RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Library unlocked. I strongly urge everyone to read the announcement there before posting their profile, if you so choose to post one.

We're very likely to open up to the public in another 1-2 weeks. Donations for getting rid of the ads before then would be appreciated

If I could pay my mortgage, sir, I would most definitely help. As it is, if you would like my web design skills for the website instead, they're yours.

The website is a tad tricky for me because of the limitations on themes and whatnot. Custom themes can be imported but I think you need to have html knowledge for that (which I don't). I originally wanted to make it more of a flash site but got frustrated trying to figure out how to edit it >.>

In regards to these forums: There are various proposed new sections that I wanted to bring up. I kinda want to name these sections in a way that keeps with the whole headquarters theme (IE: names of rooms and whatnot). So first, let me know if you -want- these sections. And if you have name suggestions, please post those too.

1. OOC profiles: This was brought up by Tsumi and would basically be similar to the Library section, except the profiles would be based on the player. It would basically state all the things they were willing to do and not willing to do in the RP realm, such as whether or not a particular RPer was willing to RP a fight in game and to what extent. I have no idea of what to name the section so ideas are needed!

2. Guild rules: This was also brought up in the same discussion thread as the OOC profiles. This section would be a centralized location for guilds to post their individual rules, or at least I think that was the proposal. Further clarification would be appreciated along with a name for the section.

3. Lore section: This is something I've contemplated adding and haven't mentioned yet. It would basically be a place to post official info from SE such as city info, historical info, and other lore related to Hydaelyn (excluding "spoilers"). I was thinking of calling it the "Resource Room."

4. Storyline discussion: This would be a place to discuss characters, stories, and profiles in an OOC manner. Basically just a place to make comments about certain characters or stories. Name also pending.

5. Journals: This would be as it sounds -- IC journals for characters to keep. There's probably no point in adding it at this point in time but I just wanted to let everyone know it was being considered for the future.

Any other suggestions are welcome. Just remember, we don't want to go -too- overboard and end up having a gazillion sections xD.

This fits in nicely with the Journals section, could just call it a Character Fiction section or Journals/Stories, but I've always been fond of writing stories about my characters' downtime thoughts and exploits, or simply what's going on out of sight during plot arcs. I like the idea of a character journal but most of the characters I RP simply wouldn't keep one.

I have extensive HTML knowledge. If you can draw/explain a layout with pictures and things that you need, I can make the outline and show you where you can put stuff so you can update and change things on your own without having to worry about the codes and what-have-you.

Flash is retarded anyway. I could never figure that thing out. XD Traydon can vouch for me and my web-siteyness. Rescue's was just a very very simple page so people can understand things like BAM!

I can help out as needed as well with regards to the technical aspects of forums. I have a pretty extensive background with HTML, JavaScript, graphic design, and in particular PHP. I know Crystalline's forums were always pretty much boilerplate due to busy schedule and wanting to spend what free time I did have playing the game, but I'm finding I have a lot more free time these days, and time available while I'm at work between incidents for such endeavors (admittedly a large part of funding the relic was done from crafting/farming between incidents at work XD ) Technical expertise aside, I'll make a donation for the removal of the ads and domain and such when my check is deposited next Friday.

Castiel Wrote:1. OOC profiles: This was brought up by Tsumi and would basically be similar to the Library section, except the profiles would be based on the player. It would basically state all the things they were willing to do and not willing to do in the RP realm, such as whether or not a particular RPer was willing to RP a fight in game and to what extent. I have no idea of what to name the section so ideas are needed!

It wouldn't really keep with your 'room name' scheme, but an appropriate name for a forum such as this could be: 'RPer Preferences', or just 'Player Preferences' and it would probably be a good idea to use the example that Tsumi had posted, or otherwise draft up a template of items this could contain.

Castiel Wrote:2. Guild rules: This was also brought up in the same discussion thread as the OOC profiles. This section would be a centralized location for guilds to post their individual rules, or at least I think that was the proposal. Further clarification would be appreciated along with a name for the section.

'Charter Room'? I don't know. What I was proposing was that each guild would have a thread in this forum and would post its rules there. While each guild would probably have its own website with the rules publicly displayed for all, this would give us all a centralized location to refer to if some RP with another group or a member of another group began. This, in conjunction with the Player Preferences threads would curb the need for a lot of communication to figure things out. (i.e. "We're having a tavern night and everyone's invited. Just take a moment to refer to GuildX's policies on the RPC before attending please.") The only drawback to this is that any changes made to a guild's rules/policies/guidelines would need to be posted in duplicate. I don't think that's too bad though.

Castiel Wrote:3. Lore section: This is something I've contemplated adding and haven't mentioned yet. It would basically be a place to post official info from SE such as city info, historical info, and other lore related to Hydaelyn (excluding "spoilers"). I was thinking of calling it the "Resource Room."

This one might be a little tricky to implement, but what you might think of doing instead is 'stickying' a thread somewhere that contains links to this information - because there is sure to be a ton of other resources out there for this (FFXI comparison being the "history of Vana'diel" sites).

Castiel Wrote:4. Storyline discussion: This would be a place to discuss characters, stories, and profiles in an OOC manner. Basically just a place to make comments about certain characters or stories. Name also pending.

A good idea, but might result in some conflict, particularly if peoples' guilds have opposing viewpoints on how they RP and stuff. I can foresee too easily a potential for a lot of cross-guild mudslinging and flame wars with these. Maybe with some very specific rules about how guild policies are different and to keep opinions and discussion respectful. Are you planning on keeping an area of these forums for story posts themselves, like for people to copy/paste from their own guild forums if they choose to share with the larger community? Or do you think it will be assumed that their forum systems will allow for public viewing of said story posts. I realize not all RP happens through posts, but a lot of times the background stuff does, and may be useful for everyone to know (so long as nobody metas or anything).

Castiel Wrote:5. Journals: This would be as it sounds -- IC journals for characters to keep. There's probably no point in adding it at this point in time but I just wanted to let everyone know it was being considered for the future.

I like player journals, but 99.9% of these are going to be a character's own private thoughts. As above, if rules are in place about metagaming than I'm okay with this. I will use an example for this one. I would be upset if I had Kes write a journal entry describing, say, an argument she'd had with her father, and then the following day someone approached her and asked if everything had been smoothed over from the fight yesterday. I would however be okay with this if I had actually RPed a reaction over the pearl, or even if I had described in the journal entry very specifically how she'd stormed out of her father's house cursing a storm. "I happened to be in TownX yesterday and saw you storming through the streets muttering to yourself. Is everything ok?" But only if somewhere in the journal she had indicated that she was seething as she walked back home. Sorry for the longwindedness of this one. I'm sure most people know about metagaming, but just wanted to be absolutely clear. Also keeping everyone's private journals in one room seems a little odd, so you might want to forego the naming method on this and just leave it at 'Character Journals'.

These are just my thoughts. Please take them for what they're worth or expand upon them as you will.

As you likely noticed by now, I've modified the forums. I set up a separate "guild" category (name to be changed to whatever SE calls guilds). I also added the Barracks section for organized rules for each group. The Assembly Room was moved to the general category and I slightly changed the order of the RP sections. OOC profile section was also added. For now, I called it the "Directory," though that seems a bit bland >.>. Maybe Citizen's Directory?

Kes Wrote:This one might be a little tricky to implement, but what you might think of doing instead is 'stickying' a thread somewhere that contains links to this information - because there is sure to be a ton of other resources out there for this (FFXI comparison being the "history of Vana'diel" sites).

This crossed my mind as well. But I figured maybe -we- could become the new "history of Vana'diel" site for FF14. That way, Rpers and non-RPers alike would be coming to us for the info and thus increase traffic quite a bit. It only makes sense that the RP community would organize and maintain all of the lore for the world. It may also help in getting SE's attention a tad bit more since my hope is that we eventually can act as a liaison to them. Perhaps that's wishful thinking though since we all know that SE isn't known for their open communication >.>

Kes Wrote:A good idea, but might result in some conflict, particularly if peoples' guilds have opposing viewpoints on how they RP and stuff. I can foresee too easily a potential for a lot of cross-guild mudslinging and flame wars with these. Maybe with some very specific rules about how guild policies are different and to keep opinions and discussion respectful. Are you planning on keeping an area of these forums for story posts themselves, like for people to copy/paste from their own guild forums if they choose to share with the larger community? Or do you think it will be assumed that their forum systems will allow for public viewing of said story posts. I realize not all RP happens through posts, but a lot of times the background stuff does, and may be useful for everyone to know (so long as nobody metas or anything).

That's a fairly valid concern. It's one thing to have RP story discussions on a guild/linkshell forum since everyone there has pretty similar styles. But it's another to put it somewhere as diverse as here. Anyone else have any opinions on this?

Journals will be added as well, but much later (like after the game launches probably).

Edit: Since the Roleplay category will likely have a lot of sections under it, I'll likely divide it up into two different categories eventually: Roleplay (Stories, events, interactive RP) and Resources (Library, Directory, possibly Resource Room).

On a final semi-related note, I've been promising people that we would be going public in no later than 2 weeks. We're nowhere near the originally desired 80+ registered users and it doesn't look like we'll reach that goal. My new tactic was to abandon the quotas for fear that people were being put off by them and instead focusing on getting people to want to register. I did this by opening up certain sections prematurely, starting the first preliminary discussion, and now giving the forum a face lift. But it looks like we'll just have to settle for ~60 coalition members at launch.

Quote:That's a fairly valid concern. It's one thing to have RP story discussions on a guild/linkshell forum since everyone there has pretty similar styles. But it's another to put it somewhere as diverse as here. Anyone else have any opinions on this?

Yeah. The thing is, you don't have to post a discussion about your story if you're not comfortable. People that want wider variety of feedback should have the option to get that. :cheers: It's just an option.

This has less to do with the forums and more with the main site but I'll post it here anyway. I just wanted everyone to be aware that the current main page is mostly going to serve as a placeholder for the next few months. I realize it's extremely simplistic and not that impressive for a group trying to accomplish the things we're trying to accomplish. This will be noted in the public announcement as well. Anyway, sometime after we've officially gone public I'll probably start approaching some web experts around here to create a much more sophisticated and impressive main page that uses both html and flash (if possible). I'm hoping we'll end up with a really awesome looking main page before the game actually launches. But I did want everyone to know that I've been aware of the main site's unimpressiveness from the moment I created it :p . It will evolve into -much- more so long as I can communicate my various visions to our web experts.

I removed the forum ads today. You may notice a slightly smoother loading cycle as as result. Plus it just looks better as well. They're currently removed for 6 months. A special thanks to Kes and Mason for their generous contributions to help make this possible. We technically have enough for another 6 months but I'm holding off on that for now due to how the credit system works (we save money by choosing every six months as opposed to any other option).

I'll remove the ads on the main site tomorrow.

Oh, and we also made the 70 RPC member goal just in the nick of time

Castiel Wrote:This crossed my mind as well. But I figured maybe -we- could become the new "history of Vana'diel" site for FF14. That way, Rpers and non-RPers alike would be coming to us for the info and thus increase traffic quite a bit. It only makes sense that the RP community would organize and maintain all of the lore for the world. It may also help in getting SE's attention a tad bit more since my hope is that we eventually can act as a liaison to them. Perhaps that's wishful thinking though since we all know that SE isn't known for their open communication >.>

I think a lore section with links and such would be easier to maintain. Have a person chosen to handle it and keep it up that's an admin.

Kes Wrote:A good idea, but might result in some conflict, particularly if peoples' guilds have opposing viewpoints on how they RP and stuff. I can foresee too easily a potential for a lot of cross-guild mudslinging and flame wars with these. Maybe with some very specific rules about how guild policies are different and to keep opinions and discussion respectful. Are you planning on keeping an area of these forums for story posts themselves, like for people to copy/paste from their own guild forums if they choose to share with the larger community? Or do you think it will be assumed that their forum systems will allow for public viewing of said story posts. I realize not all RP happens through posts, but a lot of times the background stuff does, and may be useful for everyone to know (so long as nobody metas or anything).

First off even if you don't post a section for them topics will eventually be posted by people discussing RP styles they like and don't like and some will become heated. You're living in a fantasy world if you think you can prevent this. I think a section with a clear statement by the admin that if threads get into "heated" arguments they will be locked will give you control. It worked on Starsider.

Meta-gaming is also not 100% preventable and if it happens an LS should deal with it. Not having a story section would be stupid over meta-gaming fears since most people will write them and be made to feel by the community its wrong and have to share them on some other forum or something where there fellow RPers aren't there to see them.

Quote:That's a fairly valid concern. It's one thing to have RP story discussions on a guild/linkshell forum since everyone there has pretty similar styles. But it's another to put it somewhere as diverse as here. Anyone else have any opinions on this?

Journals will be added as well, but much later (like after the game launches probably).

Edit: Since the Roleplay category will likely have a lot of sections under it, I'll likely divide it up into two different categories eventually: Roleplay (Stories, events, interactive RP) and Resources (Library, Directory, possibly Resource Room).

Every LS I was ever in posted journals and there was never-ever a fight over them. Nor was this ever-ever-ever a problem in Starsider in the journal sections. This was argueably the most popular section. People who never rped with a character would read and keep up on the journals. It was great fun and you'd be missing out on a lot because of these, in my opinion, silly fears.

If you are parnoid about meta-gaming you personally don't have to post a journal or a story. Don't force others not to because of your own fears.

I think I was in a nostalgic mode and remembering all of the nonsense we had to deal with over the years when I wrote that post two weeks ago.

Regarding the discussion of storyline content, I agree that it's probably going to happen no matter what, and forum etiquette or even a set of rules or policies in place to keep them from getting too heated would probably be a very logical idea that could save a lot of grief in the long run. Also Mason makes a really good point in that people who want feedback can post as such. Would that make it inappropriate to discuss someone else's RP? Something to think about. I know I've offended someone in the past for writing a post which had spurned a discussion about a story post someone had made. Or do you put yourself on the chopping block the moment you post a story thread?

Again speaking only to what I know, in Crystalline we adopted a policy where the author of such a post could opt to create such a feedback thread. Most of the time they would just get some typographical/grammatical suggestions or an 'attaboy' but once in awhile it would spurn some interesting conversations about character behavior and such. While a lot of people were open to criticism and expressed as such, people either found nothing to criticize or were hesitant to do so.

I suspect that in a larger group such as the RPC with a more diverse crowd, and much more differing opinions, the reservations for criticism will be more diminished. I'm more concerned about the "loose reins RPers" with the blue skin and the ability to fly. Criticism of such things may not be perceived so much as insulting to the individual author so much as to the community which supports those rules. I can foresee groups of people getting upset that someone from a more rigid group is insulting their ways.

The 'RP Critic', while not a character type, has definitely become a cliche personality type I've run across on a number of occasions. These instigators actually RP very little (possibly out of fear of being criticized by others) and spend most of their time looking down on others' actions and words and casting insults around.

On a completely different vein, will there be any rules in place about the content? While some LS's may not support graphical scenes depicting a violent rape, for example - others might. On some boards this might be okay, but some people may have a problem with this sort of content being copied over to the RPC forums. While I don't like censorship, perhaps some sort of warning on both the subject line (i.e. - [EXPLICIT]) and in red text at the top of the post itself may be warranted in such instances, unless the RPC plans on taking specific measures to limit such content. While some RPers might be put off by these limitations, their other forums would likely allow it, and such posts might not reflect well on the RPC for new and prospective members coming to visit and experience what we're about. Just something else to think about.

Finally in regards to meta-gaming, it's not so much that I'm afraid about it - and I apologize if fear was the emotion I conveyed. I think concern was what I was aiming for. Most RPers have the iota of common sense to avoid acting in such a way. I just didn't think such a policy should be 'inferred', and something should be written up in forum guidelines. There are likely to be novice RPers who do not know about meta-gaming and this would be to their benefit, as well as anyone that they RP with. That is all.

Quote:Or do you put yourself on the chopping block the moment you post a story thread?

No, but the moment you create a discussion thread and say you are open to criticism... yes, yes you do. :twisted: Also even if I am on the side that would want criticism. it wont mean I'll take it all seriously. For example I know that a certain person/guild has a style of RP which I personally don't like, even if they give me a harsh critique, I might just brush it off if I feel like their points are based on their preference of RP style. Basically what I am getting at is, even if you do open up a thread for discussion it doesn't mean you NEED to take all of the criticism posted on it as valid.

Quote:On a completely different vein, will there be any rules in place about the content? While some LS's may not support graphical scenes depicting a violent rape, for example - others might. On some boards this might be okay, but some people may have a problem with this sort of content being copied over to the RPC forums. While I don't like censorship, perhaps some sort of warning on both the subject line (i.e. - [EXPLICIT]) and in red text at the top of the post itself may be warranted in such instances, unless the RPC plans on taking specific measures to limit such content. While some RPers might be put off by these limitations, their other forums would likely allow it, and such posts might not reflect well on the RPC for new and prospective members coming to visit and experience what we're about. Just something else to think about.

I feel strongly about this issue as well. Just as with the discussion/criticism I advise for the hands-off approach. Make all stories legit to post, but require they be marked appropriately. What Kes suggests is a fine way to do it. Perhaps we can also have stories section split into PG-13 and R rated sub-categories on the forum. That way a person really has a choice to click on the forum to view the explicit stories or not. Here's to self control. I assume if one doesn't want to look at gory stories they can steer clear of clicking on obviously labeled threads.

On other forums I've been to, people put tags on their thread titles. A rating system using tags like [G], [PG], [R], etc could be used to indicate levels of explicitness and violence. Authors who don't mind discussion on their stories could use something like [DIS], while those who don't could use [CDIS]. A poster could use the same sort of system to show whether or not their thread was open for participation to everyone, IC or OOC knowledge, etc. I think, or at least hope, our members will be capable of self-moderation, and don't think there would be much of a problem with being open to all sorts of content as long as everyone makes it clear beforehand what level of graphicness they're comfortable with.

Kes Wrote:I think I was in a nostalgic mode and remembering all of the nonsense we had to deal with over the years when I wrote that post two weeks ago.

Regarding the discussion of storyline content, I agree that it's probably going to happen no matter what, and forum etiquette or even a set of rules or policies in place to keep them from getting too heated would probably be a very logical idea that could save a lot of grief in the long run. Also Mason makes a really good point in that people who want feedback can post as such. Would that make it inappropriate to discuss someone else's RP? Something to think about. I know I've offended someone in the past for writing a post which had spurned a discussion about a story post someone had made. Or do you put yourself on the chopping block the moment you post a story thread?

Like Mason said if you create a thread to discuss your story you are inviting both compliments and critcism and have no right to be angry if someone critiques your work. In real-life you take criticism with a grain of salt so its perfectly possible to on this or any other board.

Kes Wrote:Again speaking only to what I know, in Crystalline we adopted a policy where the author of such a post could opt to create such a feedback thread. Most of the time they would just get some typographical/grammatical suggestions or an 'attaboy' but once in awhile it would spurn some interesting conversations about character behavior and such. While a lot of people were open to criticism and expressed as such, people either found nothing to criticize or were hesitant to do so.

I suspect that in a larger group such as the RPC with a more diverse crowd, and much more differing opinions, the reservations for criticism will be more diminished. I'm more concerned about the "loose reins RPers" with the blue skin and the ability to fly. Criticism of such things may not be perceived so much as insulting to the individual author so much as to the community which supports those rules. I can foresee groups of people getting upset that someone from a more rigid group is insulting their ways.

If a special thread is made to discuss stories and journals the way Starsider did you can have a topic sticked at the top saying that only authors are allowed to open discussions of their work. Remind them in the post they are inviting crticism and compliments on their work and to talk it with a grain of salt. Also you could post a reminder of the RPC policies against harrassment and that if criticism developes into a flame war or harassment it will be locked.

Kes Wrote:The 'RP Critic', while not a character type, has definitely become a cliche personality type I've run across on a number of occasions. These instigators actually RP very little (possibly out of fear of being criticized by others) and spend most of their time looking down on others' actions and words and casting insults around.

Again most people like this slit their own throat eventually. If they broke RPC behavior rules then they'd be stopped but if all they did is criticise most people will ignore them.

Kes Wrote:On a completely different vein, will there be any rules in place about the content? While some LS's may not support graphical scenes depicting a violent rape, for example - others might. On some boards this might be okay, but some people may have a problem with this sort of content being copied over to the RPC forums. While I don't like censorship, perhaps some sort of warning on both the subject line (i.e. - [EXPLICIT]) and in red text at the top of the post itself may be warranted in such instances, unless the RPC plans on taking specific measures to limit such content. While some RPers might be put off by these limitations, their other forums would likely allow it, and such posts might not reflect well on the RPC for new and prospective members coming to visit and experience what we're about. Just something else to think about.

Just make a post in the begining that they rate the story in their topic line via movie or video game guidelines. If I don't want to read explicit content and see: Blood and Sex (Rated R/M) I won't read the topic and get offended.

Kes Wrote:Finally in regards to meta-gaming, it's not so much that I'm afraid about it - and I apologize if fear was the emotion I conveyed. I think concern was what I was aiming for. Most RPers have the iota of common sense to avoid acting in such a way. I just didn't think such a policy should be 'inferred', and something should be written up in forum guidelines. There are likely to be novice RPers who do not know about meta-gaming and this would be to their benefit, as well as anyone that they RP with. That is all.

Again just post a warning against meta-gaming in a sticky in that thread and suggest people post whether or not they are willing for content in this to become public knowledge. We routinely did that on starsider. Like I'd write :

NOTE: THIS IS JUST A REMINDER THAT YOU WOULD NEED MY PERMISSION TO KNOW OR USE ANY OF THIS MATERIAL DURING RP. MESSAGE ME IF YOU WANT TO DISCUSS THIS POSSIBILITY.