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Post by nightblood on Mar 19, 2010 15:00:55 GMT -5
Here's some questions we REALLY need answers to. You can reply to them as you and Duke sort things out story-wise, but forum-related stuffs would help us out in getting ready for another influx of people should the comic actually take off again. Questions- Are we going to restart/reboot everything?!
I, for one, am in favor of this, as I've killed all my characters anyway. It'll give us a chance to clean out pack rosters and archive/DELETE old profiles and threads for good. (It would actually be a good idea to delete what's in the archives already. Would save room.)
- Are there any comic characters you've done away with?
Again, for archive purposes and I would like to conduct a comic character activity check fairly soon.
- Please update us on any character or setting changes and tell us mods what all you want us to do!
Because, you know, we need to know this stuff.
More will be added as I think of them. Other mods- feel free to edit this post and add too the list. Ideas- Activity Check
Because I'm tired of just waiting for months to delete someone for not being online for a certain amount of time. MASS DELETION. PLEASE.
- Profile Template Revamp
Because I'm bored and I feel like doing it.
- No More Character-Specific Accounts
Cuz it's just too messy, keeping track of all the passwords so the next player can access the account...
I'm gunna post my suggestions from the mod board below so the little people can see them. - A CHARACTER LIMIT (for idiots like me)
- No more "Acceptance" threads. Unneeded for well-established packs.
- A tighter-knit pack and a more structured life for characters. Erin Hunter's Warrior series is a good example, but obviously we'd want to vary it as much as possible.
- Less or more places to RP. Such as having a category dedicated to one territory with boards indicating frequently used places within said territory. Or less places for loners in order to cut down on their creation.
- A currency system. As put-off as I have been about these, I must admit, they're rather fun. What's more is, it cuts down on the same type of character being made over and over again. Put a price on the blind eye, the ever popular eye-scar, and the common loner. You can also make members pay to have a blind or deaf character, as no many would ever survive in the wild without help. You might want to put a price on the always stylish fur tattoo, odd fur marking, and odd scar, as well as an odd eye-color.
- LIMIT BREEDING (again, for idiots like me). Take a coin and flip it whenever a breeding occurs. Tell the parents what their kids look like and put a price on deciding one of the pup's appearance.
- STOP full black or full white characters unless they're common for the breed. And PLEASE kick out all half-and-half Yin-yang characters!
- Have Character/Thread/Member of the month. As annoying as it might be, it DOES stimulate activity, especially when the members get to vote on it.
- A news reel would be welcome.
- A navigation bar for rules, pack stats, history, plot, and other things would be great.
- Put an affiliations bar somewhere.
- And lastly, get that advertisement board out in the open! Let it be ruled that only those that have advertised us at their site may post there and only those who have posted our banner at their site will have theirs put on our affiliations bar.
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Shantik
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Post by Shantik on Mar 19, 2010 17:37:45 GMT -5
*holds tight onto Beav* I'll do something with him, I swear! *goes to do so* These suggestions are really good, though. :3 Nice job.
Personally, I hate advertisement boards, because some people will actually come onto the site JUST to post their advertisement, then beat it. I love the idea of commonly used places and I think we should just get rid of loners entirely. It'll bump up activity in places like Synl. But we should have people note the Alphas of the pack asking PERMISSION to be in the pack. For instance, someone with a wolf character asking to be in Synl. They might have to be rejected since it's supposed to be a dog pack. And it would also help keep things organized.
And I think we should really put up rules about grammar and post-length in places. It is extremely irritating for highly-experienced role-players to write out four hearty paragraphs of poetry and get a simple little paragraph in response. And I myself am a freaking grammar freak. So maybe STRONG encouragement when it comes to the spell check? I don't know, this could just be my own personal irritation. xD
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Post by nightblood on Mar 19, 2010 18:25:12 GMT -5
Personally, I hate advertisement boards, because some people will actually come onto the site JUST to post their advertisement, then beat it. Actually, I've come to notice that it's just the excessive amount of dead accounts that came from those who just want to post an add and leave. This wouldn't bother me so much if the ad board was guest-friendly. Personally, I like looking at other boards to see how other admins run their sites. There are some good proboards out there amongst the trash and I'm sure there will be members who have more characters other than dogs to RP. I love the idea of commonly used places and I think we should just get rid of loners entirely. It'll bump up activity in places like Synl. 'Smuch as I'd like to agree, we shouldn't completely bar Loners, since they -do- exist IRL. But we can make members WORK for them. Say posting so many times or having so many characters already in packs. But we should have people note the Alphas of the pack asking PERMISSION to be in the pack. For instance, someone with a wolf character asking to be in Synl. They might have to be rejected since it's supposed to be a dog pack. And it would also help keep things organized. That's what accepting profiles is for, silly.  And I think we should really put up rules about grammar and post-length in places. It is extremely irritating for highly-experienced role-players to write out four hearty paragraphs of poetry and get a simple little paragraph in response. And I myself am a freaking grammar freak. So maybe STRONG encouragement when it comes to the spell check? I'd love to revamp and add on to the rules, organizing and shtuff. I think they need to be reposted anyway since there's no direct links anymore. |
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Post by unleashing on Apr 18, 2010 1:19:16 GMT -5
It might be better to not mass delete everything. At least right now you can sort of fool people that we have a lot of members. You might even want to encourage people to make separate accounts for their characters right now (or just fake accounts) because if people see that it is "active" they are more likely to join. I know that is kind of...lying in a way, but sometimes it really helps.
Also Activity Checks where you delete accounts/characters are not good. Personally if I see an RPG that does that, I immediately turn tail and run. It doesn't make sense to punish people for being inactive. They may have just forgotten/have a life that needs attending to.
@a CHARACTER LIMIT <-- If you're referring to a limit on the amount of characters one can have, I am all for this. I think this is a good idea. The less characters you have the more you can concentrate on the ones you do have.
@a currency system <-- No one is going to like this. I'm serious. People LOVE having freedom with their characters and having to BUY character traits is going to be a big turn off. Also it will chase people off that want to convert their older characters over to KO universe. I do not support ANY ideas that put limits on characters like this. Which means I am also against the black and white character rules.
I think the character suggestions you implied are just...horrible ideas. I'm really sorry if that offends you, I don't mean to. Just because you don't like certain character designs is not a reasonable excuse to outright ban them.
FOR MY OWN SUGGESTION.
How about.
We only have two packs?
Why is this a good idea?
Because it condenses everything, putting the members in one of two areas. If everyone is in the same area it is much easier for us to all RP together. Since there aren't a lot of members right now, we don't really need 5-6 RP boards. You should add things as activity rises, which means right now this board should probably be tiny since there aren't many people. You can always add more stuff when it gets to be more active.
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Post by nightblood on Apr 18, 2010 22:38:07 GMT -5
It might be better to not mass delete everything. At least right now you can sort of fool people that we have a lot of members. You might even want to encourage people to make separate accounts for their characters right now (or just fake accounts) because if people see that it is "active" they are more likely to join. I know that is kind of...lying in a way, but sometimes it really helps. As much as I admire sneaky-ness, I must admit that, in the end when we finally do get enough members to delete those false accounts, it's more work for the mods to sift through used and unused accounts and find out which ones actually are false and which ones are simply new and havn't been used. And the posts I was referring to be deleted are currently in a board that no normal member can see anyway, so it doesn't really affect 'moral'. Also Activity Checks where you delete accounts/characters are not good. Personally if I see an RPG that does that, I immediately turn tail and run. It doesn't make sense to punish people for being inactive. They may have just forgotten/have a life that needs attending to. After being with KO for at least maybe 2/3rds of its life time, I can honestly say that I no longer give a damn for people who've been inactive for over a month without notification as to where the hell they are or what they're doing. It's not that hard for someone to post in the 'leaving' section with an explanation for a long-term absence. Those who do are automatically excused from any mass-deletion of AWOL accounts. Sorry for my strong word-usage, but I do feel very strongly about this. It just isn't practical to hang on to peoples' accounts when you know they're not coming back. Besides, if they do show back up, it's not hard to make a new account and reinstate the characters and threads from the 'graveyard'. @a CHARACTER LIMIT <-- If you're referring to a limit on the amount of characters one can have, I am all for this. I think this is a good idea. The less characters you have the more you can concentrate on the ones you do have. It's also frustrating, however, as I've come to find out. It won't come as a shock to anyone who knows me, but in my own forum, I've been upping the character limit every time I get to close to it with my own character count. I've since up'd it to 10 and made adopted characters not count towards the final count. I'm horrible, I know. @a currency system <-- No one is going to like this. I'm serious. People LOVE having freedom with their characters and having to BUY character traits is going to be a big turn off. Also it will chase people off that want to convert their older characters over to KO universe. I do not support ANY ideas that put limits on characters like this. Which means I am also against the black and white character rules. To the contrary, I was on a site that had an excellent response to this 'store'. Role play posts boomed in order to gain more points for which they could purchase items for their characters. In a way, it's kind of like gaining Neopoints from Neopets by playing games and spending the points on food and clothing for the pets. This way, it's not so annoying and it boosts activity. I think the character suggestions you implied are just...horrible ideas. I'm really sorry if that offends you, I don't mean to. Just because you don't like certain character designs is not a reasonable excuse to outright ban them. It's not that I don't like them. The first ever 'yin-yang' I saw was, at the time, a great design. The problem is that this design and others such as the 'black/red eyes' and 'Scar's scar' spread quicker than Myerpire Fan-fics and become tired and over used. I've also outright had it with orphan characters who've either lost their entire family because of some mass murderer or blood-thirsty brother or whatever. It's become mainstream and I refuse to sit back and let people rot in a thought-stalemate brought on by popularity polls. I demand variation. FOR MY OWN SUGGESTION. How about. We only have two packs? Why is this a good idea? Because it condenses everything, putting the members in one of two areas. If everyone is in the same area it is much easier for us to all RP together. Since there aren't a lot of members right now, we don't really need 5-6 RP boards. You should add things as activity rises, which means right now this board should probably be tiny since there aren't many people. You can always add more stuff when it gets to be more active. Although your logic is sound, it simply doesn't work that way. For one, it's not conducive to what will be a comic story with (presumably) more than two packs. People will ask "Where's that town Kahvie drew on page blah-blah-blah?" or "What gives? I joined because I wanted to RP a Scottie in blah-blah-blah-blah." Now, I realize that there can't be RP places for everywhere the comic shows, but every key location or pack ought to have its own board or category. People also join for, as I've said before, variation, and enjoy picking where they drop their characters in instead of having 'good or evil' determine where they're put. |
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Shantik
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Post by Shantik on Apr 19, 2010 18:02:10 GMT -5
On the currency system, I agree with the way I saw it on Chicken Smoothie. On holidays, they will offer special items for those who earn eggs through trading. I think for this, we should do something like, use the post count for your 'currency', and the store must keep track of who has how many points. Only on holidays, and only offering specific things that are maybe unavailable at other times (ex: a high rank in a pack, or, if there is a character limit, you can buy an extra character). And yeah, although cliche ideas are frankly annoying, we gotta let people learn not to follow them on their own. Newbs could come in with a completely cliche'd character, but after role-playing around, they'll probably want a more unique character for themselves. I've experienced this first hand. Another idea for the character thing, to keep from people using overused traits, is to put up adoptable designs, with auto-accepted ranks.
And for the limited amount of packs, I think for now, we should "lock" some of the packs, or make them temporarily invisible. We can have about three or so, for people who want different kinds of characters and environments. Then, as more people join, and more people become curious over the other packs, we can be all "TA DA" and unlock them. xD
I'm throwing out suggestions that may make everyone happy. xD Combining both of your great ideas.
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Post by unleashing on Apr 19, 2010 21:02:22 GMT -5
I think I'm going to only respond to the last thing. I still disagree with the store/character designs, just don't want to bother arguing my point any further on that one. Actually it does work that way. For 1) Kahvie has done nothing with the comic for...years. There is really nothing to go off, so as of now it would just be easier to think of the forum RP as a FAN RP instead of 'we are exactly like the comic'. Also stuff happens in RP that never matches up with the canon. For 2) I am on a site that has been active for...a very long time. It's called Gestalt Theory. Here it is. Gestalt Theory is also a very RP oriented board. As you can clearly see there is hardly any activity in the OOC sections- it is all in the RP boards at the bottom of the page. A lot of people who run GT are current or ex moderators on another huge forum (you may have heard of) so they must be doing something right. ALSO. On a lot of really popular comic forums, they don't even have an entire RP section. They usually only have one that is dedicated to RP. I have never gone into those boards and seen people go "WE NEED MOAR BOARDS". Almost 80% of the RPG population is on sites like Gaia, Neopets, Subeta...sites that have nothing to do with RPing whatsoever and only have a single board even mentioning it. And no, I'm not saying we should take all the RP out of Kloteck Omen. The only thing keeping this site alive is the RP section, because if this was a forum where you could discuss the comic...well, there isn't much to discuss about it. If Kahvie ever does start working on the comic again there is a chance that it is all that will be needed to pump life into the forum. If that never happens the RP part either needs to sort of break off and do it's own thing or...this site has no chance whatsoever. Right now it is barely hanging on by a thread. |
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Post by Blackfeathr on Apr 20, 2010 3:45:52 GMT -5
Ok first off, I do NOT agree with making "fake" accounts to boost numbers. It will make mods jobs harder and it is essentially false advertisement. Second of all, I sort of like the currency system and sort of don't. True, there's waaay too many scarred up sparkleemodogs with a troubled past running around, but on the flip side, we do not have this problem here, everyone is very mature with their characters, and they try to deviate off the beaten path. I think once we get a larger "clientele," if you will, with younger users wanting a black wolf with red emo hair and pink claws and their parents killed by evil hoomans, THEN we can install a currency system. But for now, we have to work extra hard in shoring up these numbers.
I think that if Kahvie comes out with a comic page or two it would be excellent and would really boost members coming in. But unfortunately we don't have that luxury. So the only thing that is going to keep KO's heart beating is old fashioned hard work. Not shortcuts and false advertising.
The thing is, Tsin, this isn't Gestalt Theory or BBA. We don't have the luxury of a constantly updated comic or thousands of drooling fangirls who wet their panties when K-Fed uploads something. I want to do something to keep this place running. I want to work hard to keep this place here. And I know my friends here will help me. Because if we don't do something about this, in all honesty, who will?
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Shantik
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Post by Shantik on Apr 20, 2010 7:13:29 GMT -5
Yeah, how about we just do this:
BF, do you wanna roleplay with me over in someplace we both have characters? :3
I mean, really. Activity generally starts when an RP does. So how about it, anybody?
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Post by unleashing on Apr 20, 2010 19:56:23 GMT -5
The thing is, Tsin, this isn't Gestalt Theory or BBA. We don't have the luxury of a constantly updated comic or thousands of drooling fangirls who wet their panties when K-Fed uploads something. I want to do something to keep this place running. I want to work hard to keep this place here. And I know my friends here will help me. Because if we don't do something about this, in all honesty, who will?I haven't a clue what you are talking about. GT doesn't have a comic and I never said Kloteck Omen was Gestalt Theory. To sum up what I said: "hey, guys, look at this site, they only have 4 RP boards and they are doing rather well". I understand you want to help the forum, but you have to be able to take member critique or things are not going to fly well. |
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Post by Tsubasa on Apr 28, 2010 14:32:59 GMT -5
Forum activity doesn't seem to fluctuate much based on the original series itself. It's a nice little community mostly there for the roleplay/chatting. So please don't imply that the forum-goers are all drooling fangirls...that's not necessary, especially when at least some of your users came here because they saw it on BBA/heard about it from someone they met there.
My take on things is that deleting lots of stuff really can't help much, and it can't be undone. You've got archives; there's not really too much clutter unless things are rapidly filling up? and it does help newbies like me to be able to look in and see how other people did things before I rolled in.
About it being false advertising -- if people think it's active, and join and make it active, then it's not really false, is it? ;] I'd think that people would prefer the site getting rolling again to having people look at it, see inactivity, and not join in. If someone's really iffy after joining and thinks "oh this place doesn't have much" then they can always leave at any time, so it's not like it's hurting them to join. probably not a good idea to advertise inactivity in general if you want more people in and things happening around here just because..people don't join places as much if they look inactive, hm?
Like Tsin, I don't really like the currency or design limitations because...there's always going to be something people don't personally like, but other people might like the same things the original people dislike, and dislike things the original people like. if a roleplay's going to be structured around a thin slice of "acceptable" character design from 1-3 peoples' personal flavors, someone might as well turn it into a book instead. I think a good roleplay sets up a setting, puts in some guidelines so characters fit into those settings and don't break rules, then lets people toss their own ideas into it in a big melting pot.
and in a less tl;dr thing -- the more restrictive something is, the less I'd want to join it. if the site looks like it pigeonholes its users, I usually just click out and leave. =P
The token system could be nice, but I think it'd be better if it was just for clothing and not ranks. Pank ranks, especially management ones, also have to take into account character type and player suitability. If there's a scrawny puppy who posts 3 times a day who ends up being the overseer of the guards...it just doesn't really make sense. and I wouldn't want to have someone managing my guards who spends their time walking around flashing their shiny rank ICly and never actually..OOCly managing things.
I think the main issue is getting people in here to try the rp, honestly. it's not so badly organized or planned-out. IMO it's just that you don't really have people browsing to try things out. closing down a few packs could help, maybe just make it so you can't post new threads in them but people can still browse around? but even that might not be necessary if you could get a good stream of newcomers in.
any site's going to have some cricket-chirps if it's in its corner of the internet without anything linking it to places where people might see.
My own ideas for that:
-- well, if I get Nightshade, I'll be hand-drawing some designs for Sallin to post up on BBA and here and link both threads to each other. probably if I jingle a few keys, some roleplayers will be prompted to look at the board, try it, and go..."omigod this is a cool roleplay!" and stick around.
-- affiliating on other sites, and asking people to put banners in their sigs. Posting up designs there (if allowed) could also be helpful, or linking interested people to design threads on the site. even if they don't take designs or prefer to roleplay their own characters, they'll at least possibly look around and join.
-- people poking friends to rp with them on here would be nice. probably the best "advertising" there is.
-- probably more but I'll add more later.
A comic sure helps because it's that link that gets potential people to click in, but like the last person said, GT has no comic and it's rolling along okay. that's probably because people nudge their friends onto it and the site advertises everywhere. advertising isn't a gimmick -- everything needs a healthy amount of it to get active and stay active.
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Shantik
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Post by Shantik on Apr 28, 2010 18:53:07 GMT -5
I'll help, Tsubasa, by posting up some dog designs on Deviantart, to try and link some people to here. Pretty much saying "you can have this design if you roleplay it on this site." I've done this before, and it actually worked out incredibly well.
And I think what Blackfeathr is trying to say is that it does take a certain lure to get people on the site, even with the misconception about GT. There is little need to be rude concerning other people's opinions. This thread is for people to throw around ideas, and have them be accepted or neglected, or at least that's what it's become, which is good. But there are nicer ways to disagree with another's opinion, or correcting someone. Let's not chase more people off, please. There are people that are sensitive about being critisized too harshly. This is more of a request to keep it polite than just pointing fingers. Here's what seems to be the most solid ideas:
-lock some boards until we get more activity
-have, at least, accounts seperating your characters and any comic characters you might own. ((This will make it easier to keep track of your posts, but will also give more of an active look and get people to come on a little more. Having too many accounts, however, can make things very difficult to manage for admins and the person handling the accounts, and even if it would make things look more active, if someone wanted to delete the accounts to manage them all in one, it would leave a lot of posts with replies from "so and so, guest", making the threads look less professional.))
-no currency system ((or at least saved until later))
-minimal deletion
Please, let's get as many people as possible to throw in their opinion (without being too rude, yes it is very possible to be honest without going too far), but we should keep in mind that nothing will be certain until Kahvie and/or Duke give their opinions, since they are the admins.
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Post by Blackfeathr on May 16, 2010 16:47:01 GMT -5
I didn't know Gestalt Theory didn't have a comic, I don't read many webcomics and I am out of the loop in that respect.
Okay look, BBA has it easy, we don't. It is us longtime dedicated members really trying to keep this place afloat and we need all the help we can get.
If I have any ideas, I'll post them.
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