Colored text isn't necessary, it's just may way of differentiating characters. With the 'main character' of the segment being in bold and the rest in italics. It's a habit I got into waaaaay back when I first started RPing on forums, it stuck. You don't need to color or do anything fancy. ^.^

And I definitely believe that, yes, the posts will shorten as conversations become more commonplace. I'm not a stingy GM who demands a novel with every post, I'm a quality or quantity sort of person anyways. And I also like collaborations! I feel they help with keeping the RP together as players get to work collectively toward things.

On a side note, I'm really enjoying the posts so far!