RP Forum Revamp

[Moka]

After lots of planning and last minute decision making, we've pretty much finished revamping the RP forum for The Lion King.

We have removed all three tiers (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced), the RP Archive and the Mothership Guide (we will be rewriting it and separating it out into separate guides that should make it easier for new members to find exactly what they want).

We have added two forums: Public RPs and Private RPs.

Public RPs are for RPs that are open to the public. Each RP may be different, which is why I've installed a topic tag mod. This mod gives the option to add a topic tag that is added before the topic title, and it can be found when editing or creating topics.

Here are the topic tags you can choose from:

• [Open]: The RP currently has open slots available, which means anyone is free to join.
• [Request]: The RP creator has special rules that must be followed before joining. PM the RP creator for details if they are not in the RP topic itself. Either way, communicating with the RP creator before joining is required, and the RP creator reserves the right to accept or deny you as a role player.
• [Closed]: The RP currently has no open slots available, which means it is not currently accepting new role players.

These tags make it easier for members to find RPs that they might want to join. It also makes it easier for the RP creator because it gives him or her free reign over his or her RP. RP creators should keep their topic tag up-to-date. If there are open slots available in their RP, they should select the [Open] tag. If there are no open slots available, they should select the [Closed] tag. If there are special rules (to be specified in the RP topic), they should select the [Request] tag. If anyone has a better name for this tag than Request, please reply here.

Private RPs are for RPs that are planned out ahead of time by a group of RPers. They don't have open, request, or closed tags because the members and which members RP which characters are both thought out ahead of time.

So, the staff have sorted out the public and private RPs simply by what people put in their topic titles. If the topic title contained "private" or "closed to herp and derp" then we moved those RPs to Private RPs. If they didn't contain either of those phrases, they were left in the public RP forum. We also added the appropriate tags to the topics via what was said in the topic title. We did this to get the RP forum up-to-date and make everything nice and orderly. If you see a mistake that we've made, please PM us. Other than that, it is up to the RP creators to make sure their RP is in the right forum and has the right tags. If a topic needs moving, PM us.

Why remove the RP Archive?
We believe that having an archive is an unnecessary thing. Forums were made on the very idea that active topics remain on the first page near the top, and inactive topics sink to the bottom and pages in the back of the forum. We don't think the RP forum should be any different. Active RPs remain near the top, and inactive RPs sink to the bottom. Plus, keeping the RP in one forum for its entire lifespan makes it easier for members to find it.

What still needs to be done:

• RP Guides & Rules
• Revamp OT RP Forums

[Ushujaa]

i think this change will be a vast improvement like i said in the planning section!

[Azdgari]

Honestly, I have somewhat mixed feelings. I do like the new system in that it doesn't judge people based on RP ability and sort them. The downside to that is that now you have very advanced RPs which are getting long posts on a one, two, even three day basis that will remain consistently buried under RP's that have shorter posts and 1 liners that can cover entire pages in a day. I guess we'll just have to see how it pans out. I'm glad we're giving it a shot, at any rate. ^^

[YFWE]

This has the Kevin stamp of approval. The one issue I can foresee RIGHT NOW is what Az already touched on, but that might not end up being a problem at all, especially because each RPer probably will know where to find their RP, so it's not like there's so many RPs out there that they'll get lost. I think. We'll see how it goes!

I like the way you color-coded things too. Clever!

[Moka]

Do I get the Kevin stamp of approval for moving the OT Role Playing forums into the Off-Topic Creations category? Because that just happened.

Thanks guys, I'm glad everyone is happy with it so far.

About the issue that you guys are describing, we don't even have enough open RPs in the public RP forum to fill the first page. Each page can hold 35 topics, and unless we get 36 RPs that are updated at least once per day, it won't be a problem. If active RPs are being shoved to page 2... then we have to start worrying but for now I think the current layout has lots of room for growth. :3

[Daenerys]

This is really neat. For a moment I was wondering what happened to the beginner intermediate and advanced sections.

[YFWE]

Do I get the Kevin stamp of approval for moving the OT Role Playing forums into the Off-Topic Creations category? Because that just happened.

YOU ARE KILLING ME, SMALLS.

IN A GOOD WAY.

[Mike]

nice ^^ Only thing: Old RPs will still exist right? just be sinking to the bottom. And nothing's being deleted?

[DGFone]

I like the idea. But I am no so sure about removing the archived RPs. For me, the archive section held the RPs that will never be updated (members left or the RP locked up), but it was a reliable section to go to if I wanted to read an RP that won't change if I refresh the page a few days later.

[Moka]

Mike - Nothing was deleted, and we would never delete our RP history ^^

DGFone - Well the "Archive" still exists. The topics won't change their order no matter how far back they get pushed. It'd be the same as the archive because we'd add RPs to the archive and the archive topics would get pushed back exactly like the RP topics will with the new system.