Roleplayer's Message Board

[Arctic Phoenix]

Something to think about and mull on: many of the other browser based games Jolt acquired (Earth 2025, etc) have been shut down, along with their forums. Having once been a Utopia player, I still keep my ear to the rails when it comes to gameplay changes and such. The game sounds like it is in a downward spiral.. diminishing player base, poor coding and ultimately an unsatisfying product.

Lets keep this in mind as we move forward, and I would encourage everyone who RPs or pokes their head in to check out old friends to get on our Google Wave... it has thusfar served as an external communication hub, but one day might have to be our fallback thread builder (lest someone offers another existing forum to rendezvous at). I've mentioned all this before, but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead.
Some tidbits:
I'm compiling Skysail in a google document, which can be easily shared and accessed.
PM an email address from which I can invite you to both our Waves as well as said document(s).

[Jolly Rensha]

I've also had it on my mind what the so called 'Ninja Devs' are doing to utopia. Basically, destroying all of what Mehul worked so many years to make AND destroying what Jolt paid a lot of money for. It isn't like Mehul wasn't making anything off of it...

That being said, I see it diminishing in the future. maybe in the next year, even. I hope it doesn't, but reality is reality.

[Shari Tana]

There are other, much wider, roleplaying communities out there, but in lue of experiencing the whole 'new kid on the block' stigma, I think Wave would be a great resource. If we do change communities, we should still keep Wave around and try to join the same threads, as we are all pretty efficient co-writers. A lot of those other communites have a much wider reader base that don't participate in threads, but do find ones they enjoy reading.

[Mireldeyn]

2 things:

Thanks for the well-wishes. ^-^

And second:

...why don't I remember a mention of Google Wave before now? Can we all call me Captain Oblivious? ^_^ How can I get in on that?

[Geco]

I'm glad you're bringing this up again. Ren had made a secondary forum some time ago specifically for this reason, but it didn't last. I think we need a fall back plan, because I personally only have the ability to communicate with maybe half of the people on the boards, and we all need to know where to go should the worst happen. Google wave, if it sticks, is a viable option. I'd actually advocate for looking at setting up another forum (can we get one for free) and running it ourselves and doing it fairly quickly. I'm not sure what is going to happen with wave in the future, to be honest, I'm skeptical of some of Google's new offerings i.e. Buzz and Wave. And I like the format a forum gives you. That could be just me though.

Have to apologize and ask for some patience. I'm going through a bit of a personal crisis with my work situation. I presented an idea to my boss about starting an e-book publishing company (something Ren has been helping me research and bounce around ideas about, thanks buddy) and being a partner with my boss in the venture. He took this as I'm not interested in staying with him and liable to leave him at any moment (something that someone else just did to him 8 months ago) and because of that I've basically been temporarily fired. We had a sit down today, tried to work things out. I told him I'm more than happy to stay with him and build his company, so it's up to him now and hopefully will know by Friday at the latest, but in the meantime, or at least today, I have no will to do anything except watch the time tick by.

[Arctic Phoenix]

Geco - I'm sure it was just spawned out of miscommunication - best of luck for things resolving in your favor.

I feel like Wave is but a rendezvous point, rather than a direct alternative to a forum. I feel like that coupled with other social media (may it be merely email) will just serve to connect us outside whatever website we write on. It is with this idea I favor Shari's suggestion of joining an existing and prosperous community. That being said, I'm partial to Utopia for its intimacy and developed format. After perusing some other RP forums, I've found our long form writing style isn't necessarily the norm. The defacto third person perspective, lengthy posts and infrequent posting is relatively unique. Now, I might be mistaken and am simply ignorant of what else is out there.. I still wouldn't mind almost just crashing into another forum (if Utopia collapses), transplanting our user base and existing threads. Now's the time to find a decent site, or at least congregate on Wave.

I emphasize the latter because there are only five of us who utilize it - I'd like to see if others like Vagrant, Fizban, etc - people who visit and are fond of URP but are currently inactive.. It would be nice for them to know where to find the rest of us.

Oh and Mire, three posts above your own:

PM an email address from which I can invite you to both our Waves as well as said document(s).

:)

[SoHee]

well let's hope utopia doesn't go down the drain... but if it does it's a good idea to have other means to gather us all back again... and if we don't want to join another forum we could always create a free forum to use.. or worst case I could always build us one and host myself....

[Fizban]

< Would very much appreciate knowing where folks ended up if things went sour. Would lean more towards an already established board though. Just for potentially new people for ::insert a thread::.

john.junior.830 (AT) gmail (DoT) com

[Geco]

For joining an existing forum, check out the Roleplayer Guild (http://roleplayerguild.com/). Zran was using it to practice before he came back here. They have a simple setup and split the RP into Basic, Casual, and Advanced (which we fall into, and I even think some of the posters could rival us for length and frequency). There's also an arena, 1 on 1 roleplay, and a permanent world rp. Each of those sections has a separate devoted OOC as well.

We would probably fit right in.

[Arctic Phoenix]

It's an interesting site - same forum architecture as well, which might be considered...mildly comforting... if not for the cluttered and busy feel.
I'm sure we'd fit in, and establish ourselves well.. a part of me fears fighting off incompetence and vagrants (see, not Vagrant), though I think that is easily outweighed by the talent amongst the existing writers. Maybe it's the change I fear.
There are certainly a wealth of positive aspects to collectively joining another community. Not least among them is the idea of having a large number of new people to socialize and RP with. We are free to join other threads and write with new faces. We'd certainly bring our own presence, migrating over as a pack... hrmm..

[SoHee]

but but... I don't like changes :)

[Arctic Phoenix]

After reading through one of their "things that annoy me.." threads, I'm more hesitant. Perhaps the posts are just indicative of the lowest common denominator found amongst their ranks, but there were so many who professed a great disdain for the amount of grammatical errors, penchant for using images > language, and other various childish behavior. I'll need to explore some of their more successful stories and see what kind of people participate and/or are weeded out. In the past, often times very pedestrian players faded from long lasting stories simply because their characters lacked substance. Beyond initial combat scenes or base character development, they were unable to weave themselves into the greater plot with great effect. Usually they simply disappear from boredom... I'm curious if RPGuild has similar scenarios played out daily. From a quick glance I didn't see many threads with post counts in triple digits (in the Adv. subforum).
I'm kind of rambling...

[Jolly Rensha]

Mire - I sent you an invite months ago to Wave. lol :)

Arc - I would be willing if we all agreed to switch again. It is always hard changing gears, but we did it once before with this forum from the old one. We still have wave, which we should use to distribute email addresses of everyone here before the switch. We need to archive and switch the threads over too. I see it being a week long process if we do it smart and easy (not killing ourselves unnecessarily). I think that the increased pace of the boards there will also excite us to post more often. Might actually have a use for that 'subscribe to thread' feature. Heh. :)

The thing that bothers me is that even our lowest posting member has triple digit post numbers. It could be a very transient place, like new york, singapore, or any large city.

Here we are in out little town, where we know everyone literally by first name. Big change. We ready for it? I say as ready as we are ever going to be. I doubt Jolt would give us notice. In such case, if we are not already up on our archives, we would lose it all.

[Shari Tana]

Arc already said he'd been archiving. Besides, it wouldn't take a week, Ren. Copy and paste move at the speed of light. All the dead threads don't need to be archived. In any case, we shouldn't make any decisions unless they announce closure, and since it wasn't closed with the Earth boards were closed, I don't think we have anything to worry about.

[Arctic Phoenix]

You should have access to the Google Doc now, Shari. Geco, Ren and SoHee current should be able to see them as well.
I update the Skysail archive pretty regularly, so there isn't an issue with needing to spend time ensuring that information would be lost in the event of catastrophe.
I also agree that we shouldn't worry about migrating elsewhere unless Utopia actually comes to a conclusion. It's all hypothetical, but good to have a backup plan. At least for now we have a common point of collection outside of URP, in that of Wave.