An Analysis of Original Quests on SV (Draft, under discussion and revision)

[Vindictus]

On the other hand, I personally obsessively monitor likes in everything I do. Including Quests, since that sometimes tells you who is willing to read your Quest, but not vote, even though you need a damn tiebreaker.

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I mean, yes, likes do give you a pretty decent count of the people who are reading your quest, though obviously incomplete; I know I only rarely post 'likes' on things, personally, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who does that.

But, like, there's no feature where you can go in and say 'Okay, this story only has 20 likes, it's obviously not that good' while skimming Creative Writing, so you don't have to go 'Please give me likes so people don't skip over me (T_T)' or anything like that.

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

I personally have uh, done that.
Nothing pisses me off more than a Quest I really like writing fucking dying from lack of votes while there are like eight lurkers enjoying it.
Fuck them. Fucking, take turns voting or something, I don't care. Just make sure there are three votes per update that are well thought out, please. You can PM me the reasoning if you're that bothered. Fuck you can PM me the vote, I will post it for you without your name.
Just don't let the quest fucking die.


No... No it's not. See above post to Laurent.

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It most certainly is stressful to vote, and in a good tense quest especially. Even moreso if it's your vote rather than just piling on a default or someone else's reasoning. That's why we get big bandwagons the moment someone who's able to talk big shows up, regardless of how good they actually are.

I get you from the QM perspective. I've been there, and when I do QM I try to help smooth out votes the best I can. But letting the quest die isn't a stress on the voter. It just isn't on their mind. Especially if you've invested them enough that they really care about the outcome, because at that point nothing else matters than that.


e: On multiple occasions I've literally gotten tension headaches from write-in crafting and promotion. Usually that's a sign I need to lie down, but that's how bad it can be.

 

[Crawkid]

I'm following a quest right now where 8/10 of the votes feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders because it is - and things have been heated over these votes, the community do a lot of logic discussion and attempts at compromising.

I've been active for months after catching up with everyone, and am only now really starting to do the vote avoidance thing... (but there's a good number of regular voters so they don't always need me to vote)

 

[Terrabrand]

Nothing pisses me off more than a Quest I really like writing fucking dying from lack of votes while there are like eight lurkers enjoying it.
Fuck them. Fucking, take turns voting or something, I don't care. Just make sure there are three votes per update that are well thought out, please. You can PM me the reasoning if you're that bothered. Fuck you can PM me the vote, I will post it for you without your name.
Just don't let the quest fucking die.

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I mean, when I've run into that I found it entirely effective to go 'guys, maybe some votes please?'. There are things you can do on your end, and reminding the audience that you could use more votes is one of them.

Railing against lurkers, however, is simply not the way. I've been the QM with an excess of Lurkers, and I've been one of the Lurkers. And the Lurkers aren't voting because , most likely, they don't know what to do. They aren't sure what's good answer at all or they are torn by indecision or maybe they have an idea but don't have the time, energy, or focus, to actually write it.

And, when it gets down to it, a quest dies when the QM gives up. If I want to continue a quest, and it's not getting votes, if there are people following it, asking for votes will usually get a response, particularly framed as eg 'guys I can't update with literally no votes'.

 

[Sendicard]

Yes. Sometimes it is. Sometimes, when you're on the cusp on a situation where a lot is on the line, and you're not sure which vote is good or bad...and there's a lot of heated debating...and you don't want to be the one vote to fuck it up...yes, it can be.



Still, this is a thing. If I see a good quest and that it needs votes, I'll try....because I wouldn't want my quest to die from lack of voting...

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Listen, let me make this clear.
If you're not sure.
No one is sure.

You are not at fault for having an opinion.

If the vote options are
[]Transfer the funds
[]Take them for yourself
[]Just spend it all on clowns

And you legitimately think you have a reason for [x]Just spend it all on clowns ?
Do it.

You know what? Maybe it's dumb, put if you've but the thought into it. If you've made the argument? If it wins, it's because it was the popular vote. It wins because more people than not agreed with you.
That means it's not your fault at all, even if you're the tie breaker.

Quests are made with the idea that those that enjoy them guide the path it will take through reason, judgement, and enjoyment.
And when the biggest denominator decides they don't actually wanna take part in the experience because they don't wanna accidently agree with everyone else on a potentially bad decision?
They're making a conscious decision to tell the writer, a writer that needs them, that their work isn't worth their support.

That's probably not how you mean it. But I assure you as a Quest writer that is how some people take it.
I've been that Quest writer. I've discussed with other Quest writers who feel the same way. And, yeah, we know analytically that's probably not the case in all cases. Buuuut.... Well writing is intense, it is tense. When there is a tense decision coming up. We get tense, we think that way.

You know how I know you're not really blamed when you make a bad decision and it results in a bad outcome?
Because the Quest writer is the one blamed a lot of the time. If I had a quarter for every time a player has come at me like I was the enemy when I just spent the past week trying to advise them from making the bad decision without outright saying it.

So like.... I don't wanna be a jerk here but if it's really "stressful," get over it, the QM has it worse I assure you and your support helps him get through it.
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As for bandwaggoning... You could just not bandwagon. You know. Everyone voting for the same idea isn't bandwagon if they all have their own reasons for why they voted that way. Those reasons can even coincide, as long as it was them thinking it, not just going "eh, I don't feel like it this week and they seem smart."

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

Listen, let me make this clear.
If you're not sure.
No one is sure.

You are not at fault for having an opinion.

If the vote options are
[]Transfer the funds
[]Take them for yourself
[]Just spend it all on clowns

And you legitimately think you have a reason for [x]Just spend it all on clowns ?
Do it.

You know what? Maybe it's dumb, put if you've but the thought into it. If you've made the argument? If it wins, it's because it was the popular vote. It wins because more people than not agreed with you.
That means it's not your fault at all, even if you're the tie breaker.

Quests are made with the idea that those that enjoy them guide the path it will take through reason, judgement, and enjoyment.
And when the biggest denominator decides they don't actually wanna take part in the experience because they don't wanna accidently agree with everyone else on a potentially bad decision?
They're making a conscious decision to tell the writer, a writer that needs them, that their work isn't worth their support.

That's probably not how you mean it. But I assure you as a Quest writer that is how some people take it.
I've been that Quest writer. I've discussed with other Quest writers who feel the same way. And, yeah, we know analytically that's probably not the case in all cases. Buuuut.... Well writing is intense, it is tense. When there is a tense decision coming up. We get tense, we think that way.

You know how I know you're not really blamed when you make a bad decision and it results in a bad outcome?
Because the Quest writer is the one blamed a lot of the time. If I had a quarter for every time a player has come at me like I was the enemy when I just spent the past week trying to advise them from making the bad decision without outright saying it.

So like.... I don't wanna be a jerk here but if it's really "stressful," get over it, the QM has it worse I assure you and your support helps him get through it.
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As for bandwaggoning... You could just not bandwagon. You know. Everyone voting for the same idea isn't bandwagon if they all have their own reasons for why they voted that way. Those reasons can even coincide, as long as it was them thinking it, not just going "eh, I don't feel like it this week and they seem smart."

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I've literally seen people go "eh, they seem smart", and it's been a facepalm moment for me as the QM, nevermind when I see it happen as the voter. Personally while I feel that there are no bad votes, my issue has always been with lack of quality discussion rather than enough votes.

And like, this definitely seems a subject where the voter's feelings at the time matter more than the logical "well fault doesn't matter" or "no one will blame you" or perhaps more relevantly, "it doesn't matter if you're wrong" argument. Because if the QM is doing their job right, they are trying their damndest to get the voter to care whether they're right or wrong.

 

[Crawkid]

That's probably not how you mean it. But I assure you as a Quest writer that is how some people take it.
I've been that Quest writer. I've discussed with other Quest writers who feel the same way. And, yeah, we know analytically that's probably not the case in all cases. Buuuut.... Well writing is intense, it is tense. When there is a tense decision coming up. We get tense, we think that way.

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I'm not going to argue all those points, I don't think it's worth it to get my blood going that fast. But I will say I'm a god damn QM too and you're having several others tell you that voting is stressful. Doesn't matter how you logic it out, its their feelings that drive the vote. and also I've seen people get bullied because of a single vote. So you can't actually tell me that people don't get blamed for their votes when voting is split and tensed. it's not always a landslide, sometimes its 50-50 and damn close to a mini civil war.

 

[Sendicard]

I've literally seen people go "eh, they seem smart", and it's been a facepalm moment for me as the QM, nevermind when I see it happen as the voter. Personally while I feel that there are no bad votes, my issue has always been with lack of quality discussion rather than enough votes.

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Oh huge, absolutely.
100% agree.
That's why I mention reasons.

I feel like Quests would be better as a medium in general if everyone discussed it.
Honestly, as I said, I don't need everyone to vote. Just three to four people actually participating in discussion and reasoned points about the decisions?

Dream work. Absolutely. I had it good in RDQ, and I was an ungrateful prick for abandoning it after a year and a half even if I was burned out.

 

[Terrabrand]

And when the biggest denominator decides they don't actually wanna take part in the experience because they don't wanna accidently agree with everyone else on a potentially bad decision?
They're making a conscious decision to tell the writer, a writer that needs them, that their work isn't worth their support.

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What? No. Voters are people who are invested in the outcome enough to want to push it a specific direction. Yes, the quest needs voters, but that's bullshit. You're invalidating valuing the writer's work enough to faithfully read and like the posts, showing their support, because they aren't being diehard enough?

That's... Like, if a QM I was lurking in the thread of started to say that kind of stuff, that would be a good reason to drop the quest, because participation is voluntary, and I don't owe the QM votes. Nor does the audience in my quests owe me votes.

And the idea that people should just blithely vote... like. No. If people don't want to vote, that is just as valid as voting with no strong logic behind it. Some people don't like voting.

So like.... I don't wanna be a jerk here but if it's really "stressful," get over it, the QM has it worse I assure you and your support helps him get through it.

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I firmly disagree with this. Writing is hard, and running a quest difficult. Voting in a quest where you believe bad things can and will happen if you vote poorly is far more stressful than running any of my quests has ever been.

And, really? You are voluntarily running quests, no one is forcing you to. But you want to force your fans to vote, because...

Well, really, I don't follow why you want them to, given how very hard that post is treating The Lurker as your mortal enemy.

 

[Cetashwayo]

Writers don't owe updates and voters don't owe votes. It's a very simple principle.

 

[Sendicard]

I'm not going to argue all those points, I don't think it's worth it to get my blood going that fast. But I will say I'm a god damn QM too and you're having several others tell you that voting is stressful. Doesn't matter how you logic it out, its their feelings that drive the vote. and also I've seen people get bullied because of a single vote. So you can't actually tell me that people don't get blamed for their votes when voting is split and tensed. it's not always a landslide, sometimes its 50-50 and damn close to a mini civil war.

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You have a point, I have seen that too. Truly.
I have seen someone bully another for a vote on a decision they honestly put thought into.

And I've written a message telling them their next vote isn't accepted and if they don't smarten up I'll ask them to leave the quest entirely.

That's, not acceptable behavior, at all. That's not the actions of a reasoned individual, that's the actions of a immature prick.

What? No. Voters are people who are invested in the outcome enough to want to push it a specific direction. Yes, the quest needs voters, but that's bullshit. You're invalidating valuing the writer's work enough to faithfully read and like the posts, showing their support, because they aren't being diehard enough?

That's... Like, if a QM I was lurking in the thread of started to say that kind of stuff, that would be a good reason to drop the quest, because participation is voluntary, and I don't owe the QM votes. Nor does the audience in my quests owe me votes.

And the idea that people should just blithely vote... like. No. If people don't want to vote, that is just as valid as voting with no strong logic behind it. Some people don't like voting.


I firmly disagree with this. Writing is hard, and running a quest difficult. Voting in a quest where you believe bad things can and will happen if you vote poorly is far more stressful than running any of my quests has ever been.

And, really? You are voluntarily running quests, no one is forcing you to. But you want to force your fans to vote, because...

Well, really, I don't follow why you want them to, given how very hard that post is treating The Lurker as your mortal enemy.

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That's simply not true.
You're taking my words, multiplying their meaning by about 15 times, and trying to make a point.
I've already said I have nothing against lurkers. In fact having people there sort of smile and wave makes me feel just as good as someone actively participating.

But when you can actively see the quest is dying because it has no voters. You are doing just that.
Saying "this can die, that's okay, I'm okay with that."

I am not saying a damn thing about quests with 15 people fighting back and forth. I have made no attempts to say such, I have not at any point implied such.
My original message was talking about small quests with a large lurker following, and I have continued along that string.

Did someone by any chance change the subject on me without informing?

As for demanding votes?
If you are just there to enjoy the work... why aren't you in userfiction? It's a great section of the forum, there's a lot of wonderful work there.
I read from there, I have work there, the atmosphere is nice and helpful.

On the other hand the quest section is competitive and ready to argue when they're not abstaining, this very situation is a good example of that.
There are reasons for these different atmospheres.

Writers don't owe updates and voters don't owe votes. It's a very simple principle.

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I have not said anything of the opposite.
Any statement otherwise has been twisting my words.

 

[Cetashwayo]

I have not said anything of the opposite.
Any statement otherwise has been twisting my words.

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But when you can actively see the quest is dying because it has no voters. You are doing just that.
Saying "this can die, that's okay, I'm okay with that."

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As for demanding votes?
If you are just there to enjoy the work... why aren't you in userfiction? It's a great section of the forum, there's a lot of wonderful work there. I read from there, I have work there, the atmosphere is nice and helpful.

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You should be more clear, then, because abstaining is only helping a quest die in the abstract. I mean, yes, it is. That's fine. Quests die all the time. It happens.

 

[Crawkid]

I have not said anything of the opposite.
Any statement otherwise has been twisting my words.

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It's uh...because you said quite strongly that voting isn't stressful...

 

[Terrabrand]

You're taking my words, multiplying their meaning by about 15 times, and trying to make a point.
I've already said I have nothing against lurkers. In fact having people there sort of smile and wave makes me feel just as good as someone actively participating.

But when you can actively see the quest is dying because it has no voters. You are doing just that.
Saying "this can die, that's okay, I'm okay with that."

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I am not 'multiplying the meaning' of your words. You made it quite clear that you consider the stress of voting to be no reason to not vote, and in fact made it quite clear that it's something you consider possibly fictional.

Moreover, unless the QM is actually posting repeatedly to ask for votes and not getting any, I can't see the quest die from lack of votes. Only the QM can. The fact that the QM wants to continue? Unclear, if they say nothing. The quest can peter out at any time regardless of the number of votes on the QM's end, and you are condemning entirely too harshly having a low level of investment and a disinterest in voting alike, framing it as if being a lurker makes one a foul murderer of the blackest order.

Yes, Quests need votes. But that doesn't mean enjoying a quest, even a niche quest, obligates one to vote.

As to user fiction vs quests, Quests fundamentally tell different kinds of stories from user fiction. It is fallacious to pretend one cannot generally enjoy quests more than user fiction, and many posters participate in both sections, which is critical since, for example, I'm not aware of any User Fiction with the same premise as most, if not all, of my Quests, and much the same as quests I follow.

 

[Crawkid]

As to user fiction vs quests, Quests fundamentally tell different kinds of stories from user fiction. It is fallacious to pretend one cannot generally enjoy quests more than user fiction, and many posters participate in both sections, which is critical since, for example, I'm not aware of any User Fiction with the same premise as most, if not all, of my Quests, and much the same as quests I follow.

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You can sort of...feel the inter-play between the hive mind and the writer right? Things happen that someone with all the knowledge of the world and people around the MC might not think of doing...because that's just one view point...

 

[Sendicard]

You should be more clear, then, because abstaining is only helping a quest die in the abstract. I mean, yes, it is. That's fine. Quests die all the time. It happens.

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It's the same basic concept as supporting a company you appreciate by buying what you want from them and not buying from companies you don't like.
As well as the argument that you would white list websites you could not live without on your Adblock.

You are contributing to its eventual abandonment (if it does, it likely will, Quests do that)
And when it is on its last legs and you still choose not to. You really are saying "I am okay with this failing, it is not worth the stress to save."

That statement is in no way demanding votes. It is not saying votes are owed.
Not in any way. It is simply stating that fact.

That being said, yeah, okay, maybe I could be a little clearer.
In my defense I've said my point exactly three times now in a clear wording in the past page and everyone is taking all the perhaps slightly misworded stuff because apparently 10PM is when everyone wants to argue about semantics.

It's uh...because you said quite strongly that voting isn't stressful...

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Ahh... You uh.
You know what? Point.
See, I read six chapters of my college textbooks, studied for midterms, got the first four hours of sleep in over 48 hours before that point like... this morning.
And over the past two days I've written 8 different multi paged essays with the understanding that if I made more than five mistakes in any of them they would instantly lose 25%
I also have midterms all week, and another 14 essays to do over the next three days.

As someone who has been the one making the write ins for difficult quests on more than one occasion?

I have to inform you on my scale of stressful what everyone complains about is not fucking on there.
So my apologies if something I said a page ago in passing has got you boiling.
I didn't mean it, I'm just tired and apparently forgot how to word.
I assure you I don't normally piss off a whole thread.

Still, I have to admit my ability to get everyone focusing on semantics in some attempt to disprove a point I'm pretty sure I didn't make is um...
It's actually really flattering to know I have.

Hehe.
You uh, have a good night man.
I think I'm gonna take a nap. I have work to do, and it's pretty clear I'm just pissing people off with miscommunication or something here.

I am not 'multiplying the meaning' of your words. You made it quite clear that you consider the stress of voting to be no reason to not vote, and in fact made it quite clear that it's something you consider possibly fictional.

Moreover, unless the QM is actually posting repeatedly to ask for votes and not getting any, I can't see the quest die from lack of votes. Only the QM can. The fact that the QM wants to continue? Unclear, if they say nothing. The quest can peter out at any time regardless of the number of votes on the QM's end, and you are condemning entirely too harshly having a low level of investment and a disinterest in voting alike, framing it as if being a lurker makes one a foul murderer of the blackest order.

Yes, Quests need votes. But that doesn't mean enjoying a quest, even a niche quest, obligates one to vote.

As to user fiction vs quests, Quests fundamentally tell different kinds of stories from user fiction. It is fallacious to pretend one cannot generally enjoy quests more than user fiction, and many posters participate in both sections, which is critical since, for example, I'm not aware of any User Fiction with the same premise as most, if not all, of my Quests, and much the same as quests I follow.

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Um, yes.
Stress of voting is not a reason to vote.
That is a point I have made. Unless you are legitimately having panic attacks, getting a bit worked up is not a reason to abstain. It's a reason to think. And other, stuff...
There are points there.
Every other point you made... multiplying my statement by like 15x. Could we take this to PMs? Please.
Tomorrow maybe?
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Going to bed, seriously, I'm done.
My points are being misrepresented.
I'm pretty sure it's everyone but me doing it.
But uh... I also spent ten minutes earlier contemplating what side of the Civil war my spoon would have been on. So like... I'll reread this later, if everyone still cares. Aight?

 

[Crawkid]

Yes, alright.

So, anything else we should analyze? I can offer up my generator quest...which seems to be doing alright... XP

 

[veekie]

You know, I do often seen QMs try to 'provoke discussion' by making the situation more complex, by making the stakes higher, by using write ins, and by adding multiple vote categories to vote on simultaneously...

...which of course flops because all that does is kill both voting and discussion even faster. Those are factors which are supported by significant discussion, but are not the cause of significant discussion.

Discussion in original quests almost always stems from future speculation. Foreshadowing, objectives and predictability(contrary to popular opinion, surprises and dramatic twists only work best when you are adding a drop of it to spice up the flavor, while constant waves of "the dice did a funny again" just makes it a rehash of the 365th discussion on how the RNG is perverse of the past year) in other words, are how you trigger that.
In moderation of course, because an excess of such detail just means nobody looks at them anymore. It's hard for the hivemind to consider more than three ideas at once until it gets very large, so going past three 'active' significant foreshadowing/objectives is recommended only if your readership is high.

People will discuss future allies, threats or more often try to stab each other over the preferred love interest. People try to look ahead to figure out how they can accomplish their current goals(and yes, you have to give them some goals or they will happily walk in a circle forever). People will obsess over getting access to time or region limited benefits that are hinted at.

People will discuss how to make their numbers grow bigger, which is a convenient cheat with character sheets on the line, but puts the narrative at risk because it's too easy to just focus on getting really big numbers, and also have limited attention span to dedicate to a sheet, so any relevant details in raw numbers shouldn't be longer than a page, while any details in blurbs shouldn't be longer than three.

The technical quality of the writing and it's literary merits do not really matter to the readership past "is not actually painful to read".

 

[cB557]

The technical quality of the writing and it's literary merits do not really matter to the readership past "is not actually painful to read".

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Personally, I think it's the most important part of the quest. It's always what I'm looking for the most.

 

[veekie]

Most readers(aka the playerbase) aren't that picky if its legible.

Diminishing returns there.

 

[Sendicard]

Snip

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I actually sort of proved that concept as a fallacy(Edit: the concept you're pointing out as a fallacy, not your post) when I ran RDQ to AP
AP was significantly less complicated and I actually told the voters right from the beginning that despite the lethal situation they were in, I would outright veto any vote that would get them killed.
There were in game reasons for this, but while there was weight to the votes it was interpersonal and mainly focused on the character and the world. Life, death, even with the nature of the quest they weren't really a part of the decisions.
The votes were all about fun and amusement.

In RDQ, it was all about death all the time, and the stakes were extremely high 24/7. When I say "Voting isn't stressful" I'm not talking about RDQ.
RDQ and anything like RDQ is a perfectly valid stress and no one not in RDQ or anything like it could ever understand it. Don't try to defend it, just laugh it off and move on.

These two quests had similar amounts of traffic with similar qualities of writing despite.

Now RDQ definitely received more thought, but even in AP I once got an essay from a voter on what he thought everyone's powers were.

So like.
Yeah.
Probably not worded perfectly but I pretty much agree with every point you just made in full, and am willing to provide examples and evidence if needed.

 

[Terrabrand]

Personally, I think it's the most important part of the quest. It's always what I'm looking for the most.

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I can assure you from experience, that while it likely has a positive effect in general, it's low down on the totempole of priorities for most questers.

Thus, it's rather secondary if your priority is popular quest.