How can we make RLTW better? OPEN SUGGESTION THREAD!

[♕BEFERA]

Hey everyone!

RLTW is so special and important to many of us, and I know we want it to be bigger, better, and more exciting than it is now.

It's you, the members, who should decide what RLTW should be like. Some of our best plot ideas have come from regular members, and many times, the staff can be so wrapped up in organizational stuff that we forget about things like site-wide plots, IC events, and other things that might be really cool to introduce into the site. We aren't looking to make any huge extravagant changes any time soon, but we are certainly open to making big changes if most of the site agrees on it. We have had a bit of a slow past couple of months, and I'm wondering if any of you guys have ideas for new things or changes to old things that would make RLTW more fun for you.

This is a completely OPEN suggestion thread, meaning any member can propose ideas on anything about RLTW. In the end, the staff has final say, so please don't be offended if we don't use your suggestion. Staff can suggest things too if they have ideas!

If you don't like something about RLTW as it currently is, feel free to voice your opinion, but please try to suggest an alternative to the problem as well! Lastly, please be respectful and kind to everyone in this thread. We all have different opinions and if someone doesn't agree with yours, please try not to take it personally. We are a family here at RLTW, and we all want to have fun, so we should try to create a world in RLTW where we can all have an ideal role playing experience.

Please do not post in this thread about any problems that you might have regarding other members. If you are having problems with another specific member, you can contact a staff member privately and we will be glad to help you through it. This thread is about the site in general, not about other members.

Thank you guys so much for participating in this. Your ideas and suggestions are very important to the staff, as we want to make RLTW the best it can be for all members.

- Bef

[RANJIT;;]

alright, here we go

fact: RLTW's activity has been utter shit the last few weeks. this is something that is expected given it is back to school time but when have we ever let a little damn school stop us from fucking shit up in the rp world? never, bitches.

fact: the kingdoms are not. fucking. working. it was a good idea, an interesting idea, and maybe we can come back to it eventually but right now, as it stands, the kingdoms are a failure of epic proportions. while the bands have worked well, particularly with sigma's band, the kingdoms as a whole just really need to go.

fact: the wings are a failure as well. i think only two members have them right now.

i talked with befera and we threw a few ideas back and forth but i'll let her say what ideas we had, since i think she can explain them better. floor's all yours, bef.

[templebar]

Ok so here is my opinion as a member who did not follow from V5.

I agree with Ranjit, the kingdoms don't work as they stand, but that's not to say i think they should change, i think they need more structure. I think they kingdoms need to have goals like the bands, at the moment the imperium and altus chars are just wandering round lazing about. (this might change with leadership of altus, but from reading the rules again now it reads like altus chars are not to cause trouble, drama or anything but be good). Now i was told when i joined that imperium and altus had both good and bad points but its not how it reads. Altus might as well be neutral/light and imperium dark. Also i think there are too many lands and none of them are active, hell it seems the only place that is active is the Syndicate and that's more active than any land or kingdom. 

I would also like to see more restrictions made on characters, i see foals being born with stuff that no parents had and its all crazy. I dont mind weird colours but i cant imagine how a 20 foot scorpion tail (sorry creature) acts to be able to reply comfortably. Its not just a few character either its loads being born. But the problem is that even if we increase the price in the shop, then its still the older members who can get these things with their prizes (i know thats for them having been here longer and their rewards for being longstanding members) i have no idea how to sort this, but i wonder if it puts people off. I also dislike characters being able to breed with no threads together, a lot are breeding using the IC cbox as their thread with the characters together, which i like, though i have never used and dont know if i would. I think not allowing this would encourage players to post more and not reply on the cbox. 

I have to say i do like the freedom here and i don't think we should compromise on that too much but i think some restrictions might help.

I would like to use the lostmoor lands some, but my characters wont know any deceased characters and so there is no reason to post there, when they might as well be meeting living characters. 

I think that is all now, but might post again if i think of more.

[RANJIT;;]

I would also like to see more restrictions made on characters, i see foals being born with stuff that no parents had and its all crazy. I dont mind weird colours but i cant imagine how a 20 foot scorpion tail (sorry creature) acts to be able to reply comfortably. Its not just a few character either its loads being born. But the problem is that even if we increase the price in the shop, then its still the older members who can get these things with their prizes (i know thats for them having been here longer and their rewards for being longstanding members)

no

in all of the years i've been on RLTW, disaster markings and deformities have been our thing. getting rid of that or restricting that would take away not only a huge part of RLTW's fun as a whole but utterly destroy a ridiculously massive part of her history. i have never seen another site that allows the type of things we allow. to restrict that would be to take away from a central part of who RLTW is and what makes her so special.

I also dislike characters being able to breed with no threads together, a lot are breeding using the IC cbox as their thread with the characters together, which i like, though i have never used and dont know if i would. I think not allowing this would encourage players to post more and not reply on the cbox.

the IC cbox is there for things like that, though perhaps it would be a good idea to start having two or more threads required before characters can breed. we have a prize around that but it is restricted, i believe.

as for raising the prices, which you mentioned earlier, the prizes were recently deliberately lowered by befera and myself because they were entirely too high for anyone EXCEPT the older members to buy. going back to higher prices would do nothing.

[♕BEFERA]

I just want to interject on a couple of things here, though you have brought up a lot of really good points.

I do agree that despite my efforts, Altus has fallen back into being a "good" alliance (being mostly a mix of former Light and Unaligned characters from v5) with Imperium (being the former Dark alliance) basically staying completely Dark. The staff are in the midst of trying to work out a solution to that problem, and we'll be sure to keep all of the members in the loop as soon as we've fleshed out some ideas.

I agree that there are too many inactive lands. I don't know how members would feel about us decreasing the number of lands within the kingdoms, but something definitely does need to change in that area. The staff have been lenient about inactivity in lands as of recent because we know a lot of people are busy and a lot of times it's hard to post when you don't have the muse to, but in the near future we're going to be cracking down on inactive lands, making sure that the only land owners are members who are actively posting. The Syndicate is our only successful band, and this is because the players of the leads of the other two bands have been away due to real life issues (Flighty's computer broke, Rev had a baby), so it's hard for the staff to fault them. It would be easier to justify removing those bands if there were more members creating bands, as it would be strange to only have The Syndicate. I do completely agree with what you're saying, though.

Character restrictions would hinder the site further than it already has, sorry to say. I know there are a some members here who prefer to have natural-looking characters, but the audience that RLTW has been catering to since the introduction of the Great Disaster has been those who want their characters to have unnatural colors and deformities. Some of them can get a little extreme and sometimes annoying (believe me, I don't like characters that have super extravagant deforms either, it creeps my characters out), but RLTW really began to flourish after members were allowed to be more creative with their characters.

I believe that we've lost a lot of potential members because we've made them buy prize after prize to make their character how they want. I believe that many good rpers have been deterred from RLTW for the sole reason that we have the restrictions that we do. Many people have characters that they've played on other sites and want to bring here, but we don't allow characters as complex as the ones they want to bring unless we force them to have them born on site, which those potential members do not want to do, and therefore leave. We could implement a restriction, however, that would only allow a list of more extreme deformities if you had a prize. That could limit the amount of scorpion tails and wings and reptilian claws and things like that seen around the site.

Also, if foals only inherited the deformities of their parents, can you imagine how boring that would be? There would be very little variety on the site, especially with the restrictions we currently have on created characters. Every 3rd character would have the same set of deformities, basically. In a natural birth, the foal will inherit much of the parents' stats, and we figure out coat colors with an official foal color calculator, so it's legitimate. When members use prizes to get the foal they want, we don't want to restrict their creativity, especially if they've worked hard enough to get a prize to be able to make their foal look however they want it to.

Characters being able to breed with no threads together can only take place with a prize, which I believe is reasonable. Sometimes you want to breed some characters who have never met just because, and I can see how that could be irritating... maybe if a majority of the site agrees, we could make it so that characters would at least have to meet in the ICCbox to be able to breed (it doesn't take very long anyway).

As far as Lostmoor goes, your characters would obviously have to develop relationships and have families and lose loved ones before a place like that would become useful/interesting to them. If we find that many members dislike Lostmoor or have no use for it, we will definitely delete it, but there are bloodlines on RLTW for some characters that go back 4 or 5 IRL years, and in the event that a character wants to converse with one of the old, dead royals that another current member just happened to play, it could make for some really interesting threads.

Ran said basically everything I needed to say but like in a way more concise manner. xD Hopefully all of this makes sense. Thank you so much for you input, Temp. This turned out way longer than I wanted it to but oh well. xD

[RANJIT;;]

i'd like to point out, on the deal with lostmoor, that just because your characters don't know anyone from RLTW's past doesn't mean they can't meet them. i've already made it clear in my plot thread that if people want to meet sarwin and old!ranjit, they're more than welcome to, past knowledge not needed. lostmoor is there to give another dimension to the site, after all.

[templebar]

Ok so prices have been lowered to make it more affordable, why have them at all? Or perhaps if people have been turned away for not being allowed their characters as they want. Why not give them a 1 character free pass, so anything they want for the first then after that they pay for prizes. I was last on here before the great disaster so don't know too much about it. But if that's the key thing here then make it so people can join their char with anything.

From the perspective of a newer member it is quite intimidating trying to start here with a normal equine and getting them to fit in with others.



Also I get the deal with lostmoor that i can meet other people deceased charcters but again aside the two you mention ran i have no idea of any others. I like lostmoor don't get me wrong but i think for it to successfully be a part or the site then i think members need to know more about who they could meet there and for those older members with those charcters to be willing to post there.





So this wasn't all i had but this is some of it.

[♕BEFERA]

We're planning on letting people join their characters with anything pretty soon, which is why I went into explaining that our restrictions are currently a big issue in my last post.

And yes I completely agree with you that to a new member it can be intimidating to get normal looking charrs to fit in with the weirder ones. I've experienced that on some sites before and it's not exactly a great feeling, but there will always be characters that do not have deformities or do not have very extravagant ones. Like, a completely normal looking character might do just fine hanging out with a character who might just have a set of antlers or something. Those kinds of deformities aren't that extravagant in the larger scheme of things. If you personally don't want your characters to rp with heavily-deformed ones, you certainly don't have to.

And with Lostmoor I do agree that we should try to get the word out a bit more, but it's more of an open place where those who wish to use it can. For many of the older members, we have characters who might want to meet their great-grandparents who lived in RLTW a long time ago to gain their wisdom or something or like if a really old character who is on the verge of death wants to settle things with a character they may have killed in their youth they could go there. There are loads of possibilities, and yes, maybe not for new members, but some things just involve getting deeper into the site and deeper into family ties and relationships with other characters. It's not trying to be non-inclusive or anything like that, it's just an available space for those who wish to use it to be able to go there and have a good time.

[RANJIT;;]

how about, for lostmoor, we have a "deceased characters" list stuck in the board that people can peruse? it would be a list of deceased characters whose owners are absolutely willing to rp them and would be open to rping with anyone?

[♕BEFERA]

YES that's a great idea. We should definitely do that. It would solve the problem of new members not really having any use for the land for sure.

[amity]

I really like the idea of the list of deceased characters; in addition I would like to add an idea of my own (I've been killing myself over finding something to help the site out)

What if the deceased characters could award the living for completing 'unfinished tasks' for them? The prizes could be prize packs or monies, allowing new players to earn deformities (that could be added to the character completing the task or a new one). These could be challenges such as making an appearance in 3 lands, delivering messages to distant relatives or others that have been causing an issue something along these lines. They could also be a battle challenge against the diseased(they could somehow control elements of nature, vines, trees, ropes things such as this) this could also earn them monies or prizes. While this would be a way to keep everything being a freebie and dismantling the whole purpose of the store that I'm sure took forever to set up, it would also increase activity, the players would be more familiar with how to play their cherries and they would have more of a tie with them and be more swayed to not let them rot and die with inactivity.

This of course would only be done with the approval of staff, which there could be someone assigned to this position to determine what would be an acceptable challenge and prizes for those that are accepted.

Each deceased character could be listed and when an award is available to complete a challenge they could be listed in a separate list HOWEVER the prizes and challenge are NOT posted, meaning they would have to rp a post or two in order to figure out what they want them to do perhaps at this point the reward could be reveled via pm.

[Ruppa]

templebar does that solve what you had addressed?

[♕BEFERA]

I think the "unfinished tasks" idea is great! If a deceased character has something they want delivered to a loved one or former rival or something, or if they just want a messenger to deliver some words, I think it would be great to have some characters who may not have met the ones they are going to deliver things/messages to to meet them and interact and learn about their past and such.

I don't like the battle challenge against the deceased idea, though the deceased could have the living battle another living character for whatever reason for a prize. I don't like it because deceased characters are just ghostly apparitions. They do not have any powers to control anything in the living realm, nor can the touch or inflict pain on anything, unless it's emotional through words lol. I made this very clear when I first made Lostmoor.

I think that it would be safe that the prize for doing any "unfinished task" for a deceased character could be rewarded 2 choose any other prize and 50k RLTW monies. It would give members who participate the freedom to do as they wish and no one would be getting a prize they might not like or use, as they would have the choice to get whatever they want.

Every time a deceased character would do this, there would need to be a record of it, so in Lostmoor I would most likely create a sub-board where the player of the deceased would fill out a small form saying what deceased character has assigned what task to whatever living character, and then once the task is completed, the living character would post a small form saying they did the task and showing the thread where the task was completed. After that, a staffer would approve it and then give the player of the living character their prizes.

I think that in return, the player of the deceased character should get 50k RLTW monies as well.

It would be an easy way to get a wide variety of prizes and I think a lot of people would be interested.

I do think that only deceased characters that are part of the list of ones that are 100% willing at any time to rp with anyone should be allowed to give challenges like this. I also think that the list would include brief profiles of those deceased characters, as they are not recorded anywhere else on the site.

Great ideas everyone! :D

[amity]

There could be a character directory and story books that could be linked to the list in lostmore similar to that of the taken names list, these of course being only for lost more

I agree on the battles between living and dead that it wouldn't make since I was hesitant to include this but did anyways.


Could members create characters that are already deceased? I think that having a shortage of characters that are deceased could be an issue, then again newly created characters would not have ties to the living and couldn't really give tasks

[♕BEFERA]

Well like I think it would just be less complicated if small profiles of the deceased charrs are just located in one thread in Lostmoor seeing as they can't go to any other part of the site anyway.

And no, members can't create dead characters. They can bring in dead characters that may not have been created on site, though, like they aren't limited to characters who have died within RLTW. For example, my character Obsidian died on a site a long time ago called Maisontonio, and I brought him to Lostmoor. And they don't necessarily have to have ties to the living characters to be able to give them tasks I don't think. Like maybe a character just happens to wander into Lostmoor and meets a dead charr who wants something done for them and doesn't care who does it.

[Captain Flighty]

These ideas for lostmoor are really great you guys! I do think that a list of brief profiles is best for dead characters. Anyhring not in the profiles can come out in character as needed. I think its also a good idea to make sure that anyone with a dead character on the list be required to have at least one active livng character. Lostmoor is awesome butnwe dont want the number of dead characters to be greater than the living or to have more active dead characters than live ones. I can totally see that being a problem u know?

Ugh ihad a whole other subject to bringbup but i forgot.

[Ruppa]

Re:Lostmoor
How do you govern whether or not someone is bringing in a dead char from an old site, or just creating it and claiming they rp'd them years ago?

[♕BEFERA]

We honestly can't. xD It's mostly just a precaution so we don't have like 50 dead characters being played. If it's a character they just made up, I think it would be pretty easy to determine if they had played it before or not. If I had any suspicion, I would ask them for the url of the site where they used to play it on, or an example of a post or piece of writing they've already done that includes that character. Normally I would just take their word for it, as I don't really think someone would lie just to get a dead charr in Lostmoor (as honestly you can't do anything with dead characters other than have them talk and move around without affecting anything physically).

[templebar]

I think the suggestions made will make lostmoor a better place, i imagine lumi being a character that would use it a lot when she gets her business with creature sorted. However i would like to add, i cannot see a problem with someone adding a character just to be played there after all there is no real attraction to it as long as they were willing to play it for other people, i think if you dont want to do this then it should just be chars from rltw previous versions. I think it would be an option as well for current new chars for example my Ellaria to go to ask previous chars about rltw world and perhaps why chars now have crazy stuff from the great disaster.

[♕BEFERA]

Well I personally have characters from other sites who have died who I would want to RP in Lostmoor, and I imagine other people do as well, maybe even some future members. I don't want to exclude those people or their characters. If someone did want to just make up a character to be dead, and if we didn't have enough dead characters being played, I would most likely allow it. I just don't want to have a situation where every member makes up 2 or 3 dead characters and we suddenly have way too many dead characters being played and not enough living ones.