Amairavain wrote:First and foremost: Whatever I say is my own opinion, my thoughts and my feelings. Even if I use terms of you, or even names, it does not mean that I personally am attacking you. Everyone has their faults, their quirks, and their personalities, that is understandable. Keep in mind I'm trying to make this as objective as possible. I have the site's health primarily in mind, and that is what the rest of this is going to be judged on about. If any attempts are meant to subjectify, personalize, or otherwise try to twist my words, I will not respond to you, or even acknowledge you. I am being entirely logical, as best as I can. Do pardon the rambling at times that's a natural thing I do.
-This is Fine
Okay let's talk about the elephant in the room, the tier system. Personally I have no bloody idea what's going on there, and honestly? I don't give a shit because I'm not a pvp person. I like stories, so that story arc thing is fine for me. Just, my only thing is possibly getting some of the wrinkles ironed out, like having a consistent level of numbers and desginations across the thing. Random example: 3 arcs from T1 to T2, 6 from T2 to T3, 9 from T3 to T4 etc. At least make it consistently increasing and logical, and if you need a big jump to differentiate the power levels, make it logical. The best way is to find what you want it to increase by, and then use that number and it's multiples. Once you have a consistent system, the complaints are a lot less about how it's difficult, and rather just how people want to do x and y. From the glances I've given it, that seems to the main problem with the system
Now, that's done. On to the next part.
Comments about the Story Arcs noted by Kalliope. I will discussed with that with staff. Although for clarity. What don't you understand about the Tier System? I'm asking this so I staff can have better idea on what to fix. If what each tier means? I guess (My own opinion only). If I have to compare to Naruto ranks, then this is how I would compare them. But Naruto & One Piece are two different animals.
Tier 1: D-Rank Genin
Tier 2: C-Rank Chunin
Tier 3: B-Rank Tokubetsu Jonin
Tier 4: A-Rank Jonin
Tier 5: S-Rank Sennin
Tier 6: Ninja Legends. Sage of Six Paths, His Mother. Etc
On a completely, honest and blunt tone, the site is self-imploding. The drama, the in-fighting, the rush in the systems, the lack of leadership and most of all the incomplete status that several things are still in, and how messy it all is. Several of you have talked to me, so you know a bit about how I feel about these things. To make it clear, I'm a complete newb at One Piece. Some people like it that the site is closed off to new people and have a 'you need to be in the fandom basis' that's fine. Personally, I can adapt, and deal with each new thing as I learn it. But the biggest problem, is even veterans of the fandom are getting confused, and lost.
I'll use clarity first here.
Basically a lot of information is mostly formated in weird ways, or it's said in weird ways to, that imply things that shouldn't be. For example, this is a statless site, yes? Then why are we getting mentions to stats at every turn? There's only one roll in so far as I know, but a lot of the stuff still mentions other rolls. I understand we took most of the info from RD, but this isn't RD; it's FF. And unfortunately, that means you have to go back and rewrite a lot of information to fit a new format, which hasn't been done. So it's very confusing to people because they waver between the old RD format and the new format FF is trying to push forward, and in so far as I see, some staff still want the old format and sabotage the new one. Generally, it's considered a small thing, but the impact is huge. If everything was more concise, re-written and well formatted, the stupid questions people get would be lessened by like half. Some people still don't read, but it would be a lot easier to navigate and such.
Understood. Getting that Fixed, but for since you brought up a lot stuff mention rolls. I look through the Guidebook & Player Support section and didn't find what threads talk about rolls expect the Haki Information & Haki Roll Thread. If anyone members see any other topics that mention rolls expect for Haki, please contact a staff member so we can fix it. It the Staff job to fix things, but it never hurts for members of the site to point these out.
For Stats, since you mention they get mention in every turn. I did the same thing and look for the Guidebook to see where stats are being brought up. I found them in following threads.
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https://fortunesfolly.rpg-board.net/t82-rokushiki-info <- Can have staff take another look at that. I think its okay as it is. Maybe Tekkai & Rokuogan could use some tweaking.
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https://fortunesfolly.rpg-board.net/t123-haki-information - Mainly for Hao where its mentions 'Dexterity Drop' for General's Ambition & King's Ambition. Didn't see mention of stats anywhere else in there.
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https://fortunesfolly.rpg-board.net/t330-transportation-guideline <- Ranks could be consider stats, but figure out how to simulate the same tier system and environmental dangers/encounters. Information still needs to be added about encounters. Anyway if member had better suggestion for them, free feel to mention it.
Another thing that obscures clarity is incompleteness. Most of you know that I'm basically sitting on the edge, waiting for everything to be done before I'm throwing myself into the site. But a lot of what I see is still incomplete, left in half-finished work. It makes it hard to want to go towards anything when you'll build something but the next week a new thing comes out that basically nixes your original plan. Constantly editting is a way to kill your members guys, it's suffocating them in constantly trying to keep up. There's a reason companies space out their updates, that way people don't die downloading them every week. Nice metaphor right? So that's another thing that might contribute to the problem of lack of clarity.
Working on completing things. Not at the moment because it around 3:00 AM here and I'm getting exhausted.
Thirdly, I hate to rag on stuff, but holy crap the design. Do I have to be blinded to look at the site? Design wise, some things are appealing, and others aren't... such as the colours. The colours need to be neutered and redesigned, because who decided to put a pale color on a pale colour? That's just poor designing and often turns people off and away. So whoever is skinning needs to go find their color theory and restart, because a lot of this is messed up, and I'm the one just coding simple codes over here. I could go on a list for what really doesn't work but suffice to say that this shade of orange makes 90% of other colours look ugly as sin, which makes customizing relatively useless.
People have complain about the colors and Adrian already posted about it below. I have nothing more to add on.
Okay well Clarity is on cooldown now. Let's use Cleanse.
This is probably the most important part of what I want to say. THE SOCIAL CLIMATE OF THE SITE IS UTTER FUCKING SHIT. There I said, I spoke it. Even cussed too. That's honestly how the site feels like, and just take note of how everyone is leaving the skype chat, or that some of the people aren't even posting or being productive. Like me.
Okay let's talk about me. 'Amai you're never around you don't know shit' now stuff that in you pie-hole. I'm here, I'm watching, I'm observing, and I'm gauging. Is the site worth my creative investment? Is it worth spending my time here, building things? Can I actually creatively florish, progress and have fun here? The answer is; at the moment, I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards no.
Why? It's pretty simple.
The social climate is the equivalent of before Franz Ferdinand's assasination. Techniqually speaking, before World War I climate. The entire site is tense, it's population is overtly aggressive with itself, and well most of the stuff going on has left a bad taste in my mouth. Even considering the plots I really want to have, want to do, I'm not even sure I want to stick around. Even if people beg me, I have to sit here and wonder if I can make it through this type of social environement. It's not healthy. I could probably handle it, but it's draining my muse, and my will to be here like it's a W. It just does not do very well for me period. And guess what?
I'm not the only one.
Now let's look into why this is happening, shall we? Socially speaking, humans are attracted to good, fun environments. It's relaxing and purifying. The internet allows us to leak out from our socially anxious lives, and well, build healthy, mental and emotional based connections, which nourishes our souls. The problem is, that any human interaction has good and has bad within it. There's a certain quota of good and bad that has to be met. For example, the saying 'Too Good to be True' is in fact a mark when the good quota is too much. That means the bad quota is rumbling underneath and ready to explode, and we start being skeptical or take the good for granted. When the bad quota is overwhelming, as an evolutionary aspect, we tend to be fixated on it. What is bad? How can we fix it, in order to improve ourselves? So when the bad quota is too high, it makes it hard to balance it out because the good is naturally outshaded.
Okay so that's some background, how does that apply to the site, you ask? Well, okay, let's do this then.
First of all, the drama because staff is not a cohesive unit with a leader. Who has the founder's account? It is generally assumed their word is law, because the founder account, in the end, controls everything. If the leader is non-aggressive, and passive by nature, then that makes a lot of problems that bud under them. Particularly on a shounen based site, that attracts the more aggressive crowds of roleplaying. Generally, such a leader would elect a co-admin to help balance them out, be aggressive where they cannot be, to have a high position above the rest of the staff, and well generally be the moon to the sun. Without that, the staff is left to meander, and argue, and politic amongst themselves.
Yes, you heard me, politics. Because humans as social creatures, all crave power, control or something of the sort on some level. And politics is the social aspect of power. Generally, the founder account is the main admin, top of the food chain, and then the co-admin is the second spot. Think of it as the system that is present in most countries. The Founder Account is the President, the Co-Admin is the Vice President. And then the rest of the staff falls into the other areas of leadership. The admins are the higher-class government, the moderators are the workers at the government that aren't high class, trial-staff are high paying jobs that influence the other major aspects of life, and the members are the average joes. With that, I explained a large function of staff.
To work as the leading body, the government. Now, looking at FF's staff, I often see it fragmented, arguing and well plain ole not communicating with each other, and having politic wars. Do you want to live in a country where your government is about to implode on itself? No. So basically, as it stands, a lot of the staff is in-fighting, and serving themselves, essentially being corrupt politicians. It's slowly dragging the site down and a bunch of people are debating on leaving because of it. And it's making it hard to want to do anything here, simply because such a climate is unbearable, and too close to real life for some of us to feel relaxed and comfortable to be in.
Is there a solution? Yes.
It however, requires that people pull their heads out of their asses, or out of the sand, instead of trying to concern themselves with only their things, or to just ignore the problems. It requires that people want this site to succeed and go foward, because simply put, if one person blocks the gear, then the entire machine won't run.
Here's a solution I think would be a good first step.
The Founder Account, ie the Main Admin, if they are of a passive nature, should find a co-admin of a not so passive nature, that they can trust to not run the site into the ground. Or if the Main Admin feels like enough is enough, to snap in and take control. Techniqually speaking, democracy always works best with a hint of dictatorship. That guiding line of absolute is what keeps the world steady and in-line. So fixing that gap, filling in the leadership we so desperately need, is one part.
The second part is to start staff culling. Basically, if someone hurts the site more then trying to communicate and help contribute to it, then get them out. Toxicity will kill a site and it's members. You need clean, level-headed staff that are not overtly toxic, or subtly toxic. Someone that turns other people's words around on them and tries to make it out like they're childish needs not to be on staff. Someone that goes behind your back and changes parts of the system or tries to include systems that were already disapproved, are not needed. It requires will and strength of mind to get it in, but once the culling is done, you should be left with a solid staff.
Once your staff is solid, that's when you start handing out instructions, and get things to be fixed. Fixed the presentation of the skin, fix the wording of things, get systems done, and all that jazz.
Final step? Profit with a solid staff and a solid site base.
Staff is discussing the problems we are having, making adjustments to how do things, our flaws and etc. For example, Adrian point out his flaws earlier. Members think I'm too passive, I will work on being more assertive and putting my foot down. Truth be told I could use a bit of Adrian in me. (No perverted comments people...)
Keep in mind I am speaking out of experience, having done 9+ years of roleplaying on all sorts of sites. I've been staff, I've been main admin, I've been member, I've been the toxic member. I've seen all walks of life, and trust me, if you can get a solid staff, and your world is solid, then you'll have no problems for the most part. Sure there will be problems, but I mean it wouldn't be to this scale unless you let a rotten apple in. Generally speaking, it'd be a hell of a lot better then what's going on right now.
Well, I'm done, so hopefully some points got across. Thank you for reading this giant wall guys.
No, Thank you and the other people who posted here to voice their concerns, problems and etc with the site. Feedback is always helpful.
Adrian wrote:I'd like to point out, in response to member suggestion, the staff have begun discussing their issues and intend on working out the kinks as there are always kinks. That said, Amai, the admins are the founders, they share the power and the account but we never intend on having more than 3-4 admins at one time. That said, we need an equal amount of Moderators or close to. Also, as I've told others who complained about the colors - we need a solution not just a complaint. I was actually going to hold an announcement asking for someone to assist if there is any members on site who can. It isn't simply colors - we need a layout that matches. You can't just paint something a different color and say it's good. We need a new background, we need a new physical design, and then we can try colors but it's like ouroboros, all of it is reflective on eachother.
EDIT: Also this was a quick note, there are residing issues we need to deal with. First, I think we need staff stability before staff can expand that stability.
I seconded this. Like I said earlier. We are working out this stuff out.
Kouketsu wrote:Honestly I see that we tried the sharing, and it hasn't worked. We tried founders, it didn't work on RD and it damn sure 'nough ain't working here. So I agree with a central figure, but I'm going to say that I personally don't see any of the admins as being that one with the exception of maybe Kalli if she can learn to put her foot down more often.
Once again. I will work on being more assertive. Its not something I can change overnight, but I will work on for the site.
One of ways that we could make this a friendly environment is that most if not all of us could watch how we says things. This goes for staff and members. Staff problems have been point out several times and that is fine, but as members as the site you represent us too. One of things I notice on why people are getting upset and frustrate on Skype is not exactly what they said. Its more of 'How' they said it. For example when there problem.
Instead of simply stating the problem. They made unnecessary comments that simply bring negatively and unneeded drama. Most of us have done this before, I'm sure.
ExampleProblem: The colors on the site.
Person A: These colors sucks. <--- These are the comments that cause problems. This is just an insult. The person offers no solution or even reason on why they think the colors sucks. I'm sure many people aren't a fan of hearing this. Let's try to avoid unhelpful comments like this shall we?
Person B: The colors on the site are too bright, can you make them darker or lower the brightness. Possibly change the colors? <--- These are comments that everyone can work on saying. It stated in a respectful way. No sarcasm, no unnecessary remarks and they even offer a solution(s). Now if everyone can work on this, the environment will become much friendlier.
2nd Suggestion: When discussing Site problems the
Discussions Page and
conflict thread & Site Chatbox should be use more often. Sadly Social Media isn't a good way to discuss problems in my opinion. Compare the discussion in this thread to the ones made in Skype. See where I'm getting at?
Anyhow. As one of Admins/Founders, I will do my best to keep this site running smoothly. If people think that I haven't work enough, well I guess I can even work harder.
~Admin Kalliope~
P.S Hopefully no one took this post personally, this merely my thoughts and nothing more. If I have offended anyway in some way I apologize.