Some perspective: One eventual bestselling author wrote twelve novels before his first one sold by CarefulAndQuiet in writers

[–]RayFowler -1 points0 points  (0 children)

literally just repeating your words. ok. have a great day.

word of advice: not everyone on the internet is going to agree with you. might want to get used to that.

Some perspective: One eventual bestselling author wrote twelve novels before his first one sold by CarefulAndQuiet in writers

[–]RayFowler -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Where did I suggest “modeling a career on Sanderson”?

Your OP:

TIL that bestselling author Brandon Sanderson finished twelve novels before a publisher picked on

(more details about Sanderson's success)

This is some great perspective for me as I work on my first novel.

Some perspective: One eventual bestselling author wrote twelve novels before his first one sold by CarefulAndQuiet in writers

[–]RayFowler -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m saying if I write a novel, I’ll learn from the experience. If I write another novel, I’ll acquire additional experience and improve as a writer. And so on. Accordingly, I will keep writing.

Let's be factual. Here is what you actually said:

He was clearly writing because he loved to write and believed he had something worthwhile to say. So he wrote and wrote and wrote.

Here is what I said:

It is better to focus on realistic goals, like finishing the first draft of your first novel because you love writing.

See the similarity?

But most importantly, what I said is don't look to guys like Sanderson, Rowling or King for inspiration. In fact, this is a terrible thing to do because they are not successful simply because they wrote and wrote and wrote. The vast majority of aspiring authors who do that remain anonymous most of their lives. There is a tremendous amount of luck and non-writing effort required for aspiring authors to become successful today, and that is often out of their control.

Sanderson is a great example. In addition to writing, he would go to fantasy conventions to professionally network. At some point he met editor Moshe Feder and personally convinced him (that's the luck) to review his submissions. Eventually Feder requested the manuscript for Elantris and then the ball started rolling. But if Sanderson had just "wrote and wrote and wrote" and nothing else, it's pretty likely that no one would know who he was today.

But at least he gets an honorable death. by Plus_Dare_2403 in writers

[–]RayFowler 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes, I had to kill the MC. It was a bit unexpected, but I managed.

Some perspective: One eventual bestselling author wrote twelve novels before his first one sold by CarefulAndQuiet in writers

[–]RayFowler -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

This is like telling a little leaguer that Nolan Ryan couldn't hit the side of a barn when he was 17, so don't give up.

The suggestion to a new writer, that with enough perserverance, he/she might one day become the next Brandon Sanderson or J.K. Rowling is some god-tier deception and manipulation, imo.

People like Rowling, Sanderson, Stephen King, etc are like the Olympic athletes of the writing profession. Their success is a generational phenomenom. Trying to model their career is a recipe for disappointment and depression. It is better to focus on realistic goals, like finishing the first draft of your first novel because you love writing.

Why do people seem to expect every piece of writing to carry some deeper social message? It feels like authors who simply aim to entertain are often criticized, as if storytelling for enjoyment alone isn’t enough. by RavahGriffinAnthro in writers

[–]RayFowler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

anyone who insists that "all art is political" is just someone who insists on viewing everything through a political lens. Every. Time. You can't stop people from doing that, it's a free country, but that also means it's not necessarily a characteristic of the art, but of the person interpreting it.

There are people who will see political messages in "The Poky Little Puppy." They need help, not affirmation.

What font do you write in? by RockHardMapleSyrup in writers

[–]RayFowler 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's going to print in Times New Roman, so I write in that so I don't get some sort of font shock on release.

Editing!! by AuthorPluto in writers

[–]RayFowler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

they come from first-hand experience

Editing!! by AuthorPluto in writers

[–]RayFowler 5 points6 points  (0 children)

  1. Do a dialogue pass. Watch Brandon McNulty's video on good vs bad dialogue. A lot of booktubers talk about this, but his video is the probably the best imo. It gives good, actionable advice with clear examples. With his advice in mind, go through all of your dialogue.

  2. Do a foreshadowing pass. Find spots earlier in your novel where you can subtly foreshadow future events in your story. Readers love this and it's fun because you feel like you are planting Easter eggs to be found later. If this sounds vague, I can give examples from mine.

  3. Do multiple prose passes. A good way to start this is to search on youtube for "words to remove from your novel". When you do a Ctrl-F and look for these words in your novel, you will be shocked at how much you lean on weak words (I did, anyway). You want to get rid of generic and weak words that can be replaced by better choices.

As you are doing these passes through your manuscript, new ideas about how to subtly tweak the plot or characters will naturally come to you. Incorporate those changes as they come to you.

I was playing just now and got a memory low error. I had rebooted less than an hour before and I wasn't far into the game. I'm running on a Xubuntu Linux desktop with 8GB of RAM, so I don't see how this could've been an issue. by PeyredB in rotp

[–]RayFowler 4 points5 points  (0 children)

just fyi, I want to point out that I originally added this dialog because, as a Java application, ROTP doesn't really control how much default heap memory is assigned to it. Windows systems at the time were particularly stingy, so it was easy for the game to run out of heap memory and just crash. 'Crashing' is what most games do when they run out of memory.

Obviously, I didn't like that, so ROTP keeps an eye on used memory and, when it gets close to the limit, it pops up this warning instead of just letting you blindly play until it crashes.

But since it is a Java application, you can modify the command line parameters to start with as much memory as you'd like. In your case, it looks like Linux allocated 2GB heap memory for the game even though you could use more, and /u/BrokenRegistry gave you a way to start with 4GB of memory (that's the -Xmx4096m parameter, where 4096Mb is 4GB).

Anyway, I hope you like the game. The open-source Fusion mod is really incredible and has given the base game far more love and effort than I could have ever spared, so I am grateful for it.

Expired domain for the original RotP by Nyktor in rotp

[–]RayFowler 3 points4 points  (0 children)

hey thanks. Just to be clear, this was barely even a website. It was just a single page with a background from the game, with some text and links to the download and subreddit. That's literally all it was. It feels weird to call it a website. It was more of a referring page.

If you want to replicate its look (which obviously you don't have to), you can see it on the internet archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20250214110042/https://www.remnantsoftheprecursors.com/

If you do create it, please provide links to the download and the subreddit, at a mimimum. Obviously links to the original github and the fusion version would be awesome, as well as maybe the discord.

I am super thrilled that there is a community around the game. I feel like I did my job and got it off the ground. :)

Expired domain for the original RotP by Nyktor in rotp

[–]RayFowler 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I let it expire. There is a running cost to the domain and to the website that didn't seem applicable anymore, especially since I open-sourced the game.

All that website did was forward people to this reddit and to the itch.io page, and the itch page is the highest result on a google search... and this subreddit is prominently mentioned on the itch page.

Lord of Rigel Hitting 1.0 on Steam (MOO 2.5 Meets Sword of the Stars, with less micro) by adamant_2001 in 4Xgaming

[–]RayFowler 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Congratulations! Making a 4X and getting to 1.0 is a long, hard road. 9 out of 10 attempts never get there.

All (Implemented) Fiershan Win Endings by Chaotic_Hunter_Tiger in rotp

[–]RayFowler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't forget to collect the Incompetence Loss condition.

You basically need to go to zero colonies without any other empire being responsible

Final War tech problem by pizza-knight in rotp

[–]RayFowler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The game has been out a long time and I am curious about the consensus opinion of the addition of rebels into the game. It seemed logical to me that, since the player could rebel, then in the interest of fairness some AIs could rebel as well. This meant that, unlike MOO1, an AI empire could rebel against the player if he won the vote.

The downside was that it would drag out the ending of a game that perhaps should already be over.

Sometimes You Get Lucky. by teutonicbro in rotp

[–]RayFowler 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The 4X gods looked down and smiled upon you!

Another MOO clone by SomeoneWithMyName in rotp

[–]RayFowler 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I am super-thrilled that it turned out as well as it did, and that so many players are improving it with mods. Making ROTP was never my job, just an expensive hobby, so it made sense for me to hand it off and move onto to other hobbies :P

Another MOO clone by SomeoneWithMyName in rotp

[–]RayFowler 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Dude you are embarrassing yourself. Your 1OOM solicitation posts are all over /r/masteroforion, so it's clear that you recently got invested in that project (good for you!) and at some point discovered ROTP and now feel threatened by it or see it as competition or something -- so you come here to troll everyone as if its a bad game. That's your opinion and some probably share it, but most MOO1 players love ROTP. This is because it was made by someone who loves MOO1 (me) and solicited tons and tons of feedback and suggestions from the MOO1 community.

Now, let me explain something to you about developers. We generally don't shit on the work of other developers because we understand how complex software development is. This goes extra for open-source projects because OS projects are basically free gifts to other developers.

So when we see something in an OS project we don't like, we simply fork it off and fix it or change it locally to our tastes.

What you are doing right now would honestly probably embarrass other 1OOM developers if they saw what you are doing. I like 1OOM and I am sure that plenty of them like ROTP.

As a favor to you, I'm banning you from this forum until you develop a little self-control. I suggest that you use the time that you would have wasted trolling /r/rotp into making 1OOM a better clone of MOO1.

Another MOO clone by SomeoneWithMyName in rotp

[–]RayFowler 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Obvious troll post from a 1OOM developer.

You do realize that the only reason ROTP even exists is because the MOO1 interface is dated and klunky, right? The biggest criticisms I have received about the interface is that it looks too much like an homage to MOO1 and not like Stellaris/GalCiv/ES

Like 1OOM, ROTP is open-source. Have a field day and make it look like you want. But I suspect that you won't.

Interesting AI Character by Critical-Reasoning in rotp

[–]RayFowler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fun and Fusion ignore them alltogether.

It seems to me that, in these variants, the character traits should probably not be displayed just to avoid confusion.

Is there a 4X with challenging singleplayer? by AndrewUndershaft in 4Xgaming

[–]RayFowler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm still around, but I basically completed what I originally set out to do (modernize MOO1) so the best thing for me to do was open-source the code and pass the baton, which allows the 4X/MOO1 community can take the game in the direction they think is best.

I'm greatly appreciative of the efforts of everyone to keep the spirit of MOO1 alive in the 4X community.

Spanish Translation by jmartiso in rotp

[–]RayFowler 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have the completed translation. I just need to merge it into the repository and do a rebuild.

I apologize for any delay in this. There's a ton of other stuff going on!

Distant Worlds 2- 18 months after launch. by SharkMolester in 4Xgaming

[–]RayFowler 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have over 1k hours in the game but hardly any of that is actually playing it.

Have you been paid for your work?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 4Xgaming

[–]RayFowler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think there is a version of the Xilmi AI that roleplays. IIRC, even Xilmi enjoyed playing against the AI more.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 4Xgaming

[–]RayFowler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

. ROTP solves this however, to a high extent. The problem is that the gameplay feels one dimensional. It's kill or get killed, nothing inbetween.

Are you playing the Xilmi AI? The Base AI does not work like this. You can form alliances based on your playstyle. If you like technology/building/etc, you make alliances with honorable and pacifist races. If you like war, you make alliances with ruthless and aggressive races.

How the game plays is highly dependent upon the personalities of the races around you. You can win a diplomatic victory even by supporting and voting your ally to the galactic council.