Hello, everyone! I wanted to take some time and publically discuss a few things. Let everyone see some of the ideas that are going down onto the table, and put down their own as well. We'll be talking about a couple of major changes to the website and how things work around here. These topics are in varying stages of planning and are at most, concepts for changes. Nothing is guaranteed.
Topics in no particular order:
- IRC vs. Discord
- Information Flow & Communication
- Remnant World History
- Lexicon
- Encyclopedia
- Affiliation & Advertising
- The flow of time + Recap System
- Storyline & Freeform RP
- Changes to Character Approval
- New Name
- Staff Roster
Lots of things to talk about! I'll give a brief overview of each one, and then I am looking for comments, concerns, questions, and other related things on any or all of these things. I want to know everyone's thoughts on the matters.
IRC vs. DiscordIf you are not familiar with Discord, it is basically a chat program that combines features from IRC, Skype, and Teamspeak. It's a free program(also runs in a browser) that is feature-rich and receives fairly regular updates.
IRC is cumbersome. It has a mildly difficult barrier of entry, and that turns a lot of people away. Additionally, browser-based versions of it are sorely lacking in features. Downloadable versions exist but are often complex to operate and setup, and often request/require payment.
Discord is something that can be easy to manage for users and the server owner. It's always free(Their only paid option is basically a donation, as the features you gain are very minor and non-functional). All the important features are included on both the browser version and the downloadable version.
Also, something to explore is having certain types of threads/events in Discord chat, or something like a collaborative Google Docs file. It would be possibly very nice for threads involving very high amounts of conversation and little action. An example would be, from the original version of our site several years ago, the Initiation Ball thread. It was 28 pages long in less than a day because there were several players all posting 1 line posts because there was nothing to describe. Something like that is very spammy in a forum setting but more manageable in a chatroom. But just a possibility to consider.
Information Flow & CommunicationThis is one of the most important things on the list. I want to increase the organization and availability of information both for veterans and for newcomers. One large issue I see is that nobody really knows what is and isn't included/allowed in our setting, which is an Alternate Universe of the main show. Most people know that all canon characters do not exist, but not everyone. Nobody is certain if the Maidens exist, or if real magic exists, who the big bad guys are, etc. This can be alleviated with compendiums of knowledge that are up to date. Which brings me to the list of things I want to work on first.
The world history of our AU Remnant. For the most part, things generally line up with the show, up until episode 1, season 1. There was a big war about 80 years ago, for example. However, things already changed. We have renamed this war to the Greyed War(canonically, it is simply the Great War). We renamed it because it was referred to as a war on color, art, expression, and the like. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that things are the same, but also a little different. And this all should be cataloged in a way that is easy to determine.
Moving on, we have a Lexicon, a dictionary of terms that we use regularly on the site. However, it is outdated and also lacking a lot of things. Additionally, an encyclopedia should be made, which would provide significant details on various aspects of the world. Explain the geography of Remnant, including a list of the proper names of all the continents, including our custom content. Currently, our custom content is all disconnected from each other and the canon parts of the world. Something like this would help paint a picture that ties all the various aspects of it together, without having to sift through huge, multi-page posts describing each and every world build in extreme details that you frankly, don't need right now. The goal of this encyclopedia would be to give overviews. Most characters would know at LEAST most of the things in the encyclopedia. They would know the names of the Kingdoms and their general locations, major global landmarks such as the Sunkissed Sands(the desert surrounding Vacuo), where Bergenstahl is, etc.
Affiliation & AdvertisingThis is the final step of all of this. I want to advertise our site somehow, to help bring in new people. Currently, we get only a small amount of players joining, and because we lack player retention, our numbers never really increase. No planning has really gone into this yet, simply due to a number of things to be done beforehand.
The flow of time + Recap SystemThis is my big idea, that also ties in heavily with the next idea. We have tried several times over the course of the site to implement some kind of timeline. The creation of a World History page would be the first step to actually seeing this happen. I want time to pass, and a major story to be told as it does. There are lots of ideas for the story. It could be a unique story made up by a select few, which makes them effectively the GM/storytellers, then the players play out their threads as they progress through the story. It could also be the canon story, rewritten partially but in general following the same story arcs. A third option would be some kind of collaborative story where everyone contributes through the threads they make. Much harder, but potentially much more interesting.
The idea behind allowing this all to work would be what I am just calling the Recap System. Once a (real life)week, all participants in threads in the Storyline category(more on this later) will submit a "recap" to one person, detailing in a few short sentences, what has happened to their character and/or what happened in their threads. This person would then collect all the recaps, and combine them into a single semi-cohesive story post. This would happen every week and would paint a picture and tie threads together for the first time.
As an example, say your character's team is sparring in the Beacon Arena. Under the current system, nothing else is happening in the world right now, unless you say it is happening directly in your thread. Now, say in another thread, a bunch of bandits just blew up a chunk the Beacon Arena. With the current system, these instances simply don't happen at the same time. They can't, because neither thread knows about the other. With the recap system, the sparring thread members would see in the latest recap that hey, someone just blew up the arena in this thread. They could then talk to the other thread members, and combine their threads together, or something akin to that. Basically allow for the ideas of others to interact with yours.
Storyline & Freeform RPNow for this idea to work, the previous idea probably also must work. I am proposing this Storyline category, where all threads in the category are counted in the recap, and affect each other. The section would have stricter rules, such at posting speed(Something like twice a week, but it would be flexible) and requiring more of the character's profile, such as having all students be on a team of 4. All 4 characters would have to be active in the Storyline category. Time would progress slowly over time. At first, the effective time would be Month 1, Year 1. All threads would take place sometime during that month. As the story progresses(either through "Main Story" threads, similar to event/plot threads, or some other concept not yet realized), time would eventually pass to Month 2, Year 1. Once it does, all future threads can only begin in Month 2. However, actively running threads would still be able to be continued and finished. Additionally, at the end of each month(in game month, not like the weekly recap) there would be a super recap post. This post would explain major events in the world, and all future posts would need to take these things into account. If for example, Beacon Academy got exploded in Month 3, and it was Month 4, all threads must take that into account. You can't have a thread where you attend class at Beacon as if everything were normal. Because its exploded.
All that said, it would be unfortunately for Beacon to get exploded because a majority of the threads currently made take place there. As such, the current setup of boards are the "Freeform" boards. Time continues to not flow there, and in general, those threads to not affect the Storyline threads, and vice versa. This would still allow characters to take part in things such as spars at Beacon Academy, or initiation events, or the like. If a character that is participating in Storyline mode decides to join a sparring thread in Freeform, that thread is effectively taking place in the "past" when compared to the current timeframe of Storyline. The biggest reason for this separation is continuity. Doing threads in the past is like time travelling. If an event happens in the past, it could effectively counteract something that happened in a thread in Storyline, 1 month later. This would cause massive story issues. As such, the Freeform board would effectively be out of time, and not affecting of the main story. It may have all still happened, it just can't be easily placed on a timeline.
Changes to Character ApprovalOne thing we do all the time is to try and solve the issue of character approvals taking a long time. We've tried a whole bunch of times to change the way the system works to "Streamline" it. Frankly, the real issue is that sometimes, people just don't want to review a character. And there's not a very good solution to that.
One possibility is the idea of group approvals. Anyone allowed to approve would have access to a chatroom designed solely for working on approvals. There, you could ask questions of your fellows and collaborate on the review process together. And if you aren't sure how to proceed with a review, you can ask someone to take over/assist you. That kind of thing. Possibilities.
New NameAs you may know, our website address is RWBYFanon.com, and our forums are either called RWBYFanon, or RWBY-RPG. All of this is confusing. We are not affiliated with the website that shares our name, rwbyfanon.wikia.com, and we are not a RolePlaying Game. This has been a point of confusion for a long time, and so I am proposing a rebranding of the site to correct some of these issues. I have no suggestions as of yet, however. We want it to be memorable but not confusing.
Staff RosterI dunno why this is the last one on the list because it will be among the first things happening. I will be restructuring the website staff in order to bring things up to speed with the possible changes that will be taking place. One issue with our staff is that we've all become lazy with many of our duties, and this is to blame for some of the issues of the website. There will be a general chain of command, but the biggest change is that the staff size will likely increase, and all staff members will have a sole responsibility(or more, if they are so inclined and motivated enough. For example, one of our members, Kaliot, is in charge of managing the Teams board and the Team List. That is a singular task that can be easily managed by one person, and shouldn't be overwhelming to the point of being demotivating.
I also want to increase communication between staff members, because very little goes on currently. I want to be able to solve issues such as, for example, if Kaliot got bored doing Team things, we could find someone else to do them instead of him just forcing himself to do what he doesn't want to do.
There! I think that's everything I have so far. I would really appreciate feedback both from staff and any members! Even if you are brand new or have been around for 4 years, I wanna listen! I want to make this place awesome, and I'm motivated to work on it and see it happen! I want to build a better community than the one we already have! So let me know your thoughts and ideas on these topics. I'm open to suggestions, examples of other sites, anything! Feel free to post in this thread, or PM me if you want.