each character. Leave the storytelling to a novelist or manga/comic writer.

GouHadou said:

GouHadou said:

You forgot american ninja acts like a scubalker.

GouHadou said:

This post amused me most highly. Particularly non-invited Jamaican. KoF has a ridiculously long but awesome story, wheee!

Anyway. So far, things are looking pretty good. Needs more "evil" characters, but that's about it.

Well, that, and a Zhao Daiyu bio.

I'm interested in Shadowar but I wish they would have started from a spot beyond the typical Asian sphere of influence. We have set after set dealing with a mostly Asian cast, let's toss in the Vikings, Indians, and Aztecs already.

...How in the heck is this a GENERIC setting anyways?

You know, if it didn't have a completely different name, I might have been confused and thought this was a rip off of Shadowfist.

A new storie is up. its about Astrid. BLOODY ASTRID <3

also i lol'ed each time i i've seen "Zi REN"

Admiral Ren said:

are you british? the astrid story is slightly beter, and adds more evil charceters, but the righting is still sub par.

trane said:

sub par writing?

...............................................

did you know that blanka's fighting style is capoeira? because he's from brazil.... and that's one of the nation's prevailing martial arts. the fact that he fights like a hoppedup monkey didn't cause anyone to maybe RESEARCH what the hell capoeira is before branding him with a fighting style that gave birth to modern breakdancing - not curling up into a ball and flinging yourself at your opponent.

GouHadou said:

in my opinion.

trane said:

Irreverent Post of the Day :

PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SPELL CHECK. YOU COULDN'T LOOK MORE RETARDED RIGHT NOW IF YOU WERE TYPING IN ALL CAPS!

Also, lol at Ren being any sort of English speaking nationality. Just... lol. It'd be like calling Tiger Woods an Asian.

...

Whaddaya mean he totally is!?

* * *

Forums ate my comments, but here they are in tl;dr format

More proofreading, and this was definitly of lower quality than the Padma/Lu Chen fight. Still it involved the non-Asian cast (for once) and as such I'm **** glad it did get up.

trane said:

I was trying to think of some smart remark to reply to this. Insead I decided to quote Trane from this fine thread .

trane said:

Practice what you preach.

Allow me to show my enthusiasm that the Shadowar product has graced me with.

*ahem*

wheeeeeee

As much as I wish I could be, I'm not particularly interested in any of the characters except two (that being Astrid and Rashotep for mythology reasons, not actual characters themselves) and to be honest, the storyline writing is well, boring. It's not even that it's sub-par writing (which it is). Sub-par writing could still equate to somewhat interesting storyline, where while it was poorly worded, I am at least eager to hear more about a character and their life story, in a better written form at least. These characters are ridiculous stereotypes, and until an African tribal shaman with an afro appears, I'm probably not going to be all that interested in it.

Thanks a lot Steve me and the guys had a blast this week we hope to get one more session next week with you and we are now working on part one hopefully we can get that out in a week or so .

Actually starting to look forward to this set. Sub-par writing is being thrown around a bit and while the is a bit clumsy people have to be a little more forgiving. This is their first stab at full on world building after all.

Phoenix Guard said:

Honestly, no, we don't have to be more forgiving. This is their attempt to give us a reason to believe this property will be as awesome as promised. Personally, so far, they haven't done so at all. Granted, I'm not the typical person they need to reel in with this property, but I couldn't see anyone not already sold on the premise be convinced of it's potential with the last two stories.

Well I was already interested in ShadoWar before the stories were coming out so there ya go. I'm just surprised at how many people are so overly negative on the fledling material considering that before this they didn't have to worry about storyline since it was provided by the licensed franchise. There was a demand for more background on the set and it was given but apparently it's not meeting the expectations people had for it. It feels very much like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

Now for straight simple truth: Are the stories somewhat bland? Yes. But again this would be their first attempt at fleshing out a world so there are going be some hiccups in the beginning.

Is this their attempt to give us a reason to believe this property will be as awesome as promised? No. This is an attempt to please all those who wanted more info on ShadoWar. Which as I stated before seems to not be quite what everyone was expecting.

I was hesitant to fall in to the crowd who found the forums to be overly negative but **** it seems like there's truth to it after all. I've been on forums for other games and i've only seen this kind of overwhelming bile is from trolls. Needless to say I think i'll be lurking for a good long while after this.

Phoenix Guard said:

You DO know I was the chief person who wanted more info on this property? For a while, all we kept hearing was "It's gonna be great! It's gonna be awesome! Just you see!" Well, I wanted to hear more. What I've heard doesn't please me so far. Then again I could never really get past the name, I mean, ShadoWar with the W joining the two words? Ugh. Still, I was (and still am) willing to give it a chance if only because we've really seen what, two parts of the world and even then that's only Northern Europe and Eastern Asia. We've yet to see Egypt get fleshed out (and considering that, just for his fighting style alone, it contains what could become my favorite character - Rashotep, I may be biased on that front), we've yet to see Continental Europe get fleshed out, maybe even the New World (imagine that - ShadoWar expansion of the actual ShadoWar slipping in the New World. So many things to cover, so little time.)

And unlike Stevie Richards, when they show us, we don't see (then again he got canned last year so...). At least, not for now. I'll still cover the ShadoWar stuff that comes out as soon as I'm aware they're out. Let's just hope that my expectations are fulfilled. If you believe me negative on this project, it will be far worse if my already slightly lowered expectations aren't exactly met.

Besides, we got something positive out of the deal : SNAKE BLING THROWING. Which is awesome.

Phoenix Guard said:

Were Marvel Comics bland when they first started? Same with DC? What about a Norah Jones book (not that I like them)? My point is, it's quite possible if you try, then you will create a great story/world on the first go. All you really need is a decent writer and editor, which unfortunatly these folks don't seem to have.

As for the attempt to please us nay sayers and rabble rousers, it doesn't seem to be working does it? Giving us grade nine style English short stories aren't exactly pleasing to a non grade nine audience, which I'm fairly certain the vast majority of UFS players are.

Cheers,

Brad

Um... I dunno, Twilight Imperium has a fair bit of background. So I'd disagree w/ anyone who claims this is their first attempt. Regardless, from the start this has seemed generic and unnessacary. If they are going to go the route they seem to be following with Shadowar, they really should have hired a proffesional writer. Which might have been more expensive then acquiring a new license. I really think they'd have been better served financially by going after another license then by putting out a half-assed generic house IP.

I'm not real excited about it... I want to see more new properties that are still familar to me, I posted a list in another forum with all the ones I'd like to see.

aslum said:

Excuse me but Rich Wulf IS a professional writer, if I'm not mistaken he was part of the storyline behind L5R... at least in the beginning

Zoldyk said:

You're not mistaken. I've been recently looking at some L5R stuff, and noticed Rich's name on all of the L5R fiction I've been reading.

Antigoth said:

This makes the second piece just that much worse in my opinion. I could have understood if the man didn't have prior experience, but having worked on L5R and then this? I don't want to libel anyone, but the Astrid story screams to me "I just phoned it in."