Huh... who would have thunk it, I briefly return from the dead and Feral is dead, never thought I'd see that.

Feral isn't dead, Wk is. I suppose it's time to discuss if we want to appoint a new GM? Or at least, get someone in contact with WK to get some information on the remainder of the arc until he can resume his duties

Well. Until then, I can run a filler arc. The only thing stopping me is the thought of incurring Wk's wrath and derailing his plans.

I think I might have an email for Blazion, she might have a contact for WK

I was wondering if he was still alive, WK that is. I hope we're not dead, dead, I'd so hatte for that to happen with no finish.

Ill get started on an intro post.

FIller ark, Filler ark, FILLER ARK HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Come to think of it. Isnt this a symptom of Hagumi's curse?

What if you were to start an arc with separate characters than the ones in use while things get settled? Maybe that's stretching it out. Hmm..

Harbringer said
Come to think of it. Isnt this a symptom of Hagumi's curse?

We will never speak of that again!

I have personal character development posts for Shade and Fiora planned, but nothing that could move the plot or serve as a filler for the others as a whole. We could just conclude the Games and have everyone get involved in some sort of celebration and have the characters interact until we get word from WK or ... something.

I really don't have Chii doing anything after the games, so she is free to do whatever while we figure out if WK went to Area 51 and was taken.. Forget I said that...

Post is getting there. So much background needing to be explained.

I'm really sorry for being so absent guys. I know after all these years nobody wants to see Feral die, myself least of all, but between work school and family I just haven't had the drive nor the time to really get meaningful posts in. I blame myself in part for taking on so much (since I'm controlling Neon, Torva, the entire council, the guards at the Colosseum, the judges, the other competitors, etc, etc), and I think in the future I'll try to keep things a bit more manageable for myself.

Part of that, though, deals with newer players, and to that end I'd appreciate some advice from other legacy RPers. In an attempt to be welcoming, I find that the best way to deal with new players is to give them NPCs to talk to in the hopes that they'll eventually have enough interactions with the core group to allow me to dial back and let things happen naturally. It may be my storytelling, or it may be the natural distrust of new players among the core group, or it may be some combination of multiple factors, but I think what we need to do is decide if we want to keep Feral as an open RP.

I've always wanted to keep it open because there will always be a somewhat steady flow of people coming and going, but at the very center of the story the players have been consistent for years now. I think for management purposes it might be easiest if I stop accepting new players entirely, but I wanted to let everyone else voice their opinion on the matter.

As for a post coming, I don't want to mess with what Har has been working on, and maybe we can work together to merge stuff, but at the very least I should get you guys a resolution of the games and a small jump to the vote from the council. There's a lot on the table right now and it wouldn't be fair of me to let it go ignored. If I promise, for really real, to have a substantial post up before the weekend, can you guys grant me that much faith and just hold off for a little bit more?

I'll stuff the post back into the filler folder from whence it came. For another time. Or we can integrate it, if you want. On the other part of the post, I'm kind of conflicted. I'm usually one of the ones who really hate new people coming in. I have to say its usually justified since said newcomer usually leaves within the next week or so given our pace and I don't really interact with them since they never make it into the core group. On the other hand...no wait...I'm not conflicted. Never mind. I couldn't think of anything to say past that initial point. Newcomers haven't really brought much to the table. The only thing I can say is that I was a newcomer at one point, and thank god all traces of that were erased. In short, I guess I'm all for the cutoff, unless someone is really interested and dedicated like the core group.

So WK finally posts...while my computer is being rebuilt after a hard drive failure. That's really what it took? :P

My thoughts on on new players...well, I was new once too, albeit considerably more recently. I'll agree - new players rarely stick around for long, and rarely are able to contribute much. Even with us in advanced, I'm not sure that'll change much. Having run a few threads myself with spectacularly short-lived results, I think I'm in favor of limiting or closing off new players.

(I'm also struck by the sudden realization I've been here for two years myself, and it still feels like I only joined a month or two ago. Time is scary)

So, I take it that I'm one of those newcomers that are unwanted. Well, I guess I can see where you both are coming from, I haven't exactly been doing much to provide even slight amusement to people. Someone else would probably try to put the blame on someone else, such as the current GM, buuut well, WK already brought me in the city and to the tavern, I have been given the basics I needed to progress on my own from there, which I did not really do. At all. I have no excuse for that, but for some reason I just postponed posting each time I thought I should do so, and just kept on reading what others had been doing. Not to mention that the current even might not have been the best time to jump in anyway, at least not with character like mine, there really is not too many opportunities to join the merry men(and women) in a way that'd make any form of logical sense.

I'm not kicking anyone out, Fin. I wouldn't do that anyway. My main concern is that existing relationships are so established that it's tough, as you've seen, for new players to make any solid progress interacting with the group. Part of that is where we are in the story, and part of that is legacy players not wanting to tie up their characters with someone who (probably, by all accounts) won't be around long enough to finish the conversation. As B8con pointed out, he's still technically "new" even though he's been on and off feral for about 2 years now, so I wasn't targetting anyone specifically in my post. It's more a general trend that, over time, can wear on a GM who keeps trying to make everyone invested in everything.

wild-kitsune said
I'm really sorry for being so absent guys. I know after all these years nobody wants to see Feral die, myself least of all, but between work school and family I just haven't had the drive nor the time to really get meaningful posts in. I blame myself in part for taking on so much (since I'm controlling Neon, Torva, the entire council, the guards at the Colosseum, the judges, the other competitors, etc, etc), and I think in the future I'll try to keep things a bit more manageable for myself.Part of that, though, deals with newer players, and to that end I'd appreciate some advice from other legacy RPers. In an attempt to be welcoming, I find that the best way to deal with new players is to give them NPCs to talk to in the hopes that they'll eventually have enough interactions with the core group to allow me to dial back and let things happen naturally. It may be my storytelling, or it may be the natural distrust of new players among the core group, or it may be some combination of multiple factors, but I think what we need to do is decide if we want to keep Feral as an open RP. I've always wanted to keep it open because there will always be a somewhat steady flow of people coming and going, but at the very center of the story the players have been consistent for years now. I think for management purposes it might be easiest if I stop accepting new players entirely, but I wanted to let everyone else voice their opinion on the matter.As for a post coming, I don't want to mess with what Har has been working on, and maybe we can work together to merge stuff, but at the very least I should get you guys a resolution of the games and a small jump to the vote from the council. There's a lot on the table right now and it wouldn't be fair of me to let it go ignored. If I promise, for really real, to have a substantial post up before the weekend, can you guys grant me that much faith and just hold off for a little bit more?

Also, given how busy you are, why not have one (or two) of the core players be a formal co-GM? That way they can take over for you when you're swamped or uninspired.

As for new players... On one hand, it's always nice to have fresh blood join us and bring something new to the table, on the other hand at this point I'm kind of apprehensive as to whether we should accept new players. For reasons already mentioned, and the fact that it won't be easy for them to join an RP already in progress for 4 years at this point. We can be as welcoming as we want but it's always going to be difficult for a new player to jump in and get comfortable with the group with disrupting the flow.

I realize it's part and parcel of new people joining the group and we should try to be welcoming if they do join us, but at this point the results seem to speak for new players not sticking around for long. I'm not advocating outright closing new member applications, but maybe making it really hard for new players to join without getting a sense of our pace.

I already warn everyone before they submit applications that we're slow, so I don't think that's a surprise for anyone. Even the age of the RP isn't too daunting because they only really need to know the high level story and the current ark. The real problem, as I see it, is why should torva, hagumi, neon, shade,garran,etc, etc even talk to someone new at this point? Half of them would say "piss off" if someone just walked up to them and started talking, and the other half would assume the person is probably a spy. This makes it inherently difficult for a new player to get involved with others, which in turn means I have to keep providing NPC interactions with them. In my experience the best way to introduce new players is to make them have some piece of critical information that's core to the plot, but even then if I do it too often we get this revolving door of revelations coming from random people we keep bumping in to, which isn't good either. It's just a difficult situation overall, but this is certainly my first time in an RP that's this old, as I'm sure is true of others, so in many ways we're treading on new ground.

I see your point, and I'll go with the general concensus on this, though at this point given what's been discussed I'm guessing we'll be leaning towards closing new submissions.