Posted by Kim on October 26, 2010, 10:04pm
Three great things are about to happen almost at once.Great Thing #1: Beta is ending
As most of you know, the RP Repository has been in open beta for the last several months while the site was tested for stability. All of the major, show stopping bugs seem to have been found and vanquished, and things have been running smoothly for some time. Therefore, the site at large will soon be moving out of beta.
This does NOT mean that the site is "finished" or that there will never be any more bugs. On the contrary, the site will continue to expand and grow pretty much forever as we find new ways to bring you cool RP tools. And with new features inevitably comes new bugs.
Nevertheless, successfully completing beta testing is a huge landmark in the life of any software, and it is incredibly exciting to have survived our intitial shakedown -- and improved from it!
Great Thing #2: Epic Memberships
"Epic Memberships" are currently being completed and moving into testing. Epic Member status will be granted to those who help to support the RP Repository with a very low subscription fee - similar to Furcadian "silver sponsorships" or "Premium Accounts" on Deviantart, for those of you who are familiar with those programs.
Epic members will be given special perks as a "thank you" for helping to keep the RPR in business. Those perks will include:
- No ads (Epic Members won't see them anywhere on the site, and they will be removed completely for everybody from their character sites)
- Custom CSS (Design your own templates & share them with others)
- Maximum characters jumps from 10 to 20
- More gallery images per character. Probably 25.
Don't worry. Basic membership will always be free, and nothing is being taken away from basic members that they already have.
Great Thing #3: 1000 Members
If signups continue at the current rate, we anticipate welcoming our 1000th member some time very soon. That's one thousand, the big One Triple O.
And when you add those great things together...
You get a party. With so much wonderfulness happening so close together, it seems only fitting that something be done to celebrate.
Obviously there are few things in life more festive than releasing new character templates, so anticipate more being revealed when the partying starts.
But aside from templates, the festivities are still being planned.
There will be various contests, with epic memberships some of the possible rewards.
We're also looking for "guest speakers" to invite to address the community on topics near and dear to the hearts of RPers. People like game developers or notable RP/gaming bloggers, and I'm wide open to suggestions for people you think might be interesting to hear from. Heck, I don't know if they'd actually want to come to our shindig, but if you can think of a relevant celebrity, I'll do my darnedest to find a way to get in touch with them and at least drop an invite.
There's a lot to do in a short time to get ready! If you have an idea for something else that would be fun to do during our celebration, feel free to shout it out in the comments, or make your way over to the suggestion forum
Comments
@Wolfy-T Whoops! Ad blocking confusion. Thanks for getting the word out though!
@Tasha Sherbet punch, check!
@Tasha Sherbet punch, check!
Party, you say? There better be sherbert punch! There is no such thing as a party without sherbert punch.
Hah, I feel silly now. I've been advertising RPR as an 'ad-free' space. I can change my pitches here and there.And that link sounds useful!
The ads have always been there Wolfy. 
There are no popups and nothing that makes noise (ugh).
Some of the ads are supplied through Google, which seems to serve utterly random stuff in complete confusion when it tries to figure out what this site is about. But most of the ads come through a service called "Project Wonderful" which I like much better even though it brings us less money. It tends to send us ads that are much more relevant to the interests of this community (web comics, games and gaming, hand-made artisan crafts) by small independent artists that I usually feel good about. For example, one of the most consistent advertisers that I often see running ads on the forums is someone who hand-sews "designer" dice bags in all kinds of sweet colors and patterns.
Currently, getting advertising space here through Project Wonderful is so cheap I had sort of been hoping some Furcadian (or other RP oriented) artists would take advantage of it, so they would be even more relevant. I've been meaning to make a little link somewhere explaining how to go about that.
There are no popups and nothing that makes noise (ugh).Some of the ads are supplied through Google, which seems to serve utterly random stuff in complete confusion when it tries to figure out what this site is about. But most of the ads come through a service called "Project Wonderful" which I like much better even though it brings us less money. It tends to send us ads that are much more relevant to the interests of this community (web comics, games and gaming, hand-made artisan crafts) by small independent artists that I usually feel good about. For example, one of the most consistent advertisers that I often see running ads on the forums is someone who hand-sews "designer" dice bags in all kinds of sweet colors and patterns.
Currently, getting advertising space here through Project Wonderful is so cheap I had sort of been hoping some Furcadian (or other RP oriented) artists would take advantage of it, so they would be even more relevant. I've been meaning to make a little link somewhere explaining how to go about that.
Also: YAAAAY PARTY
What kind of ads will be on the basic accounts? I have an adblocker on my browser for safety and would like to know what kind of things to tell others about. Or have they been there all along?
GHOSTES.
GHOSTES.
Ilmarinen
October 28, 2010
4:03pm