ETFA Discussion and Fanartery

it's great to see this forum get really active again! it's weird that it's not like 100% text anymore

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In hype and in agreement with everything written on this page thus far!

And WHO SHALL WIN THE COVETED THE WRITE STUFF COMPETITION? Check in tomorrow (and the day after tomorrow) to find out the SHOCKING CONCLUSION!

I feel like a month really isn't enough to get an adventure off the ground, but I am a shameless worldbuilder so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. What do you guys think?

Literally the extent of my plot progression thus far has been "get off the ground" so this'd ironically be the best place to have to stop for judging purposes

i got more done before the deadline than i thought i would


take that as you will

Wow, that went by faster than I thought.

I didn't get very far either, but it looks like I got further along in events than anyone else. I was more focused on Swamped, though.

I feel like a month really isn't enough to get an adventure off the ground. What do you guys think?

As it turns out, the judges agree! The first TWS actually took much longer than a month to complete (partly due to the judges' absence). This time around is not that much different but I do hope to sing some praises for you guys tomorrow regardless!

I got distracted by work and have yet to start my things, whoops :x

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Question, if I were to start a forum adventure, does it matter how often it's updated? i.e how often do people expect you to update? (I have some ideas but I'm not sure if I could keep up as quickly as some of these go. At least not with art, due to college crap and all)

From my limited observations, building an audience for a forum adventure is generally easier if you've got the following. You don't need any of these to gain a readership but they certainly help:

-Solid art (not always an option, not necessarily a factor if you update consistently/make really good words)
-A really engaging opening (not always an option if your narrative preference is to ease into the action. Can be mitigated by soliciting character/worldbuilding suggestions, but that can go too far in the opposite direction and make your setting feel generic without reader input).
-Thread visibility. The more time you spend on the front page, the better the odds someone who's just browsing is going to click on your thread. Other than updating really consistently there's not much you can do about this; threads seem to drop off the front page in two days currently and that time'll only shrink if the forum grows and more threads are "competing" for that sweet forumnular real estate.
-Nepotism. I have on at least one occasion nagged a friend to give me a workable suggestion for an adventure.

It really depends on how you like telling stories! If you rely on reader suggestions as a springboard for writing updates, then you might be in a tight spot, as threads probably won't get further suggestions once they fall off the front page.

tl;dr "it's totally up to you, but if you're going to rely on suggestions, better make it once every couple of days"

Adventures without a regular update schedule are the norm. Right now, the only ones updating daily are my own Swamped and jack_fractal's All-Night Laundry.

We're going through an adjustment period with all the new people coming in. This definitely means there's more competition for front-page space, but you can generally get a few people interested enough to suggest regularly.

Hm, this is all really helpful,thanks! I think it may be easier once I have some assets stored already....

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I mean, hey, gotta start somewhere, I guess. You never know if you never try

-Nepotism. I have on at least one occasion nagged a friend to give me a workable suggestion for an adventure.

This. IIRC the first Problem Sleuth book has annotations at the bottom of each page from Hussie, and he mentions having to nag his brother into submitting some of the first PS commands, albeit that's prolly more because of the breakneck pace Hussie made PS at more than an inability to find a command-suggesting readership.

From my experience (mainly 3 yrs on the MSPA Forums), readers tend to latch onto a few specific types of Adventure openings.

• Low-quality art, frequent updates (~weekly, if not more frequently), and lite-medium text of just about any quality.
  
• Low-quality art, infrequent updates (less than monthly), and heavy, well written text. The text has to carry these sorts of adventures, so it has to be good to keep readers coming back.
  
• Mid-quality art, frequent updates (~every two-three weeks), text amount can vary here, but it's tricky because well done, very lite text can work just as well as decent, very text-heavy writing. Balancing a variety of the two seems to work best for most long-running Adventures of this type.
  
• Mid-quality art, infrequent updates (~6+ weeks), text amount can vary again, but now it has to make up in both bulk and quality in order to account for the infrequency of updates.
  
• High-quality art. Readers will probably put up with just about anything text-wise or update-frequency-wise if you've got high-quality art.
  

As you may have noticed, I didn't list any Text-only Adventures. This is because, for better or worse, the people who are usually looking for new Adventures to read, are also looking for art to accompany it. This results in just about any quality of text-only Adventure not finding the readerships they prolly deserve. This of course is all anecdotal, and while finding readers is certainly tough, it's even tougher and trickier to get readers to reply and leave suggestions. Now that, is an arcane art.

As you may have noticed, I didn't list any Text-only Adventures. This is because, for better or worse, the people

Stopping this right here.

One of the greatest differences I have ever noticed between the general feel of eagletime adventures and mspafa adventures is text based ones have a lot more attention paid to them. Great examples in literally any adventure made by Dragon Fogel, any adventure marked [tws], things like vis avis and things like this.
Not to mention grand battles that are a subforum downwards, which are large soups of words.

Point is, textular things don't get lost to the void as much here. Case in point, the most ridiculous things get plenty of user interaction. Participation is the key.

That's awesome to hear! I only really have long-term experience of the general MSPAF crowd, and it was always a shame how quickly new text adventure's were given up for lack of views/replies.

Art is definitely something I want to include (I want to make cartoons for a living, so I hope I can get at least semi decent quality going), but it seems like most things do get at least some kind of response when posted here. Maybe it's just a friendly crowd or my limited experience, but the way I see it, if it has the potential to be something fun people are probably going to give it a shot. I used to do advanced forum roleplay and getting a roleplay off the ground as a GM usually took a pretty good hook, well-organised first post, and detailed explanation of the lore and plot (if an original adventure. Fan stuff will always find itself a following if it's quality).

Forum adventures seem more lenient on that front, but a hook is a hook no matter the media.

I may as well go for it.

As you may have noticed, I didn't list any Text-only Adventures. This is because, for better or worse, the people

Stopping this right here.

One of the greatest differences I have ever noticed between the general feel of eagletime adventures and mspafa adventures is text based ones have a lot more attention paid to them. Great examples in literally any adventure made by Dragon Fogel, any adventure marked [tws], things like vis avis and things like this.
Not to mention grand battles that are a subforum downwards, which are large soups of words.

Point is, textular things don't get lost to the void as much here. Case in point, the most ridiculous things get plenty of user interaction. Participation is the key.

yeah i mean, check the top of the page: until this month's big-ass influx literally ALL the active adventures were text. it was nice on my connection

Long standing text-adventures, however do have a much higher cost of entry than your typical image based adventure.

In part, you can get a better idea of what kind of command to submit with an image. Even if you don't know what's going on, a quick picture gives you a list of options to pursue. "Check out that note!", "High five that guy!"

It lets the reader engage in an I-spy game with the panel, looking for something there that other reader's haven't noticed. Once they've added their suggestion, they're more invested and more likely to go back and read through a backlog.

It is a lot harder to do that with text adventures. They aren't as in-and-out as your typical forum adventure (Although there are some exceptions).

Really it is a different medium. It has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, you can integrate responses much easier, and you can encourage longer suggester responses. However you will typically run short of suggestions once the adventure gets longer.

READ SWAMPED GUYS - UPDATES DAILY

Successful text-adventures, I think, have to follow a s mindset similar to someone who is publishing a full body work. People will catch up and read you work on their own time, but you have to be willing to keep going on it even without regular input.

Successful any adventures follow similar advice. Keep making it as long as you like it. Enjoy the rush of the people participating, but if that rush is the only reason you're doing it, you will soon run out of steam.

Side note-nostalgia: Actually one of my favorite examples of text adventures on this forum is now the long abandoned INCIDENT

one of mine is vox mentis which i think is still worth a read

Today's daily* Schazer adventure recommend for things you should follow/suggest in: Strandido, by SirBlizz98.

There's a mirror! The backlog is a very reasonable 70ish panels to catch up, 20 of which are not found on our fine forums. The haps to date: you're Alexander Porter, you've washed up onto a desret island, and you've been making friends and making crabmeat of the local crustacean population. You've got an erstwhile package, something sinister in the forest, and a ~mysterious cavern~ hidden behind an illusory wall.



There is art! Some of it moves! I'm no expert in art theory but Strandido's got simple shapes, clean lines, and a delicious color palette which is really effective at setting the mood, from "lush Pacific paradise crab fraternising party" to "desperate combat midst tropical storm"**. The giffery is low-key but goes a long way to making the setting lively.

"But Schazer, you charming bastard," I hear you ask, "are there words?" To which I say, "Yes!" Strandido has words, and I rather enjoy them. They've got that sorta-rambly, wordplay-laced, kinda-irreverent quality I strongly associate with "classic" forum adventures. I'm not saying that tone's appropriate in every adventure setting, but coupled with Strandido's art style and what we've seen of the setting/story so far it's a fine pairing that really scratches my itch for forum adventuring Days of Yore.

It updates on a at-least-once-a-weekly schedule currently, so it's putting my "update ""schedule""" to shame!!! Thanks for bringing your adventure to Eagle Time, SirBlizz, I'm enjoying it a lot and I hope others do too!

[Read Strandido from the beginning]

[Suggest in Strandido]

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_{*not actually daily
**also featured recently in the adventure: safe'n homely albeit abandoned cavern}

_sorry