I do agree with most of what others here have brought up - poor world building, poor story-telling and structure, lazy writing, leading to a lacklustre world feeling that hopes to sell itself on pretty graphics and flashy, 'epicness'; the writing itself wouldn't even make publication in train stop paperback pulp (well, it might, but only just at that level), and other have brought up many reasons why in this thread and others.
The issue of timing with the tadpole is that it relies on us breaking immersion in space to make a meta-game acknowledgement, in order to drive itself. We must come out of the game space and say: "Okay, we can see that the tadpole isn't actually on a time limit and we're safe from that, so we can explore." - and we must step out of game to do that, because no actual person in real life, finding themselves in this situation would simply "Trust" that they were not going to be transformed body and soul by this thing that annihilates a person's entire existence, just because ours isn't behaving in the traditional way exactly. No-one would accept that a something to wager their life and immortal soul upon, just on anecdotal information and statements of oddities.
We need to be rushed- and that means not having missable quest lines or side objectives to slow us down - to a point where we, as characters in the world, get confirmed proof from an authority information source that we can reasonably rely on as being an authority on this information (no, Halsin does not work for this; it needs to be an authority on our specific, personal situation), that we are not going to turn by passage of time alone. Once the in-universe characters have been given that information in a mode they can an would be able to rely on, to the magnitude of trusting their entire ongoing existence to that information, THEN we can explore, gain power and experience, gather allies and artefacts, and generally go about our adventure in the way we individually see fit.
You don't rush the players by giving them a hard time limit or a ticking clock - you create the sensation of rushing by swift progression, and you encourage that by presenting,
during the rushing section, a lack of branches and other diverting side elements; they should not be available while the rush is on, and they should not be missable as part of that. The information which alleviates the rushing needs to be presented to the characters in-universe, before the world opens up and offers the myriad of possibilities and options it wants to.
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Anyway, I respect your opinion and that was my last post on the matter, even though I'd like to read your answer.
The thread has moved on quickly, but in brief, if you wish:
Again, I disguised nothing in what I was saying - Ragnarok and I have gone through this conversation and the shape of it on other topics, numerous times, and we're quite used to how each other responds to things. Unfortunately, between his propensity to latch onto minutia and play the part of the contrarian even when he agrees with an overall topic, and my own weakness for wanting to clarify ad nauseum, it's a counter-productive spiral that goes nowhere if we both end up falling into that exchange. I was not hiding my contempt for that situation when it occurs, but that is not a reflection on, or directed at Rag himself, whom I know is and can be a poster with a lot of interesting perspectives, and a keen eye for detail despite the occasional language barrier issue and the differences in mode of thought that that can sometimes cause.
I've already answered the rest of your questions, if you read the posts you're responding to; I have no problem with drawing inspiration from various elements and tropes that have been successful in the past, as I said, explicitly in my previous response. My issue is that what I see here is not that - it is a more wholesale transplant of the entire shape of the intro and its discrete elements, on large scale, and all together, enough that it is highly visible as being so - if you can't see that, then more power to you; I can, and many others can, and have said so, and it doesn't feel good.
The list that I referenced, and which you asked to see, is the list that I posted in this very thread and which a number of other posters have already acknowledged and reacted to. On individual reused element is not a problem; when so much of the introduction trades on so many directly copied elements that are functionally identical, saving only a (relatively thin) coat of paint, that's when it starts to look tacky and disrespectful - to the Ip, but also to us as consumers. The list itself is not subjective - it is an objective comparison of copied-over details; initially I did not even express an opinion about them, I just listed them, and left it for other people to make up their own minds. I do have an opinion on it - that this is not okay, and that it is poor form and disrespectful; that is my opinion, as I'm voicing in this discussion - pointing out that that's subjective serves no purpose and has no value, because that is true by definition, as is any opinion on any matter voiced by anyone anywhere - you saying so is the equivalent of the kid in the playground who shouts "well that's your opinion! Nyah!" as though saying so constitutes some kind of argument against it. It is my opinion, yes, what's your point?
