Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
I'm not very happy about any of what I wrote. Don't bother taking advice from this.
Statistics of Original Quests
Note: This analysis of statistics is mostly outdated and inaccurate. Read it mostly for context. When I'm done talking about all its problem I'll go back and revise it. See Author's Notes for details.
But it is possible that we could encourage original fiction in other ways. Although fanfiction is extremely popular on both SV and its parent site, not to mention QQ, original fiction is present. To give statistics for quests, there are currently 78 quests marked original out of 3,227 total quests. Of course, some of these threads are duplicates or spliced over some Spacebattles (about 200) and not every single original quest is represented. However, all in all original quests are about 2.5% of the total, that could probably rise to 4-5% if we include all original quests together. By comparison, 2/30 of the front page quests are original, so 6.6%. 8 out of 150 top quests are original, bringing the number to 5.3%. So judging simply by prefixed quests, original quests have an outsized popularity. Post-author's note: Not true. Better statistics are in the following post.
However, this popularity is not nearly large enough to be significant. Why? Even assuming that the tagged quests are the majority of all original quests, which considering that I tagged about 70 quests in the last 10-15 pages as original is unlikely, it's only a discrepancy between the amount of total original quests and the most popular original quests of +1-2%, which is not a very high discrepancy. All it tells us is that you are able to have a very popular original quest, which while useful in terms of telling us that original quests don't have repellent fields that prevent anyone from caring about it, doesn't give us much information about how to help other original quests. Post-author's note: Again, statistics bear out a different picture.
Another important point is that these quests are "unique" in the way that they are presented- it generally requires an outsized effort to provide for these original quests to rise.
Let us consider the eight most popular original quests in order of popularity.
The Hateful Eight
1. Into the Amber Age by @Academia Nut. Into the Amber Age is a quest made by one of the most popular authors on SV. It's set in a mythical neolithic type spiritual land. This man is such a brand that he makes 200$ a month off his Patron just making quests, I'm not joking. He has used Age of Strife, a WH40K empire-builder type quest set in...the age of Strife, to create a very large userbase. His greatest strengths are complicated mechanics, brand loyalty, and rapid posting, as well as the fact he makes 200$ a month off quests. Into the Amber Age continues the trend started by AoS for very rapid updates combined with huge user discussions. Post-Author's note: Although correct around the edges, ignores the low-mechanic start that Amber Age had as well as other factors for player interest.
2. Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest by @Avalanche. BAAHSQ is a quest that attempts to...hmm, I don't like using the word deconstruct, but it certainly tries to twist around and criticize a lot of the cliches and tropes around harems. It's focused on Anna Sanchez, who Avalanche expends a great deal of effort into making cute and traumatized. I'm being blunt here, but I'm focused more on appeal than quality of these quests. The setting is very much like most mecha settings, strange aliens, a variety of team-mates, it's a highschool battle academy setting. What is the appeal? Avalanche's updates are slow, but each is about 13,000 words, and Anna Sanchez is designed to be likeable and cute. Even in universe she's a meme, and this is exploited extremely by the userbase. Avalanche probably isn't the best writer ever, but he's a veryskilled writer in making the userbase care about Anna and write dozens of omakes. I'm not kidding. There are an absurd amount. So what are BAAHSQ's strengths? It has a dedicated userbase, it won the award that catapulted it to sticky status for several months and gave it extra views, and it has huge updates that mean that people feel it's worth it to stick around for the months it takes for Avalanche to update. Post Author's Note: No problems yet.
3. Terrene Spire by @Dexexe1234. Terrene Spire is a special quest, and not just because Squishy decided to sticky it much to the fury of people used to seeing unoriginal stuff on the front page of quests (
). Terrene is an art quest par-excellence, with animated images and text that feels straight out of a video game. Putting aside the fact that Squishy stickied it or complaints about it, since you could argue many, why is Terrene Spire successful? It is simply a very unique quest in a way that is very accessible to the average person. I'm going to talk more about why art quests have a much greater rate of original settings than text quests later, but to put it simply, art is a medium where there are no blanks to be filled because you see them on the screen. Combine this with the video-game format and impressive art and it's obvious why Spire is so popular. Post-Author's Note: Terrene's popularity is most attributable to the sticky, by far. That is an incredibly important thing to remember.
4. A Hedge Maze Is You by @Chandagnac. What the fuck is this quest? I really didn't know so I took a look. I won't exaggerate when I say that Hedge Maze is odd. It's literally you're a fucking hedge maze. More specifically, you're the spirit of a hedge maze, and it's your job to make people lose themselves in you so you can steal their souls. You know, the usual. What the hell is this thing and why is it popular? The secret answer is mechanics. This quest has mechanics up its hedge-shaped arse. They're everywhere, I'd say you can even lose yourself in them. Combine this with an amusingly odd setting where you are literally a hedge maze spirit, and you get a very easy recipe for success. It's easy to fuck this up, but if you know what you're doing, the quest builds its own userbase without you even trying. Mechanics provide tangible things for users to discuss, and humor adds levity to what would otherwise be arguments about power levels for a sentient labyrinth. It's a very structured quest, and this is why it ultimately succeeds, by binding players and trapping them in its leafy mess of mechanics and quests and other NPC gods and so on. It appeals to a particular sort of quest-goer. Post-Author's Note: Quite inaccurate- interview with QM and some regulars can clear up misconceptions.
5. The Gardens of Enoch by @Rihaku. Imagine Amazon. Think about it how it obsessively calculates metrics and maximizes profit and productivity through carefully calibrated slave driving of its employees. You now have an image of Terrascape Academy. Combine a complicated magic system with an academy quest and EXTREME DEPTHS OF CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION THAT IS CAREFULLY CALIBRATED and you get Terrascape Academy. This is a quest with XP! And Magic systems! And so on! When you carefully structure the outcomes of your quest so that it becomes somewhat like a tabletop roleplaying game or a videogame then you can move past the disadvantages of original quests by exploiting the primal urge of users to minmax and get them invested in a way that doesn't require great writing on characters. If BAAHSQ is charactersploitation on a grand scale, than Gardens of Enoch is minmaxing users. Not to mention that likes and posts give mechanical bonuses and these are needed to survive. As we'll discuss in the next example, this is one of the most potent ways to increase user involvement. It's pure skinner box. Combine this with passable to good writing and you get a powerful combo. (Note: Enoch is now number #3, but was #5 when I wrote this). (Significant revision needed, analysis is unfair and assigns the wrong conclusions.) Post-Author's Note: More specifically, does not take into account Rihaku's brand and other possibilities. Tempera also raised comparisons to Battle Harem.
6. Magna Graecia by @Cetashwayo. I have to be honest that I fully planned this quest as a trap. One of the things that I set out to do with MG, besides quenching my itch for a historical setting, was to apply things I had learnt in nation games about maximizing user interest to quests. Also psychology but I'm obliged to tell you I didn't for reasons of ethics boards. MG is set in 5th century Italy as Greek colonists. How the fuck is this popular? The answer is that I grabbed many mechanics from Total War, then combined it with player bonuses for in-character posting and rapid updates. When you also take graphics things like the faction icons, also grubbed in spirit from Total War, and the map, then what you get is players playing text total war. It even had battles where you could see the tactical view and decide each phase. If you like total war, you'll like MG, and in time I was able to phase out some of the total war mechanics and skinner-box stuff in favor of more historical focus while keeping players. Other stuff like characters and writing, though something to keep in mind, were additionals, rather than what originally grabbed players to the quest. Once the userbase was established, and rapid updates (2 a day!) ensured that players were kept interested, I could effectively guarantee a dedicated userbase that could come back after a several month hiatus and give me like 45 likes for the first post back. That, Ford, is how I got people to make my granary management simulator popular Post Author's Note: Self-aggrandizing. Doesn't take into account real player interest into the quest.
7. A Slime Quest by @AnonymousRabbit. This is a bit of an odd quest, but follows a similar winning formula to Hedge Maze . By creating complex, quantifiable mechanics, and pairing them with an odd premise, specifically being a slime, Rabbit is able to entice viewers through a combination of character quantifiability, power levels, and oddball humor. Extra points are given for the use of a slime as a sort of cutey patooty character-thing. Post Author's note: Poor analysis.
8. Magic Knight Quest by @PrinceArjuna. You're a Japanese boy in a fantasy world where the twist is that every single fucking mechanic is quantifiable and you have so many customization options oh my lord and god almighty who art in heaven. Did I mention this is a harem quest? The Japanese version, not the Ottoman version, sadly we will not be seeing Kosem Sultanu manipulating the court of Tokpaki anytime soon in quests. The "Harem" in the title is just one draw, though. Look at the quest's first page and you'll understand that the massive amount of sheer quantifiable statistics boggles the mind and attracts quest-goers naturally. Post-Author's note: No comments yet. Unknown about whether this is borne out- probably not.
So that's a review of the top eight most popular original quests. Let's now discuss what we've learnt from this general overview. (When this review was written, these were the eight most popular. This has since shifted considerably.)
Discussion
Mechanics are King, Mechanics for Mechanics are Emperor
Every single one of these quests except for Terrene Spire and BAAHSQ has mechanics as the central attraction of the original quest. For some of these quests, this matters more than others. Generally, mechanics alone are not sufficient to appeal to people, but they are quite obviously the framework upon which the quest resides. It is interesting to examine which quests rely on them more for appeal than others. If I may submit a judgement, Magic Knight Quest is the most mechanic-intensive. Both Slime Quest and Hedge Maze use the draw of a loopy or strange premise to hook users into a very customized and quantifiable situation where everything is well-defined. Post-Author's Note: While hook of slime and Hedge Maze are important, worldbuilding and other parts of the quest are also important. Consider that for future revision.
Generally, these quests rise above the norm of the empire-builder or generic fantasy quest because they are able to produce passable writing, characters, or settings in addition to those complicated mechanics. If nothing else, Amber Age has a very unique setting for an SV quest, and Academia's brand loyalty is clear. Post-Author's Note: Overall, a weak paragraph, target for revision and talk about the weakness of mechanics.
Praise the Skinner Box and it will give you pellets
Many of these quests have some sort of mechanic that pushes users to invest themselves and contribute.Although the most obvious and obnoxious example is Rihaku's Terrascape Academy, which would make BF Skinner proud if perhaps somewhat ethically concerned, Magna Graecia and Into the Amber Age have both utilized these mechanics to a heavy degree. What's interesting is that while the most obvious aspects of the skinner box are purely mechanistic things like -10 to civil disorder if you give me a laconic speech or +3 exp if you write an omake, "soft" skinner boxes also exist which are purely emotional. The fact that Avalanche essentially gives equal hearing to all omakes, puts them on the first page, and actively encourages them is an essential part of why people are so willing to do them. This creates a feedback loop where there's a culture of omake, and people will produce them at a stupendous pace. Avalanche has in effect outsourced a large percentage of enjoyment in the quest to user effort. BAAHSQ is a self-serve quest. Post-Author's Note: No comments on this yet, skinner's box should not be taken to heart as some sort of magic vote-giver. Revision needed.
In Magna Graecia, beyond simply giving mechanical rewards, I would actively mention users (with a greek name of course) in the update, making their discussion seems like it matters even if they lose the vote. Once, for example, someone suggested something that was brought up in the in-game democratic assembly and affected the course of history even if that was just an idle suggestion. If the GM is paying attention, so will the readers. This isn't a new thing, of course, and a prominent example is in Firnangzen's extremely popular PMMM fan-quest, where user discussion and votes can affect the intensity to which the main character commits to a decision. A close vote may result in a more reluctant application of the voted action. It's a way to incoporate voter feedback and prevent the always-lingering problems for QMs- how do you please the voters who lost the vote? Post-Author's Note: Interview quest-goers, focus on contrast between Fan and Original Quests. What do Original Quests bring to the table?
Art Quests have greater freedom and the Context Establishment Problem
Art is a unique modifier that allows for things to shift decisively away from the norm. Terrene Spire is an unusual quest. It's unusual in the art, it's unusual at least at first in the setting (I haven't read far enough to identify if it gets very derivative), it's unusual in the general format. This allows us to deal with a question that is quite obvious- why are art quests predominantly original, and text quests predominantly fanworks? The answer lies in context. Art provides an essential context that is much harder to convey in a text quest. With art, you can supplement the lack of reader awareness of the setting with eye candy. People can get invested because they are visual animals who like pretty pictures. The better the art, the more likely people are to get interested. Terrene Spire also has the added advantage that Bromeliad, our other main artist-extraordinaire does not, in that it's specifically designed like a CYOA video game and is intentionally reminiscent of those types of mouse-click exploration games. Combine with animation and Squishy's exposure of it, and Terrene is able to rise to a much greater height. One must also mind that Brom's art quest is a combination of art and text, while Terrene integrates everything, even its text, into the art, playing out more like a comic or a video game. Post-Author's Note: Why is this so? Is the sample size too small? Probably.
But the overall point here to be made, of course, is that art quests can stand on their art before the user is invested in the setting. By comparison, original quests must stand on their writing, which tends to be not only a much harder medium to hold the modern reader's attention, but also an objectively weaker one in the serial format. Users must invest more time in a written update than they do in a drawn one for about the same amount of information. Fanfiction is what corrects the imbalance of the serial format for written works, by providing background context. By utterly removing the need for even basic setting of the stage, the fanfic writers can jump right to interactions of canon characters and the like. Post-Author's Note: Overall, not as many problems here. Focus on consumer side of questing.
Look at for example Game of Thrones, which is an impressively good platform for every kind of quest imaginable. Dynasty quests are a natural thing to expect, because the setting spends such a large amount of time giving a platform for that sort of thing that authors just can't help it. Post-Author's Note: Focus on some examples- list fifty most popular fanfiction quests and count their canon material to see which ones are most popular.
However, there are many ways for original quests to fix this problem. I've already explained the skinner box and the power of mechanical quantification, and now we have to jump the third reason why. Before we go there, let me clarify; the contextual establishment problem, as the issue I've describes where it takes more effort on the reader's part to get the same amount of context from a written work as compared to an artistic work, is the most serious for serial, mechanic-low quests. This is probably the most likely explanation as to why even works that should be extremely popular, like Ford's Seven Sisters (although I'll note it's the 11th most popular original quest of tagged original quests at 50,000 views) or even quests that should get more views than they do (Marca Estrella, which has less activity than even some bad worm quests despite comparatively much higher quality, Into the Black) do not. As serial mechanic-low original quests, they are the most vulnerable demographic of quests to the contextual establishment problem. Post-Author's Note: No problems here voiced as of yet.
Original Quests aren't that Original
There's a pattern that has been formed here, of course, and that's that the original quests I've listed, the eight highest, are not all that original. They are all generally twists on some formula, but in terms of pure originality they can be quite derivative. Terrene Spire is an exception again because its art allows it to avoid the contextual establishment problem entirely. Post-Author's Note: Okay.
So I've described quests that rely on heavy mechanics (Magical Knight, Amber Age, Enoch, Hedge Maze, etc) and I've described quests that use skinner boxes (Amber Age, Magna Graecia,Enoch as the prime example above all the others). So what's the really odd one out that doesn't seem to stick to this formula? It's BAAHSQ. Battle Harem Anime has character customization, it has mechanics, but these aren't the focus. So why is it so popular? Post-Author's Note: Besides having a strong fanbase to begin with and being stickied for months.
The answer is that in order to solve the contextual establishment problem, rather than using canon awareness, BAAHSQ uses genre awareness. If I had to describe BAAHSQ in the least flattering terms, you're a cute PTSD girl in a generic future academy fighting with giant mechs against an anime alien faceless enemy. These are terms that arecommon to the robot-fighting anime genre. The tropes that are included in BAAHSQ are ones that most people have active understanding of. One of the side characters, for instance, she likes to hit her love interest and it's supposed to be played like a joke in the animes where it occurs. Oh, so she's a tsundere. By quantifying characters in terms of tropes, people can feel like they know them innately without knowing them at all. Post-Author's Note: No problems pointed out as of yet.
Basically, what BAASHQ does is introduce us to a setting that is basically derivative. You are able to visualize pretty much everything, understand everything, because thelanguage is mecha robot anime. Avalanche plays with those roles a lot, but he is able to, whether consciously or unconsciously, inform his audience of certain descriptive codings that tell them everything they need to know about this setting- it's a mecha setting. With that established, effort placed into fleshing out the world can focus purely on character interaction and on emphasizing Anna, who is a well-designed trope herself, she's a cold and serious girl with a dark past. In effect, she's a woobie. This is not meant to be a negative characterization, but an observation- that is, Avalanche is signalling that we should feel sorry for Anna by showing her actions, and because he never tells us to feel sorry, but shows us, it's an effective thing. Once again, he makes up for a lack of canon awareness by genre or trope awareness. People fit the character into a box, that box has pre-defined feelings that they generally have towards characters of that type. It's sympathy in a box. Post-Author's note: Is this unfair? You decide.
Now let us skip back to talk about originality in general. All of these quests aren't that original in terms of pure setting or mechanic originality. Many of them take from other settings- Academia Nut's own system is something people would probably be familiar with if they played Age of Strife, and because of brand loyalty, many of his readers for the Amber Age did. Magna Graecia started players off with total war mechanics that was innately familiar, in a historical setting that people have some vague idea about even if they're probably embarrassingly wrong about the details. Gardens of Enoch is a magic academy, and that conjures up obvious immediate associations. Hedge Maze, Slime, and Magic Knight all have their frameworks in somewhat familiar and comfortable fantasy settings and support so much of themselves through mechanics that the unfamiliar becomes a mechanic, not a concept, and is thus easy to understand in terms of numbers rather than in terms of wondering how it works in practice. Post-Author's Note: But what to do original quests bring to the table? Why would you read one? Beyond just "I want to support original quests."
Conclusion
What does this tell us about original quests? There are both good sides and bad sides. The good is that original quests can clearly thrive in an environment dominated by worm/PMMM/whatever. The good is also that a somewhat niche quest like Magna Graecia, which has an absurd focus on historical detail in a small part of the world, is able to sustain huge popularity. I'm genuinely happy about that, because I try to make MG as much an educational as well as an enjoyable quest. Most of these quests have high user involvement and can sometimes have more fanatical fanbases- BAAHSQ was able to win User's Choice over A Dragon of the North, a Skyrim/ASOIF crossover, after all. Original quests can even provide a source of actual revenue, as Amber Age demonstrates. Post-Author's Note: Any problems here?
Furthermore, what I've described for quests in terms of mechanics and skinner boxes is applicable to all quests. What this means is that original quests can use basic principles of popularity for quests and apply them to themselves- popularity, even immense popularity, is not out of the reach of people who know how to play users and make them involved. A strong grasp of what makes good mechanics combined with a lot of effort into keeping users involved and interested is more than enough to avoid the general disability of original quests as described in the context establishment problem. Post-Author's Note: But Mechanics can be deibilitating to user enjoyment. How do I into a complex mathematical equation? Your eyes could glaze over. Again, what to do OQs bring to the tab;e?
There's also bad news here, though. The flipside of the power of mechanics and skinner boxes is that QMs that refuse to do this, or QMs who want to focus on a serial, low-mechanic original quest (SLMOQs, this will be on the test) will be disproportionately affected by the context establishment problem. They will have to work much harder to get views. Even stickying your quest and making a pop-up directing users to it might not be enough because they might not want to read 2,000 words of a story they know nothing about even if it's well written. Post-Author's Note: But they'd be willing to read 2,000 words of a compelling OP even if it's original. Are SLMOQs just generally shit? Some counter-examples exist, others fulfill the trend.
It's not a surmountable problem. Fundamentally, a SLMOQ will always have this problem. The reason for it is fairly simple; you must work much harder to convince me to give a shit about your setting than about a setting I already give a shit about. To put it in another terms, a serial low-mechanic fanon quest will generally, though not always, have more people interested than a SLMOQ even if the difference in quality is in terms of orders of magnitude. It is possible for quests with skinner boxes, genre awareness and mechanics to be at the same level as a popular fanon quest, but the problem remains- it will always be harder for the majority of original quests, and in general the most popular original quests will by comparison have a lot more effort put into them than their fanon competitors. This does not mean they're better, or higher quality, but the effort ratio to popularity is higher. After all, even the most derivative setting is starting from a far lower point than an established work. Post-Author's Note: So, as Firnagzen notes, what can OQs bring to the table?
In conclusion, the answer is basically that the only way we are going to be able to get people to get interested in SLMOQ, which is generally the demographic that I believe Squishy wants to target, is to alleviate and remove the barriers to entry. Some of these barriers can't be removed, but others, like visibility, are more in our power. By using staff picks for original quests that we want to sticky (this needs to be an institution to prevent users from bitching), a specific user's choice award for original quests that's different than the fanon choice award, and adding more original quest prefixes (I mean in terms of adding more quests with the prefix, not adding more types of original quest prefixes) we can eliminate some of the simplest barriers of entry for the normal user to get interested in your quest. Another possibility is an Original Quest Writers' guild, or something less fancy but similarly functional, where more popular original quest writers give shout-outs either in-thread, in their profile, or somewhere else where it will be visible to original quests they like. A simple thing from Academia Nut saying 'I really like this quest as an aside, check it out' is an extremely powerful thing.To say nothing of Rihaku threatening to kill the MC if people don't read Lord Squishy's Into the Black and give it at least 15 likes per update. (lol) Post-Author's Note: Jab at Rihaku aside, will this actually work? How can OQs become popular in their own right? What is there to sell? Why read one and not a fanon work.
I open the floor now to the userbase at large. My analysis of these eight quests besides BAAHSQ, MG, Terrene Spire and Amber Age are all cursory. I mostly looked at the first page and a few others for answers towards popularity, and as such what people can add is extremely helpful. In addition, what would also be extremely helpful is what people can add in terms of other quests, and other suggestions as to how to maximize the visibility of Original Quests. Post-Author's Note: I mean I literally admit here it was cursory Still, it doesn't excuse poor analysis.
None of this, of course, has touched on the question of how to increase the proportional amount of original quests. The frank answer is that if you build it they will come; there is a strong disincentive towards starting an original quest right now because it will in general get less views than a comparative fan quest. If you equalize this difference, then you will likely see a lot more original quests, and in this case government incentives seem obvious.
Post-Author's Note: This is a good start, but it's not nearly enough. Where can we go from here? What do you want in an original quest, if you want original quests? Why do you read quests? What draws you in? What did you dislike most of this essay? At a certain point, what is the comparison between a fanfic quest and an original quest? Share your thoughts.
Statistics of Original Quests
Note: This analysis of statistics is mostly outdated and inaccurate. Read it mostly for context. When I'm done talking about all its problem I'll go back and revise it. See Author's Notes for details.
But it is possible that we could encourage original fiction in other ways. Although fanfiction is extremely popular on both SV and its parent site, not to mention QQ, original fiction is present. To give statistics for quests, there are currently 78 quests marked original out of 3,227 total quests. Of course, some of these threads are duplicates or spliced over some Spacebattles (about 200) and not every single original quest is represented. However, all in all original quests are about 2.5% of the total, that could probably rise to 4-5% if we include all original quests together. By comparison, 2/30 of the front page quests are original, so 6.6%. 8 out of 150 top quests are original, bringing the number to 5.3%. So judging simply by prefixed quests, original quests have an outsized popularity. Post-author's note: Not true. Better statistics are in the following post.
However, this popularity is not nearly large enough to be significant. Why? Even assuming that the tagged quests are the majority of all original quests, which considering that I tagged about 70 quests in the last 10-15 pages as original is unlikely, it's only a discrepancy between the amount of total original quests and the most popular original quests of +1-2%, which is not a very high discrepancy. All it tells us is that you are able to have a very popular original quest, which while useful in terms of telling us that original quests don't have repellent fields that prevent anyone from caring about it, doesn't give us much information about how to help other original quests. Post-author's note: Again, statistics bear out a different picture.
Another important point is that these quests are "unique" in the way that they are presented- it generally requires an outsized effort to provide for these original quests to rise.
Let us consider the eight most popular original quests in order of popularity.
The Hateful Eight
1. Into the Amber Age by @Academia Nut. Into the Amber Age is a quest made by one of the most popular authors on SV. It's set in a mythical neolithic type spiritual land. This man is such a brand that he makes 200$ a month off his Patron just making quests, I'm not joking. He has used Age of Strife, a WH40K empire-builder type quest set in...the age of Strife, to create a very large userbase. His greatest strengths are complicated mechanics, brand loyalty, and rapid posting, as well as the fact he makes 200$ a month off quests. Into the Amber Age continues the trend started by AoS for very rapid updates combined with huge user discussions. Post-Author's note: Although correct around the edges, ignores the low-mechanic start that Amber Age had as well as other factors for player interest.
2. Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest by @Avalanche. BAAHSQ is a quest that attempts to...hmm, I don't like using the word deconstruct, but it certainly tries to twist around and criticize a lot of the cliches and tropes around harems. It's focused on Anna Sanchez, who Avalanche expends a great deal of effort into making cute and traumatized. I'm being blunt here, but I'm focused more on appeal than quality of these quests. The setting is very much like most mecha settings, strange aliens, a variety of team-mates, it's a highschool battle academy setting. What is the appeal? Avalanche's updates are slow, but each is about 13,000 words, and Anna Sanchez is designed to be likeable and cute. Even in universe she's a meme, and this is exploited extremely by the userbase. Avalanche probably isn't the best writer ever, but he's a veryskilled writer in making the userbase care about Anna and write dozens of omakes. I'm not kidding. There are an absurd amount. So what are BAAHSQ's strengths? It has a dedicated userbase, it won the award that catapulted it to sticky status for several months and gave it extra views, and it has huge updates that mean that people feel it's worth it to stick around for the months it takes for Avalanche to update. Post Author's Note: No problems yet.
3. Terrene Spire by @Dexexe1234. Terrene Spire is a special quest, and not just because Squishy decided to sticky it much to the fury of people used to seeing unoriginal stuff on the front page of quests (
). Terrene is an art quest par-excellence, with animated images and text that feels straight out of a video game. Putting aside the fact that Squishy stickied it or complaints about it, since you could argue many, why is Terrene Spire successful? It is simply a very unique quest in a way that is very accessible to the average person. I'm going to talk more about why art quests have a much greater rate of original settings than text quests later, but to put it simply, art is a medium where there are no blanks to be filled because you see them on the screen. Combine this with the video-game format and impressive art and it's obvious why Spire is so popular. Post-Author's Note: Terrene's popularity is most attributable to the sticky, by far. That is an incredibly important thing to remember. 4. A Hedge Maze Is You by @Chandagnac. What the fuck is this quest? I really didn't know so I took a look. I won't exaggerate when I say that Hedge Maze is odd. It's literally you're a fucking hedge maze. More specifically, you're the spirit of a hedge maze, and it's your job to make people lose themselves in you so you can steal their souls. You know, the usual. What the hell is this thing and why is it popular? The secret answer is mechanics. This quest has mechanics up its hedge-shaped arse. They're everywhere, I'd say you can even lose yourself in them. Combine this with an amusingly odd setting where you are literally a hedge maze spirit, and you get a very easy recipe for success. It's easy to fuck this up, but if you know what you're doing, the quest builds its own userbase without you even trying. Mechanics provide tangible things for users to discuss, and humor adds levity to what would otherwise be arguments about power levels for a sentient labyrinth. It's a very structured quest, and this is why it ultimately succeeds, by binding players and trapping them in its leafy mess of mechanics and quests and other NPC gods and so on. It appeals to a particular sort of quest-goer. Post-Author's Note: Quite inaccurate- interview with QM and some regulars can clear up misconceptions.
5. The Gardens of Enoch by @Rihaku.
6. Magna Graecia by @Cetashwayo. I have to be honest that I fully planned this quest as a trap. One of the things that I set out to do with MG, besides quenching my itch for a historical setting, was to apply things I had learnt in nation games about maximizing user interest to quests. Also psychology but I'm obliged to tell you I didn't for reasons of ethics boards. MG is set in 5th century Italy as Greek colonists. How the fuck is this popular? The answer is that I grabbed many mechanics from Total War, then combined it with player bonuses for in-character posting and rapid updates. When you also take graphics things like the faction icons, also grubbed in spirit from Total War, and the map, then what you get is players playing text total war. It even had battles where you could see the tactical view and decide each phase. If you like total war, you'll like MG, and in time I was able to phase out some of the total war mechanics and skinner-box stuff in favor of more historical focus while keeping players. Other stuff like characters and writing, though something to keep in mind, were additionals, rather than what originally grabbed players to the quest. Once the userbase was established, and rapid updates (2 a day!) ensured that players were kept interested, I could effectively guarantee a dedicated userbase that could come back after a several month hiatus and give me like 45 likes for the first post back. That, Ford, is how I got people to make my granary management simulator popular
Post Author's Note: Self-aggrandizing. Doesn't take into account real player interest into the quest.7. A Slime Quest by @AnonymousRabbit. This is a bit of an odd quest, but follows a similar winning formula to Hedge Maze . By creating complex, quantifiable mechanics, and pairing them with an odd premise, specifically being a slime, Rabbit is able to entice viewers through a combination of character quantifiability, power levels, and oddball humor. Extra points are given for the use of a slime as a sort of cutey patooty character-thing. Post Author's note: Poor analysis.
8. Magic Knight Quest by @PrinceArjuna. You're a Japanese boy in a fantasy world where the twist is that every single fucking mechanic is quantifiable and you have so many customization options oh my lord and god almighty who art in heaven. Did I mention this is a harem quest? The Japanese version, not the Ottoman version, sadly we will not be seeing Kosem Sultanu manipulating the court of Tokpaki anytime soon in quests. The "Harem" in the title is just one draw, though. Look at the quest's first page and you'll understand that the massive amount of sheer quantifiable statistics boggles the mind and attracts quest-goers naturally. Post-Author's note: No comments yet. Unknown about whether this is borne out- probably not.
So that's a review of the top eight most popular original quests. Let's now discuss what we've learnt from this general overview. (When this review was written, these were the eight most popular. This has since shifted considerably.)
Discussion
Mechanics are King, Mechanics for Mechanics are Emperor
Every single one of these quests except for Terrene Spire and BAAHSQ has mechanics as the central attraction of the original quest. For some of these quests, this matters more than others. Generally, mechanics alone are not sufficient to appeal to people, but they are quite obviously the framework upon which the quest resides. It is interesting to examine which quests rely on them more for appeal than others. If I may submit a judgement, Magic Knight Quest is the most mechanic-intensive. Both Slime Quest and Hedge Maze use the draw of a loopy or strange premise to hook users into a very customized and quantifiable situation where everything is well-defined. Post-Author's Note: While hook of slime and Hedge Maze are important, worldbuilding and other parts of the quest are also important. Consider that for future revision.
Generally, these quests rise above the norm of the empire-builder or generic fantasy quest because they are able to produce passable writing, characters, or settings in addition to those complicated mechanics. If nothing else, Amber Age has a very unique setting for an SV quest, and Academia's brand loyalty is clear. Post-Author's Note: Overall, a weak paragraph, target for revision and talk about the weakness of mechanics.
Praise the Skinner Box and it will give you pellets
Many of these quests have some sort of mechanic that pushes users to invest themselves and contribute.
In Magna Graecia, beyond simply giving mechanical rewards, I would actively mention users (with a greek name of course) in the update, making their discussion seems like it matters even if they lose the vote. Once, for example, someone suggested something that was brought up in the in-game democratic assembly and affected the course of history even if that was just an idle suggestion. If the GM is paying attention, so will the readers. This isn't a new thing, of course, and a prominent example is in Firnangzen's extremely popular PMMM fan-quest, where user discussion and votes can affect the intensity to which the main character commits to a decision. A close vote may result in a more reluctant application of the voted action. It's a way to incoporate voter feedback and prevent the always-lingering problems for QMs- how do you please the voters who lost the vote? Post-Author's Note: Interview quest-goers, focus on contrast between Fan and Original Quests. What do Original Quests bring to the table?
Art Quests have greater freedom and the Context Establishment Problem
Art is a unique modifier that allows for things to shift decisively away from the norm. Terrene Spire is an unusual quest. It's unusual in the art, it's unusual at least at first in the setting (I haven't read far enough to identify if it gets very derivative), it's unusual in the general format. This allows us to deal with a question that is quite obvious- why are art quests predominantly original, and text quests predominantly fanworks? The answer lies in context. Art provides an essential context that is much harder to convey in a text quest. With art, you can supplement the lack of reader awareness of the setting with eye candy. People can get invested because they are visual animals who like pretty pictures. The better the art, the more likely people are to get interested. Terrene Spire also has the added advantage that Bromeliad, our other main artist-extraordinaire does not, in that it's specifically designed like a CYOA video game and is intentionally reminiscent of those types of mouse-click exploration games. Combine with animation and Squishy's exposure of it, and Terrene is able to rise to a much greater height. One must also mind that Brom's art quest is a combination of art and text, while Terrene integrates everything, even its text, into the art, playing out more like a comic or a video game. Post-Author's Note: Why is this so? Is the sample size too small? Probably.
But the overall point here to be made, of course, is that art quests can stand on their art before the user is invested in the setting. By comparison, original quests must stand on their writing, which tends to be not only a much harder medium to hold the modern reader's attention, but also an objectively weaker one in the serial format. Users must invest more time in a written update than they do in a drawn one for about the same amount of information. Fanfiction is what corrects the imbalance of the serial format for written works, by providing background context. By utterly removing the need for even basic setting of the stage, the fanfic writers can jump right to interactions of canon characters and the like. Post-Author's Note: Overall, not as many problems here. Focus on consumer side of questing.
Look at for example Game of Thrones, which is an impressively good platform for every kind of quest imaginable. Dynasty quests are a natural thing to expect, because the setting spends such a large amount of time giving a platform for that sort of thing that authors just can't help it. Post-Author's Note: Focus on some examples- list fifty most popular fanfiction quests and count their canon material to see which ones are most popular.
However, there are many ways for original quests to fix this problem. I've already explained the skinner box and the power of mechanical quantification, and now we have to jump the third reason why. Before we go there, let me clarify; the contextual establishment problem, as the issue I've describes where it takes more effort on the reader's part to get the same amount of context from a written work as compared to an artistic work, is the most serious for serial, mechanic-low quests. This is probably the most likely explanation as to why even works that should be extremely popular, like Ford's Seven Sisters (although I'll note it's the 11th most popular original quest of tagged original quests at 50,000 views) or even quests that should get more views than they do (Marca Estrella, which has less activity than even some bad worm quests despite comparatively much higher quality, Into the Black) do not. As serial mechanic-low original quests, they are the most vulnerable demographic of quests to the contextual establishment problem. Post-Author's Note: No problems here voiced as of yet.
Original Quests aren't that Original
There's a pattern that has been formed here, of course, and that's that the original quests I've listed, the eight highest, are not all that original. They are all generally twists on some formula, but in terms of pure originality they can be quite derivative. Terrene Spire is an exception again because its art allows it to avoid the contextual establishment problem entirely. Post-Author's Note: Okay.
So I've described quests that rely on heavy mechanics (Magical Knight, Amber Age, Enoch, Hedge Maze, etc) and I've described quests that use skinner boxes (Amber Age, Magna Graecia,
The answer is that in order to solve the contextual establishment problem, rather than using canon awareness, BAAHSQ uses genre awareness. If I had to describe BAAHSQ in the least flattering terms, you're a cute PTSD girl in a generic future academy fighting with giant mechs against an anime alien faceless enemy. These are terms that arecommon to the robot-fighting anime genre. The tropes that are included in BAAHSQ are ones that most people have active understanding of. One of the side characters, for instance, she likes to hit her love interest and it's supposed to be played like a joke in the animes where it occurs. Oh, so she's a tsundere. By quantifying characters in terms of tropes, people can feel like they know them innately without knowing them at all. Post-Author's Note: No problems pointed out as of yet.
Basically, what BAASHQ does is introduce us to a setting that is basically derivative. You are able to visualize pretty much everything, understand everything, because thelanguage is mecha robot anime. Avalanche plays with those roles a lot, but he is able to, whether consciously or unconsciously, inform his audience of certain descriptive codings that tell them everything they need to know about this setting- it's a mecha setting. With that established, effort placed into fleshing out the world can focus purely on character interaction and on emphasizing Anna, who is a well-designed trope herself, she's a cold and serious girl with a dark past. In effect, she's a woobie. This is not meant to be a negative characterization, but an observation- that is, Avalanche is signalling that we should feel sorry for Anna by showing her actions, and because he never tells us to feel sorry, but shows us, it's an effective thing. Once again, he makes up for a lack of canon awareness by genre or trope awareness. People fit the character into a box, that box has pre-defined feelings that they generally have towards characters of that type. It's sympathy in a box. Post-Author's note: Is this unfair? You decide.
Now let us skip back to talk about originality in general. All of these quests aren't that original in terms of pure setting or mechanic originality. Many of them take from other settings- Academia Nut's own system is something people would probably be familiar with if they played Age of Strife, and because of brand loyalty, many of his readers for the Amber Age did. Magna Graecia started players off with total war mechanics that was innately familiar, in a historical setting that people have some vague idea about even if they're probably embarrassingly wrong about the details. Gardens of Enoch is a magic academy, and that conjures up obvious immediate associations. Hedge Maze, Slime, and Magic Knight all have their frameworks in somewhat familiar and comfortable fantasy settings and support so much of themselves through mechanics that the unfamiliar becomes a mechanic, not a concept, and is thus easy to understand in terms of numbers rather than in terms of wondering how it works in practice. Post-Author's Note: But what to do original quests bring to the table? Why would you read one? Beyond just "I want to support original quests."
Conclusion
What does this tell us about original quests? There are both good sides and bad sides. The good is that original quests can clearly thrive in an environment dominated by worm/PMMM/whatever. The good is also that a somewhat niche quest like Magna Graecia, which has an absurd focus on historical detail in a small part of the world, is able to sustain huge popularity. I'm genuinely happy about that, because I try to make MG as much an educational as well as an enjoyable quest. Most of these quests have high user involvement and can sometimes have more fanatical fanbases- BAAHSQ was able to win User's Choice over A Dragon of the North, a Skyrim/ASOIF crossover, after all. Original quests can even provide a source of actual revenue, as Amber Age demonstrates. Post-Author's Note: Any problems here?
Furthermore, what I've described for quests in terms of mechanics and skinner boxes is applicable to all quests. What this means is that original quests can use basic principles of popularity for quests and apply them to themselves- popularity, even immense popularity, is not out of the reach of people who know how to play users and make them involved. A strong grasp of what makes good mechanics combined with a lot of effort into keeping users involved and interested is more than enough to avoid the general disability of original quests as described in the context establishment problem. Post-Author's Note: But Mechanics can be deibilitating to user enjoyment. How do I into a complex mathematical equation? Your eyes could glaze over. Again, what to do OQs bring to the tab;e?
There's also bad news here, though. The flipside of the power of mechanics and skinner boxes is that QMs that refuse to do this, or QMs who want to focus on a serial, low-mechanic original quest (SLMOQs, this will be on the test) will be disproportionately affected by the context establishment problem. They will have to work much harder to get views. Even stickying your quest and making a pop-up directing users to it might not be enough because they might not want to read 2,000 words of a story they know nothing about even if it's well written. Post-Author's Note: But they'd be willing to read 2,000 words of a compelling OP even if it's original. Are SLMOQs just generally shit? Some counter-examples exist, others fulfill the trend.
It's not a surmountable problem. Fundamentally, a SLMOQ will always have this problem. The reason for it is fairly simple; you must work much harder to convince me to give a shit about your setting than about a setting I already give a shit about. To put it in another terms, a serial low-mechanic fanon quest will generally, though not always, have more people interested than a SLMOQ even if the difference in quality is in terms of orders of magnitude. It is possible for quests with skinner boxes, genre awareness and mechanics to be at the same level as a popular fanon quest, but the problem remains- it will always be harder for the majority of original quests, and in general the most popular original quests will by comparison have a lot more effort put into them than their fanon competitors. This does not mean they're better, or higher quality, but the effort ratio to popularity is higher. After all, even the most derivative setting is starting from a far lower point than an established work. Post-Author's Note: So, as Firnagzen notes, what can OQs bring to the table?
In conclusion, the answer is basically that the only way we are going to be able to get people to get interested in SLMOQ, which is generally the demographic that I believe Squishy wants to target, is to alleviate and remove the barriers to entry. Some of these barriers can't be removed, but others, like visibility, are more in our power. By using staff picks for original quests that we want to sticky (this needs to be an institution to prevent users from bitching), a specific user's choice award for original quests that's different than the fanon choice award, and adding more original quest prefixes (I mean in terms of adding more quests with the prefix, not adding more types of original quest prefixes) we can eliminate some of the simplest barriers of entry for the normal user to get interested in your quest. Another possibility is an Original Quest Writers' guild, or something less fancy but similarly functional, where more popular original quest writers give shout-outs either in-thread, in their profile, or somewhere else where it will be visible to original quests they like. A simple thing from Academia Nut saying 'I really like this quest as an aside, check it out' is an extremely powerful thing.
I open the floor now to the userbase at large. My analysis of these eight quests besides BAAHSQ, MG, Terrene Spire and Amber Age are all cursory. I mostly looked at the first page and a few others for answers towards popularity, and as such what people can add is extremely helpful. In addition, what would also be extremely helpful is what people can add in terms of other quests, and other suggestions as to how to maximize the visibility of Original Quests. Post-Author's Note: I mean I literally admit here it was cursory
Still, it doesn't excuse poor analysis. None of this, of course, has touched on the question of how to increase the proportional amount of original quests. The frank answer is that if you build it they will come; there is a strong disincentive towards starting an original quest right now because it will in general get less views than a comparative fan quest. If you equalize this difference, then you will likely see a lot more original quests, and in this case government incentives seem obvious.
Post-Author's Note: This is a good start, but it's not nearly enough. Where can we go from here? What do you want in an original quest, if you want original quests? Why do you read quests? What draws you in? What did you dislike most of this essay? At a certain point, what is the comparison between a fanfic quest and an original quest? Share your thoughts.
Last edited:
