12-13-2014, 07:50 PM
So -- I gotta say, I'm not in favor of these big changes. And I know negative feedback can be hard to hear, especially when you've obviously been working hard on these ideas. That said, I know you care deeply about this site and want to see it do well, Errin, and so do I. I'd just argue for a very different approach, which I'll get into toward the end of this megapost.
First, here's why I disagree with your suggested changes, broken into two broad categories. I don't mean these as personal criticisms in ANY way. I've just seen plenty of sites rise and fall, and there are certain things that work -- and certain things that blow up spectacularly (oftentimes after appearing to work initially).
I. Characters, not storylines.
I can only assume that you're making changes because you feel that the site is stagnating somewhat. To some degree, maybe that's true. There aren't a lot of open scenes going on, and when there are it's usually just people meet-and-greeting and/or friends being chummy. And -- yeah. That can get boring fast.
But the solution, imho, is NOT to completely shake up the system(s), kick the old admins out, and install new ones in hopes of getting a bunch of fancy new SLs going. Here's why.
A site does well when there's a lot of activity. Activity is generated when people are invested in the game. People get invested in the game when there are opportunities for interesting (read: conflict-y) character-character interaction. Storylines are pretty much optional, and only help if they stimulate interesting interaction.
In other words, the activity and the interest has to come from the players; it can't be forced by changes in administration, or by the administration itself. Storylines don't drive a system -- characters do. When storytellers try to drag a system into gear, the results are rarely good. The best example is late Charleston by Night, where the site owners attempted to rejuvenate with a massive storyline where ... I think the Caern disappeared into the ether? Long story short: the system was "revived" for about 2 weeks; then players felt cattle-chuted, got fed up, and deserted en masse. Whole site went kaput.
Think back to your favorite scenes. I'm willing to bet a majority of them were scenes that were personally significant to your char. Even when the scene was a storyline, I'm willing to bet that storyline was awesome because it enacted some major change in your character. But those changes can't really be predicted or targeted or manufactured. STs through the years have really tried to force those cool character-building moments via SLs, and the truth is most of the time what that means is people are briefly excited -- and then they get bogged down in a huge storyline that tries too hard to change their chars (usually by torturing them), get annoyed, and stop playing.
If you think the site is stagnating, please don't try to fix it by shaking up the administration. Don't try to fix it by pushing fancy new storylines. That's a temporary solution at best, and usually ends with the system in worse shape -- burnt out players, disgruntled admins, personally affronted STs. I think what DOES work is to shift things around to encourage, facilitate and provoke character interactions. Once you have people interacting meaningfully, things tend to get interesting all by themselves.
More on that later. But first:
II. Continuity/cohesion, not upheaval/fragmentation.
Honestly, I think the idea of forcing a change in staff every 12 months is awful. Sorry to be blunt. There's a longstanding notion that new blood = better gaming. If you look at the history of gaming sites, that's just not true. Changing up the leadership usually results in untenable storylines (see above) and instability. There's something to be said for preventing burnout, and you never want to ride an admin into the ground. But let your admins be the ones to decide when they're burnt out. I think we're mature enough and non-megalomaniacal enough on this site not to cling to a thankless job after we've worn out on it.
The only time you should kick an admin out is if they're blatantly abusing their position. From what I've seen, none of our admins have done that. In all other cases, systems generally do better when things are stable at the top and the admin is a background presence. Now, I realize you're trying to maintain some stability by forbidding "razing" of systems and rules, but -- first, that's really subjective. Second, that'll either cripple an incoming admin against making any changes and/or result in upheaval every 12 months.
In a similar vein, I think the idea of pocket games is decent on paper, terrible in practice. People don't need more options and more fragmentation. They need fewer options and more interaction. Part of the reason the site is quiet is because everyone's off doing their own thing. If you allow people to play even more characters, in actual separate realities, that only propagates the problem. Pretty soon you're going to have 20 mini-games and absolutely no interaction.
And as previously mentioned: we're here for PC-PC interaction, preferably with tension and conflict. We're not here for flashy storylines (I'd just play a PC or PS4 RPG if I wanted that), and for the most part -- particularly on this site of RP veterans -- we're not here to try out awesome new powers/systems/char types. We've been there, done that, and we just want to play with each other. I'd argue that INTERACTION is the #1 draw of text-based RP, and the one thing that online RP does better than all the other entertainment options we've got.
III. So how do we actually get things going again?
I promised earlier I'd address this. Here are my thoughts:
1) Consolidate
- Fewer systems, first of all. I know some people love changeling and vampire, but let's face it: those systems are dead. Shut them down. Pile people into what's actually alive.
- Fewer rooms. There are 18 rooms on site. 18. How many do we actually play in regularly? I'm willing to bet your average player plays in maybe 2-3 with any regularity. I say we cut down to 6 rooms. 1 chantry room, 1 sept room (and yeah, I know there are two IC septs -- but at least for the meantime, let's just recede one of them into the background), 4 general rooms that cover your staples of swanky downtown, slummy downtown, wilderness, and... I dunno, maybe a bar or something. They're always popular.
- Temporarily disable private rooms. Yeah, I know this is extreme. Hell, I use private rooms as much as anyone. But there's no easier way to kill a system than to sequester everyone into unenterable, unreachable private spaces. So let's get rid of them for a while and make everyone accessible. Open scenes, folks!
2) New characters
- Not saying we should just get rid of all old chars. I think people would be pissed as hell if they never got to hold on to old chars and see them develop, grow, and yes -- gain might and rank. But I think we should all make a concerted effort to make new characters simultaneously, right now. I actually have a new char that I haven't played in public yet, which is my bad. But I'd love to, and I'd love to play him with other new characters I don't know much about. Part of the fun of a "new" site, and what I suspect you're trying to chase, Errin, is the excitement of playing with characters you DON'T know. It's the mystery. It's the wide-open opportunities and possibilities.
- While we're making new characters, here's another thought: let's make NOT them all happy, friendly, kind, fair, and just. I think when we made this site, we were all riding high on a tide of brotherly/sisterly love, and we just all wanted to get along. Which is great. But that definitely fed into all of us making cool, easygoing, non-inflammatory characters. The downside is: then we just end up in a lot of cool, easygoing, non-inflammatory scenes. And then boredom. And then stagnation.
So I'd suggest that we not only make new chars, but make chars that aren't 100% likable. Maybe not outright villains, but give them some unpleasant streaks. Start some fights and rivalries. Get some conflict-y interactions going. Shake things up a little -- not from the top down, but from the ground up.
In a nutshell: if you're looking to revive the site, I think the way to do it isn't to redo all the systems and storylines and admins, but to modulate the site to encourage players to interact more and generate their own conflicts, evolutions, and stories.
That's my spiel for now. But -- yeah. I'd ask you to keep the admins in place (unless of course they actually want to step down), consolidate the rooms, don't open any new pocket games, close changeling and vampire, and let players make a bunch of new chars and interact over the holidays to see what cooks up first.
First, here's why I disagree with your suggested changes, broken into two broad categories. I don't mean these as personal criticisms in ANY way. I've just seen plenty of sites rise and fall, and there are certain things that work -- and certain things that blow up spectacularly (oftentimes after appearing to work initially).
I. Characters, not storylines.
I can only assume that you're making changes because you feel that the site is stagnating somewhat. To some degree, maybe that's true. There aren't a lot of open scenes going on, and when there are it's usually just people meet-and-greeting and/or friends being chummy. And -- yeah. That can get boring fast.
But the solution, imho, is NOT to completely shake up the system(s), kick the old admins out, and install new ones in hopes of getting a bunch of fancy new SLs going. Here's why.
A site does well when there's a lot of activity. Activity is generated when people are invested in the game. People get invested in the game when there are opportunities for interesting (read: conflict-y) character-character interaction. Storylines are pretty much optional, and only help if they stimulate interesting interaction.
In other words, the activity and the interest has to come from the players; it can't be forced by changes in administration, or by the administration itself. Storylines don't drive a system -- characters do. When storytellers try to drag a system into gear, the results are rarely good. The best example is late Charleston by Night, where the site owners attempted to rejuvenate with a massive storyline where ... I think the Caern disappeared into the ether? Long story short: the system was "revived" for about 2 weeks; then players felt cattle-chuted, got fed up, and deserted en masse. Whole site went kaput.
Think back to your favorite scenes. I'm willing to bet a majority of them were scenes that were personally significant to your char. Even when the scene was a storyline, I'm willing to bet that storyline was awesome because it enacted some major change in your character. But those changes can't really be predicted or targeted or manufactured. STs through the years have really tried to force those cool character-building moments via SLs, and the truth is most of the time what that means is people are briefly excited -- and then they get bogged down in a huge storyline that tries too hard to change their chars (usually by torturing them), get annoyed, and stop playing.
If you think the site is stagnating, please don't try to fix it by shaking up the administration. Don't try to fix it by pushing fancy new storylines. That's a temporary solution at best, and usually ends with the system in worse shape -- burnt out players, disgruntled admins, personally affronted STs. I think what DOES work is to shift things around to encourage, facilitate and provoke character interactions. Once you have people interacting meaningfully, things tend to get interesting all by themselves.
More on that later. But first:
II. Continuity/cohesion, not upheaval/fragmentation.
Honestly, I think the idea of forcing a change in staff every 12 months is awful. Sorry to be blunt. There's a longstanding notion that new blood = better gaming. If you look at the history of gaming sites, that's just not true. Changing up the leadership usually results in untenable storylines (see above) and instability. There's something to be said for preventing burnout, and you never want to ride an admin into the ground. But let your admins be the ones to decide when they're burnt out. I think we're mature enough and non-megalomaniacal enough on this site not to cling to a thankless job after we've worn out on it.
The only time you should kick an admin out is if they're blatantly abusing their position. From what I've seen, none of our admins have done that. In all other cases, systems generally do better when things are stable at the top and the admin is a background presence. Now, I realize you're trying to maintain some stability by forbidding "razing" of systems and rules, but -- first, that's really subjective. Second, that'll either cripple an incoming admin against making any changes and/or result in upheaval every 12 months.
In a similar vein, I think the idea of pocket games is decent on paper, terrible in practice. People don't need more options and more fragmentation. They need fewer options and more interaction. Part of the reason the site is quiet is because everyone's off doing their own thing. If you allow people to play even more characters, in actual separate realities, that only propagates the problem. Pretty soon you're going to have 20 mini-games and absolutely no interaction.
And as previously mentioned: we're here for PC-PC interaction, preferably with tension and conflict. We're not here for flashy storylines (I'd just play a PC or PS4 RPG if I wanted that), and for the most part -- particularly on this site of RP veterans -- we're not here to try out awesome new powers/systems/char types. We've been there, done that, and we just want to play with each other. I'd argue that INTERACTION is the #1 draw of text-based RP, and the one thing that online RP does better than all the other entertainment options we've got.
III. So how do we actually get things going again?
I promised earlier I'd address this. Here are my thoughts:
1) Consolidate
- Fewer systems, first of all. I know some people love changeling and vampire, but let's face it: those systems are dead. Shut them down. Pile people into what's actually alive.
- Fewer rooms. There are 18 rooms on site. 18. How many do we actually play in regularly? I'm willing to bet your average player plays in maybe 2-3 with any regularity. I say we cut down to 6 rooms. 1 chantry room, 1 sept room (and yeah, I know there are two IC septs -- but at least for the meantime, let's just recede one of them into the background), 4 general rooms that cover your staples of swanky downtown, slummy downtown, wilderness, and... I dunno, maybe a bar or something. They're always popular.
- Temporarily disable private rooms. Yeah, I know this is extreme. Hell, I use private rooms as much as anyone. But there's no easier way to kill a system than to sequester everyone into unenterable, unreachable private spaces. So let's get rid of them for a while and make everyone accessible. Open scenes, folks!
2) New characters
- Not saying we should just get rid of all old chars. I think people would be pissed as hell if they never got to hold on to old chars and see them develop, grow, and yes -- gain might and rank. But I think we should all make a concerted effort to make new characters simultaneously, right now. I actually have a new char that I haven't played in public yet, which is my bad. But I'd love to, and I'd love to play him with other new characters I don't know much about. Part of the fun of a "new" site, and what I suspect you're trying to chase, Errin, is the excitement of playing with characters you DON'T know. It's the mystery. It's the wide-open opportunities and possibilities.
- While we're making new characters, here's another thought: let's make NOT them all happy, friendly, kind, fair, and just. I think when we made this site, we were all riding high on a tide of brotherly/sisterly love, and we just all wanted to get along. Which is great. But that definitely fed into all of us making cool, easygoing, non-inflammatory characters. The downside is: then we just end up in a lot of cool, easygoing, non-inflammatory scenes. And then boredom. And then stagnation.
So I'd suggest that we not only make new chars, but make chars that aren't 100% likable. Maybe not outright villains, but give them some unpleasant streaks. Start some fights and rivalries. Get some conflict-y interactions going. Shake things up a little -- not from the top down, but from the ground up.
In a nutshell: if you're looking to revive the site, I think the way to do it isn't to redo all the systems and storylines and admins, but to modulate the site to encourage players to interact more and generate their own conflicts, evolutions, and stories.
That's my spiel for now. But -- yeah. I'd ask you to keep the admins in place (unless of course they actually want to step down), consolidate the rooms, don't open any new pocket games, close changeling and vampire, and let players make a bunch of new chars and interact over the holidays to see what cooks up first.
BECAUSE OF LIGHT AND DUTY AND REASONS.