The Trickle In Effect

[Zook Murnig]

What we have now, and have always had with a few exceptions, is a trickle of new members who happen to find the site via search engines, through AllRPG, or through RPG Gateway, or are individually recruited without following outside links to the site. If we were to advertise, in a fashion, on other sites or in other communities, membership would jump, providing more writers.

The problems we are having now with the small mod staff stem from the small memberbase being the only pool from which to draw moderators. More members means a bigger pool, and more activity across the board. This would drive up the demand for moderators, and having the larger pool to draw from we could more easily meet such demands.

Further, our current member base is composed mostly of students of one fashion or another, so our activity tends to wax and wane with the demands of the school year. With proper advertisement, our demographics would widen and activity could stabilize year-round, allowing a lot of tournaments and projects (Featured Quests, Dajas Pagoda, Theatre of War, Power Groups, etc.) to work better and simultaneously.

The crux of the issue is in finding free advertisement where it won't be looked down on or banned altogether. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for this?

EDIT: And before anyone suggests we set up a page on Wikipedia, it's been done multiple times by Dirks. Each time it gets reviewed and deleted because of a lack of external links (as cited above). Other wikis and wikia projects, however, would probably be a good idea, so long as we have a logical reason to be listed there, such as TV Tropes. (http://www.tvtropes.org/)

[Slayer of the Rot]

I fully agree with this. Advertising is a large part of member recruitment, of course, and you guys really don't do enough of it. I understand Tony goes out and tries to get people to migrate from their sites, but its not enough. I know we had something on the Die Roller's Top 100. Even when I wasn't active on the site, I'd come and vote; but that eventually broke.

I intend to begin spreading our links around some of the sigtes I've visited. It would help greatly if we had an advertising section; people are more grateful and willing to try us out if we allow them to display their sites here as they display our's there.

[Visla Eraclaire]

You should probably do advertising in stages, get a more active member base and spruce things up a bit before you do a major recruiting push.

Don't have an open house when you're missing a bunch of the furniture and your dog just pissed the carpet.

[Tainted Bushido]

You should probably do advertising in stages, get a more active member base and spruce things up a bit before you do a major recruiting push.

Don't have an open house when you're missing a bunch of the furniture and your dog just pissed the carpet.

At least that can be explained away, when your dog is dragging its ass over the carpet...

...well that's when the uncomfortable laughter begins...

[Zook Murnig]

The thing of it is, there can only be so much sprucing up with the current staff and member base. There's just not enough people to keep things running smoothly. However, I don't think advertising will make us suddenly jump go GUA size, so with each group of migrants, we can improve the site more and more.

[orphans]

I don't really know how to advertise for something like this, or where to advertise except for telling those that I think might be nice to have on the site join.

I'm inclined to agree with Slayer about the advertising section. I've seen it down with other sites, though none in specific come to mind.

[Little Lies]

Dude. Craigslist.

Under community there is the artists area that ads could be tossed in. They also have discussion forums, one of which is explicitly for writers. Create personal ads looking for writers that link back to the site under personals, and under the gigs section, there's a place where writers go to look. Althanas could be advertised as a creative community where practicing writing skills is encouraged.

Also, we could give Duffy away in the free section.

[orphans]

I.... Craigslist is kinda creepy.... :\

At least in my experience (someone was selling a half eaten chicken...)

But, beyond that factor, it sounds well thought out. I don't know much about Craigeslist but it seems you know your way around it.

[Visla Eraclaire]

Craigs list is for hookers. It's perfect for Althanas.

"100 roses gets you one night with Letho"

Seriously I prosecuted a Craigslist hooker that used that COMPLEX CODE

[Hysteria]

The thing of it is, there can only be so much sprucing up with the current staff and member base. There's just not enough people to keep things running smoothly. However, I don't think advertising will make us suddenly jump go GUA size, so with each group of migrants, we can improve the site more and more.

GUA only got big because of Kings of Chaos, and with that suddenly declining so did the board. The RP areas area pretty much dead, DS being a grave yard for more than two years now and the Battle Arena not much better.

I think there are two types of people who were normally interested with RPing forums, Gamers and Writers. You've pretty much lost gamers thanks to things like WoW and other smaller MMORPG, so you're left trying to get writers.

How to get them is hard... it might just be easy to print out an A4 sheet of paper with "Interested in joining a friendly writing community? Check out althanas.com" with a bunch of tear off bits at the bottom with www.althanas.com on it and plastering some Universities. Digial Advertising is good because you target people already on the internet, but Universities would allow for another group which maybe less likely to have other internet interests to pull them away.

[Visla Eraclaire]

If I see a paper advertisement for Althanas, I am drawing a dick on it and walking away.

Welcome to how such things will be treated on university campuses.

[Revenant]

Actually Hysteria, I would think the other way would be better, targeting 'gamers.' Sure people have other games to play, but which person on Althanas doesn't have any other form of entertainment away from the site? I know that the local gaming stores that I've seen have post board where people can advertise games they're playing.interested in, painting jobs, and whatnot. Perhaps posting your pull-tab Althanas papers there would be a better fix?

[Izvilvin]

We may have an advertising campaign, but I don't think Althanas will ever grow to be much bigger than it is. The way things usually progress is that we get a few new members, and 2 or 3 of them stick around long-term. We've been trying this for years. We've had some pretty robust advertising campaigns, though it was usually just 3 or 4 of us going nuts on myspace, livejournal, deviantart, and a bunch of other sites. I think things will always revert back to the current state. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

[Zook Murnig]

Really, no more ideas? I did some research on TVTropes, and I have good and bad news on that front.

The bad news is that they have an RP section on their forums. This means that there may be some resistance to the somewhat blatant advertising. To that end, if we do have a page on there, it needs to be of good quality from the start, with plenty of good Trope examples from canon. If we were to allow anything and everything, we would have examples for every damn trope on the site, and the page would be endless and likely get cut out because of size.

The good news is that their RP section is paltry in comparison to our site. Most RPs are single thread deals with very few participants, and their original world is a single subforum. This means that their writers may well individually relish the opportunity to indulge themselves in our more immersive world.

As well, I was thinking earlier today about how many people find us via searches, and several people I asked said it took them about a month to find us that way. What are our current highest search criteria?

[The International]

Advertising. This is good. Before I put in my two cents I just want to say that Althanas is an elite site among the rp sites due to its high quality of writing thus numbers wise it will NEVER be as big as the other sites. And it NEVER has to be. I just wanted to cover that base just in case someone has the “We’re just fine the way we are” argument in the chamber and ready to fire. We are wonderful, but what’s to say we can’t get better.

I agree with Visla that the house does need to be cleaned up a bit before we open the doors though. If nothing else, someone needs to update the forum descriptions for Raiaera and Salvar to avoid newcomer confusion. For example, right now Raiaera’s forum description says
The Land of Raiaera is currently embroiled in a struggle for survival with the wicked necromancer Xem'zûnd. To fight for either side and reap the benefits -- or the punishments -- see the Featured Quest!Those of us used to the system here know that Xem’zund has been defeated and Raiaera’s newest problem is Alerar, but for a newcomer they’d either have to ask around or they’ll just start a thread on outdated information. It’s good that there’s an Almanac for every region now, but I know the vB system, and I know it doesn’t take long for someone with the permission to change a forum description.

If there isn’t going to be another chapter of the FQ anytime soon (soon meaning within the next month), I would archive it. If you ever watch Who’s Online, you’ll notice a lot of new members make a beeline for the FQ only to realize it’s not active. That makes us look bad.

I think if we do those two things, the people who show up as guests will be more likely to become members, and the newer members will stick around a little longer. I’ve suggested this all before, but apparently someone in the staff got pissed at me or something, so I’m going to move on before that happens again.

As for advertising I think someone suggested what I’m about to suggest a long time ago, but it was never tried out. Whether any of you like it or not, if you like Althanas, and if you thrive here, you are a WRITER who plays a game. Gamers can’t fucking handle this site, so we need to stop trying to appeal to them. Look at Gaia, Ayenee (sp), Star Army, ect. Every time we get people from there they get discouraged and leave. Very few, if any, of those guys ever stay.

We need to advertise (not recruit, not lurk, not spam) in places like WritersCafe.org thenextbigwriter.com fanstory.com and other sites appealing to writers like us. All of the sites I listed have SciFi and Fantasy sections that are filled with good writers that would kick ass here. Nothing against gamers who are used to those other sites, but they’re used to fast pace threads that are over in like a day or a week. That’s where we lose the majority of the people that come through here. Writers like us understand that quality takes time, so we’re more likely to retain many more people from these places.

[Zook Murnig]

Just an update on the TVTropes line of advertising. We now have a page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Althanas). Feel free to add examples from canon or JCs, or from site operations. Just remember to keep them alphabetical by trope title.

[The gospel speaks]

if it helps I any I found this site via a face-book friend. What I liked about the thread that made me stay was the incredible quality of the writing. I had joined to recuperate from the fact my old RP site (GAIA online) had been perma banned from my family computers. Perhaps you should post a few of the threads on other forums. find an ad section and post a link and then with the rest of the thread post a few of our threads to show quality? I would also suggest you fix the mod problem....

[Knave]

Oy, Zook, I added one of the things you forgot (no, not humor) the link back here.

[Zook Murnig]

Thank you, I remember having a hard time figuring out outbound links, and intending to look that up further, and I guess I just forgot.

[Visla Eraclaire]

The first sentence made me wretch and seemed fake as hell. I was so convinced it had to be sarcastic that I hoped "interesting and varied characters" would pothole to MarySue

[Knave]

Seriously, Zook, its going to need to be more interesting. The trope pages thrive on humor, badass, or just raw crazy. Pure information isn't going to get much attention.

[Rayse Valentino]

The thing of it is, there can only be so much sprucing up with the current staff and member base. There's just not enough people to keep things running smoothly.

So, you admit that there's no way to maintain this site with the current staff? Then why bother advertising at all? It seems people just want the easy way out without going through the effort of actually keeping the site up-to-date.

[Zook Murnig]

Knave, Visla, if you have ideas for making the page better, you can edit it at any time. I wrote that as a baseline. I haven't checked today, but I'm pretty sure no one has added any trope examples yet. Rewording is welcome, as well.

Rayse, I'm not even sure what you're trying to add to the discussion, if anything at all. Let me explain why nothing can be done with the current staff: We almost have no current staff. It's Sei, Revenant, and Zerith judging, and Letho doing RoG. Dirks keeps piddling with stuff behind the scenes rather than helping with actual maintenance of the site, Task is AWOL, and we have no Bazaar mod. However, we have about six or seven active people on the site right now. If we mod as many people as necessary, the whole site would be modded.

As for taking the easy way out, that would be to just quit and find another site. There's plenty of them out there. But personally, I think we can bring Althanas back with some work. I'm not expecting it to happen all at once, but as more people filter in the staff can grow back to where it should be, activity can grow to where it once was, and we can continually improve the site.

If you don't have any solutions, then get out Rayse.

[Atzar]

Knave, Visla, if you have ideas for making the page better, you can edit it at any time. I wrote that as a baseline. I haven't checked today, but I'm pretty sure no one has added any trope examples yet. Rewording is welcome, as well.

Rayse, I'm not even sure what you're trying to add to the discussion, if anything at all. Let me explain why nothing can be done with the current staff: We almost have no current staff. It's Sei, Revenant, and Zerith judging, and Letho doing RoG. Dirks keeps piddling with stuff behind the scenes rather than helping with actual maintenance of the site, Task is AWOL, and we have no Bazaar mod. However, we have about six or seven active people on the site right now. If we mod as many people as necessary, the whole site would be modded.

As for taking the easy way out, that would be to just quit and find another site. There's plenty of them out there. But personally, I think we can bring Althanas back with some work. I'm not expecting it to happen all at once, but as more people filter in the staff can grow back to where it should be, activity can grow to where it once was, and we can continually improve the site.

If you don't have any solutions, then get out Rayse.


To be truthful, this is a little unfair. He's working on a big project that we should see around the New Year, and he just gave us a chatroom. He's as active as anybody else, but he's active with admin duties, not mod duties.

[Nightstalker]

we have no Bazaar mod

If it would help, I'd love to Bazaar mod, and its secretly been one of my dreams. (silly I know) You don't even have to give me any special effects to my name or a mod icon. Just a general idea of prices to charge.

[Rayse Valentino]

If you don't have any solutions, then get out Rayse.

Nice to see that the attitude towards change still is, and has always been, 'get out'.

I've made plenty of suggestions for how to bring the site up the speed. Hell, I've even volunteered myself on several occasions. This thread itself has echoed several times the notion of cleaning your house before inviting guests. In fact, what you people should be concerned about is retention. What's the point of recruitment if your retention rate is almost nothing? Make the site worth coming to, and the few people that come might actually stick around. If this opinion is still venomous to you, then I don't know what else to say.

[Duffy]

Activity encourages activity, so perhaps if, when people come to the site for the first time, they see something more than endless OOC debate and petulant solos (my own included) they might be encouraged to stick around me with the scent of potential in the air.

[Saxon]

I'm not sure if I should bring this up because I'm pretty sure we burnt this bridge with the aftermath of the tournament, but the ToC did have some impact on our activity for this site. The only problem was, that I don't think we retained a lot of membership afterwards because of how the tournament was carried and a lot of the drama that went on.

Even so, if its activity we're looking for, I'd say another tournament where we invite people from other roleplaying sites would be a possible solution if they're willing to come back here. My recommendation that if it is done that is done more smoothly and with tighter control then the previous tournament.

Another idea would be to raise money for a bell prize so we can host a writing competition and advertise it on multiple sites. It'd have to be a substantial sum like $1-300 to keep people interested. The competition would be submitting a piece of work and judging it using either our rubric or a modified version of it. Do not put post limits or word limits. Have them judged by the standard because we obviously know something that isn't that long or impressive won't win out.

We could then post the winning story in a section of the forums along with the runner-ups who would be given additional prizes. It would advertise our site and depending on how well it is carried out, show a bit of Althanas's prestige, probably catching a few more members.

I know its a bit of a pricier option, but I think it would be a decent start. Visla is right in suggesting that we do advertising in stages. There is no cure-all for enhancing a member base other then to do it in multiple ways, and I don't see any option of making Althanas bigger without throwing money into the honeypot.

This also isn't the first time members have been asked to donate for the site's benefit, so I don't see any reason why there should be an objection to collecting money for a cash prize from our regular member base instead of expecting the staff to be the only ones to finance it.

tl;dr - Its going to cost money if you want to get any where and I don't think wikivertising is going to cut it.

[The gospel speaks]

If anyone cares I would be happy to help with anything? I have multiple accounts, and I try to make it a point to get on every day. Perhaps you could stick ,e with something simple, like RoG where basically I sit there and help monitor what comes in. Plus with me working I could possibly have a reply up in like twenty minutes.....

[Visla Eraclaire]

Zook, your "I put up a pile of shit, but I don't see you editing it." attitude is charming as always.

I don't know if you've ever written anything on TVTropes that wasn't there to push an agenda, but that page makes us look like a bunch of cocks. Maybe in between wiping your ass and teaching you to go pee in the potty like a big boy, Amanda can teach you to have a sense of humor and present yourself well to others.

Maybe I'll get around to editing it, but frankly I think it's always going to seem agenda-pushing and disingenuous. More to the point, I work 12 hours a day, sleep 8, and the remaining four are too valuable to me to spend doing more than making one post calling out your shittiness.

[Tshael]

Dirks keeps piddling with stuff behind the scenes rather than helping with actual maintenance of the site,

get out Rayse.

Not being Dirks, and not being able to see the mod forum, I think you're being unfair to Dirks. I think you should calm down the most. Giving anyone the GTFO treatment, even if I can perceive why you would think they're trolling you is unacceptable. I don't think anyone aside from Visla was actually trying to attack you, but just had valid points that perhaps they presented badly. The same way that you presented your own badly.

I think all three of you should cool down and dial it back a notch. Duffy has a fabulous point. If someone from TV Tropes, who is used to hitting links like no tomorrow, manages to stumble upon Althanas, what they should see is the examples from the tropes page in the writing, not a bunch of people telling each other they suck in the OOC forum. Another point Duffy makes is that we should be writing.

Saxon, I think your idea is great. I seem to remember a cash prize being offered for something before, but I can't remember what. Was that also Althanaversary? How did that even work out. One of the problems that I can see is that Althanas is populated in large amounts by kids and college students and with a few exceptions, we're poor. Ha ha. What would we do if only 40 bucks got raised? I would suggest that if nothing got raised, something like an Althanas t-shirt, which is easily enough gained cheaply thru CafePress or something like that, but then I'd feel like the lawyer on Jurassic Park, talking about lunch boxes and coupon days. D: Also, let's say this big tournament or contest goes well, what about the aftermath? To retain, would we end up having to have one of these after another?

[Letho]

I think all three of you should cool down and dial it back a notch.This.


From my experience, large tournaments with people from other sites boil down to one of two scenarios: 1. To prevent the shitstorm, you make the rules more strict like we did here on Althanas, and people bitch and moan, 2. You make the rules more loose, and then you get the ToC from GUA and people bitch and moan. These things never truly satisfy anyone and I find them quite a hassle. The activity that remained after the one we held on Althanas was rather minor and I personally don't think it was worth the effort. Is there someone who came to Althanas specifically for that tournament that remained to this day? I'm not certain that there is.

I do like the idea of a writing competition. If anything, it might attract a more serious audience then a glorified beat'em up with words. But like Manda said, there's the issue of finances. Maybe if we charged the entry like a dollar or two and then the winner gets all the dough, but then we'd need a rather large number of people for the reward to be decent. I don't know.

[Amber Eyes]

Alright, so so far we have...

1. We don't want to attract gamers, so no posting on other RP sites.
2. TV tropes is cool, but needs work (though I think that's just a massive site we are going to get lost in)
3. No paper ads (penis drawings=bad)
4. Tournies for money would get complicated and be a ton of work, plus we're all poor and have no prize money.
5. Activity is good for membership

My point is this....I'd say probably half of the group has come from a friend who refered them to the site. So why don't we just encorage members to sell althanas to thier friends. Chances are if they are close buddies with someone who likes the site they might just make it here too. Rather than spend a bunch of time working on projects that MIGHT bring someone in, lets work on boosting activity and inviting people that might actually stay. Right now if somone found us on Tropes, came in and saw that most of the action was in an OOC thread talking about how dead the site is they probably wouldn't stick around long enough to realize how amazing we really are. I think we need to clean house, stick to posting, and spread the word to people we think will get something out of it.

[Zook Murnig]

We should absolutely continue to invite our friends to join. However, in the past that's only brought a small amount of members who don't tend to stick around. We stand to get more members from advertisement, with less constant bugging of our friends (I know mine are sick of hearing about this place).

[Xos]

We should absolutely continue to invite our friends to join. However, in the past that's only brought a small amount of members who don't tend to stick around. We stand to get more members from advertisement, with less constant bugging of our friends (I know mine are sick of hearing about this place).

A bazaar mod would help, so that people could, you know, actually buy things with their hard earned dough. I'm still volunteering if there's even a snowball's chance in Haidia of getting the post. If not, I'm still volunteering.

[Atzar]

We should absolutely continue to invite our friends to join. However, in the past that's only brought a small amount of members who don't tend to stick around. We stand to get more members from advertisement, with less constant bugging of our friends (I know mine are sick of hearing about this place).

I'd hazard a guess that upwards of 75% of the active members here came in via referral, rather than "oh, a link..." *click* "looks great, I'll spend the next three years of my life here!!!" I myself originally found the site through INDK, a looong time ago. Zook, if I'm not mistaken you found it through me.

In general, I've found that people are a lot more likely to give the site a chance if they have somebody to 'sell' the site to them in the first place. Rarely have I been to a site that has intrigued me at first glance - somebody has to be there to point out the good stuff, answer questions, etc. because I'm probably not going to bother figuring things out on my own. I have ADD better things to do.

The point I'm making, I guess, is that we should make sure to follow up on the advertising - don't just post a page up on TVTropes and expect it to do the rest of the work, because it won't. Open up the chatroom to guests, and post a big, bright, noticeable link on the front page that encourages prospective members to go there first. I'd make an effort to have a couple of mods lurking in the chat at all times, ready and able to provide assistance with rules, canon, etc. The rest of the members could do the same, providing quest partners and perhaps some RP tips.

It would be even better to personally go into other RP forums to do this, but since many forums have anti-advertising policies that's not exactly feasible in most cases.

[Saxon]

Saxon, I think your idea is great. I seem to remember a cash prize being offered for something before, but I can't remember what. Was that also Althanaversary? How did that even work out.


One of the problems that I can see is that Althanas is populated in large amounts by kids and college students and with a few exceptions, we're poor. Ha ha. What would we do if only 40 bucks got raised?

I believe that the winners of that tournament were paid off properly. At the time I had joined the staff when Max was raising money within the staff to help pay for the prizes for the people who won the tournament. I'm not sure if that was ever met, but I think it came out of Max's pocket and I'm pretty sure he honored the agreement to pay the people who won. I think it was like $50.00 for first place.

I know for a fact however that that Althanas anthology book was a flop and I can gaurantee you that nobody got a copy of that. Though, in the future, I really advise against self-publishing here. Just an FYI.

But, that raises another one of my points. Raising money. As I said above, the staff ended up footing the bill for the tournament. I want to make it clear that it is not the job nor the responsibility of staff members to be the only people to finance tournaments or events like these.

From what I've read of threads like this and countless ones past, it is the member base that is hungry for new blood and more people to make the site grow. Well, you all want it right?

Then you're going to have to pay for it.

It isn't even that difficult either. Even with the numbers we have, Althanas still has a formidable and sizeable member base to draw funds from. High school, college and poor or not, they can still get access to money. I've seen it happen on several sites and under different circumstances, but usually the reasons were to either A) Keep the site from shutting down or B) Use money to fund the machine that kept recruitment going.

Its entirely feasible for every member here to contribute from $5-10. We have well over 70+ active members during most of the year and most are American. I'm emphasizing nationality here because its the sad truth that we're also spoiled in this country and despite the groveling and the bitching about not having anything, we have more then most. I say if you'd like to have a writing competition like I suggested, then we need to open a Paypal account and start accepting donations for it.

You also have to consider that some people donate more then others. Its the nature of charity, because some feel obligated to pay more then what is considered standard. I've personally watched someone in a recruitment drive fork over $2-300 in order to close the drive and have the 'honor' of doing it. Being fiscally conservative and frugal, I find it completely obsurd, but its the nature of the beast.

I also believe in the two times I've witnessed Althanas turn to members to raise money for a cause, the same effect happened. I'll dredge up the thread later, but I believe there were a couple people who donated ridiculous sums of money. Its an issue of pride and self-importance, really. But that's what charity does.

tl;dr - My point is that you shouldn't immediately discount the possibility of raising money for prizes or events like these for fear of poverty. I'd urge everyone who considers this idea to be a good one to donate a couple bucks, and if you feel obligated, donate more.

You will be shocked to see the numbers we can come up with if enough people are motivated and aware of the situation.


I would suggest that if nothing got raised, something like an Althanas t-shirt, which is easily enough gained cheaply thru CafePress or something like that, but then I'd feel like the lawyer on Jurassic Park, talking about lunch boxes and coupon days. D:

In my tenure on the staff, I breathed selling products once and immediately regretted it. At this stage, I don't think Althanas is ready to go that route yet. If the staff or even a few enterprising members were to do it, they'd need to be educated on it. By that, I don't mean that people who are taking initiative to better our site are idiots, but rather that they need to be trained or have specific guidance in trying to push and peddle Althanas products on people. Otherwise, the entire business could do more harm then good and put the site in jeopardy.

It is a good thought, but I'd suggest that if we decide to start incorporating events and tournaments in advertising for the site along with cash prizes, that we start becoming fiscal in stages rather then all at once.


Also, let's say this big tournament or contest goes well, what about the aftermath? To retain, would we end up having to have one of these after another?

Great. It went well, which is better then I and probably many on this site could hope for. I'm just hoping for the idea to take root at this point.

But, if the idea did work out and we did have a success, which won't be clean or easy, that means PHASE I OF ALTHANAS PROPAGANDA is complete. We can move onto stage II and incorporate more events and raise money for different events or different ideas to better the site. Maybe even make personalized ads that we can have go viral on different sites. Who knows.

However, that is then, this is now. We need to focus on the idea of a writing competition and raising money for it.


I do like the idea of a writing competition. If anything, it might attract a more serious audience then a glorified beat'em up with words. But like Manda said, there's the issue of finances. Maybe if we charged the entry like a dollar or two and then the winner gets all the dough, but then we'd need a rather large number of people for the reward to be decent. I don't know.

Your idea has merit, Letho, and I like it. In fact, we can combine my idea with yours. We could have our members raise money through donations and take whatever we get as the baseline for prizes. Then, once that is figured out, we could look into entry fees (small fees = good returns) and figure out a target number for our tournament.

I'd suggest looking at raising half of the money for prizes and advertising the competition through donation and work on the other half being raised through entry fees.

You'd be surprised how much people will pay or even how many will show up if you offer them a big enough carrot for prizes. But, I'd suggest that cash be in hand before you start making promises to people. So that would mean A) raising money through donations first, B) Organizing and advertising the competition, C) Have contestants pay the entry fee to get their name on the roster and D) Tally up the final cumulation of funds that you get after you've squeezed the lemons dry and gotten all of the competetors that we can find.

Then, finally, after all that is done that you come up with a number and announce the prizes that will be offered to people. Then I'd suggest once you have the number, you advertise again and sweep up more competitors and last-minute people. Perhaps the numbers might even swell over the number you set and you have the ability to provide more in bell prizes for people other then in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

Look into it.

tl;dr - It's too long and you didn't read it. Read it.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I think if you attracted the more sophisticated writing-focused audience you'd only piss them off with the fact that this is a glorified beat'em'up with words. Also, I still find the idea of paying anyone money for anything they write on the internet to be pathetic beyond words. Ironic then that I am one of the few members who could fund your harebrained scheme.

I would absolutely advise against a paid entry. When the competition is objective either by involving measurable metrics or by utilizing randomness people will generally trust it. Why, though, should a stranger trust that we will judge their writing fairly? Hell, why should we, the members, trust anyone here to dole out cash money? I sure as hell wouldn't.

It's just asking for a mess. We need to make sure our fundamentals are strong and focused before we do any of this nonsense. Althanas is still halfway between a game and a writers workshop and it fills a niche, but since it doesn't have a solid identity it doesn't have a solid brand to sell to anyone. It can only be appreciated if it's experienced and built up slowly and that ultimately will prevent any kind of mass-advertising or recruiting of any significant numbers.

Althanas by its current nature resists sudden growth. Form it into something marketable or accept the consequence of the fact that it isn't.

I suggest #2, but I'd get behind #1 as well. I just don't think what everyone is dreaming about here is feasible with the site, the mechanics, and the staff we currently have.

[Hysteria]

The end of the ToC on GUA was... well awkward to say the least. I think they might have gotten one or two new members out of it, most just went back to their old sites. I think the problem is that you invite people to come to a new site, but they still have ties to an old and cannot leave it. It is unlikely they are going to stay around without knowing anyone, having anything to work on here (like a level four character your want to keep working on), or getting more money.

A better audience if you want to follow on this sort of line of thinking would be people from a site that is about to collapse/already has due to lack of activity. Like the DS forum on GUA.

[Ruby]

How about player inspired rewards, or rather, player contributed rewards.

I remember it being discussed a while back - players who wish to enter put forth either gold, or something they've earnt on their way to levelling, Duffy's swords for example, or Letho's castle.

I'm sure it needn't be actual money, but this of course cycles back to a proper system for spending GP in the first place, and Bazaar moderators and a running system to back it up.

I say whack a tournament up and let's kick some face in!

[Hysteria]

Is there something stopping a few characters from organising such a tournament? It'd take no effort to get one held in the citidel, the threads would just be judged like normal and the player rewards would be given out. Wouldn't require any extra mod work unless it was popular enough to generate a lot of extra threads.

[The gospel speaks]

Okay, lots to cover.
First of all a pay to enter or Donation drive would kill Althanas. First you have to get the logistics to gather all of the money in one central pool, then wire it over to the winners and such. too much hassel for too little the reward, plus like Visla said, i wouldn't trust anyone on the internet with money. Not ever.

I believe that perhaps to get more user activity we open up a sub forum similar to our regular ones, but have these be simple, non-judged, non althanas related threads. people love to write, but on a site with too many constants it can get frustrating. then you factor in all of the rules in place to make sure everyone is equal when they start out and you've just managed to piss lots of people off.

I hated having to weaken my character just so I could write with him on this site. The prospect was unappealing, and the only reason I stayed was due to the fact that I had nowhere else to go. Open uo a forum where people can write what they want be it a story of a business, school ect, and then possibly create some reward sytem for good threads based on that? I don't know what, possibly make rank like things, similar to levels, but that way people could specify in their thread that they wanted this grade of writer, but not this grade, so you get a bunch of people at roughly the same skill level teaming up and improving. Sure it might detract from the other subfoums, but it will get activity going, and attract more people to join and possibly stick with the basics.

Also a pulse that shows when a new thread or existing one gets a post in real time would be pretty kick ass. It would also help to get people with open threads out to the people and help expand. Plus with all the new members who are slightly less serious, but still decent, you get a larger pool to select mods from.

Does any of that seem to be a likely fix to the lack of activity?

[Saxon]

I think if you attracted the more sophisticated writing-focused audience you'd only piss them off with the fact that this is a glorified beat'em'up with words. Also, I still find the idea of paying anyone money for anything they write on the internet to be pathetic beyond words.

And I think that having a competition financed where we were to pay the winner of such competition with a financial sum to be rather lucrative and attractive as an option on this site. There is no promise of publication or fame. Its a chance to get some money for a hobby you or at least I somewhat enjoy. Money is also transferrable between sites of interest, instead of y'know, gold and experience.


Ironic then that I am one of the few members who could fund your harebrained scheme.

Really? Where in what I have said have I asked for one person to finance this. No where. This was an idea raised to promote the use of member donations to fund a competition that could be used to advertise this site. If you find your new, hard-earned money too valuable to contribute to the effort, that's fine. Spend it on more comfortable dress shoes instead.

I actually thought this idea was pretty good in terms of finance, and I think you underestimate the contributions somebody could make if properly motivated. Or maybe you just haven't seen it in action before. Regardless, tear it down or spit on it all you like. It seems to be habitual when it comes to anything revolving around growth around this site for somebody to make it their personal mission to shoot it down. Or, as you so fittingly said;


Althanas by its current nature resists sudden growth.

I think by that logic, this resistance errs more on the side of the site's members instead of the site itself more times then you or I would like to believe.


I would absolutely advise against a paid entry. When the competition is objective either by involving measurable metrics or by utilizing randomness people will generally trust it. Why, though, should a stranger trust that we will judge their writing fairly? Hell, why should we, the members, trust anyone here to dole out cash money? I sure as hell wouldn't.

I'm not going to lie about this. Althanas has had a history of not paying its dues or making good on its agreements. I agree that if money were to be involved, then a trust needs to be established that the creators of such a competition would honor the idea of paying the winners of such a competition in full. But, I'm not a thief and I don't have any use for your money other then to benefit the site, so I thought the idea of member contributions to the growth of this site would be heading in the right direction. I still do, but I think its a little beyond ours means right now.


It's just asking for a mess. We need to make sure our fundamentals are strong and focused before we do any of this nonsense. Althanas is still halfway between a game and a writers workshop and it fills a niche, but since it doesn't have a solid identity it doesn't have a solid brand to sell to anyone. It can only be appreciated if it's experienced and built up slowly and that ultimately will prevent any kind of mass-advertising or recruiting of any significant numbers.

This is where I agree with you, Andrew. Althanas has always been the transgender of the roleplaying community. I've also had this conversation of trying to solve Althanas' identity crisis with you and everyone who could influence that kind of change more times then even I can stomach. Althanas functions on a bad idea, by combining two worlds that don't mesh together very well with writing which cannot be quantified accurately and the game which requires rules and people to follow those rules in order to function correctly.

I don't doubt that if Althanas found a way to figure out which side of the fence to fall on it'd be good at it. But I think the problem often results in a resistance to lose what we have. Naturally if we lose the workshop side of this site, there will be many members who'll leave the site for some place else. Whereas if we leave the game portion, there are those who will decide that just writing isn't for them and leave as well. This site does many things, but what it is best at is existing. Regardless of whether or not we gamble our member base on figuring out an identity for the site, the site will still exist so long as someone's left to foot the bill and people are still interested in what it has to offer.

Now, I agree that it is important to figure out which way this site should fall so that it can finally pick a direction and grow, but when and how will that happen? Discussions like these are often meted out with lip service or they're stonewalled until people ignore the problem again. They also stagnate. But regardless, I concede that my idea is bad on the grounds that we don't have a solid product to offer anybody and advertising it wouldn't do this place any good until we've figured it out.

I guess if people want this site to grow, they want more people and they want a better system then there needs to be a discussion and a decision of what direction this site should go and stick with it.


I just don't think what everyone is dreaming about here is feasible with the site, the mechanics, and the staff we currently have.

I still disagree, and given my track record of pessimism with the future of this site, that's saying something. Probably more about me then the idea, I guess. As I said above, if a direction were discussed and we could get our member base and staff not only behind it, but to act on it we could implement changes to the site, the mechanics and the system.

Maybe.


First of all a pay to enter or Donation drive would kill Althanas. First you have to get the logistics to gather all of the money in one central pool, then wire it over to the winners and such. too much hassel for too little the reward, plus like Visla said, i wouldn't trust anyone on the internet with money. Not ever.

Way to overreact and overembelish the problem. I've been a part of and helped start functions like these on sites before. The logistics of it aren't very tough at all, and your claim that on the grounds of that alone it would kill the site is blatant fearmongering. Also, how do you know it is too much work for too little reward when you haven't tried it? Honestly, I find the absolute pessimism to even consider a donation drive, even when Althanas has USED THIS AS A MEANS TO CONTINUE ITS EXISTANCE BEFORE, to be childish and speaks more about your inability to consider a solution to benefit something more then yourself then anything else.

But hey, I love the arguments being made against charity here. I'm sure blogging and using wikipedia as a means for advertisement are far better options because they're free then coming up with solutions that use money to open doors and create opportunities for this site to grow.


I believe that perhaps to get more user activity we open up a sub forum similar to our regular ones, but have these be simple, non-judged, non althanas related threads. people love to write, but on a site with too many constants it can get frustrating. then you factor in all of the rules in place to make sure everyone is equal when they start out and you've just managed to piss lots of people off.

I hated having to weaken my character just so I could write with him on this site. The prospect was unappealing, and the only reason I stayed was due to the fact that I had nowhere else to go. Open uo a forum where people can write what they want be it a story of a business, school ect, and then possibly create some reward sytem for good threads based on that? I don't know what, possibly make rank like things, similar to levels, but that way people could specify in their thread that they wanted this grade of writer, but not this grade, so you get a bunch of people at roughly the same skill level teaming up and improving. Sure it might detract from the other subfoums, but it will get activity going, and attract more people to join and possibly stick with the basics.

So you're proposing to create a bubble in this site to operate under the rules you'd prefer rather then the ones you'd like to follow? Why? Why is the idea of creating a hub for you and others who dislike Althanas' rules seem much better then getting to the root of the site's problem and solving it?

I find the idea to partition Althanas off and create zone's where its rules do and do not apply to be absolutely ludicrous. Time would be better spent trying to figure out Althanas' direction and getting people behind an idea then to create a literary purgatory for you to frollick in while Althanas continues to rot.


Also a pulse that shows when a new thread or existing one gets a post in real time would be pretty kick ass. It would also help to get people with open threads out to the people and help expand. Plus with all the new members who are slightly less serious, but still decent, you get a larger pool to select mods from.

We have that. Its on the front page and its called the recent threads tab. It doesn't happen in 'real time', but it does get updated regularly enough to remain useful.


Does any of that seem to be a likely fix to the lack of activity?

Not at all.


How about player inspired rewards, or rather, player contributed rewards.

I remember it being discussed a while back - players who wish to enter put forth either gold, or something they've earnt on their way to levelling, Duffy's swords for example, or Letho's castle.

I'm sure it needn't be actual money, but this of course cycles back to a proper system for spending GP in the first place, and Bazaar moderators and a running system to back it up.

Yes, because trying to keep people enticed with this site through rewards through a ficticious form of payment is far more attractive then actual money. I'm sure I'll stick around on the basis of gold and experience rather then money I actually spend and use.

Why, that sounds rather novel.


I say whack a tournament up and let's kick some face in!


Yes, lets ignore the problem again and distract our members from the dilemma with a big, shiny new tournament instead.

[The gospel speaks]

Saxon, the bubble would be for those who do not wish to write in a predetermined world. Althanas is incredibly in depth, and full of little facts that would get you in trouble for continuity if not used correctly. The more used areas are so well defined that to any and all newcomer would be scared off by it. I am simply proposing a nice little niche where one could simply have a nice easy going roleplay in a time period, and world of their choice. Don't simply bag on my ideas if you don't understand the intent. When I first came to this site I didn't bother making an account because it looked overly complicated and annoying. The only reason I ended up staying here was the fact that I could no longer use my other site.

The new posts while somewhat obvious, takes a while to discover if your new to the site. you need to realize that people who would actually donate money to roleplay on a site and possibly get some cash are very rare. Anybody with a computer and internet can join this site, there is no super advanced secret. By attempting to hold these events you kinda blow off the masses with a big "Fuck you because i'm a literate role player and your not, don't bother coming here because we will just judge you and laugh at you once you leave." Not to mention at least half the really good people here are long winded and take forever to get a post up. People come here to Rp, not wait five days for a short story they need to spend possibly an hour on before they repeat the cycle.

Althanas has to step up its game, go look at other sites. They encourage all types of writers to come and join them, regardless of skill. Here we have like twenty would be novelists and a couple new people trying to play catch-up. Not to mention half the people here are about as friendly as sharks. We lose our member due to the rather sterile environment and lack of truly social members. The only person I know for a fact is welcoming to new writers is Sei.

Saxon while this site is the last sanctuary of true online literacy, we can't be pricks and assholes. we have to sell the site as much as possible, make it friendly and inviting. Not hold huge over the top events people come to and leave afterwords. I know you suggested we hold more and more, but for christ sakes we don't have anywhere near the mod power to do so. Its a multiple step process, the tournaments can wait, untill then we need to focus on making Althanas more attractive to potential joiners, that way they'll stay. Our current set-up is played down and boring. Try sprucing up the browser styles to make them more attractive and showy. Remember that beggars can't be choosers when it comes to member base. You can't starve yourself and then claim that the reason was none of the food in front of you was good enough. We need to take what we get, and keep it on site. I see so many guests on this site that it drives me nuts. None of them stay. Were decently known, we just have little to no centripetal properties.

[Duffy]

Yes, lets ignore the problem again and distract our members from the dilemma with a big, shiny new tournament instead.

It was more of a suggestion to do something in the meantime as opposed to a solution.

[Amber Eyes]

I can see the draw in a subforum for 'freestyle' writing or something like that. Sometimes you aren't up in your thread and don't feel like starting another big thread, and it'd be nice to just have a place to play around in the dead-time. It'd also be a good place to get people hooked, if you put a few of our regular members posting in there. Kind of a "okay, that was fun...now if you really want to play the game...register here." I'm not saying put a ton of work into it, but it wouldn't need any more maintenace than an OOC forum from what I can see. All-in-all though, that would be a question for Max...

I also would have issues sending money into the site to be distributed to someone who would probably just take it and dissapear. I wouldn't mind helping pay for some ads or something, but just giving my money away to be given away isn't something I would do.

I also think a tourny would be a fun idea...not that it would fix anything...but it'd be fun.

I also agree that the Althanas welcoming commitee (AKA Sei on aim at midnight) needs work. What's the point in bringing them in if we aren't going to do anything to keep them here? Look at underwood...since Nayeli left the first time, Duffy (without powers I should add) has been trying to breathe some life back into it. Would you stick around if you were ignored, then ripped apart in your first judgement? I don't think we have a problem with publicity so much as we have a problem retaining new members.


I'd hazard a guess that upwards of 75% of the active members here came in via referral, rather than "oh, a link..." *click* "looks great

So lets go with that....say each member brings in 3 people...we manage to keep 1. Now that 1 member will bring in 3 more, versus the 9 we would have gotten if we'd been a bit friendlier and held onto the other two. I think instead of throwing money at the problem we should all put in a bit of effort and communicate with new people. Most of you guys have been around forever, so you don't really understand the feeling of.... "Oh, look at that level 13 character. I'll never get there...they won't even let me have a smoke bomb." Maybe if just one high level character said...'hey let's do a thread' that person might stick around and be the next Bloodrose or Letho.

[The gospel speaks]

I agree with Amber completely, The lack of people in Underwood scares me. If needed I will make an account to run as NPCs in Underwood. With the Freestyle forum you also just need a few active members to run that, I mean no judging will be needed, just someone to make sure there's no blatant disregard for the rules. I'd sign up for that job too. Another thing that needs work is more people on RoG. Put some active people in the spots that need them. I mean come on, Letho is on occasionally, and I haven't seen task around in while.....

Have Letho write some sort of test up and anyone who passes it can be deputized for RoG.

So far we have the following ideas on the board.
-some sort of paid tourney
-advertising
-free style sub forum
-more mods?
-Develope an Althanas Welcoming comittee
Might I suggest we form a task force to cover and organize these topics?

[Visla Eraclaire]

I want to clarify one thing, since I think most of the things Saxon and I disagree about, we're going to keep disagreeing about.

When I say having a money-prize tournament would be a trouble because people wouldn't trust it, I don't just mean sheer brazen thievery. I don't think Max Dirks would steal my money. I do however think Max Dirks would judge in a way that I would significantly disagree with.

Judgment is SO subjective that there would be no real winner. People are bitter enough about judgments as it is. Adding money wouldn't help.

[Amen]

I want to clarify one thing, since I think most of the things Saxon and I disagree about, we're going to keep disagreeing about.

When I say having a money-prize tournament would be a trouble because people wouldn't trust it, I don't just mean sheer brazen thievery. I don't think Max Dirks would steal my money. I do however think Max Dirks would judge in a way that I would significantly disagree with.

Judgment is SO subjective that there would be no real winner. People are bitter enough about judgments as it is. Adding money wouldn't help.

This.

I guess you could have like three people judge every thread and come to a consensus, which is more fair, but then you have to dig up three judges to work their asses off at the same time and come to an agreement in a timely manner repeatedly. I know the guys who won the ToG, so it worked out there, but I remember it being a painful and complicated matter for the people running it and that was a large board with activity.

Just so you guys know, Althanas isn't the only board with this problem. I, for one, originally came here because the board I used to write on is dying a slow and painful death, and I went THERE because the one before that died a slow and painful death. I chose this place because its leveling system was unique and the world was fleshed out and accessible, and because its writers were the best around. Don't try to be like everyone else to drum up activity. If you're no different than every other board, why would people leave where they're at.

But yeah, you're looking at a wider community issue: cooperative writing online is either changing in a massive way or dying out. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, I'm just saying, take that into account. Maybe Althanas can be a Mecca for the survivors.

My suggestion? Overhaul everything. Start the story fresh, rewrite the history, and then go to other message boards and talk to the best writers you can find. Say "hey, we're doing this restart and beginning fresh in this awesome universe with a unique leveling system, check it out sometime." You shouldn't take away what the high-level folks have achieved, but maybe encourage them to start alts at least for a time. Nayeli did this to a degree in Underwood and that was very exciting for me, it breathed a tiny puff of new life into the community.

I took the time to sit down and read all the history and lore of Althanas, which took a long-ass time and I had to dig it up and figure out what threads were considered canon and which weren't. It's a lot of work and most people aren't going to do it, so consolidate it and make it short and concise, and start from there.

I'm not saying I know the only way to fix your community, but I will say I've seen four once-thriving message boards die, and it happens the same way every time. The old guys get together and argue, everybody throws out an idea, and nobody can agree on one to try so nothing happens and eventually people stop posting, and then maybe a year or two later the site just doesn't work anymore. So hey, maybe don't do what I said, but please decide to do SOMETHING. If I had to pick one board I'd like to see everybody roleplaying on, it would be this one.

[Atzar]

Saxon, the bubble would be for those who do not wish to write in a predetermined world. Althanas is incredibly in depth, and full of little facts that would get you in trouble for continuity if not used correctly. The more used areas are so well defined that to any and all newcomer would be scared off by it. I am simply proposing a nice little niche where one could simply have a nice easy going roleplay in a time period, and world of their choice. Don't simply bag on my ideas if you don't understand the intent. When I first came to this site I didn't bother making an account because it looked overly complicated and annoying. The only reason I ended up staying here was the fact that I could no longer use my other site.

So you don't like the fact that it takes effort to get involved? I don't agree at all with this take. The information that you should really know before you start is actually quite basic and brief - any in-depth information is purely for entertainment or possibly inspiration.

I want people to come here to take part in a world we've spent a decade creating. I'm not interested in bringing people in just to do their own thing, in their own world, independent of the rest of the site around them. That doesn't create a close community - quite the opposite.


The new posts while somewhat obvious, takes a while to discover if your new to the site.

No it doesn't. It's right on the side of the main page.


you need to realize that people who would actually donate money to roleplay on a site and possibly get some cash are very rare.

That's not true either. This is a big 'if', but if we put the word out to enough people that the winner's share became significant - a three- or four-figure sum - then we'd certainly get people. The underlying problem is that activity begets activity. The people willing to do this aren't really rare; the issue is that we don't have a large enough membership in the first place to start the fund off at a high enough level to intrigue many others. I'll toss a five into the pool if the pool is upwards of a few hundred dollars. I won't bother if it's not breaking into triple digits.


Anybody with a computer and internet can join this site, there is no super advanced secret. By attempting to hold these events you kinda blow off the masses with a big "Fuck you because i'm a literate role player and your not, don't bother coming here because we will just judge you and laugh at you once you leave."

Huh?


Not to mention at least half the really good people here are long winded and take forever to get a post up. People come here to Rp, not wait five days for a short story they need to spend possibly an hour on before they repeat the cycle.

People here have lives. Many of us are in college and don't consistently have time for this stuff, even though we may wish otherwise. Your thread isn't taking priority over my future, sorry. Several of us are already beyond college, and a long day at work isn't always conducive to creative writing later. Demanding significant others or spouses aren't, either. My ex never did understand why I'd try to forgo spending time with her in favor of some people I've never even met face to face.


Althanas has to step up its game, go look at other sites. They encourage all types of writers to come and join them, regardless of skill. Here we have like twenty would be novelists and a couple new people trying to play catch-up.

This is a misconception on the site, and it's one that's frustrated the staff for years. Just because we have a judging system and a new player might get a lower number than me doesn't mean I look down on him - not in any way. The point of the system is to provide a basis on which to improve. The word 'elitism' comes up more than most of us would like, but it really couldn't be further from the truth.


Not to mention half the people here are about as friendly as sharks.

Way to project the personalities of a few people onto the entire staff. This is just false.


We lose our member due to the rather sterile environment and lack of truly social members. The only person I know for a fact is welcoming to new writers is Sei.

Again, this is just wrong. The majority of the active member base is welcoming to new members - especially if the new members in question make an effort to introduce themselves and become a part of the community.


Saxon while this site is the last sanctuary of true online literacy, we can't be pricks and assholes. we have to sell the site as much as possible, make it friendly and inviting. Not hold huge over the top events people come to and leave afterwords.

This, I agree with. I've always been against large-scale tournaments and competitions in the past. I'm especially against it now that we have the shortage of active members and staff that we have at present.


I know you suggested we hold more and more, but for christ sakes we don't have anywhere near the mod power to do so. Its a multiple step process, the tournaments can wait, untill then we need to focus on making Althanas more attractive to potential joiners, that way they'll stay. Our current set-up is played down and boring. Try sprucing up the browser styles to make them more attractive and showy.

The problem isn't the display. The underlying problem is really just that we're not active enough. When ten of twenty members make an effort to welcome a new member, he might feel unwanted. When thirty of a hundred members make that same effort, the perception is much different even though the ratio is worse. It's a matter of starting that avalanche - we face the uphill battle of convincing new players that our inactive site is in fact on the rise and worth sticking around for the better days ahead. As we start pulling new members in, the site is that much more active and new prospective members are that much more willing to stay.


Remember that beggars can't be choosers when it comes to member base. You can't starve yourself and then claim that the reason was none of the food in front of you was good enough. We need to take what we get, and keep it on site. I see so many guests on this site that it drives me nuts. None of them stay. Were decently known, we just have little to no centripetal properties.

The guest count is misleading. Many of them are bots, search engine crawlers, members that just aren't logged in at the time, etc... it's possible that a guest viewing three different pages is logged as three different guests, although I'm not certain about that - I do know that I've been logged out and viewing as a guest, logged in, and seen all of the pages I viewed as separate entries. Maybe that was an isolated incident.

[Arden]

I equate 'time period and world of their choice' with 'not role-playing' and 'not playing said role on Althanas' alongside a healthy dose of 'go elsewhere'.

Not elitism, you understand, just not a fan of wanting to play football on a basketball court...

[Christoph]

I equate 'time period and world of their choice' with 'not role-playing' and 'not playing said role on Althanas' alongside a healthy dose of 'go elsewhere'.

Not elitism, you understand, just not a fan of wanting to play football on a basketball court...

I'd love to see this site support other genres and settings. The "world" of Althanas is far from the most notable feature of the site. The selling point is (ideally) its format and structure, with judgments, competition, and focus on quality. While other sites offer other settings, they don't offer what Althanas (ideally) does.

[Duffy]

If it wasn't for the world, the environment and the setting, I wouldn't be here.

I highly suspect the majority would feel the same.

Althanas is not Althanas without Corone, Scara Brae and the wonders of Haida.

If you want it to become sub-forum degeneration generic fantasy, go for it!

[Hysteria]

Althanas is not Althanas without Corone, Scara Brae and the wonders of Haida.

Haid-a-wah? Never heard of it :/

I do agree that the world is quite special, a little hard to learn about with all the info thrown around, but special.


Again, this is just wrong. The majority of the active member base is welcoming to new members - especially if the new members in question make an effort to introduce themselves and become a part of the community.

Its not that the members are unfriendly, its just that it is always hard to join a new group of people. I have been on the internets for a while now, and I know whats what, but I still found myself sitting around wondering what to do and unsure about how to find a few people to RP with.

Also, for a new member, the perception of the people on the forum can be quite different to reality.


Judgment is SO subjective that there would be no real winner. People are bitter enough about judgments as it is. Adding money wouldn't help.


I guess you could have like three people judge every thread and come to a consensus, which is more fair, but then you have to dig up three judges to work their asses off at the same time and come to an agreement in a timely manner repeatedly. I know the guys who won the ToG, so it worked out there, but I remember it being a painful and complicated matter for the people running it and that was a large board with activity.

I'm going to have to go with Visla, judgements can get messy enough when its not for money. ToC had three judges if I remember right too, it didn't help much.



So far we have the following ideas on the board.
-some sort of paid tourney
-advertising
-free style sub forum
-more mods?
-Develope an Althanas Welcoming comittee
Might I suggest we form a task force to cover and organize these topics?

I would add 'trying to steal members from dying sites' as well.

[Visla Eraclaire]

If it wasn't for the world, the environment and the setting, I wouldn't be here.

I highly suspect the majority would feel the same.

Althanas is not Althanas without Corone, Scara Brae and the wonders of Haida.

If you want it to become sub-forum degeneration generic fantasy, go for it!

Consider the number of quests that involve the setting. It's a pretty small number. Ok, now subtract the ones that basically just slap the name on a generic fantasy locale, such that Radasanth could be Whateversburg and no one would notice or care. Now it's less. Ok, now subtract the ones where people are just doing it for points/extra bonuses like the FQ. Still some left.

Finally, subtract the ones where the setting in question was actually written by the writer creating the quest. Oh wait, that's pretty much the #1 reason. Yep, there's pretty much none now.

The setting is poorly defined in many cases, outdated in others, and it's done piecemeal... I really think you give it too much credit, not that I think ultra-generic RP is a good idea either. We just need to have an integrated setting before we start espousing its virtues.

[Atzar]

Its not that the members are unfriendly, its just that it is always hard to join a new group of people. I have been on the internets for a while now, and I know whats what, but I still found myself sitting around wondering what to do and unsure about how to find a few people to RP with.

Also, for a new member, the perception of the people on the forum can be quite different to reality.


It's really just a matter of posting a thread in the intro forum, and then posting in the recruiting forum when you have an idea and need bodies.

Another good idea is to contact a few members through AIM, or at least to make your screenname available in your profile - many of us, myself included, are very willing to 'make the first move' through that medium (although I'll personally wait until I have something to talk to you about).

Perhaps the intro and recruiting forums should be right at the top of the main page, for easier access for new members that haven't figured out the layout yet.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Perhaps we should have realm of greeting link those forums and a brief quick sentence as to what they do to aid newcomers. sound fair?

[Atzar]

Yeah, I like that idea.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

HOLY SHIT!

Progress....

Hell froze over, and god is rolling over in his sleep mumbling about the thermostat.

[Atzar]

Haha... unfortunately, I'm not the one you need to convince. Despite my shiny-named awesomeness, I'm not a mod and I don't have the power to just make that happen - somebody will have to get either Dirks or Task on board.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Could you not, with your mod powers, make a thread in the mod forum, and say: ALL ROG read this. and then explain the new procedure? Hell you can set it up for them so all they have to do is copy paste! Win, no?

[Atzar]

I would, but I'm not a mod anymore. I don't know what evil things go on behind the curtain nowadays. And if Letho has had any luck in his redhead pursuits recently, I'm not sure I want to know.

One of the active mods will have to do it.

[Rayse Valentino]

Your shiny name has deceived me.

[Duffy]

But it's not shiny italic ;)

[Hysteria]

But it's not shiny italic ;)

Its shiny for me. Mehbeh cuz I have the dark background.


It's really just a matter of posting a thread in the intro forum, and then posting in the recruiting forum when you have an idea and need bodies.

Another good idea is to contact a few members through AIM, or at least to make your screenname available in your profile - many of us, myself included, are very willing to 'make the first move' through that medium (although I'll personally wait until I have something to talk to you about).

I know all that, and I did most of it, but if your new to forum RPing its not so inate.

[Cyrus the virus]

Can I add that the re-design of how the regions are set up on the main forum page just makes the place even more confusing?

[Zook Murnig]

While I agree with that statement, Cyrus, I have to say that it was always a pain in the ass to go down that huge list right on the main forum page. They're at least grouped in ways that make sense.