Hey there! I've gotten back to updating Questant again after a two month break I hadn't planned to take.
After 48 hours I've had uh... no votes. On either platform.
I may be confident that I have a readership, and I feel I've put the time into promoting my forumventure updates to different art and fic circles on discord where it'd be relevant. The problem is that this doesn't mean people are going to sign up for the forum and participate.
I've got a mix of "what can I do to improve this" thoughts, existing plans, and a hope that once I'm writing a more active / dynamic section of the narrative and putting it out, that means there'll be better engagement.
- I'm pretty sure the quest is a slog to read the opening of.
- I go between worldbuilding infodumps and sections without it, as I'm a fan of infodumps but I worried I was going too far, especially whether for how believable that is, but also because I did want to try and pace myself on revealing too much. The setting is vibe heavy, and many of the worldbuilding and 'mechanics' are fluid and expansive in nature, so I feel like... I could just infodump for hours, and that's not conducive to the narrative.
- until Klevas is a character design, the narrative has 1.5 characters in play, and up until a few updates or so from now there will remain 2 characters. It'll expand to 3 then 4 pretty quickly, and then shortly after the cast expands to "watch how many background characters who can become a main cast character I can cram into every shot", because dear fuck do I find that fun even if it's suffering
- My intent to resolve this will be that once I'm past this 'tutorial level' sequence, I'll be doing a recap of the narrative, and prompting a "New Reader? Recap to catch you up" in the first update.
- Original fiction, namely Quests, can struggle on any questing platform
- This has been what I've observed over the last decade or so, unless there's a fairly even share of original media. There are plenty of highly active quests, original or fanventures, which is great... but they can languish
- this is one of the largest platforms, and unfortunately I dont expect I can adapt the format to QuestDen and move there in hopes of an engaged audience that submits commands.
- Because of how active the forum is, every update cycle I'm competing with new and existing quests for visibility on the first however many pages the average user bothers to browse
- Mirroring was advised against, but should that really have impacted things? The other forum I mirror to is due to it being a pokemon fic forum, and I expected the mon taming element would make it of interest to the community I engage with there. It's a much smaller forum, someone else noted in a chat recently that there's only just over 400 people. Does mirroring really scare people off? I get it was advised against in the event that folks will dislike competition, but I had my doubts that would even be problem. Maybe somehow a year from now it becomes one, but I doubt it.
- Tagging.
- Because the setting is an original universe with multiversal lore, I worry tagging multiverse sets up the expectation that I'm working with Media Property settings, when I'm not. I'd like to not have legal issues yknow? so idk if there's a good tag there
- Otherwise, how many people actually search for quests with tags? If I change up my tagging, how much will that really help for getting active users? If there's more accurate tags I can give for the current scope of the narrative (which will expand / change as the narrative progresses, tho not wildly like becoming a city builder), I'd greatly appreciate them
- Target Audience / Experimental narrative issues. I dont know if the type of reader that'd be a good fit for my narrative is on here, or if the active flow of the forum (like mentioned with competition for visibility) just prevents my narrative from attracting readers
- Update Reliability
- There's not much I can change on this. I'm a disabled self-taught artist and writer, and while I have a bit of "free-time" I still have a fair bit of errands to take care of in my daily life. I'm medicated, but I still have to pace myself and a depressive episode or chronic illness recurring could wipe a week or two out.
- I've known for years that update reliability is a major factor to attracting an audience to a webcomic / forumventure / what have you. I was in the homestuck fandom so I know that's the case, and I see it play out a bit here.
- I'm trying to make things happen weekly, but idk how reliable that'll be, and if I dont get a clear majority early into voting periods that causes a delay because beyond drafting out multiple updates in advance there are still aspects that will remain open.
I had more thoughts, but I cant remember them.
I'm concerned for the future of my quest, as while I think I can get by pushing out an update or two where I make a decision based on what would fit the character(s) respectively.. I would make it a fic if I wanted to run it that way.
I know this thread doesnt have a ton of crit given, but I've meant to ask for some for a while. The issues I see might not even be the ones others have.
edit: forgot to say I intend to also run an easier to update / lighter forumventure here that I'm working on posting sometime in the next week or two. If I have to put Questant on a backburner I will, but idk. You'll probably see me put the simpler one here too in a while.
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