A matter of community

[Seperallis]

So I'm going to pop this here, some thoughts I've been having for a while and haven't put into words, but I don't really want it public because of the contents. You'll see why.

I'll just preface by saying I'm not pointing fingers (because most of them would be at myself), just voicing a concern I've had for a few months, at least.

Activity on the board is slowing down. Noticably. One glance around sees that maybe 50% of RP activity currently takes place in the news section...which isn't odd, since it's easy to do a quick status update there. The problem is that maybe the other 50% is done in extra fluff stuff that really can't be called so much "RP" as minimal-input simulations for the sake of curious numberphiles: sports sims, Voice of Siora, Nyland's legislature/elections (the last two of which at least need input, but actual "rp" has been sparse since the first renditions of either), etc. Every now and again, someone will make an actual vignette or post, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

Surely a large reason for this is just that our community, as a whole, is somewhat older than average (both in age of members and age of board)...2 years here as "Eternity," 4-5 years old including time as "Oracia," and a whopping...god, pretty much just about 10 years or so if you reach back to Caprecia (and some of us come from older places than that, even). Lots of people have moved on, as demonstrated with so many people busy with school and other things. Some have left, no longer interested for whatever reason. Others, like myself, simply have lost interest in the idea of "national roleplay," at least in the current NationStates-influenced format for individual nations. (I know some of you are in this last category; for my part, I'm still much happier with a different sort of rp, as embodied in Andlosheim, and some other fantasia/ old space stuff.)

But I grow concerned for the sake of the community. I want us to continue to exist as something other than a shallow husk of people doing silly simulations and competitions while once in a while posting something random about games or politics.

- - - So my question for us is: "What is our vision for the community?" - - -

We're not going to go back to the "good old days" of NS rp, not without a push for new blood...but NS itself is fading and has been for years and maybe even the forum rp/writing scene as a whole, across the entire internet (it really is a product of a bygone age, the forum age, when we weren't always connected before social media et al). So lets ask an honest question, and figure out where we're going from here If we're going to continue as an NS forum, we need to go hard into it, get back into writing dispatches, making "ambassadors" and generating new traffic and interest...and maybe even finding avenues for advertisement outside NS, to generate new blood and new interest.

For my part, I've wanted to build more upon the "community" aspect than the "rp" aspect of our forum name. Honestly, it's time for a rebrand, to use our steam group to get everyone back to spending time together, to host our own gaming things to both stay doing things together while also perhaps bringing in new blood (self-hosted servers for stuff like, say, Minecraft et al? Use of youtube and the like to record our exploits and redirect "veiwers" here? Creating community posts elsewhere and clans/guilds/whatever in games we play to bring people here in one community?) and then re-jig the forum for talking about that, coming together around that.

I don't know if I'm really putting well into words my thoughts. Probably not; things seem jumbled.

The short of it is, we need to figure out what we're doing with this community (not "forum," it's more than a "forum") and really making an actual effort to go hard for that vision, even if that means making exquisite dwarven beards in video games putting less/more emphasis on MTRP and such. Yeah, I'm really not explaining myself very well.

I don't know. Input needed.

[Seperallis]

Myself? I've had this desire to get back into more...personal rp settings. I remember my old old days way back when I first started doing rp, and it was along the same vein as what Ikarius started (several times) in Fantasia; I remember some old space rp we did in Caprecia (and medieval stuff too) similar to the format of Andlosheim, but also incorporating aspects of our current national MTRP stuff...all of that was fun and good, and stuff thats really very much more interesting to write, and someting that's been sorely neglected. This desire has made me consider leaving for a forum project my sister's been helping with that runs on a vein similar to Andlosheim.

I've also had a burning desire to start making guilds and stuff in games I play using the Eternity tag and linking back to here, but that would need its own section for such people, which we don't have. I've also learned it only really works for a game we all actually play (to give the illusion of activity, which begets more activity), which is pretty much impossible, considering that, outside CK2, at most only 3 of us are interested in the same things at the same time.

I mean, that has very little to do with any of the above, maybe. Perhaps. It's mostly a pipe dream anyway.

I also wonder if this discussion should be public. I'm placing it here just because I always have reservations about putting a "hey guys, this forum's not very active" announcement for potential new people to see.

[Ayzek]

It'd probably be better discussed in public, yeah. Ideally considerably, to offset the whole "hey guys, this forum's not very active" thing.

It is true that most of us are older and have boring things to deal with. And it is a primary reason I'm not as active as I could/should/would be. And when I do try to do things, it looks sad and forced. Which is sad. We could try more alternative/personal RPs. Not having to worry about the larger picture and getting screwed over by politics may make it easier to play.

I am fully in support of branching out into other games--spawning guilds and whatever such and linking back to here. I'd do it myself if I actually played more multiplayer games. I'm also for doing more community-y things together, but the problems are exactly as you just said: we don't tend to like the same games at the same time. Of course, there are alternatives...like silly competitions and such. Maybe we should try to play D&D together? #lol (You can go ahead and spawn Eternity guilds and stuff in your games, btw; just be sure to revere me. You might also consider coaxing people to join you?)

For the record, there is vague infrastructure in place for welcoming people from non-NS sources. It could easily be expanded and dedicated forums spawned...if we actually developed a notable presence in other games. Some time ago, I'd considered spawning Eternity in a couple browser-based games I used to play...but I don't actually feel like playing those games anymore, so. (It would probably die fast.)

To answer your question though, I imagine Eternity as a quaint little place where people who like the same odd things can deal with them together. And also worship me.

Btw, an Eternity Minecraft server isn't a bad idea. Do you wanna look into setting one up? I'm not sure how many of us have it though.

General NS recruiting should hopefully start soon. I know I've posted a recruitment TG somewhere...if I can get that done, I can throw money at NS to distribute it for me. That should add /some/ fresh meat. I don't think any of us really have the energy to play diplomat though, so that's likely as much as we'd get out of it. But it'd help.

[Seperallis]

Public move hooooooo!

Thaaaat's fine. Those are all good suggestions. I'm just looking for some way to keep some kind of activity going, and that's really the only ways I know how, because I have absolutely zero creativity.

DnD is fine.

I was really only using Minecraft as an example; anywhere is really fine (Sal's been hard into Starbound lately, and we do other stuff); it's just the easiest example, not because so many of us play it (though we could), but because it's fairly common to advertise servers and get new people, who might actually join the forum. We could do MP on other things (we often CK or EU, why not a MP game?), but the point is mainly stuff that'll get and keep people that'll hopefully join in on the community and be cool and stuff.

Anyway, yeah, I can maybe settle something. I've been looking into the possibility of re-creating Andlosheim in minecraft as just a creative side project.

But let's talk about other things.

[Sal]

Cards Against Humanity tourney. We'll find out once and for all who is queen. Or some other gender of monarch.

Jussayin.

/edit later with actual ideas if I come up with any; elaborate on "prompt-based writing contests, which are fun and normal and would help us flex our abilities in prose and would also help with writer's block hopefully"

*Edit: Right, so, writing contests.

While I personally have had no interest in writing MTRP themes over the past several months (obvious to many of you, I'm sure), that's not to say I haven't had an interest in writing period. Granted, I haven't had much time to do any kinds of writing what with the wedding and travel and work and the holiday season, but when I do get a free second or two, I do have writing ideas, and I do string some words together on occasion. And I find that the more I flex my creativity writing on one topic, the more motivated I am to write about other topics. So while I may not have any good ideas for Karjelinn, writing about something totally unrelated is a better motivator than going totally stagnant, and I'm way more likely to get motivated to write a post if I haven't gone without writing anything at all for weeks and weeks.

I think a good community-based way of approaching this could be prompt-based writing contests. Choose a few words, a picture, a sentence - whatever - and have participants write a short story about it. We could host this sort of thing regularly enough that there are several in a year, but not so many that we get burnout and don't have time to do our MTRP thingies. Maybe quarterly or so.

As far as how the contest would work and what the stories would need to be like and how judging would take place, I think that's best left to decide once we know whether or not there's even enough interest in this to support an ongoing contest. If needed, we could even scrap the "contest" implications and just have regular prompts that our members can use as exercises. Make a standing subforum out of it.

But who doesn't love absolutely crushing the competition physically, psychologically and spiritually? c:

And I'd actually love to be able to give out small prizes if we go the contest route, paycheck willing (think $10 Steam gift card, or similar). Definitely not with every contest, but maybe for the one big one at the end of the year or something. You get a few hearty ego strokes for the other ones, I ain't made of money.

Anyway, it's a thought. Fight writer's block and exercise your vocabulary and maybe Sal will give you five dolla.

[Flo]

Yeahhh no kidding. Been reaaaaally busy these last few months. Still popped on to post here and there. I've always preferred those personal stories, mostly vignettes. Just about all of my previous "roleplay" topics have truly been vignettes of sorts. I've always loved vignettes. I typically pick a general plot for something and then write little bits from different perspectives. The Galeaen war with Vienland, the thing in Maurnnia,... Tambossa was going to be something like that as well.

I actually have a semester coming up that is much more open in terms of scheduling and I may have more time to pop about. I'm willing to go to vignette world with some people. Don't really care if it's in our game world or somewhere else. It may be easier within the game world since we all already know at least something about it. I have some plans for vignette storylines myself. Something historical would be super fun I think. I still have the bit about the "discovery" of Skathia. Something about the Florinthian unification as well. Something intriguey maybe, I'm not sure.

You're not kidding about numberphiles either lol. I do SIFA for me mostly. I like the statistical things. Don't ask why. I'm a nerd.

[Flo]

I'm good playing Minecraft as well. That'd be pretty fun. I still remember Jam and Med's epic castle lol

[Seperallis]

*donates $5 to the contest pool*

I love the idea of a monthly/quarterly writing prompt/contest. It reminds me of the idea back on the EAB that spawned the Royal Storytelling Brigade. I think it could do well to have something completely different to think and write about, to get the rusty writing gears turning. This is definitely a nice thing we could easily do.

Heck, it doesn't even need to be a contest, in case people are turned off by being judged against other people; I can easily make a tiny participation ribbon that anyone who writes something can earn...because the point is for people to get their creativity going and overcome that terrible first wall of writer's block. (I mean, a contest can be a separate thing if people want; just sayin') Oh, then we could even make them display automatically-ish in our profiles or signatures or avatars, displaying them proudly...Lines, get on that.

CAH tourney isn't a bad idea. I've been floating the idea of a Hearthstone one, myself...just some things where we can all come together and have fun while being really bad at something together. I'm sure we could do that for a lot of things.

[Ayzek]

Say that after you have pretty ribbons to distribute.

Writing prompt /contests are pretty cool. I could spawn a forum immediately if you guys wanna get started on organizing that. Though I reckon you wanna poll who's interested first? (Who actually wants to organize this, btw?) It may be better to hold off on rewards until it's a little more competitive though. But I can contribute to it once it comes. Still though, they would be fun little exercises that could certainly get me to glue words together again.

Btw, Oer...I guess we won't be doing that awardy thing this year either? With the funny titles and the laughs, and the other junk. Is it bad just thinking about it made me wanna automate the process?

[Seperallis]

Btw, Oer...I guess we won't be doing that awardy thing this year either? With the funny titles and the laughs, and the other junk. Is it bad just thinking about it made me wanna automate the process?

Depends, am I actually going to get replies? Because last time I have maybe 5 people show interest, and then two replies excluding me and Sal. /salt