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(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: I noticed today, there are lots of active new members around the past few weeks, with lots of questions. I also noticed those questions are not being answered as well, or with truthful answers as they should be.
How do you propose a fix to this?
As it is, a lot of the people who normally answer questions are pretty burnt out on it. A lot of people seem to ask the same questions over and over. There's no way to force people to search before asking, and even if there was, that wouldn't fix it. Do you feel like answering the questions and potentially linking sources from the game with NPC/FATE/item notes? Why should anyone else then?
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Mostly we are not a community at all.
We're a resource for people to meet, greet and find information. I see a lot of people stress that we need to somehow be a community. Why? There are a LOT of users on the site and it's been shown in countless threads that we're not a homogenous hivemind looking for the same things. Trying to force everyone to identify as a cohesive community means we'd exclude people who don't agree with what the general consensus wants and likes. The RPC isn't about that. It's here for people of all levels of immersion, RP ability and want for RP, whether that means people using the RPC to find extremely heavy-RP partners or for people who want to RP something completely non-lore compliant. Why force those groups (picked out from many examples) to have to say they're the same community when they are not?
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Many of the most prominent members of the community here, they don't want whats best for their fellow players. You can see it in the fake throw away comments that they make, you can see it in the way they conduct themselves, you can see it in the way they speak about their characters, but take little to no interest in yours
Aren't you doing exactly what you've complained about? I can only speak for myself, but when I post a welcome message to a new member, I look for their questions and usually try to provide a few answers. Sometimes that happens in PMs. Sometimes it happens in the thread. But what's "best" for a new person? That's a highly subjective question with a highly subjective answer. Some people are looking for character building help, others information, some are looking to jump right into RP before knowing anything, and others are looking to have everything done before they even look at RP.
Likewise, if I don't take interest in someone's character, I'd find it more disingenuous to try to force a connection there. Perhaps we just are compatible in our views on RP. There's nothing wrong with picking and choosing who I want to interact with. Am I going to miss out on some great people? Probably. But I'm also not complaining about a lack of contacts or RP. I have as much as a I want. If I want less, I'll pull back. If I want more, then it's on me to reach out and work on that.
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: All of that said, there are people in this community who go out of their way, to, on a weekly basis, make the community feeling known to others. They make events, they make themselves visible, but not in such a way as to boast themselves, rather in the sense that they can harbor the creative wills of all those who participate, and allow their group to prosper in inspiration and the connective force between the artist we have here.
That's awesome of the event creators! They put that extra time to help get people together. But what if that's not the RP I'm looking for? What if I have social anxiety that makes larger events difficult? What if I can't keep up with the chat scroll and feel I have no voice? What if the events are only happening at times I'm not able to login? Or even, what if I'm just not interested in the events?
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: The main thing here is: Ask yourself what sort of help you want, and what the source of that help is. Is the source of that help genuine or not, is it meant to truly help you and others, or is it a facade meant to increase a persons agenda of making themselves more popular, and then lastly ask yourself which of those you would want for you and your creative work.
Can you provide any examples of this disingenuous help? Where someone seems to only help to advance their popularity? That seems awfully judgemental of someone who normally doesn't respond to any welcome posts and very few of the question posts.
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: I will go into this further at a later time, but for now, let me just say, at it's start, RPC was different than the one you see today. I was there, I remember all of it, and sure there were members much like there are today, but none of them had power over anything, and they didn't make themselves as well known for fear of being shunned by those around who were committed to a united front or RPers, working hard to make the group that we had at the time, really agree and explore a new world together to suss out all there was to know about Eorzea. Now, we don't have that as much, now we are all apparently at war with one another over who's rp is better ( I know I know, hypocritical much?), or who can boast the biggest most ridiculous character, and all the groups and individuals are entrenched and battened down for the "long and hard" of RP community, which if you are reading this far in, there definitely is these days (in my opinion).
How's the RPC different? People have come and gone. I bet there's a lot of people who left when 1.0 was turned off that never returned for 2.0. I bet there's a BUNCH who moved onto different games or simply stopped playing FFXIV since the launch of 2.0.
How much of what you remember is objective? Can you pull statistics on how "helpful" or "nice" people were from then until now? Do you have proof? Is it possible that the moderation team then simply removed more posts than they do now? What about the community size? It's much more difficult to manage a larger, more diverse group of people than it is to keep track of a smaller, more similarly-minded one.
Where are these "war" threads? We've certainly had issues on a few particular topics, usually in regards to roleplaying as mages with soulstones, but I've yet to see anyone going "you're RP is invalid and/or wrong" due to it. The common answer I have seen is "that RP is not for me." Where are these people trying to boast ridiculous characters? And even if they are, why is that wrong? If it's fun for them, is it hurting you? Does it hurt your RP?
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Balmung, for all we intend it to be, for all we decided for ourselves to bring to it when the much more paltry number of us than we have now, decided to move to it, (I am gonna bold this to make a point obviously) is not ours. When we voted on it to be the RP server, we did not do so in a knowledge that we were taking it over, and gamers be damned if they don't RP. We are not some moral minority, we are now a wide-spread and well known part of Balmung, but as it ever was the case, we do not own it, and never will. We were meant to share it, though we ventured into it without acknowledging the opinions of those we have no conference with, see: Regular Non-RPer Gamers. But we had good intentions at the start of it.
Here's a line from our welcome section. It's also seen in our Linkshell Hall as well that the RPC aims to be server-agnostic, although it's heavily populated by Balmung players.
Quote:This website is meant to be a hub for all RPers in the world of FFXIV, regardless of server.
It's also important to know that Gilgamesh and Siren have their own websites for the RP on their servers as well. I've yet to see anyone here claim that Balmung is the -only- server someone can RP on. where has anyone ever said that RPers took over the server?
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Now with all that fresh in your mind, know this, when you refuse to play the game, the actual god honest game that FFXIV is, you are doing everyone a disservice. I know I know, once more hearken back to my above comments, and feed me the lines I gave just as I gave them, but the truth is the truth and I didn't choose it, nor is my "opinion" on the subject, merely something random and made up without factual basis. From the balking and the shouts and rants of Non-RPers on our server, it is the actual reality of it. Non-RPers basically hate us, and having discussed this with various parties both here and in game, I have to agree with some of their sentiments (the real sentiments, not the crazy internet troll ones, because I have both eyes and a brain, and can tell the difference).
Provide proof please. In the three years I've been involved with FFXIV, I have seen only a single thread between the RPC and the Offical Forums and NOTHING in game about PVE/Raid/Content-oriented players complaining about the Roleplayers. It's also completely silly to think that there's even that much of a divide. Perhaps your experiences vary, but many of the RPers I know are very focussed on progression content and clearing the game, whether for glory or glamor. The mindset that RPers don't play the game is outdated. Even on the RPC, we've had a number of threads and linkshells mades about coordinating PVE content and raids.
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: Can this be fixed? I dunno, not sure at all about that one, there will always be the forum trolls, the big-headed folk with their blind lackeys, been doing this sort of thing a long time, and never seen anything different. The world at large supports a more sociopathic sort than it ever has before, both with "educated" and "normal" folk, so it becomes a really hard balance of who to trust with certain things. Would the change come on a large scale? No I don't think so, and there would be little point in trying because of the kind of upheaval it would take, and the number of people it would leave behind, it is not worth that. BUT, I do think that the slow and steady rising voices of those who want our community to change, and be a better and more unified community, could help this, and take it to a balanced level, where not everything is one way or the other, and supports good and creative folks who want to RP, but don't want to wade through the nonsense presented to them at their entrance into the community. This idea is naturally devoid of my own opinions on the subject of what "good" or "creative" RP are, and there is a reason for that, because those are highly opinionated, and highly varying words in their individual meanings. But as a whole, the idea I have placed before you is not hinged on what these words mean to you, but rather on the subjects I have more directly addressed.
Provide some feedback on how things can be fixed. So far, you've pointed out issues to you personally, but what comes from that? An argument like "I can tell if food is bad even if I can't cook" doesn't work in collaborative effort-based activity like roleplay.
What is a more "sociopathic" person meant to refer to?
Again, what benefits do you think would come from trying to force the RPC to be a cohesive community? How can you be sure the people you are in communication with represent the site as a whole? Out of all the users, only a very small portion of people on the website are active on any consistent basis. You can see this from post count and time spent online. We have a LOT of people who do not post regularly. Perhaps they made a wiki and a welcome post and that was all they wanted to do?
(01-10-2016, 05:09 PM)Momo Wrote: To end this, those of you who know me, what sort I am, who are friendly with me, who have RPed with me, who know Momo at all (many do not, I don't RP with a huge number of people, because I like more intimate relationships in RP (coughcough, not -that- kind of intimate)), you probably know I have opinions. You probably know as well, that I am not a totally unreasonable individual, and that I do think about things before I say them, I doubt I could have written on this subject at length without discussing it and observing it for some time now, and without some passion in my truths and opinions. I, am ever, of the mind that one should RP what they want, but I am also of the mind that I will also not share your opinion or your RP should they go directly against what I find to be within the limits of reason for "good" "lore-compliant" or "creative" RP.
I don't know you. I've never RPed with you. And I have no method of verifying anything you've claimed because you've given no sources.
I can make an assumption that you're a reasonable adult, although the RPC has had cases where people have not been reasonable adults. Or mature adults. Or even adults at all! The website is rated as PG-13/low-M as stated in the rules. That's not a strict 18+ requirement.
I can tell you're passionate about the subject you've written on. But I do not agree with many of the things you have written. I've tried to point out some of the things you've written as "truth" that I believe is based on opinion. You say that you both want people to RP what they want, but then you want them to subscribe you your personal views of what's "OK" to RP. That's a contradiction.