Dark Prince of Camelot

[Spectrum]

Any possibility of later dividends for votes cast, to decide how Mordred reacts to each of the knights, is a possibility very far removed from the reader's mind, because quests set up an immediate feedback loop between the QM and readers.

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This is a digression but still relevant for a quest discussion in general: voted strategies which only have a payoff in X updates or turns down the road, where X is some sufficiently large number, are unfavorable for what are actually meta reasons: Quests -die- or otherwise take a long time to update all the time, many times through no particular fault of the QM. As a player, there is little satisfaction (sometimes even negative satisfaction) involved from participating in a long drawn out process like that compared to either voting for a plan that has a much shorter term payoff or even just participating in a quest that doesn't have such a long buildup time.

 

[Blonddude42]

This is a digression but still relevant for a quest discussion in general: voted strategies which only have a payoff in X updates or turns down the road, where X is some sufficiently large number, are unfavorable for what are actually meta reasons: Quests -die- or otherwise take a long time to update all the time, many times through no particular fault of the QM. As a player, there is little satisfaction (sometimes even negative satisfaction) involved from participating in a long drawn out process like that compared to either voting for a plan that has a much shorter term payoff or even just participating in a quest that doesn't have such a long buildup time.

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Granted, there's the counter point to that with the rare examples of quests that last for a long time where a buildup of choices you've made lets you take a course of action far more favorable to the playerbase than you otherwise would have. My current favorite quest had a part where there was a really awesome character who even though they were a generally decent person (at least to us) was our enemy because we were on oposite sides of a war. We eventually reached a point of having a climactic fight right before we were to leave the front for a home rotation and that guy was leading the enemy forces against our base. The thoroughly outclassed us, so we'd have no hope of beating them if we didn't fight seriously, and even then our odds weren't that good. But through a confluence of good fortune and smart choices over the course of many, many updates we were able to win the fight without having to kill him and ended the battle as a whole in clear victory for our side.

That payoff was far more satisfying than any short term reward we got. While that being said though, there's practically constant short term payoff in that quest since there's stats to train, so you're point in general stands.

 

[Spartan Altego]

This is a common problem that several long running dramas come to face, but none moreso than the intimate medium of second-person quests; because as readers we are expected to feel as our protagonist feels and react as though events were happening to ourselves. Taken as a whole, DPoC is far more digestible and enjoyable because you experience things as one continuous event. I enjoyed the quest most early on when I binge read through it up to the most recent update of the time. It wasn't until I actively started voting, participating, and waiting eagerly for the update that things soured. Because in a drama heavy arc like this, every update being a new nail hammered into your heart can get soul crushing fast - and often it's stretched over months of time. It's exhausting, because it feels like it'll never end.

Imagine if every week your favorite television drama aired only ten minutes of a broadcast, with each hour-length episode being split over six weeks. At first it's bearable. Then you realize that this particular arc is likely to be a dozen hours in length - multiply that by six and you have a rough estimate of updates containing deeply discomforting character drama and unsettlingly real portrayals of depression, neuroses, and plain human failure.

Would anyone really want to watch or read that, week after week, even if there was a promise that after those 72 weeks or so you'd get a month or so of reasonably happy 10 minute clips of content before the next crisis arc?

The problem is pacing. We've lingered for too long on this entire event and need to move forward from it to some kind of resolution whether it's character death or escape or tentative reconciliation. The events of the last three, maybe four updates could've taken place in one (hilariously massive and perhaps impractical) update or two. Talking to Ginny, Piper, Matthew - none of these are votes that would change the immediate coming events of witnessing memories. Their effect takes place later - we could've run the gamut of all those talks and memories and be back out doing something progressive. Instead we're wallowing, for lack of a better word, in an ocean of shit and taking the time to examine every fine grain.

This would make an excellent animated series or television run. But as a quest, you have to take into account that it's often weeks or months between updates and when that happens you have to carefully portion your emotional capital with your audience. Even the most devoted fan base will get burnt out after...what, six months of relentlessly depressing content? Newer readers won't have that problem because they can burn through it all in one sitting and get those feelings out all at once. Long term fans (who seem to be the ones I see most dissatisfied) have been absorbing this piece by piece.

Does that mean Gally should just hit the fast forward button? I don't know. But it seems there's a very strong sentiment boiling up that what we're doing and voting on doesn't matter anyway because the next update will still be depressing and we'll probably get executed. The quickest way to move past that feeling is to get back to the verdict and plain give an answer: if we die, then the quest is over and there's nothing more to be sad about. If we're spared then that puts us in new territory where actions don't feel doomed and pointless.

 

[Krain]

I'd also love elaboration on this thought.

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Assuming I won't get jumped by talk about how I should clearly just feel so deeply for these little murderers...
The basic idea of "when people vote to kill you (especially when they pat themselves on the back for being so good at getting others), you don't want to be friends with them/spend time around them" should be fairly understandable.

But I'll try to expand on what I mean.
Why would a potential murder victim want to go "oh hey, that guy who had a knife at my throat and talking about how I should die? What a total bro, let's hang out some, drinks are on me"?
Or "oh hey, you're the girl who had a gun at my head but now needs my help with finding someone? Sure I'll happily help, we're such great friends after all!"?

This sort of thing, is not a human reaction.
The human reaction would be "stay the fuck away from me".
There's no trust that can happen after this - and, if there was any before, it most certainly is gone now.

You might be treating this whole event as only being about how Mordred is an asshole or whatever - but what is also happening in this little arc you've set up, is that we know several of these little shits will vote to murder us, and that colors everything they do.
You having them walk up and talk to us and then expecting it all to be done sincerely is immensely unpleasant in the face of that.

You're talking, constantly, about how we should sympathize with these people.
But there is a limit, and that limit should definitely be far before there'll be an actual vote about murdering.

Your plotting of the story is weak at this point, since you're clearly trying to drag us into this storyline when you've given no real decent reason for wanting to interact with several members of this group when this is done.

I can bet that if we survive, you will have something happen that'll force it to come about, though.
So Bailey and Ginny and whoever else voted that clearly we should be murdered will still be around on screen and there'll be more bullshit, instead of us telling them to fuck off and just going and doing our own thing, away from at least those two (not a fan of Matthew either since he seems perfectly fine with killing us to get the info he wants).


You've written yourself into a corner and I find that no matter what happens now it won't be good.
Unless you can somehow set up a whole lot of crow for Matthew and fucking Bailey and Ginny to eat.