I already am participating (and leading some of them) over a dozen roleplays. I am not going to treat my players disrespectfully just to “prove” anything to you or others. But you are correct that those who want to do Arena (whatever way it is designed) should just do it. If people have time and energy to devote they should do it. But I can see why they might not want to given the pushback and sentiment given here in this thread. Role-playing is a fickle hobby and people are going to join and not stick around. But if you want Arena to rejuvinated and not be a decaying waste of space you want to make sure those newcomers want to stay around.
You aren't going to do it because you have no real investment in the arena worth putting your schedule in jeopardy. That means you have no intention of actually being one of the movers who can give that change you are subscribing for the rest of the arena. Then don't pretend it has anything to do with pushback and don't pin it on me or anyone else. There's no pushback. You are free to make things happen right now, tomorrow, or next week and no one is going to protest about it. Now people may say things (I've had this treatment happen too much around here) but if you really care you'd ignore it and play until you're finished.
The purpose of role-playing is collaborating creative ideas and creating a story.
Miss me with that bullshit. The purpose of roleplaying is to play a role. That's it. It's basically an offshot of old RPGs made into text form from muds. People back in AOL in the late 90s were already establishing fight rules and shit and then when Toonami threw Gundam in a bunch of mecha/anime gundam roleplays came with an influx of new and current players. The story is there whether or not it's from exhibitions or elaborate works on plot and even then most of it was impromptu.
Basically a bunch of kids played too many RPGs and Final Fantasies then decided to make something out of it. The long expanding stories was a bonus for those who actually finish and the story reached a conclusion (cause either players leave or lose interest). It was never some big thing to tell the next Harry Potter that's that new wave 2003 shit when forums were kicking off and you can write beyond character limits on your ISP's chat based services.. or those who had a story from the chat days thinking it'd resonate real good with others. A lot of seasoned players could weave a story from a bunch of poorly connected tavern fights and eventually make something canon, and PVP was always there.
In my opinion that supersedes any precedent of an “alpha mentality” that suggests arena-oriented roleplay is inherently competitive.
Alpha mentality to someone soft I assure you. Roleplaying was always a game first. Roleplaying on the net came from text based graphic muds and then became tavern chat stuff with a lot of fighting in it(I mean if you wanna call it that). The game was always both. You cannot try to separate it because no matter where you go it'd eventually creep up on you: someone is going to want to fight. There's always a rookie who wants to know how to fight in this game and they write like 3 sentences. You can't escape it. You can discourage them. You can throw them elsewhere. That can work, but plugging your ears and ignoring a "problem" doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
It's interconnected. Anyone who loves this game can appreciate both.
I hope you get what you want out of the section in the future.
I already got what I wanted. Dynamo just asked what regulars thought.
