Post by Azrael on May 27, 2016 13:18:32 GMT -5
So here I find myself on vacation with my family in Ocean City Maryland. Tis on one of these trips where I was first introduced to Magic Horizons a billion years ago and started the crazy journey that ended up here at FFU. Then, while while walking along the beach I am hit with random waves of nostalgia and end up reading over lots of ancient posts from yesteryear (holy crap I was so bad I don't even).
Though I had long thought that I was well done with the whole forum RP thing, I got some random brainstorming in out of nowhere, all involving new ways to revive/revitalize and return to the magical magic stuff. Though I imagine nothing will come of it, since I know that pretty much everyone has probably moved on and gotten super busy real lives and lost all interest in forum RPs, I figure there's no harm in writing down mah ideas. XD
I think it boiled down to two basic premises: Incentive to post and structure of characters/accounts.
Characters/Accounts:
So, some of the sites I have played on have been a bit different from what we are all accustomed to from MH/FFU/etc. We have normally had a system where each character is a separate account. That's nice in how you can then totally customize avis and sigs and all to make it super apparent who you are posting with. Unfortunately, it can be a pain swapping through accounts, forgetting accounts, or having a dozen or more accounts (whee altoholics) with maybe 25 or less posts. It also gives a bad impression if you have a disproportionately high number of accounts compared to your actual site activity level- people are more likely to see your site as "dead" if they see 500 members with the same activity level as a site with 50 members, even if both sites only truly have 50 members.
The way I have been seeing some sites do that appeals the most to me right now is an single account-based system. In it, you do your own thing with sigs and avis, posting as all of your characters from the one account. I usually see templates coding per posts to designate which character they are using. These can become a bit of a pain if the templates are super ornate, since you have to juggle a pile of copy-pasted coding, yet I have also seen templates that are little more than a name and font accompanied by small image of the character's face. Usually, you would have an application process for each new character, which I believe we had started the last time we had a brief revitalization on FFU.
Further expanding on characters, I feel we would want to somehow have a system to encourage making students, yet have a clear path to make some of the more "interesting" kinds of characters. We have tried strange tactics, such as essentially keeping quotas of certain magical creatures or having a "master" or each to pass judgment on all new applicants, though I feel that we have done no truly impartial (or even close to impartial) system for letting people make "special" characters. For this, I feel like some sort of character creation system could be created, which is only really effectively managed by an account-based system. I'm about to get more into this in the second main section of my brainstorming, but I would propose some sort of chart/guide for most of the more spectacular creatures or powers based on what amounts to "build points" almost, with the more intense of things costing more than the more mundane character options.
Incentives:
Incentives/rewards come in various forms. One of the obvious ones is house points, though that is a flimsy incentive at best. Competition does get people posting, yet at the end of the day it never really has felt super competitive when there isn't really much by way of rules set down, nothing at stake and no real reward for performing well other than someone going "hey we won" in a thread or two. I would think you could, in an account-based system, have each person pick a house to stick by with their account. Obviously, they could have as many characters on their account from whichever house they like, but their account as a whole would be colored and representative of a single house. Only prerequisite would be to have at least one accepted student character from that house attached to your account. Then, after every set amount of time (let's say every three months), we have a deadline set for the end of the "semester". House point totals are tallied, a winner is declared and everyone who is a member of the winning house gets a reward. It would also mean setting down standards for house point awards for professors/prefect/etc, rather than just leaving it to arbitrary individual interpretation of what offense deserves what reward or punishment.
A couple more thoughts: you would likely be able to switch houses if you wanted, just not completely at will. I figure that there would be some form you could fill out and post if you wanted to switch houses, then all house switching requests would be taken into account at the end of a semester, with the changes only applying for the next semester onward.
So, the main system I think I ended up writing the most about I have been writing down as "RP". In my mind that translated out to "Roleplaying Points", though the name itself is irrelevant. What matters is that if would be the main incentive-minded currency for this brainstormed attempt to reward dedication and activity. I am fairly certain you can change parameters around on proboards to only count posts over certain lengths or only those posting within certain boards, thus allowing you to set some standards and not just reward those who spam out of character boards nonstop. I mention length, though I am now and have always been a staunch believer in the idea that "length =/= content". That being said, the mofos who just spam one-liners back and forth are not the sorts you want being rewarded for putting in zero efforts. I would say, at most, to put a 100-150 word minimum on posts to be counted if such a system were implemented.
Now on to what RP would actually be used for in my crazy brainplan, which I'm you have been waiting for with baited breath since I first mentioned it five minutes ago in the characters/accounts section. I figure that all new accounts coming in with zero RP would be required to make a student. When going to make a character, you can spend that RP to do other things, like powers, creatures or maybe even status. So, it would perhaps be something along the lines of: 10 RP to make an adult witch/wizard, 50 to make a werewolf/vampire, 500 to make...I dunno, a dragon? The idea of paying for powers could be for already established characters or new ones. So, if you want to be a metamorphmagus, parseltongue, animagus, "the sight" or maybe even an elementalist it might cost varying amount of RP to start your character with said powers or have an already existing one have said power(s) "awaken".
Other than a base flow from posting in character, there would be other ways to potentially accumulate RP. The house points would be one (something scaling, like total points the winning house had divided by 10 is how much RP everyone is awarded with), perhaps advertising/refer-a-friend rewards (easier to do with the one-account thing for friend referrals), special events (giving bonuses based on participation level), mayhaps even a points claim thing for finishing threads in addition to normal points from just posting.
I mentioned starting as a student for everyone and working your way up, so that does bring up the whole "but I already have so much history with all my characters here and all. Can I just not use them now?" problems. I like the idea of giving a blanket grandfathering in of all older characters, but that seems like it might be a bit intense, yet at the same time forcing everyone to completely start over also seems a bit harsh. An idea I was mulling about with would be something somewhere in the middle. I had the idea that every character you had could contribute a lump of RP to your single account. Almost certainly not on a 1 for 1 basis, since that muggle world was a complete party for post counts. It would probably be more along the lines of like: "<10 posts = nothing, 10-50=10RP, 51-100=25RP, 101-250=50RP, 251-500=100RP, etc". Obviously, those numbers mentioned just now would prolly be tweaked a bit if it were a system people liked. It would mean that some people wouldn't be able to bring over 100% of all their alts immediately, yet would easily be able to either make a fancy new character or deck out some of their favorite old characters while working to 'unlock' the rest of them. Also, I mentioned status right along with magical creatures and powers. For this, I was thinking something along the lines of owning shops, being a professor, being mayor, etc. The sorts of things that could be bought with RP, accompanied by a suitable in-character explanation of where the special stuff came from.
In case it wasn't clear, this endeavor might also necessitate making a fresh board. I am really attached to this forum, as I'm sure anyone actually reading this and caring enough to reply does too, yet the sorts of changes I am proposing to revamp us into the modern age of roleplaying are a bit too intense for the current site, without tearing a good chunk of the history apart in the process (mostly thinking of the account thing and the necessary clearing of old accounts it might entail). I would rather see a new site made to continue the legacy while the old site stays as is for the epic nostalgia trips. XD
WHEEEEEEEEEELP, I think that is about everything I had jotted down in my little nerd notepad I keep with me for whenever random mechanics or other nerd inspiration hits me. Honestly, I don't even know if anyone else will even care to read this and kinda expect that, should they do so, their main response will be along the lines of "man, that stuff was fun when I was a kid, but I have moved on and lost interest. No thank you.", yet I still felt inclined to throw the idea out there, in case you all choose to surprise me (I even surprised myself when the nostalgia hit, since I long ago was convinced I'd prolly never be back here and actually posting anything). Hell, any responses/feedback is appreciated, even if it is just to mutter the afore mentioned "no thanks". <3
Love,
Azzy
Though I had long thought that I was well done with the whole forum RP thing, I got some random brainstorming in out of nowhere, all involving new ways to revive/revitalize and return to the magical magic stuff. Though I imagine nothing will come of it, since I know that pretty much everyone has probably moved on and gotten super busy real lives and lost all interest in forum RPs, I figure there's no harm in writing down mah ideas. XD
I think it boiled down to two basic premises: Incentive to post and structure of characters/accounts.
Characters/Accounts:
So, some of the sites I have played on have been a bit different from what we are all accustomed to from MH/FFU/etc. We have normally had a system where each character is a separate account. That's nice in how you can then totally customize avis and sigs and all to make it super apparent who you are posting with. Unfortunately, it can be a pain swapping through accounts, forgetting accounts, or having a dozen or more accounts (whee altoholics) with maybe 25 or less posts. It also gives a bad impression if you have a disproportionately high number of accounts compared to your actual site activity level- people are more likely to see your site as "dead" if they see 500 members with the same activity level as a site with 50 members, even if both sites only truly have 50 members.
The way I have been seeing some sites do that appeals the most to me right now is an single account-based system. In it, you do your own thing with sigs and avis, posting as all of your characters from the one account. I usually see templates coding per posts to designate which character they are using. These can become a bit of a pain if the templates are super ornate, since you have to juggle a pile of copy-pasted coding, yet I have also seen templates that are little more than a name and font accompanied by small image of the character's face. Usually, you would have an application process for each new character, which I believe we had started the last time we had a brief revitalization on FFU.
Further expanding on characters, I feel we would want to somehow have a system to encourage making students, yet have a clear path to make some of the more "interesting" kinds of characters. We have tried strange tactics, such as essentially keeping quotas of certain magical creatures or having a "master" or each to pass judgment on all new applicants, though I feel that we have done no truly impartial (or even close to impartial) system for letting people make "special" characters. For this, I feel like some sort of character creation system could be created, which is only really effectively managed by an account-based system. I'm about to get more into this in the second main section of my brainstorming, but I would propose some sort of chart/guide for most of the more spectacular creatures or powers based on what amounts to "build points" almost, with the more intense of things costing more than the more mundane character options.
Incentives:
Incentives/rewards come in various forms. One of the obvious ones is house points, though that is a flimsy incentive at best. Competition does get people posting, yet at the end of the day it never really has felt super competitive when there isn't really much by way of rules set down, nothing at stake and no real reward for performing well other than someone going "hey we won" in a thread or two. I would think you could, in an account-based system, have each person pick a house to stick by with their account. Obviously, they could have as many characters on their account from whichever house they like, but their account as a whole would be colored and representative of a single house. Only prerequisite would be to have at least one accepted student character from that house attached to your account. Then, after every set amount of time (let's say every three months), we have a deadline set for the end of the "semester". House point totals are tallied, a winner is declared and everyone who is a member of the winning house gets a reward. It would also mean setting down standards for house point awards for professors/prefect/etc, rather than just leaving it to arbitrary individual interpretation of what offense deserves what reward or punishment.
A couple more thoughts: you would likely be able to switch houses if you wanted, just not completely at will. I figure that there would be some form you could fill out and post if you wanted to switch houses, then all house switching requests would be taken into account at the end of a semester, with the changes only applying for the next semester onward.
So, the main system I think I ended up writing the most about I have been writing down as "RP". In my mind that translated out to "Roleplaying Points", though the name itself is irrelevant. What matters is that if would be the main incentive-minded currency for this brainstormed attempt to reward dedication and activity. I am fairly certain you can change parameters around on proboards to only count posts over certain lengths or only those posting within certain boards, thus allowing you to set some standards and not just reward those who spam out of character boards nonstop. I mention length, though I am now and have always been a staunch believer in the idea that "length =/= content". That being said, the mofos who just spam one-liners back and forth are not the sorts you want being rewarded for putting in zero efforts. I would say, at most, to put a 100-150 word minimum on posts to be counted if such a system were implemented.
Now on to what RP would actually be used for in my crazy brainplan, which I'm you have been waiting for with baited breath since I first mentioned it five minutes ago in the characters/accounts section. I figure that all new accounts coming in with zero RP would be required to make a student. When going to make a character, you can spend that RP to do other things, like powers, creatures or maybe even status. So, it would perhaps be something along the lines of: 10 RP to make an adult witch/wizard, 50 to make a werewolf/vampire, 500 to make...I dunno, a dragon? The idea of paying for powers could be for already established characters or new ones. So, if you want to be a metamorphmagus, parseltongue, animagus, "the sight" or maybe even an elementalist it might cost varying amount of RP to start your character with said powers or have an already existing one have said power(s) "awaken".
Other than a base flow from posting in character, there would be other ways to potentially accumulate RP. The house points would be one (something scaling, like total points the winning house had divided by 10 is how much RP everyone is awarded with), perhaps advertising/refer-a-friend rewards (easier to do with the one-account thing for friend referrals), special events (giving bonuses based on participation level), mayhaps even a points claim thing for finishing threads in addition to normal points from just posting.
I mentioned starting as a student for everyone and working your way up, so that does bring up the whole "but I already have so much history with all my characters here and all. Can I just not use them now?" problems. I like the idea of giving a blanket grandfathering in of all older characters, but that seems like it might be a bit intense, yet at the same time forcing everyone to completely start over also seems a bit harsh. An idea I was mulling about with would be something somewhere in the middle. I had the idea that every character you had could contribute a lump of RP to your single account. Almost certainly not on a 1 for 1 basis, since that muggle world was a complete party for post counts. It would probably be more along the lines of like: "<10 posts = nothing, 10-50=10RP, 51-100=25RP, 101-250=50RP, 251-500=100RP, etc". Obviously, those numbers mentioned just now would prolly be tweaked a bit if it were a system people liked. It would mean that some people wouldn't be able to bring over 100% of all their alts immediately, yet would easily be able to either make a fancy new character or deck out some of their favorite old characters while working to 'unlock' the rest of them. Also, I mentioned status right along with magical creatures and powers. For this, I was thinking something along the lines of owning shops, being a professor, being mayor, etc. The sorts of things that could be bought with RP, accompanied by a suitable in-character explanation of where the special stuff came from.
In case it wasn't clear, this endeavor might also necessitate making a fresh board. I am really attached to this forum, as I'm sure anyone actually reading this and caring enough to reply does too, yet the sorts of changes I am proposing to revamp us into the modern age of roleplaying are a bit too intense for the current site, without tearing a good chunk of the history apart in the process (mostly thinking of the account thing and the necessary clearing of old accounts it might entail). I would rather see a new site made to continue the legacy while the old site stays as is for the epic nostalgia trips. XD
WHEEEEEEEEEELP, I think that is about everything I had jotted down in my little nerd notepad I keep with me for whenever random mechanics or other nerd inspiration hits me. Honestly, I don't even know if anyone else will even care to read this and kinda expect that, should they do so, their main response will be along the lines of "man, that stuff was fun when I was a kid, but I have moved on and lost interest. No thank you.", yet I still felt inclined to throw the idea out there, in case you all choose to surprise me (I even surprised myself when the nostalgia hit, since I long ago was convinced I'd prolly never be back here and actually posting anything). Hell, any responses/feedback is appreciated, even if it is just to mutter the afore mentioned "no thanks". <3
Love,
Azzy