_{Prepare for some hopeless sentimentality.}

I've been in many RPs during my time with the Guild, and my fondest memories go back years: pre-Guildfall, on the old site. I felt a lot more inspired back then and it seems to me that I was involved with more long-standing projects.
Just about all of my memorable roleplays had a core group of players that spent a lot of time together in off-site chats. But they were more than just like-minded players; they felt like friends.

I think that must be what kept these roleplays going on so strongly. I remember spending hours writing content for @Silverwind Blade's GEARs and chatting up the rest of the group very clearly.
I've also had a fair share of time in the Nation section, where chatroom collabs are nearly mandatory. As an unspoken rule, NRPs tend to do exceptionally well or flop, with the latter being most commonplace. I have lots of fond NRP memories, usually revolving around the same core group of players.

Lately, I haven't had the same lengths of time to dedicate to RPing as I once did, and I've felt a bit distanced. I miss the camaraderie of year-long roleplays and late-night Piratepad conversations (Remember when we raided those random teens' pads and made a mess of the Free section, @Monkeypants? Good times). I've been reminiscing a bit, and I wish I could spark up the intensity of years past again. Some old pals are still around and kicking, others have left the Guild behind.

I suppose what I'd like to achieve is the zeal to see a roleplay succeed for months, maybe even a year or more, and have the energy of close-knit friends to carry it on. It feels like something's been missing from the old guild, or maybe I just ought to wake up and embrace what's here.

Feel free to add your thoughts as well, so this thread isn't just me harking on the "good ol' days." _{oh please do.}

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So this is cringey, I know, but I want to shoutout some key folks that have been great writing buddies over the years. I've forgotten more than a few others, I'm sure, but I hope they know who they are. My old GEARs & original FRAMEs buddies are out there somewhere!

I used to go all out with a team of approximately 10 people. We weren't the best, the stories weren't always even good, but they advanced every day for years, and that makes for a lot of stories. Branching, "TBC" that grew into something else, and being one of the folks managing NPCs made it so I have literally hundreds of characters that have since gone unused. That ended not too long before I joined the guild; we drifted, and most simply said they didn't care anymore. While it lasted, though... that was quite the time.

Unfortunately, I've since lost my spark. Been having it come and go, yet the coming is somewhat short and the go can flat out kill my ability to do anything "productive" on this site for a week+.

If Silver ever does another GEARs game, I'd totally give it another go.

This is one of the reasons I'm more interested in building community than merely joining a site and jumping into a role-play only to watch it die. I think it's really important that you role-play with people who're your friends and comrades. It creates the additional motivation and zeal that inspires people to keep writing and not just abandon a project from lack of interest or due to 'stuff coming up'. It's a lot better to role-play with friends, much in the same way it's better to do any hobby with people who're close to you.

All the best role-playing experiences I have that I'd care to name involving me and my fiancé or me/us and some of my closer friends who are privy to enough information about my main story project to be able to role-play in that setting. The entire reason I joined this site at all was due to losing contact with some of them due to life problems getting in the way for them -- real problems, just for the record, not the standard 'oh I got a little busy' bullshit you hear from people when they disappear due to lack of interest or lack of inspiration. The role-plays I involved myself in with these people lasted many years.

Really, the most important thing in my eyes is to form these relationships before role-playing when possible.