Minecraft Forums

Quote from NeonBat»

~snip~

Pretty much sums it all up.

@Rainbow Saying 'You can go into the void' does not make a unique experience. It's still a minecraft rp.

LaaM was actually just one of many 'play as a mob' RP's. It was the only one to retain traction, and it kind of spiraled into something even more casual than a casual RP.
Herobrine has always been about it's own lore, Minecraft was just a back-drop to make the RP easier to make and more attractive for newcomers.

If you actually bother to look at the five most popular threads in the RP section, it features Ulti's Bar and Grill, which is, like LaaM, the most successful of a really spammy setting. It basically succeeded because a lot of furries found home there. From what I understand.
The PoW OOC. The Pricpers pretty much sat on the high mountain of PoW OOC and laughed at the commoners below, like gods watching ants. Then they packed up and left.
Two Pokemon RP's. Pokemon, like minecraft, is well known and easy to do. From what I hear, Topaz was gorram amazing. The other one just got lucky. During a drought of interesting ideas, everybody flocked to anything even mildly interesting. Didn't suck, but wasn't great.
And then my RP, HMA, which, believe it or not, at the time was an original idea. Then the Highschool RP wars began and everybody threw themselves off cliffs like PILES OF FLESHY MEAT SACKS AND-

*ahem*

I have looked at your RP. Your vague and uninteresting story can't hold much. I'm not saying you should leave, but if you want to make an RP, even another MC RP, try harder. Spend a few more minutes on it. Try to create something original. Original does not mean slightly change something pre-existent, but something that has yet to be done.

Let me try:
In the long forgotten lands of Urven, there were once a great and powerful race known as the Humans. But then, the Yurgen came like a rippling tide with their draconic steeds and crushed the Humans, eternally damning them. So the humans vanished, and the Yurgen struck Urven from the annals of history. Five weeks ago, a great light shot into the sky. Somebody has awakened the dragons of Urven. Somebody has awakened the Humans.

Took me 2 minutes.

Also, when I joined this forum, there wasn't even a forum roleplaying section. You had to go to the Art-Stories section or the Forum Games section and pray to god there was a new RP, because only about 8 would run at a time. RP's were a rare, interesting thing, and RPer's fought like hell for their own section. But not a single MC RP existed, either. Because nobody wanted them.

I think guygombaa and Cloaked have done a great job elaborating on the entire situation. guygombaa even addresses the whole set of the 5 most popular(by this I mean threads with highest post count) RPs/threads to have existed so far. But I'd like to talk about it just a bit more. Just to prove my point and bring an end to this case. This might be a bit more unrelated to the situation at hand, but I think we've talked about it enough.

It shouldn't come to me or anyone as a surprise that as I delved deeper into each of these threads, I came upon a bit of a trend which seems to be very apparent in all 4 of these roleplays.

So, after randomly selecting a page and reading the first post... well... I'll let you judge from the ranging samples given here:

Ulti's Bar & Grill - Page 1021

Julie nods a little, smiling. She gets up and puts her usual outfit on before standing by the door, ready to go with Erion.

Pokemon Topaz - Page 356

Me: So emma... mind telling me why you were kissing spyro, and also why i should not toss you into the street.


River: WASKOM!


Me: anyone who can hurt there pokemon like this is a bad person, i don't care who you are.

Pokemon RP - Page 82

"I'm up!" Lucar said, leaping into the battle.

Half Moon academy - Page 65

Darius is passed out on the floor. He is almost motionless besides his breathing. He wont awake for several more hours when it is day time.

Notice something?

I'm not asking you to write a book in Shakespearean style every post... but is making a paragraph really that hard? Seriously, I'm not trying to insult anyone, but is it really so difficult? I'm not even that much of a grammar nazi, but some of the mistakes I found in the threads are a bit... appalling to say the least. There's no need to remind me that there are people who actually write well in some of these roleplays, but their detailed posts are way too hidden among the other usual one liners.

It's strange and a bit unsettling to me in all honesty, as I always expected there to have been some sort of huge RP hidden in this forum's history, where great roleplayers and writers once came to collaborate and create interesting and innovative stories. But apparently, such a thing has yet to happen. And I fear that it will actually never happen. It seems that every roleplay which wishes to be popular must always end up sacrificing quality for a higher post count. Or as guygombaa elegantly puts it, become 'spammy'. And it's true. One liners are easily spammed. And thus, threads with a lot more one liners get more visibility, and thus, more roleplayers. The cycle goes on until something eventually happens to bring it to an end. I mean, LaaM has over 200 pages of posts. Impressive at a glance. But I dare you to go look up a random page and check the first post's quality. I think you'll find that what I say here is correct, or at least has some sort of truth to it.

I'm afraid there isn't a happy conclusion to this. Intriguing new roleplays which actually deserve more attention such as Mafia's Hot Zone, breaker's Rekindle, George's Anything But Ordinary, and so much more often succumb to Sudden Death Syndrome within a relative few pages when compared to the other giants. Whether or not we really completely understand the causes of this syndrome yet I'll leave for another day, but the effects are quite clear.

Great RPs most often die. 'Spammy' ones most often live. And I don't know whether or not this can even be solved.

That feeling when my friend Waskom's old style of RPing has come back to haunt me...

Anyway, in all honesty, if you're really desperate to find a RP that isn't full of punctuation errors and cloche stories, you could... 'migrate', as some of us have. I mean, me and Lugia got this 2-3 year old PMD RP that's still alive and kicking elsewhere with the rest of our gang.

Unfortunately there's always gonna be 'spam', hence why most of us have left for more dedicated RPing sites. I won't name them 'cause I fear some moderators will try to give me infractions or something. Either way, just avoid the 'beta-maxy' RPs unless you want to kill your grammar.

If you really want to stay, get this: there's not many good RPers around, all swamped by the constant necroing and copycat RPs. My personal decision is to leave, though considering the current circumstances around here, I guess you could try to form a group of sorts and RP together. I once did a RP with only two other friends around here, and I liked RPing with my friends over strangers. Especially as the rest of the section was undergoing a siege of Pokemon RPs at the time.

EDIT: I believe may have misread the new guy's message, but this message itself is still clear for the more 'motivated' RPers seeking some direction in this section.

Meh, this place might have a lot of RPs with cliché stories and roleplayers who don't understand, in the slightest, the concept of capital letters, but the real reason I haven't left for good yet is that there's still a moderate amount of interesting RPs being created by skilled roleplayers here(I'm going to use Mafia's Hot Zone as an example till I forget about it, but yea). Lots of RPs here have huge amounts of potential, it's just that they always tend to unusually die right before things even start going. And of course, there's still a community of roleplayers here who actually understand how to write, which I might've gotten quite attached to.

One of the only reasons which would make me consider venturing out of this place forever is when things get so bad that the remaining good roleplayers migrate as well, which might not happen for a while, if not ever. So yea, I guess I'm staying here for now. Things might not be as good as most would like it to be, but it isn't horribly terrible yet.

I'm pretty sure saying where you're at is okay, as long as it isn't a blatant advert/link.

But yes. You could almost call it fight-or-flight.

HMA was made during my first year here, and yeah, it was pretty bad in terms of post quality most of the time. Grow. Expand. Become that bootiful butterfly.

Short post is unorganised.

EDIT: Ninjaaaaaaaaas! I don't intend to leave entirely, but I may start searching for RP's elsewhere. Solawind has also made it quite clear he doesn't intend to leave.

Mafia is just such a bro he'll probably stick around.

I find it interesting that you call it hyperbole. Three's opinion is generally stronger than one's.

You essentially just went from 'you guys are exaggerating' to 'you guys are sheep.'

Your argument also relies on me not having had the same opinion on the matter for several years. Same to be said for KaBling.

Boomf.

Wow, I return after a weeklong hiatus and suddenly the thread's on fire. Well, still better than sitting in a state of idle trance.

So, might I say a few things on my own about the raging topics as of now.

First of all, I'm declaring a drop-off from every roleplay that I'm participating, or have been participating recently. Unfortunately, real life and university studies are keeping me so damn busy that I can't cope with the pace of those roleplays, forcing me to leave my RP mates on a cliffhanger as they have to wait for my reply before they procceed. Which is bad, and not fun at all for the rest of the crew.

Instead, I'm going to dedicate all of my internet time into delivering the revival of Hot Zone. I was supposed to do exactly that on Wednesday, but the past week has been a torture to my psychology due to real life issues. Therefore I was unable to execute the reboot. I do promise that I will have it up by Saturday though. I'm sincerely flattered to see such recognition though, might I say.

There's also that thing about the steampunk detective roleplay. As far as my opinion is concerned, it's a solid go. I'd love to see a new steampunk roleplay around the forums, since it's a genre that rarely gets to see new stories being developed around that setting. Be it a mystery roleplay, or heck, even a war themed roleplay, flying airships around the world is amazing no matter how you set it.

I don't feel like I need to add something in the conversation regarding Rainbow's topic. Everything has been summed up already quite a lot of times, so adding something wouldn't really make any difference.

That's all for now, I think.

Quote from CloakedShadow»

Rainbow, don't take this(and what the other roleplayers have said) out of context. These people are all trying to help you. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I have learned from their words. What they are trying to say is that people join what they are interested in. Minecraft roleplays are really catered to one audience: people who want to play minecraft, which can be easily achieved by playing minecraft. Your roleplay can also be played in minecraft by playing in a RP server of sorts.

Now I am not saying that you should not join the forum roleplaying section entirely, what I am saying is that if you want to attract more people to your roleplays, is that you need to pull them in with something interesting. For example, Rekindle pulled people in with a topic that has rarely been seen to grace the forums. Naturally, people went for it because it was very interesting. You CAN make minecraft roleplays interesting, but usually, the more interesting you make it, the more it starts to deviate from the original setting of minecraft and more into their own fantasy setting.

Don't get me wrong, minecraft is a good base for RP. I'm just saying that if you build it up, you may end up eliminating the minecraft aspect entirely. So, to make a long lasting minecraft roleplay is difficult, but not unheard of(hence LaaM and the Herobrine RP). If you want to attract people to the setting, you need an interesting plot or more importantly, an interesting setting. We can all relate to minecraft, so it's a setting we're familiar with. Many people want to dip their toes in unfamiliar settings we've never heard of(or heard of, but REALLY want to try). So yeah. What you choose to do with this advice is your own choice. It would be a shame to lose a roleplayer, especially one with the potential to be better.

*looks around for potential* I haven't got any potential.... I dare you to look at my posts on Rekindle compared to everyone else's.

Quote from Meritania»

These are all grand explanations about the state of the forums, but let's bring it closer to Rainbow_girl's RP.

Reviewing your 'Into the Void' thread for a minute. You do have people wanting play it, you have players with interesting characters that are aching to be developed, the problems are that you have OOC chat taking over and the players need a bit more simulation. Give some challenges for your players, send another wave of zombies after Kyle, send Anbang11 a PM asking if he wants any help with Rping and as for this conversation:

To me it sounds like everyone is just waiting around for something to happen. Meanwhile nothing is happening which is boring. If you want your thread to survive make something happen.

That's a good idea. It has me thinking.... Alyssa can't have unlimited ammo, right? Or unlimited bow supplies?

Quote from guygombaa»

Pretty much sums it all up.

@Rainbow Saying 'You can go into the void' does not make a unique experience. It's still a minecraft rp. I noticed.

LaaM was actually just one of many 'play as a mob' RP's. It was the only one to retain traction, and it kind of spiraled into something even more casual than a casual RP. There's such a thing?
Herobrine has always been about it's own lore, Minecraft was just a back-drop to make the RP easier to make and more attractive for newcomers. Uh.... Okay.

If you actually bother to look at the five most popular threads in the RP section, it features Ulti's Bar and Grill, which is, like LaaM, the most successful of a really spammy setting. It basically succeeded because a lot of furries found home there. From what I understand. Furries?
The PoW OOC. The Pricpers pretty much sat on the high mountain of PoW OOC and laughed at the commoners below, like gods watching ants. Then they packed up and left. What?
Two Pokemon RP's. Pokemon, like minecraft, is well known and easy to do. From what I hear, Topaz was gorram amazing. The other one just got lucky. During a drought of interesting ideas, everybody flocked to anything even mildly interesting. Didn't suck, but wasn't great. Okay. No comment.
And then my RP, HMA, which, believe it or not, at the time was an original idea. Then the Highschool RP wars began and everybody threw themselves off cliffs like PILES OF FLESHY MEAT SACKS AND-OH GOD NOT THE HIGHSCHOOL RPS.

*ahem*

I have looked at your RP. Your vague and uninteresting story can't hold much. I'm not saying you should leave, but if you want to make an RP, even another MC RP, try harder. Spend a few more minutes on it. Try to create something original. Original does not mean slightly change something pre-existent, but something that has yet to be done. Vague? Uninteresting? Is my sarcastic question becoming a reality? Oh, and I spent many minutes on it.

Let me try:
In the long forgotten lands of Urven, there were once a great and powerful race known as the Humans. But then, the Yurgen came like a rippling tide with their draconic steeds and crushed the Humans, eternally damning them. So the humans vanished, and the Yurgen struck Urven from the annals of history. Five weeks ago, a great light shot into the sky. Somebody has awakened the dragons of Urven. Somebody has awakened the Humans.

Took me 2 minutes. Yeah, well, that's because clearly you're a good writer! Not everyone is gifted like that!

Also, when I joined this forum, there wasn't even a forum roleplaying section. You had to go to the Art-Stories section or the Forum Games section and pray to god there was a new RP, because only about 8 would run at a time. RP's were a rare, interesting thing, and RPer's fought like hell for their own section. But not a single MC RP existed, either. Because nobody wanted them. Okay. You've made your point.

Responses in bold. And I'm sorry for triple-posting, but I don't know how to quote multiple things in one post.

Rainbow, potential is innate in everyone. Excuse me for using cliche statements, but I was really really REALLY bad back then. You can go to my profile and check my first posts and laugh. I sure did. In fact, here's a quote of what I used to write.

I use my sling to hurl some rocks back at the goblins. I hurl rock after rock, but it doesnt do much other than give a few goblins some stings.

That's it. The whole post. As you can see, I wasn't that good(and I started at like, 12 or something). Now look at my current posts(barring Angerona's Lament, I use that as more as a 'break' roleplay), you can definitely see the differences. What I'm trying to say is, over time, you'll improve. Nobody starts out as the best, just keep at it and you'll get better.

My friend Nico589(may or may not have changed name after all this time) was the one who got me really into roleplay. He's also the reason why I improved. When he invited me, he said "I need good writers to join this RP to improve the quality of writing here." Naturally, I questioned it, but went along with it anyway. In that Banturas RP, I strived to match my skill with the others, and over time, I did so decently. My one-liners turned into small paragraphs, which changed into bigger paragraphs, and so on and so forth.

It was the most fun RP experience I've ever had, even if I didn't really play a big role. That RP is long-dead now, and after seeing it, I still smile at how I used to act. Now, on to your statement about Rekindle. You feel like you're not so good at it because you're being matched up against the hard limits of the forum roleplayers(we're talking about the big guns here; Georgeninja, MafiaDog, NeonBat, etc). Trust me when I say this.

Do not compare your skill to others to see if they did better than you. You'll only feel bad. Instead, try and strive to be just as good as them. Not in the bad way, either. Just compare amount of content rather than post length. It's an exhilarating experience.

Quote from CloakedShadow»

Rainbow, potential is innate in everyone. Excuse me for using cliche statements, but I was really really REALLY bad back then. You can go to my profile and check my first posts and laugh. I sure did. In fact, here's a quote of what I used to write.



That's it. The whole post. As you can see, I wasn't that good(and I started at like, 12 or something). Now look at my current posts(barring Angerona's Lament, I use that as more as a 'break' roleplay), you can definitely see the differences. What I'm trying to say is, over time, you'll improve. Nobody starts out as the best, just keep at it and you'll get better.

My friend Nico589(may or may not have changed name after all this time) was the one who got me really into roleplay. He's also the reason why I improved. When he invited me, he said "I need good writers to join this RP to improve the quality of writing here." Naturally, I questioned it, but went along with it anyway. In that Banturas RP, I strived to match my skill with the others, and over time, I did so decently. My one-liners turned into small paragraphs, which changed into bigger paragraphs, and so on and so forth.

It was the most fun RP experience I've ever had, even if I didn't really play a big role. That RP is long-dead now, and after seeing it, I still smile at how I used to act. Now, on to your statement about Rekindle. You feel like you're not so good at it because you're being matched up against the hard limits of the forum roleplayers(we're talking about the big guns here; Georgeninja, MafiaDog, NeonBat, etc). Trust me when I say this.

Do not compare your skill to others to see if they did better than you. You'll only feel bad. Instead, try and strive to be just as good as them. Not in the bad way, either. Just compare amount of content rather than post length. It's an exhilarating experience.

Why did nobody warn me that Rekindle was only for the good writers? I don't know what I'm doing when I write here-it's a fact. I need to accept something very simple: I'm not a good writer. And I never will be.

Jesus Christ. Did you read anything I've said? Rainbow, stop beating yourself down. I am 100% certain that if you continue to think that way, it will come true. Self-doubt is natural. It happens to the best of us. This? This is self-destruction. The only one limiting your potential is you. You CAN be better. You just don't want to be. Wipe off that self-piteous attitude and instead of sulking, just try to improve. Please. I implore you to.

Besides, Rekindle is a multi-level roleplay. It is for everyone. It just happened that the big guys joined. Don't see yourself as worse. Just do your best to improve. A little competition never hurt anyone.

Quote from CloakedShadow»

Jesus Christ. Did you read anything I've said? Rainbow, stop beating yourself down. I am 100% certain that if you continue to think that way, it will come true. Self-doubt is natural. It happens to the best of us. This? This is self-destruction. The only one limiting your potential is you. You CAN be better. You just don't want to be. Wipe off that self-piteous attitude and instead of sulking, just try to improve. Please. I implore you to.

Besides, Rekindle is a multi-level roleplay. It is for everyone. It just happened that the big guys joined. Don't see yourself as worse. Just do your best to improve. A little competition never hurt anyone.

This situation seems familiar. I DARE YOU TO FIGURE OUT WHERE ELSE WE HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS. Hint: We were in a prison cell about to be killed by an insane queen.

Do my best to improve? That's pretty hard to do when people say they made epic story plots in two minutes. Do you know how long Into the Void took me to think of? Hours. And that wasn't even very good, apparently.

Totally not copying my words from Angerona's Lament. On a more serious note, it is true. Seriously. Improvement does not mean "be better than the other guy". It means "be better than you used to be". You don't have to become the best. You just need to become better than you once were.

Okay. Uh......... I'm better than I was in first grade?

In regards to the Hot Zone reboot Mafia, be sure to take your time. If other real life issues seem to be pressing very hard on you, try to get those done first before coming back here if needed. It'd be bad to have anymore unnecessary stress if you happen to already have a lot piling up on you.

As for the steampunk detective roleplay, Cloak, GG, and I have been talking and discussing about it a lot in a PM. If you're interested in it, I'd be happy to let you into the PM to put in your thoughts as well.

Rainbow, I'd tell you that not everyone actually starts out as a superbly good writer, but I think Cloak has stressed that enough. Don't beat yourself up, and just learn from your mistakes. It's really how everyone has got to where they are now, no matter how good they are at writing now.

I think that's all I can say really. If you're going to continue believing that you literally can't do it and wallow in self-pity, then you're stuck.

Quote from guygombaa»

You essentially just went from 'you guys are exaggerating' to 'you guys are sheep.'

Your argument also relies on me not having had the same opinion on the matter for several years. Same to be said for KaBling.

Boomf.

I'm just sayin' goomba that there's opportunity elsewhere, whereas here it is - not empty - but slowly becoming questionable by the day. Said opinion probably won't even matter when everyone's gone, though that's not for me to decide in all honesty. I'm not even supposed to be here, since I dedicated myself to leaving a long time ago. However, here I am, defying my own logic since this section isn't truly dead.

Either way, I'm not gonna badger anyone into leaving. I'm pretty impressed at the fact this thread's been revived for... I guess creation of new RPs?

Oh, right. Rainbow, don't aim downwards. Don't say you'll never be X simply not because it's physically impossible, but rather just keep saying to yourself that you'll always let yourself down.

Here's a cliche for you to identify - get it right, you're on the right track: I used to believe I'd be forever dumb and my writing would never improve. This was several years ago, and now I'm getting A/Excellence grades (I do NCEA in New Zealand) left and right, my writing has leaped far beyond the boundaries set by myself when I was a kid...

Just do it man. If you keep thinking you'll never be good, you won't do anything. It's good to think something's hard, but when you go as far as saying it's impossible (when compared to something like making a time machine), then you're just not trying. Forgive my criticism, but I really do believe you need to break that cycle of yours and aim higher.

Do it one word at a time and respond calmly to criticism/take it as advice for your next work of art. Eventually you'll identify your own way of working, something we can't evidently show you how to do.

Well, like I've said, improving is hard to do when I look at my current favorite RP and see people a thousand times better than I'll ever be.