Rain Wrote:That they had "heard" it was just a big cesspool of drama and to be avoided, and wasn't something they wanted to get mixed in with.
This is a huge problem I run into as well. People “hear†things and jump to conclusions about something as a result. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve personally been judged by people I’ve never engaged with just because they’ve “heard†from their leader or other members that I’m a “bad person†or "been involved in most drama" (even though I've been involved in very little community drama in comparison to others and only get associated with it because of my 'status' here). Really? Are people really so wishy-washy that they can’t formulate their own opinions AFTER they get to know someone or something? Since when is hearsay the word of God? Since when is it okay to listen to strictly one side of the story and base one’s judgment solely on that? I’m sure this is a problem leaders on the other side of the fence have dealt with as well though. And if this is an issue on a personal level, it's not too farfetched to be a problem on a larger scale (such as views on the RPC as a whole). But meh, what can really be done about it?
I’m not opposed to a reboot, though I strongly disagree with the opinions that the RPC has "failed" at any point in time (even now). It still brings in new RPers and directs them to RP shells. And it's still the only large-scale RP base recognized by the larger non-RP community. It's simply not as active as it used to be (but neither are other large fan sites either). The tools available to us are quite extensive. The premier fan sites like Zam, Eorzeapedia, and Core have all told me that they're more than happy to help us when needed. We would likely even stand a chance at becoming a "premier" site to Square Enix themselves if we actually could manage to come together as a community like we were pre-launch.
There are a couple of things regarding a "reboot." I’ll just come out and make it official. I’ve been trying to get out of this RPC admin role for 7 months now. No joke. Brin was meant to replace me until he went MIA. The moderation team went MIA, most/all of them quitting the game entirely. The attempt to get new moderators failed because there weren’t enough “nominations†in that still stickied thread in the lounge. I think all in that thread but Sha have since quit the game. Thus, every time I try to get out of this role, I’m forced to stay in it longer just to keep things afloat. So if we do go through with a reboot, I’m not passing up the chance to get the hell out of dodge >.>. I have my own flock to look after now anyway. That’s not to say I won’t support the rebooted version. But I won’t administrate it. There are a gazillion reasons as to why, but that's irrelevant. I'm not exactly well liked by a small minority anyway so it'll probably be for the best regardless
. My second concern is our vast array of resources gained from over a year of existence. We have over 1,100 registered role-players. Less than 50 of those are spam bots since I try to delete those as quickly as I see them. Less than 25 are secondary accounts. So at the end of the day, that’s still over 1,000 role-players (though probably about 80+% of them have quit the game). As PS3 launch comes closer, it would be nice to be able to send out a fancy mass email to showcase the changes of the game and in the community in an attempt to bring some of them back and breath some more life into the RP community. Then there’s of course the gazillion threads of information, character stories, profiles, etc. How do we “reboot†without decimating all of these valuable resources? And how do we "reboot" without weakening the overall image of the RPC? I've seen attempts to unite RPers after an MMO launches. Those attempts rarely, if ever, succeed (hence why I launched this project well in advance of the game's launch).
The FF14 RP community is in a very unique position in comparison to other MMOs, for a lot of different reasons. But at the end of the day, all it takes is one small misstep at this critical stage and everything can be blown to hell. So proceeding with caution is very important.
