Supernatural Academy (An Advanced RP) discussion
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message 626: by Helen Aug 24, 2014 12:36PMHelen (HelenTaylor) | 119 comments Herro. I'm going to ask something, and due take note that I'm in anyway trying to be mean or anything. I'm just trying to help. So here it goes;
I was thinking that maybe we should work on the group's look. Meaning a different masthead, icon, and maybe a different blurb. So far the group sot of looks a bit disjointed -- like it isn't a group about supernaturals at all. It looks sort of like a city-based contemporary RP. I think we need to find a way to balance both the paranormal and the city aspects. And before you start, graphics ARE important to a group. Presentation in a group is exactly like the presentation of a business. Like, if I go into a group and it has a sloppy picture of wolves everywhere straight from Google Images, I'm not going to join. We need to show off how advanced we are. (I think that's why in the first group we get so many basic members. Its because we don't LOOK like an advanced group.)
I'm also hating on the blurb because of these reasons;
1.) I can't see the text. At all. They are just tiny white squares to me. That was why I didn't join here straight away -- because I hadn't a clue what it was. And if that's happening to me, then I'm sure it happens to other potential members. So that's why I suggest to make it normal and easier to read for everyone.
2.) It's a bit short. I think we need to give just a bit more information to entice. We don't need to info dump, no, but just give them a little something to get interested.
3.) Even though those gifs are cool and they match, they don't match the group. They say nothing about the group, and they serve no purpose. They don't sell it to me at all.
Now I'm not a graphic designer -- I'm a marketer through and through. I just know that the group needs working on style-wise. And I'm sad to say the group looks a little... sloppy. I'm honestly only trying to help here, I swear. I'm just trying to help out and that's it. So my suggestion here is this; we come together with our designs and ideas and we discuss (truthfully) about it. How's that?
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message 627: by jennalyn ♥ Aug 24, 2014 12:55PM
jennalyn ♥ (wander-lust) | 142 comments I agree with Helen, honestly.
For the text, I would advise doing italics. You can make those look pretty cool if you do some neat things with it, and it's not just Helen that can't see that kind of text. I know there are other people that don't even like it or can't see it at all -- I know on mobile, they don't show up at all -- and it's possible we could lose members if we don't change it to accommodate to everyone, you know?
More info in the description would be great :) Maybe we can work on building that up together? Or perhaps we could leave the short little description at the top and write a blurb underneath that, just so that people get a good feel for the group before joining? I know that when I find a group, the first thing I do is read the description, and if I don't like it, I won't join.
Graphics could be better -- agreed -- and they definitely could reflect the group in another way. Even though people don't want to believe it, we do judge things on appearances, especially online. If it's not enticing on the first click, people won't join. I do that with groups. You can get me to join a group that I think is ridiculous if it looks pretty. Not saying that the current one looks like shit or anything, because I do actually like the color scheme, but, yeah, I think it could be a little more... consistent, y'know? Like a coherent theme instead of a puzzle that's missing some pieces -- if that makes sense.
And I totally agree with Helen's first statement about why we're getting so many non-advanced members: we don't look advanced. (I'd actually love it if we redid the original group's look, but that's just me and my need for everything to look purdy; not saying we have to at all.)
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I think it would be best if we do as some groups do, where they have people start separate threads for their characters, and each of the mods goes and looks into it. I'm suggesting we do something like this for future characters because I've noticed that there are a lot of comments and reposts of the same character redone in the character thread and I'm positive it wouldn't be so long if we were to delete those.
Sometimes I go through to delete spam and I'm never sure if I should delete the critiques by the mods, as well.
Mod
〈 ♣ 〉 ғɪᴇɴᴅɪsʜ ᴅᴇʟɪɢʜᴛs wrote: "So, this is mainly looking into the future characters and how we'll be evaluating them.I think it would be best if we do as some groups do, where they have people start separate threads for their ..."
That sounds like a lot of unnecessary character pages that no one will look at.
I actually really like the idea of having characters set up like that. Maybe it sounds extraneous now, but, trust me, it really does make a difference. It makes the group a lot more organized, even if it sounds like it doesn't. Having everyone create their own little page for a character really does serve as a plus. Or, you know, if we didn't want to do that, we could just have it so that each member of the group could have their own character page. There they could post each of their characters as they make them and have their own little list of references and whatever else they would like to post there. I know that a lot of people on Tumblr do this (hell, they actually have separate blogs for each of their characters -- talk about a lot of work), and while I know that website is no where near similar to this one, I think that it could work just as well here :)
Also, sorry for the temporary absence, guys. Senior year is a bitch :P
![Shuhan [On Leave] (Inyourclosetinyourhead) | 5357 comments](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1412373478p1/14247362.jpg)
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I like the character idea. Can we leave out personality or history of we want to?
Not give our character personality? That sounds like a really bad idea.
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I don't know. Just a suggestion. :)
As of today I have resigned from being a mod of the group Supernatural Academy, since the status never really suited me. Kiki puts WAY more in contribution to the group then I do. At this moment I couldn't give two farts about it, while she genuinely has an interest. Because of this I nominate her to take my place.Not only that; as of today I am also leaving the group. I am no longer interested in waiting around. And to be honest I haven't posted a RP comment here in months and it seems pretty dead so… yep. This is me signing off. Wish you guys all the best of luck.
Goodbye, Helen. I'll message you if we ever get around to a sequel.
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Well, with fewer moderators, adapting characters will be harder to distribute. It might just be you and me. Unless you want to suspend the approval rule and leave this group directionless and leaderless for a revolution to come and a tyrant to rise.
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I thought we were doing alternate reality stuff!
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Jenn stated that new members were confused. If we're doing alternate reality stuff, then we should probably let people know of this in an announcement, or something of the like.
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I think I will keep being a mod if any more of you would like to leave, so no pressure. Even if it ends up being just me, the group will still exist. I was gone for so long and you guys did so much amazing stuff with it, I don't even know the controls any more. I'm not really a part of the friendship circle either, but again; not to any one's fault. I want to help in any way I can, but it's up to you. I'm really sorry about all this... I can help if you guys want? You just have to tell me what to do. :)
I know I'm not a mod, but things are looking pretty sad and I have a few things worth saying.1. As a member, I felt like I didn't have a chance to build up my characters to the war, so I had to just step to the side and wait for everyone (and by everyone, I basically mean the mods) to finish it. Which would have been fine, because it was only meant to be a week. But it's still going on, and everyone who was not a part of it has had to stop or work around it.
2. Basically, it seemed to me that the only people roleplaying the war were the mods, and the mods were only roleplaying with other mods, for the most part. It looked really exciting and all, but the mods acted as a tight-knit circle operating within the group, with the members just sort of floating along on the outskirts of the main plot line of the whole group, of which they had no part. Rather than facilitating group-wide involvement, moderators seemed to be self-indulging in their well-set-up and super-important, super-interconnected characters. No members that I know of had characters significant to the driving plot of the role play. And that is a problem.
3. I've found that more than a great plot line, more than high standards, what really keeps members active in a group is the community and friendship between members, between mods, between mods and members. However overall, mods have been pitted agains members, demeaning, and seclusive. Mods can't tower over everyone else, nit-picking unnecessarily and even hypocritically, and expect members to keep coming back for more.
I think freezing everything would be the worst thing you could do. Just make a sequel group, even if you're not ready, and confine your work on it to that space. Talking about it and working it all out here is just adding confusion and giving this group a serious handicap. If you want people to roleplay, do not sideline this group as if it is a once-glorious enterprise that you are throwing away because you are on to bigger and better things. I would even go so far as to delete all the war-specific roleplay posts from the roleplaying threads, and copy it into an archive folder in the new group. Serious role players like to go back over past posts to see how things are and what's going on before jumping in, and right now they can't do that. If this is going to be an alternate universe that people can throw themselves into wholeheartedly, and not just the decrepit old ruins of a battlefield, all that stuff has to be cleared out-- all the old battle plot discussion, posts, announcements. Because it never happened here. It happened there. I would waste no time in doing this, because either members are getting confused and never joining, or leaving because they are annoyed. But if you are going to make a sequel group and let this one continue in an alternate reality, which I think you should, do it quickly before things get any worse. The group still has a lot of potential.
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To the other mods (those of whom who are still involved), I really think we should take her advice to heart. It's immeasurably beneficial to get the insight of the other group members and not act above them; even if we didn't realize we were doing it.
I would act upon those words as soon as I could, but I would really like to get the other moderators' opinions on it first. After all, as I've previously stated, it's currently more their group than mine and I would hate to suddenly jump in and, essentially, piss everyone off by taking the wheel and steering in the wrong direction. Also it would be nice to know who's still in the game...? I know a few have left already, but I don't know how many of you mods are planning to follow...
Thank you again, so much. I couldn't have asked for a better comment at a better time.
Tara; We all talked about the appearance changes in the chat room we have in the group. We all went about what might need a little changing over there just to assure we attract the right group of RPers. We also talked about what we could do over here a bit. It's all there on the second-last page (I think…?). :)