Criticize the above nation

[The Lordship of Trokondas]

-vlorp?-

Okay, I'm so sorry if these aren't the sorta criticisms you'd want, but I couldn't think of any that were actually bad or anything.
1. Upon learning how close you came to becoming SG, I wished I could've been around at the time, it just seems like it'd be something kinda cool to experience.
2. Not something necessarily specific to you, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it in other contexts, but it's never nice to see you make some post that's just fantastic, and then see someone just completely disappoint with something or other that could literally apply to anyone, and just realizing that they almost certainly haven't read your factbooks or anything is just frustrating.
3. Seriously, its so hard thinking of stuff to say critical about you.
4. I think it'd be cool to see some pictures identifiably taken by you (not saying you should be in the picture, just that it's clear you're taking credit for them). This is less a criticism of you, and more a criticism of your lack of them.
5. Final critique: I seriously spent, like, 10 minutes trying to figure out a good one, and... I still couldn't come up with one, so sorry but my final critique'll be that the idea that you're in the military is incredibly shocking considering how friendly and peaceful all your nations and characters tend to be. Like, I'm still pretty shook by this one, and that's definitely the most critiuqe-able thing I could think of, sorry.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

I see that you feel like Shakespeare when you incidentally rhyme, and I relate. Do you ever incidentally speak in iambic pentameter? Grrrr!!!^tm

[Khoronzon]

Nearly all of your posts in this thread are thinly-veiled compliments because you're too nice to genuinely express disapproval. Grrrr!!!^tm

Also, the infobox in your overview looks pretty weird and messy, I have to admit. Between the broken [hr] tags, the excessive width, the blank location image, and the positioning and spoilering of the flag and seal, it could really use some cleaning up.

[Kiu Ghesik]

1) I get that for a certain measure of things the Khoronzonite logos are meant to be rather... painful... to look at, but some of the more swimming, severe ones actually make me nauseous if I look at them for too long. You miiiiiiiiight consider toning down the effects a bit.

2) I'm also aware that you make quite a bit of art on the side to use as images in your factbooks, and- this is more of a compliment- it's all really good. It matches your aesthetics very nicely and I can tell that you've put a lot of care into it. However, and while I'm aware it might be infeasible at this point since some of the images might've been lost, it might be cool to put a heads-up as to which ones are yours and which ones are other peoples'. I think, for example, that Saehr's picture as a child is yours, but it's such a good piece that I'm unsure that similar pieces to it aren't actually yours. Like... the ones on the race and caste page, are the example pictures for each caste yours? They might be, they seem similar to your style, but I can't really tell because the common elements could be another artist's style that just happened to match your aesthetic- I hope I'm communicating the problem. Essentially I think your work is so good that it starts to blur with professional artists' stuff, and some compiled credits might be cool just so we're aware of that. Or don't, it's not too important in the big scheme of things.

3) Not sure if this is intentional or not but there's a rather significant gap between the flag of each power and its informational stuff on the World page- see here for what I mean. I think it's intentional since it very clearly matches with the factbook's aesthetics but I feel like it's also perhaps too big, as the negative space starts to become very plainly noticeable on screens that aren't widescreen.

4) Less a criticism and more just an idea that I had, but for Introduction I had the idea that you might consider converting the image to a .png and replacing the lowest portion of the gradient with uncolored pixels, like how Synne's managed to make the link to the RSI hub on his new homepage work. I took the liberty of having a go at it in paint.net and managed to make a rough sort of idea of how it might be made to work. The gradient being darkened wouldn't be a problem there, I think. I've tested it and if the image tag is placed directly after the background-block tag there won't be a thin sliver at the top. That might solve your problem. You could do that for the bottom one as well, I think.

5) Your anchor format. It uses the url=#anchor style with the janky transitions instead of the url=factbookurl#anchor style with the smooth scroll. This is a grievous sin. Your life is forfeit. Oh, and it might be wise to move the anchors just a line or two above where you'd like them to be- with your current setup clicking on the anchor will uniformly produce this, where the NS header cuts off the top of the section's text header- since NS scrolls to the bottom of the [raw] line the anchor is on, the top of the text is not shown. It's a minor thing but something I fixate on, since my brain is so detail-oriented. Sorry about that.

And that's it, I suppose. Great work but man do I have nitpicks with certain things.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

I love you, KG, and how you always put so much effort into your posts. But it is okay to only write one paragraph. Sometimes 'tis overwhelming and/or daunting...Grrrr!!!^tm

[Kiu Ghesik]

I love you, KG, and how you always put so much effort into your posts. But it is okay to only write one paragraph. Sometimes 'tis overwhelming and/or daunting...Grrrr!!!^tm

Remember- only you can stop good people from being shafted with one-liners. Write an effortpost for your favorite F7 posters today.

/skip

[The Lordship of Trokondas]

I love you, KG, and how you always put so much effort into your posts. But it is okay to only write one paragraph. Sometimes 'tis overwhelming and/or daunting...Grrrr!!!^tm

I don't want to say too much, but sometimes it'd be nice to just get something more. Also, while it's very clear you're a good writer, it has recently begun to feel like you're bored with writing Alastair and just posting in general, and I hope you get back into the groove soon.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

I love you, KG, and how you always put so much effort into your posts. But it is okay to only write one paragraph. Sometimes 'tis overwhelming and/or daunting...Grrrr!!!^tm

I don't want to say too much, but sometimes it'd be nice to just get something more. Also, while it's very clear you're a good writer, it has recently begun to feel like you're bored with writing Alastair and just posting in general, and I hope you get back into the groove soon.

Oof...if I am out of it, then yes, I hope I get back into the groove, too. Which parts of my writings/posts seem lacking, or like I got bored? I do really like Allie as a character, and I am not bored of writing about him. But I don't want things to get too repetitive or dull when I write them.
/Skip

[Kiu Ghesik]

I love you, KG, and how you always put so much effort into your posts. But it is okay to only write one paragraph. Sometimes 'tis overwhelming and/or daunting...Grrrr!!!^tm

I don't want to say too much, but sometimes it'd be nice to just get something more. Also, while it's very clear you're a good writer, it has recently begun to feel like you're bored with writing Alastair and just posting in general, and I hope you get back into the groove soon.

why did you blank your sig it was nice waa i hate change

So, um, I'm wracking my mind and I can't find anything. This is just such a great nation at what it does, I mean, I could ask for better formatting but why? It's not something that it needs to tell its story, and writing's your strong suit, anyways. So, I suppose I'll criticize one nitpick specifically- the digital art for Euphrosyne could be better rendered as a spoiler with the image inside. I understand you can't hotlink images from DA thanks to its formatting, but you could copy it to your desktop, upload it through imgbb, and then use this code:

Code: Select all

[url=URLTODAPAGEHERE][img]IMGBBLINKHERE[/img][/url]

and put it inside of a spoiler like you did the others just to increase consistency across the page and avoid having the out-of-place hotlink there. The hotlink image would be in the spoiler anyways.

[Baizou]

why did you blank your sig it was nice waa i hate change

I was wondering the same thing. ^^;

So, howdy, Kiu! Thanks for the advice and pointers you've given me. I'm not quite as BBCode-savvy as you, but maybe I can at least point out a few things from the audience's point of view? All these things are pretty minor, but might make some kind of difference.

1. "(Reply to this message)" in Your Messages is not by sight obvisouly clickable. If someone doesn't mouse over it, they might accidentally miss it. I feel it'd help it if was a different color; not necessarily green, but still different from the body text.

2. I caveat this by saying that I know this is asking a lot, but would it be possible to include anchor links in the footnotes that take the reader back to where they were in the body text, Wikipedia-style? It seems a shame that I click on a footnote, only to experience tactile disconnect because there isn't a good way to get back to my place in the body text.

3. it's a little jarring to see © symbols at the bottom of Sacha's Valkyries pages. It feels a little too... familiar? Like, is Copyright law really going to be the same, and use the same © symbol in this distant, post-a-lot-of-things future? I guess it's sort of like, you never see a © symbol on a datapad screen in Star Trek, yeah, even though it's also in earth's future? It's not because they wouldn't have some kind of law about copyright protection; it's because it pulls us out of the illusion. Footnotes and wikis feel timeless. The © symbol feels like a product of our modern moment.

4. Speaking of Sacha's Valkyries pages, they seem to be missing "return to hub"-type links. Obviously, it's all still massively WIP, so that's no surprise, but it did leave me a little stranded as I was exploring.

5. This may just be lazy of me, and if you think so, that's okay—but I think it would help to have an out-of-character overview-in-brief somewhere, like you have for Kiu Ghesik. The OOC Note on the front page does talk about Liam's Reach and how it's split into "dozens of petty, squabbling powers," but knowing the number of factions is still not much insight or info on what those powers are. I still remember reading the entire Report #001 Report #002! Meant the actual overview, Report #002, from start to end, already being vaguely aware that this nation had something to do with rogue AI ships (though I can't for the life of me remember where I heard that from), and still at the end of that reading experience not being sure if I actually knew what the Objects were and what their deal was. It's extremely cool when the reader gets what's going on, but if the reader doesn't get it things border on inaccessible. An OOC overview-in-brief is, I believe, helpful for getting a bird's-eye-view of things in order to orient oneself to the content and better understand it when read in its fulness. I imagine it's possible for this to be be as long as what you have for Kiu Ghesik or as short as what I have in my signature.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

NO, STAHP WRITING WELL THOUGHT-OUT DIATRIBES CONSISTING OF MULTIPLE PARAGRAPHS IN THIS THREAD! IT'S TOO MUCH FOR US TO HANDLE! I DON'T WANNA PUT THAT MUCH EFFORT INTO THIS THREAD, ALTHOUGH I WILL PUT IN MORE THAN THE MINIMUM! Grrrr!!!^tm

BN: Please do not criticize this criticism, this addendum, and/or my garbage fire of a sig.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

/ROAST ME, CHILDREN.

[Socialist Macronesia]

*dusts self off*

I've said this before, but you've not really changed it much: you need to branch out and do something other than just Alastair. That's the only thing anyone remembers you for anymore, and it's kind of sad that that's the only character you seem to actually like to write. But he's not being really developed as a character, he's just... kinda there. And you don't write Marie or Wilhelm nearly as much as you should. It seems like WF as a nation is just entirely about Alastair now, with all the news articles and stories about him, and you need to branch out and find something you're good at other than "haha, funi drunk Shakespeare island." You don't seem to be a big military RPer, and you don't seem to be a P2TM RPer (unless you want to start some sort of Shakespeare RP), so might I suggest you create a chill diplomatic RP or something?

I just feel like you're losing your allure as time goes on, and people aren't gonna keep worshiping you as some sort of F7 god player if you don't make some drastic changes... and soon.

BN, don't roast my WIP nature. Retcons are hard.

[Cantelo]

Everything written in comic sans and the awful flag with clipart of a gun makes orphans sad

[Kiu Ghesik]

that's what somac's flag is meant to do ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Isabella's note-style presentation format is really quite cool; however, I've two gripes with it. One, the light blue ink on tan paper is a little difficult to read, and two, the first page isn't properly cropped. As such I can still see white borders around the page that aren't present on the second page, and they're painfully obvious on dark mode. You could honestly just fix that by using pngmaker or something of the like to convert the white to blank space; there's not even any need to mess about with it in paint.net or something.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

*dusts self off*

I've said this before, but you've not really changed it much: you need to branch out and do something other than just Alastair. That's the only thing anyone remembers you for anymore, and it's kind of sad that that's the only character you seem to actually like to write. But he's not being really developed as a character, he's just... kinda there. And you don't write Marie or Wilhelm nearly as much as you should. It seems like WF as a nation is just entirely about Alastair now, with all the news articles and stories about him, and you need to branch out and find something you're good at other than "haha, funi drunk Shakespeare island." You don't seem to be a big military RPer, and you don't seem to be a P2TM RPer (unless you want to start some sort of Shakespeare RP), so might I suggest you create a chill diplomatic RP or something?

I just feel like you're losing your allure as time goes on, and people aren't gonna keep worshiping you as some sort of F7 god player if you don't make some drastic changes... and soon.

BN, don't roast my WIP nature. Retcons are hard.

You're definitely not wrong that I do need to branch out. I want to continue working on my conlang, and creating factbooks for Marie and Wilhelm will happen at some point.
/Skip

[The Republic Of Williamsburg]

Your flag is just a picture of a person.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

Your flag is just a picture of a person.

Oof, /skip means to skip that post and do the post above them...but it's OK. (And it's not our canonical flag, either, so do not worry !)
/Still Kiu and Williamsburg

[Brettenwald]

Your flag is just a picture of a person.

You make low-effort F7 posts. Which is okay since you're fairly new here, but I would recommend putting a little more thought/effort in if you want to be taken seriously around here and not instantly get put on people's foe lists.

[Drongonia]

Your flag looks too similar to the IC flag of the nation above you, WF.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

Brettenwald's IC flag is dfinitely better than my IC flag, and the similarity was not on purpose! I was just trying to rip off Liechtenstein's flag. And your flag is nice, so, uh, Grrrr!!!^tm

Because KIu was Skipped: You play this game really well, and your extensive lore makes me sigh at my lack thereof...Grrrr!!!^tm

[Langenia]

I'm afraid your flag seems to good for its own good to me, sir.

[Socialist Macronesia]

In the Sharifistani Civil War, Langenia is about to break the cardinal rule of arms dealing: never pick up a gun and join the customers.

[And Spaces]

I don't like your flag. I just don't.

[The Democratic Republic of Nytoa]

Your economy is trash