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Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - ExAtomos - 01-03-2018
This occurred to me the other day... Why aren't folks from Mateus (etc) flooding this site with info and posts? The RPC is usually the top or one of the top websites listed when you search for FFXIV RP, so naturally new players or new to RP players will make this a first stop on their search of where to go.
I know the age-old complaint was that this site was too Balmung focused. Well, it's still Balmung-heavy sure, but we're closed. If you want to advertise the f--- out of your group on another server, now is the time to do it!
I've heard Mateus people are choosing Discord over the RPC and even Tumblr, but Discord isn't something easily discovered by those just searching online. I encourage y'all to use all of the tools that are available to you and hype things up.
- signed Someone who has spent years advertising groups in game to get their name out there
eta: Of course this is dependent on whether y'all are interested in expanding your community.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-03-2018
I ask the same every time we see an RPC clone pop up, usually on enjin. It lasts for a month or two until someone stops paying the bills and then there goes all the content. However, that's also user choice. Back when Mateus was doing its initial outreach, there was a lot of posting. And I personally stressed to some of the people working on outreach to urge users to post here.
"RPC is too Balmung-focussed" you day? Well....? How is not posting gonna change that?
I know that each server is big on having their individual identity and nobody wants to be seen as "Balmung leftovers" or some other ridiculous label. And I can certainly see the appeal for in wanting a personal hub to store just things for that server. But time and time again, I also see the same exact issues that RPC went through. The same "budding RP population /community" issues.
I've also heard that people find it tough to navigate RPC. But is this simply due to the layout or from an aversion to forums? Something tells me it's more the latter. RPC previously did have different boards for some sections to split between Balmung and Gilgamesh back in the day. We could always go back to a similar style for Mateus and Omega where events and directories are servee-specific. (Or if people can hold out just a little more, we'll have a functional tag and prefixes system in the updates site!)
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Varinh - 01-03-2018
It has admittedly always been a pet peeve of mine in MMOs when servers of the same game split off into multiple websites to hunt down, stretching regular posting and advertisement thin. However, I can understand if they're trying to do their own thing in the mind that they might be able to more regularly maintain a site, for example making certain the Free Company advertisement tab is on a regular schedule to clean out disbanded or long forgotten FCs. I know that a good quarter of what we have on ours is dead, disbanded, or renamed, and it's often times confusing for people looking for Free Company's to discern the difference without having to check through sites, lodestones, and more to make certain they're applying to an actual FC.
That being said, I really like how our site is laid out as it is. With the ability to tag posts with one's server (which I wish more would take advantage of) and additionally have your server in an immediately displayed line under your user profile at first glance, we have everything we need to support multiple servers at the same time. It really boggles my mind why servers feel the need to split off and create more work for themselves.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - ExAtomos - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 12:49 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: I ask the same every time we see an RPC clone pop up, usually on enjin. It lasts for a month or two until someone stops paying the bills and then there goes all the content. However, that's also user choice. Back when Mateus was doing its initial outreach, there was a lot of posting. And I personally stressed to some of the people working on outreach to urge users to post here.
"RPC is too Balmung-focussed" you day? Well....? How is not posting gonna change that?
I know that each server is big on having their individual identity and nobody wants to be seen as "Balmung leftovers" or some other ridiculous label. And I can certainly see the appeal for in wanting a personal hub to store just things for that server. But time and time again, I also see the same exact issues that RPC went through. The same "budding RP population /community" issues.
I've also heard that people find it tough to navigate RPC. But is this simply due to the layout or from an aversion to forums? Something tells me it's more the latter. RPC previously did have different boards for some sections to split between Balmung and Gilgamesh back in the day. We could always go back to a similar style for Mateus and Omega where events and directories are servee-specific. (Or if people can hold out just a little more, we'll have a functional tag and prefixes system in the updates site!)
Yeah, the desire for SHINY AND NEW is strong with pretty much everyone. I get that, I do (and my years of experience with spite LARPs agrees strongly), but man... lol... advertising ripe for the pickin's? Put up a sign that says "USE ME!" xD
I have made general RPC noises at various people at various times and I get two responses (since I ask people already on Balmung, the "too Balmung focused" doesn't come up): Site is "clunky" and "teh dramaz".
I will readily admit I'm a bit *cough* older than the average Balmung resident, so forums are just another spot of social media to me rather than a relic (I also heavily use Tumblr and Discord ofc) and each have their uses that don't overlap. <--- key part
If folks want a stable, go-to site to post things that are easy to find and durable, the RPC is it.
A friend of mine made noise about a WoW site that had more features available, but I've never been a WoW player, so I can't bring a compare and contrast to the table. Maybe others know of sites and can list up some stuff.
The second issue, the drama... look, I've been here about two years and I've never seen any nasty drama. If the issue is from over two years ago, gottamm, let that shit go. Of course folks here have Strong Opinions tm about stuff, but hell, we're all passionate about the game and how we play it. It's good we care so much, I think, and we can just agree to disagree if warranted.
I see the RPC as a good tool to be used and hope others realize it too.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - ExAtomos - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 01:21 PM)Ashtrythe Wrote: It has admittedly always been a pet peeve of mine in MMOs when servers of the same game split off into multiple websites to hunt down, stretching regular posting and advertisement thin. However, I can understand if they're trying to do their own thing in the mind that they might be able to more regularly maintain a site, for example making certain the Free Company advertisement tab is on a regular schedule to clean out disbanded or long forgotten FCs. I know that a good quarter of what we have on ours is dead, disbanded, or renamed, and it's often times confusing for people looking for Free Company's to discern the difference without having to check through sites, lodestones, and more to make certain they're applying to an actual FC.
You bring up a really good point...
A website is only as good as it's contributions.
I maintain the FC/LS themes thread and man... folks change groups like socks. >..> Problem is when members "can't be bothered" to submit the new information so that others can find it. Then folks complain that the FC and LS listings are empty. Yes, it takes effort, but that's how you successfully build up a group. Sometimes I wonder if people are just okay with creating a group and letting it die within a relatively short amount of time due to the fact that they don't want to put in any effort towards it.
I will admit, I do wish there was a way to flesh out the FC listings besides individual player contribution cause I feel that doesn't work.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 01:30 PM)ExAtomos Wrote: You bring up a really good point...
A website is only as good as it's contributions.
I maintain the FC/LS themes thread and man... folks change groups like socks. >..> Problem is when members "can't be bothered" to submit the new information so that others can find it. Then folks complain that the FC and LS listings are empty. Yes, it takes effort, but that's how you successfully build up a group. Sometimes I wonder if people are just okay with creating a group and letting it die within a relatively short amount of time due to the fact that they don't want to put in any effort towards it.
I will admit, I do wish there was a way to flesh out the FC listings besides individual player contribution cause I feel that doesn't work.
There's always the wiki. But only a handful of people have made FC Listings there. And when most people think of the wiki, they're looking for a free HTML hosting solution instead of...a wiki. Perspective plays a key role in all of this.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - ExAtomos - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 01:38 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: There's always the wiki. But only a handful of people have made FC Listings there. And when most people think of the wiki, they're looking for a free HTML hosting solution instead of...a wiki. Perspective plays a key role in all of this.
Okay, I'll admit I forget about the wiki sometimes. >..>; The babby-coding goes over my head and I've heard similar from others. But the wiki still requires player contribution like the FC list, yes? Or is there something I'm missing?
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 01:44 PM)ExAtomos Wrote:(01-03-2018, 01:38 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: There's always the wiki. But only a handful of people have made FC Listings there. And when most people think of the wiki, they're looking for a free HTML hosting solution instead of...a wiki. Perspective plays a key role in all of this.
Okay, I'll admit I forget about the wiki sometimes. >..>; The babby-coding goes over my head and I've heard similar from others. But the wiki still requires player contribution like the FC list, yes? Or is there something I'm missing?
It's all player-driven content, but often forgotten about because it doesn't integrate into the forums short of someone linking it and "moderating" the wiki is typically a reactive effort based on forum posts/messages to the staff.
Category pages can be generated dynamically though! (Or we can make some templates similar to the main character infobox to add in categories automagically. Disclaimer:wiki template code is an arcane lost art and is not easy to write or modify.)
But for the most part, if a user wanted to make a Free Company or Linkshell wiki page, there's nothing stopping them. And if there were enough pages to warrant a directory of sorts, as long as they had something like [[Category: Free Company]] or [[Category: Linkshell]] or [[Category: THEME HERE]] the wiki would do all the work of building up lists. If someone made a generic page for common themes, then we could technically build category lists as well. Like how you can have [[Category: Black Mage]] which would show all the Black Mages who've added the category to their wiki. And on the Black Mage wiki page, that'd link to say, Category: Disciples of Magic and Category: Jobs, and so on.
Add in some some sort of recommended naming convention like "TITLE <fctag> [server] LASTUPDATED" or so, and it'd make finding things pretty easy.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Maia - 01-03-2018
Based on my experience with similar things (e.g., asking my LS members to check our guild site), I think the perceived "hassle" outweighs the need for recruitment. In a new and thriving community such as Mateus, there may be no real need for extra advertisement. If the community feels that Discord-only suits all of their needs, it'd be a difficult sell to get someone to place additional work onto themselves, however large or small.
This is just my idle speculation, though!
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Nebbs - 01-03-2018
I'd point to a few things:
1. Other than the main two servers any other voice would have been lost here some years ago. So, the tendency for other servers was to find alternatives and that set the ground for not coming here when they grew.
2. There wasn't the Discord alternative, not like there is now. All roads do not lead to the RPC any more.
3. If you are on Balmung this is still one of the best places to come. So we maintain the disproportionate mix.
4. They are here and you don't see them. But I have noticed many many more posts are not Balmung.
5. Time is a great leveler.. give it time and as the RPC is moving with them, we will see.
Maybe some folks not from Balmung could comment?
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Zoetrooper - 01-03-2018
I seem to remember a lot of hostility on here a few years back. So echo #teh dramaz sentiment. It seemed that other server communities were less welcome back then. Glad to see the times are changing.
Also Discord is a huge win when it comes to planning and RP.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 01:21 PM)Ashtrythe Wrote: However, I can understand if they're trying to do their own thing in the mind that they might be able to more regularly maintain a site, for example making certain the Free Company advertisement tab is on a regular schedule to clean out disbanded or long forgotten FCs. I know that a good quarter of what we have on ours is dead, disbanded, or renamed, and it's often times confusing for people looking for Free Company's to discern the difference without having to check through sites, lodestones, and more to make certain they're applying to an actual FC.
As an aside, it does take an incredible amount of busywork to maintain listings from an administrative point of view. I started the hall cleanings after my first post here and just finished. There were 145 entries to archive with an average of 9-12 clicks/actions needed for each one. Some of them I know were active even, but getting a person to bump a thread or to get the original poster to report it for archiving often doesn't happen. This leads to a lot of groups' listings looking old and stale even when they're still around. It's something that the updated site look and feel will grant some more control in. People will be able to self-archive/unarchive listings if they were the one who posted it.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Moneva Qestir - 01-03-2018
Personally, from my experience, it is because Discord has become such a positive tool for the Mateus community. Need an rp event? Right there. Post your FC? Right there. Make connections? Right there. You don't have to weed through other players on other servers, you get instant response times, and the discord is growing daily. When I found the discord, I literally never came on this site except to post events or peruse topics.
I know from when I first moved to Mateus back in SB time, a handful of people on this site were... well, not really welcoming from what I personally saw.
Now, I am not trying to say anything bad about the people on here, but I know a lot of people had expressed to me that they didn't feel welcome on this site at all, based on how people have acted in the past to growing a second RP server, etc. I don't know if that's 100% on that, but I do remember seeing some fights in the forums back when Mateus and co. was getting off their feet.Â
Plus, when Mateus was first getting off their feet, there wasn't even an *Icon* for FCs, you had to rummage through the pile of other server FCs and hope there was one with Mateus on it. Also, Server events: There is a very bad bad bad structure on it. If I go on the events page, it is literally 99% Balmung. Which is fine, I have no complaints: But the point is, this site was completely made for Gilg and Balmung. It continued to be that way for quite some time after Mateus grew, and now has finally a decent format for the other servers. But some advice is just to try and separate servers in terms of events and such. If there was a, say, Mateus RP Calender, or Cactaur RP Calender, etc. It would make people more willing to use this site.
Also, I guess the only other thing I wanna ask is why are the Balmung folk creating this topic and are so concerned over it? I'm honestly curious, no hostility.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 05:28 PM)MonevaQestir Wrote: Personally, from my experience, it is because Discord has become such a positive tool for the Mateus community. Need an rp event? Right there. Post your FC? Right there. Make connections? Right there. You don't have to weed through other players on other servers, you get instant response times, and the discord is growing daily. When I found the discord, I literally never came on this site except to post events or peruse topics.
I know from when I first moved to Mateus back in SB time, a handful of people on this site were... well, not really welcoming from what I personally saw.
I certainly agree that it makes things easy for users when all their information is in a single place. However! Discord's search and history really wasn't made to be a neverending repository for posts and content. Eventually, all that data from all of their servers is gonna reach some point where it's too much overhead to search back, or takes up too much space to store forever. In either of those situations, you get a loss of information.
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.
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.
(01-03-2018, 05:28 PM)MonevaQestir Wrote: Now, I am not trying to say anything bad about the people on here, but I know a lot of people had expressed to me that they didn't feel welcome on this site at all, based on how people have acted in the past to growing a second RP server, etc. I don't know if that's 100% on that, but I do remember seeing some fights in the forums back when Mateus and co. was getting off their feet.Â
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.
(01-03-2018, 05:28 PM)MonevaQestir Wrote: Plus, when Mateus was first getting off their feet, there wasn't even an *Icon* for FCs, you had to rummage through the pile of other server FCs and hope there was one with Mateus on it. Also, Server events: There is a very bad bad bad structure on it. If I go on the events page, it is literally 99% Balmung. Which is fine, I have no complaints: But the point is, this site was completely made for Gilg and Balmung. It continued to be that way for quite some time after Mateus grew, and now has finally a decent format for the other servers. But some advice is just to try and separate servers in terms of events and such. If there was a, say, Mateus RP Calender, or Cactaur RP Calender, etc. It would make people more willing to use this site.
The RPC's layout, while looking about the same as ever, has actually changed quite a lot over the years as the site's needs have changed and adjusted. Some positive changed require a lot more custom-coding than they appear to need. Most notably, the Linkshell and Free Company halls, which are hand-coded and built with custom templates. Yes, they are -technically- forums, but all of that filtering is done manually. The forum/thread display was all manual too. And with a plugin that is extremely powerful, yet also very delicate. The gist is that it takes quite a bit of work and tinkering to even make the slightest changes, like adding sections for Mateus and Omega.
Things like the Calendar are a major sticking point. MyBB's calendar is pretty terrible in my opinion and it's one of the reasons we're moving away from it in favor of an InvisionPower site instead. There, we can actually make separate calendars for servers. And import/sync them with google calendars too.
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.
(01-03-2018, 05:28 PM)MonevaQestir Wrote: Also, I guess the only other thing I wanna ask is why are the Balmung folk creating this topic and are so concerned over it? I'm honestly curious, no hostility.
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.
RE: Mateus (and other servers) Takeover? - ExAtomos - 01-03-2018
(01-03-2018, 05:28 PM)MonevaQestir Wrote: Personally, from my experience, it is because Discord has become such a positive tool for the Mateus community. Need an rp event? Right there. Post your FC? Right there. Make connections? Right there. You don't have to weed through other players on other servers, you get instant response times, and the discord is growing daily. When I found the discord, I literally never came on this site except to post events or peruse topics.
I know from when I first moved to Mateus back in SB time, a handful of people on this site were... well, not really welcoming from what I personally saw.
Now, I am not trying to say anything bad about the people on here, but I know a lot of people had expressed to me that they didn't feel welcome on this site at all, based on how people have acted in the past to growing a second RP server, etc. I don't know if that's 100% on that, but I do remember seeing some fights in the forums back when Mateus and co. was getting off their feet.Â
Plus, when Mateus was first getting off their feet, there wasn't even an *Icon* for FCs, you had to rummage through the pile of other server FCs and hope there was one with Mateus on it. Also, Server events: There is a very bad bad bad structure on it. If I go on the events page, it is literally 99% Balmung. Which is fine, I have no complaints: But the point is, this site was completely made for Gilg and Balmung. It continued to be that way for quite some time after Mateus grew, and now has finally a decent format for the other servers. But some advice is just to try and separate servers in terms of events and such. If there was a, say, Mateus RP Calender, or Cactaur RP Calender, etc. It would make people more willing to use this site.
Also, I guess the only other thing I wanna ask is why are the Balmung folk creating this topic and are so concerned over it? I'm honestly curious, no hostility.
Unnamed Merc already wrote a lot of what I'd say! But I'll hit on a few points.
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.
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.
I wonder if it would be ideal to have server sub forums, similar to how the OF is arranged. That would keep things neat imo.(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).