The New Adventures Of FELICITY

So, it's now confirmed(a reminder for me more than anyone else). A raging debate has existed in my mind for several months now, one that came to a head with defined and outlined goals to carry through 2012. But adding to that, Felicity is coming home.

What does this mean?

• It means The New Adventures Of Felicity(TNAOF) will be restructured and re-written to allow for a page-by-page delivery on 99reasonstowin.com. 

• It means TNAOF will be a colour comic and no longer break the trend set by previous Issues.

• It means TNAOF storylines will be spread over the course of months, giving readers something new to see each week and myself a less daunting and impossible challenge.

• It means TNAOF will have an updated and tweaked artstyle and will focus much more on character stories given the narrative room the delivery format presents.

• It means 99reasonstowin will be optimised for maxium reader use and the original Issue 1 and 2 will be ported to the page-by-page format for those unable to read it as a flash book.

What does this not mean?

• It does not mean this will happen immediately, The website will require restructuring, the scripts will need re-written and the work itself will not hit the website until I have a substantial 'safety cushion' of pages made.

• It does not mean Felicity Issue 1 and 2 will be void or re-written, TNAOF will carry on the story from where those Issues left off, including touching on and concluding threads and subplots contained in the original Issue 3.

• It does not mean immediate new pages will be Felicity Issue 3 split up, the new format will mean tweaking original narrative ideas and therefore will be tailored specifically for the new delivery, presenting what I hope will be a motive to want to read each new page.

• It does not mean that TNAOF will continue on forever and become a never ending webcomic, it will still reach natural 'Chapter' conclusions, much like current Issues and will stop at a natural and obvious point.

• It does not mean I will abandon any of my original 2012 goals in favour of this, all of my original goals take priority and I have approached this conclusion with enough careful thought that I will achieve my ambitions.

Why didn't you do this all along, ya great big berk?

Short-sided ambition. For which I can only apologise. I wanted the best for it and making a website from scratch that had full collected size volumes available for free, presented in the coolest way possible for the easiest user experience was all I cared about, eventually getting in the way of problems I'd run into.

Over the years some comments from friends and readers have shown me the light, I've learnt to reel back that ambition and have since learnt so much about my own limits thanks to Issue 3. Presenting page-by-page will have its own challenges but nothing compared to what I've battled before.

Thanks to all Felicity readers, thanks for all the waves of support and the questions during its absence. And to those readers old enough to remember the PSTP days, I may sound like I'm repeating myself here but trust me- I will follow through.

Quoting Chasity herself;


"I...I can't. I can't give up Felicity. She's my life. I've put everything into her."

-Adam

Ol'Red

A very long time ago I used to play Neverwinter Nights pretty much every weekend, with a regular party of mates. We'd play user made 'modules' which were essentially brand new stories and areas to explore and we'd role-play along the way. One of the party members was an artist, with a wealth of experience in modding the game, including re-writing scripts to allow for new features and injecting his own user-made content like models. He (after a very vast amount of badgering from me) eventually created a model based on my old character at the time; Zepher.

To this day it's still one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me, having my own character in the game was like a dream come true at the time. As I was developing my comic for Zepher; Broken Falcon I was also using this freshly made model in our NeverWinter Party. This led to me creating two separate versions of the character with some overlapping story elements. 'NWN' Zepher was much more hard-edge and world weary and from role-playing the character I was able to craft insane amounts of lore and fiction towards my comic.

As it happens, the artist responsible for the model popped up on my blog here recently, inspiring me to feel a bit nostalgic and design 'NWN' Zepher as he'd exist today, were we still going on those adventures!

-Adam.

Valiance

Couple more Scoundrels warm ups I did over the last weeks and months. Just to help capture the correct elements for the character.

-T

Feebos Farlay

My Scoundrels story will feature all manner of superbly handsome aliens.

Mass Effect 3 : Raise the stakes.

Mass Effect 3 is a big deal for me.

As I'm sat typing this, a week from today I will be a few hours into my adventure to somehow stop the Reapers from destroying the galaxy. And I can't wait. I wanted to talk about thoughts I've had on what will create a great end to my Shepards story.

My Choices. Mainly; Punish them.

I Role-played alot throughout Mass Effect 1 & 2. We have a lot of games today that give us the option of moral choices and decisions, as well as the option to create an avatar but I have always preferred to create a character and make the choices that make sense for them, as opposed to creating myself and choosing what I would feel or think. For me, Commander Shepard is a spacer; she was born on a ship and has spent more time aboard vessels than on solid ground. Her parents have been with the Alliance all her life so she spent her life growing up around warfare. It makes sense to me that she'd have joined the Alliance given her history and that she'd be a capable solider- capable enough to have survived the Skyllian Blitz, becoming a war hero prior the the events of Mass Effect 1.

Now!

As an extension, I figured; no one would climb to the rank of Commander by being a dick. So I played Paragon. I always tried my best to save as many lives as I could, to be diplomatic and to solve problems without pulling a gun on my enemies. It just made sense for my character.

For ME3, I don't want every one of those 'Paragon' decisions to have been the right one in the longrun. If I let a murderer go to prison instead of shooting him- let it come back and bite me in the ass, make him escape and hurt more people because of what I did. I want to know that there's no good decision that makes everything alright. This is the final game with no going back, having tough story elements hit Shepard would be great for the future decisions I have to make in ME3, I'd feel more pressure to see the bigger picture.

Kill someone we Love.

One of the highlights in Dragon Age 2 for me was the moment my sister Bethany was taken from me. To explain; She was my little sister, I protected her through various encounters and events, I had been through a lot with her in the earliest parts of the game. She was a mage and I was a warrior, I had built her stats into healing and she was a vital part of my attack strategy. I couldn't get through fights without her.

As the story progressed we were about to set off on a dangerous mission when our mother, having just lost our father and brother, pleaded with me not to take Bethany with me. She grew upset and desperately begged me to listen, not wanting to lose the only loved ones she had left. I truly felt emotionally connected at this moment- I didn't want to upset my mother because her reasons were completely justified, however I knew without Bethany my own chances of survival were slim. In the end I forced Bethany to stay behind and carried on without her.

It was a horrendously tough mission, I emerged hours later barely holding together but pleased with the spoils we'd found. I returned to find Templars surrounding my house. This was immediately worrying as Mages in the world of Dragon Age are hunted for basically being, crimes against God- for having magical abilities. In the game up until this point we have learned that mages forced into 'The Circle' are reduced to nothing but vacant bodies, void of emotion and functioning only as a slave to Templars will. I immediately thought of Bethany.

When I entered my home the game presented me with a choice, my sister was being dragged away by Templars to join 'the Circle'; to await a fate worse than death. I chose the option to fight the Templars, I chose the option to keep my promise to protect my sister but she wouldn't let me. I was forced to let her go and lost her participation in the game from that point onward.

This was incredible for a lot of reasons, yes, I admit a big one was the fact I had no dedicated healer(which from a gameplay point of view made the game much more challenging)but throughout the game to follow, I felt my blood boil when I encountered any Templars. Every one I killed was one more for Bethany. I changed my point of view on events, I chose a side- the Mages, I freed every Mage the game would allow me to and I destroyed any one who opposed Mages.

ME3 should do this aswell. Alot of us care greatly about the characters in Mass Effect and we've had two games to get to know some of them. My Shepard romanced no one in ME1 and Garrus in ME2. He's one of her oldest friends, they've been through alot and he was a permanent choice of Squadmate for me in both games- it made sense for me that she'd choose him.

Now if Garrus were to die in ME3? And I don't mean die like they could in ME2 right at the end, I mean early game- he's dead. You can't save him, he dies in your arms.

That would properly upset me but I kind of want that to happen. No part of me wants Shepard to lose the war or for the Reapers to win but sacrifices have to be made. I can only imagine the pain my Shepard would feel becoming an immense power for the battles ahead. It would really rub a lot of people up the wrong way but I've seen it done so right in Dragon Age 2, It'd be a bittersweet moment for me if I had to watch a character I truly love die. You have to ask yourself why Shepard is even fighting the war against the Reapers, a war they can't win. Is it for Humanity? Or the Galaxy? Or so they can spend their life with that one person?

Ultimately, I can't see what ME3 has instore until I play it. I won't be disappointed if all my choices were the right ones and if Garrus and Shepard live happily ever after but I feel like the stakes need to be so high, it needs to get personal and Shepard needs to grow as a person as they fight the fight. I think it'd be a fitting end to have the galaxy saved(somehow!)but with a lot of wounds left to heal.

-Rant Out!

You are what you wear.

I've made a post detailing the character design for "Prey Valiance" whose story will be my input to Scoundrels later this year.

-Adam

Doodle Debate

As practice for something else I have in mind, I cropped a segment of my Podcast and added some stills to visualise the discussion.

-Adam.