FozzieBare: Blog

The Spring tournament has begun, and things are going to get difficult for our heroes.

Then they're going to get WEIRD.

Fair warning, this is a tournament arc, so the next chapters necessarily describe what happens at a tournament. Somewhat more action heavy than past chapters.

I think it's good.

Oh, and one minor spoiler:

Chapter 10 has the incident which has Amy complain to Adrian why they keep getting the whackos with poor impulse control.

(evil grins)

Basically, what the title says. Two more chapters going up.

Plus, I'm about to give you a "coming later" preview of a side-story set in the same universe as the Reforged stories:

The working title is "RONIN : A World of WarMachines Online Side-Story"

Nathan Cole is nineteen years old. A promising trainee on a Pro League team. He's so good that his team wants to sign him to a full contract. But they want more than his signature. They want obedience to their rigid methods, and they're willing to make his life hell to get it.

They want him broken to their system or forgotten. He chose neither of them.

Now he's been kicked out. Worse yet, he can't sign for another team. No team support. No place to live. No place to train. He can't even tell folks who he was.

His career hangs in the balance.

He can't go home. He can't go back to his team.

He's a Ronin. A masterless warrior.

And he'll do whatever he can to survive, including mercenary work in World of WarMachines Online's Universe-at-War mode.

It's no way for a teenager to make a living. It might not even be a way to survive. Will this Ronin rise? Or fall and be forgotten?

There are too many people who want to see him fail. There are people who want him to succeed. People willing to help him find his way.

Now, if only they can convince him that support doesn't mean obligation...

I am not sure I will be awake/coherent Wednesday evening, so, just in case, I'll drop 4 chapters of Arc 4 today. If all goes well, I'll continue normally on Wednesday, but I don't want you guys missing a beat.

edit: As an added bonus, for those of you who use SOL's option to download books, you now have custom covers for all 4 Arcs

Here's the Blog post on the scoring system and the announcement that posting the story begins tomorrow: As promised, the first two chapters of World of WarMachines Arc 4: Team Reforged "Vegas, Baby!" is going up friday evening.

The current plan is two chapters, three days a week. Probably Friday, Monday, Wednesday.

So, the story has ballooned even further than I thought.

I thought I would come in around 90-100,000 words in my last post. I'm about to write the final two chapters and epilogue, and I'm already crashing through the 110,000 mark.

To put that in perspective, parts 2 and 3 COMBINED are less than arc 4.

By the time I get done with Arc 4, it'll probably be more than Arcs 1-3 combined.

I'll probably take at least a month off World of WarMachines at that point, just to get back to some of my other stories. (yes, to those who asked about FTMD, they're resting. They're still around ;))

Let me know what you want to have priority.

Also, I wanted to talk about the Team scoring system for World of WarMachines matches, which Arc 4 has several of.

A World of WarMachines League or Tournament is broken up into five rounds, featuring four categories of fights. You win a round, you get points. The team with the most points win the match.

The Duel Round: This is a winner stays on format. Five fighters on each team. One member of each team starts the duel round. The losing team immediately sends in its next duelist, while the winning duelist stays on. Crucially, they keep all the damage they've accumulated. So, it may not just be enough to win, but margin of victory is important too. There are repair pylons, but they're slow. You won't be on the verge of destruction, win a fight, and get healed up automagically. And the other team's pilot is going to be hunting you immediately.

The winning team receives one point for every pilot they had remaining at the end of the round. So if you destroy all five of the opponents and lose three of your pilots, you score two points.

The 4v4 Round consists of two 4v4 fights, meaning there are four members of each team fighting at the same time. Unlike the duel round, there's no substitutes waiting. Each 4v4 is worth two points each (so four points in total are available in the 4v4 round)

There is a brief halftime after the 4v4 fights.

Then there's two more group battles.

The first is 6v6, or "The Platoon Round". Worth three points.

The final round is called the Mass Battle. It is the largest fight, with twelve pilots on a team. It's worth five points.

And if you do the math, it's possible to get a tie. The league has a tie-breaking round, which I won't go into right now. But pay attention. It might be necessary.

Players can participate in only three of the four rounds, and can't fight in both 4v4 fights. This is to prevent players from being overused and one great pilot carrying a mediocre team to victory.

Pay attention to that part, too. It might also be necessary.

I'm wrapping up the writing for Arc 4 of World of WarMachines. It's acquired a new title.

Arc 4: Team Reforged: Vegas, Baby

Why the change in Arc title?

Because Vegas is where the action lives, and where Reforged will be.

And here's the craziest thing about it.

I've split my original plan for Arc 4 in half, or possibly even a third. The story has grown so much.

I'm just about done writing the Arc 4 as it stands.

And I'm estimating this will come out at somewhere between ninety and one hundred thousand words.

Needless to say, I'm excited to start posting it. There's a part of me that wants to begin now. But I know people want to know that a story is finished before I start posting it.

So, I will offer this instead.

I intend to publish two chapters at a time, three times a week. Right now, that gives me a little more than two weeks of posting. Right now, I'm planning to start posting on Friday.

But as a teaser, later this week, I'll post a little something that explains the scoring system used in the matches that Reforged will be participating in.

And for those of you who are afraid that this story will be dry and lacking the funniness of past parts, this was actually something I typed into the document at one point, just as an amusement to myself.

Amy shook her head. “Will someone tell me why we still get all the whackos with poor impulse control?”

Adrian turned and faced the author: "I'm thinking mostly it's because (FozzieBare) hates us and wants us to suffer by making us deal with lunatics all the time"

(Don't worry, the fourth wall break will NOT be in the final document. Although Amy does ask Adrian that question after an incident during one of their matches)