Proposal: "RP in Progess" live area

[FreelanceWizard]

I got a proposal from a member recently that I thought had merit, but I wanted to run it past the community as a whole to see what you all think about it.

 

The idea is an "RP in Progress" area that's something like a "live thread" in Reddit-speak. Someone who's currently RPing somewhere, or who wants to start RP somewhere by being available there right now, would make a post indicating the location and their character name. That would then let people see where to go to strike up some RP that's not in the usual hot spots. This would only be open RP; closed scenes would not be posted here.

 

Originally, the idea was to have an auto-pruning forum for this purpose, but then I figured we could actually employ other systems. So, please vote on whether you'd use such a system and what your preferred mechanism is. I'll leave this poll open for, oh, 7 days. Feel free to comment on or ask questions about the proposal below.

[Kage]

Psst. Is the poll here or some where else? There it is

 

I remember a few months ago someone made/had a thread similar to this? People posted in the thread if they were somewhere and IC, people could see they were and decide to go RP with them or not.

 

This is the idea right? Could you possibly go into more detail about them because I feel like I don't know enough on any to make an informed decision.

[Desu Nee]

Psst. Is the poll here or some where else? There it is

 

I remember a few months ago someone made/had a thread similar to this? People posted in the thread if they were somewhere and IC, people could see they were and decide to go RP with them or not.

 

This is the idea right? Could you possibly go into more detail about them because I feel like I don't know enough on any to make an informed decision.

From what I gather, you would post being in a place, and calling anyone around RPC wanting to rp to rp with you if you wanted.

[Nebbs]

Yes i would use it, if it was easy to do and it could accommodate the changes of a character moving about.

 

It may also be useful to allow for group RP posting, otherwise we get many many individual posts.

 

Then maybe a dashboard with RP hotspots (based on counts), and filter by an area.

 

You would just need Name, location, for how long

Then maybe set a forced time-out of 3hrs?

 

ofc if like me you assume everyone is IC then you can use in game lists to find them

[Warren Castille]

Could be nice. Maybe auto-prune on a 24hour basis (or shorter? 12?) so that people don't get their hopes up way late to the party.

[Kage]

Well I was curious how the system would be implemented and how the three ideas would work. Perhaps a mock up.

 

To be honest, I was just curious about the auto-pruning. I assume it's just set to erase posts/threads after a certain time limit.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I could see it working with maybe a 3-hour auto-prune. Anything more than that, and the scene could have really deviated away. (Not to mention many of the open-world events are about 3 hours, form the ones I've seen).

[FreelanceWizard]

Yeah, the auto-prune would just zap posts after some time limit (I was also thinking about 3 hours). That way, it'd always be up to date.

 

For a live stream out of the chat server, that'd just be a box on the left side (or maybe I'd bring back the forum intro page for it) that shows posts in real time. People would hop into the chat channel for it, make their short post, then hop back out, and it'd appear on the forums. It'd only display the last 10-20 posts, which would serve as the pruning, and there'd be a timestamp display.

 

For Twitter, I'd set up an account (something like @RPCInProgress) and use a bot to retweet tweets at the account. Alternatively, we might decide on a hashtag and just have something on the forum show everything posted under that hashtag. As with chat, it'd only show the last 10-20 tweets along with a timestamp.

 

For the wiki, it'd be a lot like the various Wikipedia noticeboards; I'd probably install LiquidThreads and use that to manage the page, possibly with a cron job on the server to archive old ones off periodically.

[Gegenji]

So, like Eorzean Foursquare? I could get behind that.

 

"Judge has entered the Quicksand."

[Warren Castille]

"JUDGE has entered the Quicksand."

 

 

 

[Dasair]

I voted for a few options, entirely because 'if it was there, I'd use it', but after hearing them explained, I like the auto-pruning Forum one the best.

 

If a bunch of people have things going at once, they might be bumped off pretty quickly with the chat option. And I can see people posting into a 'limited space chat' that removes posts not based on time, but based on how many others are also posting being.. an issue for some prople? Such as people also being conscious of that, and maybe forgoing posting altogether, because they don't want to bump someone else's RP notice off.

 

But those are just vague thoughts based on what I'm picturing for this; it might not be like that at all, necessarily.

[Mercer]

I think a hybrid system between chat and forum could work, if that is possible.

 

Like the chat system would be running like a ticker, updating to show new threads being made in the RP in Progress forum. That way people can see that RP is happening, while also giving people a chance to see who is RPing where and communicating exactly who/where they are meeting up.

[Kage]

I voted for the auto-pruning and the shoutbox but I have much more reservations about the shoutbox.

 

Depending on the activity it sees, the shoutbox may be too limited in the amount of posts it displays, for that reason I think the auto-pruning forum section would probably work the best out of the current options.

 

Unfortunately I really don't think twitter would be all that great since I imagine that it requires a twitter account or people to actually -use- twitter.

[Merai the Vixen]

I kinda made a thread like this with this idea....but it seemed to die

 

It was "instant rp".

[Chris Ganale]

I am all for this idea because otherwise my characters loaf around our FC house and do no progression until I get fed up with stories not progressing, think that enough time has passed, and just write it into their wikis.

 

That said, I suggest that perhaps two or more of the systems be used as a redundancy, such as the chatbox and a forum thread, so that people don't miss out. It may seem excessive but having a backup couldn't really hurt. Admittedly, though, this is from a military-experience mindset that says have a secondary for everything because just when you think you've idiot-proofed something, they send you a better idiot.

[Harmonixer]

I voted an auto-pruning system. But come to think of it, a 'ticker' of some kind could be pretty awesome and pretty helpful.

 

I admit, a fair amount of the threads and things I look at come from stuff on quick bars. A way to find fast to the point RP in progress would be really nice.

 

Is there going to be a tag system in place? In case we have an overflow. Be nice to tag things a certain way to know what to expect.

 

Things like rolling, casual, plot etc.

 

Just a thought! I don't know what will work and what won't. Eitherway I like the start of this.

[Melkire]

Auto-pruning shoutbox would be nice. Limit shouts to, say, once every three hours, then have them expire/pruned after those three hours elapse.

[Desu Nee]

I am all for this idea because otherwise my characters loaf around our FC house and do no progression until I get fed up with stories not progressing, think that enough time has passed, and just write it into their wikis.

 

That said, I suggest that perhaps two or more of the systems be used as a redundancy, such as the chatbox and a forum thread, so that people don't miss out. It may seem excessive but having a backup couldn't really hurt. Admittedly, though, this is from a military-experience mindset that says have a secondary for everything because just when you think you've idiot-proofed something, they send you a better idiot.

Never ever doubt the human capacity for idiocy.

[Nirri]

Voted for the auto-pruning system and Shoutbox as a secondary. The Auto-pruning forum does take my preference with a (3 hour system) where the posts get wiped out.

[FreelanceWizard]

If we go with an auto-pruning forum, then yes, I'll have tags so people can specify something about the RP (casual, plot, regular, serious, etc.).

 

There may be a way to generate a box on the left to show a feed from whatever source we use. I need to review the template syntax of MyBB to see how feasible that'll be.

[Aris]

I also voted for the forum and shoutbox, but having heard further prefer the forum idea.

 

Hopefully it'll help encourage people to RP in other areas.

[Kellach Woods]

Was about to propose something like this.

 

Honestly this would be very helpful for people like me, who do not have a set RP base per se.

 

Would also help with IC runs of content like what's gonna happen with that plot I wanna do.

[Cirina Qalli]

I'm more in favor of a forum than a shoutbox, simply because I feel some of the RP posts might get lost in a shoutbox. I also think that it'd be easier to maybe reply to or change your post title in a forum ( -closed- or something similar) to indicate you're no longer roleplaying, so those looking for rp aren't following dead leads. I know that'd be more work, but it'd make it easier on those trying to use the thread imho.

[FreelanceWizard]

So, just to summarize the results, it looks like people are amenable to this idea, so I'll add it to the list of things I need to get done in May. Primarily, it seems like the auto-pruning forum and a sidebar derived from it are what people would like, so I'll need to find some appropriate plugins to make that happen.

 

Thanks, as always, for the feedback! :love:

[Branson Thorne]

So, just to summarize the results, it looks like people are amenable to this idea, so I'll add it to the list of things I need to get done in May. Primarily, it seems like the auto-pruning forum and a sidebar derived from it are what people would like, so I'll need to find some appropriate plugins to make that happen.

 

Thanks, as always, for the feedback! :love:

 

Excited to see the end results!