Time to Make a Change

[Lye]

"It's time to make a change."

Over the years, I have watched Althanas peak and valley in activity and members. Over those years, we have hit several road bumps and sometimes massive sink holes. Sometimes, players whisper ideas to one another on what we did wrong or what would make this place more fun.

Well, I think it's time to make a change.

With the approval of Sir Dirks himself (that's right folks, this is totally sanctioned by "The Man"), we are opening the doors to the public. We want all of your ideas on how to make Althanas more fun. We're not talking about free levels, or improving certain rules... We are talking fun.

What does that mean? That means we are willing to break a few rules. Maybe temporarily, maybe permanently and we're not joking.

In fact, out of all the suggestions we get here, we guarantee that at least three of them will be chosen and implemented. Depending on how good the idea is, we may even sweeten the deal with EXP, GP, and/or AP.

So that's it. Plain and simple. I want to know what you think will make Althanas a better place to write and what you think your friends might enjoy if they started writing here.

Have at it!

-- Banhammer Lye

[redford]

Annual easter egg hunt.
More public events like the golden autumn inn.

[redford]

Mini vignettes, little short two paragraph scenes.

[Ellie]

I personally believe that we need more settings for people to write in. As a person who has made so many different accounts: Ellie, Alice/Zevit, Cerock, Etc... I've had a lot of issues trying to fit myself into the world here and i've noticed several friends who try to play also have this issues. It's very intimidating coming onto this site where you all have built so much lore and trying to just jump in it. We dont want to feel out of place and i'm sure some people are afraid of writing something misleading or that doesn't line up correctly with the world. Just giving my input on the situation because I really do like this site; as little as I join in on it I do like it. CardsofFate had mentioned this thread popping up to me so I had to jump in and give my input

[Lye]

More deets, red. Those are just event titles. How would they work, what are the rewards?

[Bard]

The opportunity to branch off the wiki and describe worlds associated with the "nexus" as well as other "uncharted lands.

Making the Nexus a thread that isn't barried and thus more excessable to all writers.

[Mordelain]

Remove the chat feature. It's responsible for more drops in activity than any other event, player, or set of circumstance since I joined in 2009.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

I think the site needs more good versus evil conflict.

I often prattle on about this as the main example, but a long time ago in the Interactive Village a clan called the Castigars (headed by our very own Visla Eclaire / ISOS as he was known then and also participated in by our very own Cyrus the Virus / Izvilvin) rose up to try and unite the world under their banner. What followed was a succession of smaller clans all banding together to fight this absolute monster of an army.

It was really fun, everyone was active and everyone wanted to get at the throats of these guys. I think there might have been genuine anomosity at the time too which drove everything forward. It wasn't the most skilled bunch of writing we have ever seen but it was fun and left lasting impressions on characters you even see today.

How cool would it be to have a site sponsored army of evil or even chaotic neutral warriors taking on the members of the forums in all out war across parts of actual Althanas realms? A whole world at war? Everyone banding together to fight a common enemy, or even betraying their own sides for personal gain?

The practicality of it is one thing but I guarantee you it would attract interest. If that doesn't work, maybe even turn it into a bit of a Final Fantasy Dissidia type thing where two generals on opposing sides pick an army and summon the characters of Althanas as avatars to battle on a new area of Althanas, some sort of ethereal plain?

In either of these ideas you could incentivise the threads. If it is some sort of world war, missions for each side that are completed get an exp or AP bonus for participation. Special rewards for outstanding threads. That sort of thing?

I'm purely spitballing but the idea of an Althanian World War against not other countries but an alliance of characters makes me want to start writing already.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Remove the chat feature. It's responsible for more drops in activity than any other event, player, or set of circumstance since I joined in 2009.

Not true. I spend 99% of my time in chat and the people who go in, bar BlackandBlueEyes, are all active writers. Fez, myself, Gnarl, Storm Veritas, Karuka, darkest.desires, JDD and redford being examples of chat regulars.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Remove the chat feature. It's responsible for more drops in activity than any other event, player, or set of circumstance since I joined in 2009.

I'm giving you my 2015 Villain of the Year award, Cyd. You truly deserve it.

Also, nuking the chat room wouldn't make Althanas more fun, it would make it infinitely more boring and a horrible place to hang out, as you're unable to shoot the breeze with your fellow writers.

As far as my suggestion goes, start holding modded quests and events in the Nexus, and give people actual, tangible incentive to write there. I imagine that some people wouldn't mind the break from bar fight after bar fight, and dragon after bigger dragon after even bigger dragon than the previous two combined. Variety is the spice of life, and that includes variety in genre and characters.

[Mordelain]

Or make it scheduled, then, with the podcast being streamed based on chat content and questions? Give people a reason to log in beyond 'oooo look, three lurkers'.

[SirArtemis]

1) I think it would be nice to have a mod-sanctioned game that basically the mod creates an opening post and based on a random draw of individuals who entered, they have to make the next post. Example, 10 post thread, 9 people are scheduled to post. Mod posts first, rolls a random die 1-9 from the list they create, and that person is scheduled to make the next post. So everyone involved makes a post to contribute to the story and since you never know who will go next, it will keep things interesting and challenging. Mod's can decide the topic/theme for the particular thread and decide the thread length ahead of time so people know where in the thread they are at any point.

2) I would really love some more support content in the wiki for regions. I know that's not easy. But things like the maps that on occassion get worked on are awesome. Even super vague guidelines of city layout would be good. There's a degree of freedom in writing, sure, like referencing shops and alleys. But like in the recent thread about Radasanth central Market, things like that which can be utilized across writers would give the world a more robust feel. In the same thread's workshop post by Flames, he mentioned maybe mentioning a "local candy favorite" as a way to integrate locality into the thread. I know adding up front is hard so maybe mods who judge can take note of things that might be nifty to consider adding to the lore/wiki of a region when reading peoples' threads, and discuss amongst yourselves of whether you think it would be a good addition or too restrictive. I think having something like a local candy favorite made up by one writer made into canon is a little detail that could definitely add flavor, pun intended. This also goes for way more detail about the history. Even the current links are broken and fixing them and building on them would be great.

3) Solo competitions where writers are given some guidance and write something based on that. Like a vignette but larger scale, potentially with more information provided by the mods and more things required to be integrated into the storyline, like the chef show chopped about three surprise ingredients or something.

4) A character under spotlight. Making a character of the month or character of the quarter to give focus onto their recent work that a mod things was worth sharing, even if not a JC, would be great. Even having an event themed around something would be fun. For example, writing vignettes regarding meeting certain characters somehow or interacting with them in some capacity, and working with the author on this to some extent.

Will add more as things pop into my head.

[black shadow]

I would like to see the guided quests return. I remember when I first made Shadow, his first thread was a guided quest where Sky & Avery was the quest master and helped the writers through the thread. She's read the posts made by the participants and make suggestions for them for edits or the next post. Helped me out a lot, Especially with taking hits because I never used to take a hit. Just something that I feel would help the newer members and even some older members raise their scores. With the AP system in place this could be a great way to get feedback in writing while keeping the que down.

[Storm Veritas]

OOH OOH OOH EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME!

ANY Quest which score above a certain threshold should be eligible to directly influence canon. The amount of change, the type of change, etc. would be up to mod/admin discretion, but it would give every writer to get their "permanent record" etched in the books of Althanian History. Maybe something allows your character to be formally knighted and recognized by the crown of Corone. Maybe you are awarded some land and a nice house. Maybe you can be the mayor of a town for a discrete amount of time. Maybe you carve your name in a rock and people get to see it.

I think this would be a great motivator, would pull people more into Althanian "Lore", and keep people more up to date with modern questing events.

The challenge here is I don't know how this fits in with the new AP system; I'd suspect you'd need some form of formal judgment to qualify above workshop.

[Flames of Hyperion]

Personally, I think we have the balance between regional lore and creative freedom just right at the moment. I would be against further formal structure for regions. I think it would be too much to ask of the loremasters, too daunting to folk who've just joined our site and are looking to jump in, and stifles creativity and imagination. To once again bring up my comment in the workshop for Bringing Big Street to Little Country, what I meant to say is that I would have simply loved to have seen 'citrus fruits' renamed as, for example, 'Underwood redfruits'. A small touch of imagination, an infusion of setting. It's nitpicking on my part, and probably unfair on Storm for it to keep coming up, but I think it illustrates the point well.

Back on topic, my proposal is: an "I read this and it was good!" thread.

A thread for us to highlight threads - even our own - and to say 'this is what I liked about it' in a single sentence. To reiterate: positive feedback only, and a single comment only. For example: "I read Bringing Big Street to Little Country, and I thought that the reference to Underwood redfruits was a nice touch."

At the end of every month, a moderator goes through the thread and awards 1 AP to everybody who's contributed that month (limit of 1 AP per account per calendar month). Similarly, a loremaster browses the thread and picks out lore-worthy rumours or tidbits that might be of interest to other players (everything here, of course, has already been nominated by the players themselves), and collates them in a "Whispers on the Wind" section attached to each region. For example: "This month in Corone: Underwood redfruits are rumoured to be quite tasty." Perhaps limit it to a rolling list of ten whispers per region, first in first out, so that it's kept manageable and up-to-date.

It's my hope that this will accomplish three things. One, kindle interest in threads other than one's own. If four people all post about a single thread, highlighting different aspects of awesomeness, then this might attract further readers and foster collaborations or shared efforts. Two, create a shared lorebase of rumours and setting details that allows individual writers to use their imagination to contribute to the world of Althanas without having to define an entire region via a detailed wiki page. And three, act as a mechanism for positive feedback (both giving and receiving) to writers who, for whatever reason, would rather not submit for detailed judgement or workshop commentary.

Of course, all of the above is open to review and or rebuttal. I apologise if I've rambled or if something I've said doesn't make sense. I've been up since two this morning on two hours sleep, and I'm not sure whether I'm currently inspired or braindead.

[Storm Veritas]

Flames, I am officially going to crusade to call every fruit in any thread I write henceforth a "f*cking lemon". I don't care if it is redundant, or even outright wrong, but the die is cast and Althanas is now going to be overrun with boring, f*cking lemons.

:p

I -do- really like the "I read this and it is good" thread idea, which could/should be pinned in Writer's Workshop.

[Max Dirks]

OOH OOH OOH EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME!

ANY Quest which score above a certain threshold should be eligible to directly influence canon. The amount of change, the type of change, etc. would be up to mod/admin discretion, but it would give every writer to get their "permanent record" etched in the books of Althanian History. Maybe something allows your character to be formally knighted and recognized by the crown of Corone. Maybe you are awarded some land and a nice house. Maybe you can be the mayor of a town for a discrete amount of time. Maybe you carve your name in a rock and people get to see it.

I think this would be a great motivator, would pull people more into Althanian "Lore", and keep people more up to date with modern questing events.

The challenge here is I don't know how this fits in with the new AP system; I'd suspect you'd need some form of formal judgment to qualify above workshop.

Check this if you haven't already, Storm: http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?29886-Althanas-Canon-Submission-Guide

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

End the top down style of administration. There is no reason to lock site discussion away. Staff and members should be on the same level.

Not a great idea. We need this sort of structure to function and the only bits locked away are mostly for administrative purposes anyway. It's hardly Area 51.

[redford]

Althanas Easter Egg Hunt: It would be something like the puzzle game Hysteria did a while back, a moderated sort of egg hunt, and each egg has a random surprise in it. Surprises can range from gold, to minor magic item, to trinkets, to even monsters.

What little public events I've seen have been enourmously successful in getting the community involved in some good fun with their characters. Just throwing characters at each other and seeing whether they stick is an excellent idea, because it promotes new ideas like 'what would I do if I was going to quest with X person'.

Mini vignettes I think would be neat, though I'm not sure what others would think. I know there are times when I'm walking to class, or doing homework, that I'm struck with some interesting or unique situation that my character could be in. And I'll write up a little scene really quick, nothing more than about 15 minutes, that portrays that. I'm actually doing that in this thread, I think it's neat.

http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?30642-Allow-me-to-set-the-scene&highlight=set+the+scene

[Cards of Fate]

Literally this thread is an example. Instead of being the status quo, it's a special event.

I fail to see any evidence that the site needs secret forums and features rolled out in a top-down function after being hashed out in said secret forums to function.

Because if half the stuff hidden in the staff section was public the whole place would go to hell. All of the RoG, Bazaar, and exp and GP formulas are posted back there. You would have people literally trying to game the system with perfect accuracy, maxed out profiles with all of the propper gimping in order to pass their absurd abilities.

While I agree with some things being public, some manner of secrecy is still required. Plus it keeps some events/changes as a surprise.

[Fez_The_Kid]

Make Keribas a second Althanas, then let them fight.

Also, if Althanas is a continent, what's the world called then?

[Storm Veritas]

Is there a way to code-in automated rewards for daily visits? Maybe a 5 GP daily award for visiting the site would increase traffic and get people back involved more, prompting more content generation.

[Breaker]

Is there a way to code-in automated rewards for daily visits? Maybe a 5 GP daily award for visiting the site would increase traffic and get people back involved more, prompting more content generation.

As a counter proposal to this, a 5GP reward for every day one make's an IC post might be better. I used to have Althanas set to my homepage and so would "visit" the site almost every day even though I wasn't active at all. Since giving rewards for general posting would result in OOC spam, 5GP per day on days one posts ICly seems reasonable.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I dunno. Gold is pretty useless.

[redford]

I dunno. Gold is pretty useless.


I'm not sure that means this isn't a good idea. With rewards of something that is worth more than gold, you might skew the way the site works, but if it's just a little incentive to come round and make posts, then I see no issue.

though, it seems like this thread has followed a bit of a tangent, so allow me to present ideas.

I think the 'thread of the week' idea is excellent, especially since the forum can be daunting, and it's easy to be intimidated by the sheer number of words. New people (Like me) ask themselves, "Who is a good writer?", "Are there threads that can help me grasp the world more readily?", and "What are some good level 1 quests?"

In addition to this, IMHO we should do a thing somewhere where we come up with some interesting ideas for easy quests, designed for new players, but that have as a sort of 'mentor' or companion character and player that can show them the world and how it works. I know that my introduction was made much easier because I was writing with Sean and Fred, and any question I had I could bring to them about lore or forum things. It would work like a mission board, but explicitly for people who are new to the site, and for each quest there will be a list of characters from which you choose one to take with you, or more likely for them to take you.

Another suggestion would be to put shortened articles on interesting lore tidbits in the chronicle. I don't really read the chronicle, but I know I would if I could get a new little easy to read piece of lore about Althanas on the weekly.

More immediate involvement for new players is important because Althanas is dense and full of mysteries and lore, and if new players don't put time and effort into discovering the world in which they find themselves, they'll bounce right off. Fights, little quests, little tidbits of lore here and there, these can all help.

[Lye]

What about implementing a dice roll function for end thread loot? For example, we roll a time stamped die and if you get a certain range, you get a certain classification of loot? Some of which would be crafting supplies. We could also implement an RNG system to some crafting methods to make player run shops more viable. That way, it would take away of everyone getting exactly what they wanted, but add a little gambling to the mix making gold more useful.

Is there something there, or is RNG greatly opposed?

[Karuka]

Another suggestion would be to put shortened articles on interesting lore tidbits in the chronicle. I don't really read the chronicle, but I know I would if I could get a new little easy to read piece of lore about Althanas on the weekly.

I know the lore was intimidating for me when I was a new player; I almost didn't join because of it. Maybe if there was a sticky thread in the RoG with "Sparknotes" versions of important lore and current events, it would help newcomers a lot.

[Revenant]

Idea #1: Updated Mission Boards

Each area has a mission board, right? How many of those missions have been sitting there seemingly forever? Why not have a rotation of uncompleted missions? Missions themselves should offer bonus exp or free special items to add incentive. If a mission has been up for three months without being claimed then pull it down and make a new one. You can revisit older missions later by reposting them up. I believe this will add an ongoing story element to a given area and make people more invested in posting there.

Perhaps to tiered level missions. Have beginner missions for all areas for new posters requiring less than the normal posting requirement of 10,000 words or 10 posts. Those constraints can be daunting for new writers/new accounts, especially if someone is still trying to get a feel for the character. Then have higher level missions with much greater rewards (ie. Legendary stuff) but require them to be team based and earn a specific score. This will give an incentive for people not to simply write solos.

Idea #2: Canon

Storm mentioned making high enough scores automatically eligible for canon. I think this is a great idea, with the caveat that all decisions have to be vetted through the lore mods. But the kicker should be that as long as anything scoring, say 80 or over, doesn’t radically change the nature of the setting it should be let through as canon. This will allow posters to actually feel like they are influencing Althanas’ story.

Idea #3: Maps

If possible, why not have maps of specific regions put as a header to their specific forums? They don’t have to be fully rendered landscapes, but put something up. For example, put a full map of Corone at the top of the Corone forum, even if it’s just a basic outline of the island with the major landmarks drawn in. Then, put a map at the header for each sub-forum, so a map for Radasanth, one for Concordia, etc. Mark the official major places of interest and maybe make up a few to put on there that haven’t been fleshed out to allow people to write it up on their own. Going even further, maybe put marker on spots where area mission prompts from the mission boards (idea 1) are located. If someone writes something that makes canon (idea 2) and can be added to the map, put it on there. Make the regions personal.

Idea #4: Featured Events

You want to start the, “Althanas: It’s Your World” initiative off right? Put together another major, potentially Althanas changing event. Maybe some nation from the Outlands is invading. Maybe an ancient God awakens from a forgotten ruin in Berevar. Maybe another Demon War kicks off. Something that threatens everyone, everywhere. Then generate missions for both sides, consequences for success/failure for those sides, and let people choose which side they’re on. Three months in, tally the scores from missions for both sides and advance to Phase 2. Do it again. Then again. This might require major changes in the current state of affairs for different regions, perhaps Salvar fights off the invasion but Corone doesn’t and becomes enemy occupied territory? But I think putting events in the hands of the players, especially the ability to take part in and change the ongoing story, will make people want to write here more.

Idea #4: The Nexus – Alternate Worlds

Sure the Nexus is a thing, but its hidden away and has too much attached to it to make people want to write in it. Just like “The World of Althanas” is a major forum with regional sub-forums, why not make The Nexus an entire forum with alternate themed sub-forums? You could have a Gothic Victorian Era forum for people who want to write Dracula, Jeckell and Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes type stories. You could have a Modern Day Fantasy forum for the Dresden Files crowd. Separate hard sci-fi and a fantasy sci-fi forums for those with a Star Trek/Star Wars interest. Maybe a steampunk or Deadlands style western forum? And people can still write their own storied in the main Nexus forum itself if they don’t want to write in any of those.

Simply, though people can write anything in Nexus as they want, having additional forums might give people an idea or a place to start with where “just write anything” might be too much/too daunting. Then, give completed threads exp/gp as normal. No spoils can be granted from the Nexus but why not give exp/gp as normal. So they’re not writing with their main character. They’re still writing on the site, right? If you’re trying to promote activity, loosen up and let people play a little more freely.

Idea #5: The Bazaar

The Bazaar is flawed. Prices are ridiculous for things and you can always just get stuff from questing, right? So no one goes there. My suggestion would be to lower prices (drastically) and to remove object spoils from threads. Instead of giving the object, give a voucher for reduced price in the bazaar if they did really well. Bazaar threads don’t need to be stories, though I personally like doing them that way, and can simply be a post going “I want to get the object that I earned in this thread (link added). Here’s my voucher for 50% off. Mod: 300 gp removed, item is added to your profile.”

Make GP essential. Otherwise, what’s the point of it?

Idea #6: Mod Responsiveness

I know that the Mods all have lives too, but there needs to be a quicker turnaround time for things like Character Registration/Updates and the Bazaar.

Idea #7: AP/Judgements

I get that the AP system helps limit judgements for the judging staff, but I hate the idea of it. Althanas should be a site for people to go to get better at writing. Give AP for doing “No judgement” or “writer’s workshop” submissions but require people to jump through hoops to get an honest judgment from the judges. It makes it feel like you have to write and spend a lot of time on the site to be able to get the full experience, which makes it an exclusive club. You want Althanas to be more prolific? Make it more inclusive, not exclusive.

Then, change it so that AP works to gain you forum perks the way that GP does now.

Item #8: Dead Account Sweep

Give some time frame and a notification email/post then clear out all the accounts that have 0 exp. This won’t do much but free up some available account names and clear out a bunch of dead weight from the Member’s List, but eh, what can it hurt?

Item #9: The Arena

Bring back the Arena. Make it so that all the tiers are opened and then let people do fight threads to determine who gets what place. Having a higher place in the tier list should give you bonus exp/gp when writing battle threads but you can't refuse a challenge from someone who is the tier beneath you. If you can't participate in someone's challenge or you lose the battle, you lose your tier and the other person gains it.

And those are my ideas for the moment.

[Revenant]

I know the lore was intimidating for me when I was a new player; I almost didn't join because of it. Maybe if there was a sticky thread in the RoG with "Sparknotes" versions of important lore and current events, it would help newcomers a lot.

This.

[Revenant]

I would like to see the guided quests return. I remember when I first made Shadow, his first thread was a guided quest where Sky & Avery was the quest master and helped the writers through the thread. She's read the posts made by the participants and make suggestions for them for edits or the next post. Helped me out a lot, Especially with taking hits because I never used to take a hit. Just something that I feel would help the newer members and even some older members raise their scores. With the AP system in place this could be a great way to get feedback in writing while keeping the que down.

I also support this idea.

[SirArtemis]

Idea #1: Updated Mission Boards

Very much agree. I sometimes don't know what to do for Artemis, because he lives a normal life. Wake up, eat, go to work, pay the bills, hang out with friends and GF. But he also has a tendency to be helpful. If while in Salvar or traveling he sees something to do he might help out. And it inspires me as a writer to do something different.


Idea #3: Maps

I was thinking something with relation to districts and general shape/layout without any details. I'm imagining like in Assassin's Creed, where you have districts. Take out the detail of the buildings and streets, just put "sections" and the "shape" and let people fill in the rest.


Idea #4: Featured Events

concur.


Idea #7: AP/Judgements

I can get behind this.


Item #8: Dead Account Sweep

concur.



See above.

[orphans]

I know the lore was intimidating for me when I was a new player; I almost didn't join because of it. Maybe if there was a sticky thread in the RoG with "Sparknotes" versions of important lore and current events, it would help newcomers a lot.

This would be really nice to have. There are a few people I have encouraged to come to the site and they are, usually, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of lore and other things and usually, if not always, at a loss of what to do. I'm not saying that too much lore is a bad thing, but something like an overview type thing with sparknotes edition would help with character creation and placement.

Basically, have a shallow end that gradually leads to the deep end. Right now we just have a deep end. ^ ^;

[Karuka]

Idea #5: The Bazaar

The Bazaar is flawed. Prices are ridiculous for things and you can always just get stuff from questing, right? So no one goes there. My suggestion would be to lower prices (drastically) and to remove object spoils from threads. Instead of giving the object, give a voucher for reduced price in the bazaar if they did really well. Bazaar threads don’t need to be stories, though I personally like doing them that way, and can simply be a post going “I want to get the object that I earned in this thread (link added). Here’s my voucher for 50% off. Mod: 300 gp removed, item is added to your profile.”

Make GP essential. Otherwise, what’s the point of it?

I agree that prices are ridiculous, but Bazaar response time is even worse than RoG response time, and I'd feel really annoyed if I had to go to the Bazaar to buy something that logically I should have picked up in a quest, so I disagree with this statement. These days, the items you find are valued like they would be in the Bazaar, I think there might be a discount for score, and your spoils are taken out of your received gold (and the gold in your account if necessary). So gold and spoils are linked anyway, I don't feel the need for an extra step.


Idea #6: Mod Responsiveness

I know that the Mods all have lives too, but there needs to be a quicker turnaround time for things like Character Registration/Updates and the Bazaar.
This.


Item #8: Dead Account Sweep

Give some time frame and a notification email/post then clear out all the accounts that have 0 exp. This won’t do much but free up some available account names and clear out a bunch of dead weight from the Member’s List, but eh, what can it hurt?
Maybe not with zero exp, because some of those are reincarnated characters, and when the accounts are swept, the posts are too, and it breaks things. But accounts with zero posts should get purged on a regular basis.

[SirArtemis]

This would be really nice to have. There are a few people I have encouraged to come to the site and they are, usually, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of lore and other things and usually, if not always, at a loss of what to do. I'm not saying that too much lore is a bad thing, but something like an overview type thing with sparknotes edition would help with character creation and placement.

Basically, have a shallow end that gradually leads to the deep end. Right now we just have a deep end. ^ ^;

Building on this, I can agree that too much too fast is problematic. So yes, a spark notes would be helpful. Especially a starter's guide that isn't a packet.

However, simultaneously, as you get more involved I feel like you may want to explore more information, content, go really in depth. But this has to be found in balance for sure.

[Karuka]

This would be really nice to have. There are a few people I have encouraged to come to the site and they are, usually, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of lore and other things and usually, if not always, at a loss of what to do. I'm not saying that too much lore is a bad thing, but something like an overview type thing with sparknotes edition would help with character creation and placement.

Basically, have a shallow end that gradually leads to the deep end. Right now we just have a deep end. ^ ^;

The entire reason Karuka is from Earth originally was so that I could figure out Althanas along with her, because the world was overwhelming. It was my compromise.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

What about implementing a dice roll function for end thread loot? For example, we roll a time stamped die and if you get a certain range, you get a certain classification of loot? Some of which would be crafting supplies. We could also implement an RNG system to some crafting methods to make player run shops more viable. That way, it would take away of everyone getting exactly what they wanted, but add a little gambling to the mix making gold more useful.

Is there something there, or is RNG greatly opposed?

If I went to the grocery store and bought the makings of pizza and got home only to find frozen vegetables in my bags, I'd be pissed.

[Kryos]

I like the idea of another featured quest. Also, someone mentioned summoning champions to fight. If I recall, there was a Tournament of Champions in 2009 that was very successful. All characters updated to level 5 for a round robin team battle. It was very fun, and moved fast due to deadlines.

Sparknotes are a great idea.

Maps would be lovely. Canonnized, official maps. Posted in regions. That would be amazing, although I did find some in the Creative endeavors this morning that were really nice.

"This is really good" thread suggested by Flames is a great idea, as well as the "Whispers of the Wind."

[Breaker]

Regarding RoG/Bazaar response times, my suggestion is to make Operations training a regular part of being an Althanas moderator. This wouldn't mean that every single mod must undergo the training before they start working, or that all mods are operations mods. It would just mean that if you're going to be on staff for more than a few months, there'd be an expectation that you learn the Operations ropes, and a further expectation that you be willing to help out when the RoG/Bazaar gets swamped. This way, when we run into an approvals slowdown due to staffing changes or big events that result in loads of level-ups, there'd be an easy fix.

Edit: And +1 to having updated maps.

Edit 2: I'm fairly opposed to randomized rewards.

[Revenant]

I agree that prices are ridiculous, but Bazaar response time is even worse than RoG response time, and I'd feel really annoyed if I had to go to the Bazaar to buy something that logically I should have picked up in a quest, so I disagree with this statement. These days, the items you find are valued like they would be in the Bazaar, I think there might be a discount for score, and your spoils are taken out of your received gold (and the gold in your account if necessary). So gold and spoils are linked anyway, I don't feel the need for an extra step.

Having spoils cost directly from your earned gp/account gp is a better idea than mine and I throw my weight behind it. Still need to adjust the cost for items though.

Also, once an account reaches a certain level, like over 10 or 15 or something else sufficiently epic, allow them to simply buy specialized legendary stuff. Have a rotation of Bazaar items that don't need to be haggled over but are expensive and awesome. Things like modern firearms, advanced magic, or adamantine weapons. But only available to sufficiently leveled characters. Gives another reason to keep getting that exp.

[Revenant]

What about implementing a dice roll function for end thread loot? For example, we roll a time stamped die and if you get a certain range, you get a certain classification of loot? Some of which would be crafting supplies. We could also implement an RNG system to some crafting methods to make player run shops more viable. That way, it would take away of everyone getting exactly what they wanted, but add a little gambling to the mix making gold more useful.

Is there something there, or is RNG greatly opposed?

No offense intended if this idea is near and dear to you, but I loathe the idea of randomized loot. This is a writing based game, not an MMO.

[Karuka]

No offense intended if this idea is near and dear to you, but I loathe the idea of randomized loot. This is a writing based game, not an MMO.

I agree with this. I don't see a place for an RNG on Althanas.

[Mixed-blood]

If I had known of this Karuka I'd never have opened a Bazaar thread. Perhaps I can just get alchemical bolts as a quest reward.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Sounds like the RoG guidelines are flawed if there exists ways to 'game the system'. Either way, I wasn't saying expose the guts of the site, I was saying that have people involved in changes to the site. Just look at the 'Althanas 3.0' fiasco. The whole thing was planned behind closed doors and then released. Site events are planned behind closed doors. The power structure only exists to serve egocentric people. When half the active players are staff, what's the point of the divide? If the reason is to make people feel better than others, then it's kinda sad. I'm just saying what if people were more involved in ACTUAL change instead of just submitting comment boxes to the admins who make all the real changes, no matter how bad ideas they tend to be.

Anyway I'm done.

Excellent, because absolutely nothing is wrong with the current format.

[Flames of Hyperion]

I hope that I don't annoy or offend anybody with what follows!

I wholly support the idea of Sparknotes for new players, even if it's just collating the Core Themes from the regional At a Glance threads into a stickied thread and adding a short summary of Thayne Lore and Althanas history. I'd also add maps to the At a Glance threads, although not at the level of individual cities - leave enough space for writer creativity! In contrast, I'm vehemently against a formal definition of Kebiras, or involving it in staff-led events, because to do so would lose the place that individual writers can turn to to situate their own personal regions while still fitting into Althanas lore. I would suggest developing the Tular Plains instead, for example in the context of another Demon War? Or perhaps another hidden continent to the east?

Continuing on the theme of helping new players, can we combine my Whispers in the Wind suggestion of collating recent regional rumours with the mission board (i.e. defining new missions based on the rumours), and then perform Guided Quests where a moderator gathers a group of new players and walks them through the quest with feedback? I realise this is asking for a major investment in time and effort on the part of the moderator - perhaps Skie can share her opinions of the experience?

To me, making Althanas more inclusive includes players stepping up to take a measure of responsibility for things like judgements (i.e. Workshops) and event planning. Are there any major obstacles that stop players from designing their own Featured Quest or Tournament and implementing it? The Boss Battles are one such example, and a few months ago there were big plans to write out the Kingmaker Saga in Salvar and submit it as canon.

Do we need more ways in which staff can approve player-led events? For example, if the staff implement a system by which established players can volunteer as moderators for Guided Quests, based on missions in the regional mission boards, would anybody use it? Or, like Workshops pre-AP, would it lie dormant and unused? Would we be able to support the interest and activity to see player-led FQs through to the end (the Eiskalt War worked, although Eiskalt has lain dormant since; the Kingmaker Saga, on the other hand, is currently stalled in its prologue)? Would players have enough interests in each others' threads to support my suggestion of a "I read this, this was good" thread?

I'd be against RNG loot, but agree with what Karu said about the Bazaar - I prefer to earn stuff in-character, in any case. With regards to pre-made high-level items, would the auctions (perhaps an extension thereof) fit the bill? Also, perhaps make it clear in the new player guide that you can earn items in-quest as well as buy them directly from the Bazaar?

With regards to the Nexus, I think we should direct discussion to Dirks's thread on the matter (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?30762-Freeform-RP). For my part, I agree with Revenant's ideas on the matter, with the caveat that I'm not sure that giving full experience is a good idea. You're writing with the account, yes, but not with the character thus associated with it, and thus you'd gain full experience without the corresponding character development (for that matter, I'd rather not gain experience in the Workshop either, but hey).

Finally, I'd be interested to see how the AP system has affected judge workload. If we have qualified judges sitting around and doing little because more threads are submitted to the Workshop rather than as full judgements, perhaps we can encourage them to learn the ropes at the Bazaar and RoG and help out there when necessary? Or perhaps ask them to post in the Workshops themselves as much as possible? I realise that judges still shoulder battle threads in general and tournaments in particular, but I'd hate to see valuable staff resources sitting idle because "it's not my responsibility".

[Karuka]

Finally, I'd be interested to see how the AP system has affected judge workload. If we have qualified judges sitting around and doing little because more threads are submitted to the Workshop rather than as full judgements, perhaps we can encourage them to learn the ropes at the Bazaar and RoG and help out there when necessary? Or perhaps ask them to post in the Workshops themselves as much as possible? I realise that judges still shoulder battle threads in general and tournaments in particular, but I'd hate to see valuable staff resources sitting idle because "it's not my responsibility".
I've long been a proponent of having every single moderator learn how to do character approvals up to at least level three. When I first returned, it took more than a week to get either Karuka or Alydia approved. I very nearly left again before that time. Now, both of my girls were way over level three at the time, but I feel that if more staff were familiar with at least the RoG basics, there would be more involvement for new players. I know we've lost at least a couple of newcomers because they weren't approved in a timely manner and thus unable to jump right in and write. That's not cool.

[Cards of Fate]

I've long been a proponent of having every single moderator learn how to do character approvals up to at least level three. When I first returned, it took more than a week to get either Karuka or Alydia approved. I very nearly left again before that time. Now, both of my girls were way over level three at the time, but I feel that if more staff were familiar with at least the RoG basics, there would be more involvement for new players. I know we've lost at least a couple of newcomers because they weren't approved in a timely manner and thus unable to jump right in and write. That's not cool.

We're working on doing something similar but I agree on the sentiment wholeheartedly. We're exceptionally understaffed, and my current attempts to rectify the situation have been caught up in snags and such.

As for the sentiment for Bazaar prices, the problem isn't so much the current system, but how much gold people pull in in general. The difference in gold between a ten post thread that scores a 50 and a thread that scores a 100 is stupid low. Not to mention the amount of gold you would pull in for a thread alone is stupid low, and makes trying to quest for anything meaningful an incredibly long task and honestly almost not even worth your time.

[Lye]

I'm going to keep this open until next Friday. At that time, I will close this thread and review the contents with the other admins. Please keep in mind we want to see material that helps engage new and existing players. While I understand the importance of "this needs to be faster" and "this needs to change", I would like to see suggested plans of attack to resolve current issues. The more thought put into it, the better we can follow along and think of ways to implement it.

Also, seeing a repeat of several ideas that would require a large amount of volunteer time, I'd also like to see if any of you would be willing to assist in the undertaking of any of the mentioned ideas. On a site that is so fluid and everchanging, certain proposals may not be reasonable for the amount of upkeep needed.

I've seen some neat event ideas, a considerable focus on loot & bazaar, and a considerable mention that we need more lore or more digestible lore. Lore is one of the factors that have impeded a few of the newbies I have brought over. I think sparknotes would be useful, but a large undertaking. We would need help.

I've seen a fair mention of free RP and the Nexus. What are you looking for in the Nexus? Any structure, any rules? Any congruence to the existing Althanas system, or a system of its own? In regards to the Bazaar, would an price list of basic weapons and common enchants make the buying process easier? Your player our you would just need to make a statement of what they wanted from the listed options and all the staff would do is approve?

Random loot was a bust. Fair. But what about players writing that they get absurd amounts of loot every thread? How would you suggest that be mitigated? On vanilla Althanas, we had adamantine floating around like expensive candy. As for instant threads into lore, how would we manage massive changes that would affect multiple player canon? For example, someone writes a world war or a civil war in their home town that now changes how they have to write their character?

For events, what about player run events with Moderator review and approval? Much like a player proposes a quest with X rewards and X events and X structure. A mod approves, and spots checks the thread to make sure nothing game breaking occurs?

Keep the talk going. Thread closes the first Friday of March.

[Storm Veritas]

I'd be happy to help write some synopses of existing Canon if it allowed for something like the SparkNotes idea to go through. Let me know what you're thinking of and I'll pitch in as much as I feasibly can.

[Karuka]

I'd be willing to guide a quest or quest series.

[Flames of Hyperion]

Re. the Sparknotes: they shouldn't require too much time and effort. If they're too large and too in-depth, then they'll just daunt the very people they're meant for. I imagine them more as a head page, a one-stop collection of links to in-depth information on regions, lore, and history.

For the regions: a world map, and a single sentence on each defined nation with a link to the "At a Glance" thread and wiki.
For the lore: a single sentence for each major aspect of Althanian culture (i.e. the Thaynes, the Star Pantheon, the Church of the Ethereal Sway, the Citadel) and a link to the wiki.
For the history: a single sentence for each major event in Althanas history (i.e. the Sundering of the Tap, the Schism, the Demon Wars, the Corpse War, the Salvic Civil War, the Coronian Civil War).

If I can be of use regarding this, or my Whispers in the Wind / regional mission boards idea, or perhaps a larger event, please let me know.

[Kryos]

I would be more than happy to volunteer my time to help with changes. Whether that be helping out with sparknotes, helping determine the maps details, getting trained on RoG/profiles, or anything else. I don't want to commit too heavily at this point with my work schedule, but I am more than willing to help out where needed.

I am at work now, so can't get into things too much at this time. I've skimmed most of the comments, and generally agree with the voice of the masses.

Keep up the good work all.

Edit #1: I especially like Flames' idea of "Recent good reads" thread and the Whispers of the Wind. I would love to see that go places, especially if it helped with regional missions. What if some of the missions from the Whispers were limited time missions that repopulated on a faster scale? Perhaps to accomplish that, the scale of the missions might be brought down a bit. For instance, in Raiaera, there is one to cure the blight of the Plaguelands. That seems rather huge. Instead, it could be "Investigate ______ rumor." Something like that seems simpler and something that anyone could do, even in a short thread. Curing the plaguelands takes a lot of understanding of the Raiaeran recent history, lore, and suits some characters more than others, such as Madison Freebird, versus pretty-little-red's character for instance.

[Revenant]

As for the sentiment for Bazaar prices, the problem isn't so much the current system, but how much gold people pull in in general. The difference in gold between a ten post thread that scores a 50 and a thread that scores a 100 is stupid low. Not to mention the amount of gold you would pull in for a thread alone is stupid low, and makes trying to quest for anything meaningful an incredibly long task and honestly almost not even worth your time.

What this suggests to me, along with the almost total lack of bazaar use, is that the GP system on Althanas is woefully broken and needs a complete overhaul. I think it's a great mechanic to have awarded gp, a real roleplaying staple. How hard would it be to generate a new system of awarding GP to more evenly match post amount/score/efforts? Honestly asking here, not being sarcastic.



While I understand the importance of "this needs to be faster" and "this needs to change", I would like to see suggested plans of attack to resolve current issues. The more thought put into it, the better we can follow along and think of ways to implement it.

I think the "train all the mods to handle ROG/Bazaar" idea is pretty solid. The bazaar stuff, at least, isn't a terribly complicated formula. If the bazaar is to be a thing, threads shouldn't linger in it without mod response for days/weeks. Similarly, I'd say there doesn't need to be a requirement for the same mod to complete a transaction that lasts more than one post. One mod sees an open bazaar thread and replies, then the initial poster responds, then a second mod could answer up to cut down on turn around time. This would be easy to do if all mods have the basic training/formulas.


Also, seeing a repeat of several ideas that would require a large amount of volunteer time, I'd also like to see if any of you would be willing to assist in the undertaking of any of the mentioned ideas. On a site that is so fluid and everchanging, certain proposals may not be reasonable for the amount of upkeep needed.

Perhaps have a regional forum thread where anyone can post up ideas for rumors/bounties/quests for that region whenever they think them up. Regional mods can take those ideas and clean them up for submission as formal rumor/bounty/quests. Maybe add on that a completed thread based off someone's suggestions earns the suggester AP/exp/gp/whatever.


In regards to the Bazaar, would an price list of basic weapons and common enchants make the buying process easier? Your player our you would just need to make a statement of what they wanted from the listed options and all the staff would do is approve?

I've always loved the idea of the bazaar and have really wanted it to succeed over the years. I think putting a list up for materials to allow people to have an idea of how much things cost would be a fantastic thing, with the idea that if someone wants to simply make a purchase for the listed price they can, but that if they want to roleplay a little they can get discounts.


But what about players writing that they get absurd amounts of loot every thread? How would you suggest that be mitigated? On vanilla Althanas, we had adamantine floating around like expensive candy.

Change the gp earning system and require loot to be purchased from earned/stored gp at the end of threads. You essentially turn your spoils request into a quick bazaar thread. But, again, that would require changing the gp system.


As for instant threads into lore, how would we manage massive changes that would affect multiple player canon? For example, someone writes a world war or a civil war in their home town that now changes how they have to write their character?

Lore mods would still have final say on what makes it into canon, so no matter how brilliantly I write a thread about ancient magic robots taking over the world, and no matter how high it scores, it's never getting into canon past the mods.


For events, what about player run events with Moderator review and approval? Much like a player proposes a quest with X rewards and X events and X structure. A mod approves, and spots checks the thread to make sure nothing game breaking occurs?

Also a good idea, but I think there should still be official moderator run events. Maybe have a sub-sub-forum for "Hosting an Event" ideas where players can submit an event that they'd like to run with rewards/events/structure and then, after mod approval, elicit player participation. This could be good rp'ing for some of the more corporate characters out there too. Then at the conclusion of the event, after mods approve the successful non-game-breaking conclusion, the event coordinator gains some AP/exp/gp for running it.

And now that I think about it, we tend to horde AP/exp/gp like some precious, limited commodity. I see it with the "there shouldn't be exp/gp for Nexus threads." It confuses me. I'm not saying it should be poured out by the bucketful, but if you're looking to increase activity then offer more AP/exp/gp. People like getting things and it's not like it's really going to break the site. At the worst, you skip through the cheaper early levels quicker and get to a more powerful character, which is way more fun to write than completely new guys anyways.

[SirArtemis]

One idea on getting loot as a reward is maybe a sort of score system. For example, if you write a thread and want a particular reward, say a titanium sword, based on your score you'd get a preset amount of points toward that item. The scale doesn't matter, but let's say as an example, a titanium sword is worth 1200 points. Writing a thread that is submitted to the bazaar can be worth up to 500 points. If you write a thread that is judged by an official judge, it could be worth more, based on some formula related to score and post length. Perhaps you can do an AP to point conversion rate, or just use a scale that works better. The details of this would definitely have to be hashed out, but let's say I wrote a thread where I wanted this ring of chamelon i posted in the bazaar. The cost is 2000 gold, but let's say for the sake of this it's 2000 points. My thread say scores a 70 full rubric by the judge. I get 1400 points toward it based on performance. I offer to use AP to boost me up. So I use 1 ap per 50 points and can finish it off at 12 AP cost for the remainder. That, or I can keep it at 1400 and write another thread, and when completing that thread, make a note to redeem my score toward the points for my reward from a previous thread. Since often times a single thread won't level up higher characters anyway, a couple threads between character updates might make sense.

Again, I realize this is a really choppy idea and would have to be worked out, but a % completion based on thread performance, or fixed rewards based on submission type (no judgment is set, workshop is set, etc), then we would just have to develop a scale system (probably related to how you calculate gold cost for items already) and make people earn their rewards.

I hope that made sense. If not, please tell me and I can try to clarify/elaborate.

EDIT 1:

I think to some extent this deals with the notion of "I write thread and want crazy powerful enchanted gun of doom" and judge says "you can't, it's just too powerful/you're too low level/you didn't score well enough, so here's a discount in the bazaar" or something to that effect. If xp scales based on level, points could in the formula as well. So yeah, if you want to get a titanium gun at level 1, you can start the progression toward that weapon, but when you realize how far away that item may be, you may not opt for it. Having some sort of guide on this may help people gauge what they can reasonably go for. Building on this, I think the bazaar material guide can use a revamp with more information. For example, a hardness scale for metals. A durability scale for wood or leathers. A cost factor. For example, iron is a cost factor of 1, steel cost factor of 3, mithril cost factor of 70, or whatever. That could be integrated into this system.


EDIT 2:

This could very well integrate into just being gold. If the gold formula were reworked and a thread earned a "value" toward an item, and if you were shy and paid the gold difference, you'd get it that way. I know that this is sort of done as it is, or at least has been done for me in the past (like no gold for the thread and some taken out of my coffers to pay the difference). But then a scale of some kind that gives some transparency into how realistic it is to go for an item, or a progress meter tracked somewhere for it, would be great.

[Cards of Fate]

What this suggests to me, along with the almost total lack of bazaar use, is that the GP system on Althanas is woefully broken and needs a complete overhaul. I think it's a great mechanic to have awarded gp, a real roleplaying staple. How hard would it be to generate a new system of awarding GP to more evenly match post amount/score/efforts? Honestly asking here, not being sarcastic.


Honestly a tweak to a the formula used to calculate GP would be needed here. Perhaps something to take in level or the like to make sure rewards scale into the "late game" better. The ratio of GP to post is incredibly low as is, but even if we added something like a modifier for half a persons level (rounded up so we always have nice clean numbers) we would see a dramatic increase in the ability to quest for spoils

[jdd2035]

Ok, what I have seen in my short time here is one abilities are all over the place and 2 the mods widge about being overwhelmed so much so that now to get a judgement we have to pay for it with a new currency that the casual player has to jump through hoops to get.

So lets make things easier on every one rather than letting the player come up with abilities for their character and then having the RoG and Mods discuss rather it's acceptable lets start making canon abilities Circa feats from D&D 3.5. This'll take out the guess work and also make one less thing for the mods to worry about. Lets make as many things standardized as possible. It shouldn't take a few days to create a character's stats that should be fastest part of creation and it really has the least bit of bearing on the roleplay in a venue such as this.

Also if people are going to do extra things for AP (AndI hate the whole AP program) make it worth more than ~maybe~ a little more EXP and GP.

[SirArtemis]

Ok, what I have seen in my short time here is one abilities are all over the place and 2 the mods widge about being overwhelmed so much so that now to get a judgement we have to pay for it with a new currency that the casual player has to jump through hoops to get.

So lets make things easier on every one rather than letting the player come up with abilities for their character and then having the RoG and Mods discuss rather it's acceptable lets start making canon abilities Circa feats from D&D 3.5. This'll take out the guess work and also make one less thing for the mods to worry about. Lets make as many things standardized as possible. It shouldn't take a few days to create a character's stats that should be fastest part of creation and it really has the least bit of bearing on the roleplay in a venue such as this.

Also if people are going to do extra things for AP (AndI hate the whole AP program) make it worth more than ~maybe~ a little more EXP and GP.

I can agree with a feat style format in the cliff notes for starter players to get ideas, but as you evolve your player, i think people have a sense of customization that makes the character unique. In D&D, things kinda have clear choices as "this is definitely overpowered and useful to get."

As for the AP system and judgments, a single full rubric workshop gives you 5 ap right now, and a vignette entry is 1 point jsut for writing one post (albeit with a one month delay ongoing). Unless you're hung up on a rubric from an official judge, a workshop is still a great place to get feedback from multiple perspectives. And reading one thread and doing a full rubric isn't that bad. I've done a few that are 10 posts and I could read in 45 minutes, and I read relatively slowly.

[black shadow]

With the ROG, from my past experience, when I did my highest level update (I believe it was level 12? Maybe 13) it took about an hour to scan the logs and make sure everything is okay. The biggest problem is not that it's hard to do or anything, but mainly that it takes an hour for a high level profile and the mods we have don't really have an hour to sit down and focus on just one character sheet. Mix that with multiple sheets to do and i can see where it gets overwhelming. I strongly oppose having set abilities, mainly because that limits why you can do with the characters a lot more than we limit it now. There's some abilities on althanas that no one else has and probably ever will have, and I like that. I mean maybe set some that people can search through and check if it's okay for normal abilities (i.e. Stat boosts, telekinesis, or elemental control) but there needs to remain that ability to create whatever you want.

I support the "every mod should know ROG" but I would also say every mod should at least be trained in basic judgement, maybe higher. Everyone should be able to do everything in case of a backup.

[jdd2035]

Read through some of the characters there's like 5 different ways to say "S/He's stronger/faster/healthier than average" and 2 what may be an easy thing to do for you may not be easy for every one.

Also while we're at it. If i'm paying for a judgement I think it should be quicker.

[Cards of Fate]

Read through some of the characters there's like 5 different ways to say "S/He's stronger/faster/healthier than average" and 2 what may be an easy thing to do for you may not be easy for every one.

Also while we're at it. If i'm paying for a judgement I think it should be quicker.

The idea with AP was to reduce the amount of judgments being put in the que to make it quicker. We're on a volunteer basis and have set standards for our judges. We can't just crack a full judgement out at the drop of a hat, it can takes days of rereading to create fully fleshed out commentary.

[Revenant]

I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of power scaling example in the ROG, based off average human and going up to whatever, with tiered examples of what kind of feats can be reproduced at those levels. Your 2x stronger than an average person is likely way different from my idea of what 2x stronger than the average human is, so having some actual basis for comparison would be nice.

This works with other powers too. What does minor damage mean? What does exceptional quality mean? I realize that a lot of the necessity for these things is battle based and the site has gone away from those since the implementation of the AP system, but it could also function to make things easier for ROG mods to know what abilities scale to what for easier approval.

[Bard]

This would be really nice to encouraged to come to the site and they are, usually, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of lore and other things and usually, if not always, at a loss of what to do. I'm not saying that too much lore is a bad thing, but something like an overview type thing with sparknotes edition would help with character creation and placement.

Basically, have a shallow end that gradually leads to the deep end. Right now we just have a deep end. ^ ^;

I’ve heard this mentioned a few times when listening to this thread, and its interesting. Mark, AKA Mixed-blood said when he joined that there was a brief summery in the character menu where he joined. I’ve gone to it, and am going to post a link below. So you will understand what I’m about to ask next. Is the information presented here to brief?
Would better links to time lines be desireable?
A page in the wiki that is linked from the RoG that contains another historical summery, more in depth than the timeline, but more thorough than a full write up?

http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?26564-RoG-Guide-New-Players-Read-This!

Take a glance at that if you will then please think about the questions posted above, then let me know your thoughts.

[Revenant]

The idea with AP was to reduce the amount of judgments being put in the que to make it quicker. We're on a volunteer basis and have set standards for our judges. We can't just crack a full judgement out at the drop of a hat, it can takes days of rereading to create fully fleshed out commentary.

In my opinion, the AP system is still too-stringent. Make Writer's Workshop submissions 0 AP to choose since it requires little time on the mods part other than to post the workshop thread and compile the score with a month of leeway. No judgment requests should gain AP for submissions or else a bonus in exp/gp. This is either a boon for making it easy on the judge mods or a benefit of just wanting to play the game and not worry about writing improvement. Basic judgments should only cost 1 AP, Condensed 2, and Full 4. I believe changing numbers this way still allows players to get some needed feedback without having to jump through too many hoops (Basic) since part of the idea of Althanas is to help others improve their writing and this would be directly from the source of the grading. As things stand Citadel and other battle threads are really prohibitive with the current standards (4 AP min) and as a site staple, should be more accessible. Cutting Condensed judgments down to 2 AP would allow players to do a battle for 1 AP each, which is something that can be gained fairly easily over the course of a month. Full judgments do require a lot more effort so keep that score high if you want.

If you want to keep activity high here, try rewarding lower judgement requests (No judgment or workshop) instead of punishing higher judgment requests. The carrot is always better than the stick.

[Bard]

I also support this idea.

This is to me part of the mentering mentee system. I am Mixed-bloods menter, I help him become comfortable with the in game lore, I provide him with ideas for quests, help him with those quests and provide him with feedback. I also do this for people other than mixed-blood, like SirArtemis for instance, but you get the idea.

[SirArtemis]

I do agree that a workshop submission should be 0 ap. I also think that there should be a set reward for feedback on workshops. Just because i follow the full rubric doesnt mean i deserve 5 ap. Especially because im no expert and if i excel at things like mechanics and communication, but stink at setting and technique, it would benefit the writer more if i could speak to what i know rather than speak to everything even when not helpful. Do something like a workshop is 2 or 3 ap earned, 3 if the author or mod feel a particular post of feedback was particularly useful. Again, or just keep it a flat 2 or 3 for valid feedback and make submission free.

[Bard]

With the ROG, from my past experience, when I did my highest level update (I believe it was level 12? Maybe 13) it took about an hour to scan the logs and make sure everything is okay. The biggest problem is not that it's hard to do or anything, but mainly that it takes an hour for a high level profile and the mods we have don't really have an hour to sit down and focus on just one character sheet. Mix that with multiple sheets to do and i can see where it gets overwhelming. I strongly oppose having set abilities, mainly because that limits why you can do with the characters a lot more than we limit it now. There's some abilities on althanas that no one else has and probably ever will have, and I like that. I mean maybe set some that people can search through and check if it's okay for normal abilities (i.e. Stat boosts, telekinesis, or elemental control) but there needs to remain that ability to create whatever you want.

I support the "every mod should know ROG" but I would also say every mod should at least be trained in basic judgement, maybe higher. Everyone should be able to do everything in case of a backup.

I agree.

[Cards of Fate]

In my opinion, the AP system is still too-stringent. Make Writer's Workshop submissions 0 AP to choose since it requires little time on the mods part other than to post the workshop thread and compile the score with a month of leeway. No judgment requests should gain AP for submissions or else a bonus in exp/gp. This is either a boon for making it easy on the judge mods or a benefit of just wanting to play the game and not worry about writing improvement. Basic judgments should only cost 1 AP, Condensed 2, and Full 4. I believe changing numbers this way still allows players to get some needed feedback without having to jump through too many hoops (Basic) since part of the idea of Althanas is to help others improve their writing and this would be directly from the source of the grading. As things stand Citadel and other battle threads are really prohibitive with the current standards (4 AP min) and as a site staple, should be more accessible. Cutting Condensed judgments down to 2 AP would allow players to do a battle for 1 AP each, which is something that can be gained fairly easily over the course of a month. Full judgments do require a lot more effort so keep that score high if you want.

If you want to keep activity high here, try rewarding lower judgement requests (No judgment or workshop) instead of punishing higher judgment requests. The carrot is always better than the stick.

Preaching to the choir here. There was a lot of modside discussion on this issue but ultimately the idea of Workshops having to cost something won out somehow.

[Tobias Stalt]

Man, two months in the system is still glitchy? Huh. Dammit, Dirks, we're supposed to be perfect.

Seriously guys, let's let the system settle in and get accustomed to it for a bit before we go making huge criticisms about its functionality (or lack thereof.)

[Max Dirks]

I'm somewhat concerned because a lot of the suggestions being made by veteran and returning veterans already exist. Either that means they are placed in a poor spot in terms of visibility or those members never took the time to look for that information.

For example, here is your cliff notes regional lore guide: http://althanas.com/world/faq.php?faq=althanasalmanac#faq_almalerar

Similarly, there is a more complete, but still shortened "At A Glance" thread in every region and sub region.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on this point.

[Flames of Hyperion]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Max - the problem is visibility / accessibility. We have information scattered throughout the wiki, the FAQ, and the board itself (i.e. the At a Glance threads, which are really, really good). The RoG Guide is a resource for starting off your character, but not necessarily for getting to grips with the lore. Chapter 8 of the FAQ links to the wiki but not to the At a Glance threads, uses an older version of the world map, and is buried deep within the FAQ (do we link to the FAQ specifically during the new player process? Even if we do, it's a long way down...).

What we need then, in my opinion, is a clearly formatted, simple, one-stop page that can serve as a reference to said information. We don't want people to have to take the time to look for the information, we want them to be able to access it at their fingertips. Rather than be immediately confronted with a wall of text, give our new players the option to browse it at their leisure.

But this is a veteran's view on the subject. I - and I suspect Max - would be interested to hear what our new players have to say. What did you look at when you arrived on the site? Which parts of the introduction process did you a particular barrier to your entry? How could we better present the lore we have on site?

Note also that the official world map link in the wiki's Map Compendium is broken...

[Storm Veritas]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Max - the problem is visibility / accessibility. We have information scattered throughout the wiki, the FAQ, and the board itself (i.e. the At a Glance threads, which are really, really good). The RoG Guide is a resource for starting off your character, but not necessarily for getting to grips with the lore. Chapter 8 of the FAQ links to the wiki but not to the At a Glance threads, uses an older version of the world map, and is buried deep within the FAQ (do we link to the FAQ specifically during the new player process? Even if we do, it's a long way down...).

What we need then, in my opinion, is a clearly formatted, simple, one-stop page that can serve as a reference to said information. We don't want people to have to take the time to look for the information, we want them to be able to access it at their fingertips. Rather than be immediately confronted with a wall of text, give our new players the option to browse it at their leisure.

But this is a veteran's view on the subject. I - and I suspect Max - would be interested to hear what our new players have to say. What did you look at when you arrived on the site? Which parts of the introduction process did you a particular barrier to your entry? How could we better present the lore we have on site?

Note also that the official world map link in the wiki's Map Compendium is broken...

Absolutely! If all this stuff exists, but no one knows where to find it, then simple reorganization may be able to satisfy a lot of the requests.

This is no easy task, since the obvious problem with Althanian content is there is "too much stuff" to navigate. I'd suggest a singular point of entrance which contains exploding content, similar to wikipedia formatting. This is where you tell me it already exists, I'm sure.

[Breaker]

I do agree that a workshop submission should be 0 ap. I also think that there should be a set reward for feedback on workshops. Just because i follow the full rubric doesnt mean i deserve 5 ap. Especially because im no expert and if i excel at things like mechanics and communication, but stink at setting and technique, it would benefit the writer more if i could speak to what i know rather than speak to everything even when not helpful. Do something like a workshop is 2 or 3 ap earned, 3 if the author or mod feel a particular post of feedback was particularly useful. Again, or just keep it a flat 2 or 3 for valid feedback and make submission free.

I agree that workshop rewards should reflect the effort the reviewer puts in, not which version of the rubric they chose to use. Personally I only use the full rubric when the writers are newer or have things they need to improve on in EVERY SINGLE area. But if for example they have solid mechanics and dialogue, it's a lot easier and more convenient to use the condensed rubric while providing all the same feedback. Bottom line is that a condensed rubric judgment can be transformed into a full rubric just by spacing it out and adding subtitles. If people aren't already gaming the system like this, they will soon.

edit: I also support Revenant's proposed overhaul to the AP system, not necessarily exactly as he put it but something similar.

[Bard]

Dirks at the moment I'm guessing that "at a glance" somehow is getting missed, as for the summeries in the RoG area for new writers, though...? I don't know. My only guess is that people come here and try and learn the setting before writing their first character. Would it be possible, for their welcome e-mail, the one that they get right after joining contains links to the "at a glance "links?

[Rayleigh]

I do agree that a workshop submission should be 0 ap. I also think that there should be a set reward for feedback on workshops. Just because i follow the full rubric doesnt mean i deserve 5 ap. Especially because im no expert and if i excel at things like mechanics and communication, but stink at setting and technique, it would benefit the writer more if i could speak to what i know rather than speak to everything even when not helpful. Do something like a workshop is 2 or 3 ap earned, 3 if the author or mod feel a particular post of feedback was particularly useful. Again, or just keep it a flat 2 or 3 for valid feedback and make submission free.

This is something that is already being looked at. Just understand that there was no way that we could have seen the possibility of "gaming the system" until we put this system into effect and let it run its course. The AP system has been live for three weeks? And we put literal months into planning it. So while I appreciate the AP suggestions across the board here, just remember that this is a work in progress.

[Karuka]

The "at a glance" pages are stickied right in the regional sub-forums, yes. But that's still a bunch of clicks for a newbie. I'm suggesting that they get centralized in a single thread in the Realm of Greeting. New players are already in that subforum anyway to look at how they can build their characters, so it just makes sense to have one single thread that is kept current in the subforum where they already are, to give them a single, central, accessible, digestible rundown on what Althanas is.

Edit: If many veterans of the site, who know how to navigate it and understand how the world works, are saying that this is an issue, it's probably an issue.

[Mixed-blood]

In the sticky for character creation that says new characters read this, there are links to maps.
http://www.althanas.com/world/showwiki.php?title=Map+Compendium


A brief description to each country, like this one for instance,
http://www.althanas.com/world/showwiki.php?title=Scara+Brae

which provides a new character like me, with a good bit of info.

As a new guy, the idea of making this something that appears in their PM box when they join, a link to this character creation sticky guide will solve all the problems that other people keep voicing.

Now, before people start jumping on the whole, you had Bard to answer questions for me thing, he directed me to this place , the character creation thing with the other links first, and then said I should ask him questions. That’s exactly what I did.

So Derks, or Ray or whoever is responsible for seting up the greeting e-mail thing, put a link in it that takes you straight to here,
“RoG Guide [New Players Read This!]”

And that’ll solve a lot of issues.


OK that's it for me, I'm done.

[Kryos]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Max - the problem is visibility / accessibility. We have information scattered throughout the wiki, the FAQ, and the board itself (i.e. the At a Glance threads, which are really, really good). The RoG Guide is a resource for starting off your character, but not necessarily for getting to grips with the lore. Chapter 8 of the FAQ links to the wiki but not to the At a Glance threads, uses an older version of the world map, and is buried deep within the FAQ (do we link to the FAQ specifically during the new player process? Even if we do, it's a long way down...).

What we need then, in my opinion, is a clearly formatted, simple, one-stop page that can serve as a reference to said information. We don't want people to have to take the time to look for the information, we want them to be able to access it at their fingertips. Rather than be immediately confronted with a wall of text, give our new players the option to browse it at their leisure.

But this is a veteran's view on the subject. I - and I suspect Max - would be interested to hear what our new players have to say. What did you look at when you arrived on the site? Which parts of the introduction process did you a particular barrier to your entry? How could we better present the lore we have on site?

Note also that the official world map link in the wiki's Map Compendium is broken...


I think this is the main issue. I fill the role of both veteran and newbie at this point, as it has been about six to seven years since I have really settled in Althanas. I remember tons of details from way back when, but there have also been a lot of updates. What I feel is needed is clarity and the official stamp of "officialness."

Let's look at the maps. When I returned, I was using the mental image of this one, which is linked in the wiki as A very old rendering of the world map (http://www.althanas.com/maps/northalthanaspreview.jpg). However, when working on my solo, I reached out to Flames of Hyperion, who was heavily involved with the Corpse War and the last person that RP'ed with Kryos, for some additional information on Raiaera. He linked me to this thread, Raiaera Reborn (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27732-Raiaera-Reborn), which holds a ton of useful information on the state of Raiaera after the war that I haven't been able to find anywhere else. Not only does it include other useful links (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27732-Raiaera-Reborn&p=232704&viewfull=1#post232704) to other aspects that I have used, but it also contained this detailed map of Raiaera post war (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27732-Raiaera-Reborn&p=232939&viewfull=1#post232939). As you can see, it mirrors the old rendering of Raiaera pretty well, and gives a solid understanding of positioning of cities, the plaguelands, etc.

However, let's go back to the wiki now. The "current" world map link is broken, and the previous version (http://i.imgur.com/hd5oa.jpg), which is after the "very old rendering," looks very different from what I was familiar with and to what Flames had directed me to. Then, yesterday, someone referenced Cartography of Althanas (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?30402-Cartography-of-Althanas) with its interactive map (http://runeologic.co.uk/map.html) and detailed map (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2970094/Althans/AlthanasMap-HugeHalf.jpg). These are both great because they include Althanas and Dheathan and Kiberas. These maps mirror the set up of the more recent maps, so it leads me to believe that I was going off of slightly dated material. Then again, maybe I had it right all along.

As you can see, just looking at the maps, and using Raiaera as an example because that is where I am roleplaying, there are so many different versions, and no single one of them is "the official, canon, top dog, supreme dictator map TO RULE THEM ALL!!!!" This can get somewhat frustrating to everyone I believe.

A possible fix to this is to have a thread or wiki that compiles everything known about areas. Re-writing everything for the Wiki is extensive and would take time, but could still work. But a quick fix would be to have a thread in the regions/wiki/FAQ that is a hub for other links that would be useful. For example:

Raiaeran Link Thread:
Links about the Featured Quest:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

Links about cities/people/factions:
Link 1
Link 2

You get the idea. This thread should remain open and when people find other things that are useful to them in writing, they can post the link, which can then be added to the first post after it has been categorized. This way, any information that has been written that is useful and still current will be linked from one central hub. This allows quick access and navigation, rather than spending several minutes trying to dig up the thread that you remember finding about something that was really cool, but not knowing exactly where it was. Case and point, it just took me 4-5 minutes to track down this thread (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22902-Beinost-and-the-College-Arcana&highlight=), which is the best breakdown of Beinost I have found, written by Beinost's creator Caden Law. Includes city layout, current state of affairs, and the history and other useful tidbits, like it was created with 11,591 willing souls of the dead.

****Or, if all of these pages/links were linked in the actual wiki, then that would solve the issue. For instance, the thread on Beinost that I just linked, if that was linked in the wiki under Beinost (http://www.althanas.com/world/showwiki.php?title=Raiaera), that would solve the issue. The wiki is great because it has the setup and categorization already there, but it is limited in content in and of itself. Perhaps using the wiki as the grandmaster "spark notes" that contained all the links to everything relevant would be a better solution than adding stand alone "link threads."****

In addition, deciding upon which version of the maps is now canon needs to happen.

Anyway, that is my view of the current issue being discussed. As Dirks said, we have all the information, and we have it all spark noted. It is just scattered, and if someone wants to go deeper, then they are in deep water from the start with how scattered the information is.

A quick comment on AP: it is new so let it settle. I just got 4 AP for a Workshop review I did that took me about 1 hour to read and write the review. Seems pretty easy to me. I like it because it lightens the load on the judges, and it gets me involved in other peoples writing. I know who their characters are and how they write, which is super cool for me to see and gives strength the relationships/friendships, in addition to it being super cool for the writers to know that other people are reading their work. The AP system will be changing down the road, as it is in beta and there is so much discussion on it, but it is still 3 weeks old. Way to soon for it to be overhauled.

Edit #1: I think the issue is that some of us want to write in the canon Althanas, using the wonderfully developed world that is here. Other I realize don't care if their threads are perfectly in line with the canon. Both are fine. However, in my writing, I want to use as much established material because that is the world that Kryos lives in, and using content from other users is fun for both myself and them.

That being said, after some consideration, I volunteer to head up compiling the content into a more searchable/organized fashion, should it be determined that this is important enough to do. I don't think that re-writing everything so it is a wiki page is necessary for everything, but having a place where links are available to existing content is a great place to start. Again, I volunteer to head this up.

[Kellai]

On the topic of lore and the wiki, etc:

With Kellai, as part of her backstory, I created this whole tribe of harpies that vastly differ from Rava Featherblood and her ilk. To do this, I put some extensive research into the wiki concerning harpies as a race, because I wanted to fit Kellai and her tribe into the lore of the site in general.

The actual wiki page (http://www.althanas.com/world/showwiki.php?title=Harpies) is blank, but if you go to the wiki on Fallien (http://www.althanas.com/world/showwiki.php?title=Fallien) and the linked Rough Guide to Fallien (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?18792-Rough-Guide-to-Fallien-1st-Ed&p=144361#post144361), you can find the information you need.

While the latter two articles are really well done, the actual Harpy page itself is blank. As I have created some additional lore about harpies in general, I would be happy to add my lore to the collection (and have even tried to do so, using the lore tab at the top of the page... though, I think I may have done it wrong somehow??).

But, in (albeit tangential) accordance to what other people are saying about the overall wiki, I think all of this disjointed lore should be added as an update to the actual Harpy wiki, and not as a side note under the regional wiki.

To that end, I am perfectly happy to lend my own efforts to this gargatuan cause (of wiki updates), despite as new as I may be to Althanas in general.

[Storm Veritas]

It seems fairly obvious at this point that the organization of content - without discarding the outstanding effort of many - and doing so on a single, accessible splash page is a long-run goal.

Would it make sense for us to benchmark other sites? Perhaps the lore of our site, combined with elements which are similar to RPG games would allow the detailed information pages of well-constructred MMORPG sites to act as a template for the compilation of content. The goal of organizing content into a SINGLE, CENTRALIZED LOCATION where -everything- about the location of Althanas can be reached in an intuitive fashion wouldn't be easy, but would certainly make assimilation a lot easier to do.

To avoid belaboring the point any further, I'll move on to other ideas:
For now, I'd vote against free workshop reviews, only because we eventually need AP to cost something. I would agree that making it a little cheaper for workshop might be okay, but if you never actually consume AP (since workshop reviews can be really good), then there is no impetus to go into the workshops and read other people's stuff and critique.*

*This opinion is 100% subject to change after the AP system has a little time to hash out. There is the danger that it could devolve into historically shitty reviews, but I'm going to give our community the benefit of the doubt.

[Ashla]

Please no randomized spoils from rolling dice? Please?

I also feel against the AP system as a whole - it makes judgments, which help to improve writing, feel like an exclusive club reward.

Also agree that bazaar prices can be crazy. I get guns, being rare, having higher prices, but sometimes it does get ridicules... Or it could just be me being a poor spender on cheap stuff and still being broke all the time. xD

[Lye]

Just a continued reminder, this thread will close on Friday and be reviewed. Items that see the most mention will get the most attention. Afterwards, there may be a community outreach to accomplish some of these suggestions.

I appreciate your input and time.

[Logan]

Our search function is mostly useless, considering the amount of available threads it searches through. Since stats are relatively meaningless in terms of total threads, total posts, total members, etc, I'd rather see us truly archive threads older than 1 year in a still readable and separately searchable location, so that a search on here actual yields threads within the last year.

Why the hell would I care about a thread from 7 years ago when I just want recent content?

Yes, I know it is possible by restricting the dates of said threads, but really, searching is just a pain because it is too much to search through. I know the wiki was intended to help with this to highlight and link to the most important threads, but it is woefully time consuming and insufficient in how it is setup and managed.

Therein lies my biggest change idea.

Also, I'd like to see the newbie area (used to be Scara Brae) re-activated, and vets given the opportunity to RP there with newbies for extra rewards (extra AP, eh eh eh?). This would also get newbies linked up with veterans from the outset, which allows them to weed through the mountain of lore content to go through much quicker.

[Breaker]

I last suggested this when I was on staff, and it got a pretty horrible reaction... so I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I figured I'd throw it up here in case things have changed.

I'd love to see Althanas publish anthologies of the works created by our users, maybe on an annual or bi-annual basis. There's a number of ways this could be accomplished from becoming an independent publishing house to simply making an account on a self-publishing website. Here's the meat of what I'm suggesting;

-Active members (say anyone who has finished at least 3 threads in a given year) could submit a thread that was properly judged and scored above a certain mark, say 65.
-A committee maybe half staff/half not staff would review the submitted threads and select the ones to be placed in that year's anthology
-Someone (perhaps judges or canon masters) would do an extra stage of editing on the accepted threads to help the writers shore up any weak areas
-Threads would then be compiled and published as an anthology, available as paperbacks and ebooks
-A percentage of sales (or all profits) would go to maintaining the site

Okay, that's pretty much it. Obviously this would require a fair amount of work but if enough people are interested, many hands and all that. That's it for me!

[Kryos]

Love the last idea from Logan, and I love the idea of anthologies.

[Warpath]

Not gonna be a popular idea, but here you go:

Wipe it. Start fresh.

First you advertise what Althanas is and what it does, and why people should come write here. At the same time, you advertise that this is THE time to come join, because everyone is going to start at the same level and have the same opportunity to impact the community-wide story. Your character matters as much as any other, if you're willing to put in the effort to write him or her or it.

The player-impacted history of each region is wiped, and instead each region gets a basic storyline and easy-to-comprehend history. You capture the fantasy of each region as succinctly as possible, while adding or subtracting what would work better or doesn't work at all, based on the past and current numbers and community opinion.

Re-instate a FQ immediately, which has a basic story and a clear villain who can impact every region, who every character can strive to work with or against without compromising the individuality of that character. Update the FQ regularly based on completed threads, thus encouraging activity from those who write well and finish what they start get to shape a brand new story.

Everyone starts at 1, fresh, with the understanding that this is a NEW Althanas. Maybe your character remembers the old world, but the new world and its inhabitants are immutably different. Everyone who joins at the ground level has an equal opportunity, without concern to seniority, to impact one another and the world, assuming activity and writing talent are the same.

Institute a point-buy system at character creation and level updates, wherein a writer can choose a set number of pre-created skills or abilities unlocked at certain levels, and thus speed their way through ROG and level updates. You may choose to create your own skills and abilities with the expectation that your character approval will take longer, as it must be reviewed.

Reward community involvement, and make the incentives for joining a PG clear, succinct, simple, and obvious. For example, reward activity in "pub style" threads if said pub is owned by your PG, with said rewards growing increasingly more worthwhile for uninterrupted participation as the thread goes on. Make flirting in a bar with your friends as effective a means of leveling up as going on an epic quest alone.

Host mod-run quests in the style of D&D campaigns, with greater rewards for those who stick with it til the end.

Althanas is just too long in the tooth to attract new blood. It's a sound and unique playground, but the years of real-life and fictional history are starting to weigh the place down. Hell, Althanas felt heavy with long-gone legends when I got here years and years ago. You can't recapture the golden age of the board, you have to set it up to give new people a chance to shine and create their own stories.

[orphans]

Post #84 (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?30788-Time-to-Make-a-Change&p=261663&viewfull=1#post261663)

I will start by saying that this would certainly be interesting, almost like hitting a reset button, yes? It seems like it could be potentially fun, so here are a few concerns that I thought of:

1) Would there be a guarantee of new blood with this method? The more important question, would they stick?

2) How would you categorize skills and determine the cost of powers? What about flaws? What about things that are in between? Would character race change anything? How would custom skills be rated?

3) Wouldn't a world reset still have lore and such? To the eyes of a newcomer, is there difference between preset lore and player created lore?

4) What would stop me from becoming a god-like being in combat by only participating in "pub style" flirting threads?

[Revenant]

Stuff

I'd be surprisingly up for this. Just let me know now though so I don't waste my time writing for the site for the next six months before the sweep.


4) What would stop me from becoming a god-like being in combat by only participating in "pub style" flirting threads?

Honestly, why shouldn't you be able to? I think exp should be given out for all things site participation instead of hording it like the miser gold that it currently is.

[Flames of Hyperion]

Apologies again for the long-winded post.

I love the idea for annual anthologies, but the amount of effort that's going to be needed to turn even an 80+ thread into publishable material... is it fair to ask our volunteer staff to take up editing responsibilities on top of judging, lore, and operations? Would the author of such a thread have the energy and willpower to revisit it in a strenuous proofing effort? Don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favour of the idea (and of setting up a "World of Althanas" writing label!), and I'd be the first to volunteer for editing duty should my meagre skills be required. But do enough of us see it as a grand enough incentive to work towards?

Regarding a site reset (aka the nuclear option), because it deserves to be addressed: somewhat surprisingly, I find myself not wholly against it either - on a purely selfish level, it will give me the impetus I need to revisit, edit, polish, and republish my early works. That said, orphans raises some very valid points. There's no guarantee of new blood. I can't see a way of retaining freeform character development alongside an ability-purchase system. And the world would be far less rich without building on the contributions of those who came before, but the entry barriers would be almost as high anyways.

In particular, I think that Althanas is what it is because of its history, its tradition, its lore. I'd be interested in any examples where player-impacted history has convoluted Althanas lore beyond the point of accessibility, and in that case wouldn't we be better off pruning the timelines than hitting a reset button? It feels weird that we might consider Althanas long in the tooth and weighed down by history, when the real world is so much worse than that and yet that doesn't stop us from eking out a living in it! I'm certainly not old enough on Althanas to remember the first generations of writers, but I'd like to think that hasn't stopped me from carving out my own little niche of the world.


You can't recapture the golden age of the board, you have to set it up to give new people a chance to shine and create their own stories.

Agreed, but surely we don't have to hit the big red button to achieve this?

A counter-argument might be: if there really was such a demand for a 'fresh' experience, do we really need to destroy Althanas to satisfy it? Why hasn't anybody set up a Second-thanas somewhere else on the internet, with a similar 'write your own legend' and 'become a better writer' experience? My fear - and admittedly I'm instinctively cautious about these kind of changes - is that we'll then end up with an Althanas-lite without any of the features that make it such a compelling world to write in the first place, and we'll lose people anyways as they choose to gravitate towards other, deeper settings.


Make the incentives for joining a PG clear, succinct, simple, and obvious.

Also agreed, to some extent. The PGs lack the activity and glamour of what has the potential to be an integral part of the player experience, and to my untrained eye this is because they're not attractive enough to demand investment from the majority of players (and in the past, the players they did attract tended to have alts in multiple PGs, thus complicating inter-PG rivalry). It's interesting to note that they had yet to be mentioned in this thread until now - is this because they're working well as is, or because there's little interest in them?

However, this comes with the caveat that there will always be set-in-stone solo players - like myself - whose instinctive reaction is never to commit to 'PGs' or 'guilds' or 'clans' or whatever you might call them. Neither do I have any concrete ideas on how to achieve the above, although I agree with Revenant that if somebody wants to write their way to superpowers by flirting, more power to them. It's not the path I'd take, and I'm not sure if the resulting character will have the depth to match the powers it wields, but it's not my place to deny it!

[Kryos]

I am in agreement with Flames' last post concerning the site reset. I am not opposed to it, but I don't think that will solve the issue of new blood/Althanas history.

I would also be more than willing to help with the editing if the anthologies were to happen.

I also would like to see PG's play a more active role than they currently are, but having a lack of experience with them don't know how that should happen. I will be involved with the Tarot, but I am still not sure what that will entail or how I will best be able to help that PG. We shall see.

Good discussion and thoughts, everyone.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

If there was a “hard reset” of the site, how would that affect the following:

A) The Althanas Wiki, and all canon work submitted in there?
B) The Judge’s Choices that have had a direct effect on canon?

I can see the arguments for and against, but personally I am extremely against a large scale reset. I can see why new blood would be intimidated, but why also then penalise those here who have worked tirelessly to get their work canonised? We could be talking months or even years of work for some people.

Unless there was some sort of archive introduced?

[Storm Veritas]

The site reset is an interesting idea, but I would put an ABSOLUTE HARD NO vote in the box on my behalf. This site has run for over a decade with a reward system that was fairly clear from the outset. Deleting rewards created on the behalf of writers' collective work would betray not just the "deal" made originally between the site and the writers at the outset, but also endanger the value of writing for the sake of the game moving forward, as future resets would always be an option.

There are only two reasons people write here: the community and the game. The analogy I think of is a traditional MMORPG like WoW or Runescape. If I woke up one day and a character I had worked for YEARS to develop (both within game rubric and with respect to player/player relationships), I'd be -BEYOND- bullshit, and would just pick a different game to play to avoid that frustration reoccurring. A reset would lead to far FEWER players writing here, not far more.

[Karuka]

I'm in agreement with Storm. I like the community, but I'm only writing here because I've got stories to develop with my girls. If everything they've done, everything they ever worked for, got trashed in an instant, I'd keep my friends and leave the site. I can always find another place to write. People might even read if I wrote a book. But throw away years of my blood, sweat, and tears...

Rage would be a mild word.

On the subject of Althananthology, I think events like FQs and the AC would compile very well. And I'd be willing to help edit.

[Jarilo]

Even as a new player, I wouldn't want to see the site sanction (much less enact) a reset, esp if my abilities get scrapped for a standardized, points-buy framework. It would be one thing if said framework had been part of the site from the beginning, maybe, but I (for one) put a lot of work into Jarilo's abilities and I would hate to lose them, not least because they drive her story.

I also like the anthology idea a lot, and would only be too happy to lend my skills as a degreed technical writer/editor to that end. It would be a huge job, but the prospect of having our own publishing label is too epic to immediately disregard.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

The site reset is an interesting idea, but I would put an ABSOLUTE HARD NO vote in the box on my behalf. This site has run for over a decade with a reward system that was fairly clear from the outset. Deleting rewards created on the behalf of writers' collective work would betray not just the "deal" made originally between the site and the writers at the outset, but also endanger the value of writing for the sake of the game moving forward, as future resets would always be an option.

There are only two reasons people write here: the community and the game. The analogy I think of is a traditional MMORPG like WoW or Runescape. If I woke up one day and a character I had worked for YEARS to develop (both within game rubric and with respect to player/player relationships), I'd be -BEYOND- bullshit, and would just pick a different game to play to avoid that frustration reoccurring. A reset would lead to far FEWER players writing here, not far more.

Tagging on to Storm's point, it would be interesting to see how many of the new members we attract actually stick around for any length of time to be able to appreciate a lore reset, as a registration to active player ratio. Althanas has over 4400 members and the last I checked about 190 were active. That's only 4.3% of the total member base active at the moment.

Then factor in how many of these members are either time served veterans or members who have been here over a year. I would guess, and it is a guess, about half.

If the above estimations are anywhere near a measuring stick, what we are saying is that we would effectively be hard resetting the website for the "benefit" of a mere 2.15% of our total members who may find the lore intimidating.

Even if we just take our active member base as a l guide (and again based on estimates done above) that's only 50% of active members who would probably "benefit" from it. Even then those members are still active today, which means they are not put off by the lore as it is enough to stop playing entirely.

So like Storm I am not convinced about this at all. There are too many core players who have contributed to the lore still around for it to be worth doing anything to reset the site totally.

[black shadow]

So, as to entertain the idea of a site reset, to make those members who, like Karuka, would hate to see all their hard work just wiped away, Here's an alternative that Matt and I have thought of this morning.

Don't just erase everything. There's the crystal ball right? well In the new site, give the crystal ball a link tiled something along the lines of "Ancient Althanas" or something like that, and that brings up a link to the current site as it is with all threads archived and all the forums active. If someone wants to write on "Old" Althanas they can, just no full judgements (maybe permit no judgments). Have 1 moderator over it so that they can take care of all the no judgments and character updates.

With this we make the old members who want to continue with the current way happy, while offering a new place for the oldies to write and draw new players in. and with the 'Ancient Althanas" in place those newcomers can choose between ancient world and the new world. Everyone's happy.

Then of coarse you would have to make the new opening a grand opening. Advertising in multiple places, internet and non internet, in order to get us known. We need to get our name onto the top of those RP ranking websites aswell.

[Karuka]

So, shadow, you'd have us hamstrung instead of demolished. No thank you.

[black shadow]

Not saying I want this to happen. I'm just throwing out ways to, if they decide to go through with the reset, keep all the memories and threads from being erase and destroyed, as well as keep people who want to stick with the current site/system happy.

[SirArtemis]

I am not a proponent of the reset for the following reasons:

1: Being high level or low level does not determine your ability to impact lore/canon.
2: Overspecializing the character ability system only limits creativity, with the only benefit being fast level ups, which overemphasizes the game aspect and diminishes the writing aspect.
3: Player impacted history vs mod created history really isn't all that different. A name of a historical figure only means something to the people who know the writers who were those figures. New writers wouldn't know the difference.


I'm for featured quests, I'm for mod-run events or assisted campaigns, I'm for creating "targets" like assassin hitlists, but also more boring missions like anyone would see. "My goat ran off. Looks like this. Missing two days. Please help." That could be an interesting thread too.


Also, I would help with the althanology thing.

[Logan]

"My goat ran off. Looks like this. Missing two days. Please help." That could be an interesting thread too.

This should definitely by a mission in multiple locales.

[Hawl]

Anthology would be one of the coolest ideas we could do I feel. Even if just a little print on demand service.

[Bard]

I am not a proponent of the reset for the following reasons:

1: Being high level or low level does not determine your ability to impact lore/canon.
2: Overspecializing the character ability system only limits creativity, with the only benefit being fast level ups, which overemphasizes the game aspect and diminishes the writing aspect.
3: Player impacted history vs mod created history really isn't all that different. A name of a historical figure only means something to the people who know the writers who were those figures. New writers wouldn't know the difference.


I'm for featured quests, I'm for mod-run events or assisted campaigns, I'm for creating "targets" like assassin hitlists, but also more boring missions like anyone would see. "My goat ran off. Looks like this. Missing two days. Please help." That could be an interesting thread too.


Also, I would help with the althanology thing.


^
double ^

[Warpath]

Ugh. This is not something I want to start defending, or come across as defending, but I feel I need to make some (properly unpopular) devil's advocate arguments to illustrate why I would suggest something as drastic as a reset.

Here are some quotes, taken out of context, from this thread:

- "I want to know what you think will make Althanas a better place to write and what you think your friends might enjoy if they started writing here."

- "I've had a lot of issues trying to fit myself into the world here and i've noticed several friends who try to play also have this issues. It's very intimidating coming onto this site where you all have built so much lore and trying to just jump in it. We dont want to feel out of place and i'm sure some people are afraid of writing something misleading or that doesn't line up correctly with the world."

- "I think it would be too much to ask of the loremasters, too daunting to folk who've just joined our site and are looking to jump in..."

- "I think the 'thread of the week' idea is excellent, especially since the forum can be daunting, and it's easy to be intimidated by the sheer number of words. New people (Like me) ask themselves, "Who is a good writer?", "Are there threads that can help me grasp the world more readily?", and "What are some good level 1 quests?""

- "I know the lore was intimidating for me when I was a new player; I almost didn't join because of it."

- "The idea with AP was to reduce the amount of judgments being put in the que to make it quicker. We're on a volunteer basis and have set standards for our judges. We can't just crack a full judgement out at the drop of a hat, it can takes days of rereading to create fully fleshed out commentary."

- "If you want to keep activity high here, try rewarding lower judgement requests (No judgment or workshop) instead of punishing higher judgment requests. The carrot is always better than the stick."

- "I think you've hit the nail on the head, Max - the problem is visibility / accessibility."

- " I - and I suspect Max - would be interested to hear what our new players have to say."

- "This is no easy task, since the obvious problem with Althanian content is there is "too much stuff" to navigate."

- "The "at a glance" pages are stickied right in the regional sub-forums, yes. But that's still a bunch of clicks for a newbie."

- "I remember tons of details from way back when, but there have also been a lot of updates. What I feel is needed is clarity and the official stamp of "officialness.""

- "Why the hell would I care about a thread from 7 years ago when I just want recent content?"

----

What I see is a lot of intimidation and confusion, even from vets. The lore is bloated and contradictory and confusing. Althanas is bleeding numbers. If it were a business, I'd say it was dying chiefly because it's not growing.

There are tons of really great ideas in this thread. I mean, pretty much every contribution here seems valuable to me. The problem I think we need to address first, however, is that nearly every solution here will require manpower, time, and effort. Who is going to put in the varying amount of time and energy required to implement these ideas, without burning out, especially when they don't see the fruits of their labors? I have seen dozens of great ideas pass through the mod forums, even during the year or so I was a judge. I can only imagine how much was plotted before that and since...but the issue has always been the same. You're going to have to ask someone to do a lot of work, usually without a lot of thanks or recognition, for returns that are not guaranteed. A tiny percentage of those ideas actually get implemented.

I should have emphasized it originally, but here's one of my ideas from my previous post:

"Institute a point-buy system at character creation and level updates, wherein a writer can choose a set number of pre-created skills or abilities unlocked at certain levels, and thus speed their way through ROG and level updates. You may choose to create your own skills and abilities with the expectation that your character approval will take longer, as it must be reviewed."

The purpose of this suggestion is to streamline the involvement of moderators, to lighten the workload, and to automate the system a little more. We need to do the same thing with judgments, however that looks. We need to do the same thing, across the board, because we are steadily running out of candidates to do those jobs consistently and well.

Shinsou, I dispute the assertion that we have 190 active writers. I suppose we'd need to carefully define "active," but I'd guess we actually have 30 contributing members here, average, on an extremely generous estimation. If a person is on staff, that eats into the time they have to actually write, further decreasing that number of contributors we can depend on to drive activity elsewhere. We need more people writing first and foremost, and we need to make changes that make it more possible for someone on staff to spend a better ratio of time writing instead of maintaining the site.

I can't guarantee that a site reset is going to bring in new members. A reset alone isn't going to be nearly enough to accomplish that.

I think someone posited that MMOs don't just delete people's characters, but I can't find the quote now. Let me refute that: yes they do. An active, thriving MMO routinely obliterates your character by introducing a patch or an expansion. If you're active in WoW, and competitive, you're not wearing the same gear now that you were at the end of Vanilla, or Burning Crusade, or any subsequent expansion. If you played a shaman in vanilla, your character is damn near unrecognizable in comparison now. They didn't numerically start you off at 1 again, but they did fundamentally alter your character and the world around it in a concrete and irreversible way to improve the overall experience. Furthermore, there are level caps in every major MMO, meaning new players are not consistently left out of the experience in favor of those who started first. You can always catch up, reach an even playing field, and contribute to group content on that even playing field.

And if you play WoW now, I'm sure you've noticed that its subscriber base is bleeding off, just like ours. You will also have noticed that with the last two expansions, Blizzard has started selling level boosts with the game, which ensures that brand new players can start off on equal footing with veterans...why do this, if not to boost lagging subscription numbers due to poor growth, in itself due to an increasingly large and intimidating playspace? They didn't remove the 1-90 leveling experience, but they give you the option to skip it.

They're doing the same thing in comics. Marvel introduced the Ultimates universe to start new readers off without literally decades of backstory. DC reset everything with New 52, and they're getting ready to do it again. Marvel reset X-Men back to the original team to reintroduce readers to the core characters and history. That's because comic books are a lagging business, because new readers aren't picking up books, largely because the backstory is too intimidating and they're forced to jump in in the middle of a story.

Pick up a Marvel comic from ten years ago, and nearly every goddamn page has an asterisk somewhere telling you to read THIS issue to understand what the fuck X character is talking about.

Look, Althanas is a unique system, even among other pbp boards. It's not an MMO, and it's not comic books...but it's got a similar problem right now. Flint is the highest level character I've ever had, and I don't want to lose that progress...but I also don't really see a point to continue writing here right now. I don't feel like I'm improving as a result of Althanas anymore, because there are fewer and fewer amazing writers to collaborate with and fewer opportunities to mentor others. I don't feel like it's worth submitting threads for judgment, because there are so few judges that by asking for feedback I'm just contributing to the mod team being bogged down by a workload they can't keep up with for no rewards whatsoever - my using the system feels like an undue burden on it. I don't feel like my contributions to lore matter or are even impactful, because lore has become so scattered and confusing and malleable that I may as well be completely disconnected from the rest of the storylines here.

In short, if I'm just writing solos, or writing with a clique, for no tangible benefits aside from having practiced...shouldn't I just be writing a book, which has a chance to be published and earn me some money?

I would never say that a hard reset is the be-all, end-all answer to the problems we have here, but it gets at the root of the major problems we have.

1) We aren't growing...

2) ...so we can't staff an effective mod team...

3) ...which is slowing the functions of the site down...

4) ...which is causing us to shrink.

Before we do anything else, we need to streamline SOMEWHERE. Maybe you don't need to go so extreme as to wipe everything - my solution is always to rip the band-aid off and fix things by extreme means - but I firmly believe that we need to start trimming fat to make ourselves a more attractive venue.

SIDE NOTE:

Jarilo, I think you misunderstood my point-buy system. I'm not saying one shouldn't be able to create their own skills and abilities anymore, just that the OPTION should exist for people to use point-buy if they want their character approved more quickly. It would be, functionally, a pressure-release system to reduce the amount of time mods spend approving characters. It's similar in effect to the proposed solutions to lightening the judging workload.

[SirArtemis]

Warpath, I think the AP system is a test run in the process of streamlining. I think as we are training the new mods on ROG, it will streamline that process hopefully. I also know Bard is working on a lot of lore, and once that is refined and constructed, the goal will be to make it accessible, navigable, and helpful. I do think we are on a path to making some positive changes, and here are plenty of opinions for sure. A lot of good ideas. But yes, limited power to do all of them. So I think the mods will look at all of this, compile the lists of good ideas for themselves, and pick a few reasonable ones to start with. Again, I don't think level is a good comparison. This is a writing forum first in my eyes, a game second. A battle thread isn't won by the stronger character, but by the stronger writer.

[Bard]

War path, since you don’t know me from Adam; allow me to inform you of a few things:

1. Since week three of joining this site, I’ve been trying to create a more comprehensive summery of events. Something that can go up in the wiki, or in a central location that would give a pretty comprehensive history of the lore. I’ve already suggested, and others have echoed, that a central PM should go out to players that give them access to the timeline links and regional summaries.
Since I’m blind, and have gone through several major life events this has taken me longer than I’d like.

I’ve also had to learn site code, which has shifted more than once since being here, and have tried to advertise this site to other blind individuals so they could join. Mixed-blood and Eylana are examples.

My point is, and yes it has taken me a while to get there, I think that a consolidation is needed more than a reset. There are some of us that are working towards that end, I among them. One of the draws to Althanas for me, Mixed-blood, Eylana, and me, is the richness of that lore, and when someone as new as Eylana says that she doesn’t feel that a reset is a good idea, as new as she is, that should say something.

I believe, that resetting the lore would only serve to compound the problem by driving away what writers you have, not bringing new ones. Do I think it would be useful to allow new writers to see a suggestion of powers/ abilities, to sort of show them what’s available, certainly, but at the same time, and I think that’s a good idea to further stream line character development.

I have encouraged people that I know, and on site to ask me questions related to the lore, just as I have asked questions of long established players and other moderators. I believe that in addition to the Mentor/mentee system, which is something I cannot encourage older writers to do enough for the newer ones, that we should try and establish a list of those writers that feel that they know the lore, who are willing to help get new players in. I think this, along with the mentor/mentee system, should be something given links to in that introductory e-mail/ PM that new accounts receive

I’ll return to this again later, but I just wanted to say, that while you have a case for resetting the lore, I do not believe based on your argument that a more consolidated system with some improvements couldn’t provide just as easily. .

[Rayse Valentino]

The AP system isn't a streamline. It's a paywall. There's a shortage of judges so they're literally rationing judgements. I don't care about it since I'm sure I can get a full judgement somehow, but let's not pretend it's something it's not.

[SirArtemis]

The AP system isn't a streamline. It's a paywall. There's a shortage of judges so they're literally rationing judgements. I don't care about it since I'm sure I can get a full judgement somehow, but let's not pretend it's something it's not.

I think it's more than a paywall. I think it is an encouragement for writers to not just produce work, but to see the work of others. There's much to learn from and improve upon by seeing what others do in various styles, including looking at work that you would never have otherwise. Workshops are an underrated and underused aspect of this website, and I think it would help those who want to improve to utilize the workshop. The fact that it is strongly linked with getting judgments in return is something that I think is helpful. I honestly am still in the boat that there should be a combined option where I pay more AP to get a full rubric from a judge + a workshop but that's to be seen.

Yes, I think that part of the goal is to reduce strain on judges. I think that has to be done. Too much work is completed and submitted to be judged thoroughly by the short staff we have and have had for some time, especially when volunteer based and impossible to compensate. But I think we all have to look at this with an open mind, and a grain of salt, and be open to the possibility of things changing and improving; this includes being honest with why we are here. If you don't care about improving your writing, do a no judgment. If you care about improving your writing, I think being honest about that commitment is important; if you are honest, it's hard to deny the reality that getting more than one set of eyes on your work as well as seeing the work of others is a requirement of that serious commitment.

[Tobias Stalt]

The system is literally a means by which to get the userbase active in critique and workshopping, because eventually Dirks wants to stylize it as a writing workshop. Moreso than just the judging staff, we want members to learn to give better feedback, and to interact more with different people and new ideas.

That it decreases the amount of judgments the shortstaffed judging staff have to deal with is a bonus, but certainly not the entire purpose of the system.

[Kryos]

Welp, at this point, I am thoroughly frustrated with this whole debate. I think this, and they think that. I like the discussion topics so far, but the past day or so it has been feeling more like a political debate.

And I have gotten to the point of rage quitting.

THEREFORE:

I am going to work on my profile update, talk to Cards about getting our thread going, touch base with Rayleigh about getting my solo in the workshop, and continue on my EPIC adventure and change the face of Althanas! Who is with me?!

RAISES BANNER OF LEGENDARY ADVENTURES!

[Rayse Valentino]

I like the idea of getting both a full judgement and a workshop. Then you'll have more quality threads in there, since people currently aren't workshopping threads they think will get a good score or whatnot.

[SirArtemis]

I like the idea of getting both a full judgement and a workshop. Then you'll have more quality threads in there, since people currently aren't workshopping threads they think will get a good score or whatnot.

That's true, I've even heard people say as much. The good stuff that they think can beat a 65 is put up for full judgment, but if they don't think they can beat 65, they throw it in workshop since it's a cheap high score for rewards. That may be something worth considering as an unwanted consequence of giving a 65 for workshop submissions as a flat reward, especially since the best you can do with a condensed rubric, which costs more, is a 60. I'll go throw something into the AP discussion.

[Breaker]

I've been mostly reading along and I'm not about to jump into the debate, but I will say this: if we hard reset Althanas I'd probably fade away. Not because I hate the idea - Warpath has some great ideas, some of which I think could be implemented in Kebiras - but because the characters I have on here right now are a big part of the reason I write here. If I had to start over from scratch, I'd put most of that energy into my own epic fantasy series. There's definitely a lot of nostalgia in this place and my own works and as much as I would want to, I don't see myself staying if it wiped.

[Warpath]

People keep mentioning Kebrias - was there some plan to make it an official thing? I'm not in-the-know here, so somebody fill me in.

I'm surprised you guys are calling it a debate though. I'm not debating! Just throwing out an idea and the reasons I think it's good. I don't think anybody actually intends to do a hard reset on Althanas and I honestly don't expect to see it happen. My goal here is to, I hope, get enough people on what I consider the right track of thinking: treat this board like a failing business, and work on turning it around. I don't think small tweaks and new systems are going to do it. I think you need an overhaul, targeted at the very specific goal of driving traffic to the site, and then retaining it.

Re: the board being a writing workshop, though:

I don't disagree with the notion that Althanas is a writing workshop and always has been, ideally and in theory. The problem is that it's not JUST a writing workshop. The internet has hundreds of writing workshops, why should someone seeking a writing workshop choose this site instead of another? What sets us apart is our brand, which is the game-ification of the writing workshop. Even if it's secondary to the purpose of the site, we are identified by the leveling system and experience, the ROG, the judging process, the character-per-account model, etc. If our unique brand is a deterrent instead of a selling point, we need to revise our brand, otherwise our traffic just moves on to other sites. I'd be super curious to see metrics on the site's traffic: how many actual human beings put eyes on the page and navigate away without creating an account? How many people create accounts and never post? And so on.

I've watched every pbp board I've ever written on die. I've seen threads like this before. I've been wasting time writing on the internet for a little over seventeen years. I'm not just running around screaming about the sky falling or saying these things to be a dick. I'm just tired of watching places I like to spend time cease to exist because people don't like change. I'm extremely stressed and busy as a general thing; if I didn't care I wouldn't be spending as much time explaining myself as I am. So I'm sorry if people are feeling worked up in response to what I'm saying - it's not my intent to upset you, it's my hope to impress upon you the need to do something.

Again, I'm curious what plans you guys have for Kebrias, because there could be a compromise there. Link? PM? Anybody?

[Flames of Hyperion]

Warpath, thanks for taking the time to stimulate the discussion. I'm definitely agreeing with a lot of what you've said.

Perhaps we can turn this on its head. Assume that we reset the forums in six months time, and need to rewrite the lore to suit. What will we keep, and what will we discard? How will we stop ourselves from making the same "mistakes"? Is the new Canon Submission System working to help this?


If a person is on staff, that eats into the time they have to actually write, further decreasing that number of contributors we can depend on to drive activity elsewhere. We need more people writing first and foremost, and we need to make changes that make it more possible for someone on staff to spend a better ratio of time writing instead of maintaining the site.

Again, I definitely agree that we need to streamline the workload of moderators so that they don't spend their entire life moderating, and actually have the time to contribute to the site with their writing as well. I think that the AP system is a way forward here, because it provides an incentive to the player base to step up and close the gap. Workshops, for example, should enable this by involving the non-staff members of the site in 'judging'.

With regards to the RoG, if we're simply looking for guidelines, we do have a similar resource already here on Althanas: the Registration Archive and Character Updates subforums, chock full of approved profiles with approved abilities. What if we were to organise a subset of these by rough character specialisation (i.e. Mage, Warrior, Rogue), and sticky a guide with sample profiles per level? Could this streamline the character approval process, by allowing characters to say "In this particular update, I purchased these particular abilities that have already been approved for the appropriate level"? Perhaps if you 'file' your profile into its appropriate niche on the guide, for example as you level, you get a couple of AP for your trouble?

I can't really argue any further, except to say that one of the reasons that I feel Althanas isn't growing is because we keep losing great writers such as yourself, for example through moderator burnout or through unavoidable life circumstances. Although you say that there's no tangible benefit to you writing on Althanas, for me there was at least one: I enjoyed reading your tales. This is the reason that I would stick around myself, as long as there's somebody on the site reading what I have to write. That is one thing I feel would drive visitor numbers: examples of fresh, high-quality writing on the site. This is one reason why I'm in favour of an anthology.

When you say that there's fewer people to collaborate with and to mentor, do you really feel that you don't have anything to learn from or offer to the site any more? When you say that you feel like you're bogging down the system by asking for feedback, does that include submitting threads to the Workshop? When you say that you don't feel that your contributions to lore are impactful, would a system of player-driven and mod-approved events help? If you want to write a book to publish and earn money, why can't you do it on Althanas and get feedback at the same time?

Is Althanas really so beyond fixing, and in need of a drastic overhaul? It's easy to say 'press the reset button', but unless we know how to improve on the previous model, aren't we doomed to the same mistakes?

Apologies if I sound obnoxious ><. I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

[Cards of Fate]

A few things to note, Id refrained from posting for several reasons.

The "Hard" reset is in reality a soft reset, all things considered. If we get to keep our characters it isnt an end to our stories, just a new and fresh beginning. Sure we,d all take power dives, but it would make sense granted the situation.

I also imagine the lore wouldn't be pre-rendered, but wed probably have "starting" zones and let players build their own world. There would be preexisting countries etc, but we could poll to name them and give the canon submission system a workout.

A point buy system would be neat and allow us to maybe be more open with system mechanics. Itd work simmilarly to now, just with a few changes to how we determine what is approvable etc.

Just my two cents, Im not opposed to a reset myself. Itd allow for a unique twist in Vinces story.

[matthewkuch]

Hello everybody! I heard about this thread and have seen a lot of good ideas! Others not so much… I would like to say that the whole system itself is implemented in order to make Althanas fun for everybody. In terms of ROG and thread EXP and GP systems, Dirks has already created the best possible systems and they work phenomenally! He has so cleverly placed all components in perfect equilibrium that every part of the system matters- if one thing changes the whole system goes out of whack. Although we may not like, or even understand some aspects of the system, there should be no drastic changes, but rather well thought out, and carefully planned compromises with all of the repercussions and downsides considered so that its balance can be maintained and things will continue to run smoothly.

The free-realm ability system is just wonderful because it influences creativity and fluidity, as well as inspires originality in each writer’s personal genius. Everybody has an equal opportunity to have their OWN unique abilities and in a sense this motivates people to level, even if their ability is to powerful because they will strive to become more powerful so that they can have their special ability that is their creation. The level system is brilliant because, even though it takes a long time to gain levels, new members are encouraged to keep writing and working hard in order to finally attain that next level. Plus, if level ten or fifteen was easy to get to, there would be no pride in displaying your hard-earned rank. The difficulty in leveling also shows how much time and effort is needed to gain said level- a newbie can’t just attain level nine in ten days unless she has no life, and completes the absolutely colossal workload associated with rising that much in the system-which is unbelievable! That being said, the hefty associated workload and degree of difficulty of higher levels ensures members’ long-term participation in Althanas forums. People who want to reach higher levels will consequently stick around to reach them.

The EXP and GP systems worked into each thread and activity is also nearly perfect because massive amounts of EXP and GP are not available, and on the slight chance that they are given out, one cannot simply stumble upon them with little or no effort. In the event that system “breaks,” or “loopholes” occur, we have judges and moderators to recognize them and deal with them appropriately. No more or less EXP and GP should be given because their current position keeps the delicate level system in balance-as too little WXP would level you up too slowly and nobody would even try, whereas too much EXP would take away the fun and difficulty in leveling. Dirks already has an extremely intricate, yet delicately balanced system that is still comprehensible enough to operate. Any drastic changes would be detrimental and I am strongly opposed to it.

~compromises, however, I am all for~

When keeping all of the above in mind, although they work to near perfection, there are some downsides. The ROG does take a lot from its mods when it is swamped with character sheets and updates. To combat this, the answer is not to make drastic change but compromise. Other aspects of the site should be blatantly changed-especially in regards to moderator-user communication. No, I am NOT in favor of making all mod forums accessible to the public and “dropping the iron veil,” but some things shouldn’t be gone out of the way to be kept a secret, like the instituting the AP system. True there was a pilot system, but there was no public announcement confirming it, it was more of a “Wow they’ll never see this coming, we’ll really show them! BAM!” The lines of communication should really be opened.

Also, judges should be able to prioritize judgments and ask participants if they would like to opt for a lower judgment. For example, suppose the judges are swamped with full judgments and three are from newbies. It wouldn’t kill the judges to PM the newbies and ask if they want to switch to a basic judgment, or even a workshop. Both are excellent judgments that give great commentary, and are probably more beneficial for the newbie and the judge, as the newbie can spend his AP on the more basic commentary that he would have gotten anyway so that his writing has the foundation to be taken to the next level. In this way, he is better using his AP and the judge’s time and effort in a wiser, more efficient way that makes everybody happy. It also allows judges to suggest, according to their own discretion, the best type of judgment based on the writer’s needs, and allows the judge to help the writer and give the best advice possible according to the judge’s own discretion- because let’s face it, we all just want to improve ourselves and help others show as much improvement as possible. That being said, the cannon and content of the forums doesn’t affect the system’s balance and so what we write about doesn’t change the system at all.

Consequently, the final change that I propose is, as much as it pains me to say, a necessary one. I absolutely adore, and love everything about Althanas 3.1, and I have formed a strong emotional attachment to it, but it is time to move on. Yes, I said it- I am agreeing with the previous mentioned notion to hit the reset button. It is time to turn the security key and reluctantly push that big red button- yup, it’s time to wipe everything clean and start from scratch. A new beginning, a clean slate, a complete rebirth of Althanas. It’s time to leave the current domain and focus on a place far beyond the outlands, making an entirely new history, new cannon, and new regions. The brand new Althanas 4.0. A clean slate gives various potential for all of the forums in general. First, it gives a brand new, fresh start to everybody with a brand new sense of vigor and purpose. With everybody’s restart comes a new outlook on things and the ability to massively broaden your horizons in terms of creativity. Second, it puts everybody on the same playing field. Oldbies will still have the same wisdom and skill, but newbies won’t feel at such a disadvantage and so far behind everybody else. For a brief period, everybody will have one level in common- level one. The third reason- The Grand Reopening!

Athenians, spread the news far and wide that the Grand Reopening of Althanas is coming! Writing your own legend has never been so exciting, as you have the opportunity to bring your character to life in a world that you truly come to understand! Test the limits to your own creativity and expand your technique and imagination farther than you ever dreamed possible- breaking the barriers and limits to everything you once thought inhabited you. Entrance yourself in the compelling plots created by you and your friends as you develop your world further and further from the bottom up. Enrapture yourself in the sheer excitement of experiencing adventures that you could never actually go on, right in your own home! Come experience the brand new birth of a world that shatters the limits and brings a new light to the words “creative,” and “abstract.” Come experience Althanas.

A grand reopening would provide a strategic time to push advertisement and gain newbies who would be more likely to stay for long term because they have a bigger part in the cannon. We could try to restore Althanas to hayday.

But don’t think we forgot about all the oldbies’ hard work. Should a new beginning occur, special badges, perks, and trademarks should be implemented in the new world, however the admins decide to hash that out. But one condition that I believe there should be in the event that we do start over, is that all current threads should be moved to the crystal ball which would be the only forum from Althanas 3.1 present in 4.0.

Dirks has in place a great, effective system that runs just as a well oiled machine. I did notice, however, that some mods propose drastic changes and, when Dirks explains why the current system is better than the mod’s proposed system, the mods think that they know better than he and continue to push their one sided system change. Dirks’s system takes into account all parties’ points of view, and has everybody’s best welfare in mind. Listen to Dirks, he knows what he is doing, and, despite what you think, he knows better than you do.

Subsequently, since Dirks truly does know best, moderators should stop proposing drastic changes because they are a detriment to the current, smooth, system. The current system offers the best possible running of all Althanas forums, and even the most dim-witted could see that in how nicely the ROG, Judging, and Bazaar affairs are handled in terms of fairness and timely manner. Just as every system has flaws, so does this one; however, a new system isn’t the answer. Minor compromises that minimize the downsides and flaws should be implemented to improve, not change, the system. We should all be able to recognize that extreme change is detrimental to the system and that compromise is the way to go.

All of this is certainly relevant to fun because the better the system runs, the less people are angry at each other and the more of a good time everybody has.

~haha, that’s just my dollar-and-thirty-cents though

[SirArtemis]

To MatthewKuch:

I am still opposed to a reset. If you want to create a subforum with a brand new world/sphere/history/lore, fine. But deleting the very thing you said earlier of players investing to grow is insulting to that. I have a storyline that is evolving with my one character. Deleting that, and resetting my level, resets the story that lead to all of that and the relationships he has built.

[Lye]

24 hours left on this thread before close. Tie up loose ends and get your last suggestions in.

[Artifex Felicis]

I would like it to be explicitly clear that non-full rubrics can be submitted for a Judge's Choice.

Things like Condensed and especially the Workshop should produce them. In addition, the template for Workshops should include a line to open up voting for it to go through the nomination/trial/whatever process for JC.

Having it just be "oh it does in this faq here" isn't enough in this case.

It would also be nice to combine Workshop Judgements with a full rubric, for as many eyes as possible on your work.

An encouraged and utilized Editing process to allow two "sweeps" through a thread in order to encourage more than just a single fire and forget system we have now.

[Kryos]

In the case of a site reset, I would probably leave, as the current lore and the story of my character is what has always drawn me back. Having to restart, while not a waste in terms of my improvement in writing, would have been a waste in terms of the effort that I have put into Kryos.

[Ashla]

- Warpath, I've worked on my first character for years, and even though I may have hit a wall with her, I'm still working on her because she's a work of art to me. As my writing has grown, so has my character. I'm at a level that I took years to get to, and to be forced to completely revamp and erase it? No. Just no.

I agree with others saying it would cause more old members to leave than new ones to join. I certainly would be furious if my achievements I somehow managed to do went bye-bye's in an instant. I'm positive I would not be the only one. Even if we were given the Crystal Ball, like Shadow suggested, it would not cut it for me. If I'm writing a story I'm passionate about, it's me writing at my best. Not being given any type of review for the story I've worked hard on (while I could be writing complete garbage on the "new" site,) which would help me improve since my best writing is far from perfect... Once again, no.


- I do not want to change the RoG's ability system. I love how the current system allows creativity and freedom with how abilities can be utilized and work. Aside the "you can only do this such and such times per day" thing they usually use I like it. They allow other caps aside times you can use an ability as well (with my ice I have only a certain amount of ibs of ice I can summon per time slot) and the system allows flexibility. I really don't see any need for change aside how long it takes to do them xD

[Bard]

Ashla, the idea about that is, I think to provide more suggestions and examples of abilities, to help new characters. I don't think, or at least the language used thus far, suggests that nobody will be required, or kept from, creating their own abilities.

Now, something that has stuck in my head, maybe from this thread, or another, is the idea of including new regions. Those regions would have their own lore in which people there, whether new or not, would be on equal footing as far as lore.

If moderators, such as myself started to include regions that would be, for all purposes blank slates, above and beyond that already existing lore, and regions, is this something you could get behind?

[SirArtemis]

If moderators, such as myself started to include regions that would be, for all purposes blank slates, above and beyond that already existing lore, and regions, is this something you could get behind?

In short, yes. I would either bring my character to the new region to visit. I could maybe start a new character to explore that world. If you disconnected those new regions from althanas, or at least made them without any current player lore, new players and old players alike could enter these worlds and begin to create a fresh start of new lore without resetting character stories/levels. In fact, I think many characters want a "reset" of their lives without a reset, as a writer, of their story. Recently I read Maddy's reset story of sorts and he is leaving it open ended for his character, but imagine that character left Althanas for a fresh start and landed in New Zone X. A whole new fresh place, vastly different from Althanas, for whatever reason.

[Ashla]

I'm all for new regions, Bard! New maps, new stories, new plots... it sounds beautiful! It would allow the expansion of our lore and even individual character storylines. The new counties and lands all could even be made by everyone, mods and regular members throwing their ideas in. It would allow creative juices to flow and get possible new interest (and new members) going. Making a new region that has no formal governments or anything, just open land and monsters, could allow members to advance that region even further. I've seen several people working on their own non-canon regions, what if we combined forces and worked on something cannon together?


- An idea I have for sparking activity is a massive IC event. Something that would effect all regions and all characters because it's something so colossal. Doesn't have to be a war. It could be a natural disaster like a meteor strike or tornado outbreak in Corone that affects the world wide economy. New problems for our heroes and villains alike would be great for new storylines and plots.

- Something I would like to mention is that something I personally saw linked to the lack of participation was... our power groups. The Ixian Knights, one of the most significant pgs ever (at least in my mind,) at least appears to be dead. I don't recall seeing much from the Crimson Hand either. The Trading Company also enters my mind. A lot of storylines writers had made heavily leaned on these groups. Since they died, did our stories and characters die with them? I know I had a character in the IK who I stopped using once the IK stopped running... If my theory on this is true, is there anything we can do about this?

[SirArtemis]

I'm all for new regions, Bard! New maps, new stories, new plots... it sounds beautiful! It would allow the expansion of our lore and even individual character storylines. The new counties and lands all could even be made by everyone, mods and regular members throwing their ideas in. It would allow creative juices to flow and get possible new interest (and new members) going. Making a new region that has no formal governments or anything, just open land and monsters, could allow members to advance that region even further. I've seen several people working on their own non-canon regions, what if we combined forces and worked on something cannon together?


- An idea I have for sparking activity is a massive IC event. Something that would effect all regions and all characters because it's something so colossal. Doesn't have to be a war. It could be a natural disaster like a meteor strike or tornado outbreak in Corone that affects the world wide economy. New problems for our heroes and villains alike would be great for new storylines and plots.

- Something I would like to mention is that something I personally saw linked to the lack of participation was... our power groups. The Ixian Knights, one of the most significant pgs ever, at least appears to be dead. I don't recall seeing much from the Crimson Hand either. The Trading Company also enters my mind. A lot of storylines writers had made heavily leaned on these groups. Since they died, did our stories and characters die with them? I know I had a character in the IK who I stopped using once the IK stopped running... If my theory on this is true, is there anything we can do about this?


Oh my gosh. Monster hunter. Legendary beasts. Unknown cultures, histories, races. New settlements. New cities built by players from the ground up. Conflict. Wars. New gods. So much!

[Kryos]

Oh my gosh. Monster hunter. Legendary beasts. Unknown cultures, histories, races. New settlements. New cities built by players from the ground up. Conflict. Wars. New gods. So much!

Yes yes yes and YES!!!!!!!

[Christoph]

Given how much lore has been discussed here, I probably should have following this discussion more closely and engaging in the conversation. Better late than never, I suppose. I’ll touch on a few recurring subjects and give my thoughts. These are my personal opinions rather than any official staff statement, of course.


Lore Accessibility

I hear all the concerns, and I get it. Despite all of our work, the body of Althanas lore is still a mess. I've used At a Glance threads to help alleviate that. Sagequeen and I also wrote a concise, one-post introduction to Althanas (the site) as a whole, though I think it got stuck in with some overly bloated newbie thread. I don't think the depth of lore is the problem. We just need to make the important details quickly available and easily digestible and cover the rest in broad strokes. If someone wants to read hours worth of lore material, that’s great and I think we should have the content available. However, no new person should feel compelled to read more than half an hour to gain sufficient knowledge. And again, we don’t need to cut down on the lore in order to make it accessible. Which brings me to...

Lore Reset

I don’t believe this is necessary or advisable. If we can get our lore properly organized and polished, we can turn the massive quantity of it into an advantage rather than a drawback. People have built epic storylines over the years, and I can’t condone washing them away. I’ve never been one to favor “oldbies” over newbies, but in this case it’ll alienate people with little advantage to balance it out.

The closest thing to a reset that I wouldn’t mind seeing is maybe a time jump, forward ten, twenty, thirty, or more years. That way, we could preserve the storylines our members have crafted, but move on to a new generation of characters, allowing for a partially blank slate. That said, I don’t think we should do that anytime soon, if we ever do at all.

New Regions

New regions are certainly possible, but I would suggest starting slow, maybe adding one new one somewhat disconnected from the "main" areas. Perhaps if that gained a lot of activity, we could move from there. That's my opinion, anyway. For player-made regions, I always like to see consistent activity over a decent period of time before making anything canon.


Anthology

Many years ago, I actually began work curating content for an Althanas Anthology. For various reasons, including a lack of time, the shambled state of lore at the time, too few appropriate entries, and my own departure from the staff, kept the project from progressing very far. That said, I have always liked the idea. It's just a deceptively massive undertaking.

A high quality anthology would require a team of dedicated editors who would specifically solicit certain kinds of stories to fit the volume's theme(s), write detailed guidelines to help writers know what we're looking for, read and review submissions to choose stories that fit, and then undergo the herculean effort of working with authors to edit and revise the ones we choose until they reach as close to professional quality as possible. There's a reason most anthologies and lit magazines accept less than 1% of submissions. While we would be more flexible with what we accept (more willing to help edit as needed), we'll also have a smaller pool to draw from.

I say all this not to discourage, of course. If we can assemble a truly excellent team to help run it, I would gladly revitalize the Althanas Anthology Project.

[SerCasimir]

I heard some mention of monster hunting contracts and whatnot? Let's do that. I am always down for some monster-fightin'

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

I heard some mention of monster hunting contracts and whatnot? Let's do that. I am always down for some monster-fightin'

How would that work? Perhaps using a relaxed form of the boss battle rules?

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

How would that work? Perhaps using a relaxed form of the boss battle rules?

I would imagine they'd be no different from regular mission board quests.

[SerCasimir]

I just want to be Geralt gais.

but also a half-orc knight

don't analyze it

[redford]

We could have it be something like a mission board, with every major city having their own 'monster hunter' quests. A player or group can take on the monster, following a series of interesting rules for the quest, (no metal weapons for a rust monster, can't kill a phoenix with fire, gotta destroy a lichs phylactery to kill it etc.). I think it could really be neat because it can force you to write good posts without that thing you rely on.

[Lye]

This thread is now closed. I appreciate all your input and feedback. The admins and I will review this thread and begin to put your suggestions into action. Once we have begun making changes, we will notify those who's ideas we've implemented.

Hard wipe is looking pretty good though, so prepare thy butts.

Joking! Joking!

...Or am I?