Chương 89: 3.14 Welcome to the Internet - Bo Burnham (4:35)

THREAD: Zeke is a Dick for Logging Off After Killing a Storm USER: PatchNotesOrDidntHappen PatchNotesOrDidntHappen (Original Poster) I might get banned for this or whatever, but Zeke is being straight dickish right now. You can't livestream the death of an apocalypse and then disappear for hours on end without telling us whether you're still alive or not. I have sooo many questions and need answers. Did the Janus Storm really die? Are the skies over the Deadlands calm right now? Where the hell are you headed?

Did the jeep survive? Is Elnor still conscious or did all the psychometry stuff you made him do melt his brain out of his head? Does Jackie have PTSD from dealing with the screaming walls? WE NEED INFO!!! Caboodle I still can't believe one guy with a guitar permanently altered the ecology of the Deadlands. That's canon now. That is canon in the Fracture-verse. He rolled up to a living alien storm, plugged his guitar into a bunch of scrap, and then literally shredded the weather to death.

What's going to happen next? The Janus Storm existed for years. Whole settlements planned their trade routes to avoid the thing. Cults grew up around it and treated it like a living god. It was the Deadlands equivalent of "here be dragons," on the map. Then Zeke waltzed in and Doom soundtrack'd the thing to death. VeneratedWitchHunter | That's canon now. | No it's not. It's NOT canon. I'm enjoying the story just as much as the rest of you, but don't come in here saying something is canon when it's not in the games.

Hell, it's not even proven to be true yet, and it's doubtful that it CAN be proven. You can't get into the pod in Frontiers. It was probably something that was planned for Syndicate's Wake and then just never implemented. That doesn't make it canon. StoryLeech I really wish the devs had put it in the game. The visuals of the storm imploding would have won so many awards. I keep trying to picture what the Deadlands would look like to Z3ke now.

The storm is such a huge part of Frontiers and I can't even imagine what everything looks like without it. I remember the first time I traveled out into the Deadlands on a dungeon run and my screen went all gray and sandy. The storm had crept up on me and my health started plummeting. I was panicking because I didn't know what was happening. What do the Deadlands look like without that storm hanging over everything? The_Spanish_Inquisition I can't comprehend how the devs would have represented that in-game.

Might be why the Janus Storm remained unfinished. Quantum_Amelia I am very excited to learn the societal repercussions to this! To everyone outside the Janus Storm, something very dangerous that they knew for their entire lives suddenly disappeared! Houdinis'Rib ^Quantum. YES! THIS! The whole Deadlands is gonna be buzzing now. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!! MushroomCleric | WE NEED INFO!!! | Or we can all chill and let the man sleep. He gave us tons of updates and now he earned his rest.

Z3ke's hands were literally bleeding because of the guitar strings. Elnor was basically microwaved leftovers. Jackie spent all that time living inside an alien flesh maze and then had to drive through eldritch weather while keeping it together. Chances are they made it thirty miles away from the pod, parked somewhere in the middle of the desert, and then immediately passed out. RedCarpetManiac You know what… that's fair.

Zeke's last update was basically: hey guys, I'm using magical tuning forks to perform an execution concert on a baby apocalypse while my psychic friend dies in the passenger seat and a giant flesh-arm tries to strangle me through the walls. Dood's earned himself a nap. CrimsonProphecy88 Nope. Nope to all of that. Absolutely nope. He doesn't get to just "take a nap" after changing both the physical and geopolitical landscape of the Deadlands.

The Janus Storm was keeping the alien virus from mutating everything in the region, and the dood just broke it. Messing with the storm is going to have consequences that he hasn't come to terms with. That's not even touching on all the factions out there who are going to be chasing after him now. Blazer66 | all the factions out there who are going to be chasing after him now. | Let's hope the choir mutants don't find out who did in their apparently actual god-baby. And the Teeth are still teething around.

CrimsonProphecy88 EXACTLY!! Zeke is so screwed and now is not the time for naps. The Black Teeth are going to hate on him because he started a slave revolt / mass riot in their holiest of holies, escaped, and then spent the entire car chase mocking them with guitar solos from the back of a stolen jeep. The Shard Choir is DEFINITELY going to want him dead now because he just killed the very thing they worshipped. Actually, if you think about it, he killed two things they worshipped.

He killed the Janus Storm and the Second Fracture. That's doubly bad for him. Can you imagine their reaction to that? Then there's whoever ordered his kidnapping from The MIZ in the first place. Everyone seems to keep forgetting that part. Someone out there arranged for him to get dumped into the Black Teeth territory. Whoever did that isn't going to just shrug it off and move on after hearing about his escape.

Zeke is out here collecting enemies like pokemon, and now he's apparently passed out in the middle of the desert? That's all sorts of bad news? What's the opposite of stealth? Because that's what Zeke has. RiddleMeThat | The Shard Choir is DEFINITELY going to want him dead now | Imagine being a psycho cultist living out in the middle of the desert, spending all your time staking people into the sands and waiting for your weather god to suck them up.

Then you wake up one morning to discover that your personal god got hit with a thrash-metal exorcism. BaryBybax Don't forget about the Pale Regiment PixelBaron?? What does the Pale Regiment have to do with anything? Why would they care about Zeke? They're probably still busy dealing with the Reclaimer stuff. I doubt they were the ones to kidnap Zeke. If they wanted him, they wouldn't have sent random goons after him and they wouldn't have dropped him off with the Black Teeth.

BaryBybax Yea, but those porcelain freaks are the sorts of people who'd definitely stick their noses in Zeke's business. If they find out that the storm got KIA'd by the same guy who gave them access to the Reclaimer - and there's no doubt that they will find out - then they're going to be searching for him too. ArtooDeetoa | Why would they care about Zeke? | Dood just deleted a storm. How would they NOT care? Hambones | WE NEED MORE INFO!!!

| Screaming for an update isn't going to have him dropping it any faster, especially since he's going to be RPing that he and the rest of them all need medical attention. Remember Zeke's hands got shredded by the guitar? And he also said something about feeling like he just ran a marathon. I'm thinking it has something to do with the fact that he was using all those glyphs and it took a bunch out of him. Elnor was psychically flashbanged by the Second Fracture and Jackie probably has PTSD from the walls.

None of them are physically okay, so they're probably just going to rest somewhere for a while. Dust'nmyeyes Who's taking over Primary duties? The Janus Storm arc is basically finished. Could that be why Zeke hasn't logged back on? He's giving Gravemind time to figure out who the next Primary and Proctor are supposed to be, and giving them time to come up with a plan? Or is Gnomeland staying as Proctor? That whole thing is new and I'm not sure what the process is for it. Do we all vote for the Proctor?

Is Gnomeland staying it forever? Are we rotating people in like with the Primary position? Saltmines ReCoil's time as Primary is probably done. No offense or anything, but the man did almost get Zeke turned into pink mist like, six different times. TapRap If you think about it, ReCoil sort of did the exact same thing Binary did by sending Zeke on a likely suicidal mission, only ReCoil actually did do so in an attempt to unearth a genuine mystery about the games instead of wanting Zeke to die for ruining the lore.

Gilar ReCoil's plan was for Zeke to enter the Janus Storm and look around. He was hoping for new lore, but it was not a lethal trap, it was just very dangerous. SignalLoss At some point, very dangerous and lethal trap became the same thing. ReCoil44 (Primary) I find it fascinating that many of you continue to fundamentally misunderstand the pivotal role I served during this expedition. Without my guidance, Zeke would have abandoned the pod long before discovering the true nature of the Second Fracture.

He would never have learned the purpose of Marek's sabotage, the emotional architecture woven through the structure, nor the existential implications surrounding the Janus Storm itself. Moreover, without my insistence that he continue investigating rather than retreating, the settlements scattered throughout the Deadlands would have remained blissfully ignorant while sleepwalking towards extinction. It should therefore be eminently obvious that I should retain Primary responsibilities moving forward.

My arc provided the single greatest contribution both to Zeke's survival and to the Forum's collective understanding of the Fracture-verse. KetracelWhiteNoise ReCoil, I really want to post a reaction gif to all that, but the last time I did Gravemind gave me a warning about not trying to turn this whole place into 4chan. So instead, I'm going to describe the gif to you.

It's that Indian dude who is watching his team playing cricket and they screw up and you can just see the look of disgust and disappointment on his face before he turns away. That's what my reaction to your whole post is. A big ol' look of disgust and disappointment. 7Spirals Yeaaa… from a rewards perspective, this arc was kind of terrible. Crush, Mushroom and I gave so much more to Zeke than you did ReCoil. SignalLoss ReCoil's contributions to the run: Zeke learned the guitar better.

Zeke learned some history facts. Zeke killed an apocalypse. Zeke earned seventeen new mental illnesses from all the horrifying shit that ReCoil convinced him to investigate. Saltmines I'll push back and come to ReCoil's aid here. Stat-wise? Horrific. Narratively? One of the best arcs we've had. KetracelWhiteNoise We're not talking about narratively though. The Primary has to balance both narrative AND what is best for Zeke. What all did he gain from this?

He ranked up his History, Instrument Mastery, and Performance. And the Performance boost only happened because he drank the Keystone Elixir that he had already earned back when he traded with the Pale Regiment. So you can't even count that as a benefit caused by ReCoil. Meanwhile, he's got psychological damage, every major faction wanting him dead, the collapse of a major environmental stabilizer, the future death of the Deadlands, and probably lifelong sand-related trauma.

CrushDaddyXx Grave, can we start getting "Former Primary" flairs? I think it's only fitting seeing as how, so far, everyone agrees that my arc was the best one. Zeke got better combat instincts, a shit-ton of gear and resources, some much needed confidence, and he developed the glyphwriting skill which basically carried him through what ReCoil created. Chickenelegant | What all did he gain from this? | Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Yea.

He didn't even benefit from the Storm, although that might just be a mistake on Zeke's part and not wholly on ReCoil. Leaf Isn't the Janus Storm also supposed to cause skills to rise rapidly? Scranity My bet is that you have to be in the storm proper, not just safely hidden in the eye. Why? Simple. Because as the Investigator has shown, the pod is attached to every person ever consumed by the Storm. It's all connected, and they're probably still a part of it.

When you're in the storm you're not walking around in dust and debris. You're walking around in leftover skill points. LeoiaBell177 … You're saying that when I send my PC into the Janus Storm in Frontiers in order to boost her skills, she's swimming through the remnants of people? EWWWWW!! Shootingblnks Now that the arc has run its course and we're all decompressing, I've got to say that it feels like Zeke didn't really do that much. I'm not talking about advancing the plot and dropping lore.

It's obvious he did all that. But he didn't really do a ton in the fights. Null gave him the tuning fork idea, Jackie handled the actual escape from both the Black Teeth and the pod, and poor Elnor uncovered the Second Fracture with his psychometry. All Zeke did was just stand there and play a couple songs. RedCarpetManiac You're saying that Zeke is the diva frontman while everyone else is playing the role of roadie crew, working backstage to make sure the show goes off without a hitch. That tracks.

NullSigil I think we can all agree that it's clear who the best Primary was. His name starts with N and ends with NullSigil. That's right. It was NullSigil. Me. I was the best Primary, not because I'm smart. Not because I'm wise. Not because I'm devastatingly handsome and spiritually enlightened. I am all of those things, obviously, but that's not why I was the most effective. What set me apart from the others was the fact that I am the only Primary to avoid sending Zeke to his death.

The current Primary rankings according to totally legitimate ranking science is: Me. Several empty spaces. Zeke himself for uncovering the House of Seasons before we even established the Primary system. Crush for accidentally guiding Zeke to something that could help him. ReCoil for forcing Zeke to fight the Apocalypse Placenta. Zeke again for starting his character in the Glens. Binary for ACTIVELY trying to get Zeke killed. Pizzatiger | 7. Binary for ACTIVELY trying to get Zeke killed.

| Another page enters Binary's book of grudges. WackyToobMan"Apocalypse Placenta" would make a great name for a band. DeconstructedAntlers As much as I'm not the biggest fan of ReCoil's… pompousness, it might be best if he stay Primary for a little while longer. Zeke isn't home clear. The last update we got from him had him escaping the remnants of the Janus Storm while the sky was collapsing around him.

That means he's currently stranded in the middle of the Deadlands with no idea of where to go, limited supplies, Elnor passing out on him, and a mechanic who is freaked out. If we change everything at this point, it might actually get Zeke killed. He needs someone already in the role, and not someone who is going to want to put their own stamp on things.

THREAD: Zeke Needs to Meet a Fire (Modding Edition) USER: FarFieldVanishes FarFieldVanishes (Original Poster) To any MODs reading this, I don't literally want Zeke to "meet a fire." I'm just saying that because he is personally responsible for destroying the mental health of the modding community of this forum.

Whenever he posts a new update to his fic, it's always adding another mechanic that shouldn't exist inside Frontiers, and now a bunch of us are awake at three in the morning trying to brute-force an eldritch god into a game engine that was originally built around shooting mutant animals with rusty rifles. Quick update for everyone following the Zeke-run project: we finally got the portal architecture up and running. Sort of. Spoiler warnings before I go any further.

If you want to experience the kidnapping sequence blind, don't read what comes next. We finally figured out how to implement the portal trap in The MIZ. The current build tracks faction hostility in the background. Whichever faction you spend your time pissing off the most becomes the "instigator" for the kidnapping event. If you piss off the Pale Regiment, one of the local warlords, the Black Teeth, the Shard Choir, or anyone else with a high enough influence, they can trigger the event chain.

Once hostility passes a certain threshold, specialized NPC squads start spawning around The MIZ. They stalk the play for a while and then the ambush happens. They grab your character, drag you through the hidden portal beneath the city, and dump you directly into the Chapel Pit sequence. 8a8yaga For any of you who read the spoilers, congrats. You are now contractually obligated to help us debug this nonsense. FarFieldVanishes (Original Poster) Yes. Please help us.

If anyone wants to volunteer some time to help with scripting, balance testing, AI behavior, environmental triggers, or bug fixing, please PM either me or 8a8yaga. We also added another route to the game. If you discover the hidden portal architecture before you make an enemy out of the powerful people, they can sabotage the system and completely prevent the kidnapping chain. CinderWaltz I tested it out earlier and got kidnapped while wandering through North Coil. Ten out of ten experience.

Would get abducted again. GlassHaruspex Work needs to be done on the ambush stuff. I was testing it and I could see the same NPC standing in the distance three or four different times. I think it needs to be more subtle or else you'll know. FarFieldVanishes (Original Poster) Now let's talk about the real issue facing us, which is the Rockstar Class. Zeke is an absolute asshole, and I say that with all the possible love. But how are we supposed to balance that class? It's impossible. VaultsFullOfTeeth ^FarField.

The performance buffs are all completely absurd. The scaling is insane. From what Zeke has written about the class, it looks like it might be manageable at lower rankings in the class skills. You can give stamina boosts to your mercs and maybe boost up an ally's skill. You would have some minor crowd influence, and I'm not sure how to add that to the game. It's a cool support class. It's not my idea of a good time, but whatever.

Then he wrote about escaping the Chapel Pit and racing through the Deadlands and going to the pod and suddenly all thoughts of reasonable balance are thrown out the window. I mean… WTF?!? He can influence NPC behavior, incite riots, destabilize enemy morale, massively buff people way beyond what should be possible, AND weaponize emotions through music.

It honestly feels like Zeke is writing his character like that annoying kid on the playground who, whenever you would talk about superpowers he would be like "oh yea, I have that too and it's stronger than yours." How the hell do we show his skills mechanically? The weaponized emotions alone are going to be a pain in the ass to implement. What stat is that going to correlate to? What UI elements cover "your guitar solo is creating existential dread in the boss"?

BooksReader | massively buff people way beyond what should be possible | MC isn't a Bard, but this sure feels like Bardic Inspiration. 8a8yaga It is Bardic Inspiration. To a point. That's how I was thinking we would be introducing the skills into the game. We could take suggestions from what BG3 looked like for bards. But then Zeke starts writing about the Black Teeth fighting each other and the slaves getting involved in the fight.

So now we're trying to decide whether Rockstar has ally amplification, enemy destabilization, crowd control, or all of the above. Do we split all that into separate abilities? Do we give him one boost to his allies and another would be a DoT to his enemies? And it's not like he really does damage to most people. He didn't make the Black Teeth just keel over. So we can't treat it like a normal DoT.

We'd have to build a layer under every PC, where it's something like "stability" and Zeke's powers tick away at that until his enemies start attacking each other. Yapez_Astora Now, I wonder how much can Zeke's song boost a skill? Jackie's driving and Elnor's shooting were being boosted I think. Is it a slight buff or a whole level worth of skill? Can the Rockstar's playing push a skill to act above their level? Could it bridge the gap between 10 and 11?

I might be looking at this from the wrong angle and it just made them more cool headed and focused as to operate better. It might just be limited to working emotions on groups and individuals, but if not... FarFieldVanishes (Original Poster) WE DON'T KNOW!!! I'm not yelling at you Yapez. I'm yelling at the universe. Zeke has broken our understanding of the game and we are standing in the wreckage of it, trying to make sense of what the Rockstar class can do.

Anonymous_S I really like the story, but the power scaling seems… off? Especially as his skills are still such low levels relatively. Like Marek couldn't do anything after so long except delay it, but they were able to kill it? MonarchsInRust Mmmm, I don't know. I don't think you have to nerf the class because it's already nerfed itself. The entire point of the Rockstar class is that it scales through preparation instead of direct combat.

Zeke only looks busted because he has a bunch of benefits that you can't have in Frontiers or any of the other games. He's got access to the Shards of Time glyph system. He has forum support. He has tons of prep time before any of his fights. And that's not mentioning the absurd amount of luck that has let him stay alive for this long. Most everyone else who would try to copy him would instantly die.

You're all forgetting the biggest weakness in his build, which is that he's got to be standing still while he's playing his guitar. The man is absolute garbage in direct combat, and he's only ever been strong with prep time. Think about it. With prep he was able to kill the Reclaimer, the Second Fracture, and escape from the Chapel Pit. Without prep, his best fight was when he was in the Under-MIZ and he kicked the bandit and punted him out the window. That fight was only won because of his luck.

Without prep time and glyph support, Zeke is basically just a guy loudly announcing his location with a guitar. He survived the Chapel Pit because the glyph setup worked and Mikey literally saved his life by jumping on the Black Teeth leader while Zeke was rocking out with his harmonica. He survived the Black Teeth chase through the Deadlands because Jackie was an amazing driver and kept him mobile while he sang in the backseat. He only killed the apocalypse because he had the glyphs and his guitar.

Rockstar isn't broken. It's the most glassy glass cannon to have ever glass cannon'd. Shukuen Something I've been thinking about. Zeke should definitely be dead twice over now. There is no way he could have survived the drain of all those support glyphs that he's been forced to use twice so far. The number of glyphs needed for the city-sized Citadel of Ash is one thing, but then throw in the number of glyphs he used to kill the Pod on the same day, without time to recover from the previous drain.

The only thing that makes sense is that the Solaris Stone he has installed in his combat guitar is doing a LOT more heavy lifting than he realizes. We thought it would be used to charge an Ult like the Sonic Shout he did back in the Sound Trap, but what if it's been acting as a capacitor to let Zeke use way more glyphs than humanly possible? BeaverNuggetsBucci Yea. Outside of setup and support, Zeke hasn't been all that impressive.

LilWubWub I also have to point out how long it took for the Rockstar class to payoff lol. Shukuen Sounds like Zeke needs an equivalent to the Popemobile if he doesn't get a permanent chauffeur/getaway driver. Think Jackie would be interested in a permanent gig, or has Danger Zone Zeke scared her off?

THREAD: Zeke Is Just Making Up Lore USER: WritesoftheEnd WritesoftheEnd (Original Poster) It's incredible watching this forum get conditioned in real time. Seriously. Back during the House of Seasons arc, everyone was calling Zeke a liar and shitting on him. Then he was proven to be right about that. During the Corva thing, everyone was calling him a liar and shitting on him. Then he was proven to be right about that. During the Witness Chambers, everyone was calling him a liar and shitting on him.

Then he was proven to be right about that. At this point, everyone on the forum is too scared to call him out because nobody wants to look stupid when it eventually comes out that he was right. But seriously, enough is enough. There is absolutely nothing in Frontiers suggesting that there was ever a Second Fracture hidden inside the Janus Storm. There was nothing in the lore that suggested Marek was secretly holding back an apocalypse for years.

There is nothing in canon that suggests the storm was liquifying people and feeding them to some giant alien embryo. SignalLoss Hmmm. Where have I heard this before? At some point we all have to acknowledge the obvious possibility that Zeke has access to info that we don't. He could be a former dev, a QA tester, he could have a copy of internal docs or a lore bible. Whatever it is, he keeps pulling impossible details out of nowhere and then somehow they end up being true. I'm not going to argue with him.

I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the ride. ResistanceIsAnnoying Ha. The forum developed a collective trauma from trying to argue with Zeke. This literally happens with every single arc. People say that Zeke is making things up and he's gone too far. Then somebody discovers something three days later and it all ends up with everyone quietly pretending that they didn't call Zeke a fraud.

WhoShotIcarus Unlike the situations with the House of Seasons, Corva, and the Unfed Witness, players can't access the inside of the Pod so there's no way to prove that what Zeke's saying is there is actually there. People might call this another Valley of Echoes situation, where Zeke's "making up fanon" except this is vastly more important and relevant than the Valley was.

TheFriendlyStranger | players can't access the inside of the Pod so there's no way to prove | There is no known way inside the pod, just as there was no known alternative path for the House of Seasons, that Corva was a body hopping monster, and that there was a puzzle to the Unfed Witness. There will of course be doubters, but they will be mocked viciously because Zeke hasn't lied yet a single time that they can prove. slightdisgruntledghosts Well, the problem is that for us, Marek is still alive.

It could be that for the quest to trigger he needs to die. My bet is that there is something of a counter for the number of people who died to the storm and that pushing that number higher makes Marek's fight harder, and leads to a situation like this. Then it'll trigger the pod to open to players when they come by. WritesoftheEnd (Original Poster) ^WhoShot. Thank you. I could tolerate the Valley of Echoes stuff because it was basically isolated Vash Dynasty lore that was tucked away in Syndicate's Wake.

It didn't touch on any of the story and it was just a cool bit of worldbuilding that people could accept as head canon. But this is different. The pod touches on the history of the Fracture, and we can't fact-check any of his work. ThreadbareSaint Yo Writes, where exactly do you believe Zeke contradicted established lore? Point to the contradiction, because I'm not seeing anything. From what I can tell, he has simply been expanding on the lore and themes that were already in Frontiers.

The setting of Frontiers always revolved around mutation, assimilation, and biological horror. You've got the Reclaimer mutating the ecosystem around it. You've got the Rift Scar warping human biology. You've got the Janus Storm altering survivors who pass through it. You've got entire regions becoming transformed by the after-effects of the Fracture. You've got Deadland creatures adapting to new grotesque forms.

The Janus Storm being a massive contamination puddle that's housing a Second Fracture might sound out-there. But it tracks with the tone of the setting. Teabaggins420 | I was okay with the whole Valley of Echoes thing | The Valley of Echoes is what convinced me that Zeke has access to some form of internal material from Severance Systems. Everything else that Z3ke has written about feels like it could come from most anyone else on this forum. It's just a bunch of really smart lore extrapolation.

But the Valley sounded like it had been pulled straight out of a design document. He had the geography, historical timelines, faction conflicts, all sorts of names. And he had it all for an area that nobody has access to anymore because the Syndicate servers have all been shut down. FinalBossIntern Samesies. It doesn't even have to be a dev bible. Game studios build tons of background lore that never makes it into the final release.

Zeke could have literally been working as a Janitor at Severance Systems and he overheard a conversation about the Valley of Echoes while he was taking out trash. Who knows. VantaVoid Yea. I'm pushing back on Writes. Back when Z3ke was talking about Corva, I could kind of understand everyone's anger. Zeke was taking an established character and dirtying him up a little and nobody liked that. But Threadbare is right when he says that what Z3ke's written fits the setting. Frontiers was always about cosmic horror.

I remember reading an article a couple years ago where the developers of Dead Space openly cited Frontiers as one of their influences. What's Dead Space all about? It's got a giant alien signal that mutates flesh, repurposes corpses, builds new organisms and turns people into components for something much larger. That's basically everything that the Janus Storm was doing.