LitRPG

Void said:

Read all 4 currently available Ripple System books, and goddamn I want more. I could read 50 more books exactly like those. Compared to most litrpg I was also suddenly aware of how fucking well edited they were. No typos, no grammar issues, no repeated words/phrases, etc. This was the equivalent of a AAA game production, but in an indie game. All 4 of the books too, not just the most recent.

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Sounds cool, I might look it up. It's narrated by Travis Baldree, who I really like but am kind of tired of audio books from him. Every old guy sounds like Artorian from Dakota Krout's Divine Dungeon universe.

Now that I've read some ~10 litrpg / fantasy progression series over the last few years (some finished, some not) I've noticed something disconcerting: I'll never care about or enjoy a book as much when I return to it later than when I first binged the released books.

I went back to and read the latest on Mother of Learning and Primal Hunter, and am currently reading the latest Cradle book and have been thinking about that. I don't care about Cradle nearly as much when I consecutively read them and kind of regret not waiting until they were all released to start.

Conversely, I'd say that most litrpg books that become popular enough to get on my radar will either drag on forever until they are stale and repetitive (Like Artorian's Archives...) or will simply never conclude even if they are consistently good. So if I only read finished series I'm filtering out a ton of good content.

velk said:

Heh, I ain't saying they are world of warcraft fanfiction, but when the final big bad turns out to be the Activision legal team, no-one will be surprised 8)

They are good fun though, well written and one of the few stories about a game where it actually feels like a game, and the numbers make sense.

The real world stuff is a bit of a weakpoint though I think, not much about it makes a lot of sense - like Kline's customer service skills wouldn't let him last as the CEO of his kid sister's lemonade stand, let alone a gaming company. The guild are on the fence about spending a week helping with a quest in exchange for each of them getting a $400,000 gaming rig, but throw in a week's pay and some pizza and they are all over that offer ?

You could make some of the argument about the dissenters in the first raid - 'Well, apart from the $400k rig, and the headstart, and the pay, and the free food, what have you done for us lately?' has a bit less bite when it's literally 24hours later. I am almost certain no-one is *that* much of a loot whore, although humanity never ceases to surprise with how dumb people can be ;p. I actually like that bit though, because it is pretty original, and has a high chance of working under normal circumstances - there are a shitload of people who would fuck over their raid in exchange for exclusive loot. Hell, some guilds would have everyone defect.

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Yeah, the real world stuff is mostly just hand-waved away, which I'm fine with since that's not the focus of the story. I like that they mention it slightly, because everyone except the main character log out and do real world shit once in awhile, reminding you that it is a game and not yet another "System" story. And sure, the fact that Ned hasn't logged out once is pretty ridiculous even with the "next gen pod" that apparently feeds you and sucks your shit out or something, but we aren't reading for real world stuff, so I'm cool with that. I appreciate that he even did the hand-waving, because a lot of authors would just forget all about it. Frank has even commented that House is probably wiping his ass right that second, so at least they bring it up on occasion.

I also sort of appreciate that they haven't told us who anyone is outside of the game (except for the PVP guild leader guy that is a dentist, Sleepy maybe? oh, and the streamer guy that is Ned's nemesis) because for quite awhile I thought that Darling was going to end up being some elderly chick or near cripple where the pods finally allowed her to be young again, but then they mentioned how she got their mom to wake up Nina, which (along with how she acts) sort of indicates Nina is fairly young and Darling not too much older. Although, it would be pretty hilarious if Frank were lusting after an octogenarian or something.

Ritley said:

That reminded me of one of my favorite parts of the last book. Sleep telling the story about the crazy dude and “the toll has been paid” was great

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Yeah, I forget that guy's name, but he's just another example of awesome characters filling out the world without stealing the attention. Remember he also asked Ned's blood type, and when he told him he was a universal donor he said something along the lines of "Nope, that won't work." No fucking reason given, no follow-up, just went on with his day.

I sort of put Nina in that category too, just with less insanity.

Void said:

Dungeon Crawler Carl 6 was great, more of the same if you like it already.

Read all 4 currently available Ripple System books, and goddamn I want more. I could read 50 more books exactly like those. Compared to most litrpg I was also suddenly aware of how fucking well edited they were. No typos, no grammar issues, no repeated words/phrases, etc. This was the equivalent of a AAA game production, but in an indie game. All 4 of the books too, not just the most recent.

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How do you tolerate Ned being such a complete piece of shit?

I can get that it's intentional but God damn. I want the guy to just die. Durr lets make a main character in a LitRPG literally a pay to win loser who inherited immense wealth and is bored. In addition to having a super advanced one of a kind AI that he also inherited from his Wall Street Raider father. Yeah this is a guy I want to see succeed.

TJT said:

How do you tolerate Ned being such a complete piece of shit?

I can get that it's intentional but God damn. I want the guy to just die. Durr lets make a main character in a LitRPG literally a pay to win loser who inherited immense wealth and is bored. In addition to having a super advanced one of a kind AI that he also inherited from his Wall Street Raider father. Yeah this is a guy I want to see succeed.

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Well, he doesn't bother me as much as he obviously bothers you, so that's a start. But the rest of the characters are what make the story for me. I'm able to get past the initial HORRIBLE background of the main character because it seemed to me like it was more of a story crutch to get the ball rolling and introduce everything else. I don't love Ned, but I don't really hate him either because I rarely think about what his actual backstory is. Sure, if I'm forced to analyze it, I hate him, but I'm not usually forced to, and I can sort of push it out of my mind. I'd definitely prefer that he have a better origin and was someone I truly liked, like Carl perhaps, but honestly the vast majority of the characters in these books are pieces of shit or "gotta get stronger" cardboard cutouts, so to me Ned is at least slightly different. But it is the nature of the "game" in the Ripple System books that really matters to me, because it is truly just a game, not some System ripoff that I've seen dozens of times already.

And Frank's level of awesome sort of overshadows everyone else in the entire series, so it works enough for me.

Frank is a great character, along with the other side characters, and the books are very well edited. No doubt about that.

But having to deal with Ned just shits it up. Things where he gets on Tyrann's case for "ruining the game for everyone" because the dude wants to make some datamining site like MMOChampion and use Frank to do it. Like that on its face is fine but then you have to hear Ned bitch about it because he wants everyone to "be able to feel the sense of discovery and not just read a website" while he's using an omniscient AI to tell him exactly what to do and where to go at all times. Even if said AI is snarky and funny. That shit is just painful to read.

That is before we get into his other servant AI that has to be completely handicapped by the game to even be somewhat fair.

TJT said:

Frank is a great character, along with the other side characters, and the books are very well edited. No doubt about that.

But having to deal with Ned just shits it up. Things where he gets on Tyrann's case for "ruining the game for everyone" because the dude wants to make some datamining site like MMOChampion and use Frank to do it. Like that on its face is fine but then you have to hear Ned bitch about it because he wants everyone to "be able to feel the sense of discovery and not just read a website" while he's using an omniscient AI to tell him exactly what to do and where to go at all times. Even if said AI is snarky and funny. That shit is just painful to read.

That is before we get into his other servant AI that has to be completely handicapped by the game to even be somewhat fair.

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You wouldn't be trying to take House's cats away from her, are you??

Seriously though, I get it. I guess I'm able to gloss over this particular shitty main character better than I can most shitty main characters, because I like all the other stuff around him better than most books. Trust me, if it were all Ned all the time and nothing else appealing, I'd have put the book down immediately. Some of the other series that have gone on for years and many books are sort of reaching that point for me, where it is like 90% the main character striving to gain power and meditating to consolidate those gains and blah blah, and none of the side characters matter much anymore. Defiance of the Fall is one in particular, love a bunch of the side characters, didn't even hate the main character at first, but now it is all him just "gaining" and I start to wonder what's the point?

So yeah, I get it. I can just overlook Ned for now. Maybe one day I will be fed up with him too. I don't begrudge you not being able to stand him, as he's not a great character at all.

Woefully Inept said:

It's always hard listening to the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl book and then going back to any other litrpg book. This series is just on another level compared to just about everything else in the genre I've listened to.

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I'm halfway through it now. It really is on another level in so many ways.

Me after getting caught up on all my book series and trying to decide the next series I'm going to read.



Anyway, I'm reading Awaken Online. It starts with a prologue that spoils some portion of the start of the book, FUCK. Whatever I read until I get to where the prologue is boring and has no suspense. To anyone who has read it, fuck off and don't say anything about it to me.

That's the exact same thing I do. I forced myself to read a couple of old favorites (Swan Song by Robert McCammon being one) just to mix it up a bit, but for the most part a new installment of one of the numerous shitrpg series is always releasing around the time I finish the last one, and of course I pick that one instead. I've even got 2 or 3 preemptively downloaded on my Kindle.