Mateus (and other servers) Takeover?

[ExAtomos]

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

:moogle:

 

eta: Of course this is dependent on whether y'all are interested in expanding your community.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

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!)

[Perth]

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.

[ExAtomos]

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!"

 

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.

[ExAtomos]

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.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

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.

[ExAtomos]

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?

[Unnamed Mercenary]

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 [server] LASTUPDATED" or so, and it'd make finding things pretty easy.

[xelliexell]

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!

[Nebbs]

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?

[Zoetrooper]

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.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

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.

[Ysa Ysa]

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. 

 

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 Mercenary]

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.

 

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. 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

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.

[ExAtomos]

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. 

 

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.

 

:idea: 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).

[Kylin]

100% agree with many of the points made already. Mateus, as a community, is (and has for awhile) passing up huge opportunities by neglecting this site almost entirely. When the community was first budding, I tried to push the RPC as much as possible, but just got tired of fighting a seemingly losing battle.

 

To play devil's advocate, they don't really NEED to advertise themselves much these days. Mateus is the de facto secondary NA RP server and it's pretty common knowledge. I think there's also lingering bad feelings toward the vocal minorities that constantly made "jabs" (for lack of a better word) toward Mateus/Gilgamesh/non-Balmung servers. "Jabs" in this sense would probably be best defined as simple statements that led readers to believe Balmung was superior and all other options were inferior for whatever reason. I think this perception, whether a correct one or not, is a big turnoff to some.

 

The discord thing makes no sense to me at all. Maybe I'm just old and archaic, but I fail to see how discord is more convenient than forums aside from general discussion topics. Finding a LS/FC on discord as opposed to a forum is a nightmare for a myriad of reasons. Events are easier to miss as opposed to those posted here. Character sheets/bios are much better laid out on the wiki. But eh, what can you do? I sighed a bit inwardly when I saw a Mateus RPC site sprout up recently as well, knowing full well what the end result will be with that endeavor already.

 

It would be great to see more Mateus people utilize these forums. The community there is large, even equal to Balmung's RP population. It would be nice to see that actually displayed in a more measurable way to give more credit to such claims. I honestly don't see it happening though. Accommodations have been made already, and haven't been enough. If nothing else, it'll be interesting to see the long term results of these decisions from the community...

[Ysa Ysa]

Forgive me, I have absolutely NO FORUM SKILLS, so my quote formatting will be absolutely shitty. Took me 30 minutes probably just to write this from my lack of forum skills. xDDD BBC and I were never friends. If someone could tell me how you guys quote so beautifully, I will do better in the future. xDD

 

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.

 

We actually have admins where they delete all the posts in tabs where they get overtly cluttered once a month, in order to clean old FCs, LSes, Events, etc. Really helps maintain the said clutter you mentioned. c: Nice thing too, is we have an RP making connections where FC leaders can speak to those who post interest in certain types of RP FCs they are looking for and the like. It's a nice little system, I think personally.

 

 

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.

 

 

Now, in terms of finding the discord, I can see the concern in that, but there should be a forum post somewhere here that has it...

 

Ah! Here it is:

 http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=19767

 

Quick "Mateus RP Discord" google search and you have multiple forum posts about the discord.  Now, that doesn't excuse the fact that there isn't much spotlight on our discord, considering it -is- our main source of communication outside the game, but I suppose a lot of Mateus people just assumed that people would search for the discord, or give word of mouth upon meeting new players IG. 

 

Personally for me, I try to offer out the discord link when I see players running around, and I know from personal experience a lot of people found the discord through this site in particular via the forum post I linked. When I personally got really into rp on here, I googled "Rp server ffxiv" and got Balmung. I believe now that Balmung is closed, googling the same thing will now bring up the alternatives as well, considering it is mentioned often within these forums. Now, not saying it is an excuse by any means, but I believe people on Mateus just generally like to keep things IG or through the discord, knowing that googling such topics will gladly point you as Mateus/Omega/etc. as the alternative RP servers. People also use other sites like Guilded, so there is also that you have to take into consideration as well.

 

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.

 

Oh I completely agree on that: You can't avoid people arguing on forums. The only disappointing thing, is people could be joining this forum for the first time, or looking around seeing what is going on, and can see bickering and completely go "Oh, no nevermind that." and completely skip it. 

 

But I do wanna bring up another point I forgot to mention: There are a lot of people who left Balmung for reasons other than server congestion. Some people want nothing to do with Balmung and the people altogether. I'm not one of those people personally, but I have met quite the handful of folk on Mateus that will bash Balmung and speak very poorly of the server. So I suppose that could partially be the reason why you don't see many people whom left Balmung perusing the site and trying to gain publicity to here. It's more a bitterness thing than anything, but eh. You can't win 'em all.

 

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.

 

The server tags will help immensely with RP events. But I really think it's the same thing I mentioned above: I believe they find it more convenient to post the event on discord, where people can actively respond to you in a much faster rate than forums, they know the audience they are speaking to are 100% Mateus folk, plus the formatting for discord is much easier for people whom are quite inexperienced with making really cool, flashy adverts. (I know I personally suffer from forum post crappiness, but I try!) But I don't know. I sadly can't speak for all of Mateus (though I am the only one of present speaking about it) but ironically enough, it kinda feels like me being the only one speaking up about this kinda for my Mateus fam proves the point that Mateus people aren't really... on this site much, unless they are Balmung/Mateus alternators. 

 

But definitely. I will try to get more FC leaders and such to post their events on here more, but I promise you, some sort of better formatting like those tabs would probably help more traffic from Mateus folk on here.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Now that you bring this point up concerning the frequent migrating players, that may be part of the reason why people don't post on here! I didn't realize that so many folk do switch from Balmung and Mateus. I have an alt on Balmung personally myself, but I don't really frequent her as much as I would like to. But now mentioning that, that gives me more of an excuse for people not so on the boat for this site. If it can truly help bring more exposure to RP events for people whom migrate or seeking FCs for their alts, that could definitely bring more traffic.

 

The sad thing is, it's getting people motivated to do so. I think a lot of people joined Mateus as founders of sorts, thinking that starting up a community is easy and fun and pleasant, but in reality, it really isn't: It is fun, yes, but it's moreso fun AFTER the work is put in. Personally-- it seems a lot of people didn't realize the work people put into these sorts of endeavors and go "Oh shit i'm out." A lot of friends I have seen in my lifetime on Mateus have grown and disbanded FCs because they didn't realize that it takes time and effort.

 

 

That actually answers this quote as well:

 

 

(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).

 

 

I can't speak for Omega or the other servers, or many of Mateus people, but from what I have seen, as mentioned above, I think some people kinda pulled the whole "Well, f**k you guys, I am gonna make xxx and xxx better than you ever were!" and then realized the work, and then dipped out of the effort process. I know for me, I wanted to put more effort to growing Mateus but I just don't have the time. Between juggling college, work, FC, etc. It becomes a LOT on your plate. And trust me, there are plenty of dedicated folks on Mateus, but there are a good amount too that just don't have as much time as they'd like to make it blossom as much as we'd like to.

 

ALRIGHT. Gonna move on to the next reply. ((again, once I know the quote formatting I can avoid this embarassing formatting *cough*))

 

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.

 

I believe I answered this with Unnamed's post, but i'll elaborate more. In my personal experience, it's just a quick google search away to find what server is best for rp, depending on your timezone and the like. Same with the discord. So I believe that people have the assumption that "If you want rp, you'll find it." mentality.

 

There are multiple posts on this site about the discord, I believe they're just tucked away from back when the Exodus happened. So in reality, people **should** be bumping those for more exposure, but with what I mentioned above, people are either too lazy, don't see the point, or have too much time on their hands for it. Voice chat wise, I don't know: I find it odd people would expect voice chat from a massive 1000+ community of people who mainly (if not solely) do text-based RP, but I digress: You said you have met such people, so I can understand the concern. 

 

 

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.

 

If you're asking for particular forum topics that have been created in order to bash transfers like Mateus folk and Omega folk, then I cannot provide that for you, because that was not necessarily what I meant when I said I saw hostility: Rather, it was moreso the responses people were giving within topics created concerning Mateus/Alternative RP Server, etc. Now, mind you, this hostility was back when Mateus discussion was becoming a topic; I haven't seen much if any recently. But it seemed that when people would discuss this being mentioned in various topics, it seemed that there were a few people whom wanted to try and avoid having an alternative rp server made altogether. This isn't specifically Balmung people, of course: This could be anyone on this site from any server. But maybe possibly some people felt threatened by the mention and were afraid their friends and the like would transfer away from them? I haven't a clue, but I cannot explicitly point out evidence for this, for it would take a lot of perusing through old forum topics. 

 

And of course, as I said I have nothing against Balmung and found no problems with Balmung folk speaking up about getting people to their server: It is a very fun place to rp and I had a fun time being there. I think it's moreso that people felt that others were not supportive of the change (for one reason or another) and decided to take their adverts elsewhere. Of course, this is theory and speculation: I can't speak for everyone.

 

 

OKAY. Jesus. I am sorry I wrote such a novel, but hopefully that helped answer some things! and hopefully my next reply won't be with such shit formatting lmfao.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Gonna try going through all those replies myself!

 

Forgive me, I have absolutely NO FORUM SKILLS, so my quote formatting will be absolutely shitty. Took me 30 minutes probably just to write this from my lack of forum skills. xDDD BBC and I were never friends. If someone could tell me how you guys quote so beautifully, I will do better in the future. xDD

 

Off-topic: For quote magic, it's a lot of hand-editing in the BBCode directly. I prefer using the SCEditor editor option for that since it has more buttons than the MyCode one. ...and SCEditor's Visual mode isn't to my liking unless I'm working with a list. (It also eats spoiler tags and tables because we had to code those in ourselves. The options can be found here: Edit Options BBCode looks/acts more like HTML wrappers, but I wouldn't say that Markdown, which is used by Discord is any better. (In fact, Discord isn't even making use of a complete specification and it lacks a bunch of things that other Markdown dialects offer!)

 

 

We actually have admins where they delete all the posts in tabs where they get overtly cluttered once a month, in order to clean old FCs, LSes, Events, etc. Really helps maintain the said clutter you mentioned. c: Nice thing too, is we have an RP making connections where FC leaders can speak to those who post interest in certain types of RP FCs they are looking for and the like. It's a nice little system, I think personally.

 

A long time ago, RPC only had the Linkshell Hall. And it was never cleaned outside of user request/reports. Fast forward a few staff changes and cleaning was implemented on seemingly random occurences. Then we moved to monthly cleanings, but found that for most users, this was problematic because people didn't bump their posts often enough. Then we added the FC Hall to better separate Linkshells and Free Companies based on feedback. And finally relaxed cleaning to every 60 days, which still takes users by surprise. (It tends to always be at the end of even months/start of odd months. Sometimes I miss a cycle and forget to ask other staff to do it.)

 

But when I look at Discord, even after maybe a few listings, it's gotta retrieve that from the history. Doesn't that make browsing for a listing a bit of a hassle? For Calendars/Events, Discord bots are pretty good at that, but from my own experiences when RPM was active and in the Mateus RP Hub, locating information seems less of a priority than having one of the more recent posts on the bottom of the chat. Static content wasn't really a design feature for Discord.

 

Now, in terms of finding the discord, I can see the concern in that, but there should be a forum post somewhere here that has it...

 

Ah! Here it is:

 http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=19767

 

But what if the RPC ceased to be because everyone went to insular Discords? I think it's great that many of the Mateus RPers have the link handy and can give it out, but it'd still ultimately fail to bring in new people who are browsing around.

 

Other sites like Guilded/Shivtr/Enjin are definitely a personal sticking point for me. In my time just with FFXIV, I've seen tons of them come and go, sunk money into keeping some alive, and watches as others were abandoned, resulting in a complete loss of content. They're great for say, Free Companies and planning, but I've also been asked by friends before to manually archive content on them because otherwise, their posts are gone forever. With the updated RPC, I'm hoping the LS/FC Hall replacement ("clubs") will actually tempt people away from those types of sites because they'll be able to make subforums on demand right here on the RPC! (Including the blog, calendar, and gallery modules.)

 

The server tags will help immensely with RP events. But I really think it's the same thing I mentioned above: I believe they find it more convenient to post the event on discord, where people can actively respond to you in a much faster rate than forums, they know the audience they are speaking to are 100% Mateus folk, plus the formatting for discord is much easier for people whom are quite inexperienced with making really cool, flashy adverts. (I know I personally suffer from forum post crappiness, but I try!) But I don't know. I sadly can't speak for all of Mateus (though I am the only one of present speaking about it) but ironically enough, it kinda feels like me being the only one speaking up about this kinda for my Mateus fam proves the point that Mateus people aren't really... on this site much, unless they are Balmung/Mateus alternators. 

 

But definitely. I will try to get more FC leaders and such to post their events on here more, but I promise you, some sort of better formatting like those tabs would probably help more traffic from Mateus folk on here.

 

Currently, I agree that our Calendar and Event sections could use a lot of work. We had actually thought of making the Events forum into a Hall-like entity with filters, but the work required to make all the custom code function was a bit of a nightmare. Hard to write and hard to maintain. I do think a functioning prefix system should fix that up nicely, however. Especially when we can easily add additional calendars.

 

For now, RPC's Calendar and Events are two separate things altogether. I'd definitely enourage people to make use of both to get their stuff out there! And as more Mateus users see their server's content, it'll hopefully encourage more to do the same.

 

I have seen more Mateus users being active here and there, especially in the Welcome Desk. I'm weird and just like seeing activity in general. (There used to be times where the recent threads section would be filled on the hour. A lot of times, it's by the day now. :

 

Now that you bring this point up concerning the frequent migrating players, that may be part of the reason why people don't post on here! I didn't realize that so many folk do switch from Balmung and Mateus. I have an alt on Balmung personally myself, but I don't really frequent her as much as I would like to. But now mentioning that, that gives me more of an excuse for people not so on the boat for this site. If it can truly help bring more exposure to RP events for people whom migrate or seeking FCs for their alts, that could definitely bring more traffic.

 

The sad thing is, it's getting people motivated to do so. I think a lot of people joined Mateus as founders of sorts, thinking that starting up a community is easy and fun and pleasant, but in reality, it really isn't: It is fun, yes, but it's moreso fun AFTER the work is put in. Personally-- it seems a lot of people didn't realize the work people put into these sorts of endeavors and go "Oh shit i'm out." A lot of friends I have seen in my lifetime on Mateus have grown and disbanded FCs because they didn't realize that it takes time and effort.

 

It's not always migrating, but yes, a lot of people tend to have alts on both. While others could argue otherwise, I think it's proof that we're all part of the same "RP Community" although I use that term very loosely. Even just on the RPC, there are so many users that there are no perfect agreements on everything. It's often easy to generalize an entire website, or a particular server, but I think people forget that those views all fall onto a gradient as well. Nothing's truly black and white unless it's something like "is Balmung closed?"

 

I did also notice the "founder" concept you've mentioned. It kinda fell into similar sentiments like "the Balmung exodus ruined my small server" and other things said by vocal minorities that can really hurt a growing server's perception and perspective. Building up sustainable RP encounters to the point that people can come and go without having to "work" to make RP happen is difficult. And that's partly why so many people flocked and stayed on Balmung until it was bursting at the seams. I totally agree with you here.

 

People love to start things until they realize how much work and organization it takes to keep things running. That's partly why I want Mateus and other servers to use the resources already available on the RPC! The wiki's pretty powerful with this stuff too. Like, as long as people remember to keep their categories in check, or use an infobox template that'll do it for them. They're all updated for Mateus and Omega so that people can get a full directory if they wanted.

 

I can't speak for Omega or the other servers, or many of Mateus people, but from what I have seen, as mentioned above, I think some people kinda pulled the whole "Well, f**k you guys, I am gonna make xxx and xxx better than you ever were!" and then realized the work, and then dipped out of the effort process. I know for me, I wanted to put more effort to growing Mateus but I just don't have the time. Between juggling college, work, FC, etc. It becomes a LOT on your plate. And trust me, there are plenty of dedicated folks on Mateus, but there are a good amount too that just don't have as much time as they'd like to make it blossom as much as we'd like to.

 

This is probably all of us. I joined RPC while in college when I had tons of time. Then graduated and my time adjusted, but my shifts worked out well for it. Then I moved and moved work departments and barely have the time for any of that. I've largely stopped RPing because I can't even invest hours when friends are also free because of conflicting schedules.

 

OKAY. Jesus. I am sorry I wrote such a novel, but hopefully that helped answer some things! and hopefully my next reply won't be with such shit formatting lmfao.

 

I excluded a few pieces because we're getting into pretty long post territory, but I wanted to thank you for sharing! That's what forums are for after all. I see you've recently registered, which means your user wasn't automatically included on the last RPC Test Site import, but if you're curious about how it's gonna look and function (we're still making adjustments and naturally, old content will need to be editing to make the most use of new features), I'd welcome you to test out the new site layout for feedback. And ask others to do the same! Details can be found in this announcement post. We're also looking to add some technical staff as well if you know of any tech-savvy Mateus people who might be interested in keeping sites like this one alive.

[ExAtomos]

This was brought up in a discussion (ironically on discord) I had yesterday with some LS folks... is it possible to set up server specific sub-forums (Balmung, Mateus, Omega, Other) that would have their own fc list, event list, calendar, looking for RP, greetings, etc? It could, perhaps, give a sense of community distinct from each other and more of a sense of ownership rather than having to share space with Balmung.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

This was brought up in a discussion (ironically on discord) I had yesterday with some LS folks... is it possible to set up server specific sub-forums (Balmung, Mateus, Omega, Other) that would have their own fc list, event list, calendar, looking for RP, greetings, etc? It could, perhaps, give a sense of community distinct from each other and more of a sense of ownership rather than having to share space with Balmung.

 

The FC and LS Hall forums already do filtering. Making separated ones would break that code.

 

We could return to having separate forums for Events, Making Connections, and Player Directories, but the former two are something better handled with server prefixes, unless this is to be a bandaid until the IPS site launches. The Directory forum itself is more a collection of threads per server/group idea as it is. (And a quick glance at the Directory forum shows Balmung as the least-mentioned server.)

 

While additional calendars could be made on the RPC, the calendar system isn't exactly what I'd call functioning properly. To give an example, recurring events don't show up in the upcoming events plugin and they crash IPS conversions. (As such, the calendar won't be getting imported.)

[ExAtomos]

I'm thinking of something along the lines of how Linkshell Hall has the subforum Chronicles and Roleplay Events has Chronicled Events.

 

So the layout would be:

 

Balmung (general discussion)

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Mateus

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Omega

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Other Servers

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Is something like this feasible? Or does it cause you to squint at the screen?

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I'm thinking of something along the lines of how Linkshell Hall has the subforum Chronicles and Roleplay Events has Chronicled Events.

 

So the layout would be:

 

Balmung (general discussion)

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Mateus

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Omega

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Other Servers

Events LFRP FC list LS list

 

Is something like this feasible? Or does it cause you to squint at the screen?

 

I'm still not following why the FC Hall and LS Halls need to be split into separate forums when they already filter exactly as if they were.

 

Events and Making connections could be split, but as they are, people are mostly making use of the prefixes already. (Which will eventually lead to easy one-click filters generated in IPS). Looking at both forums, there isn't a whole lot of activity in either. They both have posts 2 weks old still showing on the first page, making new content trivial to find. I could justify that change more easily if they were bustling with posts and users were having a harder time sifting through content. There's an even split on Making Connections as it is. And it's already been touched upon that Mateus users are using their discord over posting on RPC to spread event awareness. An empty forum could possibly be worse than a few entries mixed in with the rest. And when we look at the PLayer Directory, Mateus has a clear majority of the first page, but those posts go all the way down to mid-October. As such, for me personally, it doesn't seem like a split would do anything beyond break our header navigation and introduce extra empty forums, which also increasing the amount of scrolling on the site. (And people will seldom look past what they see initially.)

[Tla]

I agree with others about Discord being a bit of a forum killer nowadays. Even enjin forums kinda ran out of use because of it, and so this, except apparently for Balmung players?

Somehow people seem to find Discord more handy and convenient, I myself agree with Kylin instead:

 

The discord thing makes no sense to me at all. Maybe I'm just old and archaic, but I fail to see how discord is more convenient than forums aside from general discussion topics. Finding a LS/FC on discord as opposed to a forum is a nightmare for a myriad of reasons. Events are easier to miss as opposed to those posted here. Character sheets/bios are much better laid out on the wiki. But eh, what can you do? I sighed a bit inwardly when I saw a Mateus RPC site sprout up recently as well, knowing full well what the end result will be with that endeavor already.

 

I like structure, i like having different posts for different things, a search engine, something I can consult easily instead of having to scroll up the chat log. I like Discord as a chat, as it's meant to be, but I think outside of chatting forums are the most practical. In a forum, everything is stored, you can also find old lore discussions, in a chat everything gets lost in the void after a bit. Permanent vs instant.

 

As an Omega player I can confirm it's the same as Mateus, there's a Discord server and all goes there. But it's kinda a limbo as FC/LS info are not complete there as they are not here. A lot of them just seem to have no interest in reaching out the bigger community outside of game to recruit perhaps? The events only get posted on the Discord instead. I honestly don't even know if new players know about this forum, even though google search still leads to it, or if they just don't care about forums.

[Erah'sae]

On the other server RP Event calendars.  I've attempted to help a number of people get started on a Mataus RP Calendar.  I know at least two people are working on the infrastructure to handle the weekly posting, change tracking, etc like I have.  

 

I'd love to see a Mataus Weekly RP Event list and ones for other servers pop up.   Sadly, I don't have the time to moderate / police / etc, another set of google calendars now the time to really build out my system to handle multiple ICS sources for different discords / etc.

 

There's also still a lot of fiddly hands on time to prevent abuse that needs to be done every month, and that's with all of my old RP connections I can sent out to events I can't physically log in to confirm, etc.

 

In the end, Nefzen and I saw a need and decided to do something about it to give back.  I firmly welcome anyone else to do the same (hell, feel free to use the same formatting I do, or not, it's all good by me!)

 

I guess I should also toss out my disclaimer that I'm in now way anything other then a generic user when it comes to the RPC.   .

 

I have other thoughts but I'll throw them into their own post.

[Erah'sae]

On Discord.

 

Discord is more the IRC / Skype / other real time discussion group killer.  It's really good for what it does.  

 

It's key benefits are it's stupid-simple to set up, easy to use, easy to get other people into it, and it removes the need for paying for voice server for most groups.  It's also very likely that someone you want on your discord server is already on discord for something else so there's no "yet another product" problem.

 

It is lacking in quite a number of ways and a large scale community tool, however.

 

It lacks permanence.  

It's a pain to export content to a more permanent medium from. 

Discussions are mostly exclusive to who's on at the moment and are mostly limited to one per channel at a time.

Event tracking.  You need at least two third party tools to do this (a calendar and a relay bot)

User tracking.  (All you get, user ID and the name#1234 tag one of those requires a bot to acquire.)

 

For most small groups this isn't much of a problem.  You don't need to worry about permanence, and they're mostly TZ centric.

 

The biggest advantage to a forum like the RPC is the permanence feature and the easy of copying your stuff to a different medium.

That permanence allows people to participate in more of the discussions that happen off hour for them or even earlier in the week.  

 

On Discord (or IRC/Slack), said interesting topic has already been scrolled past and four or five other discussions may have happened since you were last online.  With discord in trafficked channels "necroposting" becomes a matter of hours instead of months on heavily trafficked discord channels.

 

That permanence thing also allows forum RP to happen between people that may not be around at the moment.  (read: RP by mail)

 

Anyway, TL;DR side of things, discord is nifty, but it's not a full solution to what a decent community needs, in  my opinion.