Post by Azoth on Sept 30, 2016 1:06:23 GMT
Hello, members and guests. This is Azoth.
Firstly, I would just like to thank everyone who has witnessed this swift change of management. It may be a bit hard to swallow for some and for others it may be confusing but I am thankful that there have not been any outbursts. You may have your doubts and some of you have spoken up about them already, and I respect that. It is an honor to have taken this place over and I am looking forward to the coming weeks as the site gets cleaned up and put back into working order. Some may think it is, but to me, it's a bit of a mess. But I'm also very particular about things. But I digress.
This is an announcement just to update you all on some things that will be happening tonight/today and what will be changing over the weekend. I do want you all to know that I am a busy person in reality and I don't have a huge amount of time to spend sitting down, but I can assure you that it will not affect my ability to make change. Approvals for things may be slow but once I get settled, they will be taken care of. Moving on.
Many of you have wondered what will be happening to claims and profiles due to the lack of active staff. I will be going through these while making changes to the site, so no worries there. It may take me a few days to get through everything, depending on the frequency of activity, but I don't plan on letting things sit for very long. Having an AP Claim be waited on for more than a week is absurd. The same with profiles. I hope to at least look over everything tonight and will actually begin grading/approving claims as things go on.
I also wish to note that any provisional approvals by other players are just that, provisional. If other players have looked over your work but I find something off; you will have to fix the claim/profile before you can consider yourself approved again. I do not doubt the capability of other members, but sometimes people miss things. I will too so if you already expect perfection out of me, I will probably break your heart upon the first claim.
I have decided on something pretty drastic that I'll be implementing over the weekend once I have some extra time, or even tomorrow evening. Our website hasn't exactly had much of a plotline. The recent attempt, done through the combination of Noblesse Oblige and Celestial Arms questlines, were the best except of one issue; there was no site-wide development. Development was to the individual and not across the entire land so while some players went through the changes, others were unfazed and didn't even know what happened. I will be changing this. I will be creating a plotline which will incorporate the entire world as we know it, and your actions as players will directly affect the world as a whole. Thus, should you participate, you will actually be doing something beneficial to yourself and to others.
With that being said, I will leaveNoblesse Oblige and Celestial Arms active as Dungeons, rather than actual plotlines. If you are currently following the plot lines, you may continue doing so. Play as though they are regular quests that are allowing you to unlock a dungeon raid at the end of the quest line. I will be relabeling them shortly.
I will be adjusting the impact on Scotland, however. The move North is a smart idea but in order to refit the plot, I will have to cut out the effect of the questline on it. And so, I will be noting here that any progress into the North will be considered Instanced. The world will fit Noblesse Obliges' storyline and players may continue to operate in the Northern regions as though they have entered the dungeon the moment they have crossed a certain point. I'll be adjusting the storyline itself to better suit this change by causing some sort of teleport or maybe adding a form of transportation that will bring you to the area of the questline, but that will come later.
It may not be obvious to some but to others, we have a bit of a problem. There is a decent level gap between some players and characters on the forum and it has the potential to be an issue. My initial solution was to perform a reset and to lower everyone back to level 1, as to level the playing field and to start from scratch. However in doing so I would be smacking all of the players who have put effort into the site previously, and I would much rather avoid that. Due to the time gap between people coming and going, I personally suggest players to restart with new characters, but that is up to the player themselves to do so.
My second solution, and my solution which is more logical, is to offer younger players more chances to level up. I will be conducting more low-level focused events and will be providing a bit of help for the newer players of the site as to help with the lower levels. I will also provide rewards for older players who help out with doing so. It does sound a bit rigged towards the newbies but leveling here can be a bit grindy and difficult. By giving more things to do and more reasons to play, hopefully it will help activity.
In my experiences elsewhere on some other Forums, I have seen things akin to an Item Shop. Players can pay money they have made through Questing/Posting in exchange for basic items, weapons and armor, and additional goodies like additional skill slots and the like. It will be a bit tough to implement and regulate it all, but hopefully in doing so I can inspire some sort of cash flow. There is a shop here already with some items but it is very rare that people actually use it due to the activity of merchants among players. That is mainly due to the fact that the shop doesn't have anything really good in it, and people like to save money. I'm hoping to change that.
As to encourage activity and posting, I will be creating a Rewards System for the site to inspire some of you all to reach certain goals. These goals will range from completing certain quests to performing certain crafts to reaching levels. I will be fleshing this idea out a bit more diligently and will be doing it in the coming days as well, but expect this update to come later than the others.
If you have any questions or suggestions about/for the above little entries, feel free to post them below or send me a Private Message. I deeply encourage Community participation when possible and I like to know what people think on some things. The above topics will be implemented and changes will be made around the site with the above ideas in mind, so understand that change will happen revolving around them. However if you want to put in your two-cents, I am open to additional ideas about the above topics.
Thank you for reading.
--Azoth
Briefing Update - 9/30
I just want to insert a brief update here to let people know that I am not deleting actual character profiles as of this moment. I am going through the Member list and removing accounts that were created and abandoned by those who have shown interest but have not actually joined the forum to play. It will also help me keep track of how many actual players/characters are active on the Forum at any given time. Among those new accounts are new players who do actually plan to join so if your account is deleted by accident, I apologize. I am going to be deleting accounts that have been registered before September. If you have registered your account before September 1st but have not posted anywhere, send me a Private Message or post in my previous announcement here.
Firstly, I would just like to thank everyone who has witnessed this swift change of management. It may be a bit hard to swallow for some and for others it may be confusing but I am thankful that there have not been any outbursts. You may have your doubts and some of you have spoken up about them already, and I respect that. It is an honor to have taken this place over and I am looking forward to the coming weeks as the site gets cleaned up and put back into working order. Some may think it is, but to me, it's a bit of a mess. But I'm also very particular about things. But I digress.
This is an announcement just to update you all on some things that will be happening tonight/today and what will be changing over the weekend. I do want you all to know that I am a busy person in reality and I don't have a huge amount of time to spend sitting down, but I can assure you that it will not affect my ability to make change. Approvals for things may be slow but once I get settled, they will be taken care of. Moving on.
-- Profiles, AP Claims, Market --
Many of you have wondered what will be happening to claims and profiles due to the lack of active staff. I will be going through these while making changes to the site, so no worries there. It may take me a few days to get through everything, depending on the frequency of activity, but I don't plan on letting things sit for very long. Having an AP Claim be waited on for more than a week is absurd. The same with profiles. I hope to at least look over everything tonight and will actually begin grading/approving claims as things go on.
I also wish to note that any provisional approvals by other players are just that, provisional. If other players have looked over your work but I find something off; you will have to fix the claim/profile before you can consider yourself approved again. I do not doubt the capability of other members, but sometimes people miss things. I will too so if you already expect perfection out of me, I will probably break your heart upon the first claim.
-- Plot Line --
I have decided on something pretty drastic that I'll be implementing over the weekend once I have some extra time, or even tomorrow evening. Our website hasn't exactly had much of a plotline. The recent attempt, done through the combination of Noblesse Oblige and Celestial Arms questlines, were the best except of one issue; there was no site-wide development. Development was to the individual and not across the entire land so while some players went through the changes, others were unfazed and didn't even know what happened. I will be changing this. I will be creating a plotline which will incorporate the entire world as we know it, and your actions as players will directly affect the world as a whole. Thus, should you participate, you will actually be doing something beneficial to yourself and to others.
With that being said, I will leave
**Adjusting this is no longer necessary. Due to a decision by the previous Staff, Noblesse Oblige shall be removed in its entirety. Thus, I shall be treating it as though NO did not exist. Players who have participated in the NO Storyline may still refer to their activities in the North should they choose to. If you have a thread that follows the storyline, you may continue the thread but you will not be allowed to progress to the next stage, if there is one. If there is no "next stage", then I am sorry but your time has come to an end.**
-- Levels and The Gap --
It may not be obvious to some but to others, we have a bit of a problem. There is a decent level gap between some players and characters on the forum and it has the potential to be an issue. My initial solution was to perform a reset and to lower everyone back to level 1, as to level the playing field and to start from scratch. However in doing so I would be smacking all of the players who have put effort into the site previously, and I would much rather avoid that. Due to the time gap between people coming and going, I personally suggest players to restart with new characters, but that is up to the player themselves to do so.
My second solution, and my solution which is more logical, is to offer younger players more chances to level up. I will be conducting more low-level focused events and will be providing a bit of help for the newer players of the site as to help with the lower levels. I will also provide rewards for older players who help out with doing so. It does sound a bit rigged towards the newbies but leveling here can be a bit grindy and difficult. By giving more things to do and more reasons to play, hopefully it will help activity.
-- Item Shop --
In my experiences elsewhere on some other Forums, I have seen things akin to an Item Shop. Players can pay money they have made through Questing/Posting in exchange for basic items, weapons and armor, and additional goodies like additional skill slots and the like. It will be a bit tough to implement and regulate it all, but hopefully in doing so I can inspire some sort of cash flow. There is a shop here already with some items but it is very rare that people actually use it due to the activity of merchants among players. That is mainly due to the fact that the shop doesn't have anything really good in it, and people like to save money. I'm hoping to change that.
-- Rewards System --
As to encourage activity and posting, I will be creating a Rewards System for the site to inspire some of you all to reach certain goals. These goals will range from completing certain quests to performing certain crafts to reaching levels. I will be fleshing this idea out a bit more diligently and will be doing it in the coming days as well, but expect this update to come later than the others.
-- Suggestions/Questions --
If you have any questions or suggestions about/for the above little entries, feel free to post them below or send me a Private Message. I deeply encourage Community participation when possible and I like to know what people think on some things. The above topics will be implemented and changes will be made around the site with the above ideas in mind, so understand that change will happen revolving around them. However if you want to put in your two-cents, I am open to additional ideas about the above topics.
Thank you for reading.
--Azoth
Brief Update: Due to a request from the previous Staff, Noblesse Oblige shall be removed rather than turned into a dungeon. Thus, only Celestial Arms will be converted into a playable Dungeon. Please look above for additional information.
Briefing Update - 9/30
I just want to insert a brief update here to let people know that I am not deleting actual character profiles as of this moment. I am going through the Member list and removing accounts that were created and abandoned by those who have shown interest but have not actually joined the forum to play. It will also help me keep track of how many actual players/characters are active on the Forum at any given time. Among those new accounts are new players who do actually plan to join so if your account is deleted by accident, I apologize. I am going to be deleting accounts that have been registered before September. If you have registered your account before September 1st but have not posted anywhere, send me a Private Message or post in my previous announcement here.
