18 replies to this topic

[Ether]

Back when we first started talking about Quest Club last year, I had this idealistic vision of like...something that would bring people from different friend groups together and form more of a common culture. Like how back in the Labyrinth days, it was a safe bet that most people had a familiarity with Yuurand, the Hitodama trilogy and the MushRush quests and could all talk about them, except something broader than that.

 

I don't get the sense that this has really panned out, either as that vision or as anything else, and it feels like it's been on life support for the last few entries.

 

Is it worth continuing? If so, what would it take to get you to participate?

 

Are there things we can change about the schedule, selection process, the nature of the quests picked, or other factors I'm overlooking that would make a difference for you?

[TheRock]

I think there should be more attention to the quest with low amount of ratings. Like one with 0 ratings or reviews. Because These games got no real feed back and would be great if they got some. If game is 30 minutes or less should select like 4 at once. 

[Ether]

I don't think that this is a good idea, because the problem here is getting people to participate at all.

[TheRock]

Good point. My idea is bad in that case. You could put a poll of what the next quest to play is of like 4 different ones. That way the one that people are most interested in will get played. 

[TheRock]

One idea for how you would vote on them would be you can only see 1 screen shot of the quest you are voting for to help make so there's less info known about it.

[Haylee]

For starters, I think the selection process in its current form is very flawed. I recall the random quest selection being in part, my idea, so I would definitely take some blame for this, but also I wish some of the suggestions for improving the selection process (like the inability for the same curator to be chosen twice in a row.) were heard more. That alone caused some pretty big issues for me, since as much as I'd like to pretend I wasn't at least mildly tilted at my suggestions not being rolled, I definitely was and the current system made it feel like it would literally just never happen. It got me a little burnt out, because I really like collecting my thoughts and explaining why I like things, and some of those quests I have a ton to say about.

 

I'm pretty bad at playing longer quests, and prefer simpler stuff too, so not every quest rolled interests me. The funny thing is, I think the issues with not being picked could partially be solved by 2 quests being picked every week instead of 1, because I actually think half a month is actually too much time to play just one quest, because once it's over as a group, all discussion about the quest just dies entirely until the next event (with one or two exceptions so far.). With that said, I've also heard some people occasionally complain about the selection process itself, and how it really shouldn't be random, but rather community decided, but I think that also comes with the added consequence of it being more of a popularity contest of what gets chosen, and would still lead to the same problem if it leads to one curator's quests never getting chosen because more ambitious quests were voted on.

 

Weirdly enough, I actually think a quest being voted on while also it being 2 from 2 different curators has a lot of potential, since it means members who aren't interested in one quest get a second option, those who play both get to play both, and I think it's far more likely we don't get into situations where one curator gets completely screwed out of things they want people to play getting played. It's a little convoluted, but that's kind of how I see it. The point is, with the current system, the community aspect of quest club just kind of disappears entirely for like 2 weeks once a quest that doesn't immediately pull people is chosen.

Edited by Haylee, 16 March 2024 - 03:57 PM.

[Shane]

It sucks Quest Club isn't really getting the full attention it deserves, but I don't think this is indicative of the idea failing. More so that the circumstances of community burn out probably make this idea hard to execute into a roaring success. I think if you can get a few people to play a quest, it's a success when you factor in that's probably the most people that played that quest in a long time. I think this needs to be more of a long term vision to see better results.

 

I've stopped or outright skipped playing a few quests, usually for the following reasons:

• I've finished the quest and don't feel like I'm up for replaying it.
• I stopped playing after a fair amount feeling this quest isn't for me.
• I basically got the gist of it through watching somebody else stream it.

But that amounts to nothing if I don't show actual engagement. I'm just one person, but I'll try showing more thoughts and interest as much as I can. I don't have any personal gripes with the selection process, but I am bummed that my nomination hasn't really been picked yet.

[Jenny]

I gave feedback on the selection process on more than one occasion, but it didn't seem to have been taken into consideration.

[Moosh]

I gave feedback on the selection process on more than one occasion, but it didn't seem to have been taken into consideration.

Might be worth posting it again here anyways. People tend to forget things said in passing.

 

For my part I think tweaking the selection process would be a good idea, but for that we need to get an idea of why people would want to participate in Quest Club. For me it's mostly to play things I haven't played before. It's also to play quests that are fun. This is a really tricky balance to hit. My two favorite picks so far have been Umbral Cloud and Labyrinth of Dinus. One is a quest I've played many times that's one of my favorites of all time. The other is one I've never played before that turned out pretty fun. Polar opposites, which kinda demonstrates this difficulty.

 

If we keep the current curator system I think the picks should absolutely cycle between each curator's lists rather than picking from the entire pool. Leaving everything up to the random number generator has been unfair and discouraging to the curators who weren't picked, and the quests picked really haven't been any better for it. This will also require curators to be more active and regularly cycle old quests out of their pools, which I understand has been somewhat of a challenge coordinating already.

 

Cycling curator picks kinda ties into  my next point: I think the curation system needs to be more willing to take risks. Let curators pick quests they've never played based on whether or not they look fun. Be willing to take some gambles on a dud. Dud picks are just gonna happen either way, but this would definitely make things easier on the curators and lead to more interesting picks overall.

[Jenny]

I personally think the selection system would be better if it just worked as a four quest cycle instead of being entirely random at this point. That way, each curators quests are guaranteed to be picked at least once per cycle.

 

The individual picks could still be random if desired, but if someone's quest has already been picked during that cycle, they shouldn't be able to be picked again until the next.

[Deedee]

If two quests were picked each two-week cycle and it was a cycle that rotated between curators, that would mean every curator would be picked once per month. That seems pretty fair.

I do think people should be more willing to give each quest a shake even if they've already played it in the past or think the quest isn't their thing. Tastes change over time and sometimes even if you don't like the quest as a whole there can be cool things the quest does that you like.

[Mani Kanina]

I personally just don't have much time to put towards playing quests these days, be it new releases or old classics. Just a lot of things pulling for my time, so it's rare I feel I want to put in the time commitment. Most ZC quests are pretty long when it comes time, even more so for the more ambitious ones.

Edit:
On the note of multiple quests per selection cycle. I'm not sure how good or bad of an idea that is. I already don't have time to play one thing, but I wonder if there are those who do have the time to commit towards trying out one quest, but not two.

Two rolls per cycle does increase the odds of each person finding at least one that they vibe with. But it also splits up discussion and can mean that one of the entries just kinda get shafted. The purpose of a book club, which I assume this was based on, is to have everyone talking about the same thing; even if that thing wasn't something you vibed with. Usually you'd also go in rounds of each participant offering up what to read for the next one. Obviously that aspect isn't useful in an online open setting like this, but I prefer the notion that one thing is central attention; even if it's not something I like.

But yeah, that's just my two cents. It's been cool to watch people play some of these old quests and talk about them and their opinions on them, even if I haven't had the time to engage with them myself.

Edited by Mani Kanina, 17 March 2024 - 07:04 AM.

[Ether]

I agree that if we keep going, the selection process should change to guarantee that none of the curators get shafted. I...felt really uncomfortable rigging dicerolls on the fly, but I think that just means that there needs to be a different mechanic.

 

I don't think that just preventing the same curator from being picked back to back is going far enough. (Counting the rerolled dicerolls from the two rolls where I left Russ and Deedee out, I've made 14 dicerolls for Quest Club so far, and none of them were for Haylee quests. I don't trust the RNG an inch at this point.) So yeah, at this point I think the most conservative change is to a.) give Haylee a freebie and then b.) switch to a cycle.

 

I'm still kind of nervous about that plan. Rewriting the rules to even out which curators come up is easy, but I'm worried that it wouldn't fix the underlying participation issues.

 

I could see a system where I roll two quests per week, and then put it to a vote 48 hours in advance of each new quest club? (This could easily still be cycled by just having two separate tracks. It does run the risk of shafting a curator if they consistently lose the vote, but that's at least a system where they can influence that outcome by adjusting their quest picks.)

[Haylee]

I could see a system where I roll two quests per week, and then put it to a vote 48 hours in advance of each new quest club? (This could easily still be cycled by just having two separate tracks. It does run the risk of shafting a curator if they consistently lose the vote, but that's at least a system where they can influence that outcome by adjusting their quest picks.)

I feel like this is just a fancier form of putting it to a vote that I think would cause identical issues to if the community just voted for every quest in the curator's list. I feel like that's just going to create a situation where the more popular quest will get chosen significantly more often to the point that it's arguably even less likely that more obscure quests would get chosen and I think that would just dip participation further.

 

I want to mention some other possible more tangible ways to increase participation in the threads themselves: actively encouraging players to track their progress. I think in general, it's a good idea for players to post their progress in the thread of a given quest at the end of any of their play sessions, and their feelings up to the point, because it seems like that did wonders for discussion surrounding the quests that the players actively did this for (the Link to the Heavens and Nargad's Trail threads are pretty great examples of this in practice). I understand writing out thoughts is often a little taxing, but I think it was something that was somewhat missing from the last couple club threads. With that said, I suppose that would make it sound like a no brainer, since the idea is based on a book club anyways, but I do believe it to be something that should be encouraged more for the participants. It's definitely easier said than done, but I think the energy was there, and I don't think it being lost was necessarily due to the quests themselves.

 

I think when it comes to the actual Quest Club team, I think our focus should be more on encouraging the participants who are already there, rather than trying to push users who for a personal reason for another don't want to play a specific quest, to join. I think if the energy is there, users will inevitably want to join on those discussions, and thus, play the quests as well. Of course, part of that also includes making the selection process more fair for the curators as well, since part of my burnout came from tilt relating to that.

Edited by Haylee, 18 March 2024 - 11:45 PM.

[Ether]

I think you're right that getting people to talk more is important, just...that was always true. I'm worried that we'll be right back where we started within a month or two.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with a system that's more weighted toward popular quests, as long as that makes people more likely to participate. I don't think your argument that people would a.) vote for a more popular quest they're not interested in and then b.) proceed not to participate when they would have if the more obscure quest had come up instead makes a lot of sense. (I also don't think it's a given that the vote would always skew toward the more popular quest. I could see that being a danger when the vote's between a lot of quests and the more obscure picks are taking votes away from each other, but between two quests I don't think it'd be as much of an issue?)

 

On focusing entirely on existing participants, I am...torn. I can see the logic of it but it's depressing for me, and I know for a fact it's burning Russ out too.