Galavani

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

I suppose I'm an RPG libertarian ;-P

@Kratesis

And here I thought we might have been friends.....

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

Maybe there needs to be a pinned guide on a basics of NRP? Somewhere for a beginner to start and not get scared off.

@Sylph

Maybe this should be stickied?

I think @ClocktowerEchos did a damn fine job.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

Gotta say, I think the Mods do a great job. Any time I've had an issue, it hasn't taken long to get a response. Mahz does the best he can with what he can, I've never doubted that. I've never seen a reason to doubt that, either. Yeah he's been gone a while but the house hasn't burned down, either, and he works hard to get things moving when things go down.

Those of us who've been around a while know what happens when the Mods get very visible and very proactive--it's usually not a good thing. Some people talk about not liking how the Mods seem absent, disconnected. I would've PAID for this problem earlier in the Guild's history, when it felt like the people who were made Mods weren't really RPers first, but chatters in Spam. When it felt like the "little guy RPer" got left behind. It hasn't felt like that at all since the Guild went back up after it's fall.

I never had a clique. I just RPed. And RPed. And, somehow, someway, I became a Mod for a short amount of time. Then I became a chat moderator for a short amount of time. Now I'm just a RPer again. Seems the more time you spend outside of RP sub-forums, the bigger the "cliques" issue is for you.

Also, from personal experience, some of the Mods are more active than you think. Some of them like it that way.

I know who Rilla is. He's an awesome dad and a great writer, and he's really funny. I didn't always know him. I had to go out of my way to find out who he was, but it was worth it. Ditto Hank.

I'm glad Arena is the Arena, I'm glad NRP have their own sub-forum, I'm glad Tabletop has a spot just for them now, too. You can always debate a re-organization of the Guild, but this doesn't constitute a "problem" for the Guild in my mind. Just differences of opinion. As it is, I think Mahz is right: the way the Guild is set up is something that marks it unique.

Increased community involvement projects could do a lot of good on a few of the issues raised. I'd encourage this. Heck, depending on what it is, I might even offer help/advice.

@Ruby

This, This, This.

I could not have put it better myself, this basically sums up my views about everything regarding the guild except Hank.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

This is all personal opinion, I have NOT been elected by NRP to represent them

@Isotope

...

Do you think that it could be a case of correct tagging? Like I'm just guessing but I'm sure there are Free, Casual and Advanced level players who Nation RP, so maybe this heavy history/over prepared problem is a matter of just different levels of playing styles not meshing well? Are there options for more simplified Nation RPs?

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@BuddhaI think you should talk to @Rilla or @Melonhead they would be open for a chat.

@Inkarnate Okay, damn I was just picking names at random, I didn't know you and the Doctor had history, regardless the others I mentioned plus at least 4 more i could name are all chill people. I'm sure you dont think all Trump supporters are racist, so lets not assume that all Arena RPers are trolls.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@Inkarnate

Well with the greatest respect, I dont think anecdotal evidence is a fair way of judging the dozen or so active members in the Arena. People like Rilla, Melonhead and Doc Doctor are all perfectly capable of having rational discourse, and I've almost never seen a shitstorm comparable to what I've seen here in Off-topic or even occasionally in Casual in the Arena, we keep a lid on things.

@Buddha The Arena 'style' thing was a joke, we all communicate just fine, I think we need to get past this pseudo-xenophobic behavior of feeling like: Nation Rpers are like this I heard Tabletop RPers act like that orI read somewhere that Arena RPers eat their kittens!!!. We are just people on the internet who enjoy writing to escape for bit. This thread isn't the U.N. and I'm certainly not an ambassador or representative of the Arena. As you saw that fucking traitor other arena person @ImportantNobody has a different view than me. I think if we want to discuss things concerning RPers outside this thread we need to just reach out and ask questions, there is no harm in it.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>
Perhaps having a modicum of civility and respect would be better than such approaches. I suppose that is why Arena has the illicit reputation that it does. Something to think on, perhaps.

@Inkarnate

Well I was absolutely agreeing with you which is why I asked him to watch his language.

But I sure hope you wouldn't judge the Arena community's ability to have rational conversations based on one post by one individual? Because that would be very short sighted.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

So, I'm interested instead of hearing about why it's a bad idea (because my idea is the only idea so far) what you'd have in mind for re-energizing the subforum to maintain it to a degree where we no longer felt like we needed to merge it.

@Buddha

Absolutely, this is the discussion I'm interested in having.

I'm painfully aware that this draws paralells to that stupid 'woke' SJW bullcrap about white people not being able to identify with minority experiences blah blah....

But I feel somewhat uncomfortable talking about what should be done with Nation and Tabletop forums without people from those forums giving their point of view, I think there are probably a ton of other nuances about what makes their niches special that I could only speculate about.

As far as Arena, I could brainstorm with some of the other frequent posters. Like I said I think advertising more eclectic fights instead of just Dante Vs Sephiroth style match ups could go a long way. Maybe we could have a detailed article in the criminally underused 'News' Sub-forum about what Arena really is and what it entails and how interesting you can make it beyond just a simple fight. We could also start hosting tournaments in our signatures. To be honest I'm just shooting ideas out, but I know that while the Arena lot can be very protective of their space they are ALWAYS looking to improve, so it shouldnt be hard to get some more ideas floating.

But it must be said, while I don't condone the language Xavier used I can understand his frustration. Its quite irksome when an essential 'outsider' to arena starts flippantly disparaging the forum that a lot of us take seriously as 'dead' and 'useless'. I imagine those who only do romance 1x1s on this site would get annoyed if we started claiming they are just a bunch of horny lonely cyber-sex people especially if it was something we knew little about. Again these small measures of respect are important if you really want to have a productive conversation.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@Xavier Bloodbayne I agree with you, but lets not use our 'arena' methods of trying to get a point across. If you start some shit and the thread gets locked it'll just make the Arena community look bad as a whole. Lets make our points like gentlemen.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@Buddha Yes I agree with you the the Arena isnt as popular as other sub forums.
Yes I agree that it's been especially sparse lately.

But none of this is a good reason to merge. 1x1 is story driven collaborative writing, arena is non-collaborative creative competition, the fact that Arena usually takes place between two people doesn't mean it is the same thing as 1x1 story, both have their place. The reason why it is separate is because of the format and the motivation. There are other better ways to advertise. A good way is to use the general interest threads to announce tournaments or exhibition matches. We also could do better to include a wider range of combat types, instead of just 'badass vs badass' we should be hosting mecha battles, warplane dogfights, and small army warfare, which could get more people interested.

Like I said before, I'm all for improving the Arena, and I would be happy to help give it a kick in the right direction, but being merged with a thread that has nothing to do with what we are about will just piss people off, and make people want to give up on the RP combat completely if they feel they don't have a platform that supports it, and what happens in the long run? We just lose more users which is counter to what you are trying to achieve with this thread.

Tabletop is extremely unique, I cant speak for that community, but I imagine that having RP rules based on d20 and GURPS systems definately put you outside of the realm of anything you will find in Free, Casual and Advanced, it doesn't seem fair to take away that platform. I get that they are somewhat alienated from the traditional RPers but that comes with the territory of providing a platform for the niche.

Nation I don't know that much about, I assume that having a different mindset to RPing as a faction as apposed to a character is quite significant to how they write and interact with each other. But thats about all I can say, you'd have to speak to an NRPer for more details.

Anyway, in short, I think having niche sections for specific interests does more for the guild. Free, Casual and Advanced Regulars arent going to leave the site just because Arena, Nation and Tabletop arent as popular as their threads, I'm sure they either don't care or like the fact they can jump into something different one day if they feel like it.

But people WILL start leaving if you delete/merge maybe the only reason they are on the site. I do regular RPs now, but when I just started I only came to the guild for the duels, if that was taken away I would have left the site, and I know for a fact I wouldn't have been the only one.