>>331180
He very clearly used pretentious in the correct fashion, and pretentious, weeaboo, and Mary-Sue are very rarely misused here, they can hardly be called buzzwords.

You fucked up the OP by making it mainly about the 1-10 scale and giving "examples" of perfect 10s. Categories really aren't even needed, and are probably detrimental, it just encourages broken scores and not giving proper attention to whether or not a quest is actually good as a whole. Organization as its own category doesn't even really make sense, it's part of storytelling (and holy shit Golem Quest as a 10? Just because I cram piles of shit into my closet doesn't mean it is more organized than one without as many items in it, in fact it would be the opposite!)

>>331180

>Lest text be trapped at a permanent 40/50 max!

That is stupid. If anything the art should just be omitted so that Text Quests go to 40/40. It's still terrible, but it's better than '20 points for story instead of 10!'

>I'm perfectly willing to say that excellent writing can exceed the normal 10-point scale,

If a scale can be exceeded it is not a valid scale to begin with.

>Truth be told, I was also seeking feedback on how we should judge quests at all, and how we should compare them.

Simply mention their strengths, their weaknesses, and assign a 'verdict (as an example, Recommended, Strongly Recommended, Not Recommended, Recommended Against) instead of a numerical rating. By avoiding the numbers, you avoid a hard-coded 'maximum' to a statistic and you don't have to try to finagle it to compare two things when something comes along better than your perfect 10, and you don't need to retroactively deduct points from quest A because quest B was even more awesome.

>along with a tinge of "Text quests are inferior".

Don't know where you're getting that.

>or feel that mine is inadequate,

It isn't that your system is inadequate, it's that it is so stupid as to become offensive in its own right.

Assigning numerical scores will serve no purpose, especially in this community, except to become a dick-waving contest about whose fans are willing to jack them off harder.

If you must cover quests (which is itself valid), you must do several things.

1: You must actually criticize the flaws in the quest. None of this 'Golem Quest has poor organization, 6/10' bullshit. 6/10 is a slightly above-average score for fuck's sake!
2: You must mention the quest's strengths.
3: You must explain why the quest is or is not worth reading.

That's why you should use a less specific, non-numering rating system.

Like 5/5 stars, or Ruby heads, or whatever.

I personally would like to see critical reveiws of my quest, but using such a precise points system for something like this seems to not be such a good idea on a board filled with rpg players!

A numerical score is a poor representation of personal opinion, professional reviewers who are required to give a score will mention this all the time.

>>331184
That's still a numerical representation! 4/5 stars is the same as 4/5!

Anonymous 2010/08/06(Fri)10:11 No. 21398 ID: f4963f
File 128111471646.gif - (3.73KB , 276x258 , MSPA_Face.gif )

>Tozol Quest Story 9
>Golem Quest Story 20

So you're saying Golem Quest's story is more than twice as good as Tozol's, hmmm?

Anonymous 2010/08/06(Fri)10:20 No. 21399 ID: 227f86
File 128111520963.png - (224.62KB , 367x369 , Unrelated.png )

Alright! I'm bored and it's been more than a year since I've done a critical review. So let's try this, for shit and giggles.

Tezakia Quest by Slinkoboy

I'm aware that this is an already complete and archived quest, but that's actually how most media is normally reviewed, after it's finished. Maybe it'll give some insight to the author for further quests, maybe it'll be worth a laugh. I don't know, let's do it anyways. Wall of Text ahead!

Obviously there will be spoilers, so beware newcomers.

If we had quest genres, I guess we would put this one under "Facility" quest, in which the main characters find themselves in a strange complex and they have to solve their mysteries exploring it(labs and SCIENCE! usually involved).

-Let's start with the visuals. The art is monochrome for the most part (although as the story advances , colored updates become quite frequent).

It could be said that the art is very simplistic and not of the top quality if you compare it with other quests of more brilliant craft. And there are a lot of pages where the same characters are pasted over the backgrounds, certainly I've seen a lot of recycling here.
But there's something to have on account, for what I've seen, the update pace was really fast, working in sessions, like Rubyquest or Dorfquest. If you take that in consideration, the art is actually pretty decent. It's also clear and practical.

About that matter I also praise quests like this one, where you can see the whole background and the characters over it, being the reader able to recognize the situation and know what's happening in all moment and becoming the picture not only an illustration for the story, but part of the game, as the suggesters have to look in it for clues, items and things to interact with.

As the quest progresses, the art becomes more consistent and detailed, which really shows improvement of the author. If I had to make a complain about it, without colors, some characters look very similar, specially the ones of the same race, and it makes it a bit confusing at first sight.

-About the reader experience: I think it's pretty good. The "players" had in all moment a great freedom of action, lots of items to pick up and interact with, and a lot of freedom to explore. The jump between the micro-actions and big planned moments is subtle and well done. The author also rolled with mostly everything the suggesters threw at him, no matter how dumb or contradictory could be, and managed to build the story and characters around it. I think this part was nailed.

-The story. (Dun dunn, spoilers! skip this part if you haven't read the quest yet.)
I think that it's well done. It's entertaining, well developed over the chapters and it's efficient enough to drive the plot and keep the readers hooked to it. I must say that it isn't really the most original of the premises and that some parts may feel a bit trite. But it doesn't matter much, because the stars of the quest are the characters. It's impossible not to care about them, they're charismatic and freaking adorable, and their interactions are for me the core of the quest.

I have sort of a negative point in that aspect, and is that the emotive part is a bit overplayed. The characters go through an emotive roller coaster during the duration of the quest, passing through all kinds of relationships, changes of mood, love, hate, sadness, happiness, desperation, hope... In relatively very short time. It's kind of an overload, and it becomes more clear at the final episodes, where some of them even go over the same emotional conflicts they already solved chapters before.

But still, this is just a minor inconvenience, and most people won't even notice it if they don't analyze the quest like I'm doing.

Finally, I'll add that something that makes this quest stand out is that it has flash movies and music to accompany the regular updates. It's awesome.

All in all, and excellent quest that anyone would enjoy. It has its flaws, specially in the story level, but they don't make the whole experience less enjoyable. It's really a promising start for this author.

>Quantitative rating of a qualitative datum
Yeah, that always works so well.

I disagree with putting in any kind of 'rating system'. In fact, have each review have a completely different rating system. That way you can't just compare two reviews and say "X's story/art/whatever is better that Y's"

There's no need to make a big deal out of this.
>I'm going to put forth a system for us to review quests, though whether you use it is entirely up to you. Feel free to just textwall without the numbers

I, for one, would like to read more reviews. There's a lot of quests I haven't gotten into, and reading reviews of them would be helpful.

>>331253
>>331188
>>331200
>>Abunchmore

Yeah, I'll admit I probably got off on the wrong foot. So let's go by this.

>1: You must actually criticize the flaws in the quest. None of this 'Golem Quest has poor organization, 6/10' bullshit. 6/10 is a slightly above-average score for fuck's sake!
>2: You must mention the quest's strengths.
>3: You must explain why the quest is or is not worth reading.


You can use numbers if you want, you can use letters if you want, but I now agree with this thread in saying that if you think something is good, USE WORDS. There is nothing, NOTHING a writer (if he's not a hack) loves more than constructive criticism, because there's only a few ways you can improve and that is probably the fastest.

This thread was started as a favour for test, and hopefully, as a way for people to call out quest quality in a way that's not rude or discthread derailing. If you dislike this thread, the hide button is native to the site. Feel free to utilize it.

Art

The art was not only derivative, it was a direct copy and paste, with some text overlaid on it and losing major points for having the slogan "memegenerator.net" stuck on the lower right corner. The expressions look kind of animu, and are a bit hard to empathize with. Also fukus and tea ceremonies are so last era get over it already Japan.

2/10

Characterization

Though this thread was clearly intended to be a troll thread, even anticipating this by the phrase "Haters gonna hate" in the OP, subsequent reviews have been relatively honest with only a minimum of banter, mostly about the validity of given reviews. I'd say the questers may have been able to barely salvage it, but with OP posting again in the thread, there's no telling how long until the characterization goes all to Hell and we're reduced to comparing each other to Hitler.

4/10

Organization

The list of qualities to rate the quests by was decently organized and quite convenient, but the explanations to the qualities should have gone below that. Additionally questers aren't sticking to the same format for replies, so it's hard to see who's reviewing what at a glance. Organization could be better.

3/10


Storytelling

There doesn't seem to be any story to speak of. This quest doesn't seem to be anything but meta and fail. Very poor storytelling, hardly a coherent plot at all.

1/10

General Enjoyment

Oh I'm having a great time. c:

7/10

Total points/Summary

Overall this is a failure of a quest. It helps somewhat that this isn't a quest at all, but it still could have used a more tasteful introduction that didn't actively invite people to troll each other for angry retorts.

Total Points: 17/50 F
Horse Points: 99/100

Fredrick!FaGGoTTciw 2010/08/09(Mon)13:26 No. 21559 ID: badf27
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>>331356
Shut up, Mneme.

We need a price for exceptional quests, given to the author by a jury of higly competent board users.

As it is fitting for such an occasion, the author will receive a small figurine to place [strike]on his cupboard[/strike] under the bed in his basement:

A pony in the colours of the rainbow.

>>331361

This is the gayest idea I've ever seen mentioned in this board.

And I thought that before getting to the part with the pony.

>gayest idea ever
:D

Scales are poor illustration of quality, anyway. If you hate something, you hate it. If you love it, you love it. You don't say "I like 65% of it", 'coz that is a pussy-ass excuse of a reason!

>>331367
Oh boy, another vytabilism.
Sane people can admit that even stuff they really like has flaws.

>>331370

no, it is obvious that only solid gold and solid crap exists. no middle ground.

>>331356
oh u

>>331361
That sounds fun!

Tiffany The Necromancer is a competently-done and well-written horror/adventure quest with heavy emphasis on character development and emotion.

The plot focuses on a young female protagonist (Tiffany) who recently lost her brother. Unbeknown to her father (and most other people in the world), magic is real. And scary. Tiffany's grandfather's skull begins to teach her Necromancy so that she can resurrect her recently-dead brother, and adventures begin to take place soon afterward.

The magical system in Tiffany focuses on runes, with certain symbols having special meanings. The runes are used to create more complex shapes that generate the magical effect. The rune system is used as a puzzle creation/solving technique by requiring Tiffany to either figure out a way to generate an effect that circumvents a problem, or to counter and decipher a rune she encounters.

That being said, the mechanic is not the core of the story. The whole quest is very story-driven, with complex characters with hidden motives all working toward their own ends. Several surprising twists have occurred, and the future is far from certain.

The tone of the quest is dark enough for me to substantially consider it a 'horror' quest. The general feeling is that although the protagonist is competent and smart, the forces and opponents she is up against are much, much stronger, and any slip up will lead to death or worse. Most 'victories' are either escapes, or won by narrow margins, and I think this keeps the quest fresh, interesting, and tense.

There is also a strong focus on how Tiffany and her father are dealing with her brother's death, and Tiffany's emotions motivating her desires seem pretty important to the development of the quest. Originally, these things were given obvious, numerical scores, but they have since been done in an inline, non-explicit fashion (and I consider this to be a good thing).

Overall, this is a great quest. It's complicated without being too obtuse, the art is good and there are lots of animations, and it's got a good mix between social interactions, open-ended development, and puzzles.

It can be fairly gruesome or bloody, and the content is pretty serious and grim for the most part, so it's probably not for everyone.

>>331435
You forgot to arbitrarily assign numbers to things.

>>331446
oh u

>>331446
u so silly cruxador

Obviously the reviews should start with the summary in classic newspaper article pyramid style; name of quest, recommendation / score (Point score is a terrible idea. Please don't use it), details. Hiding the final recommendation beneath the fold (or "click here to view the full text" anyway) is a recipe for disaster.

...actually, I'm not sure if I'm being facetious or not.

Any system that puts a shitfest like Golem over a pretty good quest like Tozol is inherently flawed.

>>331526
Will you all shut up about this already?

The system can work, same total.
This is based on opinion so the system is not putting anything over anything, the people are.

...Stupid trolls.

>>331527
Because anyone expressing the opinion that the number ranking system is flawed is a troll. :|

>>331528

No, but he's right on one thing, people going "herp derp this system is shit because numerical scores and Golem Quest" are getting old.

Move on, guys. Two people have already made competent non-numerical reviews, and more can be easily made.

I can't see this ending well.

Ooo, someone do VisionQuest. I bet I can get the worst possible reveiw. :D

I want one too but I'm not sure I'd get anything constructive.

I first started reading Larro's Quests when he started The Game. The art was minimally colored and sketchy and it had a cadre of furry characters all trapped inside of a facility. Despite these facts, it was well-done and entertaining. Each character had to collected a certain number of keys to win, and treachery, stabbery, and general ruthlessness were encouraged as a way to achieve these goals, all so the viewing audience could get the best show.

Each character was unique, and the cost of failure was death but eventual resurrection, in which all mutations (essentially unique powers that could be gotten along the way) were lost.

The mechanics were interesting and the characters were mostly pretty well-developed. The obvious quest solution of befriending rather than betraying everyone was handled in a fairly realistic way, and the ending was well-done and satisfying. The rules kept the narrative focused, and minimized faffing about, and the characters interaction made the quest interesting instead of taking away from the plot. The only issues I had were with the obvious anime influences that infected the story, but some people like that kind of thing. Needless to say, it was pretty good, and I looked forward to more quests by this author.

Then, more quests appeared. The first was some sort of lesbian dating sim featuring characters from The Game, and the next was a story about a wizard (who subsequently turned into a girl and then became a lesbian). There was a ... theme emerging. A theme that rapidly overtook any other serious story element in most of the quests. The art also degenerated. Larro always favored speed in his updates, and this worked really well in The Game. The updates were fast, tense, and the story had none of the pacing issues normally associated with quests on this site, but in subsequent quests, the updates became little more than talking anime heads. Even establishing shots were rare.

Granted, around the second iteration of Sevi Quest (about a psychotic cannibal plant monster lesbian). I pretty much stopped reading Larro's quests entirely. I enjoyed some of Sevi quest - I don't like romance, but it was fairly light hearted and, I thought, harmless. If you like lesbians, then you'll probably happen to like whatever Larro is doing at the time. The Game is definitely worth a read, though, it's pretty good.

>>331535
Hmm, thanks Bite. I was worried for a sec but this will actually help.

I forget that I really need to pull the camera back when drawing, I'll keep this in mind for future updates.

>>331536
Like I said, I haven't read a whole lot of your other quests, so the main criticism really has to be with the art, as that's all I see. They feature lots of closeups of faces. Yeah, just change up the angles and show us some more of the characters, maybe a little background if you're feeling frisky.

Whats with all the raging?

Christ.

Hmm, well, I'll go with the three quests I still follow regularly:

Apocalyption

Done by Gnome.

Been a fan of Gnomes quest since the start, and a participant just as long. The interaction the author puts through between the posters and the characters is very touching and really helps the immersion factor. The most important part of any characterization is whether or not the readers care about the one they read about, and in that regard Apocalyption does well. Art quality varies at times, but universally is average, with the odd Animated page thrown in every now and again as a lovely little bonus. It gets the job done, is relatively appealing, and gives the feeling that it should be sustainable.

Keyword is "Should". Apocalyption has a very strange update schedule, i.e. you can expect anything from Months to Days between updates, and then get a 4-5 picture art/story dump, rinse/repeat. I can make little comment as to whether or not one would find this a good thing, but its definately something to consider.

Storywise, its wonderfully entertaining. You get a definite sense of each characters personality, the world background is vibrant and theres plenty of fluff information for those interested. The only criticism I could have in this regard is that due to the fact that it takes placed in a universe partially established in other quests, both past and future timelines, it can sometimes feel like it lessens the impact of whatever the posters suggest. This is largely determined by what the author considers canon for his quest, of course, but the nagging feeling is always there.

Ultimately, thats not enough to impact my love for Apocalyption. Hence why I will wait with bated breath for Gnomes next update/art dump.

Lunar Quest

Done by Jukashi, a webcomic artist working on Keychain of Creation.

Where to start? The background universe of Lunar/Titan Quest is a permutation of the well-known Exalted RPG, with a few revised elements. The changes work well at adapting the story for a less fluff-inclined audience, and thanks to its roots, Lunar Quest functions alot more like a game/rpg than most.

The art is cartoony, simple, yet high in quality. And I love it to death. Thats all.

Likely due the fact that Jukashi's running a webcomic as well, updates are somewhat sparse, relative to some of the other quests. You can typically expect an update every 2 or so days, a respectable wait, but on the plus side, the schedule seems to be quite stable.

The story...well, as of yet, Lunar quest only has one chapter, but by god, it is INTERESTING, and rather extensive. Each update leaves me hungry form more, and I mean every. Single. One. The four primary characters thus far are each unique, though some are significantly more interesting and better defined then others (Thats right, Gevin, I'm looking at you. Don't be that guy!)

Honestly, I'm not sure what else to say about Lunar Quest, without gushing. It's great.

Golem Quest

Done by Bob.

Jesus.

I'll be honest. I steered clear of Golem Quest for the longest time, because the idea of a text-based quest didn't strike my as possessing the charm that usually caught my longterm interest.

Don't make that mistake. There ARE reasons for some to avoid GQ, but they have nothing to do with it's level of quality.

As a text quest, Golem quest has little in the way of art, and updates rather frequently (about once per day, give or take). Occasionally, you get pieces of fanart, and many of the Author's posts contain images designed to help one imagine what the actual writing describes (which it does admirably), but don't expect anything regular. GQ is about the reading, and BY GOD THERES A LOT OF IT.

The story and world are vast and ever-expanding, and the character roster is as extensive as any I've ever seen. There's no shortage of fluff and mechanics special to the background universe of GQ. And this wealth of information is simultaneously one of the bigger drawbacks and Attractions.

There's a LOT of information for a new reader to go through, so much so that it's a daunting task. Archive-binging GQ is like sitting down with a Robert Jordan novel: Interesting, Substantial, and fun, but requiring genuine dedication, because there's a LOT of material.

I personally wouldn't have it any other way. The details and wealth of information are what make everything so easy to visualize, and the writing is excellent and immersive.

There are alot of incentives for Posters to use their imagination and be creative when replying, and problem solving, in the form of actual in-quest bonuses, and additional content and background (really bob? MORE background? I simultaneously love and hate you for it).

The story is complex: all the different plot points and options can make it somewhat difficult to follow up on (which is a substantial factor in why the Wikipage is so damn big, as it provides a relatively easy reference to go to and refresh oneself on the critical matters), and each of the many characters is entertaining in some way, though combat-enthusiast characters seem to be predominant, or at least have alot of the spotlight.

All these things considered, however, as someone who values fluff and story and quality writing, as someone who rarely ever posted in /quest/ before participating in GQ, it's probably my favorite. Or closely tied with Lunar Quest. I think theres something here to catch everyones interest...its just a matter of new readers mustering the will to sit down, and ARCHIVE BINGE like you've never done before, which is an understandably hard hurdle for some. If you're like me, though it'll probably be worth it.


Others I read less regularly:

Divequest

>>331543
>Where to start?
Not with that phrase. Just, you know, for future reference.

To review or not to review...

Perhaps replace the art for text quests with an imagery category?

Sweet baby Jesus this thread is a bad idea

Shot, this thread was such a terrible idea. Why did you do this?

>>338998
I'm not even sure what you mean by that aside from intent to necropost, necrophile.

>>338999
Was, necrophile.

>>339037
I doubt he remembers, necrophile.

(btw I'll be excluding the current chapter for this, so only 1-5)

ART- 8/10, strong consistant artwork, but sometimes falls victim to lazyness and a few times can be a bit unclear.

Characterization- 6/10, Tory is funny and his antics amusing, but I find him a little 2 dimensional, I feel a lot more could be done with "mad/evil scientist" stereo type.

Organization- 8/10, art sometimes makes dramatic jumps in quality, sometimes it's hard to keep track of all Tory's assets

Storytelling- 7/10 I rather like the story, but it feels like it's getting progressively more serious, normal this is not a problem for me. but personally I don't feel Tory has the emotional range to make it a good fit, I don't want to see Tory do more serious stuff, because I don't think he can pull it off.

General Enjoyment: 9/10 I generally enjoy the quest, but Tory killing innocent people for no reason and with out guilt alienates me sometimes

total score
36/50 72% score

No pls don't start this again

>>339058
ignored!
(this is for chapter's 1-20)

Art- 9/10 the artwork get's the job done plain and simple, but since the characters deform sometimes and shift size, I can't in good conscience give it a perfect score.

Characters: 10/10! the characters are perfect in my eyes, I can find no flaws here. in my opnion these are Weavers strongest characters yet.

Orginization- 10/10, I was very impressed with how Weaver handled the inventory/mana issue, we all make mistakes but the streamline way she fixed it, I didn't even KNOW there was a problem until I checked the discussion thread

Story- 5/10 this is where I feel DiveQuest drops the ball, the premise it self is good, but the near endless romance subplots is infuriating, I feel this distract a lot from what could be a really solid story about an Overlords rise to power.

General Enjoyment- 8/10 I really do love seeing what happens next with every update, but I think Muschio would agree with me when I say all the Romance can be a bit unbearable

oops
final score:

42/50 84% score!

You're killing meeeeeeeeee

Θ][Σ 2011/01/03(Mon)19:08 No. 29262 ID: dad664
File 129411053626.png - (9.04KB , 410x205 , quest_lv_1294110366065.png )

>>339061

Okay LonelyWorld, I reviewed your quest, Crash Quest.

Art: 8/10
Characterization: 7/10
Organization: 9/10
Storytelling: 8/10
General Enjoyment: 7/10

Total points: 39/50