If it isn't one thing... (OOC), (RR ALL!)

Beyond Dominia: The Role Playing Mill: If it isn't one thing... (OOC), (RR ALL!)

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By Elrohir (Elrohir) on Sunday, October 22, 2000 - 08:49 pm:

Then it must be another. Again, since Wednesday I've been stuck without my internet, so I'm unable to post stories (though I haven't written any), but this I'm hoping is more of an offshoot of losing the bill and not finding it until two days after it was due... Sucks to be me.

But that's not what I want to post about. I feel much of a mind like I did back in the elder days, youth of the War Mill and before. But a different circumstance prompts me to make a post such as this. Back then, we had scadloads of posting going on, innumerable adventures to keep track of, and in general, several active people posting numerous times a day. Such as it was, I don't think we could have a "Two Hours War" ever again, when an insane flurry of posts occurred in he space of two hours in the dead of night (if I recall correctly) only to be dealt with swiftly thereafter.

What am I getting at? This place is empty. For the majority of you (myself, Shadow, Thrak, Cvp, and NBS excluded - forgive me if I left out other lurkers), you never saw what this place was like. It has since your arrival been slow-moving and extremely inflexible.

I have accepted the fact that in more than one way I'm primarily responsible for the decline of this place, but it doesn't mean I am at all happy with it. I've got my hand in a few storylines brewing on the side that have some interesting potential to make a lot of changes here, but my hand is somewhat tempered by the lessons of the past, and a certain unwillingness to revert to some of the things that I dislike, but others feared the loss of.

I spend a lot of time rambling to come to my point. We as a whole have in reality two stories going on, mine and everyone else's (which happens to be the longest running story in BD history) - the RBS. Yes, we have random offshoots, like Shadow's and Thrakkiss's stories, but they're going somewhere, albeit slowly, as is mine. When I've made stories, they end up epic, and I'll admit my plans right now are epic in scope. But we'll deal with that as time progresses. To sum, there are two stories. Two! I try to create more by having two concurrent stories, but my time is often stretched (and I'm sure many others have a similar time crunch), and it is hard to keep up with more than what I've got my hands in at one time.

Now, given that the few of us who regularly come here have time issues that prevent us from doing our stories in a timely manner, I'd like to find some way to come up with more than one post per day, as seems to be the norm, if not one post per 3-4 days. When the stories are moving in parallel with real life, something's wrong.

One thing that pops into my mind as I'm sitting here writing, is to have "due dates" for people writing large stories, the "game masters" in particular. If you start a story that others are in, you are obligated to keep them moving. The biggest problem with the RBS is that Torlax (no offense meant here) often leaves everyone hanging on for weeks at end, and they have no direction with which to continue. If we could get promises that thing will certainly continue, stories could move on.

So, how would that work? Say Torlax gets into a pattern of posting on Tuesdays and Saturdays something to keep a story moving, and throughout the week those involved can add to the story to make it more detailed. It's fairly obvious to me that our standby for newcomers is "lurk a while and join a story when you feel able," but we need to be realistic. Most of the people who come here will have short attention spans; it's part of the business. They don't have the patience to stick around and read half a dozen stories and then think they're outclassed. We need some dedicated regulars to just play along with them and supplement their stories. We have a community here, but it is much shrunk, and in current operation is more likely to turn others away than to welcome them in. I'd like to keep a string open (or even start a new board) to discuss ways to increase the number of people here as well as increase the output of stories. I've offered up a few suggestions, but by no means take them as the final word in this case. I'd like to discuss this with everyone here and see what kind of solution to our problem we can come up with.

It is in that way I feel like a return to our roots is necessary. Debate and discussion have long been at the fringes of our mill, though they were its spawning factor. This *is* afterall a forum, a community. There once was bitter rivalry and genuine friendship here among members, but now I can only relate to those who have been here nearly as long as myself, and know truly little about the rest of you. What else can prompt Cvp to post here but the friendships and rivalry that he remembers. We cared (and I still care) about what happens in everyone's real lives, but I know (again) next to nothing about most of you. It's probably nostalgia speaking, but we need change, and we need it desperately here. I am no longer content to say "oh, school started up, so no one's here" or "oh, school's out, so everyone's gone on vacation" because that's a falsehood. The only thing keeping people away is ourselves, and if I must be the one to say it, so it must be.


By Ravyson on Monday, October 23, 2000 - 01:14 am:

Sounds like you're asking us to get a little closer. All right then, I'll start the personal information.
My name is James Duplechain. Actually, it's Isaac James Duplechain, but since everyone thinks I'm Jewish (not that I have anything against Jewish people) I go by James. I'm fourteen years old. I go to St. Thomas High School in Houston, Texas. My GPA there is 93.1, which is still an A. So I can say that I'm an A student. Even though I only have two. The rest are high B's.
I've been coming to this place for years. Probably two or three. On second thought, I think I first showed up sometime in early 1998. I found this place through its section on Magic jokes. I started to read the articles and forums. Then I found this place. I remember reading posts by people talking to each other by first name, not screen name. Jake, Jacob, Mary. These three stick in my mind because they often posted things about themselves. They didn't go by Elrohir, Cup, and Livonya.
I lurked for a while, and began a new character. The name of that character: MageMan. I have to admit, in retrospect, it was the worst piece of crap writing that I've ever done. But it was one of the first writings I did. Eventually, I changed my name to Crafate. It also wasn't good. I eventually lost interest and stopped coming.
I came back after a while. Looking back, I realized that I did miss this place. So I began a new character, named Ravyson. And the rest is recent history.
During my time as Crafate, I did get close to several people. One was BlackDragon. Now he's Rhistart Moonwalker, last I remember. His name was Spencer. Torlax, whose name was Neal Loman. We were all in the Knights of the Round Table when it merged with the Guild of Wizardry. We fought against Atlan, the first Big Bad of the present world after Tara reformed it. I created an alternate reality where Crafate was the ruler of an evil army that had destroyed Dantimos. I was there when Stoneshield was found, when Dantimos was founded. I was there for everything when it began.
This place does mean a lot to me. I came, a small boy. I had few friends, few hobbies. I was short, weak, and had glasses. You've seen me grow up. Now I'm 5'11, 150 pounds. I start on the football team. I can go up against people who weigh 50 pounds more on the line. I got contacts. I highly recommend them for those who don't have them, by the way. This place has seen everything I've gone through. It does mean a lot, to everyone who comes here.


By Shadow (Shadow) on Monday, October 23, 2000 - 06:16 am:

I'm a small, highly-intelligent, black and white, talking dog. According to conventional opinion, I'm between 16-30, have 0.5 children, and am the man.

'nuff said.


By Shadow (Shadow) on Monday, October 23, 2000 - 06:20 am:

Btw,
Stuff that happens in my life gets reflected in my stories (though not everything in my stories is a reflection of my life). If you want to know more about me, read my writing.

Alternatively, you can join the Shadow fan club. Just send $2000.00 cash or gold bullion to

Dept. of Money Lndg.
137 www.bdominia.com
Nomanisan Island
Federated States of Micronesia


By Jerreck on Monday, October 23, 2000 - 11:15 am:

I must agree with you Elrohir.

I came here during spring '98, right after the emergence of the
new RP Mill. A lot more people posted back then, and more posts
were made in general. When i first started posting as Defender,
i felt i was a little different in that i wrote longer posts in
a more narrative way. Not that i had thought them up beforehand,
but i had so many things that i wanted to put to print. And so my
posts just tended to keep a certain length.

And since, for a while, the main stories were The Quest and my
Ristul storyline, i kept posting a lot. Maybe some people saw mine
and others' long posts and were discouraged because they thought
that the good old short posts were of less quality. This, in my
opinion, is not the case. In fact, i see it as a quality to be able
to put on a few lines what others might take pages to express. And
in either case it's much better to post a short post than to not
post at all. You "mark" your presence. You say "I was here and read
the posts in this thread and here is my reaction." Not everyone
has the time or inspiration to write novels on here. :) To sum up,
i guess you could say that since we raised the treshold so high,
many people figure they better not post at all. Thus the smatterings
of short posts went bye-bye.

However, as you say, there have been some "chat-like posts", and it
does spice things up. :) By the way, another good thing about short
posts is that it's easier for people to read. I think many people
see a long post and figure "it's not worth the effort" to struggle
through them.

Anyway, as for personal information, i figured i could add my piece.

My name's Anders Warrby, and i live in Gothenburg on the west coast
of Sweden. I'm 26 years old, work as a computer programmer, but am
not totally sure that's what i want to keep doing for the rest of
my life. My girlfriend, Robin, is from Canada, so next summer we'll
probably go there to visit (Vancouver area). She just got her
permanent working and staying permission here, so hopefully we
can pull in double salaries soon. :)

I guess you could say i lurked for a good while before taking the
big step and post my first post back in the summer of 98. I have
most of my posts stored away, even my very first one. :) If anybody's
interested to see any of the crap that i spilled onto these boards,
let me know. :)

I enjoy playing Magic quite a bit, which of course is what brought me
to Beyond Dominia in the first place. I guess my best feats are
a 5th place in the Swedish Nationals (Invited to Worlds, since the
guy who came 4th was afraid to fly so he declined. I didn't have
the money though, so i had to settle for Europeans), some PTQ Top8s,
a bunch of wins in major sideevents and store tournaments. Competition
here is quite hard... Olle Rade just picked up playing again, btw!
He made top8 at yesterday's PTQLA... i left before i could see how
things went, but he was winning his quarterfinal. :) So anyway, i'm
one of those guys who usually get really close, but don't quite
have what it takes to go all the way at a major tournament. I do
have some reknown for being a good deck builder though. :)

Ah well, that would be it for now then.

Next!

/Jerreck


By Ravyson on Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 02:37 am:

Heh. I quit playing Magic some time ago, in favor of more physical and rewarding pursuits.


By /\/\ist Phantom on Saturday, October 28, 2000 - 03:45 am:

Heheheh...

Me, I'm fairly lazy most of the time, especially in winter. I used to go sledding when I was little, but now I pretty much just spend all winter either in front of the computer or the TV. :) During the summer I ride my bike a lot, but otherwise spend most of my time at home. I play Magic still, though not as often since I graduated high school in the summer and don't see my friends very often now. We're all too busy working and stuff. I play in an occasional tourney at a nearby comic book/trading card type store, though not that often. I don't last ten minutes in a Type 1 tourney because all but like one or two other people who play in the T1 tourneys there have at least four or five of the power nine, and a couple even have all of the power nine. I, on the other hand, have nothing worth more than maybe, at most, $20, and very few cards that rare. Everyone at the tourneys plays some kind of cheese deck, while I play my humble 'big green meanie' deck or my piddly white weenie deck, or whatever else I can scrounge up. :( Kind of discourages me from going there very often. I recently bought two boxes of Invasion boosters and can hopefully make a halfway-decent T2 tourney deck soon, though I bet I'll be facing people with four Avatars of Woe or whatever. :( Anyway, I also play AD&D (2nd ed.) occasionally, but once again, not as often now that I don't see my friends at school everyday. I played Ultima Online for about a year, then got tired of it because it seemed impossible to advance in it, especially since I hadn't managed to make any friends in UO, only meeting a bunch of PKing, thieving, etc., jerks. I bought Everquest last year, but after installing it my computer went on the fritz and I haven't been able to play any games on it except Starcraft and Heroes of Might and Magic III. Hopefully soon my dad will get the dang thing fixed so I can play my games again. Hmmm.... Well, since I haven't mentioned it yet, my name's John J. Korsog, Jr., and I live in Traverse City, Michigan, USA. I can't afford to go anywhere out of town to go to official Magic tourneys or any of the conventions I'd like to go to, since I only just recently got a job. I'm 18, soon to be 19 in another week, and have NO idea what I'm going to do for a living after going to college next year. Oh yeah, and I've been here on the mill since late '98 I think, maybe early '99. My screen name or whatever is what I used at the Rumor Mill, though I realized a while after joining the RP Mill that /\/\ist Phantom wasn't a very good name for a character. :/ I haven't been able to think of another name for /\/\ist Phantom, so haven't bothered changing it yet. Back in '98 and '99 I used to have a ton of characters, because, well, I don't know why, I just did. :) I've since had them all either die, leave Phaema, or just go home and quit adventuring. My current characters are /\/\ist Phantom, Traug the Troll Mage, /\/ecronis the (self-proclaimed)Lord of Undead, and §hard the Sword Mage. Since getting a job, I've found myself rather busy lately and have been forgetting to check back in here and post. :) But I promise to try and remember more often. Maybe I'll stick a post-it note on my computer monitor or something. :)

~ /\/\ist Phantom ~


By Elrohir (Elrohir) on Saturday, October 28, 2000 - 04:45 am:

I suppose I must've rambled a bit more than I intended about stuff irrelevant to my overall premise in the initial post. My purpose was to get more people to post more often, not to find out details of everyone's lives. I miss the casual association and chatter in the chatroom about everyone, where you could come in and find out what's going on with people and actually care; having short bios here is so...artificial a way to learn about someone. Actually sitting down and *talking* was what I was leaning towards meaning. See there? I've already turned off the the side conversation. :)

The point of the post was to discuss ways to increase participation here. If it takes messing with everything everyone holds sacred and *truly* starting over much like the War Mill did, I'd almost be willing to do it, though I'd want to preserve what all we've created here in some fashion or another (though it needn't be connected to a new mill). Ah, hell. Dunno.


By Shadow (Shadow) on Saturday, October 28, 2000 - 05:53 pm:

There's nothing like an apocalypse to stir things up. Though if that happens, we will probably run into the same old problems. It would be nice to find a new solution. I think part of the current problem is the number of people. WE NEED MORE PEOPLE.

Try and advertise by word of mouth (or, if so inclined, otherwise). I'm convinced that this is a unique forum. You'd think that uniqueness would be an easy sell. I'm tempted to say that we don't want just anybody, but at this point I think anybody with a mind for role-playing, writing, or general mayhem would be welcome.


By Ravyson on Sunday, October 29, 2000 - 02:21 pm:

I have, actually. I'm taking Speech this semester, and I told them about this place. I think my topic was writing. Anyway, I got one or two people somewhat interested. So I'm going to go back to school tomorrow (DAMN!) and get Cliff, the guy who seemed most interested, to start writing.
And the key to conversations is knowing that there are real people behind the characters. Knowing a little about them helps that.


By /\/\ist Phantom on Sunday, October 29, 2000 - 07:06 pm:

I should be posting more often soon, as I'm working on a storyline involving the south-eastern continent that I mentioned earlier, but I'm still not finished figuring out what to do with it. I'm just a bit busy now with work and taking care of a few other things. And I've been renting Legend of Dragoon alot and playing it on my playstation. :) I'm most of the way through the third disc (I think; I may be only halfway through it), and will be starting on the fourth disc in another week (I'm only renting it, and I just rent it and play it on my days off work). I'll finish it soon, I hope, and then I will have plenty of time to post. :)

I've gotten one of my friends to make a few posts on the Rumor Mill before, but shortly afterwards lost his internet access. He still doesn't have internet access yet, and even when he gets it, I don't think he'll join the RPM. I keep forgeting to talk to any of my other friends about it. Maybe I'll remember the next time I see them.

Otherwise, I've graduated high school and won't start college until next year (I'm working right now to pay my way through college; my parents can't afford to send me; we're still having problems paying some of the bills on time). :/ And there are only maybe three people at my workplace that are around my age, but none of them seem to be the kind of people who would like roleplaying. There might be a few people who frequent the local comic book/trading card store who may be interested in it, but I don't know. The group that I'm currently playing AD&D with only meets once a month because of the DM's time constraints. :( However, the next playing session will be next week, so maybe I'll remember and talk to a few of them about it.

Oh yeah, and please don't do any kind of apocalypse anytime soon...I haven't been able to finish some things with my characters yet or with the south-eastern continent....I'd want to at least finish those things up before having to start from scratch or whatever.

Hehehe...I ramble on too much sometimes...

~ /\/\ist Phantom ~


By Elrohir (Elrohir) on Sunday, October 29, 2000 - 08:32 pm:

I don't know about not doing an apocalypse soon...we might just ruin your plans...

*wicked grin*


By Ravyson on Monday, October 30, 2000 - 12:00 am:

Goody, another visit from Tara. Haven't seen her in a while. Considering the way she messed with the world on her last visit, I can't wait to have her come again... Is Actyuib (sp?) going to go uber-demon again?


By Elrohir (Elrohir) on Monday, October 30, 2000 - 12:09 am:

Tara is long, long gone...


By Thran, the Golem (Thran) on Monday, October 30, 2000 - 12:30 pm:

gidday um i have never playe proper D&D before but have played a game similar i think where you draw rooms and stuuf on paper and act as wizards/barbarians and that sort of thing....anyway im interested in joining/playing but i know nothing about this "roleplaying" buisiness...

anyway if you want to eamil me about playing...


THRAN

j***n@m***o.com


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