Alright.
This isn't an update. This is me, as the author and director of this ride, making a request, and throwing a topic open for discussion.
Don't worry, I'm not abandoning PMAS.
So this is why I'm bringing this up: I'm tired.
I'm tired of the shitflinging and the sniping and the passive aggressive grudges. The Discord divide thing is a recent thing, but I'm not happy with the derision thrown from both sides, either. The sheer toxicity scares off new people, and people have been driven away. This isn't tenable in the long run, or even really in the short run. Something has to change.
The Discord is easy. The server is being shut down. It's a lovely community, but it's bad for the health of the Quest. It does edge out newcomers and people who can't spare the time.
The thread, and the nature of this Quest, results in people racing to push their agenda over others. Everyone has a laundry list of things they want to do, and if I'm honest, I encourage that. Sabrina needs to manage her time, because with great power comes great responsibility and such. But it creates animosity, because it drives the stake of each vote higher, and it generates division between blocs of broadly aligned people. That division carries over even to the most inconsequential and fluffiest of votes.
I'm going to try and tighten up the pacing. I know I've said it before, but I'm making it a firm declaration for myself this time. It's necessary.
I've put heart and soul and three years of my life into PMAS, and I want to see this through to the end. I want to see Sabrina through to the end of her story, with the rest of the cast, and I hope you do too. The next update's still coming - but I want this talked out first.
So now I put it to you, my readers: Is there anything more I can do? Is there anything you can do? Should I limit vote options for write-ins, should I start offering vote options again?
First thing: I love this Quest. I can't participate in it to the degree I'd like, but I truly do love it and look forward to your future updates here. I hope we can give you some productive feedback here, and help you keep on turning out the updates we all love so much.
I admit I can't speak to how shutting down the Discord server would affect things; it always struck me as rather pointless (we have a chat thread and voting forum for PMAS in one package right here and PMs besides, after all, and I've never understood why something separate was valuable or constructive), so I never participated. Beyond that, I entered (presumably; I wouldn't have really noticed in a way that stuck) after it was established, so I have no idea what effect that would have. You're the one driving; if you say it hurts, I believe you. At a naive guess, beyond failing to see the point, I don't want to
have to go off-site in order to fully participate in PMAS, and discussion on the topic of the server gets toxic enough that I have no interest in overcoming that distaste given the unpromising things it serves as a harbinger of. I don't think I'm sufficiently weird that that viewpoint is unique to me, but I don't pretend to speak for everybody.
I do admit the opacity of voting is intimidating. I run two Quests of my own, work in writing full-time, and follow a great many other Quests on this site. I also engage in free time, around all of this.
I simply don't have time to read through the verbal firewall that the votes become (which is, given the ballooning size of this post, perhaps somewhat ironic :lol). I try to participate with small posts, but I simply can't keep up with the votes on any kind of regular basis, and the atmosphere too often gets...well. *eyes permanent staff-added banner*
Regarding vote options: it really depends. Offering options intrinsically adds structure to the Quest beyond pure write-ins. Ultimately the write-ins offer a lot of player freedom, but they also tend to intimidate the more casual players; write-in only votes necessarily demand greater amounts of effort and thought. On the one hand, that means the amount of brain-space per person put into each vote goes up. On the other hand, that gets people attached to their votes while alienating the more casual ones.
Ultimately, however, I don't think the write-ins are responsible for the factionalism. Even with Quests that feature default voting options, as long as the QM offers choices that are meaningfully different there will be players pursuing agendas as to what options are most gainful. Factionalism is essential to Questing, and I honestly think it's value-neutral on its own. The way the write-ins interact with that factionalism is by getting people attached, like I said. Having to create plans themselves, particularly when that involves the kind of length PMAS regularly sees, makes it harder to step back from whatever they identify as their driving, overall point. It penalizes compromise and turns the factionalism into something toxic. You see a
lot of "us vs. them" out there, in a way that really isn't fair or constructive at all. This can be managed, but this community posts swiftly enough that I'd be insane to propose direct arbitration of discussion.
Default options can manage that phenomenon in a more streamlined manner. Even if people want to make write-ins, the default options being present offer an implicit framework which they're working within. It also makes things easy on the average voter who doesn't read the discussion, by giving them a list to look at and pick something out of. For the slightly-less-casual voters, it means that if they want to just run a tally to see what the votes are, those votes are more likely to be extensions of the default options, and thus more readily identifiable to the less engaged. I definitely do not recommend nixing write-ins altogether. While they can encourage unhealthy factionalism, they also privilege deeper engagement and thought, and really improve Quest health when properly handled.
Pacing is another matter, both of updates and in-story. PMAS reads very well on an archive binge, but OOC, voters can, on the outside, wait weeks to cover mere minutes of action. The granularity of player agency is
insane. I like it, personally, but it also means that it's easy to lose track of time. This kind of granularity is something I would expect from a "24 hours" quest, not something projected to last at
minimum over a month. I suspect it'll last far longer than that. Over those kind of time scales, amping up granularity like this makes it much harder to retain long-term plans; humans are, after all, rather bad at long-term thinking, and every update needs to be interesting and active enough to make people feel like they're not having their time wasted. In that you succeed, immensely. I'm stunned you manage. But it tanks our ability to plan in the context the length of the Quest demands; we just get distracted. We can manage this through regular updates on long-term agendas and scheduling (perhaps something you put in a spoiler box at the bottom of each update, or something pasted onto the bottom of the OP), or by reducing granularity. Ultimately, the player base needs an aid in order to work with this pacing on this time scale.
Finally, a few people have mentioned vote moratoriums.
I cannot recommend these highly enough. I had
such an issue with immediate bandwagons in my Quests before I instituted moratoriums. Some people complain, but it ultimately really improves the thread's health. It encourages discussion before voting and lets you see some actual reasoned debate. If you do nothing else, I recommend you do this.
I hope this is helpful; it's at least my honest thoughts on the matter. I hope you can resolve these difficulties in a way that's satisfying and helpful for you, Firn; we all appreciate this Quest and want to ensure that you're having fun here too. Thanks for being honest with us about your frustrations.
