Suggestions and Thoughts

[Andromeda]

Alright, so I did a little re-organizing of the entire Roleplaying forums as well as adding some new things.

So I want to get some feedback from people as we go out. The two most important ones are how do you feel about the new setup? This is meaning how I made a main forum for RP discussions with all of the Roleplaying forums where you do the actual roleplaying sub-forums. This is an easy enough thing for me to fix, but I wanted to try it out. Let me know if you do or don't like it. The feedback you give me will let me know how to continue to improve the roleplaying forums.

The other question is how do you like the new Freeform Roleplaying forum which something we were talking about in another thread. So please provide all of the feedback you can for me so I can improve things.

Thank you!

[SOLDIER #819]

Gonna copy and paste bits of what I said in a convo with Andromeda. It's about the layout of the sub-forums.

I'd recommend looking into a way to condense the sub-forums though

Biggest worry is that newcomers won't be able to distinguish between role-playing, role-playing battles, and freeform

If anything I would just make an Advanced Role-Playing forum and a Beginner's/Freeform

I went on to say that new members (especially those who would theoretically opt for freeform) probably would not want to take the time to read the more "advanced" rules that are the norm to TFF. So somehow I got to asking if "Beginner" and "Advanced" role-playing forums wouldn't be out of the question. Andromeda thought both, but especially Beginner, sounded like it was talking down, so I threw out a name liked "Relaxed" for freeform, rather than Beginner.

I think Advanced or something similar is fine, as it just expresses that the rules are more complex. To add...

I think Freeform is vague

And taken from the perspective of a veteran roleplayer

The reason I say this is because I'm trying to think of this from the position of a newcomer

Regulars will just click the links because they know where to go, I doubt they mind what it's called

But I don't think a newer member would understand "freeform"

But I think they'd understand something like Relaxed, which some would actually consider positive

Though I'm not saying there should be separate RP forums for "Relaxed" and "Advanced" AND separate RPB forums for those same tiers. It'd just clutter things up and confuse people, and I honestly don't think that our current activity would warrant it anyway.

[Merlin]

Wow this discussion seems really familiar... as if I already brought it up multiple times. Oh wait, I did:

Also, "casual writing" is vague. My idea of casual writing is knocking out a chapter every week in a book. Perhaps the other definition should be called Relaxed Rules RolePlay? Then we can have Strict Rules Roleplay. Then we can have an overview of what that means. If you are in a Strict Rules Roleplay, you cannot use asterisks, must use proper punctuation/sentence structure/paragraph structure/etc. Just a thought.

That is why I propose two different rule-sets that any RP can go by. We would have the Strict rule-set for those those of us who like writing book-style and a Relaxed rule-set for those who want to write like they do any other forum post. You can just tag it on to the end of your RP title like "Some RP -- Strict" or "Some Other RP --Relaxed".

All these changes confuse me.

• RPs have less overall visibility on the main forum page. I can't tell where the new posts "actually" are. I've always had a strange hatred for sub-forums. The way they are displayed in vB bugs me. If a forum has children, I want to see it from the main page. I want to be able to go straight to the children from the main page. I even want to know which child the newest post is in so I know if I want to waste my time(and money in some cases) opening up the parent to view the children. For me, child forums are invisible. I pay zero attention to them. Maybe that's just me, who knows.
• General RP Discussion and RP OOC are redundant. Discussion of RPs is what RP OOC is.
• The Freeform[sic] Forum adds a new layer of complexity to the unwitting guests we have. Are they free-form RPs AND RPBs or just one or the other? Does it refer to grammar or story progression? To me, free-form is by the definition: "not organized or planned in a conventional way", ie: the RP creator isn't forcing people down a pre-defined path. RPers are free to interpret the end-goal however they want. In fact, there is no end set in stone.

So yeah, I'm not sure what is going on. I figured something simple like adjusting a RP title would be succinct and sufficient:

The Sky City --Strict
Second Annual Quistis Ball --Relaxed

I can scan over all the RPs and quickly see what the format of each is without having to search multiple forums and without having to dig into the topics and extrapolate. But yeah, not my decision, I'm just throwing things out here. Speaking of which I was looking in the mod forum for the topic on this and couldn't find one. O.o

edit: Why is ToA/ToH still visible? It has more visibility than the combined RP forum experience and has been dead for ages.

[Hyzenthlay]

The whole new set up is a bit confusing to me. It seems to have gone backwards in wanted complexity. I think Merlin said this and I agree. I liked the old way better. Clicking on the forum and seeing if there were new RP's was easier than it is now. Having to click on a separate listing for each just seems like the long way around. For instance I'd have to click 5 times to check OOC then post in an RP. That's more looking than it was before.

The only thing I would have changed to maybe boost numbers is to have a way for OOC's to be noticed. I'm not sure how you'd go about doing this, I'm not a programmer. I just think that something that draws attention to new OOC's would be good.

Hyz.

[Merlin]

Indeed, that is another fine example of sub-forums being an issue. It's not that I'm lazy... my eyes just immediately skip to the topics and ignore the header stuff. It's like a kid in a candy store. Do you think he's paying any attention to the cashier station at the front? I seriously doubt it. That's how topics are. Your eyes are immediately drawn to them through muscle memory. Sure, there could be something interesting at the top, but you won't notice.

Now the flip side, having everything main level adds more stuff to the main page to sift through. Yeah well I'm not opposed to that. It has categories for a reason. Go to the category you are interested in and you can see ALL the goodies at once! No clicking required. What would get rid of the clutter would be to blast away all the dead stuff... stuff like ToA and ToH. Save the keepers and dump the forums. It distracts people from seeing active stuff. Hell dump EBG and SOLDIER while you're at it. TFF just needs to lose some baby fat... not a re-org.

[Rocky]

Hell dump EBG and SOLDIER while you're at it. TFF just needs to lose some baby fat... not a re-org.

No.

I'm all for bringing back the glorious days of role playing like how 2002 was when it was the cool thing to join the EBG or what have you, but there's no need to get rid of entire forums that myself and other people use for our enjoyment.

[Merlin]

Both of those forums have been dead for years. If the members still want a group for posting, they need to make a SG or Club. Their activity level does not deem an exclusive private forum. CPC8, etc doesn't have an exclusive forum, why should two dead groups from the long distant past have one?

The only reason I brought it up here is because they are RP groups. Or at least they were... before they died.

[Victoria]

Merlin makes good points. Sure, SOLDIER and EBG are used as chatting forums and whatnot, but that's not their original purpose.

If you want SOLDIER around, make a club or SG for it like he said. (Don't think I don't know what goes on in there. ;p )

And now that Hyz brought it up, I kind of like the old way also. And to me, Freeform RPing is basically what TFF already does to begin with.

To me, Freeform is basically RPing with no stats in it.

[SOLDIER #819]

Looks like I "stole" Merlin's naming without realizing it. Oops.

Isn't EBG hidden from public view? It's there, but I don't remember being able to access it from the menu. I assume SOLDIER is similar. I honestly don't see the harm in keeping either, but obviously I'm not the most impartial. However, in theory, it should only be cluttering things up for admins.

There was something else I wanted to say, but I forgot...

[Merlin]

Great minds think alike and all that jazz? Either that or you subconsciously remembered my post.

The link to EBG is not there, but people apparently still post in it. Point still remains that neither one of them are active enough to warrant a full-blown forum to themselves. It's not like I'm saying the groups themselves should disband... they just need to relocate. I believe Andro and Cesar are still working out details on remedying the disconnect between SG and Clubs, so we can hold off on SOLDIER and EBG for now. Whatever is decided with that, these two forums need to be married into it.

Now to take that a step further, I'd love if SOLDIER got back to its roots and became a RP powerhouse team again, but that's probably a pipe dream at this point. That's what SOLDIER was, as far as I recall. It just got viewed as some elitist clubhouse. Or was it the other way around? Bah that was so long ago. But anywho, club talk is a bit of a derailment so I'll shut up on that. I re-opened the issue somewhere else. XD My side-note turned into a discussion. Oops? ^_^

[SOLDIER #819]

Haha, if you're reopening the issue somewhere else, presumably in a place where people like me can't get to, I'd like to make a small plea before you guys make your decision. But I'll save it for another time.

It seems almost unanimous that the RP forum(s) need to be a bit more condensed. Personally I think three forums total is the nicest option. A relaxed, an advanced, and an ooc forum (names pending?). I feel that RPs and RPBs will mesh nicely in the relaxed one, and since "advanced" RPBs are few and far between it wouldn't cause too much clutter. Really it'd just be nice if newer members knew where to go simply by looking at the forum title and description.

[Merlin]

Your idea of condensing is completely different than mine.

RPs and RPBs are fundamentally different from the core up. The only thing they have in common is that more than one person is writing inside a predetermined area about characters they created. The resemblance stops there. I'm not a mod, but if I were I can guarantee that I would vote against such a merge every time.

[Hyzenthlay]

A merge of RP and RPB would make the whole thing more cluttered, not less. Most of the RPB's have quick posts and are drummed out in reaction to another persons post. Generally in the big, well recieved RP's the opposite happens. It can take days for players to post, and weeks for the plot to progress. I think it takes a lot more co-operation between parties in RP's, too. Aside from the damage side you don't show your post to your opponent until it is posted (generally) in RPB. So if you merged both then the RP's may be buried pages down the list. Just keeping them seperated makes sense. Maybe I'm wrong.

Stick with RP, RPB and OOC. Freeform isn't needed. It's like Mistress Victora said; what we do is pretty much freeform already.

Hyz.

[Merlin]

Well the term free-form in the title is a misnomer. In a nutshell it means you can ignore everything your grammar teachers (should have) taught you in high school. Perhaps the description for that forum should have been: "Grammar Nazis shot on site. Asterisks for everyone."

[SOLDIER #819]

I disagree. The "nature" of an RP or RPB isn't static. There are quick and dirty RPs and slow and detailed RPBs. In the end, RPBs simply puts emphasis on specific scenario. The style and coordination of and between the writers is what will determine everything else. Even if you assume that RPBs move faster, RPs tend to have more participants per thread to offset this.

And as far as general topic clutter goes I would agree... if the board wasn't TFF. I'm not sure how you would organize things, Merlin, but if I'm assuming it would be to mark the thread titles with the relevant ruleset. In that case you'd have people posting in relatively quick succession in the more casual RPers, completely eclipsing the more lengthy RPs. I think meshing different styles together would cause more trouble (between newer members and regulars) than meshing RPs and RPBs ever would.

Either is fine honestly, this is just my preference. The minute details won't matter given our current activity. Let's just have them (whoever they are) pick something and get it over with?

[Andromeda]

I did another move of forums for the Roleplaying forums for those that are keeping up on the appearance. What I had before was my original idea, but when I was putting in place I was already reconsidering it. I decided I'd put it in and see others opinion before I changed it.

The main reason I moved things in was that I wanted to move OoC RP Forum out and make it a general forum for all OoC content, since I thought it would be a little silly to make a OoC forum unique to each forum.

The other reason was I didn't want to put too many forums on the main page, but as said before the TOA and TOH didn't need to be there anymore. I moved them back into their respective forums. They aren't hidden since I hope they can be revived, but they are off the main page now. The only thing on the main page is the RP, RP Lite, RPB, RP OoC and GC RP.

As for the naming on the Freeform RP. I had been trying to find a name that I was happy with for like a week. For anyone that has talked to me on AIM, knows that I feel that calling Basic (while totally accurate) could be viewed in a degrading and talking down manner considering that we already have an established "upper level" RP group. So it is sort of like us saying you're not good enough so we're going to give you this place to play it so you can do your thing and being totally snobby about the whole thing. And I want to avoid that mindset.

I should I have put in the post that I'm open to new names. If everyone really wants something like Basic I'll put it in there. This is a group effort and not just me dictating everything and ignoring your voice.

I can get behind Relaxed a little more, but I end up feeling that is as much a misnomer as Freeform.

For me Freeform was like saying it's unrestricted, there's not limits that will be placed on you rules wise. You can do anything you want in whatever way you want. Freeform generally means you aren't following anyone else's rules but your own rules. That was the idea.

Anyway, other names suggested:
Basic; Advanced
Relaxed; Strict
Unrestricted, Restricted
Beginner; Advanced

I'll keep track of the ones so we can find one that works out.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the new organization I made.

[Victoria]

I still kinda think merging General RP and RP OOC would be good. Cause like Merlin said, they're basically the same thing. Or at least they look that way.

[Andromeda]

The intention of GC RP and RP OOC are completely different RP OOC doesn't allow for conversations that are not related to the specifically related RP that everyone one is together on. GC RP is an environment that won't have any actual RPs or OoC content. It'll simply be for threads that aren't RPs, RPBs or OoC threads, but still related to RPing in some fashion.

I don't expect it to be a heavily used forum, but I wanted to put it into at the very least a trial run to see if it will help. In the end I can simply delete the forum if it doesn't work out. But I think it has a use.

[Hyzenthlay]

I disagree. The "nature" of an RP or RPB isn't static. There are quick and dirty RPs and slow and detailed RPBs. In the end, RPBs simply puts emphasis on specific scenario. The style and coordination of and between the writers is what will determine everything else. Even if you assume that RPBs move faster, RPs tend to have more participants per thread to offset this.

Which is exactly why I said 'generally'.

The main reason I moved things in was that I wanted to move OoC RP Forum out and make it a general forum for all OoC content, since I thought it would be a little silly to make a OoC forum unique to each forum.

Do you mean having an open OoC? Almost like a chat page? That wouldn't work. It would make finding infomation you are looking fo a lot harder to find. What if, for example, I went away for a week and wanted to catch up? I'd have to go through page upon page to find posts that are relevant to me. You should know what that's like Andro, what with some of the RP's you've been in being those RP's that gain a post only every now and then. The OoC content you wanted would be lost in a sea of stuff you didn't want.

I think you should keep OoC how it is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If I'm misunderstanding you here then I apologise.

EDIT: As for GC OoC, that sounds like a great idea. Maybe it would give people a chance to comment on RP's they are following. I know I personally follow the ones I'm not involved in.

Hyz.

[Andromeda]

No the OoC RP Forum wouldn't be a chat forum at all. It would still just be a OoC RP forum, it would just be open for the other RP Forums to use as a OoC RP place as well. I would imagine that some of the Freeform RPs will want some sort of planning place that isn't the main thread and there may be a RPB one or two that may want to use it as well. Simply put it is just a free spot for anyone needing a OoC thread to put it there. I suspect the original RP forum will primarily use it still.

[Hyzenthlay]

Ah, I see. I must ahve mis-read what you wrote. I read it as if you were going to have one page where very Rp is written about.

I understand it now. That makes perfect sense.

Perhaps Andromeda, given the sign up success yet lack of direction, you could start up a Faction based RP thread also? Just a thought. Extra rules would be needed though. Otherwise open written conflict and flamebaiting might happen in other forums.

Also ( after I re-read some of the earlier posts) I agree that seperating beginner and advanced may be a good idea. It can get tiresome when an RP which gets 10 posts a day beats another down the page. Then when you read it it has 4 line posts. Maybe I'm thinking with my temper.

Hyz.

[Merlin]

Well I blew away the post I just had up since I came off being a total snob. I tend to get rather blunt (more than normal) when I'm running on fumes so bare with me.

I like the organization better now. I still don't like the Free-Form Forum because it feels like the whole Word Games vs. General Chat fiasco. These changes aren't really fixes to me. They are just complicating things that don't need to be complicated. For instance, the OOC issue. It's OOC. It's for ANY RP topic that isn't an actual RP. Why can't you post RP-themed discussions there? Who came up with the notion that ONLY topics that are directly related to a physical RP are allowed in OOC? If it is a rule, then it shouldn't be. That makes no sense to me. This topic for example. Perfect for OOC. We are talking about RP stuff out of an actual RP. No need for another forum.

Secondly, the Free-form Forum title. Is the title a joke on how grammar/spelling is not a rule? I'm just curious because freeform is not a word.

It can get tiresome when an RP which gets 10 posts a day beats another down the page. Then when you read it it has 4 line posts.

These kind of responses make me sad. If a RP is not near the top, the only people you have to blame are the ones participating in it. It's not like we have 50+ Quistis Balls running concurrently. That sounded dirty.

[Hyzenthlay]

These kind of responses make me sad. If a RP is not near the top, the only people you have to blame are the ones participating in it. It's not like we have 50+ Quistis Balls running concurrently. That sounded dirty.

I was more referring to past experiances. Back when there were quite a few RP'sgoing on and a few of them were pointless, in my opinion. It just looked like people trying to boost post count.

I like the organization better now. I still don't like the Free-Form Forum because it feels like the whole Word Games vs. General Chat fiasco. These changes aren't really fixes to me. They are just complicating things that don't need to be complicated. For instance, the OOC issue. It's OOC. It's for ANY RP topic that isn't an actual RP. Why can't you post RP-themed discussions there? Who came up with the notion that ONLY topics that are directly related to a physical RP are allowed in OOC? If it is a rule, then it shouldn't be. That makes no sense to me. This topic for example. Perfect for OOC. We are talking about RP stuff out of an actual RP. No need for another forum.

Yeah, I can see your point. I'd agree if I didn't think the whole thread would be full off pointless, ditzy crap that people have flying around their head whilst bored. You'd end up with dozens of topics with only a few replies clogging up OoC space. I can see that as being annoying if you're trying to locate a thread. I think a different forum would be wise. Keep OoC clear for actual RP participant discussion.

Hyz.

[Andromeda]

OoC is Out of Character though, not Out of RP or Anything that's not RP. The title itself sort of makes it for RP OoC only.

Anyway, we're trying things out to see what does work and what doesn't work. We were talking about it for a while so I decided an action needed to be taken. If the actions fail or are mistakes we admit them and try something else.

Freeform or whatever, you do realize that you were the first person to suggest the idea Merlin. Whether it was in jest or what, you suggested it and some others suggested it as well. I was not fond of the idea, but at this point I'll see if we can make it in to something.

[Merlin]

Meh, that is a silver lining. People posting in OOC about a RP that isn't up or posting in RPs they are not a member of are not in character. On what I allegedly posted: In the thread in GC I specifically said to have "STRICT" and "RELAXED" appended to RP titles and to explain it in the rules. Simple as that.

If you want to know what's really bugging me, it isn't the Free-Form forum. Seriously, if you all want a separate forum for that, go for it. What is bugging me is that when I came to TFF today, I couldn't find the RP forum on the main page. It was gone. I noticed that ToA and ToH was still there, and they were dead... so that really made me start wondering WTF was going on. My first assumption was that Cesar or Fuzz accidentally farked something up royally and were trying to fix it. So I'm in a panic state going "OH SHIT" looking at the Admin Panel and the DB trying to figure out who did what... Come to find out the whole thing was intentional.

Is there a thread on this I missed? I only saw the one in GC and I don't recall reading about re-organizing the forums anywhere in there. Did I just miss it?

[Andromeda]

I spoke about the re-organization to Loco and he said he was fine with it. So I tried it out. And I do say that I re-organized things here, just not the specifics of it. Since I figure when you enter the forum you'll see all of the RP forums as the first thing.

I guess I can understand panicking when you see something it missing. But I would have thought curiosity would have gotten the better of you and you'd go try to learn what this new things it is doing.

Sometimes a move is needed to freshen things up when you want to bring change. So I felt one was on in order. It was a pretty simple fix to undo so I wasn't too worried about it if people were overly opposed to the idea. We are frequently thinking inside a very old familiar box, something needed to be changed.

Anyway, at this point I've defended what I did enough. Let's move on past it to more productive matters.

And I was actually referring to your post you made in the Club/Social Groups discussion we had where we talked about matters of the RP long before it was ever mentioned in the GC thread.

[SOLDIER #819]

As an aside, I accidentally clicked on the Spotlight Theatre category and entered it. TOA and TOH are still there. I think Andromeda may have mentioned something about this though. The forums within the category need to reordered a bit, however.

In the future, if the situation calls for it, we may want to consider giving the freeform/free-form/free form forum its own RPB section as opposed to the "advanced" section. I have a feeling the Role-Playing Battle forum will die, since the ones who will use it are probably mostly those who prefer a less stringent setting.

I think the naming should be worked on as well. The current naming for the "advanced" sections are too general. It's going to throw people off. As for what to call it... I wouldn't call it "Strict", as I think that's negative, but I guess some people would think Advanced is too much as well? Any ideas?

Either way, I think I like Relaxed because it's easy to understand and not negative at all, which will cut down on new members misunderstanding its meaning and posting in the wrong forum. Free(-)form was already misunderstood by two of our regulars... if that's any indication.

[Xithor]

Well to make one last comment on the initial re-organizing it did throw me off for a second having all the Forums of RPing condensed into one with a bunch of sub-categories but I'm not gonna beat a dead horse since I figure you have prob heard plenty about it Andro.

On the new layout I like it, I like that I can see from the index of the forums exactly what forum has a new post in it. It used to be the same thing that people complain about with the General Chat and HWG forum always looking to see a new post and the topic was in the HWG forum.

Even after reading the rules in the Free-form RPing forum I still only have at best a vague idea of what I would try to post in there. I probably won't be posting in there simply because I like structure to RP's but maybe that is just me. The only time I can think of that I did free-form RPing was in an old DBZ forum where you had to "train" yourself to increase your character and thus it was really whatever you wanted to do for however many posts you trained. That the kinda thing you're going for with Free-form RPing?

Other than that I like the new layout of the RPing forums on the Forum Index =)

[Andromeda]

The Freeform RP Forum is intended to remove the bulk of the rules that we use in the normal RP Forum so that people who are more comfortable in using alternative methods that are normally considered against the rules in the original RP Forum. So things like RPing with asterisks are allowed as well as there is no minimum requirement for a post. So you won't really get warned for "spam" posts that would normally in the other RP forum. It's sort of all of the things that don't fit into what we have in the past accepted as a standard RP.

I would suspect that anyone that currently posts in the original RP will not have an interest in posting in the Freeform RP because the type of RPing you're used to doing, while fine there would not be what the people that would be using be interested in doing.

That is the original idea. All of the formalized rules and writing that we use in the RP Forum currently stay there. The other forum would be used for anyone that does to wish to use what does not fit into the the original RP forum. Calling it casual would be a misnomer, since the concept of casual RP is not really the same in everyone's mind. Casual RPs are the TFF Ball, something that is not taken too seriously, but still mostly adheres to the rules laid out. Casual RPs are things like weddings, summer parties, slice of life, whatever. Something where the plot isn't too important, having fun is the primary reason for participating.

Now if we want to alter the idea that is fine. Right now I figured segregating the two different styles of RPing would be for the best. Since if we changed to a Casual and Plot Driven concept, we'd more or less be dropping asterisks once again and simply splitting up our activity. I'd imagine there'd be some issues with Casual being asterisk RPing as well.

In general there tends to be a pretty big divide on RPing with people. There are those that prefer to RP the way the original RP does and there are those that prefer to RP with asterisks or at the very least significantly short posts that would otherwise be seen as spam in the eyes of the original RPing rules. So matching with that divide there are the two divisions of RPing, Rules Centric RP and Fast Paced (Asterisks) Centric RP.

That is how things are currently. The more I write about this the more things become a little clear in how I can word things. So I guess despite me repeating myself probably and rambling it's gotten me somewhere.

Rules Centric and Fast Paced, I sort of like that. I think that helps to get the idea across that I'm looking for at the moment.

[Xithor]

Casual RPs are the TFF Ball, something that is not taken too seriously, but still mostly adheres to the rules laid out. Casual RPs are things like weddings, summer parties, slice of life, whatever. Something where the plot isn't too important, having fun is the primary reason for participating.

Rules Centric and Fast Paced, I sort of like that. I think that helps to get the idea across that I'm looking for at the moment.

That clicked with me and it does make very good sense, especially classifying the Free-Form as fast paced because the typical RP are very rule oriented and structured. Thank you for the clarification. Plus I'm sure once if we some kind of RP thread like the TFF ball that you talked about was started in there just as an example for the people that are new to RPing maybe some people would jump in and join the party.