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Summer is officially here! Whether you prefer to spend it tucked away indoors, or bathing in the sun, or just enjoying an extra excuse to eat ice cream, have we got a fantastic event for you! The bells for Togashi High ring out, and while you may be out of class for summer, there’s stil one month left to go for stuents there. Sign up by creating a high school aged profile for your characters and enjoy some fun freeform RP!

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Rebuilding this site with stronger pillars
Topic Started: Jan 6 2016, 11:35 AM (1,470 Views)
Ken sweatshirt
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Everyone's always telling you to be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be great?

Rebuilding this site with stronger pillars
I have always been a mod of the people on this site, to my own detriment as I didn't act like a good staff member should act. Often having been criticized by it by both staff members and normal members.

But I also had the most high ranking mod position outside of admin. So I was closely connected to the royal family. Because of this I always had the most intimate knowledge of both sites and had the ability to speak witn perspective. I was outspoken and voiced my thoughts often, but I am able to admit I never did it in an effective way. They were seen as rants, because often they were rants.

I will first lay the theoretic framework for why we have come to this point. So that together, with the knowledge of the true problems behind the scenes, we can handle the disease at it’s root, instead of the symptoms.

The disease that plagued this site and is bringing it to close genocide is:

1. People don’t stick around, why? There isn’t much variety on this site

Why weren’t we able to treat this disease? It’s not because we didn’t know it existed because people listened.

It’s because of

2. A staff-culture of freeloading, why? Because of over-dependence on the head

First I am going to identify the problem, find out how this has become a problem and offer solutions. I need everyone that is still on this site to post here, even if it's just to signal it's support, though preferably with ideas, add-ons, comments or to criticize.

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Ken sweatshirt
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Everyone's always telling you to be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be great?

People don't stick around because There isn't much variety on this site.
There isn't a big storyline to look forward to. There aren’t any games you can play. Quests you can do, titles or achievements you can pursue. Interesting paths you can take. Dynamic and active events are rare and when there is one people didn’t participate. No way you actually have an impact on the world of Hunter x Hunter. Nothing to discover.

There was nothing but missions and just player threads.

So what happens?

People don't stick around.

We never had a lot of members on this site which I always thought was weird. We always had below average active members.

Everyone that has been on this site for longer than six months knows for a fact that we get a lot of members. That wasn't the problem, we got at least four character sheets on a bad week. In fact around the same time 2015 we had the most immigration to the kingdom we ever had. It was the Hunter x Hunter baby boom, I remember saying that we got a fucklot of members and we better give them something to work with so they stick around and don’t get bored.
That is weird. We get a lot of members but we always have below average active members.

Then what is the reason we have continuously have below average active members?

People don't stick around.

We found the issue. Now we need to know how to solve this issue. If we do that, the steady stream of members we have always gotten should pull us to a higher site average. Then this site will see high points they have never seen. We are capable of artificially creating a baby boom, we did through all these tricks, advertisement everything in 2015.

Now to solve this issue we first need to find out why it’s there. So the question is:

Why don't they stick around?

There isn't much variety on this site.

Now people did listen when I proposed this theory. They just didn’t notice the severity of this disease.

They didn’t know that it was able to put the community in the near-death state it was. Especially since it feels so recently since the baby boom. So I made a thread in the staff forum to brainstorm new ideas, asked a lot of members and we got plenty of ideas. We never were able to fully implement them on time, but that is something for part 2.

We didn’t notice the severity.

I stood in the center of the market, screaming my lungs out to everyone who would hear it.

"This site is going to die if we don't give members more to do"

"We have the most new members we have had in ever, but there is nothing we can get to keep them"

"This site has hit a low point and we need to do something about it or else we might not make it this time"

But I was laughed at, seen as a mad man. Because

"Low points always happen, it will rise again sooner or later. "

"This site has hit harder low points before and it has always survived. I remember when there were only three people on this site"

That was why the problem wasn't seen as serious as it should have been, and that's the reason why it was more poisonous than it could have been. It was seen as normal that the site gets low points.

But this isn't normal.

Normal sites never get low points as hard or as often as this site does. Normal sites may have low points, but they have a stronger base because people have things to do. When new people come they often stay because they have new things to do. A low point for a normal site is 30 members. A low point for ours is 3 members.


Less than 10 members on a site that are barely active isn't a low point…

.

.

.
That's a near-death experience





Now is the perfect moment, we have the most loyal people to this wonderful land here. The brightest members with the most potential out of every generation, patiently waiting until the dry spell is over.

But what are we waiting for? For new members to show up? So they can all just leave again?
No.

While we are in a dry spell and aren’t overwhelmed with new members we need to rebuild. We need to listen to the members more, we need to brainstorm, learn from other sites and find out more stuff people can do on this site. Then we need to create an efficient way to implement them.

After that we’re going to do another baby boom, looking for affiliations, giving rewards for referrals and advertisement. After this the kingdom shall prosper and this site shall never see a low point as severe again.
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Ken sweatshirt
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Everyone's always telling you to be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be great?

A staff-culture full of freeloading because of over-dependence on the head

I am about to tell you a hidden secret of the staff forum. Air all the dirty laundry out. Almost everyone, including me at first was to a certain point a freeloader to Asylum. Unintentional at first, but for most of the staff, intentionally after.

Now for everyone who has been on this site for long. Think about it.

Asylum doing 90% of the narrations, mission, bootcamp anything.

Asylum crowning a lot of people to game mod because he did 90% of the narrations.

Asylum creating every event until recently.

Asylum doing 90% of the narrations.

Asylum taking a break because he felt overwhelmed.

Asylum doing 40% of the adjustments

Asylum doing this, Asylum doing that.

Before the smallest decision was made, everyone went to Asylum.

When a mod was unsure about a character what did they say? “I’m not sure, let’s wait on Asylum”

(You know there is a problem when admins don’t like making big decisions unless Asylum gives the OK)

Why?

Because of

over-dependence on the head

First this happened unintentionally. It was a vicious circle where Asylum would bear all responsibility because he was a nice man that wanted the mods to have a good time as well, mods being a good part of the active members. So he would create events and things himself so that the mods could also participate.


This created a poisonous culture where Asylum was seen as this sites only competent person, not by the members, but by the staff themselves.

This culture I dubbed

A staff-culture full of freeloading.

If Asylum didn’t agree to it, then it wasn’t good, even if they thought it was. If Asylum thought of it, then it must be good. Asylum’s opinion overrode everything in their opinion. Everyone acted, even if they didn’t feel it that Asylum was the most competent. That they shouldn’t be doing anything behind the scenes except for characters and adjustments because they wouldn’t be able to do it as good as Asylum anyway.

But it took it’s toll on the king and he became overwhelmed, as anyone would.

Then Zack quit with that as one of the complaints,

He started become more open, as there were more members around that time so it wouldn’t ruin things for half of the active members if the mods were let in. Asylum asked people to help with systems and events.

He was tired of doing everything himself, plus if more minds helped create a product it would be better and more efficient.

Asylum himself rejected the

over-dependence on the head

But around this time it was useless. It had been a good two years too late. Asylum solved a problem, but that wasn't the problem anymore for a long time. The staff already had been brainwashed, in public they would do adjustments and narrations and everything.

Their job behind the scenes? Their role in events and systems? The internal instruction was..

Don't stand in Asylum's way

The problem was that we had

A staff-culture full of freeloading.

Where the most everyone did was help brainstorm. Yet they took no action, expecting Asylum to do everything because they felt like they wouldn't be able to do everything as good as Asylum anyway.So why even bother?

Let me ask you a question.

Why isn’t the poison system finished yet?

Because only three people worked at it, which of one went on a hiatus, and the two people left also were the two most active in other mod stuff.

When we knew about the disease that plagued this kingdom, and we brainstormed and came to many solutions. Why did the problem never get fixed?

Because Asylum was too busy with other stuff to be able to implement it yet and nobody else did it because of...

over-dependence on the head

Now the head is too busy in real life to be able to be the sole pillar that this gigantic building is using to stand on.

So now what do we do?




Now is the perfect moment.

While we have no admin to depend on and we’re in a dry spell. We need teamwork. Democracy with both the staff and the people working intertwined to rebuild this site. Everything is going to take a while if we individually work on full systems.


But for example:

We have ten people willing to work. We divide a system through 10 and everyone only has to do one tenth of a system. Which is almost nothing. This method, which I have proposed a little while informally in the staff forum and Asylum and Kain approved of but was never actuallt performed by the mods, would have sped us up with unimaginable speeds.

Now we are going to use it to speed the recovery up.


Comments to this theory? Add ons or counterpoints? Ideas to how we can handle this problem our ideas of other stuff one should be able to do on this site? Feel free to post. Staff or member, it doesn’t matter. As long as your ideas are good.

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Asylum
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Prone to Madness

I don't disagree with most of what you say.

Although I don't think this sentiment hasn't happened, I do want to make it clear that the idea that I have the infallible final word on everything is something I do not at all consider to be true myself. While I often state my opinion on matters, sometimes forcefully (for instance, when the topic PvP was being discussed and I was strongly against giving a separate reward system for PVP) and there have been topics I've been adamant on in the past, it has always been my policy to be open minded and respectful of other's viewpoints.

One of the problems I see that might play a part in this is how simply how vague our hatsu system is. Each mod can have slightly different standards for what is and what is not approvable, and one of the reasons for our lack of Archive Mods is that it's hard to get the hang of. Person A might get a hatsu that lets them freely control fire so long as they perform X condition, and then months later Person B might come along and make a more limited fire ability that requires them to perform a much more difficult Y condition. There's no clear cut guide that we can direct people to that will show them what level of conditions each rank of hatsu would be expected to have, what each rank can accomplish, and how further conditions can strengthen the hatsu. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I think if we want to rebuild the site into something that will last, we need to remove as much subjectivity from the system as we can.
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Ken sweatshirt
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Everyone's always telling you to be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be great?

I didn't mean that you forced your opinion but more than that when you gave it, everyone saw it as fact. Everyone basically thought, well if Asylum said it then it must be right.

I don't think that the vagueness of the Hatsu system has a lot with to do with why we can't keep members, though it might be a flaw.

The freeform that allows people creativity in a controlled more professional setting is the appeal of this site. What each rank can accomplished is thoroughly explained. The level of conditions also depends on the hatsu, even in a rank. It's why at least 2 mods need to approve a hatsu.
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Conjurer
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Cogito ergo doleo

I also agree with the vast majority of the points you make.

However, I subscribe to Asylum's views on our hatsu system - although its complexity and design make it one of the most appealing features of this forum, the subjectivity inherent to hatsu adjustment and approval should be eliminated or mitigated. Arguably, the status quo is unfair.

Furthermore, those concerns should be, in my opinion, also addressed in the grading system. Whereas the former seemed to be favourable to older members, the reverse happens in the latter; sheer luck was, doubtlessly, a relevant factor in both.

I mantain that clearer guidelines are the solution to both these issues. Nevertheless, Zungaken's original argument is that lack of variety leads to inactivity and what is informally known as flaking. Members, indeed do not stick around for long - the cause isn't necessarily solely lack of variety, but it certainly is the most relevant one. Encouraging multiple senior members to interact and roleplay with newer ones (and in not meet-n'-greet threads) and an abundance of narrators would probably lessen that phenomenon. A new chapter too, but, sadly, we have no control whatsoever over that. As to the variety issue, the answer is obvious: creativity; more events, site-wide arcs, dynamic systems and world, faster progression (a very necessary improvement), more narrators and narrations, a more creative environment (again, no meet-n'-greets) and more worldbuilding (in addition to roleplay in the vast and diverse world of Hunter x Hunter, not in a pastiche of some other work or unispired cardboard universe).

Hence, I propose that, henceforward, storylines should be set and plausible in the Hunter x Hunter world, with somewhat enhanced realism. Also, harshly grade meet-n'-greet threads or uncreative storylines - allow characters to have an (even if minor) impact in the world. And, to keep characters' history coherent, let members keep only some threads in their profile (while obviously mantaining the rewards of incomplete, irrelevant or ancient threads, and a link to them) - that leads to a lack of interest on the character and therefore on the site itself. How many players, I ask, have been close to complete a character's goals and ambitions, or started the intended primary storyline? None. I argue that such a measure would help reverse that trend.

Additionally, archiving every nonsensical/unused NPC, player character and even threads and better organizing the site would be a major improvement.

And what we may do to improve this forum is quite an enormous list - and endless task, but now indeed is the time to start implementing changes. Hunter examinations, starting bonses, missions, the reputation, Greed Island or Celestial Tower are systems which definitely need a revamp. And I am willing to lend a hand.
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prowlercat
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I mostrly agree with Conjurer, he made a good sum up of that i think too it could be improved.
I'm sorry to see the site so empty, it has so much potential :/

I wish i could help too, but sadly i don't have so much experience with forum rpg :(
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Ken sweatshirt
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Everyone's always telling you to be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be great?

Thank you guys for posting here, which is already a great help.

ProwlerCat -

Don't worry ProwlerCat, all you have to do is be there and roleplay and you already contribute greatly.


Conjurer-

Seniors already thread with new people a lot, and how many narrations there are depend on how many narrations are requested.

Me and Conjurer already discussed a lot in the chatango about the hatsu system. I have requested him to gather all the conditions he thought that would fit for the purpose, so that the mods can rank them on their strength.

" creativity; more events, site-wide arcs, dynamic systems and world, faster progression (a very necessary improvement), more narrators and narrations, a more creative environment (again, no meet-n'-greets) and more worldbuilding (in addition to roleplay in the vast and diverse world of Hunter x Hunter, "

Thank you for these proposals. More events is already in effect if you hadn't noticed that there have been a lot more events. Though we don't have a lot of people working on it anymore. We already spoke about faster progression in chatango.

There is nothing wrong with Meet n Greets, socializing and getting new contacts. Not everything has to be constant action. Don't worry about how they get graded though, the content is already a factor in how threads get graded. So a thread with a better storyline will get the nod.

After studying all the briefings of the environments (Royatly, you know why Con FTW) i think they are plenty creative and why would we need more worldbuilding when people don't even use the full world we have currently? We should, but it shouldn't be a priority, we have bigger things to worry about first.

More narrations depend on if the members need more narrations, then they can request it and they will get it so that also hasn't been a problem.

Site wide arcs have been tried multiple times, but not a lot of members kept posting, either new members disappeared and older members just posted incredibly late. Before we start on that we should need a stronger base.

"And, to keep characters' history coherent, let members keep only some threads in their profile (while obviously mantaining the rewards of incomplete, irrelevant or ancient threads, and a link to them) "

Incomplete and complete threads are already divided in the new profile.

"Additionally, archiving every nonsensical/unused NPC, player character and even threads and better organizing the site would be a major improvement."

I agree, but I don't think we should archive threads. This seems like something Paradox would do very well. Just his style.



Me and Westborn are both working on two seperate systems which we'll present a draft for in not too long.

In my next post I'll post a list of the ideas that have been proposed.
Edited by Ken sweatshirt, Jan 9 2016, 12:59 PM.
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Ken sweatshirt
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Everyone's always telling you to be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be great?

CHECKLIST:

Problems:
Non nen characters not being able to participate as much. Making things more accessible for them:

Quote Xhx:
"Some quick problems i've identified:
1. Lack of staff, lack of players. These are self perpetuating issues.
I haven't been less active because of any issues with site mechanics themselves. It's because of the lack of players and lack of attentive, motivated staff. Staff need to set an example for players. Staff while I was around would frequently shirk their duties quite blatantly, and outright refuse to go against the grain or toy with anything that could get any resistance. The solution here isn't more flashy systems, it's a solid staff team that ROLEPLAYS ALONGSIDE the players, and is incredibly active to facilitate events like narration. And I cannot stress this enough, this may be one of the most important parts of the list. Mods can not be reluctant to participate in their duties. If even the staff doesn't want to play on the site, why in gods name do you think players would?

2. Upward Mobility.
Even the most experienced members on this site are still considered "early game" in terms of larger sitewide goals. This would be fine, if the majority of character developement here didn't revolve around progression. Characters are made and promised development as they traverse upwards through the ranks. The problem is, it doesn't happen. Nowhere near fast enough to be appealing or give any hopes of becoming of relative strength. There need to be STRONG players for the newbies to look up to, and there needs to be a genuine system that promotes the drive for upward mobility. The current systems can be so strict to choke out abuse that they strangle anyone hopeful of moving up. I'm not saying people need to become endgame, but im saying that literally everyone on the site is in the early-mid game rut with no hope of getting out.

In terms of the system itself, I think SP should come in larger quantities, but be worth less. I also think it may be a good idea to explore the idea of seperating money and SP, being able to do separate threads for each. This would promote individuality and specialization, instead of the top players being all essentially the same in terms of stats. I could go into specifics on how the grading system could be revamped, but this is a post for generalization.

2. Too much PVE, not enough PVP.
Now I don't mean PVP as in actual player combat, I'm saying there isn't enough player interaction and there's too focus on players going on missions and facing the enviroment. Positive and consistent player interaction is vital to creating an interest as it forges both character relationships and OOC social drive to continue roleplaying. Going along with upward mobility, and the previously mentioned saga sugguestions.
ARCS WILL FORM ORGANICALLY IF YOU LET THEM.
If you give players enough upward mobility, they will become strong themselves and accomplish goals. If a player moves upwards enough, and if the social and mechanic enviroment will reward them somehow for doing so, powerful players will make daring moves that will shake up the norm. However, there needs to be some sort of drive for them to do so. Meaning, there needs to be more site wide plot. Global threats. We need a faction system as well. On a site with more players, we could afford to use more PVE, but at this point there isn't enough player interaction.

These are deep underlying issues that aren't going to be solved with even perfectly refined and reworked systems. These issues are fundamental problems and need to be worked upon by a team of passionate staff, HEAVY advertising, and a possible restructure of the very site foundation. These are not quick fixes. There are no easy answers.

So that's my opinion on the matter.

That being said, if you need someone to take a leadership role in this vital period of time for the site, I'm going to be here for you."

List of proposed ideas:


Maintenance:
-Make the Condition system clearer for members
By clearing the Conditions = Power rule up in the nen guide and adding examples of how strong conditions are by Conjurer gathering them and the mods ranking them.

-Archiving unused PC'S and NPC'S.
Speaks for itself.

- Poison System
Closest to finished of them all.

- Pet System
Very much still in brainstorming the small details phase.

-SpellingCheck the site.

-Quote Prowlercat "Ehy, i had an idea :D

Maybe we could create a new staff-like role, the Nen Guide.
The Nen Guide is not a moderator, administrator or similar, his role is to give advice about a particular aspect of Nen, so to help new player and not to understand better.
To be practical, we could have a Guide for every Hatsu Catergory, so:
-Reinforcement Guide;
-Transformation Guide;
-Materialization Guide;
-Manipulation Guide;
-Emission Guide;
-Specialization Guide;
-Basic Nen Technique Guide;
-Non-nen Technique Guide.

We put this list with every guide name on an easily readable place on the forum, they are the guys you can go to ask whenever you have doubt or similar on tha field. For example, i don't know if i can create a lightsaber with Materialization Hatsu and i ask him if that is possible.
And also, they can give advices when someone makes a new request in the forum.

In this way we gather a good core of members like you were saying before and we make easier for eveyone to develop their hatsu. And at the same time we prevent to have only 1 man stressed by overwork for everyone asking to him what to do/can be done."


Activities:
-Celestial Tower System (Being worked on RN)
Two modes, the Ranked and the normal mode. In the normal mode you can roleplay around the Celestial Tower like it's just any other place, but the fights you have above floor 200 aren't official, or the Ranked mode where all fights are narrated. After beating five opponents without losing once. If they do they have to rack up five wins again. the player can challenge and become a floormaster. If they lose once, they lose their Floormaster belt.

-Hunter Exam Revamp
Changing the Hunter Exam to make it closer to the manga in one thread, but instead of with a giant group like in the beginning of this site to a smaller group of maximum four, five people.

-Profession system
Having profession playing a bigger role. By taking Profession exclusive missions you can get specific profession bonuses and advance into your career (Like starting in a Mafia family as a Soldato, doing three Mafia missions, opening up a harder mission that if succeeds, ranks the character up to a Caporegime.)

Also getting profession exclusive benefits, like after doing this amount of mission or becoming this rank you can do a mission to get this specific treasure that's profession exclusive.


-Site Arc Missions
Quote Asylum:
"I've mentioned it before a few times, but I have a few ideas for site arcs I've been developing; but unfortunately haven't gotten to the point of making a thread about yet. For those I haven't explained it to yet, site arcs =/= events although they'd be similar. Site arcs would in fact be missions (perhaps with staff run 'sidestory' threads run before/during/after which will advance the setting or plot).

As for how they go down, the entire idea is that a higher ranked missions would be more akin to larger, more important incidents in the HxH world. Rather than simply claiming one once you're of a certain rank, upper ranked missions would be posted by staff more rarely, will typically have a bigger storyline around them, and might be promoted like events. The difference however is that these missions that are taking place will also spawn related side missions of lower rank for other people to participate in too.

The example I based this off of is the Chimera Ant incident in the series. The main focus of the arc was a single let's say B rank mission starting from the infiltration of East Goruto up to the assault on the palace, but also involved a large number of smaller scale missions of lower rank being handled by other hunters offscreen. Hunting a rogue officer might be a G-F rank mission, and a rogue squadron leader an F-E. The Ryodan's conflict Zagan's army might be a D-rank mission on its own, and also showcases a way for non-hunters to get involved (as does Ikalgo/Meleron, though I personally would probably treat them as NPCs if I were narrating that mission)."

Currently these would work best IMO.

Quicker advancement:
Achievements:
Getting a RP bonus from achievements like, becoming a floormaster, doing the Hunter Exam, beating Greed Island etc.

Quote Asylum:
"Here's some possibilities I've compiled (not all my ideas):
New Member Recruitment/Retainment Bonus: Discussed above; a new member is brought in by someone else the person who brought them in will receive rewards at certain milestones. My concern with this though is that it can be open to abuse (members counting upselling the site to new members as bringing them in) so it will definitely need to at least have a limit. Conversely, though, it will encourage older members to keep newer ones interested.

Mentorship Program:(Being worked on RN)
Probably either-or to the above. Basically older members have the opportunity to take newer ones under their wing. I don't want this to become purely 'older member's char teaches the new one nen', although I expect that to be commonplace, but perhaps it can simply be a reserved narration slot for them. In this way, an older member can create an NPC that supports the newer member in their threads, narrate missions for them, or help them through bootcamp. At certain milestones (passing the exam, passing various types of missions, hitting G-Rank, hitting F-Rank, etc), both mentor and student will receive rewards.
*Keni Notes: Westborn doing this one right now. With a few add-ons.

Worldbuilding Program: Maybe not well-suited here among ways to improve faster, but I've heard desires for more about the setting to be explained. We can do things like making a thread listing various information about the settings and organizations within it (Nen Police, the various departments of the HA, etc) including important tidbits about what's going on, as well as a section for high-ranking NPCs within these groups such as the Zodiac, Chairman, etc. I don't want to make high ranking NPCs something that just any random or new member can create, but maybe we can allow them to help with lesser things in this program with some rewards handed out for people who lend a hand.
*Keni Notes: Not sure I feel this one, will probable create an overabundance of NPC's, what do you think?

Arc Bonuses: Something I'm planning to test out with the upcoming arc which will probably get its start once I wrap up most of my current narrations. Basically, at the end of each arc (or a phase of an arc, as I plan to divide at least the major ones into multiple acts) an Arc Bonus is distributed based on the extent of each character's participation.
*Keni Notes: I love this one, it should be easy to implement as well. Just add a small description to Storylines, the Arc paragraph and it's in. It promotes people to create arcs and more creative larger storylines as well.

Thread-A-Month Challenge: The current troper event is something of a test for this, but my idea is to make a system that encourages people to actively post in a thread. The goal is that they will state their interest to start a new thread at the beginning of the month, listing out some information about it and who will participate, and if they complete it within the deadline they will receive a bonus. It would require that each participating member post daily or near it to accomplish, although I think that's a good thing. Maybe for narrators we can further give out additional slots to do missions/exam threads for members. "
Edited by Ken sweatshirt, Apr 6 2016, 12:39 PM.
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Finnelesse
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doomdoomdoomdoom

I drop by as an anon often to check on things, but was struck by the call to action from the most dedicated staff team in the universe and decided to post this up since I think the opinions of a member who doesn't stick around will be a good thing to have on the table whenever people need an extra file to refer to or even as a reminder of what needs to be done to keep a site alive.

Let's start with something personal, though how personal it is largely depends on how much your situation mirrors mine. The reason I don't stick around consists of 50% college and 15% gaming, and I'm pretty sure real life is most people's concerns and reasons for ditching the site since it's directly correlated to the level of interest in the site and also motivation to stay. But it's true that the other significant 35% was because the site does lack in things that members could engage with in terms of roleplaying their characters as opposed to generally encompassing the problem as a lack in variety. There is sufficient variety; for me, accessibility to this variety is what's lacking. More on this in the later section.

Secondly, when I was lurking and was being a diligent member here, there was never enough people for me to interact with. On a serious and honest note, the time I was active on, the site attendance was at its all-time low. The issue of retaining members has been a plague here ever since I first joined, and it influences me to feel that it's okay to have loopholes in my attendance record, which is... Not okay. A site that's brimming with life should never have members think it's okay to leave without notice. Nevertheless, that's how I've felt, and it's still worth admitting to under this formal circumstance. TL;DR , I see a lot of people leave because they lose interest and soon afterwards other people leave because their friends leave and there's nothing worth sticking around for anymore. This issue should also resolve itself once site infrastructure is fixed.

Moving on with some slightly less personal thoughts.

During the time I was here with a lone non-hunter, non-nen character, I could not RP 80% of the options that were offered on the site. Regardless, I stuck around for a while, but others who were like me (read: the people I could have had my character interact with) didn't have enough conviction to do so. Hence, I suggest making some missions and other future plans more accessible to this type of characters in addition to opening up more features already mentioned for everyone else. It may not be much, but it may help retain some members in the future. Site accessibility to all types of characters is a solid investment.

Also, since it has been stated, let me pitch in a loud 'I agree' to the ideas of revamping the Hunter Exam and making the Hatsu system more user-friendly. While I personally don't think that it's a major issue that affects my stay, it's useful to make the background info easier to absorb for everyone. Part of what encourages new members to stay is their confidence in ideas regarding their characters' abilities, and not having these turned down because of a slight misunderstanding in the basis of Hatsu is a huge help.

Sending out a mass e-mail reminder before archiving anything would be safest to do for formality's sake, especially when it's one big revamp. However, if not possible, go straight to rearranging things around to make them neater. Activity checks may save the trouble on the admins' ends in the future.

Summary:

1. As a member with a sparse attendance, I have highlighted some of the reasons why I play hooky. Feel free to hit me.

2. As a member who plays hooky but would like to see this site survive so I can come back to it whenever my schedule frees up, I have offered some suggestions and alternatives to previously mentioned cases that may provide assistance for all of you. Please hit me.
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