Ever since I've been on the forefront of trying to help new roleplayers on the server integrate into the communities, I've honestly been surprised with how often I get the "I've tried to jump into spontaneous RP, but I either get ignored or shot down." line when I ask them if they've been able to find anything on their own. I'm not here to point fingers or say there's something wrong with that, as absolutely no one has any business telling others how or who they should RP with, but I can only imagine how demoralizing that is for a lot of the newcomers around Besaid.
I'm sure we all know that any form of a withdrawn community is never a good thing. That's why I think the server really needs something like this. Without it, we run the risk of continuing to alienate newcomers unless they force themselves into the bigger groups where they can be certain to find RP. They shouldn't have to either hunt relentlessly for a spot of RP or join one of the "big" shells in order to get their fix. There should at least be something between the extremes, which I know is much easier said than done.
I propose we get a no-strings-attached weekly RP night going. One that is not hosted by any linkshell, nor dominated by any linkshell. Doesn't matter if your shell already does this and is open to the public, this isn't going to be linkshell affiliated. Just an RPC sponsored weekly get-together for everyone on the server. A night where veterans and newcomers alike can be certain they'll find some RP. A night where people won't be shut down just because they're not part of a certain clique, or they're not a member of a certain shell that's busy with linkshell-only RP.
We need something simple, so it's easy for any random roleplayer to jump in. Something sociable, so that people can meet a wide variety of roleplayers and expand their networks. That's why I think an old fashioned tavern night at the Mineral Concern would be perfect.
However, this has no chance of succeeding unless people will back it up and actively participate. So, please post your thoughts here on this thread on the following, and be sure to spread the word and have your friends and linkshell-mates participate in the thread. Please make sure to vote!
1. Does this interest you?
2. What are some days of the week and/or times that would work for you?
3. Do you have any concerns about something like this? (Outside of the potential for griefing / enemies or animosity preventing certain groups for going if another group is there)
My schedule varies every week but I voted anyway >.>.
This is mostly a good idea and I hope it gets enough support to actually happen. I know most RP communities in other games have this exact same thing and it’s odd that we don’t. That said, there are some issues that stem from this that are related to current community issues…
When it comes to huge public events, they always tend to be a large success. Lots of people turn out for them. The chat box floods a mile a minute and it’s impossible to keep up on what’s happening. Granted, I doubt that’ll last long here. After the first few weeks of these tavern gatherings, the turnout will likely dwindle to a more manageable level.
That still leaves a very big problem though: the cliques and the big/little shell conundrum. As anyone who’s honestly tried to freelance can attest to (myself included via a secret character who nobody knows yet), freelance Rpers tend to get ignored more often than not. And when they’re not ignored, the other Rpers (whether intentional or not) make it feel like it’s bothersome to waste time Rping with you. This is also true of the big shells when dealing with the smaller RP shells. Again (whether intentional or not), the big shells make the smaller shells feel like they don’t belong there.
Another similar issue to the one mentioned above is the turnout. When big shells have 10-20 members turnout, it’s a bit intimidating to people outside of that shell who may only have 3-5 of their members turn out. This is made worse when those 10-20 members of the bigger shells chat mostly amongst themselves and/or members of other big shells. What’s the point of having community-wide events and then just interacting with the same people you normally interact with? The other Rpers usually end up quietly slipping out because they’re never even given so much as an opening to interact with new people. Obviously, there’s very little that can be done with this issue. It’s not like we can put member limits on events. But the bigger shells do need to be a bit more aware of this problem so they can try to take a more proactive role in working around it. Otherwise, events like these will just keep frustrating freelance Rpers and small RP shells until they just throw in the towel and leave the community altogether (which has already started happening in some instances--and that‘s not a good sign for the community as a whole). I know the big shells don’t know they’re doing this and it’s certainly not being done on purpose. If you’re a member of one of the big shells, these aren’t problems you’re likely to personally run into. But for anyone else on the outside looking in, it’s a very different (and frustrating) story.
Before I get off on an endless rant though, I’ll just say that I support this endeavor. I just hope that it doesn’t turn into any other large public event where the Rpers outside of the big shells get unintentionally shafted time and time again.
I support this. Essentially, what Kylin said.
I'll add that as this event is aimed to promote interactions within the whole community, I'm in favor of setting it up during weekends (timezones, etc.).
Just to toss in a comment, something I commonly see is new RPers walk up to an RP in progress then just stand around and make a few random IC emotes such as staring at the wall or shuffling their feet... then wander off complaining nobody will RP with them. Something I'd like to stress to new RPers looking for some RP is that if you want to get involved, it's very difficult to involve someone who won't involve themselves. Say something. Come up with a pretense for an interruption. Ask for a hand with something - even just directions. Be proactive!
I've been RPing before and had people walk by, stop, stare for ages, make one emote that may or may not be IC, then run off when I can't make heads nor tails of them. Oftentimes when I shoot them a /tell immediately after, it turns out they are, in fact, a roleplayer looking for RP and I have to work out an entry for them. I don't know how common this sort of thing is so maybe there are loads of people who really are making their best effort to wedge in and are getting ignored, but by and large what I've personally noticed is attempts so half-hearted, at the time I'm honestly not sure if they're trying to RP or not. If you want to be involved, get involved! People appreciate interest and effort and I guarantee if you keep it up you'll find someone ready and willing to engage.
As for concerns... Well, the logspam thing. Honestly, when I attend large events I tend to wind up disoriented and with a faint headache mere minutes in, totally unable to follow the thread of what's happening around my character in the rolling sea of text. What may be helpful if this DOES become a problem (which it may not) is multiple smaller events at varying times, both to include as many people as possible and discourage character-zerg since people have the security of knowing if they don't make The One Event, they'll miss out. That may be a bit complex though, so it could just be something as simple as saying "Every weeknight / weekend night at X o'clock".
I don't mean to complicate things further It being a dead race after a few days but I chose Thursday. The weekend (Friday,Saturday) is generally prime for LS Events and I feel people will always chose LS events over community events.
Just my 2 Gil
While I really agree with the idea behind this, I think by itself it's probably only part of a more complete solution. I think the problem at root isn't really "can I find somewhere to RP" but "can I find people who WANT to RP with me". There's actually a very, very big difference. I think it's pretty understandable and natural that two characters who have nothing in common won't have much to say to each other, just like two random people at a bus stop probably won't strike up a chat leading to a long-standing friendship. It's unfortunate but it's the truth and it's probably not going to change any time soon. Also, consider that people might be not answering people not out of unfriendliness, but just plain shyness. That's right, strangers can be intimidating even in online video games! I know several people who think so, and I do myself sometimes.
So, a purely IC solution will help, but only for people who are OOCly inclined AND have characters who are ICly inclined. I'd love to go, but my character would never willingly attend a pub night and would probably get fed up and leave within minutes if she didn't know anyone there. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do a pub night, I'm sure there are plenty of people it'd be great for. But I think we need something on the OOC front too.
I've had an idea I've been kicking around for quite a while now but I've been too... I don't know. Busy? Lazy? Shy? Whatever the reason, it's this: Have an OOC event for RPers. There will be RPing there, but it'd be purely "noncanon". Sort of a "come have fun and bring your character with you". There could be discussions on the RP that's been going on, maybe "RP classifieds" (I'd be interested in this sort of event/story/friendship for my character, is anyone else?), some impromptu RP games... I don't know, I'd have to come up with a schedule of events if anyone's actually interested. But the point is, I think if we really want to address this issue at the root, we need people talking and being friendly OOCly too.
OOC friendships often lead to IC involvement and I don't think there's anything at all wrong or exclusionary about that. Of course people will want to do things with friends! So, to me at least, it seems like a good solution would be to help everyone make more friends.
Eh.
...Over a hundred views and five replies. I'm just going to throw in the towel on this one. Whether people just don't care, or the RPC just doesn't receive the same amount of traffic as it used to (which is.. rather obvious, I suppose), I'm done. Either way, I know more than five people viewed this thread, and the fact that the majority didn't feel the need to take two minutes to post, or a few seconds to vote says enough.
I guess I just don't really see the point in trying to save a community that doesn't want to be saved. If people really did care about trying to get some form of a community back into the game, they'd go the extra mile to see it done. Instead we just have a loose group of independent linkshells that rarely interact with one another, let alone strangers. Plenty of people with loose lips on this server to know just how much trash talking goes on behind everyone's backs. Kind of difficult to organize people who harbor resentment for each other.
Can't say I'm really upset, since I saw this coming from a mile away. Disappointed? Sure.
Either way, I'm not going to waste my time with something only a handful of people are willing to support.
Nor am I going to waste any more of my time trying to salvage the community. Linkshells might be alive, but a single linkshell does not make a community.
As far as I'm concerned, it's dead.
I actually have a number of thoughts on this precise matter that I'll be posting in the indeterminately-soon future, based on opinions and views gathered from various parts of the community. But, for me personally, I tend to think it's not so much that people don't want to RP with each other but that people have lost faith in the RPC's ability to fully and accurately represent the broad spectrum of the community... In its relevance. So, like-minded groups have begun to clump together.
Now, is this bad and unhealthy? That's actually a matter of opinion, and opinions vary. I won't go into it too much now, but expect a full treatment later when I've gathered more viewpoints and organized my thoughts better.
I haven't commented on this thread more out of ambivalence, not apathy.
On the one hand I feel something like this might be a good idea to help bring everyone together, which seems to be the underlying point. Bring RPers from a number of different linkshells together and broaden everyone's horizon a bit. I think this is an admirable goal, but I also think it's one better achieved now by working with the leaders/officers of these groups. At one time there was a forum here where the leaders could make posts and plan such things accordingly but there were problems and this forum was removed as a sort of fix. To this day I still disagree with that action, however here we are. Leaders can still communicate with one another through PM's and by visiting each others' respective forum networks or talking openly in game. Does it happen? I think it does, but probably not to the degree needed in order to orchestrate/advertise something like this. It would be good to see these forums active again, but since that isn't likely it would also be good to see the leaders of RP linkshells working with one another to schedule cross-guild events like this tavern night. I think this falls more to the leaders of each of the guilds to work with one another, if this is someone people want to do.
On the other hand, not everyone wants to be brought together. There are a number of people who don't belong to particular linkshells simply because of a member or handful of members that they don't get along with. While not everyone would be mandated to appear at something like this, the thought of trying to RP with a lot of "strangers" may seem a bit overwhelming to some RPers. Some of the larger-scale events conducted on the server have been a bit of a headache with chatlog scrolling and such and I know some people (myself being one of them) prefer to RP in smaller groups since there's less to keep track of and I can devote more focus to the people with whom I am interacting. I also understand many LS's have their own events at the tavern, and the very concept of "tavern nights" themselves has grown so completely trite that I think a lot of RPers are looking for something new to wrap themselves around.
On the whole, I would have liked to see the event happen. I understand your frustration. And I didn't vote because my own schedule tends to be erratic. And I didn't comment because, for me, the two above points seem to contradict one another. I also didn't want to say "this is a good idea" or "this is a bad idea" because in truth I don't know either way. The writers above me have all made very good points and I don't think you should give up on the RP community as a whole just because the majority of them no longer visit the RPC forums. There is a lot of RP out there and I cannot seem to run across Ul'dah without encountering at least one or two dialogues, often from names I don't recognize (and I've belonged to 3-4 different RPLS's now and feel like I should recognize just about everyone by now).
I understand your frustration, Merri. And I mostly share it, as do numerous others. That said, I don't think ALL hope is lost yet. I think a large part of the problem right now is communication (or lack thereof). Eva mentioned the former Council section of the forums. The charter revote pretty much got rid of all of that, but that doesn't mean we can't further examine having a section where leaders can come together to chat about ideas and whatnot. Without the charter, there is no "council" with actual power or anything after all. But if we were to reintroduce such a section, it would need to be thoroughly discussed by the leaders and members of the community first as to avoid possible elitism, gossiping, etc.
The RPC actually does get pretty decent traffic still, just not postings. So there are people "watching" the direction of the overall community even if silently. And I DO wish to use this site to breath more life into the RP community if others wish to do so as well. I wouldn't mind cleaning up the site and sending out mass emails to try to draw back old RPers into the fold by telling them about the changes to the game and the RP community. I'm sure we could design some fancy means of doing so as PS3 launch comes closer. But I (nor others) are going to put a ton of effort into a cause if nobody else is going to meet us all halfway.
Assuming Archavalon has a successful launch (still in the phase where I'm gauging support levels), I personally intend to send out IC "invites" to every linkshell for its debut event and have a little mini-epic I wanted to try out, assuming other shells were interested.
But to refrain from getting overly off-topic, everyone brings up valid points. The main thing though is communication. If we can't do that, then yes, there really isn't much of a community left.
Edit: As a sidenote, I should mention that Sylph was kind of the unofficial RP server in FFXI. While there were other RP groups out there on other servers, Sylph dominated in the numbers category. In that regard, I can say this: The community was very unstable and dramatic during its first year, as Eva and others can attest to. After that first year though, the "Golden Age" began and I can't put into words how great RP was then, despite occasional hiccups here and there with drama. As Besaid's Rp community approaches the 1 year mark, it's POSSIBLE that our Golden Age could begin just the same way. But it really all depends on the linkshell leaders AND their members.
I suppose it was naive to think that a simple thread could have as big of an impact as I wanted it to, but as a few of you have said, it's just incredibly frustrating to see next to no results. On one hand I know that the RPC isn't exactly lively, but even when I tried (albeit weakly) to get the word out in-game it seemed to just fall on deaf ears after being acknowledged.
I wanted to be optimistic, but I guess the idea of some random guy who isn't even a member of a shell trying to rally together the community just isn't feasible. As has been mentioned, that is a job tailored to the leaders of the shells. I just hope they realize that they need to do something soon before the situation gets worse.
Regardless of which way it goes, I'm still throwing in the towel. I'll support the community, but people won't listen to a nobody, nor will they listen to some one without the power to rally.