Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » The limit, oh the limit.

There are probably millions of reasons the limit's there, but that doesn't mean it isn't the one thing that separates this Repository from absolute perfection in my humble opinion.

I understand that a limit on the number of characters hosted here provides an extra reason to purchase epic memberships (or whatever you call them ), but still, ten is... well, I don't want to say castrating, but... castrating. I mean, here I was already using this Repository as a place to keep all of my characters, since it's useful, easy and pretty, and then without even realizing, I have ten up and four more I want to put up too. For now.

So... just ten? Twenty if you pay? That's... awfully little in my opinion. If this is to be a repository, we should be able to keep all our characters here, not just some of them or the best. I'm not even saying no limit (even though that would be frigging awesome), but hey, doubling the amount would be fine too. At least for now.

I suppose bandwidth is the reason of this limit?

I certainly wouldn't want to castrate anyone, much less the old spice guy. Yes, there are a slew of reasons for having a character limit, defensive measures to keep the site from ballooning unexpectedly chief among them. We're a small site with a small budget right now.

I'm all about being reasonable, and I've said before that if the limit proves to be an intolerable hardship for the userbase that it could change. But, while many people have told me they don't like it (or more often, don't like the idea of it), I remain unconvinced that it's an unreasonable cap. Here's why:

As of this writing, there are 930 people on the RPR. Of those 930, only 9 have reached the ten character limit. That's not even 1%. So far, there's never been a full percentage point of users to reach the limit. Anytime the limit is talked about publicly, I get a bunch of messages from people saying they don't like the limit and will soon be exceeding it. Many of those conversations occurred months ago, and obviously next to none of those people even came close. What I find is that for the majority of people, they have between 1 and 4 characters that are their mains, and those are the ones really worth putting the effort of creating a site for.

If you are one of the people that's genuinely run up against the limit, you are what is referred to as a "super-user," someone who is far to the right of the bell curve when it comes to average usage. Now, in this sense "super user" is literal, in that they use "super" amounts of a service (and the resources required to provide that service). That's not to say super users are a bad or undesirable thing; in fact, they tend to be among the most vocal and enthusiastic supporters of whatever site or service they're using so much of, and really one of the biggest motivators to keep making cool stuff is knowing that people are enjoying it. A site that has a healthy number of super users is blessed indeed.

But I do like to think it isn't unreasonable to hope that at least some of those super users will find the site valuable enough to want to support it monetarily. I hope a healthy portion will eventually get epic accounts, which I suspect will eventually become the lifeblood that keeps the doors open and the lights on.

Yet I also realize not everyone has it in their entertainment budget to subscribe to a RP site, so there will be one time donation options available for people who just want to get a single thing and not have to worry about renewing it. Getting extra character slots will be one of those things, and will be designed to "stack." So for example, if you got yourself ten extra character slots, you'd have 20, and then if you got an epic account, it would also give you 10 more slots and you'd end up with 30.

If the site is going to survive and grow, I have to make some hard choices about what I can and can't offer for free, and I know that no matter what I do some of those choices will tick some people off. To those people, I'm genuinely sorry, and if someone can present an argument that fairly takes into account both sides of the question, I am very open to hearing it. But so far, I believe that what's planned is a reasonable compromise, and I hope most people will view it that way too.

I think the one time donation is an excellent idea for giving extra perks and helping this site out.

Ten isn't little.. to me it is quite a bit.

I have almost 70 alts on Furcadia, the majority with portrait spaces and designs and stories and and and....

But while I feel the 10 char limit does put an almost claustrophobic restraint on me, I've tried pushing it to 20 to help Kim with testing, and I felt a little intimidated by the sight of so many sites. Yes, I love all my characters dearly, and I will probably be an Epic member for as long as this site exists for the extra perks. But I've no idea how I'd juggle more than 10 characters and still get actual use out of their sites. They'd just be there, but not get used. I can't for the life of me roleplay that many with my life and a job and my gaming addiction.

I have actually deleted the majority of my character sites after realizing I don't need them. I am careful in considering whether I will use an alt frequently enough to make an extensive website for them that will take up space, because a character I enjoy RPing more might deserve that space more.

However, that is my personal view on the issue and it doesn't have to be anyone else's.

You would be a minority there as most people never really even reach 5 fully established characters outside of pen and paper rpgs. But maybe its view point. I more use this site for long-term characters not every tiny character that is in a single rp. 10 should be more then enough for most people, more will be a great priemum feature