Alright look...

[Steinfield]

I tried to post this last night at some apparently-un-godly-hour because when I went to post it had timed out and when I went back all the data was lost. As such I will try to re-post as best I can.

So, I've been checking the site out and getting some ideas and a feel for the forums overall. Some of what I see I like, but some things I didn't even know how to process. And that's why I'm taking the time to write this up, not once, but twice. Why? Because I apparently like you guys or something, and this forum needs new writers and ideas if it's going to survive - well beyond it's current state.

The first culprit is a post I saw that said someone had looked through archives of role plays that are six years old in order to see what threads might want to be revitalized. If it's been dead for six years, it's because people most likely want it to stay that way. On sites that I've been to, threads are considered dead after anywhere between 1 and 24 hours - depending on site activity. Now I realize that this site likely has a lower active user pool, but two weeks should indicate a dead bored. Too me it does, at any rate.

The biggest offender, however, was what I read on the wiki about the genre "Myth". Scanning the threads, I notice not a single one. 'Why is this?' I inquire of myself. I precede to read the wiki further. . . . 'Wait. You're kidding. There's no way I can actually be reading this.' I actually said this by the way. Why? Because the wiki describes the entirety of the genre of "Myth" as a single plot for a role play. There is nothing wrong with the plot, except for the fact that it is way too narrow for describing the entire fantasy genre. Fantasy/Myth should be the largest category of any forum that facilitates role playing. But I'm biased.

I love fantasy of all kinds. Here, I will give the benefit of the doubt that A) this is a SW site so it should have the highest thread-count and B) the wiki could be outdated. If you feel I'm wrong then go ahead and say so, but last I checked, writers enjoy having a variety of options to choose from, and if you have role played long enough, topics can go stale quickly. Telling the user that he/she is limited to what and who they can write is the fastest way to cut a thread in my experience - sans scissors. To remedy this, I am likely going to post several threads using different plots and characters (all on this account for simplicity's sake) and we can see if any of them stick.

Assuming that you actually read all of this and maybe-even-give-more-than-half-of-an-albino-hairless-rat's-ass,
Respectfully yours,
Steinfield

[Aimee Connors]

1. I assume you're talking about the WoD scenario as the one being six years dead? That isn't what a six year time skip means. Plus, even if no one had posted to it in six years, if they want to now, are we supposed to tell them they aren't allowed to?

2. The Myth scenario is dead, and shouldn't be on the wiki front page. But it was one that posters here worked on, and did several RPs with, and I'm not sure what your real complaint is here. Just because at one point we did a certain kind of fantasy RP doesn't mean that it's the only one allowed.

3. Feel free to start whatever sort of new scenario/joint fiction/whatever it is that you would like to write in the General RPing forum. That is what it's there for. That's no guarantee that you won't be writing by yourself though, so you'll have to reach out to others if you want company.

[Steinfield]

As I believe I said, I'm sure I could be wrong. The "Myth" wiki is what I had been going off of, and that was the impression I got from reading the entire thing. I intend to write and as I said, we will see if anyone is interested or not. If not, then I will make more. But I'm not going to sit around if no one responds to the three and be like "well maybe someone will come." To me, that's just preposterous. Thanks for the feedback and I hope neither of us are misunderstood.

[Aimee Connors]

I'm not sure exactly what your perceived problem IS with the Myth thing.

[Dragon]

As you pointed out, we do indeed have a small user pool. That pool is also made up mainly of adults with jobs, families, and other commitments, which limits our available time to post. While the Star Wars storylines have gone strong through most of our history, the various General RP settings have ebbed and flowed depending on where the interest and energy has been.

Mutants, Unite is just picking up again after a fairly lengthy hiatus, and though it's been quiet, there are ongoing stories that some of us are interested in picking up again. World of Darkness has been dormant even longer, but, again, some people decided they wanted to pick it up again. It's not about the board deciding we "want" them to stay dead. It's a matter of limited time and energy.

We'd love to see additional activity, and that's why we like seeing new faces around to bring in new ideas. The whole point of the General RP forum was to give our writers a place where they can tell stories outside the Star Wars universe. The settings you see listed on the Wiki aren't an exclusive list of "approved" settings; they're merely the ones that somebody's written about on the Wiki. There have been other brief RPing campaigns - one based in the Fallout universe, a general post-apocalyptic setting, a western setting, and a Mass Effect setting, just to name a few off the top of my head. Of those, Mutants and World of Darkness have been the longest runners.

To clarify, "Myth" is not a genre; it's the name we gave to a specific fantasy RP setting we created. Just because that setting is no longer active doesn't mean we can't have any more fantasy RPs. If you've got any ideas, let us know! Just keep in mind that roleplaying is a collaborative venture. The easiest way to get started is to jump into a setting that's already active, so you know you'll have others to bounce off of.

[Aimee Connors]

To dovetail with what Dragon said, the Myth scenario has a large footprint on the wiki because it is wholly new, made by us. Unlike, say, DC or a Fallout scenario, there is no other place to go for information on it because we invented it and so we wrote up the source material and put it in the wiki.

[Mitch]

Well then, I must say, you certainly do come into a well-established place with quite the sense of authority, don't you? Do you also go into long-running restaurants and tell them that their menu isn't up to snuff for your liking, because other places might serve things differently? Do you judge a shoe based on its brochure instead of how it fits? There's an old saying that I think may do you a world of good, and it goes something like this:

Lurk more.

Yes, the time-honored tradition of actually inspecting a place before leaping to wholly irrational conclusions, is time-honored for a reason. It actually works.

We've been at this for a long time. A very long time, and why this group and board have lasted so long has been due to its flexibility, its ingenuity, and its COMMON SENSE.

You call a thread dead after two weeks? Let me tell you, some of the most stunning reads you can find on this board have massive gaps, and I'm still eager to proceed with one storyline which has been on hiatus since June. And I haven't given up hope on it because I realize that folks around here have rich, full lives, and other commitments outside of the internet, and which don't include making YOU happy.

If you want to RP, fine, start something, or propose an idea. But don't even begin to give me this arrogant bullshit about it being preposterous to wonder if anyone will respond to a thread you create. Around here, "if you write it, they will come" is HOW THINGS FUCKING WORK! And, what's more, that's how some of our best characters and plot twists have happened! It's real, it's organic, it's fun and has a life of its own, but most of all, it requires patience.

Yes, patience, something I sense you're not fond of, already, what with registering an account a little over two days ago and already telling us we're doing things wrong. Listing our "offenders" was a sure-fire way to get on our good side, too! I mean, I can't see anything that'd make people want to join your threads faster than bitching about what they worked hard to make. Hell, I can't believe I'm not in a thread with you already, with such a glowing spirit of teamwork as yours!

Listing "culprits" is another brilliant way to show how elite you feel, what with your two days of research where you have determined that you are necessary to our survival. Bucko, we've been around since 1999, I don't think we're terribly worried about our survival. We've had some of the most insanely complex and brilliant storytelling I've ever been privledged to be a part of. We're not just RP'ers, we're actually friends, stretching all around the globe, and even though most all of us hate Mark, he's still welcome here to rant or contribute alike. How can we do this, you might ask? Well, it's by getting off our high horses and just having a bit of fun, starting slow and working our way up. Or, better yet, by asking questions of - and in - a manner that don't make us look like a self-important twat. (I cite your closing greeting, here. Steven Fry you are not.)

Now for the Wiki. First, be glad it's even THERE! Hell, it was a lot of work, mostly done by people other than myself because I couldn't figure out how to make the dang thing! The amount of information it contains is simply stunning, and major, major kudos are due to everyone that has contributed and built it! It's there for backstory and bits of information that fill out an idea, but often aren't actually relevant to the major story at hand. Some of us like worldbuilding. Some of us LOVE worldbuilding. Often the love type are the ones to go hog wild on the wiki, hence some areas being larger than others. If you're really cheesed off about Myth, well, sorry, it wasn't there to entertain you, to be honest. It was there to establish a new setting that was under heavy discussion, then never really went anywhere because people had real lives.

As far as your thinking that Star Wars should consume the bulk of our RP, well, did you stop to consider that we've been doing Star Wars RP since 1999, and some of us might prefer a bowl of Froot Loops one day after 14 years of Cheerios? Variety is good. Variety is your friend. Variety, and engaging respectful discussion about variety is what keeps a board running, not lots of posts about the same thing. We have different settings, not all of them pan out, but some do, and others just lull and come back in waves. Kind of like playing video games, sometimes you get tired of one for a while, but come back to it. Same deal.

Barring a few overall ground rules, no one is going to tell you who and what you can write. But, if we don't like it, don't expect us to play along. And, since you have admitted that this board has a lower active player count than what you're used to, perhaps you should be a bit patient. Or, better yet, post up some thread idea topics right here in the planning thread and see what input and interest those get, instead of launching threads directly.

Basically, don't act all high and mighty and speak down on the community you're trying to join. Also, be really, really glad I'm not Mark.

Thanks, have fun.

[Steinfield]

Okay. Obviously this wasn't the reaction I was expecting. I know that you guys have real lives and cant always respond. I really wasn't trying to step on toes about posting dates; I simply don't /expect/ people to post after two weeks. This will probably change as I visit here more. I really wasn't criticizing the wiki. I said that it was fine, but that the impression I got was that it's plot seemed to be for a genre. It is entirely possible that I misread. I don't think that I am better than any of you. Aside from my posts on the welcome thread, I typically go into threads assuming I'm the least skilled, but I do my best to write my best. Hopefully this first impression will be lost once I start role playing with you.

Thanks.

[Aimee Connors]

There is always plenty of time to make a good second impression, Steinfeld. I hope you find a place here and have fun. The reaction you got was probably a side effect of you losing your post (and getting upset, because I get upset when I lose posts) and then having to rewrite it, so the tone that came across was a little unfriendly to be honest. Hopefully it was accidental and this will all be a distant memory soon. :D

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Yeah it's definitely a change of pace from some of the fast paced RP settings. I used to RP in TalkCity back in 1999 and so that was effectively real time, and went like "Aha, I stab you" and somebody would respond "Nuh Uh, you missed!" etc. Nothing wrong with that in the sense of sparring and whatnot.

The difference here is that it's as much story building on an open source and collaborative basis as it is roleplaying. We operate with an anything-goes-within-reason kind of mindset. The difference is in the depth of writing. If you look at posts they're generally pretty massive. It's fairly heavily character driven and we keep tabs on long storylines and timelines. That's tough to write in concentrated bursts even if you don't have other obligations like work, school, etc. So when you do, you tend to have gaps where you may not post to a thread in a day, a week, a month, and even sometimes a year.

The good news is that nothing here is really lost. We all kind of do bits of everything, and we always have things going on here and there. Usually if you drop someone a line you're waiting on you'll get something out of them, or at least open a dialogue on how you can progress a thread. Right now I'm actually doing just that, getting one of my big RP threads fired up after nearly a year (!!!) of nobody posting to it.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I'm looking forward to see what you write :)

[Vince]

Dude, I want to soliloquize some more.

This place is daunting, and sort of like an old medieval town which didn't grow on a plan at all so a lot of its roads are too small for cars, and it has an old district where people still live and an even older section that pretty much works as an historical district, and the city council works on the things its people want to work on, which changes according mood, and the budget, and some people aren't happy with that either.

I don't know if that helps. I'll be quiet now.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Yep. That's us :lol

[Ilias Nytrau]

Yep. That's us :lol

Exactly us. Boy, Vince... you sure hit the nail on the head.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

That is us to a T, haha.

[Dee]

That's Boston boiled down into a single sentence too, but describes us so damn perfectly it's genius. We need to put that somewhere :D

[Morgan Evanar]

We all have our own little Big Digs too.

We are ashamed.

[Mitch]

Steinfeld, to be fair, I wasn't trying to scare you off, but I did need to get the message across about how your post sounded, there.

We all want to be pals and have fun, and work together. Personally, I am actually interested to see what you come up with, and how things go. Welcome to our crazy little town!