Posted by Kim on May 21, 2016, 2:31pm
Thanks to everyone who joined me yesterday and today for May's Office Hours. You have amazing questions and ideas!If you missed out, here's a summary of the main questions and answers that happened.
Are push notifications supposed to only come up once for a thing and then ignore continued things from, say, the same PM conversation?
Welllll. They're meant to replace each other. As in, if you get a notification about a specific PM conversation, but you don't check your phone before another push comes in about it, the old one will be discarded and the new one will replace it. So as to prevent you from having 100 pushes lined up about the same thing by the time you get around to looking. Some things can suppress their being sent entirely, though -- for example, opening a PM conversation or a forum topic as a live chat will turn push notifications for that thread off so long as you're in the chat. No sense notifying you in real time about stuff you're seeing in real time!
I know that some browsers/devices have their own rules about whether they will SHOW you a notification about the same item in a short period of time, but we certainly don't administer those rules on our end. We send them out each time something happens, and your device will decide whether to ding or buzz.
What was our total score for epic week, and how many participated?
We had a total participation of 350 people, for a combined score of 48061. That score is composed of points gained from winning Doubutt, planting seeds, attacking monsters, donating to the armory, contributing in the riddle topic, and a bunch of other stuff.
What was the total damage done by the community during Epic Week?
As a community, we did 210738 damage to the monsters this year. Compared to 116282 last year.
Did I miss the cyborg dragon this year or did it not show up?
It definitely showed up! It helped to defeat the boss. In fact, I think it struck the final blow -- which wasn't planned and tickled me pink.
Kim, if we had collectively scored higher, could we have finagled any more prizes out?
That is a great question. The answer is no, at least for this year -- this was the first year that I've tracked a total participation score, so I had no idea what the baseline would be. Previously, only chatter in the riddle topic and amount of damage done to monsters was tracked. Well, that and how much damage OUR side took.
How much damage DID our side take?
We collectively took 168652 damage this year.
Is there a place to discuss improvements to our characters solely, on the boards?
As in, improve the way you are prettying up their profile layout? Or improve them from a literary standpoint? If literary, this is typically done in RP Discussion, which is meant for talking about the craft of RP. Which includes making better characters!
(This was a question from a member who is smithing some coins with the RPR logo on them!) Obviously I couldn't get the coins done in time, RL got in the way, so I'll have to have them done after (and apparently Texas play sand doesn't like lost foam casting). I may have asked, but is it alright to run a contest and give them away? Which brings me to my next question, is it alright to make apparel or knickknacks with the RPR logo if they are for RPR-only contests? BillyBob makes buttons in a couple months, can he run a contest to give them away?
Thus far I've said yes to everyone who asks me if they can run a contest that includes home-made RPR merch, so long as they do ask beforehand, the contest is free to enter, and they are careful to state that the merch is not official.
Maybe that policy will change in the future if we see some abuses, but so far people have been fantastically well behaved when it comes to contests.So yeah, if you want to run your own contest for those coins, do it. I'm totally entering.
What kinds of contests are permitted (I'd love to make a contest for artists where they have to sum up RPR in one picture)? And would you prefer tangible items to be mailed to you first, or are you okay with them being mailed directly from member to member?
I have never distributed prizes for a user-run contest before. If it's an unofficial contest, I don't need to be the one physically holding the prizes. You're welcome to run an art-based contest if you clearly define what you're going to be doing with the art that's entered.
I want to be able to visit the Many Headed Cyborg Dragon!
The MHCD slunk off into the forest after helping to conclude the boss fight... We've heard occasional roaring, but no confirmed sightings. I'll definitely have to keep you updated if we get any more word from it.
Maybe there should be a place you can go where you can see RPR's inuniverse story. Like a record of sorts where newbies can read up about what happened in the years before they joined, but in the constructs of a story. I mean, how else would they know that the MHCD landed the last blow on the Blight Spider Queen, or various other stuff?
RPR's in-universe story has definitely been growing and growing over the last three or so years. It's gotten to be more detailed than I ever envisioned when I first opened up the site! Some kind of archive/reference would definitely be a fine addition.
But maybe in a year or even three? If we had a place where it documented all of the wacky things that happened- some intentional others not- wouldn't that be cool?
It would be very cool! I've actually been wondering the last few years if someone was going to start an RPR wiki about the various characters and plotline items that are now in circulation.
I have a question that I'll bet is haunting you. Is the genre jumble likely to grow yet again this year?
Oh man. Every year I think that's it, we cannot possibly fit any more characters in without the composition just being mush. Every year we cram a few more in... I STILL don't see how I'll manage it this year, but I'll give it 50/50 odds.
We should have a sitewide calendar for RPR events. Epic Week, moderator appreciation day, the art trades, etc.
I would love to have a calendar up! Or even just an "upcoming events" listing on the community page, even if was more "agenda view" than a calendar rendering.
Or a physical calendar you can buy that that also has site events for the year?
We tend to carefully space out official events so it wouldn't be impossible to include them in a physical calendar. Except that it would require making the decisions about all of them more than a year ahead of time - for epic week that would be easy, but I don't know that we're that organized on some of the other things.
We DO have a lot of pretty pretty art that could go into a calendar. Cost would very much be a make or break factor, though. Small-run printing is often expensive!
Are previous events pages/pages that are not needed anymore purged from the site after a while, or are they still kept around?
Previous events are still around as a record.
http://www.rprepository.com/events/epicweek2015/
http://www.rprepository.com/events/epicweek2014/
http://www.rprepository.com/events/epicCelebration2013.php
http://www.rprepository.com/events/epicCelebration2012.php
http://www.rprepository.com/events/epicCelebration2011.php
But you can get a sense of the evolution of the event. The adventures are quite recent! (I want to make a 10 minute documentary about the history of Epic Week. It would be so rad.)Is there a reason you won't do something like an official shop with one of those printers like Zazzle and whatnot?
I looked into that sort of thing awhile back and was enormously underwhelmed by the quality vs. cost ratio that most of those sites offered. Anyone who has found a mousepad in their Epic Week prize tote will tell you that they are some of the nicest, softest mouse pads out there. I try to be picky about what I'll put our logo on, and what I'm comfortable charging people money for.
Why not make an RPR custom card game?
When people ask me why I don't make a custom card game, I always have to answer that the site itself is my top priority, and there's never enough time to give it everything that it needs as fast as it needs it! So I can't justify spending the time overseeing the creation of such a game, and having it printed and getting it sold. Or even, really, programming a digital version. Building that would mean that I wasn't building or fixing something else that was more directly related to the day to day needs of the site's members. I DO love fantasizing about it, though!
Uhm.... It struck me that the all mighty (read: creepy) Blightzilla may have a small addiction to dark magic since we had to defeat her and all. I was wondering if she plans to see addiction therapy, since you know... She has kids. I don't think all her kids want to end up as her.
(For those that don't know, Blightcilla/Blightzilla was the name the membership affectionately gave to this year's Epic Week boss monster, the Queen Blight Spider.)
You mean you worry this because she warped her own body to be a boil-covered super monstrosity by her indiscriminate use of blight magics?
It's very difficult to help someone who won't acknowledge that they have an addiction problem. Thus far, we've seen no indication that Blightcilla considers herself to have a "problem" so much as an acceptable trade-off in service of her own craving for power. If some users want to find her and hold an intervention to help her see that her actions have affected others negatively, then perhaps we can find a, uh... dark magic detox facility that accepts house-sized (not counting the legs) intelligent spiders.
We found a dragon ranch that did rehabilitation work for the Many Headed Cyborg Dragon, there MUST be a facility that can help a spider with addiction issues in the land of the RPR
I never did hear what happened to the many cyber headed dragon either!
As for the Many Headed Cyborg Dragon, it slunk off into the forest after helping to defeat the Queen Blight Spider. There've been reports of roaring and giant footprints being seen in Forum Forest, but no confirmed sightings. I'll make sure to make a news post as soon as we have more info on its whereabouts!
Will there ever be different 'skins' we can put on the site for our (the user's) own viewing pleasure?
Although I don't want to say "never", I will say that I have no interest in it right now. There's enough to do to keep the site working and moving forward without having to test multiple versions of every feature past and present.
After my vacation in June, I want to start up knitting commissions. I've considered knitting items that are RPR themed, either with the RPR colors, its logo or the name for RPR enthusiasts. Is this allowed because I'll be earning money with it? If it's allowed, what restrictions are there on selling RPR themed hand crafts?
Thank you very much for asking first! I would ask that you not put our logo or name on items that you're selling for profit. That said, if you'd like to make brown and white items, we don't have any kind of claim on the use of brown and cream together. I am pretty sure that is as old as nature.
I noticed also, that you have a lovely medieval princess mascot that we see that represents you. Is it safe to say she's like your avatar? If so, can we draw fanart of her? (Because she looks fabulous.) What is her history anyway, if she has one?
Aha! That is actually modeled after a costuming project I did with my mother some years back. The dress is designed to be Elizabethan, from the Tudor era. I continue to wear it to renaissance faires and conventions on a semi-regular basis. I also wore it on-screen for the RPR-themed movie that Darth_Angelus made as the centerpiece for Epic Week 2012.
It seemed like a natural "uniform" for me to be wearing in my on-site announcements.
That's Darth and I in front of a super-homemade greenscreen we assembled in a hotel room for the shots where I needed to be in the CGI world he created.
I would be SO honored if you wanted to draw some fanart of me in that costume.
was doubutt a product of sorcery? a failed (or successful) experiment? i'd love to know more about them! a doubutt related plot for next year would be pretty cool. o:
Doubutt is a creature that is shrouded in mystery. We know little about where it came from, or why it chooses to live in Forohfor keep. Or even how it got up there in the first place -- I mean, that castle floats, and Doubutt doesn't fly.
It would be fantastic to learn more about Doubutt in future site events. I'd also like to know more about the Many Headed Cyborg Dragon's origins. Where did it get the cyborg implants, for example? We know those go far beyond the tech the goblins had.
I know Epic Week was Epic and very time and resource consuming. I can imagine you're still recovering, so please don't feel pressured by this question! Do you have an update on what's next on your plate for the RPR?
that's a great question. I'm just now getting back into the swing of "normal" updates -- you may have noticed some little improvements happening here and there, like highlighting of intro topics that you haven't replied to yet, or that when you hit "report" on a forum post you can now include a note about why you feel the post needs moderator attention. Just little tiny day to day improvements here and there.
But as far as larger arcs go, I'd like to spend some time making upgrades to groups, with an emphasis in bringing the mobile optimization for groups up to par with the rest of the site (where we've learned a lot since groups became the first thing on the site to be mobile responsive!) I would like to set up a system where RPR members can very affordably purchase the ad space on the site for their own RPs, groups and even products (some of you have some pretty rad RP/fantasy/tech themed businesses out there!), and upgrading character search to allow browsing by categories and other wonderful things.
The most ambitious thing that's on my plate for the year is a number of features and upgrades aimed at helping people more RP, with a greater degree of accuracy as to what they will enjoy, faster.
Lately I've started looking at a number of factors like average posting speeds, average post length, and a bunch of others things to see if there's any correlation to how happy people are with the RPs they get involved in, and how closely their stats are matched to the other's in their 1x1 or group RP. I'm still collecting data on this and will likely run some surveys among the membership, but I'd like to start suggesting LFRP concepts that have a high degree of liklihood to be a "match" to what an individual user might like in lots of places on the site -- for example, on a character's management page, where the "DID YOU KNOW?" box normally appears. Maybe if there's a RP that jives with that character's genre categories and the player's known personal preferences in a RP partner, we could show it to them there and on the community page. That's just one example of the things I'd like to do to increase the number of awesome RPs everyone has here.
Hand in hand with that, I'd also like to get going on the feature to let people "dismiss" suggestions from the Find RP search, for when they don't ever want to be shown that concept again. That on its own would be a useful indicator that helps me fine-tune what I highlight for specific members, but it'd also just be a big convenience boost on its own.
Affordable adspace for us? Now would this be an epic member only thing?
No, anyone would be able to purchase an ad. In fact, anyone can right now, but they have to go through Google to do it. I think making it more direct and easily accessible would help a lot of people who have dreamed of casting a wider net.
is an 'original poster' display in the works for the inbox? it'd make things so much easier when cleaning! i've accidentally deleted RP before because i thought it was one of my many chats.
I'm not sure if we'll do "original poster", since in a lot of cases it will just show your own name over and over, but I do have "people involved" as an upgrade to inbox view on my list!
Aside from the plans you have in mind, do you have any long term plans for RPR, like massive changes we might see 5 or even 10 years from now?
I wish I could say yes to that! The RPR is SO DIFFERENT from what I imagined it might be when it was opened 6 years ago, that I suspect the lay of the land will be different again in 5-10 years. Technologies and trends that I never imagined will become prevalent, and we'll have to move to accommodate and innovate.
The only true long-term dream that I have, that I don't think will change no matter what, is that I want to one day have the RPR be my actual day job so that I can devote all the time it needs and deserves to it. I still have faith that one day, this can be true!
I suppose I could add to that - and I don't know why I didn't say this first, except that it's almost as obvious to me as breathing - is that I want the site to continue being a positive, joyful community that focuses on creating high quality RPs and friendships. No matter what features, formats or technologies we're using in 5 or 10 years, that's still the beating heart of what makes the RPR so special and worthwhile.
Comments
@SINDragon - Oh, I didn't see it as an argument or challenge in any way, just enthusiasm with a dash of realism thrown in.
@Novalyyn - I love that these news posts write themselves through the magic of cut and paste.
@Novalyyn - I love that these news posts write themselves through the magic of cut and paste.
I think my little part of our 'argument' there, with the 'But maybe in a year or even three?' or whatever seems out of place in that context Looks like I'm challenging you Kim, but it was more of a point as to why we should do that 
Hope it doesn't confuse you all~!
Looks like I'm challenging you Kim, but it was more of a point as to why we should do that Hope it doesn't confuse you all~!
I love how you're keeping the original bumbling text of our questions.
I LOVE these questions!! Thanks to everyone who asked and thank you Kim for being so thorough with your answers!
Wooby
May 21, 2016
10:50pm