Forgive me, I have absolutely NO FORUM SKILLS, so my quote formatting will be absolutely shitty. Took me 30 minutes probably just to write this from my lack of forum skills. xDDD BBC and I were never friends. If someone could tell me how you guys quote so beautifully, I will do better in the future. xDD
We actually have admins where they delete all the posts in tabs where they get overtly cluttered once a month, in order to clean old FCs, LSes, Events, etc. Really helps maintain the said clutter you mentioned. c: Nice thing too, is we have an RP making connections where FC leaders can speak to those who post interest in certain types of RP FCs they are looking for and the like. It's a nice little system, I think personally.
Now, in terms of finding the discord, I can see the concern in that, but there should be a forum post somewhere here that has it...
Ah! Here it is:
 http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=19767
Quick "Mateus RP Discord" google search and you have multiple forum posts about the discord.
 Now, that doesn't excuse the fact that there isn't much spotlight on our discord, considering it -is- our main source of communication outside the game, but I suppose a lot of Mateus people just assumed that people would search for the discord, or give word of mouth upon meeting new players IG.Â
Personally for me, I try to offer out the discord link when I see players running around, and I know from personal experience a lot of people found the discord through this site in particular via the forum post I linked. When I personally got really into rp on here, I googled "Rp server ffxiv" and got Balmung. I believe now that Balmung is closed, googling the same thing will now bring up the alternatives as well, considering it is mentioned often within these forums. Now, not saying it is an excuse by any means, but I believe people on Mateus just generally like to keep things IG or through the discord, knowing that googling such topics will gladly point you as Mateus/Omega/etc. as the alternative RP servers. People also use other sites like Guilded, so there is also that you have to take into consideration as well.
Oh I completely agree on that: You can't avoid people arguing on forums. The only disappointing thing, is people could be joining this forum for the first time, or looking around seeing what is going on, and can see bickering and completely go "Oh, no nevermind that." and completely skip it.Â
But I do wanna bring up another point I forgot to mention: There are a lot of people who left Balmung for reasons other than server congestion. Some people want nothing to do with Balmung and the people altogether. I'm not one of those people personally, but I have met quite the handful of folk on Mateus that will bash Balmung and speak very poorly of the server. So I suppose that could partially be the reason why you don't see many people whom left Balmung perusing the site and trying to gain publicity to here. It's more a bitterness thing than anything, but eh. You can't win 'em all.
The server tags will help immensely with RP events. But I really think it's the same thing I mentioned above: I believe they find it more convenient to post the event on discord, where people can actively respond to you in a much faster rate than forums, they know the audience they are speaking to are 100% Mateus folk, plus the formatting for discord is much easier for people whom are quite inexperienced with making really cool, flashy adverts. (I know I personally suffer from forum post crappiness, but I try!) But I don't know. I sadly can't speak for all of Mateus (though I am the only one of present speaking about it) but ironically enough, it kinda feels like me being the only one speaking up about this kinda for my Mateus fam proves the point that Mateus people aren't really... on this site much, unless they are Balmung/Mateus alternators.Â
But definitely. I will try to get more FC leaders and such to post their events on here more, but I promise you, some sort of better formatting like those tabs would probably help more traffic from Mateus folk on here.
Now that you bring this point up concerning the frequent migrating players, that may be part of the reason why people don't post on here! I didn't realize that so many folk do switch from Balmung and Mateus. I have an alt on Balmung personally myself, but I don't really frequent her as much as I would like to. But now mentioning that, that gives me more of an excuse for people not so on the boat for this site. If it can truly help bring more exposure to RP events for people whom migrate or seeking FCs for their alts, that could definitely bring more traffic.
The sad thing is, it's getting people motivated to do so. I think a lot of people joined Mateus as founders of sorts, thinking that starting up a community is easy and fun and pleasant, but in reality, it really isn't: It is fun, yes, but it's moreso fun AFTER the work is put in. Personally-- it seems a lot of people didn't realize the work people put into these sorts of endeavors and go "Oh shit i'm out." A lot of friends I have seen in my lifetime on Mateus have grown and disbanded FCs because they didn't realize that it takes time and effort.
That actually answers this quote as well:
I can't speak for Omega or the other servers, or many of Mateus people, but from what I have seen, as mentioned above, I think some people kinda pulled the whole "Well, f**k you guys, I am gonna make xxx and xxx better than you ever were!" and then realized the work, and then dipped out of the effort process. I know for me, I wanted to put more effort to growing Mateus but I just don't have the time. Between juggling college, work, FC, etc. It becomes a LOT on your plate. And trust me, there are plenty of dedicated folks on Mateus, but there are a good amount too that just don't have as much time as they'd like to make it blossom as much as we'd like to.
ALRIGHT. Gonna move on to the next reply. ((again, once I know the quote formatting I can avoid this embarassing formatting *cough*))
I believe I answered this with Unnamed's post, but i'll elaborate more. In my personal experience, it's just a quick google search away to find what server is best for rp, depending on your timezone and the like. Same with the discord. So I believe that people have the assumption that "If you want rp, you'll find it." mentality.
There are multiple posts on this site about the discord, I believe they're just tucked away from back when the Exodus happened. So in reality, people **should** be bumping those for more exposure, but with what I mentioned above, people are either too lazy, don't see the point, or have too much time on their hands for it. Voice chat wise, I don't know: I find it odd people would expect voice chat from a massive 1000+ community of people who mainly (if not solely) do text-based RP, but I digress: You said you have met such people, so I can understand the concern.Â
If you're asking for particular forum topics that have been created in order to bash transfers like Mateus folk and Omega folk, then I cannot provide that for you, because that was not necessarily what I meant when I said I saw hostility: Rather, it was moreso the responses people were giving within topics created concerning Mateus/Alternative RP Server, etc. Now, mind you, this hostility was back when Mateus discussion was becoming a topic; I haven't seen much if any recently. But it seemed that when people would discuss this being mentioned in various topics, it seemed that there were a few people whom wanted to try and avoid having an alternative rp server made altogether. This isn't specifically Balmung people, of course: This could be anyone on this site from any server. But maybe possibly some people felt threatened by the mention and were afraid their friends and the like would transfer away from them? I haven't a clue, but I cannot explicitly point out evidence for this, for it would take a lot of perusing through old forum topics.Â
And of course, as I said I have nothing against Balmung and found no problems with Balmung folk speaking up about getting people to their server: It is a very fun place to rp and I had a fun time being there. I think it's moreso that people felt that others were not supportive of the change (for one reason or another) and decided to take their adverts elsewhere. Of course, this is theory and speculation: I can't speak for everyone.
OKAY. Jesus. I am sorry I wrote such a novel, but hopefully that helped answer some things! and hopefully my next reply won't be with such shit formatting lmfao.
Quote:So I am curious there. Do people simply repost their character/event/making connections on end? Because trying to navigate those lists to scroll up to see everything must be a nightmare.
We actually have admins where they delete all the posts in tabs where they get overtly cluttered once a month, in order to clean old FCs, LSes, Events, etc. Really helps maintain the said clutter you mentioned. c: Nice thing too, is we have an RP making connections where FC leaders can speak to those who post interest in certain types of RP FCs they are looking for and the like. It's a nice little system, I think personally.
Quote:The other major concern is having to actually find the discord. Perhaps this is more a perspective issue on my part, but if I were a new RPer trying to join in, the first things I'd look for are websites and posts to prove that yes, people actually RP there. A discord link still needs to be hosted, advertised, and put out -somewhere- for people to find it. Public shouts or random invites can alleviate some of that, but ultimately, people need to know where to go. An invite-only or invite-link-required method doesn't really help much with exposure.
Now, in terms of finding the discord, I can see the concern in that, but there should be a forum post somewhere here that has it...
Ah! Here it is:
 http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=19767
Quick "Mateus RP Discord" google search and you have multiple forum posts about the discord.
 Now, that doesn't excuse the fact that there isn't much spotlight on our discord, considering it -is- our main source of communication outside the game, but I suppose a lot of Mateus people just assumed that people would search for the discord, or give word of mouth upon meeting new players IG. Personally for me, I try to offer out the discord link when I see players running around, and I know from personal experience a lot of people found the discord through this site in particular via the forum post I linked. When I personally got really into rp on here, I googled "Rp server ffxiv" and got Balmung. I believe now that Balmung is closed, googling the same thing will now bring up the alternatives as well, considering it is mentioned often within these forums. Now, not saying it is an excuse by any means, but I believe people on Mateus just generally like to keep things IG or through the discord, knowing that googling such topics will gladly point you as Mateus/Omega/etc. as the alternative RP servers. People also use other sites like Guilded, so there is also that you have to take into consideration as well.
Quote:I'd ask to find a RP "community" where that hasn't happened though. For some, change is horrifying. Or some really want everyone grouped on a single server. ...which isn't sustainable. (We can all point to Balmung on that.) The forum fires are inevitable.
Oh I completely agree on that: You can't avoid people arguing on forums. The only disappointing thing, is people could be joining this forum for the first time, or looking around seeing what is going on, and can see bickering and completely go "Oh, no nevermind that." and completely skip it.Â
But I do wanna bring up another point I forgot to mention: There are a lot of people who left Balmung for reasons other than server congestion. Some people want nothing to do with Balmung and the people altogether. I'm not one of those people personally, but I have met quite the handful of folk on Mateus that will bash Balmung and speak very poorly of the server. So I suppose that could partially be the reason why you don't see many people whom left Balmung perusing the site and trying to gain publicity to here. It's more a bitterness thing than anything, but eh. You can't win 'em all.
Quote:As for events, this is something I have to keep saying to the point of being a broken record. How will the events forum look anything different from "99% Balmung" if nobody but people on Balmung post there? I'd encourage you and others to cross-post events for exposure. It's not going to make a change overnight, but it is firmly rooted in confirmation bias. In the past, we did have separate forums for Balmung and Gilgamesh, as that was how the site was set up back when it relaunched in 2013. They were later merged in when more and more Gilgamesh RPers transfered to Balmung, and we introduced server prefixes instead to mark threads. We could go back to that, assuming people would use them. (Otherwise, it just feeds the same confirmation bias that "nobody posts events for ____ here" which makes a feedback loop.) in the new IPS site, server tags and prefixes will actually let someone filter content by that tag/server, which should help make things easier.
The server tags will help immensely with RP events. But I really think it's the same thing I mentioned above: I believe they find it more convenient to post the event on discord, where people can actively respond to you in a much faster rate than forums, they know the audience they are speaking to are 100% Mateus folk, plus the formatting for discord is much easier for people whom are quite inexperienced with making really cool, flashy adverts. (I know I personally suffer from forum post crappiness, but I try!) But I don't know. I sadly can't speak for all of Mateus (though I am the only one of present speaking about it) but ironically enough, it kinda feels like me being the only one speaking up about this kinda for my Mateus fam proves the point that Mateus people aren't really... on this site much, unless they are Balmung/Mateus alternators.Â
But definitely. I will try to get more FC leaders and such to post their events on here more, but I promise you, some sort of better formatting like those tabs would probably help more traffic from Mateus folk on here.
Quote:I think this is partly because there really isn't as large a split between the bigger unofficial RP servers as people seem to think there are. While it's definitely true that there are people who might only RP/play on one or the other, we share a datacenter and a decent number of people hop back and forth. Or "migrate" from one to the other. ...but it's still all the same people, largely.
Whew...ok. This was a longer reply than intended. And I don't mean to put a spotlight on you in particular, but the above does contain some of my concerns when I see Mateus trying to operate solely out of discord. I've talked to some of the mods/leaders in the past and usually get a "yeah! That's a good idea!" response when it comes to helping Mateus gain exposure, but then little seems to happen after. I love that Meteus has grown, but I see a lot of repeat issues that have already happened on Balmung/the RPC before. And with Mateus starting to hit that point where it's getting closed character creation, it may help to keep things unified somewhere where it'll last.
Now that you bring this point up concerning the frequent migrating players, that may be part of the reason why people don't post on here! I didn't realize that so many folk do switch from Balmung and Mateus. I have an alt on Balmung personally myself, but I don't really frequent her as much as I would like to. But now mentioning that, that gives me more of an excuse for people not so on the boat for this site. If it can truly help bring more exposure to RP events for people whom migrate or seeking FCs for their alts, that could definitely bring more traffic.
The sad thing is, it's getting people motivated to do so. I think a lot of people joined Mateus as founders of sorts, thinking that starting up a community is easy and fun and pleasant, but in reality, it really isn't: It is fun, yes, but it's moreso fun AFTER the work is put in. Personally-- it seems a lot of people didn't realize the work people put into these sorts of endeavors and go "Oh shit i'm out." A lot of friends I have seen in my lifetime on Mateus have grown and disbanded FCs because they didn't realize that it takes time and effort.
That actually answers this quote as well:
Quote:(Please take this as the honest question I mean it to be.) I love RP; I am also a community organizer type, it's in my nature... I'm looking around here at the continued Balmung posts and noticing few Mateus posts (much less Omega, etc) and thinking... why aren't Mateus players invested? Plus, like pretty much everyone I know, I have alts on Mateus (and Omega).
I can't speak for Omega or the other servers, or many of Mateus people, but from what I have seen, as mentioned above, I think some people kinda pulled the whole "Well, f**k you guys, I am gonna make xxx and xxx better than you ever were!" and then realized the work, and then dipped out of the effort process. I know for me, I wanted to put more effort to growing Mateus but I just don't have the time. Between juggling college, work, FC, etc. It becomes a LOT on your plate. And trust me, there are plenty of dedicated folks on Mateus, but there are a good amount too that just don't have as much time as they'd like to make it blossom as much as we'd like to.
ALRIGHT. Gonna move on to the next reply. ((again, once I know the quote formatting I can avoid this embarassing formatting *cough*))
Quote:How do you expect people to find the Discord except by word of mouth? This doesn't help those who are A: resistant to Discord (perhaps due to a perception that voice chat is required on it)(I've met these people); B: Starting off and want to know what server to go to for RP.
I believe I answered this with Unnamed's post, but i'll elaborate more. In my personal experience, it's just a quick google search away to find what server is best for rp, depending on your timezone and the like. Same with the discord. So I believe that people have the assumption that "If you want rp, you'll find it." mentality.
There are multiple posts on this site about the discord, I believe they're just tucked away from back when the Exodus happened. So in reality, people **should** be bumping those for more exposure, but with what I mentioned above, people are either too lazy, don't see the point, or have too much time on their hands for it. Voice chat wise, I don't know: I find it odd people would expect voice chat from a massive 1000+ community of people who mainly (if not solely) do text-based RP, but I digress: You said you have met such people, so I can understand the concern.Â
Quote:Can you point me to the posts that are unpleasant towards members of other servers? I remember when the dust up over what back up server to use cropped up with Balmung's closure and one of the most vocal Mateus supporters also was the one to bring up that they dealt with a lot of drama. That was awkward. I know there were many posts, my own included, that always pointed RPers towards Balmung as the place to be, but this isn't inherently rude. Once Balmung had it's doors locked, the attitude of Balmung First disappeared because we all realized it was no longer an option for people.
If you're asking for particular forum topics that have been created in order to bash transfers like Mateus folk and Omega folk, then I cannot provide that for you, because that was not necessarily what I meant when I said I saw hostility: Rather, it was moreso the responses people were giving within topics created concerning Mateus/Alternative RP Server, etc. Now, mind you, this hostility was back when Mateus discussion was becoming a topic; I haven't seen much if any recently. But it seemed that when people would discuss this being mentioned in various topics, it seemed that there were a few people whom wanted to try and avoid having an alternative rp server made altogether. This isn't specifically Balmung people, of course: This could be anyone on this site from any server. But maybe possibly some people felt threatened by the mention and were afraid their friends and the like would transfer away from them? I haven't a clue, but I cannot explicitly point out evidence for this, for it would take a lot of perusing through old forum topics.Â
And of course, as I said I have nothing against Balmung and found no problems with Balmung folk speaking up about getting people to their server: It is a very fun place to rp and I had a fun time being there. I think it's moreso that people felt that others were not supportive of the change (for one reason or another) and decided to take their adverts elsewhere. Of course, this is theory and speculation: I can't speak for everyone.
OKAY. Jesus. I am sorry I wrote such a novel, but hopefully that helped answer some things! and hopefully my next reply won't be with such shit formatting lmfao.
