Yeah Aleron forgot the thing that make Richter a great character, he was complicated. He did stupid shit, he got drunk, fucked assasins, got fooled by other chaos seeds, saved any number of races, restored fairies and he was FUN and had a basic goodness that offset his rougher traits. His new main characters are cardboard cutout mary sues with psychotic tendencies. Character development and setup does not really exist. The worldbuilding is there but worldbuilding does not carry a story, characters do. You can write a boring series about demigods riding dragons through the infinite wall world between dimensions and a great series about a handful of mice protecting a cloister.
I think the issue is confidence. People that brag as much as Aleron does often compensate for other issues. Book 8 did not get a good reception, so now he is unable to write book 8 and sticks to cardboard cutouts. Call it my two cents of unstable fabled draconic wisdom.
Not that I should be personally saying anything as a relative "failure" as a LitRPG author, but here's my two syllables... The original series was popular because it was one of the best in those early days AND Richter was based on Aleron. When the series started faltering (resting on his laurels) a LOT of GREAT new LitRPG came out. He launched again and failed. Instead of listening to his readers (or maybe because he listened to some of them?) he tried to change it up and go wide with characters NOT based on him and NOT based on fun but those that hit all the "write to market" tropes ... So, I don't think he understands WHY the series started faltering and what he should've/could've done to save it. But hey, like I said, he's made about 10,000,000 more than me likely... and still sells for nostalgia and other reasons, I bet. He needs to go back to basics and remember what readers latched onto originally. The competition is a LOT tougher these days, but Aleron HAS a good, distinct voice when he lets it out and doesn't try too hard.
Really good points. I think you hit the nail on the head. He’s likely trying too hard because of previous failure and mental health stuff during covid times.
