Post by Zhalia Anastasiya Neqa'el on Nov 10, 2009 17:34:34 GMT
I don't expect much to come of this thread. But I was discussing these facts with other members in the CBox, and they all seemed to like the ideas.
So I figured I'd post this here, for the staff to step up to the plate.
DWRP is stagnating. You may not think so, but from the outside looking in, it is. And it's fairly simple to see why.
As I stated before, the forum has taken on the aspects of the Windows operating system. Through all the months you guys have been open, you release patches and "fixes" for your forum.
These are designed to capture the interest of your current member base, to keep them here.
In polling members, I've determined that most only stay here because their friends are here. That is not, I repeat NOT, a healthy forum.
The problem is that through all this time, you keep layering on more stuff, and it just piles up.
Windows learned from their mistake, and thus they released Windows 7. It's reportedly been rebuilt from the ground up. They removed all of the excess weight.
In a nutshell, that's what this suggestion is. A proposition for the staff to step up and remove the excess weight in DWRP. So people come here for the forum, not just because friends hang out here.
So, let's get started.
1) Delete it all.
Delete every thread. Every rule thread, every post, everything. A complete wipe.
Delete every character profile, every member account, every category. Allow the active members to return and sign up for a new account.
The point of this is a fresh start. No burdens or old posts clinging to your characters. And to keep a true member count. Be realistic, we have what, 30 or so active people, I believe. Yet the count says over 200.
Some people take offense to this. In a way, you are cheating new members. You give them the illusion that this is a moderately active forum, hoping to ensnare them into the works and gain a new member.
It works, somewhat, however you also have people randomly leaving as well.
2) The Staff
Now comes the restructure of the staff. Yanos and Cao Pi seem to have an almost unhealthy fascination with battles. And frankly, that is Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
What needs to be done is some mods need to be given a designation, such as "Battle Mod". Their only task is to construct, carry out, and moderate battles.
Then you need dedicated storytellers. I'm not talking people who are just here often roleplaying. I'm talking about people who have good grammar and spelling capabilities. While every member can control their own character's storyline, these staff members should have the responsibility of creating stories that affect all of China.
3) The Games
Simply put, most of these games have virtually nothing to do with Dynasty Warriors. And honestly, I don't see why the don't. So you have a story contest, make the stories revolve around Three Kingdoms-era China. The same with poems, or captions. Make it involve the RP of the forum, not just any random thing a person can come up with.
It would more tightly bind your member base into the RP and theme of the forum.
4) The Roleplay
A lot of the fat needs to be cut on this. Namely in the area of charge attacks, and weapons. Too much lenience and you get absolutely crappy setups, stolen from every other game that's been released.
However, too rigidly adhering to realism and reality, and you have a historical forum, and Dynasty Warriors, while it's based on a historical book, is anything but a historical game.
Weapons/charges should be allowed within the mechanics of the DW games. Cut out anything that's too much fantasy or simply too RoTK-ish.
5) Timeline
We need a fixed year. Somewhere on the forum it needs to be shown that this is Year XXX. And time needs to pass, even if it's 1 real life year for every RP year. Or 6 months really pass, while in the RP a year passes.
Characters need to be able to age according to a set rate. History needs to continue moving, rather than sitting still at one point forever, with characters remaining the same and never growing old.
6) The Kingdoms & Mercenaries
Finally, the big thing. This is perhaps the biggest failure on the forum. The Kingdoms seem to have always been unbalanced. Everyone swarms to one kingdom or the other, in most cases because of the amount of people in that kingdom already. Because they have a better chance of roleplay there.
So, when the wipe takes place, put up a new thread. Each kingdom has an opening for 6 officers. If, in an example, Wu gets six, but Wei and Shu only have three each, then nobody else can join Wu until Wei and Shu both have six members.
When the limit of six has been reached, it can then be increased to 9. However, each time members go inactive or leave, the count is frozen until the other kingdom has a chance to catch up.
You might be saying, well that's just not right. We want everyone to have the chance to join whichever kingdom they want. But in honesty, I think this is an empty desire. Most would join any kingdom they could, if the RP was there.
And if they don't get their kingdom at the start, at least they have the option later on of arranging a betrayal, similar to some of the DW5 games.
As far as mercenaries go. There should only be three mercenary characters/bands allowed at a given time. They should never have more numbers than a kingdom.
This also brings me to kingdom leadership. The leaders need to be active. By this I don't mean they just show up and RP. They need to be actively arranging plots and storylines within their kingdom. You don't become the head of something like this and then just sit on your backside doing nothing.
The leaders aren't gods. People should nominally be trying to support good leaders and rebelling against the bad ones. Leader should never be a fixed position, simply because the person is here, or friendly to the staff.
If they are a bad leader that is not doing anything for the country, it only stands to reason that officers within that kingdom are going to rebel, to put a better leader on the throne. I'm not saying kill off the character, but at the very minimal they can be forced into exile.
This is why you need storytellers, to arrange things like this. If Wu has a bad leader, then there needs to be an NPC officer controlled by a storyteller, who approaches other members in Wu, to encourage a rebellion and such.
Then the leader can be driven into exile, or forced into joining another kingdom and giving away the secrets of Wu. This could lead to Wu sending assassins out after him, to stop him from telling secrets. Or he could form a shadowy cabal inside the kingdom, in a plot to retake his throne.
Honestly, that story alone is enough to encompass several months, if not half a year, of real life time.
That's all I have to say. Again, I don't expect any of this to happen. However, if you are a member, and you support these changes, raise your voice here. Maybe if enough of us step forward, this place will change for the better.
So I figured I'd post this here, for the staff to step up to the plate.
DWRP is stagnating. You may not think so, but from the outside looking in, it is. And it's fairly simple to see why.
As I stated before, the forum has taken on the aspects of the Windows operating system. Through all the months you guys have been open, you release patches and "fixes" for your forum.
These are designed to capture the interest of your current member base, to keep them here.
In polling members, I've determined that most only stay here because their friends are here. That is not, I repeat NOT, a healthy forum.
The problem is that through all this time, you keep layering on more stuff, and it just piles up.
Windows learned from their mistake, and thus they released Windows 7. It's reportedly been rebuilt from the ground up. They removed all of the excess weight.
In a nutshell, that's what this suggestion is. A proposition for the staff to step up and remove the excess weight in DWRP. So people come here for the forum, not just because friends hang out here.
So, let's get started.
1) Delete it all.
Delete every thread. Every rule thread, every post, everything. A complete wipe.
Delete every character profile, every member account, every category. Allow the active members to return and sign up for a new account.
The point of this is a fresh start. No burdens or old posts clinging to your characters. And to keep a true member count. Be realistic, we have what, 30 or so active people, I believe. Yet the count says over 200.
Some people take offense to this. In a way, you are cheating new members. You give them the illusion that this is a moderately active forum, hoping to ensnare them into the works and gain a new member.
It works, somewhat, however you also have people randomly leaving as well.
2) The Staff
Now comes the restructure of the staff. Yanos and Cao Pi seem to have an almost unhealthy fascination with battles. And frankly, that is Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
What needs to be done is some mods need to be given a designation, such as "Battle Mod". Their only task is to construct, carry out, and moderate battles.
Then you need dedicated storytellers. I'm not talking people who are just here often roleplaying. I'm talking about people who have good grammar and spelling capabilities. While every member can control their own character's storyline, these staff members should have the responsibility of creating stories that affect all of China.
3) The Games
Simply put, most of these games have virtually nothing to do with Dynasty Warriors. And honestly, I don't see why the don't. So you have a story contest, make the stories revolve around Three Kingdoms-era China. The same with poems, or captions. Make it involve the RP of the forum, not just any random thing a person can come up with.
It would more tightly bind your member base into the RP and theme of the forum.
4) The Roleplay
A lot of the fat needs to be cut on this. Namely in the area of charge attacks, and weapons. Too much lenience and you get absolutely crappy setups, stolen from every other game that's been released.
However, too rigidly adhering to realism and reality, and you have a historical forum, and Dynasty Warriors, while it's based on a historical book, is anything but a historical game.
Weapons/charges should be allowed within the mechanics of the DW games. Cut out anything that's too much fantasy or simply too RoTK-ish.
5) Timeline
We need a fixed year. Somewhere on the forum it needs to be shown that this is Year XXX. And time needs to pass, even if it's 1 real life year for every RP year. Or 6 months really pass, while in the RP a year passes.
Characters need to be able to age according to a set rate. History needs to continue moving, rather than sitting still at one point forever, with characters remaining the same and never growing old.
6) The Kingdoms & Mercenaries
Finally, the big thing. This is perhaps the biggest failure on the forum. The Kingdoms seem to have always been unbalanced. Everyone swarms to one kingdom or the other, in most cases because of the amount of people in that kingdom already. Because they have a better chance of roleplay there.
So, when the wipe takes place, put up a new thread. Each kingdom has an opening for 6 officers. If, in an example, Wu gets six, but Wei and Shu only have three each, then nobody else can join Wu until Wei and Shu both have six members.
When the limit of six has been reached, it can then be increased to 9. However, each time members go inactive or leave, the count is frozen until the other kingdom has a chance to catch up.
You might be saying, well that's just not right. We want everyone to have the chance to join whichever kingdom they want. But in honesty, I think this is an empty desire. Most would join any kingdom they could, if the RP was there.
And if they don't get their kingdom at the start, at least they have the option later on of arranging a betrayal, similar to some of the DW5 games.
As far as mercenaries go. There should only be three mercenary characters/bands allowed at a given time. They should never have more numbers than a kingdom.
This also brings me to kingdom leadership. The leaders need to be active. By this I don't mean they just show up and RP. They need to be actively arranging plots and storylines within their kingdom. You don't become the head of something like this and then just sit on your backside doing nothing.
The leaders aren't gods. People should nominally be trying to support good leaders and rebelling against the bad ones. Leader should never be a fixed position, simply because the person is here, or friendly to the staff.
If they are a bad leader that is not doing anything for the country, it only stands to reason that officers within that kingdom are going to rebel, to put a better leader on the throne. I'm not saying kill off the character, but at the very minimal they can be forced into exile.
This is why you need storytellers, to arrange things like this. If Wu has a bad leader, then there needs to be an NPC officer controlled by a storyteller, who approaches other members in Wu, to encourage a rebellion and such.
Then the leader can be driven into exile, or forced into joining another kingdom and giving away the secrets of Wu. This could lead to Wu sending assassins out after him, to stop him from telling secrets. Or he could form a shadowy cabal inside the kingdom, in a plot to retake his throne.
Honestly, that story alone is enough to encompass several months, if not half a year, of real life time.
That's all I have to say. Again, I don't expect any of this to happen. However, if you are a member, and you support these changes, raise your voice here. Maybe if enough of us step forward, this place will change for the better.
~Zhalia~
But I know exactly how the battle system is run, mostly because its me and Cao Pi who design it, and for now do the moderating on it.
