2024.05.19 22:13 Yankeebot IT'S WHAT YOU WANT: The Yankees defeated the White Sox by a score of 7-2 - May 19, 2024 @ 01:35 PM EDT
White Sox Batters | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | K | LOB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pham - CF | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .333 | .379 | .481 |
2 | Vaughn - 1B | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .202 | .258 | .310 |
3 | Jiménez, E - RF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .219 | .273 | .367 |
4 | DeJong - SS | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .230 | .281 | .429 |
5 | Julks - LF | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | .429 | .500 | 1.000 |
6 | Lee, K - DH | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | .292 | .330 | .461 |
7 | Remillard - 2B | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | .300 | .417 | .450 |
8 | Mendick - 3B | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .224 | .255 | .367 |
a-Sheets - PH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .242 | .344 | .402 | |
9 | Maldonado, M - C | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .093 | .150 | .147 |
b-Benintendi - PH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .195 | .223 | .283 | |
Totals | 32 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 17 |
White Sox |
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a-Lined out for Mendick in the 9th. b-Grounded into a forceout for Maldonado, M in the 9th. |
BATTING: 2B: Mendick (4, Tonkin). 3B: Remillard (1, Rodón). HR: Julks (1, 2nd inning off Rodón, 0 on, 1 out). TB: Jiménez, E; Julks 5; Lee, K; Mendick 2; Remillard 3. RBI: Julks (1); Remillard (1). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Remillard; Pham; Benintendi; Vaughn. Team RISP: 0-for-10. Team LOB: 7. |
Yankees Batters | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | K | LOB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Volpe - SS | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .270 | .341 | .429 |
2 | Soto, J - RF | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | .311 | .411 | .552 |
3 | Judge - CF | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | .266 | .402 | .578 |
4 | Verdugo - LF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .244 | .321 | .394 |
5 | Stanton - DH | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .252 | .301 | .516 |
6 | Rizzo - 1B | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .256 | .320 | .400 |
7 | Torres - 2B | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | .225 | .298 | .298 |
8 | Trevino - C | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .284 | .326 | .455 |
9 | Berti - 3B | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .277 | .333 | .340 |
Totals | 34 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 9 | 12 |
Yankees |
---|
BATTING: 2B: Volpe (8, Flexen); Torres (7, Flexen). HR: Berti (1, 4th inning off Flexen, 2 on, 2 out); Judge (13, 5th inning off Flexen, 1 on, 0 out). TB: Berti 5; Judge 4; Rizzo 2; Torres 3; Trevino; Verdugo; Volpe 2. RBI: Berti 3 (5); Judge 2 (32); Trevino 2 (17). 2-out RBI: Berti 3. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Verdugo. Team RISP: 2-for-6. Team LOB: 4. |
FIELDING: Pickoffs: Trevino (Remillard at 3rd base). |
White Sox Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Flexen (L, 2-4) | 4.0 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 79-56 | 5.48 |
Hill, T | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 17-13 | 2.25 |
Wilson, S | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 17-12 | 2.84 |
Shuster | 2.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 26-15 | 2.00 |
Totals | 8.0 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 9 | 2 |
Yankees Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rodón (W, 5-2) | 6.0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 99-60 | 3.27 |
Tonkin | 2.1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 48-30 | 3.00 |
Holmes | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4-3 | 0.00 |
Totals | 9.0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 1 |
Game Info |
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Balk: Tonkin. |
HBP: DeJong (by Rodón). |
Pitches-strikes: Flexen 79-56; Hill, T 17-13; Wilson, S 17-12; Shuster 26-15; Rodón 99-60; Tonkin 48-30; Holmes 4-3. |
Groundouts-flyouts: Flexen 3-4; Hill, T 0-1; Wilson, S 1-1; Shuster 1-2; Rodón 3-5; Tonkin 3-2; Holmes 1-0. |
Batters faced: Flexen 21; Hill, T 4; Wilson, S 4; Shuster 6; Rodón 24; Tonkin 10; Holmes 2. |
Inherited runners-scored: Holmes 2-0. |
Umpires: HP: Erich Bacchus. 1B: Tripp Gibson. 2B: Laz Diaz. 3B: Mike Estabrook. |
Weather: 70 degrees, Partly Cloudy. |
Wind: 9 mph, In From LF. |
First pitch: 1:38 PM. |
T: 2:33. |
Att: 41,041. |
Venue: Yankee Stadium. |
May 19, 2024 |
Inning | Scoring Play | Score |
---|---|---|
Top 2 | Corey Julks homers (1) on a fly ball to left center field. | 1-0 CWS |
Top 2 | Zach Remillard triples (1) on a sharp fly ball to center fielder Aaron Judge. Korey Lee scores. | 2-0 CWS |
Bottom 2 | Jose Trevino singles on a ground ball to right fielder Eloy Jiménez. Anthony Rizzo scores. Gleyber Torres scores. | 2-2 |
Bottom 4 | Jon Berti homers (1) on a fly ball to right center field. Anthony Rizzo scores. Gleyber Torres scores. | 5-2 NYY |
Bottom 5 | Aaron Judge homers (13) on a fly ball to right field. Juan Soto scores. | 7-2 NYY |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | LOB | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
White Sox | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 7 | |
Yankees | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 0 | 4 |
2024.05.19 20:37 Shiirooo Exclusive interview with Famitsu and the devs
https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194 (translated by DeepL: there are probably translation errors) submitted by Shiirooo to assassinscreed [link] [comments] Shadows is the next step forward for Assassin's CreedMr. KARL ONNÉE, Producer--First of all, let me say "Thank you" from us Japanese, as "Assassin's Creed" is finally coming out, which is set in Japan! KARL: Thank you for coming here today. I have been wanting to do this work for years, so my dream has come true. --Why did you choose the Azuchi-Momoyama period as the setting for this work? KARL: I chose it because it is a very rich period in history. It was a time of war and political maneuvering, a time of change from rural to urban areas, and also the birth of art. I also chose it because it was the start of the unification of Japan. It was a pivotal moment for Japan. Together, these elements provided an excellent canvas on which to tell the story. --What kind of image do you have of the Azuchi-Momoyama period? KARL: This was a time when the feudal lords of the warring states were fighting for power in the name of unifying the country, but it was also a struggle for control of trade. Portuguese missionaries and merchants came to Japan together. The Portuguese missionaries and merchants came to Japan together, and people who wanted a beautiful country and peace. This is the kind of image we have, but I think there was a mixture of various cultures and people's thoughts. And of course, there were the warring feudal lords. These are great canvases for the story. --What do you think should be inherited from "Assassin's Creed" and what are the unique aspects of this game? KARL: When people think of "Assassin's Creed," they think of stealth, but shinobi fantasy is not only a perfect fit for an "Assassin's Creed" game, it also fits the DNA of the "Assassin" brand. What we wanted to do with "Assassin's Creed Shadows" was to push stealth even further. We started this effort with the previous game, "Assassin's Creed Mirage," but we wanted to take it further with new features. Systems such as light and shadow, grappling ropes, prone, and a variety of tools available in the game provide a new experience. The gameplay is also enriched by two characters, Naoe, a shinobi, and Yasuke, a samurai. Players will explore and discover Japan through the eyes of Naoe, a local, and one non-Japanese outsider. The game is more dynamic than ever before, pushing the limits of technology and offering an experience exclusive to current-gen consoles. --The "Assassin's Creed: Valhalla," released in 2020, is based on the theme of "Vikings" and has been a huge sales success. As a Japanese, I feel that from a global perspective, the Japanese "shinobi" theme is even more niche, but what is your current response? KARL: I would like to talk about how it compares to "Viking" fantasy. Both shinobi and samurai are exciting and celebrated as fantasy with power, and are widely discussed in pop culture, and we are very much inspired by them. Shinobi were on our radar from the beginning because we thought they fit well with the "Assassins" brand, but we felt that incorporating a powerful samurai would create two different gameplay experiences and give us the opportunity to tell the story from two different perspectives. We feel that this is a powerful motif that can compete with the "Viking" motif. --How did you like the setting of Japan as a subject matter for the latest model? KARL: I think it was perfect. For example, the "Global Illumination" technology allowed us to explore the response of light and shadow. Some consoles are still called "Baked GI", but by using dynamic lighting and the power of the new hardware, we were able to explore the creativity. We are now able to express not only light and shadow, but also the dynamism of nature in greater detail. Naturally, since it is set in Japan, we have never dealt with so many trees, and thus so much data, in previous works in the series. We also needed more data to seamlessly move various things at the same time because of the seasonal changes. The latest models have allowed us to realize our vision, and our ambition for this film and for "Assassin's Creed" will continue. --Assassin's Creed Mirage marks the 15th anniversary of the game. Can we consider this work as the next step forward for the next generation of "Assassin's Creed"? KARL: You are absolutely right. Mirage" was a tribute to existing works, but this film is the first step into a new era. We are in the era of modern equipment. With the new generation of our engine "Anvil", plus the opportunity to create a new era by using the power of the latest consoles, we are able to do what we wanted to do with "Assassin's Creed Shadows". With technologies such as global illumination and dynamism, we are now making the game we really wanted to make. --What are the four pillars you are focusing on in the development of this game? KARL: We are focusing on four pillars.
KARL: Development is going very well. We are proud to say that we have done a good job, but of course it is not finished and there are still glitches. This is the result of all the work we have done so far. We are very happy with how things are going right now, and we hope you will stay tuned for more news. -- I understand that "Assassin's Creed Infinity" was announced at the previous Ubisoft Forward and that this title will be included in the game? Also, what is the development status of that game at ......? KARL: "Assassin's Creed Infinity" is introduced as an Animus Hub (*a hub that will function in the future as an entry point for the series), which we will talk about at a later date. --What is your message to your fans around the world and in Japan? KARL: We are humbled that our dream of creating a game in this setting has come true. This is a setting that our fans have been anticipating for a long time, and for us it has been a wonderful experience to work on a game that we have always wanted to make. This game is the result of our love. We hope you enjoy it. We look forward to talking more about it in the coming months. The Shinobi Assassin and the Legendary Samurai. Experience the different fighting styles created by these two characters.(left) Mr. JONATHAN DUMONT (Creative Director), (right) Mr. CHARLES BENOIT (Game Director)--When did you start the development of this work? JONATHAN: Development began about four years ago, and research into the time period in which the film is set began immediately. There were a number of cool subjects that brought us great characters and story plots. I had a gut feeling that this was going to be a very good game. --Was the Azuchi-Momoyama period chosen as the period setting from the pre-development stage? Did you have an idea for a major point in Japanese history, such as the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate? JONATHAN: I started from the beginning of my study of Japanese history, but I began reading with the feeling of a student. Following the Socratic principle, you took the attitude of knowing nothing. As I read on, I found some very interesting settings. I focused on the Azuchi-Momoyama period because I felt it was an extremely important period for Japan. It was a time of warring states, the need to unify the country, and the need to defend itself against the growing influence of other countries. It was a grand and complex period, and there are many stories that can be told from different angles. Among the heroes of the unification of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Oda Nobunaga are best known among the outstanding characters in Japanese history. Not only war, but also politics are involved, and they are moving toward the peace that will eventually come, with a good ending waiting somewhere in the middle. I strongly felt that this was a wonderful and interesting period that deserved to be featured. It was also a time when the foundations of the arts were laid. Castle towns were built, the world changed, and people's relationships with each other and with art, as well as their inner lives, also changed. It was very interesting to explore this period, and I was strongly attracted to the characters who lived in this time. -- Why did you choose the title "Shadows"? CHARLES: From my point of view, there are two reasons. Shinobi hide in the shadows, so "Shadows" is of course inspired by that. In a way, this embraces the "Assassin" brand and shinobi. There are other aspects to "Shadows" as well. There are "hidden things" in the game that must be discovered by the player, but they are hidden in the darkness in some way. JONATHAN: Both characters are in a way connected to being shadowy heroes living in the underworld of this era. It's a cool title, if you can think of it this way. --Why did you choose two main characters and two fighting styles? Also, what kind of combat action can the Shinobi and Samurai experience respectively? JONATHAN: One of the reasons for the separation of the two styles is that from the beginning of development, we wanted to have two distinct and cool archetypes to play with: the samurai and the shinobi. We also wanted to make sure that this fantasy was as close to reality and expectation as possible without being diluted. I also often felt the need to have two points of view in the development of the story, since history is rarely clearly black and white. The two protagonists provided interesting dynamics and perspectives on how to approach the game. CHARLES: I think it is very interesting that in combat, both the samurai and the shinobi have special types of weapons. Therefore, the style of combat in this work is built on a more weapon-based approach. There are weapons that only Samurai can use, and the same goes for Shinobi. The player can get a good feel for the two different fighting styles. And it is possible to switch between them. --What weapons can Naoe and Yasuke use? CHARLES: Both players have different types of weapons. For Naoe, we went for a more classic fantasy type shinobi. The chain scythe is a weapon that covers a wide area and can only be used by Naoe. In addition, she also has a dagger used at close range, which can be combined with a hidden blade (Hidden Blade). Naoe can fight very quickly and efficiently with these. On the other hand, Yasuke, who excels at overpowering with force, is given more types of weapons, some of which are firearms type weapons. They also have the typical samurai bow. --Why did you choose to make the shinobi Naoe an original character and the samurai Yasuke a historical figure? JONATHAN: Even though they are well known in Japan, at least in North America, not much is known about farmers, what happened to them, and where the Shinobi came from. So we decided to introduce a figure from Iga who is shrouded in mystery. We considered historical figures from the region, but we preferred a sense of mystery, so we came up with Naoe as someone who may or may not have actually existed. As for Yasuke, from the beginning we thought that a story about the arrival of the Portuguese would be a very good way to tell the story of the crisis in Japan. The team liked the character Yasuke, and we thought we could use him to show the promise of discovering Japan. We thought that if we started with a samurai already in Japanese society, he would be a very interesting and intriguing character, with concepts that we don't necessarily know. And it would also be interesting to see what happened to him. He starts out as a character who is already rooted in history, and we are curious to find out what happens to him. I thought they would make a cool team, complementing each other in terms of storytelling, physique, and family background. --What did you keep in mind when creating the scenario where the two main characters switch? What were some of the challenges? JONATHAN: I wanted the audience to feel that "both are the main characters," but this was more complicated than it seems. Their stories overlap in places, but I wanted to make sure that as the game progresses, you gradually discover more and more about both characters. They have similar goals and motivations, but they are not 100% the same, which made it complicated and difficult to maintain their individual personalities. Naturally, the quest can be played by either character. If a quest needs to be started by one character and completed by the other, the settings must accommodate both play styles. Thus, although it can be complicated, there are many opportunities to tell the story from one of the two perspectives. Having two different points of view is a lot of fun, but there were some complications, such as having to use new technology in the conversation tools. There were some cool things, however. It is interesting that in the conversational scenes, the player decides which of the two protagonists speaks and they ask for different things. This is cool in a way. CHARLES: Both characters are attacking the castle and at some point the player is asked if they want to continue with Yasuke or Naoe, both are interesting. At various points the player must make these choices. The stories are independent, so if you want to know more about Naoe's or Yasuke's past, you can play as one character and delve into that character's story. --Are there areas of action that differ, such as places that only Naoe, a shinobi, is allowed to enter? JONATHAN: There are areas where both Naoe and Yasuke have different areas of activity. I can't go into details because there are a few surprises, but since Naoe can use a hooked rope, there are places that are almost exclusively accessible to her. The world is designed to be enjoyed by both characters, and players can switch between the two at will. Of course, if you want to reach the final point of the world or reach the summit through the ruins, then perhaps Naoe is the better choice. However, if you want to break through the fort head-on alone and open the way, Yasuke seems like a better choice. Of course, you can play with either character. CHARLES: Each character also has specific actions. Naoe can hook the hooked rope to a specific spot and move like a pendulum, or hook the hook to a high spot and climb the rope to get to where she wants to go faster than Yasuke. However, Yasuke can use a shoulder bash to break down reinforced doors. Yasuke can also perform parkour very efficiently in a more daring way. What can be felt when Yasuke performs parkour is how the crowd reacts. Because Yasuke is a samurai and exudes dignity as a superior class, the crowd reacts accordingly. Naoe, on the other hand, gives the impression of being more integrated into the world. --Can you both use the Hidden Blade, Hawk's Eye, and other Assassin abilities? CHARLES: Without spoiling anything, the traditional skills of the Assassins are mainly for Naoe. However, there is another mechanism called "Kantori" (provisional name) that can be used when you want to find an enemy or target person, and this can be used by both of them. You can use free aim to look around, but you cannot see through walls. Yasuke can also kill with stealth, but in a more direct and easier way. Even with stealth, there will be some sound, so it is a "stealth-like" approach. JONATHAN: Kantori (provisional name) can be used to find many things in your current location. It is a very good guide for a certain area, but it does not take all the fun out of exploration. It is a good guide because you can learn a little more about where you want to go, but you are left with the surprise of discovering something. -- Is there a skill tree that makes Naoe more combat-oriented or enhances Yasuke's stealth? CHARLES: Both have skills that are more combat-oriented and stealth-oriented. Also, some equipment has effects such as increased resistance when attacked. We also offer perks that enhance your abilities in combat. Naoe, enhanced to be more combat-oriented, has an advantage in melee combat compared to Naoe, enhanced to be more stealth-oriented. Both have a range, but cannot go in completely opposite directions. There is some overlap between the two, but we have made sure that the characteristics of each ability are properly felt. --Please explain the skill system. JONATHAN: Both characters share XP and level up together, but the rest of the system is a bit similar to that of "Assassin's Creed Odyssey". XP and character abilities are available, weapons can be crafted to some degree, and various upgrades can be made as the game progresses. Weapons are not stand-alone, but for two, so each weapon has its own unique skill system. Players should not feel any discomfort, but this is a very different part of the game from the past. CHARLES: There are two things that were very important to us in terms of skills. First, we have to be very aware of archetypes. In Japan, there are distinct archetypes, such as the armor-clad samurai, the revolting monk, and the bandit, which are quite different. We try to make it clear to the player who is stronger, and we try to make that part of the leveling process as important as possible. Samurai are always stronger than bandits. Secondly, player skill is added to the mix. The better you are at timing, reading attacks, understanding weapons, etc., the better you will be and the further ahead you will be. --What is the volume of the map compared to past works? I would also like to know how you decided on the scale of this work. JONATHAN: The biggest difference is the scale ratio. The mountains are not the actual size, but we wanted them to be true forests, consisting of trees of a certain size, so that you feel you are in a forest. To achieve this, we needed space. We also decided to keep it close to a realistic scale, so we could feel the breath of many things. When we visited Japan and saw the castle, we were so glad we made this decision. Japanese castles are huge! Of course, we had seen pictures of castles before and thought they were big and magnificent, but when we saw them in person, they were astonishingly large. And I wanted more space to explore the castle. Castles were built to be large battlegrounds, you know. You need space to build intricate walls for defense. The overall scale of the map is similar to the size of the map in Origins. However, the scale ratio makes it feel more realistic. The open space leads to secluded areas throughout the game, which will be fun to explore. This sense of scale is a very interesting aspect of this film for us. CHARLES: The story led us to choose which locations in Japan we would choose. The major events in Kyoto, around Osaka, and around Azuchi Castle took place in the same area, so we were able to focus on that. JONATHAN: Of course, we had to choose a size that matched the game, but I think it was the perfect size for this story and type of game. --Since the game is set in the Warring States period, is there a system that allows players to participate in battles? JONATHAN: We see several battles in the story, and the battle at Iga is playable. There are other battles as well, but I can't talk about them right now. The game is set in the Warring States period, but it is not only about battles. It is a game that allows you to travel and discover that world. --What challenges have you faced and what have you been able to achieve as a result? JONATHAN: By making the big decision to go completely modern and demanding a very high level from the "Anvil" engine, we were able to increase the number of particles, create a more realistic atmosphere, and expand the graphical possibilities of the changing seasons. This allowed us to work on a fresh new Assassin's Creed. This was a great opportunity for us to take a big leap forward in graphics. CHARLES: Also, thanks to the new global illumination system, we were able to take advantage of light and shadow, which had a huge impact on the gameplay and stealth approach. For example, enemies became aware of our presence through our shadows, enemies gathered for warmth under a fire in the winter, or shadows through shoji screens depicted enemy presence, giving a new dimension to stealth. By having two main characters, it is possible to show a wider range of angles and different perspectives.(left) BROOKE DAVIES, Associate Narrative Director, (right) SACHI SCHMIDT-HORI, Narrative Consultant--Did you choose the Azuchi-Momoyama period as the period setting from the pre-production stage? BROOKE: I joined the project after the choice of period had been made, so the Azuchi-Momoyama period had already been chosen. This period offered so many wonderful opportunities from a narrative perspective. The complexity and duality of the period is well reflected in the characters of Naoe and Yasuke. --What were you aware of and what were the challenges in creating a scenario where the two main characters switch? BROOKE: From a storytelling perspective, I see it more as a wonderful opportunity than a challenge. When I write a story, I try to show rather than tell, and having two characters allows me to show what's going on from a wider range of angles and different perspectives. I hope this will encourage players to want to share their feelings with them. --What do you think are the most important points in bringing original characters and historical figures into the game? BROOKE: Both offer different and unique opportunities. With regard to Yasuke, I found him very interesting historically because we know some things about him, but there are many unknowns. So we needed to fill in the blanks in the story. It is important to note that Yasuke is a historical figure. And in the case of Naoe, an original character, we were able to draw the story freely to some extent. The fact that she is a member of the Fujibayashi family and that her father is Masayasu Fujibayashi Nagato Mamoru allowed us to place her firmly within the setting. Because Yasuke is a real person but appears as a foreign-born samurai, the Japanese-born Naoe is on equal footing with Yasuke, although she has a different perspective. --Will other historical figures appear besides Nobunaga Oda and Yasuke? BROOKE: You will meet Luis Frois (a Jesuit missionary) at the meeting in Azuchi Castle. Also, Nene and Oichi will appear. The Japanese art renaissance that began in the Azuchi-Momoyama period blossomed in the Edo period, and you will also meet Sen no Rikyu, Kano Eitoku, and other important figures. --Please tell us what year the story will be depicted. BROOKE: I can't tell you what players will see, but I think it covers a part of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, from 1579 to 1584. --I think the appeal of the series is to depict the struggle between the Assassin Order and the Templars while taking into account the history, but I would like to ask if there were any difficulties in putting the Azuchi-Momoyama period into it. BROOKE: I don't want to mention the Knights Templar because I don't want to spoil anything, but the fascination and dynamics of this period are very interesting and provided wonderful opportunities for storytelling. --How did you go about creating a world with a realistic feel of the Azuchi-Momoyama period? BROOKE: We were very lucky to work with the Environment Team. The visuals they created for the game provided a great backdrop for the story. The in-world experience added so much to the story. What we see from the stories and characters of this time period is complexity. I also believe that many of the people surrounding the World had their own struggles. It was a very difficult time historically, and we see duality. Nothing is ever clear-cut and black and white. In warfare, two groups face each other and are confronted with different perspectives. But in the midst of it all, there are glimpses of hope for the future as we know it, which will later blossom. --What advice did you actually give? HORI: One scene that left a strong impression on me was the scene where Nobunaga's sister, Oichi, remarries Katsuie Shibata. In the original story we received, it was thought that the two families decided on their own without regard to Oichi's intentions, and Katsuie was portrayed negatively because he was more than 20 years older than Oichi. So I spoke with BROOKE and the team and asked them to change it. Oichi had young children after the death of her husband Nagamasa Asai, so if her remarriage was to Katsuie, a trusted man who had served Nobunaga, she would have married him as a matter of course. When I explained that it was better to portray it in a positive light, it was a new discovery for the BROOKEs, and they were very moved by it. The rewritten version of the episode was very moving. The other scene is the tea ceremony scene featuring Sen no Rikyu. Chanoyu is widely known to be translated as tea ceremony, but experts say it is a mistranslation. After researching the misunderstanding over here, I advised them, as far as I could understand, not to use a teapot or tea leaves, for example. --Even we Japanese have a strong image of "ninja" as a fantasy. Did you encounter any difficulties with the theme of "ninja" in order to achieve a high level of fidelity to the historical reconstruction? HORI: Ninja are certainly a fantasy, so I think it's a good thing that we can express ourselves creatively and without reservation. However, there are also dedicated ninja fans and communities around the world, and I am not sure to what extent they see the ninja as a real existence, or as an entity that existed in history. Therefore, the extent to which ninja are represented in the game depends on the level of tolerance of the avid shinobi fans. I discussed this with the members of the development team. We did not have a specific policy on how much to express, but made decisions on a case-by-case basis. We would say, "This is an acceptable creative expression," or "This is stereotypical", so let's not do that. --I'm sure there are many references, but which one left a particularly strong impression on you? BROOKE: The first book I looked through was "Nobunaga no Kouki" by Ota Ushiichi (Azuchi-Momoyama period, military commander and military history author). I was impressed by his personal observations as he recounts the details. We can learn a lot of historical facts from reading history books, but this author incorporated his own views so that I felt I could understand even his character and what it was like to live in that era, and I was completely drawn in. I was thrilled to be able to portray this time period and the people in this book. --The drama "Shogun" which is set in a similar time period, has been a hit, and I hope that this work will attract the same kind of attention from game fans. I understand that you have prepared a "Discovery Tour" that allows visitors to freely walk around the game world with historical explanations. BROOKE: I can't answer about the Discovery Tour today, but I am glad to see that interest in the setting and time period of the game is growing. I look forward to the day when we can bring this to you. Gathering a lot of information to recreate 16th century Japan and build a living world(left) THIERRY DANSEREAU, Art Director, (right) STÉPHANIE-ANNE RUATTA, Historical Supervisor and World Director--Please tell us what kind of materials you used as references to describe the field and the characters' costumes in the Azuchi-Momoyama period. THIERRY: I have been working with experts and consultants for a long time, but for the characters, I referred to museum exhibits and books for their appearances and costumes. I visited several museums, did my research, and checked the materials with STÉPHANIE-ANNE. Based on these, we created the characters. We also referred to descriptions in the books about the colors and the flags people carried. We used multiple sources, but we have checked them for historical accuracy. STÉPHANIE-ANNE: For several years we had the help of experts, but we also did research with a Japanese studio and team. We used different kinds of sources to make sure the team got it right and had all the information they needed to reconstruct what Japan looked like in the 16th century. We used museum databases, as THIERRY mentioned, but we also used inscriptions, scientific books, articles, and medieval depositions. For example, the Principles of Nobunaga has been translated into English, so we used that as a reference to describe 16th century Japan. I also referred to the documents of Luis Frois from the same period, which compare European and Japanese society. --This period was also a time when there was a large influx of immigrants. Will you also depict the episodes, lifestyles, and culture of these people (missionaries, merchants, etc.) as well as Yasuke? STÉPHANIE-ANNE: Yes, it is important to introduce the presence of Portuguese missionaries and merchants in the 16th century. They influenced the course of warfare during this period and the changing power of certain merchants in Japan. --I am wondering what castles, shrines and temples that symbolize the Azuchi-Momoyama period will appear in the game. Although the game is set in the Kansai region, is the Osaka Castle built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi ......? STÉPHANIE-ANNE: The era is represented by the construction of various castles and castle towns, so players will discover a wide variety of castle types and castles destroyed in battle. The Azuchi Castle, which is related to the name of the era, will also be featured. THIERRY: Himeji Castle, Osaka Castle, and Takeda Castle are also available, and it is wonderful that players can visit and play in these castles. I think this is one of the strengths of the franchise, but all of the castles are based on actual historical blueprints, which I think is very unique, both as an experience and a learning opportunity. The Koyasan Okunoin Cemetery is the oldest graveyard in Japan, which can also be seen in the game. There are too many to mention them all, but thanks to STÉPHANIE-ANNE and the experts, I think they are well described and it is wonderful that players will be able to travel to these places. --The architectural style and decoration of the buildings is a different culture from the previous works in the series. What were you conscious of in recreating the culture and what were the challenges? I am also interested in the possibility of diving on the "Shachihoko". STÉPHANIE-ANNE: The building team did a lot of research, and then we checked the results with experts and asked them to add the elements needed to build a great castle. We did research to recreate the decorations of not only the castle, but also the temples and shrines, and also to find out what materials were used to make them. THIERRY: The colors also change over time, so we made adjustments to that as well. Of course, this is "Assassin's Creed," so you can climb anywhere and jump from almost anywhere. Exploring is fun. --Japanese period games tend to be rather subdued, but were there any barriers to making it a worldwide production? STÉPHANIE-ANNE: It's a game based on history, and we want players to have the opportunity to play with history. This period is so fascinating and celebrated, and has had such an impact on pop culture, that we were fortunate to have the help of renowned experts to make sure we had all the information we needed to faithfully recreate medieval Japan in the 16th century. We maintained historical fidelity because it was a rich period with so much to talk about and we didn't feel the need to change it. There is an experience that goes into fantasy, but keeping it authentic was our primary goal. --In the main storyline, can we experience famous episodes from the Azuchi-Momoyama period (such as the Battle of Nagashino, the Honnoji Incident, the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute, etc.)? STÉPHANIE-ANNE: You will have to wait a little longer for that. --In the recent series, "Origins," "Odyssey," and "Valhalla," you can enjoy the connection to mythology and fantasy elements based on mythological themes. Will this work also contain elements based on Japanese mythology, yokai, and other fictional creatures? STÉPHANIE-ANNE: That is a very good question, but I will answer this one later. --This game also reproduces the four seasons of Japan. Which season did you start first? And which seasons were particularly difficult to express? THIERRY: I started with spring. We all know about cherry blossoms, and I think they are the most symbolic Japanese element for foreigners. And the big difference is winter. I wouldn't say that winter is more complicated because it has many different expressions, but it was very different from spring, summer, and fall, and the challenges were also different. --What was particular about the representation of water, such as waterfalls, rivers, lakes, etc.? THIERRY: All of the water topics were very important to us. We knew that there is a Shinto belief in waterfalls and rivers, and that they are important places in the Japanese eco-system. Even the blueprints of the suburbs are lined with irrigation canals, and they even go into the houses. Thus, we knew that water is a key component of Japanese culture, especially for agriculture. This is why we installed drains everywhere in this work. The presence of water in the Japanese landscape was different, so we took it seriously and treated it as an inviolable part of the Japanese landscape and way of life. --What are some of your favorite places, castles, or cultures that appear in your work? STÉPHANIE-ANNE: That's difficult. THIERRY: My favorite is Takeda Castle. It is on top of a high mountain and is called the castle in the sky, and I like this location. I can't say it's fair because we built it ourselves, but there are many other great places to visit. It was a lot of work to create the forest, but I really enjoy looking at the landscape. I also like how all the ecosystems interact with each other, such as the clouds in the weather system. It's not a location, but I enjoy it because it encompasses the whole game. STÉPHANIE-ANNE: I was impressed by the "Rakuchu Rakugaizu," Japanese folding screens from this period. I was fascinated by the fact that just by looking at them, one could come into contact with the vivid world of this period. The artistic touch is something special. I have never seen anything so full of art. I truly admire the artists of this era. THIERRY: I also think the most striking thing for me was the harmony of nature and architecture. I visited the site and found many places, and I could see how everything was deliberately composed. I was told that trees were planted while the chedi was being built at the time, but everything looked perfect. Also, the culture loves the age and values it, so they cherish moss and things that have taken root there. Japan has maintained these places so they still exist and are still in use. I realized that we are dealing with a subject that has a long history. It is also a culture that values space, living space. These were the most exciting discoveries during my travels in Japan. |
2024.05.19 18:35 BaseballBot Game Thread 5/19 ⚾ White Sox (14-32) @ Yankees (32-15) 1:35 PM ET
Team | Starter | TV | Radio |
---|---|---|---|
White Sox | Chris Flexen (2-3, 4.46 ERA) | NBCSCH | WMVP |
Yankees | Carlos Rodón (4-2, 3.31 ERA) | YES | WFAN, WADO (ES) |
MLB | Fangraphs | Reddit Stream | IRC Chat |
---|---|---|---|
Gameday | Game Graph | Live Comments | Libera: ##baseball |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | LOB | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CWS | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 7 |
NYY | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 0 | 4 |
NYY | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SS | Volpe | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .270 |
RF | Soto, J | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .311 |
CF | Judge | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | .266 |
LF | Verdugo | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .244 |
DH | Stanton | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .252 |
1B | Rizzo | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .256 |
2B | Torres | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .225 |
C | Trevino | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | .284 |
3B | Berti | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | .277 |
NYY | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rodón | 6.0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 99-60 | 3.27 |
Tonkin | 2.1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 48-30 | 3.00 |
Holmes | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4-3 | 0.00 |
CWS | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CF | Pham | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .333 |
1B | Vaughn | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .202 |
RF | Jiménez, E | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .219 |
SS | DeJong | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .230 |
LF | Julks | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | .429 |
DH | Lee, K | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .292 |
2B | Remillard | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | .300 |
3B | Mendick | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .224 |
PH | Sheets | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .242 |
C | Maldonado, M | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .093 |
PH | Benintendi | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .195 |
CWS | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Flexen | 4.0 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 79-56 | 5.48 |
Hill, T | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 17-13 | 2.25 |
Wilson, S | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 17-12 | 2.84 |
Shuster | 2.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 26-15 | 2.00 |
Winning Pitcher | Losing Pitcher | Save |
---|---|---|
Rodón (5-2, 3.27 ERA) | Flexen (2-4, 5.48 ERA) |
Attendance | Weather | Wind |
---|---|---|
70°F, Partly Cloudy | 9 mph, In From LF |
HP | 1B | 2B | 3B |
---|---|---|---|
Erich Bacchus | Tripp Gibson | Laz Diaz | Mike Estabrook |
2024.05.19 17:35 Yankeebot Game Thread: White Sox @ Yankees - May 19, 2024 @ 01:35 PM EDT
White Sox Batters | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | K | LOB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pham - CF | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .333 | .379 | .481 |
2 | Vaughn - 1B | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .202 | .258 | .310 |
3 | Jiménez, E - RF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .219 | .273 | .367 |
4 | DeJong - SS | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .230 | .281 | .429 |
5 | Julks - LF | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | .429 | .500 | 1.000 |
6 | Lee, K - DH | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | .292 | .330 | .461 |
7 | Remillard - 2B | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | .300 | .417 | .450 |
8 | Mendick - 3B | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .224 | .255 | .367 |
a-Sheets - PH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .242 | .344 | .402 | |
9 | Maldonado, M - C | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .093 | .150 | .147 |
b-Benintendi - PH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .195 | .223 | .283 | |
Totals | 32 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 17 |
White Sox |
---|
a-Lined out for Mendick in the 9th. b-Grounded into a forceout for Maldonado, M in the 9th. |
BATTING: 2B: Mendick (4, Tonkin). 3B: Remillard (1, Rodón). HR: Julks (1, 2nd inning off Rodón, 0 on, 1 out). TB: Jiménez, E; Julks 5; Lee, K; Mendick 2; Remillard 3. RBI: Julks (1); Remillard (1). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Remillard; Pham; Benintendi; Vaughn. Team RISP: 0-for-10. Team LOB: 7. |
Yankees Batters | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | K | LOB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Volpe - SS | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .270 | .341 | .429 |
2 | Soto, J - RF | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | .311 | .411 | .552 |
3 | Judge - CF | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | .266 | .402 | .578 |
4 | Verdugo - LF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .244 | .321 | .394 |
5 | Stanton - DH | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .252 | .301 | .516 |
6 | Rizzo - 1B | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .256 | .320 | .400 |
7 | Torres - 2B | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | .225 | .298 | .298 |
8 | Trevino - C | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .284 | .326 | .455 |
9 | Berti - 3B | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .277 | .333 | .340 |
Totals | 34 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 9 | 12 |
Yankees |
---|
BATTING: 2B: Volpe (8, Flexen); Torres (7, Flexen). HR: Berti (1, 4th inning off Flexen, 2 on, 2 out); Judge (13, 5th inning off Flexen, 1 on, 0 out). TB: Berti 5; Judge 4; Rizzo 2; Torres 3; Trevino; Verdugo; Volpe 2. RBI: Berti 3 (5); Judge 2 (32); Trevino 2 (17). 2-out RBI: Berti 3. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Verdugo. Team RISP: 2-for-6. Team LOB: 4. |
FIELDING: Pickoffs: Trevino (Remillard at 3rd base). |
White Sox Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Flexen (L, 2-4) | 4.0 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 79-56 | 5.48 |
Hill, T | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 17-13 | 2.25 |
Wilson, S | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 17-12 | 2.84 |
Shuster | 2.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 26-15 | 2.00 |
Totals | 8.0 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 9 | 2 |
Yankees Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rodón (W, 5-2) | 6.0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 99-60 | 3.27 |
Tonkin | 2.1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 48-30 | 3.00 |
Holmes | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4-3 | 0.00 |
Totals | 9.0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 1 |
Game Info |
---|
Balk: Tonkin. |
HBP: DeJong (by Rodón). |
Pitches-strikes: Flexen 79-56; Hill, T 17-13; Wilson, S 17-12; Shuster 26-15; Rodón 99-60; Tonkin 48-30; Holmes 4-3. |
Groundouts-flyouts: Flexen 3-4; Hill, T 0-1; Wilson, S 1-1; Shuster 1-2; Rodón 3-5; Tonkin 3-2; Holmes 1-0. |
Batters faced: Flexen 21; Hill, T 4; Wilson, S 4; Shuster 6; Rodón 24; Tonkin 10; Holmes 2. |
Inherited runners-scored: Holmes 2-0. |
Umpires: HP: Erich Bacchus. 1B: Tripp Gibson. 2B: Laz Diaz. 3B: Mike Estabrook. |
Weather: 70 degrees, Partly Cloudy. |
Wind: 9 mph, In From LF. |
First pitch: 1:38 PM. |
T: 2:33. |
Att: 41,041. |
Venue: Yankee Stadium. |
May 19, 2024 |
Inning | Scoring Play | Score |
---|---|---|
Top 2 | Corey Julks homers (1) on a fly ball to left center field. | 1-0 CWS |
Top 2 | Zach Remillard triples (1) on a sharp fly ball to center fielder Aaron Judge. Korey Lee scores. | 2-0 CWS |
Bottom 2 | Jose Trevino singles on a ground ball to right fielder Eloy Jiménez. Anthony Rizzo scores. Gleyber Torres scores. | 2-2 |
Bottom 4 | Jon Berti homers (1) on a fly ball to right center field. Anthony Rizzo scores. Gleyber Torres scores. | 5-2 NYY |
Bottom 5 | Aaron Judge homers (13) on a fly ball to right field. Juan Soto scores. | 7-2 NYY |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | LOB | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
White Sox | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 7 | |
Yankees | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 0 | 4 |
2024.05.19 16:35 chisoxbot GAME THREAD: White Sox (14-32) @ Yankees (32-15) - Sun May 19 @ 12:35 PM
Team | Starter | TV | Radio |
---|---|---|---|
White Sox | Chris Flexen (2-3, 4.46 ERA) | NBCSCH | WMVP |
Yankees | Carlos Rodón (4-2, 3.31 ERA) | YES | WFAN, WADO (ES) |
MLB | Fangraphs | Reddit Stream | Discord |
---|---|---|---|
Gameday | Game Graph | Live Comments | /baseball Discord |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | LOB | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CWS | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 7 |
NYY | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 0 | 4 |
NYY | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SS | Volpe | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .270 |
RF | Soto, J | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .311 |
CF | Judge | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | .266 |
LF | Verdugo | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .244 |
DH | Stanton | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .252 |
1B | Rizzo | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .256 |
2B | Torres | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .225 |
C | Trevino | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | .284 |
3B | Berti | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | .277 |
NYY | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rodón | 6.0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 99-60 | 3.27 |
Tonkin | 2.1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 48-30 | 3.00 |
Holmes | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4-3 | 0.00 |
CWS | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CF | Pham | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .333 |
1B | Vaughn | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .202 |
RF | Jiménez, E | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .219 |
SS | DeJong | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .230 |
LF | Julks | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | .429 |
DH | Lee, K | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .292 |
2B | Remillard | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | .300 |
3B | Mendick | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .224 |
PH | Sheets | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .242 |
C | Maldonado, M | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .093 |
PH | Benintendi | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .195 |
CWS | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Flexen | 4.0 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 79-56 | 5.48 |
Hill, T | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 17-13 | 2.25 |
Wilson, S | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 17-12 | 2.84 |
Shuster | 2.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 26-15 | 2.00 |
Winning Pitcher | Losing Pitcher | Save |
---|---|---|
Rodón (5-2, 3.27 ERA) | Flexen (2-4, 5.48 ERA) |
Attendance | Weather | Wind |
---|---|---|
70°F, Partly Cloudy | 9 mph, In From LF |
HP | 1B | 2B | 3B |
---|---|---|---|
Erich Bacchus | Tripp Gibson | Laz Diaz | Mike Estabrook |
2024.05.19 15:01 ibid-11962 Writing and Publishing Eragon [Post Murtagh Christopher Paolini Q&A Wrap Up #6]
[When I start to write a new book] I have an image. There’s always a strong emotional component to the image, and it’s that emotion that I want to convey to readers. Everything I do after that, all of the worldbuilding, plotting, characterization, writing, and editing—all of it—is done with the goal of evoking the desired reaction from readers. In the case of the Inheritance Cycle, the image was that of a young man finding a dragon egg (and later having the dragon as a friend). [10]
Who's your favorite character to write? Well, for me, it's the dragon Saphira. She's the reason I got into writing a dragon. She came first? She came before Eragon? Like she was the catalyst? The relationship came first, her and Eragon. [33]
I was specifically inspired by a YA book called Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville, which is a delightful book. I just loved that idea so much of finding a dragon egg, I was like, "Well, what sort of a world would a dragon come from?" And I knew I wanted the sort of bond between rider and dragon that Anne McCaffrey had, but I wanted the intelligence of the dragons that you find elsewhere, and the language and the magic. And I wanted sparkly scales because it just seemed like dragons are fabulous creatures and they ought to have sparkly scales. That's the fun thing about writing your own books. You can make them exactly the way you want to make them, and hopefully then that appeals to the audience as well. [30]
All of that kind of was swirling around in my head, and I wanted to write about dragons in a way that kind of combined a lot of elements in a way that, "I like this", and "I like this piece", and "I like this piece", but I kind of wanted to have all these different pieces in one type of dragon, and no one had quite done it exactly the way I wanted. [30]
I live in Montana, and our library is an old Carnegie or Rockefeller library, and especially back in the 90s, it didn't have that many books. So once I read all the fantasy in the library, I thought I had read all the fantasy there was to read. Because I was not the smartest kid in the world sometimes. And I kind of thought, "Well, it's the library. They have all the books that exist, right? All the books that matter are in the library." And I really had no idea what to read after that. So I decided to start writing myself and to try and write the sort of story that I would enjoy reading. And of course, what I enjoyed reading was books about flying on dragons and fighting monsters and having adventures. [35]
Reading and literature was always important in our family. My father's mother was a professor of comparative literature and wrote books on Dante and all sorts of stuff like that. Was the myths and folklore part of your life at this time? Yes, but I should clarify that it wasn't formally introduced to me. It was in the house. People weren't wandering around talking about. It was just like the Aeneid is sitting on the shelf. I would go read things. I have a great uncle. He's 90 now, my mother's uncle. Guy is still sharp as a tack. It's amazing. But he gave me a set of cassette tapes of Joseph Campbell, who did Hero of a Thousand Faces. So that was my exposure to his theories of the monomyth and the eternal hero and all sorts of things like that. That got me very much interested in and thinking about the origins of the fantasy that I was reading because I was reading Tolkien and David Eddings and Anne McCaffrey and Raymond Feist and Jane Yolan and Andre Norton and Brian Jaques, and all of these you know authors who were popular at the time. I was very curious where does this come from. Tolkien, of course, felt like sort of the origin in a lot of cases but then I was discovering that, there are earlier stories that even Tolkien was drawing from. That was really a revelation to me. I really sort of got enamored with it. A lot of fantasy is nostalgic and that appealed to me because I was homeschooled and my family didn't really have a lot of relatives in the area, so I felt very unmoored from the rest of society. I think I was looking for a sense of tradition or continuity with the past and fantasy helped provide that. That's an incredibly articulate thought for a 15-year-old author. Or has that come with age? No, it was something I was feeling at the time. You were conscious of it at the time? Well, listening to the Joseph Campbell stuff, I was looking: Where are our coming of age traditions? Where is the great quest to go on to prove yourself as a young adult, as a man? Where's the great adventure? What do I do in life? Those are all things that are part of the adolescent experience and always have been which is why so many mythic stories about coming of age deal with those questions. I think it's a universal thing. That's why Harry Potter, Eragon, Twilight, all of these have appealed so much because they deal with adolescence. They deal with finding your place in the world as an adult when you're starting as a young adult or a child. [28]
What games have taught you to be a better writer either in creating characters or worldbuilding or plotting even? All of my gaming experience was computer games, video games. One that had a huge influence on me was the old Myst series. Personally I love solving puzzles, so that's the first thing. And also the concept of the series, especially with the second game, Riven, it's all based around people writing books that create new worlds. And you get to go in them and solve puzzles and understand how that world works. And that just tickled every single part of my brain back in the day. Now, I'm going to be slightly unkind here, and I apologize if the author [David Wingrove] is listening to this, but there were a couple of novels based off of Myst. And I was such a fan of the series that I got the books, and I started reading them. And my first thought was, "I could do better than this." And so I decided to rewrite the first Myst novel. And I created a document in MS Word, and I got exactly three sentences into my rewrite. And I thought to myself, "okay, I think I can do this, but I could never sell it. So I better go write something of my own." And the next thing I did was Eragon. So video games kind of had a direct influence on me writing. But actually reading something that I felt was not particularly successful was such an inspiration. Because it was like, "this got published, I know I can at least get to this level." And it was published. And then maybe I can shoot for a little bit higher. [pause] I think some people have had that experience with Eragon. [26]
I had the original idea, the concept of boy finding dragon egg, and I tried writing a couple of very short versions of Eragon when I was fourteen, and none of them panned out so I stopped writing for a while. [28]Real World Version
What do you remember about the early days of writing “Eragon?” Originally, Eragon was named Kevin and the story was set in the real world. But I only finished around 10 pages. [16]Arya Opening Fantasy Version
I wrote three versions of Eragon before I wrote the version that had the unicorn, which was the first major draft. The first version was set in the real world, and that's why he's named Kevin. And the reason it was set in the real world is I was inspired by Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher, which is set in the real world. [32]
I was specifically inspired by a book called Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville. By the way, Bruce knows this. If you haven't read it, it's a great book about this young man in the real world who, spoiler, goes into an antique shop and buys a stone that ends up turning out to be a dragon egg. And I really loved that idea of a stone that was actually a dragon egg and the young man becoming joined with the dragon. And so I tried writing the story. And I got exactly five pages or six pages into it and I ran into a brick wall, because a boy finding a dragon egg is a good event, but it is not a good story. And I needed to figure out what was going to happen after that. I didn't know that at first. [36]
But then I was going down the rabbit hole of, "Well, if there's a dragon, where did the dragon come from? What if it were an actual fantasy world where the dragons were native?" And then that led me to then write a second beginning--I didn't get very far with this--that was more of a traditional fantasy story, and it opened with Arya and a couple other elves escaping a dungeon with a big battle, and at the very end of the battle, they send the dragon egg away, and Kevin finds it. But I didn't have the rest of the story, so I stopped writing it in that format. [32]Research Break
So I tried writing a second version of the story. So the first version of that story I wrote was set in the real world. Second version was more of like a fantasy world. [36]
I had the original idea when I was fourteen. I even wrote an early version of the story where it was set in the real world. But I soon realized that it was a lot more interesting to have a dragon in a fantastical setting. [8]
I tried writing before and I always failed because I would only get like four to six pages into a story and then I didn't know what to do next. And that was because I didn't actually have my story. All I really had were the inciting incidents, like a boy finds a dragon egg in the middle of a forest. Great. But that's not a story, that's just one event. What happens as a result? So before starting Eragon, I was very methodical about this. I read a whole bunch of books on how to write, how to plot stories. [35]Unused Arya Outline
I realized I wasn't getting anywhere. And I didn't know how to do what I was trying to do. Now, fortunately for me, my parents had noticed that I was getting interested in writing. And all of a sudden, books appeared in the house. There was no comment, no one forced it, these just magically appeared, and I read them. Some of the books that were incredibly helpful to me were these books that were called The Writer's Handbook, which was a collection of essays published each year by The Writer's Digest magazine. I had one from 1998, and I had one from, I think, 1993, or something like that. And there were essays from Stephen King and John Grisham and I think Ursula Le Guin and all sorts of other authors about what it was like to be an author both professionally and creatively. And that was incredibly helpful to me because again, the internet was not a resource. But the book that really made the difference for me was a book called Story by Robert McKee. It's a book for screenwriters and it's all about the structure of story. And up until that moment, I had never really consciously thought about the fact that stories have structure and that you can control that structure for the effect on the readers. So I devoured that book and I said, okay, I'm going to try this again. [36]
Did you very much sit down and study structure and character development and etc? I did. It wasn't a formal course or anything, it's just that my parents started buying these books and they started showing up. In fact, I still have them here on my shelf. This bookcase to my right is full of research books, technical books, language books. I read a book called Story by Robert McKee, which is a screenwriting book, that was and often has been very popular in Hollywood. It's a fairly technical look at story structure. I would never say do everything he says because of course you shouldn't necessarily follow any one formula, but that book really got me thinking about the fact that stories do have structure, which I hadn't really thought about before that. And that one can control that structure, and that this gives you something to work with. Before Eragon, I tried writing a number of stories and I never got past the first four to six pages, ten pages, because I never had the plot. All I would ever have was the inciting incident which, in the case of Eragon, is a young man finds a dragon egg. Ok, fine, but that's not a story. So when I read that book, then I was like wow, so I can control the structure of this. [28]
The problem with all of my early writing was that I’d get an idea and just start — I didn’t actually have a plot. But I was a pretty methodical kid, so I started reading about how to write. Fortunately, my parents are observant, and these kinds of books magically began appearing in the house. And I read all of them. [16]
So at this point, I was 15, that's when I graduated from high school and I was very methodical about it because I hate failing. So I said, okay, I'm going to create a fantasy world. And I did that. And then I said, I'm gonna plot out an entire book in this fantasy world. And I did that too. And then I said, but I'm not gonna write this. This is just a thought exercise. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna stick it in a drawer. And I still have that to this day, that world and that story, I still have it sitting in a drawer somewhere. [36]
Then I spent some time and I created an entire fantasy world and I plotted out an entire fantasy novel in that world and I did not write it. I just stuck it in a drawer and that's where it's been sitting for 25 years now. And then I just did that to prove to myself that I could plot out an entire book. [35]
Before writing Eragon, again I was very methodical even as a teenager, I created an entire fantasy world. Wrote pages and pages about the worldbuilding, and then I plotted out an entire story in that world just to prove to myself that I could plot a story, create a world, and then I didn't write it. I put it aside. I still have it all saved. Put it in a drawer. [28]
And then I decided okay now I'm going to plot out a trilogy, because all great fantasy stories are trilogies. I'm going to do it as the heroic monomyth, because that is, at least my understanding back then, is this is one of the oldest forms of stories. I know it works on a general sense. It's going to give me a safety net, and then I'm going to write the first book as a practice book just to see if I'm capable of producing something that's three, four, five hundred pages long. And that's what I did. That was about two and a half months of worldbuilding, plotting, creating this. Then I wrote the first book and that was Eragon. That was my practice book. I never actually planned on publishing Eragon. It was only after I'd put so much work into it and my parents read it that then we proceeded with it. I was aware of story structure. I continue to read lots of books on it. [28]The First Draft
And then version three is the version that everyone generally knows. And that's where I spent the time to plot out the whole series before writing, because having a idea of where you're going seems to help with the writing, at least for me. Usually. [32]
I originally saw Eragon as a practice novel, which is part of why it’s a very typical hero’s story. I knew that structure worked and it gave me the safety net I needed. [16]
The first draft went super fast. It went really fast because I had no idea what I was doing. And I just wrote that sucker. I wrote the first 60 pages by hand with ballpoint pen, cause I didn't know how to type on a computer. And then by the time I typed all that into the computer, I knew how to type. I did the rest in the computer. But this was back in the day when computers were fairly new. We had a Mac classic, which only had two megabytes of RAM. And the problem is that the operating system chewed up some of that memory. And my book file was around two megabytes large. So I actually had to split the book into two because I couldn't open the whole file on the computer or the computer would crash. So I had to open half the book and then close that and then open the other half. [35]
Once I finished the first draft, I was super excited and I thought, "well all of these things on how to write say that you should read your own book and see if there's any tweaks you wanna make." But I was really excited because I was getting to read my own book for the first time, and I thought this is gonna be awesome. And it didn't take very long while reading it to realize that it was awful. It was horrible. And just to give you an idea of just how bad that first draft was, in the very first draft of Eragon, Eragon wasn't named Eragon, Eragon was named Kevin. And there was also a unicorn in that first draft at one point, so you know it wasn't very good. [35]Releasing the Kevin Cut
If I heard correctly as I was reading, Eragon wasn't originally called Eragon? No, in the first draft of the book he was called Kevin. There's a reason! Look I have an explanation for it, okay. The explanation is that my original inspiration was Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher which is set in the real world. The original version of Eragon that I was developing was set in the real world and when I decided that it would make more sense to have a world where the dragons were native to and switched it over to this fantasy world and began to develop that, I just kept the name that I'd been working with, which was Kevin. Naming a main character is hard, especially when you get used to a certain name. I don't want to say I was lazy. I want to focus on the world building and writing the first draft and I'll worry about the name later. [28]
There is an early version of Eragon that no one's seen, that even my editor at Random House never saw. And that was my first draft. And in that first draft, Eragon encountered a unicorn in the Beor Mountains on the way to the Varden. And the unicorn touches him and essentially affects the transformation that he goes under during the blood oath ceremony with the elves in the second book, in Eldest. And his whole storyline with the Varden once he gets to Farthen Dûr is completely different because now he has these abilities and he and a team of people ends up getting sent on a scouting mission in the dwarven tunnels to go find the Urgal army and then they have to flee back through the tunnels to warn everyone of this huge army and I had a underground cave full of lava, and multiple shades, and a huge Urgal army. There was there was a lot of dramatic stuff. Finding the Ra'zac in Dras-Leona was completely different. This is the draft where Eragon was named Kevin. [32]
I haven't thought about that version in ages. I think Arya was awake all the way from Gil'ead to Farthen Dûr in that version. That's right, I had to completely rewrite that. It's an unpleasant ride for her. No, no, no, she was awake and healed. She was awake. That's right, God, I had to rewrite most of the last chunk of the book now that I think back, it's been a long time. [32]
The worst thing is, I think Kevin would actually take a larger budget [to adapt to film]. No, stop. Why would Kevin take a larger budget? Because the battles were bigger, there was more stuff going on. Seriously, there were more creatures, more travel. Yeah, I think Kevin would actually take more money than Eragon. [32]
You said that Eragon's name was originally Kevin. Was Eragon's name originally Kevin? It was. And I really regret I didn't stick with it because I think that as many books as I've sold, the series would have been at least twice as successful if it had been about the adventures of the great dragon writer Kevin. Especially just seeing Kevin on the front cover. Imagine the appeal to the modern youth. Kevin the dragon writer. I mean Eragon, it's confusing with Aragorn. Oregano. Oregon. But Kevin, Kevin stands out, Kevin's original. That's why I had to move away from it. [31]
So do you wanna share some of those drafts with us, Christopher? Just kidding. Well, I actually had a fan reach out to me. He's one of the big members of the online fan community on Reddit and elsewhere. And he's kind of interested in some of these early versions from almost an archivist point of view, a scholarly point of view. Which is certainly an interesting idea. I mean, there is an early version of Eragon that no one's seen, that even my editor at Random House never saw. ... I cannot describe how much the Internet absolutely needs for you to put out an edition of Eragon that just says Kevin. Should this be like Mistborn or Way of Kings Prime? This is the Kevin edition of Eragon. The Kevin cut. Oh my god. It's "Eragon: Kevin's Version". ... We absolutely need Kevin's Version of Eragon. That's something we need. It's bad. It's bad. Look, there are certainly people who can look at Eragon, the version we have now, and say, "we can tell this was a younger writer." I look at it and I can tell. I could do so much more now with the material than I could then. But if you think that about the published version of Eragon, man, if you saw the unpublished version, the early version, it really is the raw writing of a homeschooled 15-year-old, who wrote a 500 page book about Kevin. I don't know, the internet is very unhinged these days. They would love this. It needs to exist somewhere on the internet. [32]
So I wrote Eragon, and then I read the first draft and it wasn't particularly good, so I spent a good chunk of a year rewriting it as best as I could. I didn't know what I was doing but I was trying. I've heard it said that being displeased with your own work is actually a good thing because it means you know what is good work, and if you're not happy with your work because it's not good, it means you could at least have a goal to shoot for. If you read your work and you're like this is the best thing that's ever been written, you're never going to get any better. [28]Self-publishing
But I could see that the book needed work, so I decided to try to fix it as best I could, and I spent the better part of that year revising, rewriting, changing Kevin to Eragon. And then I gave the book to my parents and fortunately for me, they actually enjoyed what I had done. And they said, we think you have something, let's try to take it out into the world and see if anyone else wants to read it. [35]
[We] decided to self-publish the book as a joint venture since we didn't know anyone in the publishing world. That was again a good chunk of a year where we were editing the book as best the three of us could. Preparing it for publication, formatting, I drew the cover. [28]Promotion
Now you have to understand, my parents were always self-employed, have always been self-employed and we were always looking for things we could work on together as a family business. And Eragon was like the perfect opportunity for that. They'd had some experience self-publishing a couple of small educational books my mom had worked on. Because she was a trained Montessori teacher, and so she was trying to use that expertise to write some material herself. But I don't even think we sold 100 copies of those. So we spent another good chunk of a year preparing the book for publication with doing more editing, doing the layout, designing the cover. [35]
The first set of 50 books showed up while we were watching Roman Polanski's Macbeth, which seemed fitting because those first 50 books were all miscut from the printer. And as a result, we had to rip the covers off, send them back for credit from the printer, and then burn the insides of the books. So we had a proper book burning in our yard, and I actually saved some of those burnt pages just as a memory of that event. [35]
Self publishing wasn’t as viable then as a pathway to a career as an author as it is today. Why did it work for you? Everything completely changed because of e-readers. If you wanted to read an e-book, you had to have a PDF on your computer. There were no distribution systems like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Back then, the lowest amount you could print and not have the book be too expensive was probably about 10,000 copies. But we were fortunate because print-on-demand had just become a thing, so books were just printed as needed. Self publishing is a lot easier these days. Of course, today’s marketplace is a lot more crowded as a result. [16]
My family and I were going around the western half of the United States with the self-published edition of Eragon. I was cold calling schools, libraries, and bookstores to set up events. I was doing two to three one-hour long presentations every single day for months on end at various times. You have to understand that because my parents were self-employed, the time they took to help prepare Eragon for publication was time they weren't working on other freelance projects that would have been bringing in money. So by the time we actually had Eragon printed and in hand, if it had taken another two to three months to start turning a profit, we were going to have to sell our house, move to a city, and get any jobs we could. Because of that financial pressure I was willing to do things I probably would have been too uncomfortable to do otherwise. Like doing all those presentations. [28]Getting traditionally published
We were doing a lot of self-promotion. I was cold calling schools and libraries and talking them into letting me do presentations. And that worked pretty well because the librarians could take pre-orders for us. If we went into a bookstore, by hand selling, I could maybe sell anywhere between 13 to 40 books in a day. 42 was like the best I ever did, but usually it was around 15 or so books, which just didn't cover printing costs and travel and food and all of that. But going into the schools, we were doing about 300 books a day, which was excellent. [34]
Can you tell me a little bit about how you and your family self-published the first Eragon book and what marketing strategies you did? Oh, it was all nepotism, you know. I wouldn't have gotten published without my parents. There's nothing as powerful as a publishing company that's four people sitting around a kitchen table in the middle of rural Montana. So yeah, without Nepotism, I wouldn't have gotten published. You have to embrace something like Nepotism if you really wanna succeed in today's world. In fact, people don't realize that you actually get a Nepotism card. There's a secret club. You go to New York and there's huge network opportunities. There's branches of the club everywhere, especially strong in Hollywood, of course, in music. Taylor Swift is an example. So if you can get into the nepotism club, I won't say you're guaranteed success, but you got about 80% chance of actually making it that you wouldn't have otherwise. Do you think your mom and dad would be willing to be my mom and dad? No, absolutely not. No, no. You don't have brown hair, so it doesn't work. You have to have brown hair to be a Paolini. Okay, I'll try to find a different way in, I guess. [31]
So you were very much looking for that partnership? Well we were wary. But the thing is is we were selling enough copies of Eragon that to scale it up we were going to have to start duplicating all the things that a regular publisher does. We were actually looking at partnering with a book packager or a book distributor just to get more copies out. To do everything a traditional publisher could do for me was a huge amount of work so it made sense to pair with Random House or someone else at that point. But it was still nerve-wracking because the book was being a success and then handing it off to another company, we didn't know if it was just going to end up in the remainder bin two weeks after it came out. [28]Gaining Confidence
People in the book world were starting to take notice because of course, if you've been to public school, you may remember the Scholastic Book Fairs and all of the Scholastic reps in the different schools were seeing me come to the schools and selling these books and hearing the kids talk about it. And it was getting attention. So we would have gotten a publisher, I would have gotten a publisher eventually. [34]
The book sold enough copies and bounced around enough that we'd heard that Scholastic—because Scholastic does all the Book Fairs in schools in the US—was interested and that we might get an offer from them. Before that happened though... [34]
Eventually another author by the name of Carl Hiaasen ended up buying a copy of the self-published edition of Eragon in a local bookstore. Which now that I'm older, I'm rather shocked at because it takes a lot to get me to buy a self-published book. It's got to look really good. [35]
Carl Hiaasen wrote the young adult book Hoot as well as many adult books. He comes up to Montana, I think he's got a vacation home here in the valley, but he was up here fly fishing and he bought a copy of Eragon for his then 12 year old son, Ryan. And fortunately for me, Ryan liked the book and Carl recommended it to Random House and it sort of bounced around among the editors for a couple of months before my editor-to-be grabbed it and said, "Yes, we will. I want to take a chance on this teenage author and we're going to offer him money for a trilogy that only exists in his head and see what happens." [34]
How did you find an agent? We had the offer from Random House, and like two days later, we had the offer from Scholastic. And so we knew we didn't know what we didn't know. My dad participated in some online self-publishing forum sort of thing. So he posted up a question and said, look, this is the situation we're in. Does anyone have any advice? And another one of the members said, "well, I was just at this publishing writing conference and there was this young agent there and I was really impressed with his presentation, or him talking about the industry." So my dad got his information online and did what you're never supposed to do, which is he called the agent directly and left this long rambling voicemail message because it was lunchtime in New York and you take your lunch breaks in New York. And only at the end of the message did he say, "oh, yes, and by the way, we have two competing offers from two publishing houses." And when I asked him, I said, "why did you do that?" He said, "well, because if he's any good as an agent, he's going to listen to the whole message before he deletes it." And we found out later that he nearly deleted the message. Because my dad started off like, "I got this teenage son, and he's written this book", and yeah, that, OK. So it was like two hours later we got a call from Simon. And Simon said overnight me a copy of Eragon and if I like it I'll represent you. And Simon has been my agent for 21 years now. [34]
It was a big risk for Random House. And it was a big risk for me because the book was successful, self-published, and we knew that giving it to a publisher, you lose the rights to a degree, and most books don't turn a profit, and it could have just ended up in the remainder bin. So what really worked in my favor is that Random House, and specifically Random House Children's Books, and specifically the imprint of Knopf, which is where I'm at were looking for their own Harry Potter, essentially. Scholastic was publishing Harry Potter. And Scholastic also gave me an offer for Eragon, but I could tell that Random House was the one that really loved the book and Scholastic was doing it because they thought it was a good business opportunity. Scholastic actually offered more money than Random House. But I went with Random House and it was the right choice. And I found out after the fact that Chip Gibson who was the head of the children's department at the time basically chose to use Eragon as sort of something to rally the troops and put the entire children's division behind it, and I was the very fortunate recipient of that love and attention. Which of course would only get you so far if people didn't enjoy reading the book. But fortunately for me, they did a great job marketing it and then people actually enjoyed the book. Which is why when people ask me how to get published, it's like, what am I supposed to say? The answer ultimately is you write a book that people want to read, and that's a facile answer, but it is true. If people want to read it, it makes everything else easier. The agent wants you, the publishers want you, and ultimately the public wants you. [34]
And I didn't realize how much was behind that email, because large publishers do not just casually say, "hey, we want to publish your book". There was a whole plan there, and they had a plan. And so they did. Eragon came out and then I had to figure out how to write a book with everyone expecting the sequel. [36]
So you kind of went and peddled your books at schools, as I understand, right? It seems to have paid off though, because it eventually landed in the hands of bestselling author Carl Hiaasen, but not right away. First, your book got in the hands of his stepson, and the kid liked it so much that he told Hiaasen about it, who then got Eragon fast-tracked with Penguin Random House. I really admire the way that you went for the weakest links, manipulating the minds of our youth and using them to shill your book for you. It's a tried and true marketing strategy from Girl Scout Cookies to coupon books, and I applaud you for your ingenuity. My biggest question here is, do you pay Carl Hiaasen's stepson the agent royalties he so rightfully deserves? He tried to collect one time, but I had to hire a couple of guys to drive him off. But, no, you always go for the weakest link. Back when I was self-published and all that I even tried to get Eragon reviewed by Entertainment Weekly, so I called up the subscription number on the back of the magazine and told them I'd made a mistake and asked them to transfer me over to corporate, and managed to get right to their book reviewer and tried to talk him into reviewing Eragon. So you always go for, as you said, the weakest link. Which is corporate. Ryan, Carl's son, though, yeah, I probably owe him a ridiculous amount of royalties. I'd say so. He made you. Oh, he did, absolutely. Without him, I'd be nothing. I guess the lesson here for aspiring authors is that it's not really about finding your target audience, necessarily. You just have to find your target prolific author's stepson and let the kid take it from there. Yeah, absolutely. As I said, that's part of the nepotism package. The sort of networking inside the industry. This is the stuff that you can never access otherwise, and you'll never get published otherwise. So it's not like you can just grow up in the middle of nowhere in Montana, self-publish a book, and then just become a success, by promoting it. You have to have connections. That's genius. I think you could have had an incredible career in designing loot boxes for mobile games based on how good you are at manipulating the world. Absolutely, microtransactions are God's work. [31]
Was anxiety something you felt moving to this deal with Random House? Was that quite pressuring? Yes, it was a big change to go from writing for yourself as a teenager, homeschooled, living in the middle of nowhere, to knowing that there was a large audience for your next book and that they had expectations. I got criticized quite a bit, critiqued quite a bit when Eragon came out for, shall we say, my lack of experience on the technical side of things with the writing. I'd say some of those were certainly fair critiques. The great advantage of youth is that you don't know how difficult things are and you have a lot of energy. The great disadvantage of youth is you don't have experience, and there's no fixing that aside from time and effort. All of that was definitely in my head when I really started work on Eldest and it was pretty nerve-wracking quite honestly. [28]
When you finished the book, I mean your parents believed in it obviously. Did you too? Or were you like, "You know what, maybe the second book, maybe go all in on the second one?" I didn't feel like I was actually an author until my third book was published. Because the first one, well, that could be a fluke. Well, the second one, yeah, but you know. But once the third book came out, then I was like, okay, maybe I'm actually a writer. But even then, even after I finished the series, I still felt like, okay, now I have to write something that's not Eragon, just to prove that I can. So every book has been its own challenge and has been a way for me to keep feeling like I'm growing as an artist and learning to become a better and better writer. [2]
It took me, I wanna say almost 10 years to feel like I wasn't an imposter and that it wasn't just gonna get yanked away. You know what my dream was when Eragon was was going to get published by Random House? Like this was my pie in the sky because I didn't think it was going to happen. But this was my dream. I did all the math and I was like, man, if I could somehow someday sell 100,000 books, which is impossible. But man, if I could sell 100,000 books, that's a darn good living. Man, I could really make a living off that. I could support a family and 100,000 books. Man, that'd be amazing. And then it kind of took off from there. [33]
2024.05.19 14:11 FiveKnuckleJuggle Panel Show Weekly Schedule: Sun May 19 2024
Date | Show | Episode | Summary | Link |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mon May 20 2024 05:30:00 GMT | After Midnight | Season 1 Episode 59 | BenDeLaCreme, Rory Scovel, Harvey Guillén - Taylor Tomlinson welcomes drag queen BenDeLaCreme, comic Rory Scovel, and actor Harvey Guillén. | 🔗 |
Mon May 20 2024 10:30:00 GMT | Have You Been Paying Attention? | Season 12 Episode 2 | Episode 2 - | 🔗 |
Mon May 20 2024 21:00:00 GMT | Rhod Gilbert's Growing Pains | Series 5 Episode 11 | Episode Eleven - Rhod Gilbert is joined by guests Amy Gledhill, Emmanuel Sonubi and Michelle Visage to roll back the clock. What will they learn about each other - and who will be the most embarrassed? | 🔗 |
Tue May 21 2024 02:00:00 GMT | A League of Their Own (2010) | Road Trip: Mexico Episode 1 | Episode One - Jamie Redknapp, Jill Scott, Micah Richards, Mo Gilligan and Maisie Adam explore what Mexico has to offer. | 🔗 |
Tue May 21 2024 05:30:00 GMT | After Midnight | Season 1 Episode 60 | Jim Rash, Nat Faxon - Taylor Tomlinson welcomes actor Jim Rash and actor Nat Faxon. | 🔗 |
Wed May 22 2024 05:30:00 GMT | After Midnight | Season 1 Episode 61 | Andy Richter, Penn Jillette, Aasif Mandvi - Taylor Tomlinson welcomes comic Andy Richter, magician Penn Jillette, and actor Aasif Mandvi. | 🔗 |
Wed May 22 2024 10:30:00 GMT | Gruen | Season 16 - Gruen: Series 16 Episode 2 | Episode 2 - The world has gone ad - but the algorithm has delivered brand new Gruen. Returning for an unprecedented and ill-advised 16th season, Wil Anderson and a panel of know-it-alls will pull you out from under the influence. | 🔗 |
Thu May 23 2024 05:30:00 GMT | After Midnight | Season 1 Episode 62 | Marcella Arguello, Thomas Lennon - Taylor Tomlinson welcomes comic Marcella Arguello and actor Thomas Lennon. | 🔗 |
Thu May 23 2024 09:30:00 GMT | 7 Days (2009) | Season 16 Episode 8 | Thursday May 23 2024 - | 🔗 |
Thu May 23 2024 09:30:00 GMT | Taskmaster (AU) | Season 2 Episode 1 | Episode 1 - Contestants: Anne Edmonds, Jenny Tian, Josh Thomas, Lloyd Langford, Wil Anderson | 🔗 |
Thu May 23 2024 21:00:00 GMT | Taskmaster | Series 17 Episode 9 | Assistantbury - As the series climax approaches, Little Alex Horne risks raising notoriously prickly Greg Davies' hackles with a task in celebration of himself. Sophie Willan is baffled by mirror writing, John Robins proves to be a talented tailor, Steve Pemberton has an expletive-laden row with a bin, Joanne McNally finds a novel use for a cow's ear, and Nick Mohammed brings a tear to Greg's eye. | 🔗 |
Fri May 24 2024 00:00:00 GMT | The Good, The Bad And The Unexpected | Series 17 Episode 5 | Episode Five - The show where comedians work out the good from the bad, with a few unexpected twists. | 🔗 |
Fri May 24 2024 21:00:00 GMT | Have I Got News for You | Series 67 Episode 8 | Episode Eight - University Challenge host Amol Rajan takes charge, with Richard Osman and Baroness Ruth Davidson as the guests. | 🔗 |
Sat May 25 2024 17:00:00 GMT | Suurmestari | Season 5 Episode 11 | Make a new friend - Contestants: Eero Ritala, Joonas Nordman, Pamela Tola, Pirjo Lonka | 🔗 |
2024.05.19 14:10 iwokeupabillionare Annie Who Are You? L'inconnue de la Seine. The Girl who never drowned.
2024.05.19 13:01 Evyi-horror Recommandations ?
2024.05.19 06:02 Choice_Evidence1983 AITA for not having my boyfriend be a plus one at my best friends wedding
OOP: i accepted the wedding invite long before we met. this wedding invite didn’t just recently happen. + main reason for why i never asked for a plus one is because joe and i had only just started seeing each other when the wedding was being planned. a lot went into it because it’s a destination wedding in europe + i’m not meaning to dismiss it. i’m pointing out that’s why i’m not having a plus one unlike the other groomsmen and bridesmaids. they have been with their partners for years and personally know anne. joe has only ever met her over face time + also there’s a lot more then just buying a ticket. i said earlier that this wedding was planned months before we met. anne planned a lot of things for this wedding that are catered to the fact there’s a limited guest list. again. i would have been fine to explain all this but again. i never got a chance to + this wedding wasn’t a secret. he was even aware of it when we first started seeing each other because i’d just done dress shopping. again. this wedding was very planned out because it is indeed, very small and private in france. he’s also met anne and her fiance over face time, not in person because she’s in a different state. he’s met my other friends as well. he hasn’t met my parents because they live in a different country.
OOP: thank you ❤️ i do have a dog and a roommate so that’s some extra security already. the roommate and i talked before about getting a ring camera but this experience and other comments have solidified us getting one
2024.05.19 05:20 uselessnavy Anne Robinson dating Camilla's ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles
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2024.05.19 04:14 St_Augustine_Discord Live Music and Events Sunday May 19th
2024.05.19 04:14 St_Augustine_Discord Live Music and Events Sunday May 19th
2024.05.19 03:39 khlim22 An aging PA who is about to get fired contemplates suicide but is approached by an organization who offers to make her young again
2024.05.19 02:30 _eMeL_ [US- CA] [H] John Gruelle - Mr. Twee Deedle - 1911 Sunday Comic prints [W] PayPal
2024.05.19 02:11 juanitasdiner Discover Chicago's Finest Steakhouses: A Culinary Odyssey
2024.05.19 00:08 Nearby-Highlight-115 AITAH for my "scorched earth" intervention methods against my ex after she became a religious zealot?
2024.05.18 21:39 Yankeebot IT'S WHAT YOU WANT: The Yankees defeated the White Sox by a score of 6-1 - May 18, 2024 @ 01:05 PM EDT
White Sox Batters | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | K | LOB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pham - CF | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .346 | .386 | .500 |
2 | Sheets - RF | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .244 | .346 | .405 |
3 | Vaughn - 1B | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | .207 | .264 | .317 |
4 | Jiménez, E - DH | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | .218 | .274 | .371 |
5 | Benintendi - LF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .196 | .224 | .285 |
6 | DeJong - SS | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | .236 | .282 | .439 |
7 | Lee, K - C | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | .291 | .322 | .465 |
8 | Lopez, N - 2B | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .195 | .264 | .212 |
9 | Mendick - 3B | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .217 | .250 | .348 |
Totals | 33 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 12 |
White Sox |
---|
BATTING: 2B: Benintendi (5, Gil); Pham (6, Gil). TB: Benintendi 2; Jiménez, E; Pham 3; Sheets 2. RBI: Benintendi (15). 2-out RBI: Benintendi. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Sheets; Lee, K 2. Team RISP: 1-for-5. Team LOB: 6. |
FIELDING: E: DeJong (7, throw). |
Yankees Batters | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | K | LOB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Volpe - SS | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .270 | .343 | .427 |
2 | Soto, J - RF | 4 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .317 | .414 | .561 |
3 | Judge - CF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 6 | .266 | .405 | .568 |
4 | Verdugo - LF | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | .244 | .322 | .397 |
5 | Stanton - DH | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .258 | .309 | .530 |
6 | Rizzo - 1B | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | .250 | .316 | .398 |
7 | Torres - 2B | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | .218 | .294 | .287 |
8 | Trevino - C | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .286 | .330 | .464 |
9 | Berti - 3B | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .250 | .313 | .250 |
Totals | 34 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 11 | 18 |
Yankees |
---|
BATTING: 2B: Stanton (8, Keller, B); Volpe (7, Soroka). HR: Soto, J 2 (11, 1st inning off Keller, B, 0 on, 1 out, 5th inning off Keller, B, 0 on, 0 out); Trevino (5, 2nd inning off Keller, B, 0 on, 1 out); Stanton (11, 3rd inning off Keller, B, 0 on, 1 out). TB: Judge; Soto, J 10; Stanton 6; Trevino 4; Volpe 2. RBI: Soto, J 3 (37); Stanton 2 (26); Trevino (15). 2-out RBI: Stanton; Soto, J. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Rizzo; Judge 2; Torres; Verdugo 2. Team RISP: 1-for-8. Team LOB: 9. |
White Sox Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Keller, B (L, 0-2) | 4.0 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 84-56 | 4.86 |
Soroka | 4.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 82-47 | 5.85 |
Totals | 8.0 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 11 | 4 |
Yankees Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gil (W, 5-1) | 6.0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 0 | 98-65 | 2.39 |
Burdi | 2.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 28-19 | 1.04 |
Santana, D | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6-6 | 4.34 |
Totals | 9.0 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 0 |
Game Info |
---|
WP: Keller, B. |
Pitches-strikes: Keller, B 84-56; Soroka 82-47; Gil 98-65; Burdi 28-19; Santana, D 6-6. |
Groundouts-flyouts: Keller, B 8-1; Soroka 0-1; Gil 1-1; Burdi 0-4; Santana, D 1-1. |
Batters faced: Keller, B 21; Soroka 18; Gil 24; Burdi 7; Santana, D 3. |
Inherited runners-scored: Soroka 1-0. |
Umpires: HP: Mike Estabrook. 1B: Erich Bacchus. 2B: Tripp Gibson. 3B: Laz Diaz. |
Weather: 67 degrees, Partly Cloudy. |
Wind: 10 mph, In From LF. |
First pitch: 1:08 PM. |
T: 2:29. |
Att: 43,194. |
Venue: Yankee Stadium. |
May 18, 2024 |
Inning | Scoring Play | Score |
---|---|---|
Top 1 | Andrew Benintendi doubles (5) on a pop up to left fielder Alex Verdugo. Tommy Pham scores. Gavin Sheets to 3rd. | 1-0 CWS |
Bottom 1 | Juan Soto homers (10) on a fly ball to right center field. | 1-1 |
Bottom 1 | Giancarlo Stanton doubles (8) on a sharp line drive to center fielder Tommy Pham. Alex Verdugo scores. | 2-1 NYY |
Bottom 2 | Jose Trevino homers (5) on a line drive to left field. | 3-1 NYY |
Bottom 2 | Juan Soto singles on a ground ball to right fielder Gavin Sheets. Jon Berti scores. | 4-1 NYY |
Bottom 3 | Giancarlo Stanton homers (11) on a line drive to right center field. | 5-1 NYY |
Bottom 5 | Juan Soto homers (11) on a fly ball to right center field. | 6-1 NYY |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | LOB | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
White Sox | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 6 | |
Yankees | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 9 | 0 | 9 |
2024.05.18 18:27 AutoNewspaperAdmin [Top Stories] - Anne Robinson dating Queen Camilla's ex-husband BBC
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2024.05.18 18:09 AutoNewsAdmin [Top Stories] - Anne Robinson dating Queen Camilla's ex-husband
submitted by AutoNewsAdmin to BBCauto [link] [comments] |
2024.05.18 18:05 BaseballBot Game Thread 5/18 ⚾ White Sox (14-31) @ Yankees (31-15) 1:05 PM ET
Team | Starter | TV | Radio |
---|---|---|---|
White Sox | Brad Keller (0-1, 2.84 ERA) | NBCSCH | WMVP |
Yankees | Luis Gil (4-1, 2.51 ERA) | YES | WFAN, WADO (ES) |
MLB | Fangraphs | Reddit Stream | IRC Chat |
---|---|---|---|
Gameday | Game Graph | Live Comments | Libera: ##baseball |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | LOB | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CWS | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 6 |
NYY | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 9 | 0 | 9 |
NYY | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SS | Volpe | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .270 |
RF | Soto, J | 4 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | .317 |
CF | Judge | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | .266 |
LF | Verdugo | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .244 |
DH | Stanton | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | .258 |
1B | Rizzo | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .250 |
2B | Torres | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .218 |
C | Trevino | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .286 |
3B | Berti | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .250 |
NYY | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gil | 6.0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 98-65 | 2.39 |
Burdi | 2.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 28-19 | 1.04 |
Santana, D | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6-6 | 4.34 |
CWS | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CF | Pham | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .346 |
RF | Sheets | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .244 |
1B | Vaughn | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .207 |
DH | Jiménez, E | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .218 |
LF | Benintendi | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .196 |
SS | DeJong | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .236 |
C | Lee, K | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .291 |
2B | Lopez, N | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .195 |
3B | Mendick | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .217 |
CWS | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Keller, B | 4.0 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 84-56 | 4.86 |
Soroka | 4.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 82-47 | 5.85 |
Winning Pitcher | Losing Pitcher | Save |
---|---|---|
Gil (5-1, 2.39 ERA) | Keller, B (0-2, 4.86 ERA) |
Attendance | Weather | Wind |
---|---|---|
67°F, Partly Cloudy | 10 mph, In From LF |
HP | 1B | 2B | 3B |
---|---|---|---|
Mike Estabrook | Erich Bacchus | Tripp Gibson | Laz Diaz |
2024.05.18 17:16 Known-Map9195 The series, poorly summarized