[quote=@Ellri]
As not all new players are new to RPing, we do think that a lot of the feeling of loss of quality may just as well be a result of the classic "things were better back when we were our age."-thing than an actual significant fall in player quality. Sure, fewer players match our bill too, but we're willing to take on weaker players if it can help them grow. After all, the best way for a weak player to learn is at the hands of stronger players.[/quote]
This is more or less the first thing that would've come to my mind. There's an unfortunate reality that a lot of these sorts of problems all come down to perspective. Almost anything won't feel as a good as how it 'used to be' even if there's no significant issue with what's presently available. Different, for sure, but not inherently as much of a decline as people's subjectivity might imply.

The other comment about helping weaker players grow instead of simply casting them aside is also important - and a modus operandi I've always used - since everyone has to start somewhere and what might seem like an 'inferior' player at first glance could blossom into something surprising. I had virtually no experience at role-playing in the play-by-post format ten years ago, and I very quickly shocked people with my ability to adapt. Teaching people instead of judging them is vital, and not just with role-playing -- I'm a high level fighting game player and I encounter weaker players constantly, but instead of looking down on them I take them on as apprentices and they - or at least those who stick with it - end up learning to the point that they can beat professionals like I can. I take this same attitude towards anything that I'm interested in, and role-playing is one of those things.

Personally, I've got no respect for elitism in the sense of people who've been doing things for a long time and having 'experience' thinking it gives them the right to look down on others. At the same time, I also have no respect for the popularity contests that seem to consume most public websites -- seriously, this is a writing site; it isn't Facebook.

With that said, I'm not a long-standing member of the site, and I don't particularly care about how things were before 'Guildfall'. I'm going to limit my discussion here, not only due to having a lot of work to do but because I feel like this thread is probably more appropriate for people who've been here longer since a lot of focus is centred around comparison between the 'now' with the 'before'.

I do agree that the creator of the place needs to make a more active effort to update the site, or at the very leas give a trustworthy moderator some level of power to do so in their place. I've run multiple role-playing sites in the past, and while they were mostly operating on an invite-only policy I believe their activity wouldn't have been as stable had I not constantly been around to keep things together and updated. It's similar to how a role-play will crumble if the GM is incompetent.

The only contribution to this discussion that I'd like to bring is that I think the people on this site - newcomers and old folks both - should be grateful that this site is as lively as it is. Around five or seven years ago the InvisionFree role-playing forums suffered what could be considered a massive plague -- a huge amount of the communities started dying over that period of time and very few - if any - of the role-playing forums managed to keep a hold of their user base during that time. This has resulted in pretty much all of the role-playing forums I used to either be a member of or an observer of closing down.

This place is still active, and not only gets a wide variety of people joining each day but also has a lot of role-playing actually going on. I'm not a 'glass is half full' person, but the positive should be acknowledged where it is and I do think some people who've been role-playing here exclusively potentially take what they have for granted.