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Emerald Candy
e4f213
>>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
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