Aleris

....seems to be waning a great deal.

I was just discussing the seeming lack of interest in IRC chat role play with the effervescent Dystopia. We seem to have more luck with Monday night chat nights as opposed to Wednesday night chat nights, likely due to people's schedules, but still interest in IRC chat nights doesn't seem to be very high among our player base and we were wondering why that was. Once upon a time you could walk into any forum and chat based role playing game room and there would be people logged in rping at any time of the day, no need for a designated chat night.

That got us to wondering exactly why people were no longer interested in IRC chat RP and I began to wonder if it wasn't somewhat due in part to the fact that there are several RPers in this game (Myself definitely included) that tend to post multiple paragraph posts in the room that, more often than not, fill the screen. Now, before any of our para-rpers get all butt-hurt and start complaining about this post, please allow me to reiterate that I myself am one of the worst offenders for throwing up posts that fill the screen. Nor is this post leading up to a suggestion that we should put a cap on how much can be written in chat. Rules like that are stupid and limiting and we wouldn't put up a posting minimum so why would we put up a posting maximum?

There, now that that is out of the way...I have heard SEVERAL people complain or state that they didn't care for the current trend of throwing up multiple paragraph posts and though I am one of the offenders I do see where they are coming from. When a post is so big it fills the entire screen it can be somewhat frustrating. It can take long enough for two people Rping that way to get anything accomplished but when two, three, or even four people want to RP together, every single person throwing up multiple paragraph posts, it can become a nightmare. When it takes each person at least 20 minutes to write a single post, you can spend four hours RPing and only mange to write two or three posts, maybe four if you're lucky. That in turn might discourage people from trying to interact with others, or from rping with more than just one other person and that can be very limiting.

So..is this the problem? Is this why people are less inclined to come into Chat and RP? They don't want to deal with the people who throw up the huge ass posts? Because I have noticed that 90% of the regular chat RPers who attend chat nights are in fact those very same people who flood the room with a single post.

And if this isn't the issue...what is? Why does chat role playing no longer appeal? I am not saying I expect the room to ever be jumpin' 24/7, but it is open all the time with Memoria logged in auto-logging everything that goes on. Why aren't people utilizing it more on those nights that aren't official chat nights, let alone chat nights themselves?

I am just trying to understand where the lack of interest is coming from so that, perhaps, we can do something to help bolster it back up if the issue is something we are able to fix.

Speak to me people!

Ultimate guilty epic post whore here!!! I'm going to seek therapy for my problems I promise peeps!! In the meantime..... what's up folks? Chat rp is superfantasticawesome fun.....but where are my rping homies?? Speak monkeys!!

As for my lack of play the last few days, its been due to a nasty toothache. Teeth have been pulled and I'm recovering. Yay for painkillers. I'm -always willing to RP with -ANYONE-, whether it be forum or chatroom. So there's never been a lack of desire for me to rp. I see no need for posting length minimum or maximum..that's silly. I don't care if its a chat night or not, I WILL PLAY WITH ANYONE!! I've noticed a couple popping in late at night when everyone is asleep or w/e and I'm usually the one to greet 'em. They never stay long sadly. It's nice to see folks checking our RP out, just wish they'd stay longer.

Hopefully now that these infernal teeth are outta my skull, I'll be able to concentrate on stuff again.

Love you guys!

Ugh I would write but..

*can't think of anything to finish that sentence, scratches head, wanders off*

To me, it's probably not so much that multiple paragraph posts are frustrating for people, but maybe they feel intimidated? I don't know, but that's always the way I saw it. One of the appeals of IRC chat is another outlet to quickly jump in a storyline or throw in a random NPC for fun, but if the people you want to play with are writing multiple paragraph posts, it may be more difficult to do this and feel uninviting. You'd have to try and catch up with what people are writing and hopefully weasel in a post before another multi-paragraph post gets put in.

In any case, despite all that, I don't really see it as a HUGE issue... But I am also one of those "offenders" of writing long posts. If RPing with someone who posts multiple paragraphs bothers a player, then I suppose just don't RP with them. If you're worried about the state of current IRC chat and are thinking that multi-paragraph posts maybe be causing frustration and intimidation for other players, try and start gradually cutting down your posts until you can get your message across clear and effectively with a single paragraph (although even single paragraphs can be huge if you want them to).

"The choice is yours and yours alone." Olmec, Legends of the Hidden Temple

Paraform writing may be a small part of the problem. I know that it results in a lengthier RP, and also more serious roleplaying, when some people like to come in and just mess around, essentially using RP as an escape from their lives.

This said, I have seen plenty of roleplays with paraform RP that have no issue whatsoever, so this isn't the real reason the chat room is inactive.

I discussed moving the chat room at length with a few players here, as I see it as a valid solution to the problem. A chat room is only as active as the people it contains. When your playerbase is ten people or less, and those people all have very different schedules, it's a wonder we ever have roleplaying in the chat room at all.

Sorcery is partly the problem. There simply is too many larger games for us to get noticed on the server. So we get no traffic from other rooms coming into ours, thus no new blood.

Moving to a smaller, more rapidly developing server might help the problem. We'll be able to stand out from the small crowd of games and collect new players. But those servers come with their own issues, like instability and unpredictability. And I know some players are kind of adverse to the idea of too much fresh blood.

Regardless, more players would definitely create a more active chat room, so this is something worth considering. Once the chat room is active, we'll be more inclined to visit, thus making it even more active. Those are my two cents