Post by PhazonDragon on Jul 10, 2010 18:46:00 GMT -5
This is a direct copy and paste from Faizah's chatterbox. Some edits have been made to organize it better.... But otherwise left in it's original form. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Discuss please! ;n;
Suggestion One: New Subforums
I like the sound of another advertising contest. I'll be glad to set it up. Let me know when, and feel free to suggest prizes... Perhaps Topaz, or you if you know how, Faizah, could grace us with a new subforum, 'Contests'? So they don't get lost in the mumble-jumble of the discussion forum?
Even maybe a subforum for forum games? With post count turned off, because spam runs rampant in those forums, and one can easily rack up 1,000 posts there.. -knows from experience- But games could just be ways to get members to interact with each other outside roleplaying and the cbox.
Suggestion Two: Money System/Shops
Also, maybe if there was a money system in place? Shops could be set up to give members something to work towards. I dunno what kind of shop you'd want to put into place, i.e. In character, or out of character, or even both, so that'd be up to you. With an IC shop, members can have their characters buy like... Flitter eggs, if someone wants to sell their green/gold's clutch, rather than give them away, jewelry, leatherworks (for riding and such), pets (kittens, puppies, birds, fish, etc), electronics, stuff like that. We could even set this up in the towns of Rocky, and allow them to become opened once Rocky residents are.. 'exposed' to the world, and thus don't have to travel in secret.
Win regards to an ooc shop, members could buy custom member titles, signature space, character slots, special characters (like a clutching female, sport colors, mutations?), ranking characters (bronzerider, goldrider, U.S. Officials, country leaders?), etc. I'm not a big user of proboards, so I dunno how signature lengths work, so yeah. But by character slots, I mean space for an extra character, but only if there's a character limit we put into place.. Yeah. I'm just throwing things out there. Along with an OOC shop, members can also sell ooc items to others, like sprites, artwork of their characters, signatures, etc. Momo, Topaz, and I are all examples of this. Depending on the work, it could give people more incentive to post to earn money to buy custom work of their characters.
You could even set up both kinds of shops. I know of a few role-plays that have both. Hearts of Valor is one. Evergen uses both. I think I'd prefer both since I kinda grew up roleplaying using both kinds, but up to the admins. I don't know where you'd find a money code for proboards either, but some searching could easily bring some up, I bet. Heck, I'll even do that for you if you want. xD
Suggestion Three: Contest Ideas
I also have a few ideas for contests. One could be a 'Create a Ranking Character' contest, with the prize being able to keep the character you create, ya'know, if you win. If you don't win, runners up get to keep their characters as well, but at the cost of changing their rank to something lower. Like bronzerider to brownrider. Or goldrider to greenrider. Or like, U.S. General to sergeant. Dunno.
Another contest, 'create a sport color'! I don't know what you and Topaz decided on for sport colors, but if you don't have anything set yet, or would be open to more possibilities, then this contest could work wonders. You could even set the rules to something like, 'be realistic; we don't want pink sparkly and purple polka-dotted dragons flying around' just to make sure you don't have to choose from bright pink, neon purple, and glowing yellow for your new colors. The prize could be that your candidate Impresses the new color at the next gold hatching. Or green hatching if even, but gold clutches tend to bring in more people for the gold egg. xD if anything, I know that people will jump at the chance to have a sport color, especially the first one, or if it's a clutching female.
Suggestion Four: Unfertilized Green Eggs
Speaking of which, with so many greens laying eggs all over the place, and still growing up, wouldn't we have to do something about the population. As it stands, we have less than ten candidates for the hatchings coming up, and with Jadavath and Crucith laying nearly the same amount of eggs, (which I won't tell what it is--you'll have to wait for the clutchings!) we're going to have so many NPC weyrlings/candidates. Despite the fact that it's a hatching, the only way green hatchings would gain as many candidates as a gold's clutch would be if the father was a sport color... Unless you want to drag genetics in for some reason, but that gets really complicated after a bit, so I'll stop there.
Now, I know greens don't make good mothers, so some eggs are duds... Despite Rocky being all 'taaaaake caaaaare of baaaaabies' would it be realistic to assume that Greens just aren't as fertile as golds? I know I'm kinda cutting it close here, with Jadavath's and Crucith's clutches coming up, but greens Rise every season. Rocky's going to be overrun by dragons, with over half being greens, that only Rise once again to produce more offspring... It's like rabbits, really. Can I make a suggestion that half of the eggs in a green's clutch are infertile? Cutting the clutch sizes down to half... Greens would have only 5-10 fertile eggs, on average, right? Of course, there would be no way to know, without science, which eggs are fertile, so that's a surprise for the hatchings. Especially if a candidate Touched an egg in the hopes it'd be their dragon... And it's a dud. -evil laugh-
Not only would it cut down the green clutches, but then we wouldn't have an overwhelming number of NPCs. And if you want to quickly implement that for Crucith's hatching, I'll gladly pick out half of the dragons to save for her next clutch. Wesku might have to do the same as well, but I don't think Wesku has all the details down yet. Anyway... Thoughts?
Suggestion Five: NPCs and Adoptables
And going back to the NPCs, some could totally be made into adoptables, which I think could be a nice addition to the pending characters board as a subforum. Just a whole subforum for characters that members can adopt if they so choose. Not only will it include weyrlings/riders, but also residents, military officials, etc. The appeal factor is that it's a ready-made profile with names, personality, appearance, and a basic history. If a member so chooses, they can edit any part of the profile to better fit what they want. Like a different appearance. I'd say names as well, but that'd be up to Faizah and Topaz, since I'm picky on names. :x I don't like having to choose my dragon's name, if the character's a weyrling/candidate, preferring to let the staff decide. xD But I'm not in charge, so I'll leave that up to you guys.
Also with adoptable characters, members who no longer want a character can ask us to place them in the adoptable section for someone else to nab. Members who left, for whatever reason, with no intention of coming back, can have their characters placed up for adoption as well, unless otherwise specified, since I know I'm picky on it. Such as Samari's characters... Dylan could be placed there so he isn't really killed off or gone. Just in need of a new player. :3
Suggestion Six: Affiliates
And my last suggestion: affiliates please? I swear we will get more members if we affiliate with other weyrs. No longer is our button sitting in an ad (now, that is. Before, there was no button in our ad) but now it's sitting proudly on the front page of a forum, for everyone to see. And trust me, they are usually near the cbox, where everyone who uses a cbox will notice it. It's how I find other weyrs to join. Clicking the buttons that look interesting to me. If you really want, I'll gladly make some other version of buttons, so weyrs can choose the one hey think looks the best on their forum, or the one that catches their eye. Perhaps a lighter variation of our current one? On a dark/blue background, our button's going to disappear. Possibly even a brown version? Different colors and the like. I'll even find weyrs to affiliate with! I already have two in mind.
Please discuss, seriously. ;3; I hate it when no one offers opinions...
Suggestion One: New Subforums
I like the sound of another advertising contest. I'll be glad to set it up. Let me know when, and feel free to suggest prizes... Perhaps Topaz, or you if you know how, Faizah, could grace us with a new subforum, 'Contests'? So they don't get lost in the mumble-jumble of the discussion forum?
Even maybe a subforum for forum games? With post count turned off, because spam runs rampant in those forums, and one can easily rack up 1,000 posts there.. -knows from experience- But games could just be ways to get members to interact with each other outside roleplaying and the cbox.
Suggestion Two: Money System/Shops
Also, maybe if there was a money system in place? Shops could be set up to give members something to work towards. I dunno what kind of shop you'd want to put into place, i.e. In character, or out of character, or even both, so that'd be up to you. With an IC shop, members can have their characters buy like... Flitter eggs, if someone wants to sell their green/gold's clutch, rather than give them away, jewelry, leatherworks (for riding and such), pets (kittens, puppies, birds, fish, etc), electronics, stuff like that. We could even set this up in the towns of Rocky, and allow them to become opened once Rocky residents are.. 'exposed' to the world, and thus don't have to travel in secret.
Win regards to an ooc shop, members could buy custom member titles, signature space, character slots, special characters (like a clutching female, sport colors, mutations?), ranking characters (bronzerider, goldrider, U.S. Officials, country leaders?), etc. I'm not a big user of proboards, so I dunno how signature lengths work, so yeah. But by character slots, I mean space for an extra character, but only if there's a character limit we put into place.. Yeah. I'm just throwing things out there. Along with an OOC shop, members can also sell ooc items to others, like sprites, artwork of their characters, signatures, etc. Momo, Topaz, and I are all examples of this. Depending on the work, it could give people more incentive to post to earn money to buy custom work of their characters.
You could even set up both kinds of shops. I know of a few role-plays that have both. Hearts of Valor is one. Evergen uses both. I think I'd prefer both since I kinda grew up roleplaying using both kinds, but up to the admins. I don't know where you'd find a money code for proboards either, but some searching could easily bring some up, I bet. Heck, I'll even do that for you if you want. xD
Suggestion Three: Contest Ideas
I also have a few ideas for contests. One could be a 'Create a Ranking Character' contest, with the prize being able to keep the character you create, ya'know, if you win. If you don't win, runners up get to keep their characters as well, but at the cost of changing their rank to something lower. Like bronzerider to brownrider. Or goldrider to greenrider. Or like, U.S. General to sergeant. Dunno.
Another contest, 'create a sport color'! I don't know what you and Topaz decided on for sport colors, but if you don't have anything set yet, or would be open to more possibilities, then this contest could work wonders. You could even set the rules to something like, 'be realistic; we don't want pink sparkly and purple polka-dotted dragons flying around' just to make sure you don't have to choose from bright pink, neon purple, and glowing yellow for your new colors. The prize could be that your candidate Impresses the new color at the next gold hatching. Or green hatching if even, but gold clutches tend to bring in more people for the gold egg. xD if anything, I know that people will jump at the chance to have a sport color, especially the first one, or if it's a clutching female.
Suggestion Four: Unfertilized Green Eggs
Speaking of which, with so many greens laying eggs all over the place, and still growing up, wouldn't we have to do something about the population. As it stands, we have less than ten candidates for the hatchings coming up, and with Jadavath and Crucith laying nearly the same amount of eggs, (which I won't tell what it is--you'll have to wait for the clutchings!) we're going to have so many NPC weyrlings/candidates. Despite the fact that it's a hatching, the only way green hatchings would gain as many candidates as a gold's clutch would be if the father was a sport color... Unless you want to drag genetics in for some reason, but that gets really complicated after a bit, so I'll stop there.
Now, I know greens don't make good mothers, so some eggs are duds... Despite Rocky being all 'taaaaake caaaaare of baaaaabies' would it be realistic to assume that Greens just aren't as fertile as golds? I know I'm kinda cutting it close here, with Jadavath's and Crucith's clutches coming up, but greens Rise every season. Rocky's going to be overrun by dragons, with over half being greens, that only Rise once again to produce more offspring... It's like rabbits, really. Can I make a suggestion that half of the eggs in a green's clutch are infertile? Cutting the clutch sizes down to half... Greens would have only 5-10 fertile eggs, on average, right? Of course, there would be no way to know, without science, which eggs are fertile, so that's a surprise for the hatchings. Especially if a candidate Touched an egg in the hopes it'd be their dragon... And it's a dud. -evil laugh-
Not only would it cut down the green clutches, but then we wouldn't have an overwhelming number of NPCs. And if you want to quickly implement that for Crucith's hatching, I'll gladly pick out half of the dragons to save for her next clutch. Wesku might have to do the same as well, but I don't think Wesku has all the details down yet. Anyway... Thoughts?
Suggestion Five: NPCs and Adoptables
And going back to the NPCs, some could totally be made into adoptables, which I think could be a nice addition to the pending characters board as a subforum. Just a whole subforum for characters that members can adopt if they so choose. Not only will it include weyrlings/riders, but also residents, military officials, etc. The appeal factor is that it's a ready-made profile with names, personality, appearance, and a basic history. If a member so chooses, they can edit any part of the profile to better fit what they want. Like a different appearance. I'd say names as well, but that'd be up to Faizah and Topaz, since I'm picky on names. :x I don't like having to choose my dragon's name, if the character's a weyrling/candidate, preferring to let the staff decide. xD But I'm not in charge, so I'll leave that up to you guys.
Also with adoptable characters, members who no longer want a character can ask us to place them in the adoptable section for someone else to nab. Members who left, for whatever reason, with no intention of coming back, can have their characters placed up for adoption as well, unless otherwise specified, since I know I'm picky on it. Such as Samari's characters... Dylan could be placed there so he isn't really killed off or gone. Just in need of a new player. :3
Suggestion Six: Affiliates
And my last suggestion: affiliates please? I swear we will get more members if we affiliate with other weyrs. No longer is our button sitting in an ad (now, that is. Before, there was no button in our ad) but now it's sitting proudly on the front page of a forum, for everyone to see. And trust me, they are usually near the cbox, where everyone who uses a cbox will notice it. It's how I find other weyrs to join. Clicking the buttons that look interesting to me. If you really want, I'll gladly make some other version of buttons, so weyrs can choose the one hey think looks the best on their forum, or the one that catches their eye. Perhaps a lighter variation of our current one? On a dark/blue background, our button's going to disappear. Possibly even a brown version? Different colors and the like. I'll even find weyrs to affiliate with! I already have two in mind.
Please discuss, seriously. ;3; I hate it when no one offers opinions...
