What Features Do YOU Want?

[Amber Eyes]

Well, we are all seeing how our current features are faring. Basically, I want to know what you guys, as a community, would like to see in our features category.

Do you want to keep Boss Battles? Would you like to bring back the Theatre of War? Do you have a new and exciting idea for a feature? This is the thread to post it!

So lets hear it!

[SirArtemis]

I think it would be cool to continue to implement incentives to write with people who you normally wouldn't write with. Perhaps this could be done with some incentives, like a bonus to exp/gp rewards for completion of the thread. Perhaps even lowering the threshold for requesting certain spoils if you write a thread with someone that was selected. It could even be like a mini tournament where all contestants get this particular reward for their threads if they finish them and the highest scoring thread gets another extra bonus of some sort.

Also, I really miss the auction house and the cool items that went through there. I feel like that idea list could be implemented elsewhere, or even in the same format. Perhaps not a bidding system but a monthly writing tournament where the winner gets the item. Maybe like a single post vignette, or maybe like a competitive acquisition writing quest on how you get the item. Something like that. Winner gets the unique item.

If I come up with more ideas, I'll add it later.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Well, we are all seeing how our current features are faring. Basically, I want to know what you guys, as a community, would like to see in our features category.

Do you want to keeo Boss Battles? Would you like to bring back the Theatre of War? Do you have a new and exciting idea for a feature? This is the thread to post it!

So lets hear it!

Picture of your boobs.

Also, I'd like to have the Auction House back.

[Duffy]

I think it would be pertinent to improve, or indeed outright work on current, existing features, before considering adding any new things.

The bazaar, Auction House, vignettes, boss bottles are all prime examples of great ideas that need input - or scrapping, whichever you decide.

I'd also wager a judgement time turnover needs to be taken care of before you add shiny things...

Not that I'm bitter about two threads hitting and going well beyond the two month mark at all :p

[Atzar]

I think it's become apparent that Althanas isn't equipped to handle long-term, time-sensitive commitments like tournaments at this time. This isn't meant as a shot at the staff - the judging turnover has been very good. But I think everybody will agree with me that the attrition due to dropouts has become overwhelming.

As the Serenti wraps up, I'd move to one of two things: features that can move at a leisurely pace, or time-sensitive commitments that wrap up in a matter of weeks rather than months.

As examples of the first, things like the Theater of War, the Dajas Pagoda, or CM quests would qualify. The second would include shorter tourneys like the Cell (although I don't necessarily think that should come back so soon) or presumably the Vignette tournament that was proposed awhile back. Boss battles could potentially become this sort of arrangement if the effort is made to revive it and doll it up some.

I'd certainly like to see the Bazaar come back, and I can see why the Auction House was popular, even though I never participated in it myself.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I'd be for a Dajas Pagoda revival, but scale back the numbers in the hierarchy a bit because if its original format were kept... well, half of the active user base would be Pagoda Warriors.

[Silence Sei]

I think it's become apparent that Althanas isn't equipped to handle long-term, time-sensitive commitments like tournaments at this time. This isn't meant as a shot at the staff - the judging turnover has been very good. But I think everybody will agree with me that the attrition due to dropouts has become overwhelming.

Thats moreso people commiting to things that they either (a) could not follow through on, (b) had real life issues come up that prevented them from doing what they needed to do (TI's Jury duty, Vigil's reasoning for dropping out, etc etc). We just hapened to have the Serenti during probably the busiest real life season of the year. If it had been held in the, or (c) having other reasons for dropping out of the tournament (like Duffy and your own resignations before the tourney even began, despite the fact both of you are always online). summer, our attendance would probably be near flawless.

Serenti is running fine, its the people who are choosing not to post that are flawed :P

[Zook Murnig]

Sei, it's incredibly unfair to say that people simply chose not to post in the tournament, and that the events in their everyday lives had no bearing. It's also incredibly unfair to say "I see so-and-so on every day, why can't he post in the tournament?" Sometimes people hold their personal storylines to be more important than a tournament that they may or may not stand a chance of winning. And they may not necessarily even be online for very long, just long enough to check the new posts every day.

Confrontational attitudes do no one any good. This thread exists to critique current features, like the Serenti, and suggest new ones. No one can critique the Serenti if they feel like the moderators will immediately descend upon them with blame for why certain aspects of it didn't go as planned.

[Silence Sei]

You obviously misread my post, Zook. There was no hostility and I listed several reasons other than people 'choosing' not to post. I'm not being confrontational, you just took it as such.

As far as individual storylines, I know for a fact certain people who have participated not only in this tourney, but tourneys of the past, do not recognize tournaments as part of their characters canon. So thats not even an issue for real.

As far as the -two- people I listed who are online every day, if they're checking the new posts for the better half of a day, then something must be wrong with the coding on the site or something. I named Atzar and Duffy specifically because I know for a -fact- that they are almost always on. Its why I did not list anybody else.

I'm sorry if I seemed to think this was a thread for a -discussion- of features, which is what I was having. there was no unfairness to it, and I was blaming nobody in particular, posters, mods, or otherwise. I'm sorry if you mistook what I was saying, but I was trying to have a legitimate discussion.

[Atzar]

Thats moreso people commiting to things that they either (a) could not follow through on, (b) had real life issues come up that prevented them from doing what they needed to do (TI's Jury duty, Vigil's reasoning for dropping out, etc etc). We just hapened to have the Serenti during probably the busiest real life season of the year. If it had been held in the, or (c) having other reasons for dropping out of the tournament (like Duffy and your own resignations before the tourney even began, despite the fact both of you are always online). summer, our attendance would probably be near flawless.

Serenti is running fine, its the people who are choosing not to post that are flawed :P

Your attendance would not be near flawless if you held this in the summer. Not even close. And as I was saying, Althanas isn't equipped to handle tournaments at this time. 'Althanas' is more than just the staff that runs the place, you see. Its majority of its members aren't capable of keeping up this pace for months. I thought my meaning was clear when I posted the first time. Apparently not.

As for my own withdrawal - somehow I knew this would come up - I'm online less than you think. Most often it's a result of popping in every couple of hours on my iPhone to see if anything's going on, as opposed to actual I'm-here-and-I'm-ready-to-write activity. Anyway, I've written a total of two IC posts in the time since the Serenti began. Tell me how far that would have gotten me (actually, that may well have gotten me through to the third round).

I stand by my decision to withdraw.

[SirArtemis]

I can see where Atzar is coming from. When I'm out, I refresh the home page of althanas and see if there are new posts compulsively. If there's something I want to read, I read it while I'm out, but I can't really write. But I also agree with him on the notion that being online doesn't mean you have the ... "drive" to write something.

However, I also do get Sei's point. Drop-outs are indeed inevitable, some for reasons we can't expect, some for reasons we do expect. Sadly, the rate of dropouts was higher than expected, but I think that was more of a series of unfortunate events. From Numbers leaving, to miscommunications, to real life events, to loss of morale due to moving on without winning or even writing at times.

I think smaller duration and smaller scale would be something we should look into. Like the single month vignette thing.

[Duffy]

I on the other hand never actually sign out :p

[Atzar]

Oh my God.

My point has nothing to do with whether I am or am not active. I only brought that up because of the blame implicit in Sei's post.

My point is and has always been that Althanas' member base, for the most part, cannot handle extended, rigorous engagements like tournaments right now. You need to be working on either features with shorter durations or more schedule flexibility. THAT is my point.

[Sagequeen]

I love you all.

With that said... what about a Hot Potato type event? You sign up, and pick up a story when the previous person tosses it off to whomever they choose that's left on the list... a single post to complete, and everyone who is involved is rewarded? It sounds like fun, but what problems can you forsee?

[Vigil]

I spoke of this again and again to many people, but I think this ought to be out in the open. This isn't a jab, a critique or a "I-know-better-then-you" kind of thing. This is a suggestion for future events that would make running them much, much easier.

Planning.

From what I've observed from the past few tournaments, there has been a lack of planning aside from the approval of a tournament and selecting somebody to run it. They then can go forth with a small outline without any concrete planning and try to plan and execute a tournament by playing a lot of it by ear. This creates two problems. The first is that nobody on the staff is going to be on the same page with you because they don't know what you're doing until you either announce it or you let them in on it. It creates rifts in communication and places the burden of running an event entirely on you. I'm not saying that there needs to be a militant operation in the way things run in tournaments to get them to work, but clear, crystal communication is the first step to solving this problem.

Second, as I mentioned above, there is little to no planning involved outside of the requirements I described. I'm sure features will talk with Max, iron things out and try to get the idea together before implementing it, but rarely is it put on paper. Clear, concise planning is necessary for any kind of event or operation because it lays the groundwork for you to see the entire event from beginning to finish and allow you to plan for unforseen consequences such as a lack of judges, an error in the rules, the unnecessary length of the registration period, etc. This can be solved easily by following a couple of steps;

1) Figure out what you're going to do. Get the idea, brainstorm, etc. Establish a timeline for your event. The timeline should begin from the time its publically announced and end when the final round is judged and over. It allows you to map out everything that you could possibly need to see for an event rather then plan as you go along, which as the last few tournaments have shown, emits poor results. An example of a timeline would be this;

1. Tournament is publically announced (Date).
2. Registration begins (Date - Duration [3 days])
3. Registration ends, Round 1 begins (Date - Duration [10 days])
4. Round 1 ends, judging begins [3 days])
5. Round 2 begins (Date - Duration [10 days])
...etc until complete.

A timeline serves multiple functions. It allows you to figure out how long the tournament is going to last in term of total days, the effective start and end date of the event, and the incorporation of durations for your events. It'll make planning it a lot easier and just from this information alone, you can anticipate how long the tournament is going to last and how much of the sites resources and attention you're going to need to allocate for a certain amount of time. Its tremendous help to whoever is planning this.

2) Allocate staff members for specific jobs prior to the event. This means 2 or 3 judges, a features mod and an admin to oversee it. Just by naming these people off and making sure they understand they'll be helping run the tournament, you've open a clear channel of communication with these people and allow you to shift your focus on who you need to address, direct and talk to when planning and execute this event.

3) Provide an outline to everyone involved. A detailed plan of what exactly you're going to need to do to accomplish this task. All the steps from a to c are included, and you can easily incorporate the timeline you just made into this method of planning. This shows tremendous forethought and allows you to establish concrete guidelines and expectations to be met by you and your subordinates to accomplish your goal.


With these three things, if they're incorporated in the next event, I can guarantee that things would run a lot more smoothly. The Serenti was good, but it was executed with poor planning and its brainchild left before it even started, leaving it in someone elses lap. Basic, concise planning, establishing timelines, and having clear, active communication between members of a staff are the fundamentals to any sort of management, whether its on this site or somewhere else.

That's all I've got.

[Slayer of the Rot]

A forum for non-canon homosexual slash fiction.

[The International]

You know, I've had a long time to think about Althanas while sitting in that courtroom. It's not like I was ACTUALLY listening to the lawyers. A lot of ideas came to mind, many of which have been voiced here. One thing that never entered my mind though was the auction house. I don't think I was around to see that feature's prime although I know how it works. Could those of you who are in favor of it's revival tell me why you want it back and why it fell to the wayside? Would putting a mod in charge of it be all we need to revive it?

In response to Atzar and Vigil-

I also faced a conundrum when it came to activity on Althanas especially when dealing with time sensitive features like tournaments and boss battles. We write good shit here, but it takes us such a long time to write it. We can think about it in terms of planning a simple quest. You decide to write a masterpiece about your character and invite others to take part in it, but then it takes such a long time to write it that a busy part of the year comes up and you're forced to put it on hold. Coupling that with the time demands of a boss battle or tournament and you're bound to face incomplete material across the board. Yes, we need to plan and communicate much better, and it's too late for Serenti, but even if we planned the next tournament perfectly whether its the Cell, Gisela or whatever, there will still be a discouraging amount of dropouts because of one very strong factor. We have a culture that emphasizes quality over quantity, and in order to maintain that quality we spend a lot more time creating the same amount of content than the average rp site. Short quests here take months while a long quest in another site may take a few weeks or a month tops.

We can plan all we want. In fact, we should, and will plan better than we did for the Serenti and every other event in Althanas' past combined. We'll coordinate them with the trends in activity, and we'll communicate and do our best not to make mistakes. But trust and believe that what I just wrote in italics will sometimes demand a payoff like dropouts and such. I just don't want everyone to get their hopes up in thinking that there will come a day when absolutely no one, or even less than 25% drop out of a tournament unless its a very small one with like 16 participants.

[Vigil]

Dropouts are what they are. This is a roleplaying writing site. Even these competitions are a bit informal given the rules. With the length of time needed to commit to this stuff people are bound and likely to drop out. There has to be more efficient and better ways to either compress a tournament and keep it on a very tight, rigid timeline so that it runs for around a month and a half, or start coming up with events where people write until a deadline, submit there work and have it judged that way. Even in saying this, it seems like your losing the spirit of what makes Althanas Althanas. But you need to weigh your options on what you want more; To coordinate an event that can be successful for the site or stay true to Althanian tradition and keep the changes to a minimum.

You can't prevent dropouts, and no plan will ever go exactly the way you want to, but you can minimize one and reduce the risk of failure in the other.

[Duffy]

The Serenti Tournament aside gentleman and ladies of the esteemed Althanas court, what else could we provide that'd wet your appetites?

Particular focus on:

Boss Battles
Wager Matches