>1. What are the main differences between the two main places quests currently take place?
Your observations seem accurate to me. I have more experience with tgchan than /qst/, but I think it's fair to say that tgchan tends towards freeform, image-based quests and /qst/ tends towards more structured/rpg-like text-based quests, although neither site follows their tendencies absolutely. The disparity in that regard is probably a consequence of the preferences of the sites' userbases, although I don't think one preference is better than the other.

I think it's also a reflection of how the sites are structured; threads on /qst/ die fairly quickly, due to the fact that they auto-sage after 72 hours; this predisposes the site to quests whose "state" (to borrow a term from computer science) can be summed up in the form of various statistics and whose plots suffer little from sudden interruptions -- that is, quests structured similarly to tabletop RPGs and wargames. It also results in quests that span many threads (it's common to see quests on /qst/ that span 50 or more threads) and which follow a session-based schedule in which the author will post updates in fairly rapid succession over the course of a single day.

Tgchan, on the other hand, is very slow compared to most boards on 4chan, and as a result it takes months for a thread to fall off the board and into the graveyard. This makes tgchan much more convenient for quests that more closely mimic literature and sequential art, since those factors often make updates take longer to develop (and to respond to meaningfully); so most quests on tgchan tend to eschew the session-based style and instead release individual updates on a less frequent basis. (For example, in my quests I currently maintain a rate of about 1 update per week.)

>There also seems to be some weird abundance of warhammer related stuff on /qst/.
I don't know about Warhammer specifically, but I've noticed that most quests on /qst/ tend to be based on pre-existing franchises, while tgchan mainly has quests with their own unique lore. I think this is largely due to the factors I mentioned above; there are lots of franchises that lend themselves well to the statistics-based quests that are popular on /qst/, and the availability of lore/etc. from third-party sources helps mitigate issues related to the quick thread mortality there. (It's hard to explain the backstory of your quest's universe if the thread's only going to be up for a week.)

Oh, and there's the fact /qst/ is a blue board, so pornographic quests aren't allowed there, while tgchan's policy is that the entire site should be regarded as nsfw.

>2. Exactly what happened that caused this method of story telling to split up into so many different places?
I always assumed it was due to 4chan taking years (I believe) to make /qst/ after banning quests from /tg/. I think that's a good thing, though, since I see centralization as a weakness.

>3. Why do both the wikis seem so different in their structure?
I don't know, but I'd guess it's just due to different philosophies on the part of moderation staff, as well as tgchan probably having a smaller community than /qst/ and thus having fewer people who are both interested in and able to write wiki articles.

>Has anyone ever tried to combine forces and just have one main wiki for questing as a whole?
No, but since all of the content on the tgchan wiki is licensed under the GPL (I think), presumably someone who wanted to do that could start by mirroring all of its content to the overall quest wiki. I kind of doubt anyone will ever try something like that, though.

>Is there some kind of war between these different boards or something?
I don't think so. I hope not!

>Do the wiki's only mainly cover the quests that are on the respective site?
I think so, for the most part. A handful of /tg/ and /qst/ quests are covered on tgchan's wiki, though.

>4
I don't know; I've really only ever used thisisnotatrueending to read Rubyquest.

>5
On 4chan, clicking on a thumbnail will expand it into the full image, so there's no need to view the image in a separate tab. I agree that "expand all images" is a bit more convenient for reading quests, though.

>6
>I find there to be a lack of any sort of simple way for people to know which quests are actually significant or good
My understanding is that the mod team explicitly avoids adding something like this to the wiki, on the basis that it would be likely to be an arbitrary and unfair process that would inadvertently fail to give some quests the attention they deserve. The closest thing there is to that is the history for the Featured Article template. (see also: >>/meep/27700 )

That being said, the problem of quest discoverability (especially when it comes to quests that aren't currently being updated) is real, and I'd be in favor of doing something about it. I think a good solution may be to sticky a "recommended quests" thread in /questdis/, in which people would mention or list quests that they consider good and worth reading, ideally with brief explanations of why they feel that way. Ultimately that's up to the mods to decide, though.

>7
No clue, Reaver is from before my time here, so I really couldn't say. It seems like his quests are rather well-liked, though (I really ought to check them out eventually), so I hope he comes back someday.

>8
>Orb of Infinite Psyche
I think this is a good mention, but the Orb is really only one manifestation of the concept of giving suggesters a physical manifestation inside a quest. I think the concept in general is worth a mention, along with providing notable examples such as the Orb or the trading hub's CAI in AsteroidQuest.

>tropes
At the very least, quest characters getting Steve'd deserves to be covered: https://tgchan.org/wiki/Steve%27d

>9
The general impression I get is that quests are a niche, but also a growing niche. I question whether they'll ever grow beyond being a niche, but I don't think it's doomed to complete obscurity, either. tgchan in particular is probably inoculated from obscurity thanks to its connections to the furry fandom.

>10. What do you personally consider to be the main flaws and benefits of questing?
I suppose I'll start with flaws. The greatest weakness of questing, especially the way it's done here on 4chan, is the sheer amount of effort and dedication it demands from an author to keep a quest going, let alone completing it. It's not a Herculean task per se, but it is a lot of work with only a very gradual payoff. The sheer number of abandoned quests is a testament to this fact. The same can be said of of most creative endeavors, of course, so quests aren't exactly unique in this regard.

I can't think of anything else that is explicitly a flaw, but I think the defining quality of quests -- suggester participation -- is very much a double-edged sword. From a quest author's perspective, I can say that suggesters will always surprise you and defy your expectations. On one hand, this is something that makes quests exciting and fun to run; I never know for sure how suggesters will react to a given update, and at times this has sent things in a much different direction than I originally intended. I try to take it as a positive thing as often as I can, but I definitely see how it could be a point of discouragement for some authors, especially if they dislike the direction things went in. On the same token, though, suggesters' influence on my quests have undoubtedly made them better and more interesting than they would have been otherwise, so I'll gladly weather any negative aspects of it.

>What do you enjoy about this that keeps you coming back (either creating or just reading)?
I'll address this first from an author's perspective, then from a reader/suggester's perspective.

My primary drive as a quest author is the desire to tell stories that draw people in, that they become invested in. I want my stories to mystify and surprise them, and to reward them when they figure out what's going on or help the main character(s) achieve some goal. Questing enables me to do that, along with very immediate and regular feedback thanks to reader participation; as I said earlier, I think this makes my stories better than they would be otherwise, because I can adjust and tailor the narrative to better match my audience's tastes and preferences -- as well as take advantage of ideas of theirs that are, frankly, better than what I originally had in mind. On top of that, there's just something inherently fun and deeply rewarding about the experience for me, more than virtually any other creative project I've ever attempted.

As a reader, I keep coming back for the same reasons that I try to inspire in others with my quest. Questing tends to suck me in and make me invested in ways that other media rarely do. Some of this is due to the format itself, as it's a lot of fun to influence a story's progress, and it's easy to become invested in a character when you get to interact with them directly in some manner. I think so many of the quests here are really well-written, as well, and I often find myself getting lost in the story and intrigue even as I read quests that I never had the opportunity to participate in.

>12
I don't know, but you're welcome to use content from my quests (currently that's Dead Dust and Arzfayz Amazing Adventure Quest) in the video, if it would help. There'll be no hard feelings if you don't use it, though, so please don't feel obligated to include my quests for my sake.

>13
I would definitely watch it, but I honestly don't know how popular the video would be. I could see it gaining a fair amount of popularity if you did a good job of promoting it, but I also don't know how you should go about doing that.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/interactive-fiction-a-history-of-questing.19687/
You'll find a fairly in-depth article on that history here by a veteran quester.
There's actually a large gap between the creation of TGChan and /qst/. /tg/ banned quests for a year or two, leading to the exodus, then finally relented, but the quests that popped back up there were mostly text quests, and that population is what eventually migrated to /qst/.

>3
Their structures are different because they're run by completely different people. 1d4chan is primarily a wiki about what /tg/ is interested in, which includes quests but also traditional games (and some /v/idya, by their admission). Hell, I use it primarily as a 40k lore resource. Also their IRC is (almost) totally dead, while you can still reach tgchan's wiki mods on theirs.
>4
It is a third party archive to store threads on /tg/ and now /qst/, because 4chan doesn't save them permanently.
>5
Expand all images is a function coded by our hero Slinko for TGChan specifically. Yes, that is how 4chan works (unless you install a plugin to enhance the experience, probably. TGChan has one too.) A side benefit of a site run for questers, by questers, I suppose.
>6
Aside from the Major Completed Quests page and searching the Completed Quests tag (there's plenty of incomplete quests worth reading too), there's a couple threads about recommending things here and there on the site. Other than that, it is a grand wilderness for you to explore. Go forth, and discover! Maybe hit Random Page a few times. And check out those authorboxes.
(You could also check the history of the Featured Quests template. I mean, if you want. https://tgchan.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Featured_Article&action=history Primarily it's about featuring quests to write articles on but sharing the limelight is a factor too.)

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>1. What are the main differences between the two main places quests currently take place?
/qst/ has lots of text and stats based quest largely due to its high speed/traffic nature, there are quests with original art and open ended suggestions, but they tend to get a bit swamped by all the other threads.

Likewise you can find and run stat heavy quests on tgchan, but the slower pace is more convenient for running quests with big art and updates.

The Warhammer obsession comes from /tg/, which was originally created due to the popularity of Warhammer Wednesday threads /b/.

>2. Exactly what happened that caused this method of story telling to split up into so many different places?
tgchan was created as a haven for quest threads due unclear rules regarding quest threads on /tg/

Prior to /qst/ I've seen quest threads run on /x/ /v/ /b/ and other boards, not just /tg/, I think Weaver even ran an early draft of Ruby Quest on /r9k/

/qst/ was long discussed and eventually added after Hiro took over, to give quests a single home on 4chan, rather than have horror quests on /x/, pony quests on /mlp/ etc.

>3. Why do both the wikis seem so different in their structure?
1d4chan is the wiki for all /tg/ related content not just quests, it is also much older and is(or was) more populated.

Currently the tgchan wiki functions as a convenient way to group threads together by quest or author. There's some overlap between the two wikis where appropriate.

As for why its so barebones well… I used to do big article updates for various quests on the wiki but all this seemed to do was annoy the wiki moderators, and so I stopped.
I'd say the biggest issue for the wiki is that there's no clear guidelines for what should and shouldn’t be in an article (other than the infobox), see the drama surrounding the booru for example.

>4. Exactly what is up with the "thisisnotatrueending" archive?
Its a 3rd party site to request archival of /tg/ threads, not just quests.

>5. Trying to read quests linked from 4chan originally seems somewhat annoying...
4chan is an old site, there are plug-ins and add-ons to add various functions

>6. Is there a good way for new readers to figure out what is worth reading?
Other than word of mouth? Not really just hit random page on the wiki a few times and get digging through the catalogue and graveyard, there are a ton of incomplete quests that are worth reading.

>7. ...does anyone actually know what even happened to Reaver?
After a bunch of irc drama he had a brief jaunt running Brofisticuffs, before moving on to posting stuff on twitter, after that dunno.

>8. What do you believe some of the most important aspects of questing are that a video like this would require?
A good overview of what a quest actually is, make a mock-up or maybe even run a brief a quest to use as an example in the video

On a broad level, /b/ drawwhores, MSPA and Ruby Quest are all important milestones

Stuff like the Orb of infinite psyche, Steve'd and all the incest romances, while fun are kinda specific to tgchan.

>9. What is the current level of popularity of this story-telling style?
No idea
/qst/ seems to be doing well on 4chan.
tgchan is currently a bit quiet but nowhere near as quiet as it used to be.

>10. What do you personally consider to be the main flaws and benefits of questing?
I’m not a quest author but from the outside it seems to be a very intense and demanding experience. Defiantly not for the faint hearted since as well as all of your own self-doubts you're reliant on the input, feedback and heckling from a bunch of complete strangers, all of whom want different things.

Form a readers side it's hard to keep up and easy to miss out, especially without archive functions.
I remember being late for work from staying all up night reading Ruby Quest, as I didn’t know about suptg at the time.

I love fiction in all its forms, but the unique thing about quests for me is the on-going collaborative nature that means even the author isn’t a 100% sure of what's coming next.

>11. Where else could I ask and find answers to these questions?

tgchan has a couple of irc channels, not sure how active they currently are as I barely use them.
Maybe try reaching out to some of your favorite quest authors over twitter etc. ?

>12. Are there any other good resources I could use that could improve the quality of the video as a product?
No idea. Have you made anything like this before? This seems like a very ambitious project.

>13. Do you think anyone will actually watch this video...
Id watch it, but its a very niche topic, I doubt it would attract much attention from outside existing quest communities.

Its cool that someone is trying to document the whole quest medium, good luck.

>>128693
Here's my perspective as a veteran who was there when RubyQuest, which started it all, was still running on /tg/.

1. You pretty much hit the nail on the head. tgchan has more of a focus on artistic creation, whereas /qst/ is more in the style of /tg/ CYOAs and is primarily text-based. Text-based quests get a bad rap on tgchan, but they can be successful. However, pretty much everyone who was directly inspired to start running quests by RubyQuest moved to tgchan (along with its creator), and to this day most tgchan quests still draw huge inspiration from it. So the vast majority of them accompany each update with a hand-drawn image by the creator, illustrating the events of the quest.

2. Drama, of course. TGchan was created because 4chan /tg/'s janitors started banning quests and deleting them. Other quest-running sites opened up because people didn't like running quests on tgchan for whatever reason. Eventually, 4chan relented and opened /qst/ to run quests on, because it was literally impossible to stop the good people of /tg/ from wanting to run them. But by then most of the people who liked the RQ style of questing had already moved to tgchan.

3. Most people on tgchan ignore the wiki, but there are a dedicated few individuals who try to ensure that every quest has a page and that the wiki is kept sort of up to date and active. However, only true diehard fans will ever bother to put any real information on a quest's wiki page (quest authors usually see it as narcissistic/an admission of failure to update one's own wiki page), so most of them are barren. Various wiki revitalization projects have been attempted and largely abandoned. Unfortunately I'd say the tgchan community isn't as active in out-of-quest discussion and fan activities as it once was!

4. An archive made for /tg/ by Lord Licorice long before archives for imageboards were the standard. It happened to be around when RubyQuest was made, so it archived it (despite complaints), and most of the quests that followed. It has nothing specifically to do with quests.

5. Yes. It was made by quest authors and fans for quest authors and fans.

6. The tgchan wiki still occasionally updates its featured article. Otherwise, the answer is really "everything." Every quest has a person behind it, running it and looking for recognition for their work, and you should at least take a moment to skim them and see if they interest you before you pass on them. There's also this page, if you want to binge archives: https://tgchan.org/wiki/Major_Completed_Quests

7. He didn't get along well with the tgchan community, not least because of his predisposition towards trolling, mostly his fans but also the whole site. Also his quests had some... controversial material, and existed before NSFW quests really became mainstream on here. He ended up leaving to run his quests elsewhere, and then disappeared off the Internet entirely. Presumably he's back to his real life now.

8. RubyQuest is obvious, but all of Weaver's big quests (incl. Dive Quest and Nan Quest), Dorf Quest, Journey... anything with a huge following is probably worth mentioning at least briefly. The exodus off 4chan as mentioned above, the struggle sup/tg/ had over archiving quests (it's worth contacting LL for the lowdown on that, he's friendly and will probably be happy to recap it), tgchan's waffling verdict on NSFW content in quests, the creation of the various Day traditions, the origin of Inside the Quest, paper dolls. Perhaps the Rape Quest controversy? Probably MS Paint Adventures and the fan-adventures there deserve a mention too, though it's a very different presentation. Most of the really noteworthy quest authors here were skilled (if not outright professional) artists when they started questing.

9. It has always been niche and only gets more niche with time, I think. Some artists like RML (who advertises a lot off-site) bring fresh blood into the community, but the number of running quests seems to have had a decidedly downward turn in the last few years. There's a lot of things to chalk that up to: people slowly figuring out the enormous time and effort commitment and skill at storytelling that it takes to run a quest and leaving it up to the dedicated content creators, the community growing big enough to not be so tightly-knit anymore and thus bleeding activity, new quest fatigue over the years leaving suggesters reluctant to commit to following and posting in quests that don't have several threads or a big name behind them, the influx of truly talented people being outpaced by the outflux of them without something huge like RubyQuest to gather and inspire them, etc. I don't have the stats but it has definitely been my impression over the years that tgchan has slowed down and it's been harder to build interest in a quest. I remember when /quest/ was 10+ pages long. Now it's under five, and many of them are dead or dying. Perhaps that's a pessimistic outlook on the community, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em! All things die.

To be honest, though, I wouldn't say it's any harder to get recognition or fans on tgchan than making a comic or story or whatever anywhere else on the Internet. If anything, it's easier, since you have a semi-captive audience here and you're making content usually relevant to their interests. It's just not nearly so easy as it used to be, back when everyone was fresh off the RubyQuest high, very enthusiastic about questing, and the community was tight and active in collaborating with each other. It seems to me like this has also spurred a move away from the freeform suggestion model towards ones that are easier for the casual reader to get into, like providing a list of options A, B, C, etc. at the end of an update for people who don't wanna think too much to still contribute. I think all the oldfags would agree people are more jaded and picky now, but it's not impossible, and you've got dedicated individuals like koma and nothing who seem to spend all their time giving every quest a fair shake and some suggestions.

Also, a lot of artists are making a living (or at least a modest wage) off of running quests now, which is great, whatever you might have to say about the ~purity of the art form~. Everyone gets to enjoy their work for free, and they get to buck the chains of the capitalist nightmare they live in and dedicate themselves that much more to their passion.

10. The feedback loop between creator and fanbase is extremely strong in questing. It's a robust medium of interactive fiction that can create incredible investment in a story and make it exceedingly rewarding for the author, since almost all creatives crave recognition. Obviously that's also its biggest flaw. Time and time again, from RubyQuest to Journey to Coxwette, quests have spurred controversy and huge arguments between fans and each other, and fans and the author. A lot of people, dealing with arguments in more recent quests, forget how toxic and whiny some sections of RubyQuest's fanbase were. The wars in the between-session discussion threads. The accusations of railroading. It's always been like that! Incredible investment means incredible glee and also incredible disappointment. People feel very personally involved in a quest they like, so they will also get very personally offended if you make them unhappy with it. Big success in questing almost invariably leads to big controversy eventually. It doesn't quite help that tgchan's community is inherently very, shall we say, neckbearded.

11. As previously mentioned, the MS Paint Adventures forum, Sufficient Velocity, /qst/, etc.

12. Pirate Adobe Premiere? I dunno.

13. No, I don't think many people will watch it, haha. It might garner some attention, but honestly a better alternative to help the questing community would be to place ads for tgchan (or your preferred questing site) across the Internet, particularly on webcomics, forums, and RPG communities, where people are most likely to take an interest. TGchan needs exposure more than anything else. Or, you know, you could dedicate yourself to running a massive, innovative, history-altering quest like RQ to bring everybody rushing back.

Oh, and the website could definitely use some skilled front-end programmers. No disrespect to its dedicated staff and the improvements they've made, but it's quite clunky now, and its design is so two thousand and late.

Anyway, that's my effort post based on my collected observations over the past decade. Take 'em or leave 'em. _{no wait please don't leave}

>>128700
>quest authors usually see it as narcissistic/an admission of failure to update one's own wiki page
Though we should stress that it is not! Nobody knows your quest better than you.

>>128701
Of course, but wiki pages are one more avenue for authors to watch fans express their enthusiasm and investment. They almost never do, of course, but they're also pretty irrelevant most of the time. You should definitely update your own wiki pages, and also not rely on the validation of others. But neither of those things happen all that often, huh?

So, I run a longstanding quest on /qst/ myself, even though I participate in many quests here, and I figure I could probably give some details on most of these. Not all of them, though.

>1.
This one's already been answered pretty well, so I won't harp on it much. I will say that /qst/ isn't nearly as heavy on 40k stuff as they used to be, although they are big on pre-made universes (which they call fanfic or fanquests). And while they do prefer the A/B/C options, there should be note that the common preferred is A/B/C/Other, in order to give people who DO want to write-in a longer-form option (or just something that isn't expected) the opportunity to do so. They consider it a best of both worlds approach, which I have to agree with. /qst/'s playerbase is, to be honest, less willing to post longform ideas or options (less willing does not mean utterly devote of the desire, however) and prefer the simplicity of choices with write-in. Strictly 'write-in' quests are often referred to as 'wat do' quests, and are generally disparaged, or if the post is actually competent, discouraged due to self-admitted difficulty in coming up with reasonable ideas.


>2.
Again, largely answered. /tg/ was a blue board, TGChan split off for redboard antics, then /tg/ got tired of quests wholesale and shunted them to /qst/. The move was involuntary, to hear the locals tell the tale.


>3.
1d4chan is an all encompassing wiki, as stated. TGChan is more specific. However, as for your second question? There isn't a 'war', but /qst/ hates literally every other questing board and routinely disparages them. TGChan is probably the one they hate the least, but they still just consider the place a 'furry ERP board' and thus deserving of ridicule on that basis. I say that with no exaggeration.

>4.
Basically hit the nail on the head. It's largely just for archiving /tg/ threads and /qst/ quests. It's considered a common port of call over there.

>5.
You click on each and every thumbnail to open it, yes. That said, there are plugins like 4chan X that help. On the whole though, TGChan is easier to navigate, IMO. If only by a measure.

>6.
As
>>128697 said, the Major Completed Quests and such tags and wiki walking is your best bet.

>7.
I have to skip this one, as I know nothing of the event in question.

>8.
What questing can be compared to (CYOA books and tabletop, of course), Ruby Quest, Drew the Lich, a few others that other individuals have mentioned better. Perhaps some general pitfalls and highs of this type of storytelling.

9. It's definitely niche and getting nicher, though I don't think it'll ever really die.

10. It's fantastic as a creative exercise for me, and I rather enjoy coming up with new ideas and working on various aspects of creative writing on the fly. Similarly, I enjoy seeing people's take on general ideas, and new stories are always fantastic. I've always been a big reader, and I feel this is just an extension of that. It DOES take a lot of time, dedication, and effort, ESPECIALLY for the folks here at TGChan, who draw or otherwise do art with their quests. 4chan already considers themselves exceptionally slow because quests can survive on the board for a week or so, and they consider TGChan's pace absolutely glacial. This comes from their /tg/ roots, where quests consistently updated to the tune of several posts an hour sometimes! You also have to sometimes deal with players that are just seeking to be random and mess up the quest, and others who are more...subtle.

11. I wouldn't be able to help any there, sorry.

12. Ditto. Apologies.

13. I mean, I might. I couldn't say for many others that aren't into questing unless you intentionally place it into somewhere that isn't about questing but might be interested. Which IMO you should do. We need new blood.

Hi. I totally support your idea and agree it would be cool if there were more videos and stuff about quests online. You should really read Ralson's essay >>128697 its exactly what youre talking about and very humorous and informative. Im actually doing something like this for a different branch of quests. Have you heard of Homestuck or MSPA? They were originally quests of a sort, until the audience got too large and Hussie stopped taking suggestions. But a lot of his readers thought it was a pretty cool idea and started making their own, although they were called "forum adventures" rather than quests. And then a bunch of stuff happened with them which ive written about here
https://mspfa.com/?s=27172&p=1
I havent really written much about the actual nature of quests that were present on the MSPA forums though, just about their community. But they are very distinct from both TGchan and /qst/ quests. They tend to be sillier for one thing. Ill make another post to your questions when im not on my phone, but i would also recommend reading the About page for City of IF http://www.cityofif.com/main_about.htm, which was almost certainly the first questing site to exist (and also one of the most obscure). It has some of the best descriptions of interactive storytelling and what makes it appealing that ive ever read.

>>128705
>Again, largely answered. /tg/ was a blue board, TGChan split off for redboard antics, then /tg/ got tired of quests wholesale and shunted them to /qst/. The move was involuntary, to hear the locals tell the tale.
Like >>128697 said, there was a large gap between /tg/ getting tired of quests and /qst/ being created. After RQ started (and especially finished) there was huge, frenetic energy for questing, and quests took off by the dozens. Nearly every /tg/ drawfag wanted to take a shot at running one. Obviously, the fa/tg/uys who didn't care about quests weren't super thrilled about this. If you filtered out anything with "Quest" in the name back in the day, you'd take like 20-25 threads off the board. It was probably as suffocating to them as, say, MLP:FiM was to me when it first took off. sup/tg/ also got tired of spending space and bandwidth archiving them (this was before AWS and shit, mind you). There were huge rows over whether quests were "/tg/" or not, every quest thread would get sagetrolls posting in it, etc.

So /tg/ janitors got tired of it, took a hard stance, and banned them entirely, IIRC. They told everybody interested in quests to fuck off, they weren't /tg/. And so tgchan was created. Actually I think it might have been created slightly before that, because of the growing hostile attitude towards quests on /tg/, but that's definitely why it took off and became the de facto home for RQ-style questing. Weaver moved and everybody else moved with him, pretty much. I think /tg/ eventually relaxed their stance after protest, and allowed quests back, but it was too late, tgchan was already their new home. Then 4chan caved and finally made a /qst/ board so people would stop fighting, and the text quests (which, as mentioned, are largely shunned on tgchan, so /tg/ definitely remained their homeland) moved there.

>>128693
>1. What are the main differences between the two main places quests currently take place?
Currently (!) the main difference is that tgchan is furry board. For furry quests. It's the first thing which pops into one eyes.

>Expand all images is a function coded by our hero Slinko for TGChan specifically.
I should note that I'm not much of a coder, certainly not one who can tackle the monster that is PHP. All of tgchan's custom stuff was done by Dylan, who owns the site!

My contributions are mostly little things like adding more links up top or copy/pasting the "last 50 posts' link to make the 'last 100 posts' link.

>>128709
It's not thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat furry......

>All things die
Sure, you could look at the smaller number of pages at the bottom and assume tgchan is dying, but allow me to posit another possible reason:

Graveyarding is semiautomatic.

See, for many many years mods had to move quests to the graveyard by hand. They had to go to the 'move thread' page, get the quest ID, copy paste it, tell tgchan where to move it, hit 'submit', and then repeat for every quest that needs graveyarding.

Because of how tedious this was, quests were not graveyarded very quickly... until a few years back when a script was added to automatically move any quest that has gone... I think 3 months without any posts. Someone still has to press the button, but this is much faster and easier than doing it by hand.

So that might be why there's fewer unloved quests on the live board.

>>128715
Ok, you could say that, but consider this: IIRC, Graveyarding used to happen after 2 weeks. Now it's 3 months. The number of quests on /quests/ seems to have gone down nonetheless.

Hello again everyone. Wow, really great to see all these detailed answers showing up. So far, this has been extremely useful information to me, and I thank you. Keep it coming, if anyone else is willing. Even if the purely objective questions have been answered 100%, there are still several subjective questions that would benefit me if I had your viewpoints. Once again, any extra information you think I should know, I'd love to hear it. I hope I'm on the right track with the questions I did ask though, and am not missing anything. Seriously, great job so far.

In regards to some of the questions asked towards me so far, I'll try to answer what stuck out.

I don't particularly have much experience with making videos, however, I have had to make several informational videos as part of my uni study, and I was also involved in creating a set of tutorial videos on how to speak and read the Russian alphabet. These never got popular, and to be honest, I only did them as a favor to a family member. I couldn't care less about that sort of stuff, and it's not my area of interest. However, the editing on these videos was just dandy for their purposes, and was done by a friend of mine, who's quite good at video and photo editing, as works with computers all day. I plan on working with the dude to place everything together in a way that looks good and flows well, and I have a general idea of how I'd want to put things together.

I certainly have a noticeable accent, though it can be difficult to tell what it is. I live in Australia and have for most of my life, grew up in in a Russian family, lived my early years from 2-7 in New Zealand, and consumed American media pretty much all my life. My voice is weird, but I wouldn't call it unpleasant or anything. Most people seem to think I'm pretty decent with words (if I'm passionate about a topic, which I totally am NOT in the aforementioned tutorials), and have enjoyed my presentation skills in the past, though I don't intend to actually show my face in THIS video, minus doing a potentially funny skit of some sort related to quests. I'll attach a link to 2 video that have me speaking in them just to give an idea of my voice, but again, I wouldn't be speaking like this in the planned video. I'd be more consistent and precise, and more structured, with some humor as I've mentioned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK3qtU_K9zU&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Rhag0RHQA

These don't particularly mean much, since the structure I intend to do here is completely different. I'm planning on a bit more of an internet historian or Khanacadamy kinda deal, but not quite as flashy. Not sure how to really describe it other than basic historical and general overview of a topic.

What I think could possibly assist in proving that I could do this topic justice would be the fact that I have created numerous guides before based on videogames, which were all somewhat in-depth and also contained a decent amount of humor. I've made 3 pretty big guides, all of which took many hours of work to do, and all of which I continued to edit if I ever found grammatical mistakes or felt I could add or change something for the better, even years later. Response for these in comments and thumbs was very positive. I know this isn't quite the same sort of thing as what I would be making for a video like this, but I hope this could at least shows that I'm willing to put in a hell of a lot of work in order to make a good video. If you wanna get a feel for my humor and writing style, you can take a look at them. I'll attach a link to one of my most recent ones, which was a weapons guide for the game EYE: Divine Cybermancy.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1367643283

That said, this video idea may not be quite as ambitious as it seems. I don't really plan to have a crazy amount of special effects and stuff, mainly I just want to be able to cover the history while showing relevant material on the screen with some nice music in the background, making sure I cover all the important points and make it flow well, so someone who knows nothing about quests could get a pretty good understanding through watching the video. I don't expect this to be anything insanely hard to put together, but I do expect it to be a relatively long video that doens't stay on any one point for an overly boring amount of time.

In regards to potential popularity of this video, I sort of expected a variety of answers here as well. It's not that I need to get a million views or something stupid like that, but I would very much like to create something of a real value to the quest community, something that people could potentially share to others who are interested in the idea of questing. While I do want to educate people who know next to nothing, having something that could just be appreciated by long-time fans would also make me feel pretty good. My main concern, as I said, would be if I worked hard to make this thing, developing several new skills myself to put it together and refine it enough to be proud of it, only to have it be completely ignored and fade away into the depths of nothingness. Advertising/posting it to important places that would like to see it would be nice to do, but there's so few places where I could even do such a thing to begin with, and honestly, I don't want to become "that guy who posts his shitty video everyone someone asks about quests" or something spammy like that. I feel like that may potentially happen, no matter how high the quality of the video actually is. Well, whatever I guess.

Keep that info coming if yall still got it in ya!

>>128718
>set of tutorial videos on how to speak and read the Russian alphabet
Wow, never thought about how big of a mess is Russian for non-speakers, it's quite spectacular actually.

>only to have it be completely ignored and fade away into the depths of nothingness.
Well, even if every quest player will see your vid, then it still will be a very small audience.

>>128716
There's been a definite drop in total number of active quests, it's just that script might have heightened the effect (I can promise people were not graveyarding 'every two weeks'. Part of why the button exists is I personally complained about 6 month old quests not being in the graveyard).

But my experience really doesn't match that of a dying site. Maybe I'm just a special case, being someone who used to average 8 suggestions per update and now pulls in 20 (give or take depending on quest). My own /dis/ thread has some recent stories of people finding the place for the first time, so in my recent experience there's definitely an uptick of new faces.

That said, I do believe we need to fix up some of the aged look of the place. We need to be a little less 4chan if we want to be a more relevant story-telling site, especially as everyone starts realizing what I knew since 2009: that 4chan is a putrid cesspool of a website. (I didn't come here via 4chan, if it's not obvious)

I don't think TGchan is dying, but it very well could if we keep spinning our wheels...


Anyway, to bring things a bit more on topic, I guess I should note that while I don't know how things are on other websites, on tgchan there's a pretty large amount of passion for what we do here. On here there's a larger tendency to really explore questing as a story-telling medium (vs a tabletop or goofiness medium).

You see this a bit on the MSPA side of things-- the webcomic PREQUEL was originally run on a MSPA questing site. Problem sleuth is actually older than Rubyquest I'm pretty sure, so a documentary could look into how two very similar ideas formed from two completely different places.

Did Problem Sleuth influence Rubyquest? Or did two completely unrelated people come up with a similar concept? Could be worth looking into.

>>128729
>being someone who used to average 8 suggestions per update and now pulls in 20 (give or take depending on quest)
...No offense, but you're a long-standing, proven content creator with reliable updates who draws NSFW material and has amassed a considerable fanbase. That should be kind of a 'no duh.' One of the reasons I suggested there might be fewer quests is that people are realizing how difficult they are and leaving them up to dedicated content creators... like you. If you can successfully run a Patreon for your quest updates, it probably doesn't matter how dead tgchan is, you'll still get lots of suggestions.

You're right about the graveyarding time, though, it's always been two months, not sure why I remembered it as two weeks. And I do think tgchan has kind of spun its wheels for the last half a year or so. Not much here is different since 2014. Other than, debatably, the activity level. It just needs a push to start bringing fresh design and suggester blood in, though!

People have been saying Tgchan is dying for years, but there's still a pretty healthy community. You'll notice that there's actually a fair amount of new quests started around holiday breaks. It seems that a lot of people try their hands at questing but real life obligations (usually school) mean that most of the new quests languish in hiatus for long chunks of time. continuously updating takes a pretty significant amount of dedication, that not a whole lot of authors stick to. But as long as a story keeps moving, it seems that readers will suggest.

actually this also leads a bit into both the biggest strength and the biggest weakness of questing: quests are disposable! its kind of weird to say, considering I've been doing this for 5 years, but its probably their greatest strength. A quest is a great way to experiment, do worldbuliding, try out new characters, mess around with art styles and you get almost instantaneous feedback about it! If it doesn't work out, or doesn't feel right, very few people one will hold it against you for walking away. 99% of quests are never finished!

The result is some wild, beautiful settings and characters that, if you were crafting a webcomic, would take years to develop. But if I want, I can do a couple of shots, start drawing and have a finished quest tonight if I wanted to, not that it would necessarily be good...

Also, since we archive everything, Ive been able to walk away from past projects and know that I can come back to them at any time. even though its a bummer to put a quest on hiatus. But because of that, theyre a great learning tool for art, writing and figuring out how to interact with your audience.

I mean, there's a definite downside to all of that though. quests are not something I ever expect to gain widespread recognition for. And as proud as I am for making them, getting new people to read them is... hard. Its like "yeah I know you love my art of all of these characters, but if you make the effort, go to this weird site full of furries, and deal with this strange format, you'll see there's a great story to go with it"

If RQ hadn't been compiled into the the flash files, I don't think I would have ever found this place. I think I would have still been questing in some format, somewhere but it would have been very different. That's one reason why Ive been organizing my quests as twine files and posting them to itch.io. Its waaaaaay easier to get someone to actually check them out, and it looks nice.

>>128734
>...No offense, but you're a long-standing, proven content creator with reliable updates who draws NSFW material and has amassed a considerable fanbase. That should be kind of a 'no duh.' One of the reasons I suggested there might be fewer quests is that people are realizing how difficult they are and leaving them up to dedicated content creators... like you. If you can successfully run a Patreon for your quest updates, it probably doesn't matter how dead tgchan is, you'll still get lots of suggestions.

I'm a relatively new quest author, considering that I've been at this for only 9 months, so I don't have the sort of reputation a long-standing content creator is likely to have. I think it's fair to say, too, that if I have a fanbase, I'm only just now beginning to build it. My experience here largely mirrors what Slinko describes; my quests have mainly attracted between 10 and 20 unique suggesters per update from the beginning. This isn't to downplay the difficulty of running a quest, of course. My experience suggests, though, that tgchan has a core userbase that is open to (and possibly rather interested in) participating in quests by newer, lesser-known authors.

That does still leave the question of why there are fewer active quests than in the past. This is all speculation on my part, but I think it's mostly a result of tgchan, and possibly quests as a medium, having matured over the past decade. Plenty of content creators who used to post here have since moved on for various reasons, and I'd guess that the original exodus from /tg/ still is the single biggest userbase boost the site has ever seen. Quests in general probably enjoyed slightly more popularity when they were a more novel concept, too. Additionally, I get the impression that tgchan's baseline for art quality/skill has increased a fair amount over the years, which might intimidate some would-be authors (even though it seems pretty clear to me that people here will gladly give a fair shake to a quest with simple/rudimentary art). And, of course, there's the fact that quests take a lot of time and dedication to see through to the end; it's easy to lose interest in running one after the initial novelty wears off.

(Apologies to >>128693 for continuing this off-topic tangent.)

>>128742
OP here. That's quite alright. The stuff you're talking about is still actually quite useful to me in understand the mindset of quest authors and the current struggles they face. As I said, I'm not JUST looking for answers the questions I asked. Info like this that isn't necessarily discussed in depth elsewhere is also useful to me. So thanks for that.

>>128721
Russian is a bastard language and doesn't deserve to exist. Well, maybe that's a bit harsh, but studying it for years and it stealing my weekends away from me as a child was a truly awful and hellish experience.

As for the video, like I said, it's not so much about the views (though of course that'd be nice, but unreasonable to expect any high level of popularity at all). It's more about creating a product that the community that does exist would actually care about/find use for, hence why I asked the question originally. I appreciate all the answers though!

>>128729
>>128741
a lot of stuff i agree with here on multiple different subjects.

i'm someone who pulls a lot of suggestions, but most of my suggestions are definitely people who already follow me on twitter/etc for my art, and i promote my quests on twitter a lot (announcements every update, talking about them a lot) - most of the engagement i get i don't think is from people picking it up from the front page, although of course it's impossible to tell for sure. (worth noting that, similar to what >>128734 pointed out, i've been around for a long time and i do nsfw content, so that's part of it too.)

but i have people frequently ask "have you ever thought about hosting your work somewhere else?" which is usually a polite way of saying "i hate the format of the website you just linked me to and the fact that it looks like 4chan creeps me out." (the answer is that this site is Built for questing, it has a lot of features that i find really useful, and there's no way to really efficiently mirror a quest while Also mirroring suggestions, and i think all readers seeing all the other suggestions and interacting with each other is a vital part of the experience. also, like i said, i've been here a while. i'm comfy here.) a lot of stuff that's second nature/obvious to people who have been here forever seems to be not at all intuitive to people who find the site for the first time; i frequently have to explain to people that the file links above each panel are how to expand the images, and almost nobody ever figures out the last 50/100 posts option without me telling them first... stuff like that. i think the thought of revamping the site to be more of what it really is (a unique site made specifically for a unique storytelling format) rather than what it ... kind of looks like, (a dodgy 4chan offshoot stuck in 2009) that could help with gaining and retaining new readers and authors. for every person who tells me "oh i thought the format was weird at first but then i got used to it" i'm sure there are 10 people who decided not to fuck with it.

ANYWAY, moving on, i really agree w what toxo said about the disposable nature of quests actually being an asset. am i embarrassed that i have like a dozen and a half abandoned quests? yeah. but also the point is i kept coming back and doing more. failing a quest didn't make me feel like the whole medium was too hard, or that i was bad at it, or anything like that. quests are easy to pick up, rrrrelatively easy to keep running if you're realistic about your time + effort and pick a story you're invested in - and easy to drop, for better or for worse. they feel inherently more low commitment than other art forms, which means people drop them all the time, but it also means dropping one doesn't feel like a crushing failure. you can experiment, you can decide something isn't for you or that a quest isn't fun anymore, and it doesn't become a detriment to moving on and trying something new again.

just as an addendum: i don't actually find the format of the site that confusing, i think it's pretty much the same as any other forum. but enough people i try to coax into reading my stuff here and/or starting stuff of their own have (usually politely cloaked) complaints about it, and people try to convince me to host stuff elsewhere frequently enough, that it's apparently a pretty generalized thing for people to be irritated/intimidated by it at first glance.

In terms of new quest authorship, I'd definitely credit the "big-time" quest authors, like Slinko, Lagotrope, or the many others like them who seem to spend all their time on making quests, with helping out the community a lot. It's really inspiring to see big popular quests like theirs being run on an even playing field with all the smaller ones, suggesting you could get those readers to read something you made too. Most of the newer authors I've seen, myself included, are being directly inspired to run from the quests they read and see talked about. So, I think the site will probably stay alive as long as we've got a few of those super dedicated authors to draw people in and inspire them to contribute.

>>128750
I'd be glad to mention all the current big time questers, and the past ones as well, so long as I have their names. I'll add the ones you mentioned to a list, and a few of the others from this thread.

>>128729
Calling the whole place a cesspool does a disservice to all the stuff /tg/ gets done. Like Rubyquest, for starters, kicking off this whole site. We still get new quest authors coming from their community.

>>128757
You have to understand, from an outsider perspective... let's be kind and say 4chan was a bit of a culture-shock.

>>128757
Hey man, cesspools performed a necessary role before we invented plumbing. Good things could come out of them. Mostly fertilizer.

ten11 2019/03/27(Wed)22:18 No. 128776 ID: 119de0
File 155375029607.png - (30.96KB , 1676x850 , eWcWWXh.png )

>My main concern, as I said, would be if I worked hard to make this thing, developing several new skills myself to put it together and refine it enough to be proud of it, only to have it be completely ignored and fade away into the depths of nothingness.
I think you're underestimating the number of people interested in quests. There are quite a few places dedicated to it, and people love watching stuff about themselves and their interests. I know for sure a lot of MSPA fans would probably be interested in watching it at the very least.

>>128776
This timeline is great, but I think it should include the fall of the MSPA forum (which caused exodus to EagleTime and OmegaUpdate)

>>128777
Eagle Time was made in 2011.
But yeah, I should mark that change.
btw this isnt my graph, Ralson made it, i added a few things to it though.

>>128776
What is QQ?

>>128782
Questionable Questing is basically Sufficient Velocity with more NSFW quests - a primarily text quest forum.

>>128776
There is also 8chan's /qst/ board, which is incredibly, tragically dead but has a boardlink from their /tg/. Just putting it out there for a mention, however brief.

>>128776

There’s one more splinter forum of Spacebattles that has a quests sub forum, though it is stillborn by the look of things.
https://www.frozenincarbonite.org

If OP is going to do a video on the history of quests, the way QQ began might be worth mentioning. Specifically an at the time prominent QM on Spacebattles (Chibi-reaper I think, he’s still on SB and QQ) got banned for a month for “questionable content” in one of the quests he was running (something to do with a dildo) leading people who were already chafing under SB’s rules and at the time laggy servers to create QQ.

>>128729
I don't know for sure if Problem Sleuth was an influence on Ruby Quest, but there's a pretty early suggestion and response in RQ referencing a recurring joke/element in PS.

>>128818
Well, either way, if you can provide more info/resources regarding it, I'll think about adding a section on that. I have absolutely no experience at all with those other websites, but if I have the info available, then I don't see why I wouldn't mention it.

I would personally love to see something like this. I only fear it would bring on some painful nostalgia for me.

Anonymous 2019/03/30(Sat)15:24 No. 128839 ID: 89f1c7
File 155398467302.png - (0.95MB , 1024x768 , thewhitechamber.png )

I'm fairly sure its mentioned on weavers blog somewhere that indie game, the white chamber, was a big influence for Ruby Quest too.

>>128839
Oh hell yeah, I'll totally mention that. I loved that game.

>>128825

The quest in question was this
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/mon-of-the-dead-quest.242998/
Though it might have been a later thread that triggered the ban that created QQ, you’d have to double check.

At the time the QM was running other more prominent quests like
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/witch-quest.232691/
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/azula-quest.246137/
Probably some others too.

For more information i’d ask one of the QQ staff that was around from the beginning. They’re pretty chill people, if you explain what you are doing one of them will probably explain in detail.
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/members/tehelgee.1/
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/members/biigoh.11/
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/members/megaolix.23/
Alternatively you could go to chibi-reaper
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/members/chibi-reaper.12/

While it doesn’t provide much info on QQ, I would like to back up the earlier recomendation for the SV quest history thread
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/interactive-fiction-a-history-of-questing.19687/
Tons of good stuff there.

Also as stated in the above SV thread bellow was probably the first Spacebattles quest
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tactics-lets-conquer-an-alien-planet.148556/
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/summary-lets-conquer-an-alien-planet.148872/
It didn’t end so well
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XpV6pP7n1RI
Though it might have been brought back at one point. Again, you’d have to double check.

>>128697
>You'll find a fairly in-depth article on that history here by a veteran quester.
FWIW, that was me. :D

By the same token, I might be "vetean" but I'm also EXTREMELY out of the game. (Even though I technically finished a quest a week ago :V )

I wouldn't trust myself as a source very far beyond what I wrote in the essay. One thing that pushed me to write that essay was a desire to write down what I knew before I forgot it. I haven't really been keeping up with questing since 2014.

>>128777
I'm not sure if MSPFA died when I made the original chart, but it should definitely reflect it now.

Actually, remind me, what year did it die?


By the way, something that was mentioned in the replies to that essay was how Spacebattles had text-based proto-quests which actually predated Problem Sleuth, though they really failed to gain any traction. However, it might be worth mentioning since SB later turned into a huge text-questing site via cross-pollination from /tg/.
(Its "Roleplaying, Quests, & Story Debates" subforum has 8 million posts(!) However, only a portion of those are actual quests, because the forum owners hate quests and won't give them a subforum for some reason.

Seriously, it's nuts how big the community exploded despite actively hostile administration that keeps shoving it in corners.)

>>129003
SB administration just seems hostile in general. I guess they're used to it.

>>129003
The MSPA forum, which contained the Forum Adventure board, went down at the end of March 2016. However, the MSPFA site which was a seperate place that had the purpose of mirroring forum adventures, saw a huge increase in adventures being started there, even though there wasnt a way to send commands there. What started happening a lot was people hosted adventures there and used a discord server or the tumblr ask function or something else to get commands (theres a comment feature thats been added since then though). The Omegaupdate forum was also made as a stand-in when the MSPA forum died and it has a Forum Adventure board, but it sees way less use than MSPFA.
So basically, MSPA-inspired quests didn't exactly die when the MSPA forum closed, they just went through a big change. A lot of the older users went to Eagle Time or never returned afterwards, and I would consider Eagle Time distinct from MSPA stuff at this point.

>>129010
I finally found the time to read your history "quest".
Thanks for your research effort ten11, this was very informative.

If there's one criticism I'd have, it's that seeing the graphs of daily created adventures, I was more curious about daily *updated* adventures (or "active" adventures, i.e. recently updated ones)