Parting Wishes

I'm leaving but I want to get some ideas out before I hop in the grave.

The site needs a guild overhaul. The guild system is a mess with large sections of inactive guild masters. I personally recommend the removal of the more inactive guilds because they serve as newbie death trap. As a new member joins the site for the first time, unknowingly picks an inactive guild and BAM they have no friends and feel locked into a sinking ship. It drains the other more active guilds and reduces our member retainment. Who to keep and who to axe I leave up to people who are more on the ground then I am. But if I had to say one: Do we really need Supringu Mori? Do we really? A lot of guilds also need newly appointed guild masters from the pool of active members. I believe this includes FT, SM(if we don't nuke), and BP(sorry shuface, show up or shove off).

Kill rank culture. Rank culture being a state of mind where people are unnecessarily obsessed with ranking up. I am the supreme lord of rank culture and it's gotten me nowhere. Support the mindset that ranking up is secondary to rp, don't let the disease spread.

Make friends not enemies. The community is more hostile then I have ever seen it. People are meaner, people are more defensive and it just isn't a good atmosphere. Maybe that's just the way I see it from my hermit perspective but even a blurred image has some aspects of the truth.

Dear god do something with the dungeon system. It's been in develop like a year longer then intended and people want to explore. Having designed a large part of it I can say there is some quality control that needs to be done and ect. But for god's sake let's see some work on it or let's never see it again.

Edit 1: Staff get a leash on things. You need to create a more stable and consistent public image.

I'm sure I'll think of something two minutes after I post this but I guess this will have to do.

Cya

Guild thing totally agree and we are considering the best options.

Rank culture - no idea how to deal with this. But rank equals strength and its a typical character trait to want to become stronger. However, people do seem too obsessed with it.

Friends/enemies thing - not sure how we can do that

Dungeon system - Know what you mean broski.




Not sure what you mean on the staff bit. A bit more explanation please?

The problem with staff is that I don't know the problem with staff. There isn't enough staff-player on the ground interaction. I don't know if staff is operating smoothly, roughly, and that gives rise to concern. I guess I'm asking for government transparency? It's just so easy to fall into pessimism without a constant staff presence to remind everyone that everything is okay. It might be worth your time to recruit a moderator with the sole duty of sitting in the cbox being there for people, to remind people that the staff is there and that the staff cares. It would help site wide attitudes.

Issue with that is timezones and stuff. We generally have a staff member popping in and out every now and then

Rank culture - Zack, you can go ahead and put yourself at the top spot of people who have become obsessed with it. So much, it takes over into your actual roleplaying. You have begun describing actions with ranks, literally putting an unimmersive systematic into your posts. To me, it's audible cancer having to read out loud things like "And he came at him with H Rank speed and strength." or "It was an A Rank spell and he was a B Rank mage, there was no way he could simply block it"

A lot of offense to all those who write like that: Just don't. It serves no purpose, it sounds stupid, and it perpetuates a standard. The standard that ranks actually mean something in the IC world, when they really don't. There has never been any character ever who has literally used his power value as a literal tool. I've never heard Goku say "I'm going above 9000!" or "Here's my 100.000 power level Kamehameha!" It would sound ridiculous. And it sounds ridiculous when you do it. 'You', being all the people who have done it.

Killing, or at least diminishing rank culture can start by not letting it into actual roleplay. Because again, it perpetuates the standard that ranks are part of the IC world, when they point blank aren't. And apart from that, I can't stress this enough, it sounds horrid.

This is just one of many things that emphasize the misplaced significance of rank culture. But it is something easy, something to perhaps consider, when wondering how to prevent rank culture from gaining too much significance.

With the rest, I agree wordless. I'll miss you Kira, again, you cheeky lil' cunt ;-;

Rank does matter icly is the point.

A H rank is stronger than an S rank and with no concrete definitions of speed or other stats there is no other way to compare yourself to other characters. Yes I know I do that on occasion, not always, but I do. However, as there is no definitive speed (which is a key factor to my character) saying H rank speed at least gives you an idea that its faster than what an S rank Zack(without boosts) could manage.

Even if we don't take power into consideration Rank is important ICly. An S rank is more well known and respected and so can go on higher ranked and more dangerous missions then an A rank.

Even if jobs aren't considered the higher rank you are the more spells you have at your disposal so again rank is important icly.

I feel nervous saying this, but am I allowed to nominate myself for whatever position Kiraface is talking about?

Awh, I am going to miss having you around here Kira. I and most of us always appreciated your feedback and constructive suggestions. You always looked out for the site and during my time as an active staff member was always supportive. So before you are entirely gone into oblivion, which I assume you are going to. I wanna say thanks, for being positive with your insight. Even though it didn't always got realized it never did go unnoticed. And actually helped me sometimes to focus on some issues. 

That was on a personal note, don't go around telling people I'm a wuss now.

On a more site related note, I agree with you kira on the friends enemies. The site did have been a bit more hostile. People/groups seems secluded and refuse to interact with a whole. It are almost those dreaded cliques back at high school. So it is not solely something you picked up from your hermit perspective. I've seen it too.
But that is part of being a community, some times there are bad times. But it is just another roadblock that as a community we need to overcome. Sure there will always be rotten apples that can ruin a mood, or be condescending. But even though you don't like someone, as long as we keep each other have our dignity. Then as community we can outgrow a pessimistic atmosphere.

You don't need to emphasize the rank of your stats when they are covered under your avatar. It says H Rank, no need to overstate things that take away from immersion. You could leave out the rank entirely in your posts, and reactions and impact would stay the same. And if they don't, then the reaction needs to be corrected, not your post. Js, squeezing the life out of rank culture begins with a light pinch in the arm that is not letting it influence writing. That was my point. Sorry to sound aggressive, but it is an issue that lowers quality. And I'm aggressively interested in raising the quality of Rping here. Mainly because that's my main point of interest for the site in general.

I'm probably putting communal feeling on a too low level of importance, but that's because I've found my place here. It's ignorant of new people and those who haven't found their place just yet. But I don't want to make arguments for something I can't empathize with.

Frankly, I'm ashamed and pissed off at how users are being forced to leave the site like this. What I've noticed is that people who've been on the site longer than I myself have, namely people like Kira, who I believe has been here for a great deal longer than some of us have, have been leaving for some of the same reasons. However, my biggest concern is this "Rank Culture" or as I like to call it, "Rankism" that has been perpetuated throughout the site.

I'll be the first to say that even I myself struggle with this issue. I believe that Rankism is the central idea that Rank is the most important aspect of a roleplayer, and that is simply not true.

You see, I think what makes roleplayers follow the magnetic bandtrain of Rankism is actually two things, which I'll express as general attitudes:


In my opinion, it's more of a innate fear of being inferior to our peers: it's human nature to want to be the best and surpass everyone else. Now I'm starting to get out of topic, but I will say this:

In order to diminish the central idea of Rank Culture/Rankism, we must learn as people that trivial things like Rank isn't everything.

Now I'm not saying that we should throw away the Rank system altogether; what I am saying is that we need to quit focusing on becoming better than each other, and focus on the most important part: roleplaying. There are people who haven't done a social in ages because they're too busy doing mission threads. I'm gonna be frank and say that I am one of those people, but I'm at least fixing that fallacy, as if it means anything to you. Anyhow, that's not my point. My point is, up front, is that we need to stop focusing on Ranking and Power, and instead work on roleplaying, because there are certainly people who can do that.

Oh my god that is comic sans isn't it

First and foremost Kira you're and stand up guy and I respect you an am going to miss you when your gone.

While I agree that certain guilds needs an over haul however I would like to keep SM Alive as peer Storm's departing wishes I will be as active as I can be and I'll try my best to help out any new members that seek to join.

Also I completely agree with Shun's thought about the ranking system should be altered yet not fully removed. Our main objective on this site is to have fun and get away from the issues of the real world. With the concept f human nature being fear, Fear is a double edged blade really it's both good and evil it can lead a person to either grow by over coming that fear or be consumed by it and hiding. We should not fear each other yet we must fear that which makes us weaker but I'm getting off topic ...

The one thing I want is to help this site remain the sanctuary for rping it was I'll do what everit takes to help you guys to accomplish that.

In order to diminish the central idea of Rank Culture/Rankism, we must learn as people that trivial things like Rank isn't everything. 

He's right. Fact is that ranks and having a rank is part of this site, is in fact a part of Fairy Tail where the super powerful are being classed as mages being able to take S ranked jobs. And even if we take out the ranks something else will come into place. May it be just experience or something else entirely. Point is striving to become stronger is part of the Fairy Tail culture if we like it or not.

That being sad, it all comes down to what Shunshuke said. If we as a person or community are not so bothered with our ranks and instead focus on plot and story more, hell even jobs can be more about story instead of ranking up. Then being D rank and someone else S rank won't be that important anymore. 

As for the inactivity in guilds, which some basically have because of lack of 'active' members. Can all be simply fixed with attracting new members in the first place. Which can only be achieved massively by advertising. Sure we advertised before, but we aren't your local bakery or cupcake shop that can live on a standard client base and mouth to mouth advertising.
No when we advertise, our adverts will in time vanish. Be archived, deleted or just end up on page 35 of the advertisement section. Simply because others sites advertise too, like daily. I bet even right now, some my little pony rp, is advertising on a site. Pushing our own message even lower. 
And if that doesn't work, then option of 'erasing' a guild comes into the light. But not without having tried at least to keep the place alive.

This also ties in with the enemies/frenemies/friends thing. Why should we leave it only to the gm to fix their guild? Or only the staff? We as a whole, as a community, should all try to help out each other, may it be something less trivial. Or helping the less active guilds, stay actual guilds.

I personally feel keeping a guild open purely because it was someone's last wish...doesn't seem like the right thing to do for the site. If it was like Eclipse Soul and had been one of the major guilds on site and had massive site impact and then it was the last wish that it remained open even after going inactive I think i'd be ok with that.

However, I also don't feel like a guild should be got rid of because its members or GM are inactive or we will pretty much end up getting rid of most guilds on site and be left with like three.
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As for rank I realise I put it into my RP. I realise that I don't always do it in the best way and I have ideas on how to improve on that. Heck I might start removing it entirely except when Zack is thinking stuff like 'i'm a wizard saint, the ace of a guild, one of the few H rank mages alive...I should be able to handle this' as that works icly.
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I am all for roleplay over power which was why I wasn't that focused on raising Shiraz and instead just had him hanging out with people. However, I did want to raise him not due to power, but so he could have more spells and thus do more fun things. I mean he was a candy maker....at A rank he could be like 'Everyone's hungry? Here have a gummi bear the size of a house'

The issue with anything major on site or even just personal plot with others is people going inactive. It becomes harder to get motivated if you are in the middle of a really good thread and then the person dissapears forever. Its...so disheartening. ITs why I haven't been rping much outside jobs really as everytime I do it seems to just stall.

I'm gonna jump right in and say Shun great speech yes you have seen me before on the yes side, but this is not a side matter I have met some of the nicest people on this site and before I suggest I am gonna give them my thanks

Kyll:you left when I met you first I felt we would have had a great friendship
Zeno:boy you have been so nice when I only talked to you for an hour
Kira:You started this suggestion you are so amazingly nice
Coocoo:you left silent, but You left a great mark on this site
Bekket: our team could have been real

Now to get to the point first off let us get to why the majority left maybe even all(not sure about Zeno).

Friendship: So many mean comments, we should not let this site fall apart because of this we are the greatest site I have known.

Ranking: Yes it is bad, but maybe we just remove some of the ranks this too has led this site to a fallout.

this site is my home, my love my heart and a community I love do not let it die in pain in harsh suffering please for the community's sake and your sake reader I kitteh want to stay tell my role playing has lost its need and tell all my friends leave, My friends and roleplaying will be carried on with this site my friends here are amazing and my roleplaying... needs work, and to address the last bit the staff do there hardest and are some of the nicest people, so if you love this site go ahead say your power is over nine thousand, because for me this site is over 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000. Thanks I hope you guys help this sites cause for the love and joy of the communities pride.

Well there's alot wrong with this site, Like the fact most of us have to scrap and scrounge for everything. Many of us have to wait long periods of time for the staff to get anything we need done, And yet the admins get all kinds of goddies such as Aedre's auto rank. The most common complaint i get with members in cbox is no staff to talk to, i get that you guys can be PMed but that so impersonal they want someone to TALK too. theres also the fact that you dont have many US Timezone staff, meaning for the most part members from that region are SOL. Now im sure you all know my dissatisfaction with staff but it has come to my attention that one of the admins openly slanders me in a guild chat. This does not promote a friendly site admins, your suppose to set a good example. When i was fired, yes folks i was fired i was give a set of reasons, the one that seemed the most potent was. "I thought i was the rules." Which i will admit i was a bit harsh... but look now? People are getting bullied out of the site... I mean Janna, Enola... we are losing good members cause the staff presence is null. I'm a cbox mod yes... but i got told by a member... "your not real staff just a watchdog." Sadly it was over skype and i can't give him a warning for such.

At points it seemed like you felt you WERE the rules and that yours was the only opinion that mattered.

Like i said i was a bit harsh on the rules yes but when i felt like i was the only one enforcing them. I mean alot of the times punishments got pawned off one me. And we all know i don't value just my opinoin

Seemed to be quite a few arguments over what seemed like nothing.
... Not going to dispute this one but i was trying to be better.

You also seemed overly harsh at points with apps.
Ok its common knowledge that me doing hard grades(Grades without talking to the member while grading) was not my strong point, i prefered talking with them about what they wanted. and every time i finished i always asked. "At any time did you feel i was unfair with my grading... I so tell me and we will rereview that part."

You just seemed to be causing more friction than anything.
This is cause i kept trying to get fixes done to old systems. I mean one point is the Invasion system was discontinued a long time ago yet the rules stayed up for quite some time.

Also we'd had reports of like conspiracy theories and what not.
Conspiracy Theories? Really? like what?

On top of that we've seen chats(since you got kicked off staff) that the site was basically going to die now.
Yup not going to deny this, when i was fired i was very angry after i put so much effort into helping this site.


Now other staff members have been told that i was fired cause i Butt heads with other staff. More to the point the admins. More then once i would throw up a idea that i had just to talk about with the other mods/Staff and would get shut down because "the admins will talk about it"... Oh dear im ranting XD.

Anyways i just felt i should defend myself publicly. This will be the last time i mention this topic again.

Don't blame the staff because people are leaving and you're raw from being fired. That's not right or fair : I

Oh i was just publicly defending myself... i will never bring the topic up again mate trust me. the point is... i just want them to be there more the the members and people getting bullied out of the site? that is the staffs problem.

Can't we all just get along for once? Jesus! I don't think anyone wants to RP in an atmosphere that resembles the cold war. Let me tell all of you as a representative of the staff, none of us wants this atmosphere to persist. We are ready to do whatever we can to stop this "hostility" that is going on in this site. Staff, just like everyone in here, simply wants everyone and every guild to get along. Some people just put up their personal agendas in front of them and refuse to co-operate. You can't blame it all on staff, mate.

Jesus I come back to the site in this state of mess...


Ill miss you Kira and I wish you best of luck.

Kira You will be missed. You were a great friend and someone I enjoyed RPing with.

Now as someone who has been around RP sites, and has read all of the above complaints let me first make a few things clear and suggest how to fix them.

Innactive guilds- There are plenty of inactive guilds. These are guilds that have maybe 3 to 4 active members at any time for a given 4 month period. There are a few guilds who qualify, In Legal, Dark, Neutral. SM idk where this guild came from, but the fact that it exists and another guild wasn't allowed to take root is both insulting and insane. It is a 5 person guild. 5 people do not make a guild. But of course you (You being staff) allowed this to happen when you allowed Tartarus to be like 10 people. BF has had 7 people active in the last 99hrs. They are stronger than SM and might be able to survive if helped. Black Rose is one of the more active guilds. ST, Lamia is easily the most active Legal guild. ES and BP are tied for activity, Tartarus seems to be the most active dark mage as the majority of their members have been on in the last 99hrs. Still Guilds should be checked for activity every 4 months to make sure records are accurate. Site wide activity should be once every 6 months to keep accurate records. Also what the hell is with Rune Knights? there are maybe 5 of them. Why not just allow Rune Knights to be a position you apply for? Like Slayers, or Magic council, or wizard saints? Why not do it that way instead of giving another guild a thing. It would work better. Make like 15 rune knights or even 10. It would work just as well because i count maybe 5 or 6 rune knights in existence anyway. So don't get rid of it just adapt it.

Guilds in general- Now Personally I think that ES should be moved to the neutral guild. They aren't really a legal guild, and they aren't really a dark guild. So they are a neutral guild. Either open up Tartarus to everyone or add in another Dark guild. Grimoire hearts for example. FT, LS, ST, and BP are the big four from the manga/anime. They are the four legal guilds. End of discussion that's it. No more than 4. Also no more than 3 neutral guilds at any time. And these should be heavily monitored for activity. However if you really wanna increase the guild activity simple. REMOVE GUILDLESS. Remove it all together. I understand the appeal i really do, but you get the same benefits as you would if you're in a neutral guild. You can be in a guild and not interact with it. Hell both of my characters are strong examples of that. I try to interact with my guild in ST here and it works out that I occasionally get some good stuff. However my LS alt has barely interacted with his guild (Though not by choice) and I can do anything i want pretty much and if something interesting is going down in my guild I get to interact with that too. Remove guildless and I promise guilds will have a spike in activity from our new players.

Rank Culture- This is an RP. This is a functioning RP. EVERY SINGLE RP EVER. Has a rule for powering up, leveling, ranking, whatever. You need a clear definition of who can do what and who can't. If you don't the RP will get out of hand. I have watched bigger sites than this die from lack of power defining. If you remove Ranks, if you remove the rules for what people can and can't do you will have utter anarchy, chaos, and this site will die. I will not let this site die on my watch. However it should not have to be stated IC. Your character sheet on the left hand side of all posts you have says what rank you are, what your magics are, and etc. It's obvious an H rank is faster than an S rank. No need to state it ever. It's obvious a D rank spell can't compete with a B rank spell. Relax. If it gets to be a huge issue ICly Staff can step in and resolve it. It really is that simple it doesn't need to be a huge issue.

Friends- Staff you need to be above everyone. You need to be able to take your emotions out of the equation and deal with things. If someone is being rude, disrespectful, or plain hostile to another guest. Warn him, Temp-ban him, and if it persists Perma-ban him. I have been knocked hard on other sites for things I say and while I disagree with some of them most of them are justified and i've acted right. A staff needs to be able to defend everyone. HOWEVER! It should be noted that characters don't have to agree, get along, or like each other. Being mean ICly might just be part of your character (Frederick is an example here.) while being nice to everyone who you know, or just in general (Myself as the example here) might be part of your character. These are fine, and outside of the RP Frederick and I get along great, and I think of us as friends. You need to be allowed to make the character you want while remembering This is a game. You don't have to be like that all the time. You are allowed to relax, smile, laugh, joke, and just goof off. DON'T TAKE THIS TOO SERIOUSLY! THIS IS A GAME! Life is serious enough without you having to add more stress and pressure on yourself. If you can't dis-associate yourself from your character in order to have good interactions with the community around you here then you have a problem.

Dungeons- Add them or don't. Simple. It doesn't take this long to add in what appears to be a relatively straight forward concept. They have been on the site for about as long as I've been here and yet nothing has happened with them. Time to make a choice. Either add them, or don't. You can add small bits and pieces here and there it doesn't have to be an all at once kind of a thing. Just make it happen.

Staff- There are inactive staff members, there are vacant staff positions. Fix it. Staff should never be inactive. EVER. If you go inactive you are removed from staff and if you return you have a chance to explain why you were inactive. At the very least you should do this, if not have some members on standby as temp staff members to cover any inactive staff members. I see two vacant moderator positions in the list of official staff. Fill it. It isn't hard. However I will say I have noticed an increase in Staff members being on the site. However I haven't seen a significant increase in productivity from all of them. IQ, Raven, Speed, Kihia, Aedre, and Nat. You guys are amazing staff keep it up, and work even harder if you can. The rest I haven't seen much work done from them. Also remember staff are here to help things progress as well as enjoy themselves. Please remember this it should be 50-50 you, and site. For every post you make for yourself you should make one for a member. I know you staff work hard, I get it. I've been a staff for a site. Hell I've run a couple of sites before. It is hard demanding work, but if you do it you'll see more love, happiness, and better site health.

Guys I usually never speak up like this. I really don't. You all know me here by now, and if you don't then you can find all my posts and such, but I am speaking up now because we are losing a great member here today, and I don't want to see more members drop. I don't want to be brought back to a place where I drop because this site just falls. I love this site and that's why I came back. I love everyone on here and you're all my friends you are the ones I came back for, and I have been happier since I've gotten back. However if some of these things aren't fixed by the staff and the community as a whole we will continue to lose great members Like Kira.

Please let's all do our part as a community to keep this site alive, fun, and a great place for all.

P.S. Yes there is more I can get into, but those are the big issues right now I feel. If we can get these handled then we can move onto something else.]

Edit 1: As for more socializing. How about making post Jewels for social threads worth more? like even 10 more? Or doubling it? Yes it would require a staff member to watch for social threads, but it is easy considering you can put on there social or not. Then just add more jewels to their account. It would help people buy new spells, weapons, or whatever they wanted and make them happier with their character, and encourage more story, and character development.

Thank you all for your mixed bag of kind and otherwise words. I wouldn't sleep at night if I didn't leave a little controversy or left without stimulating ideas.

There are things I want to say. There are those of you in here who know well and good that I wouldn't call you my friend but insist on acting like I would. But I'm going to let that go. We need to let these things go. I have to leave because I am a part of that hostility.

Just try and work with the staff people. They have the power to make real changes. It's easier said then done but if you really want things to get better you've got to lay down your personal agendas and help the staff set things straight. Forgive, live and let live.

I for one can't do that. I'm too self righteous and awesome :ego1: So I have to leave. I didn't start the fire but once it spread to me I only made it worse. Maybe when the fire is quelled in the site and time washes it off me I can return. There are those who need to consider this as well.


If you feel this post is calling you out. Just remember I didn't say any names.

My final thoughts on this can be summed up as follows "This was my home! All this pain and devastation how it tortures me inside! All the innocent who've suffered from your stubbornness and pride!" - Moses (Prince of Egypt, you know that Disney movie.)

Jokes on you, Kira. It wasn't a Disney movie. It was Dreamworks.

Wait really?


My whole life is a lie