A Few Questions: Or, How Can This Be Better?

[Azunara]

DISCLAIMER: In no way, shape, or form am I trying to pin blame, take blame, or give blame to anyone. Whatsoever. I ask that you guys do the same. Please, try to remain civil, keep names out of this as best as humanly possible, and if you have issues, take it up with me, the person, or one of the higher up people in PMs. I will lock this thread if it gets out of hand, but I know you guys won't bring it down to that, right? Right. Let's have a nice, clean debate.

Edit: This is also open to people from both RPs, as well as new people. If you want to say something, say it, please!

Okay, so a few people may have noticed some shifts in the forums. There have been issues that have been or are being addressed. However, there is a slight resentment in the RP forum that has been, more or less, cleaned up. However, I don't want that to happen again. It shouldn't have happened. We're a close knit community, arguably moreso than the forums in a whole (Not being exclusive, just saying after RPing together, we know each other, know the little in-jokes more than if we all chatted in the Pet Discussion forum.)

The whole point is, what happened with the whole Pokemon vs. WoW RP thing? That was something I don't want to happen again. We're friends, even if we don't participate in the same RPers. Because we're all RPers. That's who we are. A small sect, a small niche out in the big, wide, Azeroth. So that fight is something that made a lot of people upset and demoralized. Which is bad, because not only does it means sad RPers, but I'm not doing my job right. (Heh. >>;)

So I have a few questions for you guys. What can we do to hash this out, to get our feelings and chips and cards on the table. What can we do to prevent something like that ever happening again? Here we go.

1. How can we stay connected? I mean, people felt others were drifting apart. Leaving this part of the forum, or moving to different RPs or overall just vanishing. Do we get together on a server and RP in game? Set a time for a fun time to just get together and skype/IM? More Goof RPs to lessen the seriousness? Gift Art? Everyone having deviantArt for another method of connection? Any other ideas you can think of?

2. Is there anything here I can do to make your time in the RP forum more enjoyable?

3. Should we keep or get rid of sign-in sheets? Do they work? Should people apply for a RP? (As in, prove they've read the stickies, and thrown up a rough char idea for rough approval.) If this does occur, who should decide who gets in? The leader of the RP or me, the forum assistant? Should we maintain a character limit on RPs and actively enforce it?

4. Do you have any suggestions or ideas? Is there any questions or whatnot you'd like to pose for other forum goers?

Thanks a bunch, guys. And remember, let's not tear at each other's throats.

[Lupis]

I... would post my thoughts, but honestly I have no idea right now. >.> I'm brainless at the moment. I'll think this over, though, and try to reply.

[Azunara]

Heh, no worries, Lupis. I just wanted to get this out there. I'm about to leave you all and play Heroes for a while. >>;

[Senna-Umbreon]

Just popping in here to say this... I'd like no one to really freak out over the Pokemon vs. WoW RP thing, okay? The only reason it's there is because of my stupid freak out, and I'm sorry for that. So.. Yeah. *Sighs* Just needed to say that. ... If I can think of a real reply at some point, I'll post it.

[Lupis]

Nah, Senna, not really. Resentment has been referenced at before, and I've noticed the "drifting apart" thing too. I continue to have no idea, though.

Gift art sounds fun, though.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I know for me I kind of quit being active in the TotH thread because it felt like we were starting to have to work to keep it going (which could be due to it never really having a set purpose/storyline and there only being like 4 of us actively posting in it) and because I think I burned myself out. I kept creating characters to try and fill the void created by the lack of people posting. It then started to become work, and I felt like my posts were just too long and like I was wasting people's reading time by having so many characters. As much as I love some of the characters I've created, I never want to try and control that many in one RP again I don't think.

In game RP is something I need to get myself more involved with, I think. Just the couple of times Lupis and I have met up in game has been fun.

That's just my perspective. I did get a chuckle out of jealousy over TotH only because the four of us had been struggling to keep TotH alive. But I understand the feeling; when I first started getting really into TotH, I was a little jealous of the Poke RPs because they had so many people posting. However, that feeling changed and I grew to like TotH's slower pace. In a way I kind of liked the openness of it, even though that's probably what held it back a little bit. It did inspire me, however, to think about characters in a new way and get me to start writing once again.

[Kamalia]

1. How can we stay connected? I mean, people felt others were drifting apart. Leaving this part of the forum, or moving to different RPs or overall just vanishing. Do we get together on a server and RP in game? Set a time for a fun time to just get together and skype/IM? More Goof RPs to lessen the seriousness? Gift Art? Everyone having deviantArt for another method of connection? Any other ideas you can think of?

Those all sound like good ideas to me. Having ties to each other that extends past roleplaying, I think, can help keep friends together when they aren't roleplaying in the same thread. I've never tried in-game RP. It might be fun!

2. Is there anything here I can do to make your time in the RP forum more enjoyable?

Nothing that I can think of. It's pretty awesome here in Petopia's roleplay corner. *thumbsup*

3. Should we keep or get rid of sign-in sheets? Do they work? Should people apply for a RP? (As in, prove they've read the stickies, and thrown up a rough char idea for rough approval.) If this does occur, who should decide who gets in? The leader of the RP or me, the forum assistant? Should we maintain a character limit on RPs and actively enforce it?

Sign-in sheets, I think, are very important. It helps keep track of characters, how many people are roleplaying, what the characters are like, ect. I think the stickied threads should be highly encouraged reads (ESPECIALLY if a person is new to the roleplay), but not be absolutely required to join roleplay threads. The only reason I say this would be that people could possibly take offense seeing the requirement. Like we're doubting their ability to roleplay, I guess? Though if the other roleplayers find something questionable with someone's character, then I'd say to direct them to the stickies. As for who decides who gets in... I'd have to say the leader of the RP. It is their RP, after all, but perhaps they could go to you for any backup advice or opinions. Character limits are a touchy thing, as we've seen, so I'd say that limits are another highly recommended thing, but not strictly enforced. Maybe to go over the character limit, the roleplayer would ask his/her fellow roleplayers and get their opinion on whether they think he/she is capable of handling another character.

4. Do you have any suggestions or ideas? Is there any questions or whatnot you'd like to pose for other forum goers?

None that I can think of.

Well, that was my rather unorganized two-bits. Hopefully I'm a bit helpful.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Teeheehee. I've read all the stickies. I think if you have a character like my death knight, who violates just about every rule of RP there is, the best solution is to ask the RP you're trying to join to see if they're okay with that character. Turns out the TotHers would probably hunt me down if I ever got rid of Indi.

[Kamalia]

Very true.

[Azunara]

*raises hand.* Kozri is a dragon, for example. That...kills pretty much any rule. But same with Indi, there would be some sad RPers on my hands if I got rid of him.

Okay. So stickies are good, but not required. But if anyone says, "I'm new!" we steer them to those stickies faster than butter melts on a skillet. I agree, sign-in sheets work well enough, as far as I've seen. They never stay updated (:D) but they work.

And yeah, character limits were....uh...Yeah.

[Kamalia]

And yeah, character limits were....uh...Yeah.

...Yup... but hey, we ended up throwing out ideas for a thread when it simmered down, and we got the new WoW RP through it!

I think as long as a roleplayer seems capable of pulling their character off, let them run free. You and Tyger are great examples.

[Azunara]

Right. And if they get overwhelmed, someone should just quietly tell them to bring a character out?

[TygerDarkstorm]

Y'all are gonna give me (and Indi) quite the ego.

I think if we see someone being overwhelmed, like myself for example, perhaps either a mention in an OOC thread or even a PM saying that there's concern they're starting to sink, and offer some help/advice from the senior RPers might be a step in the right direction. I know that it took me until just now to realize why I was losing interest in the TotH thread.

[Moonlost]

Thanks for posting this topic up Azu. If nothing else, it's good to get our thoughts up into the open.

1. How can we stay connected? I mean, people felt others were drifting apart. Leaving this part of the forum, or moving to different RPs or overall just vanishing. Do we get together on a server and RP in game? Set a time for a fun time to just get together and skype/IM? More Goof RPs to lessen the seriousness? Gift Art? Everyone having deviantArt for another method of connection? Any other ideas you can think of?

Personally, I like the idea of just setting up some fun time for whatever. Goofing off in Skype? Sounds awesome. Alternately, how about a game of Scrabble online? Or one of the myriad of other, online games accessable to all for free.
For the artists, we could try finding a cooperative drawing software and just jam with that.

2. Is there anything here I can do to make your time in the RP forum more enjoyable?

A plate of lamingtons upon entry would be nice ;P

In all seriousness, you've been doing a pretty awesome job here. Keep doing what you're doing hun, we'll be fine.

3. Should we keep or get rid of sign-in sheets? Do they work? Should people apply for a RP? (As in, prove they've read the stickies, and thrown up a rough char idea for rough approval.) If this does occur, who should decide who gets in? The leader of the RP or me, the forum assistant? Should we maintain a character limit on RPs and actively enforce it?

I love sign-in sheets. Not only do they serve as a convenient place to store information about the roleplay in question, but they're a great resource to get familiar with other people's characters. When starting a new RP, I refer back to the respective sign-in sheet a lot.
Eh, I'm not sure I'm confortable with the idea of "applying" for what should be a fun hobby. As people before me have said, including yourself, if someone goofs up somehow, we just point them in the right direction.
Hard character limits? Eehhh, after mulling on it for a few months, I see both the benefits and the cons, but ultimately feel that restricing someone's creativity to be pretty mean spirited. I did like the suggested limit I had for VotS, but at the same time, I trust people to know how many characters they feel comfortable controlling. I do like your plan of just quietly asking someone to reign in their characters if they have too many, that feels much less restrictive than the plans we've had in the past.

4. Do you have any suggestions or ideas? Is there any questions or whatnot you'd like to pose for other forum goers?

I guess I'd like to throw out this question to anyone willing to answer: What to you want to get out of this forum? Why do you roleplay here? For the story, for the characters, for the fun of it, for the other people posting or for some other reason?
As for the drifting apart problem... Sometimes, people need to step away for a while. Personalities don't always clash, or real life catches up. Hell, even burnout happens. The best thing to do is to just mix it up a little. Sometimes, the best idea is to just drop everything, start something completely new. Or do something completely different. It doesn't always work, but it has to be better than continuing to plod along, dejected and stagnating.

[rubybeam]

Sorry Azu I have no idea what to do.....sign in sheets stay! its so easy to keep track of characters with them