Role-play Suggestion

[Super Buu]

Hey, if you find someone who can make a training program, let me know. Maybe AD and Chubbs can get a double-deal or some shit.

We did have someone who was making us a program, but someone disappeared and forgot all about someone's promise. =_=

For the record, whoever is reading this, Belle is smarter than you and you should listen to him.

[Minoshia]

i nominate Belle for the position of 'Supreme Chancellor of Killer Ideas'.

[Celipa]

I second the nomination.

[Minoshia]

My personal opinion is that new blood is the only way to get activity back to the site.

[Celipa]

I think the diminishing returns system and probably the stats system in general is too complicated for newbies to delve into.

[Minoshia]

I think that the old folks on this site, while it's just us around, will never get back into activity without new blood being injected into the system.

Although i agree with you, i don't think i trained the last two or three times i actually earned the training just because it's such a pain in the ass.

[Celipa]

I haven't trained since I converted my stats.

[Dehan]

It's like Belle pointed out. Once you hit a certain plateu in your training it becomes a pain in the bottom to actually 'gain' anything. And yea new blood will help.

[Bardock]

The staff response to Belle's idea has been very enthusiastic thus far.

We're also looking into a remedy for the lack of "new blood" which will hopefully bring in some new souls that we can st...I mean members that want to join...

[Minoshia]

It doesn't help that DBZ just isn't popular anymore.

[Bardock]

The live action movie may give it one last push before it dies completely.

[Super Buu]

The live action movie will bring people here, I guarantee it, as long as the site is there for people to find and not second to some other RPG. When The Dark Knight came out, there was no official game for everyone to jump on, so sales for Lego Batman (even though it's not related to the film in any way besides being Batman) suddenly went nuts.

They're not the same, but the principle is. The same thing will happen here if the site is active when the film comes out. People will want to get out their DBZ urges, and lots of old people who had forgotten it will probably be filled with nostalgia and start looking at DBZ things on the internet. Bam, there's the opening.

Don't forget Dragon Ball Online, coming out 2009 or so. DBZ is just one of those timeless things, which is why we're all here years later still writing about it. The subject matter is not a part of this site's problems.

[Zangya]

Alright, so, first and foremost: Belle is amazing. Let's just leave it at that.

___________________________


Next up on the list was newcomer activity. Well, as someone who has been on several RPGs, including one that I am on now that has a new member apply every single day, I can tell you that the first thing you're going to have to lose is the general attitude that I've noticed around here.

Sure, the majority of you guys are probably leagues better storytellers than the millions of roleplayers that glob Harry Potter/Twilight/etc roleplaying games, and such like that, but here's the key to that mass of people: there are millions of them. And I'm pretty sure there's at least a small fraction of them that like DBZ. So here's the deal. You all are going to have to take a step down from Google and other things and appeal to the people who make sites like Infamy and Entropy work so well and get a good stable of active members.

Basically what I'm saying here is advertise and affiliate with some less skilled sites.

As for getting the oldies to come back, I like Belle's idea, but that's not all those of us who have been lax in our roleplaying are looking for. At least, not in my view. What needs to happen here is something new. I understand what you're saying -- that if something works, don't fix it. But here's the thing. It isn't working. Members are getting bored, dying, "retiring." And there's only one way to get them to come out of retirement.

Look at people like Lance Armstrong and Brett Favre. They're coming out of retirement because they love what they do. We love writing, but you have to offer us a new experience. Brett Favre's going to a new team. A completely different dynamic than before. We need a different dynamic. The universe has stayed remarkably the same for several years. Every summer, there's DA. We get it. I love DA, but there's got to be something new. Every couple of months, there's a storyline sage. But nothing ever happens. Nothing ever changes... Therefore, I believe we need a change in the world. It's always been that happy-go-lucky place with Raditzu and friends playing kings and queens of the universe. Give us something different, something gritty. Personally, I think post-apocolyptic would be fun, haha. But that's just me.

And now that I've said that, I'm going to get back to my Spiritken training... finally.

[Super Buu]

I would put what Zangya said a different way. It's not so much that the universe has stayed the same, but that we have no involvement in it. We can't really affect the world. That works fine for MMORPGs, but the whole reason we write is so that we can see our characters' actions affect the universe.

Don't make the planetary guards so uber that planets can't be taken over. Let evil members be actual threats, that way the good guys can have something to save and actually fight for. Put incentives out there that give people reasons to compete: ie the dragonballs.

I actually think it'd be cool to have several sets of Dragonballs -- like one set for Earth, one for Namek, and one set which is spread across all the other planets -- some of which grant more wishes than others, meaning that even if the strongest people in the RPG are going after the strongest dragonballs and you have no chance, you can still compete with weaker people to get the other dragonballs.

This would also tie in with what Belle was saying, that there's no real competition between alliances. That's because they have nothing to fight over. Dragonballs provoke a LOT of fights, and for all kinds of reasons.

[Bardock]

The challenge in that request is offering something plausible without it being able to be abused. For example, when we still had canons, Bebi was allowed for a time to use his 'Liquefy' move and be able to inhabit the body of another player, and to an extent, control them or cause internal damage. When he used this to attempt to hedge a competition in his favor, we permanently barred the use of that technique.

So, if you would like to have multiple sets of dragonballs, if you would like to be able to conquer planets and have lasting impact on history and events, how would you propose to be able to do so, without the potential problem of god-modding? And how would you spark competition in the first place, without it being horribly one-sided?

[Super Buu]

I don't really see the similarity between a clearly overpowered move like Liquefy and a system which lets you effect the world to some degree. Godmoding wouldn't be a problem in this system any more than the rest of the RPG, unless you just let people get away with it which as far as I'm aware Chubbs has never done.

I'm not saying that conquering planets should be easy. But a well-organised group with powerful members should have a real chance, if nobody comes to defend. If the planets don't need defending because their guardians are all ridiculously powerful, then in one way the good guys are like, what's the point of our characters? And if there's no actual benefit to being evil, then nobody's going to bother risking themselves to start a conflict.

I'm not saying that anyone should be able to blow up a planet and change the history of the RPG without any effort. That's one end of the scale. The other is a completely static world that we can't affect in any way. What I'm looking for is a happy medium.

The only problem I see is conflicts being unbalanced between good and evil, or certain massive groups just dominating others. Over on AD I made the PvP mechanics so that the bigger your group, the less the individual reward (a problem I see with the current dragonballs: the wish rewards are just +30 or whatever stats to all members of the alliance, so there's absolutely no disadvantage in just 'zerging' with a massive alliance - doing this actually increases the reward for every extra person you have).

You can opt to do something like that, or you can just rely on people sticking with their IC allegiance. I'd be willing to help out with the actual concrete rules, I just figured this was more brainstorming and staff themselves would want to work out the specifics.

For the dragonballs, this is how I envision it:

Earth Dragonballs: 1 wish
Namek (or Namek/Vegeta?) Dragonballs: 2 wishes
'Space' Dragonballs (spread throughout all other planets): 3 wishes

Earth is, after all, the most popular starting area. And this also gives more reason to visit planets other than Earth as you get stronger (most people tend to stay on Earth because, well, that's where everyone else is).

Defining exactly what it is that a single wish can do will be important if you use this.

I completely forgot about the dragonball 'benefits' like fusion and power-up but if I were you I'd move them to a different set of items, which are still unique and can be fought over (thus giving more incentive for competition), mainly so the dragonballs don't get 'hoarded' and never used (to illustrate my point, in the 3 years I've been a member at Chubbs, the dragonballs have been used exactly once).

[Zangya]

Now, to answer the point in question: Supes, if this new system were implemented, would you come out of retirement, or at least attempt to? Being, in fact, one of the most respected roleplayers here who has gone inactive because of the reason you've listed?

[Super Buu]

I promise to try, and at the bare minimum actually post some of the SB stuff I've been playing around with in word files =P

[Bardock]

It is a brainstorming thread, but the more specific people get, the better we can understand what it is that will make members want to RP again. When we implement content, there is one of three possibilities happening:

1.) There is no enthusiasm whatsoever.

2.) We get a 'w00t w00t'

3.) There is so much resistance to the idea that it hurts the RPG rather than helps it.

Only one of those is good, so to help our odds, it's best to be specific.

[Zangya]

I still think Turnover is a good idea... that or the whole ten years thing. Or both. I would be absolutely joyous if either of those were implemented, but that is just me.