Dion

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

@Sylph will you allow me to use your post as a quoting point in case I compile a list or something out of this thread? Need more people saying the same thing as me and the others in this thread in order to at least prove that there's not just 1 small group of dissenters here but rather that a lot of people from different clique's feel the same way.

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

An unpopular opinion: Reduce the number of sections to the old Free, Casual, Advanced.

I play almost exclusively in NRP, but I feel like niche sections create niche communities. This makes natural introduction to that community hard and as a result creates an ever diminishing pool of players.

@Isotope

Adding to this that all the respective forums bar maybe tabletop have an existing reputation for being noticeably toxic or unreliable. Even more so than 1x1? Yes even more so than 1x1, that's possible apparently. Which is an issue on it's own we need to address at some point... New blood in arena, tabletop and NRP seems hard to come by.

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

@Buddha Hrm. I don't see anything there that would change my view, clearly I am not changing your view and I think we are just going around in circles at this point. I'll let you have the last word :-)

@Kratesis

We are arguing in circles. I just don't see any ideas from your side, which is what I was going for ;) What would you do?

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

@ImportantNobody You know the contests that are hosted here that are writing contests? They give away a title for under your avatar (kinda like moderator, except not with the powers, and obviously named something else.)

I was thinking something like that. It's just for aesthetics, but it gives you a reason to compete because it looks badass.

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

1. Telling you that you're a POS was probably over the line. I don't apologize but I also won't do it again

@Xavier Bloodbayne

No offense taken. I like to yell and cuss too. I'd be a perfect fit for arena. But our other thread got locked after people got rowdy, and we're actually getting somewhere this time.

4. On a serious note; I'm against the merging. I like that the Arena is dead because you know your interest check is going to get seen by everyone. And for the record it isn't dead in my opinion. Slow moving sure but not dead.

@Xavier Bloodbayne

I... guess that's one way to turn your weakness into a strength. 'I like that the arena is dead because you know your interest check is gonna get seen!' And you know what. You're not even wrong. You'll agree that there's definitely an increase of activity needed in arena RP though, right?

But anyway; sorry for being an ass but that's just who I am!

@Xavier Bloodbayne

You and me both, buddy. Normally I'd have yelled back, as my friends can attest, but in the light of not wanting this thread locked, I decided not to. I'm glad, because you seem like a decent person.

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

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.

@Dynamo Frokane

Fair. I wish we could get some people from NRP and tabletop in here but they've never really seemed like people to participate in constructive chatter. NRP people are usually in spam, shitposting about communism ;)

As far as Arena, I could brainstorm with some of the other frequent posters.

@Dynamo Frokane

Good. I'd be very interested to hear a more representative view from arena. There's generally not many of them around, bar maybe you, that actively participate in the community. And when they do, it seems to be in, what you called 'arena style'.

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.

@Dynamo Frokane

Perhaps, the one issue I'd have with the news thing is that just like the reason RPGnews always failed is that just nobody reads it. There's nothing moderately interesting in there that I can't read myself. So while that sounds good in theory it might not really have the effect you might be looking for?

Maybe this is a bit of a far reach but I've thought about doing give away's. Although I have no interest personally in RPG arena, it might be an idea to attach more than just 'eternal internet fame' to a tournament. I get that it's not meant to be serious (and arena already has a reputation for being kinda gimmicky powergamers that get mad when you start beating them) but perhaps it's an idea to add a more.. physical prize. Or at least something worth remembering. Gives people a reason to participate. It's far fetched, but it'd be something to think on.

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.

@Dynamo Frokane

I get that, but you have to understand, while arena is still 'alive' somewhat, it's close to dead. It's like, 2 seconds away from dying if we don't give it heart presses. I'm not saying that to shit all over your parade/arena, I'm saying that to make you/people/the moderators realize that not everything is OK. Arena, as a forum, is more or less dead. We can do something to fix it, or we can pretend it's 'just a phase' and not address it, right? Between those two what would you prefer?

_{As for your last line, I already characterize romance roleplayers like that, so more power to me, right? The point is also that I don't really care what people roleplay on here if it makes them happy, and I obviously support arena roleplaying as a thing, I'm just saying I'm not sure if it warrants its own forum if it continues to decline like it is now. :)}

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

_{I also have thoughts about the mod activity that I would like to share, but I'll wait to do so until it becomes relevant in this thread again.}

@Sylph

Always relevant. Share now. Arena RP has held this thread in it's grip for too long and frankly it's not important enough to keep discussing it. So, by all means.

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

@Kratesis The catch is that it wouldn't. And I don't have any idea how to entice people into posting in arena RP, nation RP, or tabletop RP. Because I don't RP there and I don't know what is wrong with those sections respectively (they all have their issues, that's for sure). The issue with your argument isn't really that my point was to fix those subforums. I don't RP there, therefore if they are there or not doesn't really affect me (outside of having to look at them, which is an eyesore for me personally but nothing too bad if we can fix the 'guides' being at the bottom of the website).

I set out to clear clutter and remove the arbitrary lines we've drawn between roleplaying sections like free, casual and advanced. Because arena, NRP, and tabletop seem to be near-dead to me (again, screenshot shows that for arena) and are especially niché based and thus much harder to even get people into, it seems redundant to keep them as their own special little snowflake forums. Like I said, there is a point at which the userbase no longer warrants a 'sandbox' to be there for them. That is when it's too small, too toxic or too inactive.

I think it's a good solution for removing first clutter and secondly, merging together some otherwise inactive subforums. So far I have yet to hear ideas about how to fix inactivity and I don't have any ideas personally, so this seems the way forward for a lack of other options available. I'd rather remove the eyesore than fix it if nobody else has any ideas.

So here's my suggested forum layout (that won't happen, because this'd require admin input I think, and would require support from the moderators, which, lol, fat chance).

O Niché Roleplay
O Arena interest checks
O Arena roleplays
O Nation interest checks
O Nation roleplays
O Tabletop interest checks
O Tabletop roleplays

Which in my humble opinion looks more organized than what we have now.

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

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>
I agree with Dynamo in regards to this point.

Tabletop, Arena, and Nation are sections with different communities who look for different things in roleplaying than the standard sections. If you merge these sections conventionally you will have a flood of several different approaches that just make digging and sorting through threads as more of an incessant chore than a useful utility. When I go in advanced I know what audience I am appealing to, same for these three sections that are just as independent and deserving of their niche.

@Inkarnate

@Kratesis I consider it more of an appeal to 'I go there, so don't decide for me!' when it might not be in the best interest of the rest of RPG to maintain that section.

Admittedly I'd rather see arena as a sub-forum of another forum. Kinda like how we have 'casual roleplay' and 'casual interest checks' are their own tab?

It'd look like this:

O One-for-one and private Roleplay
O 1x1 roleplay
O 1x1 interest checks
O Private (invite only) roleplays
O Arena interest checks
O Arena roleplay

It's just a bit more organized to move it into respective subfolders, especially because nobody uses arena RP. Proof for that above in the screenshot.

@Buddha

This would fix that.

Alternatively, merge tabletop, NRP and arena into 'Niché RP' or a more fitting name that properly describes their 'different nature'. They all seem to fall in that category. Why not put them together like that. Seems more fitting, if you put it that way.

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

@Dynamo Frokane You raise some decent points. I guess that the diversity does add something to RPG that you can't find elsewhere (sources? I don't know, I'm a loyal bitch and I only go on RPG, ever) I think. But, on the other hand, having a dead subforum doesn't do us any favours either and if it stagnates too much like it does now/remains unused (you're awfully proud of the arena leaderboard for example, but all/most people on there are retired RPers or don't go in arena RP anymore...) then it'll reflect poorly because it shows there is no activity there. At that point, if there are just 3 hardcore RP'ers in that area, I'd be very inclined to just merge it.

There is a point at which I agree 'the kids should have their sandbox' or 'the arena fighters should have their arena' or whatever you want to call it, right? It seems fair. But, there's also the point where if a sandbox/arena is empty, you kinda need to find a way to deal with it.

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. The tournament is a good start, but I feel like there might need to be more than a tournament (that given the track record of arena RP will likely end before it even starts) to re-energize it, agreed?

As an arena person...don't want to sound like I'm betraying my own kind, but I don't see a huge problem with merging it with 1x1 other than the fact that I search a forum to see if it has it, so might miss it and not join if I don't think there is an arena. If merged stuff make it clear what's in it there's not a super huge downside from my point of view. In the thread titles could say something like [arena] or whatever specific 1x1 it is.

@ImportantNobody

Agreed, merged things should remain clear and clearly state what is included in them.