Would you like to see this side project happen?

[Remedy]

I’ve been following this discussion, and I’d like to put my two cents in, if y’all wouldn’t mind.

Regarding the word bans- I’ve read my fair share of smut to know plenty of writers are able to describe the scene sufficiently without getting too nasty with the vocabulary.  It’s a delicate line, but the rules do state that you can’t use any explicit term for genitalia; using much broader or  perhaps much “gentler” words to describe the organs involved should be fine.  Or at least, that was the impression I got from that particular rule; I haven’t written anything close to that, though a few scenes in RPs I have planned do harbor that kind of content.

Regarding the sentence requirement – five sentences is certainly a good rule that I, personally, believe should stay.  It is important to keep some kind of requirement of effort so users won’t just post one-sentence posts and gain a billion KS.  

Regarding activity – I think it’s on the users – not just the staff  - to not only remain dedicated and active, but to advertise the site as well.  I’ve been on here for a few years, and although I haven’t written novels and novels, I can clearly see how simply using the site and learning from others has developed my writing ability tremendously.  I’m currently entertaining the idea of starting an unofficial creative writing club at my high school next year to advertise the lands a bit and perhaps coax a few new members into joining.  

Regarding stats – These have become so confusing that I have been unable to even entertain the thought of using them.  Perhaps if we had an introductory post written for them, all organized in one place describing their purpose and whatnot, it would be easier to understand.  As it seems, there are tons of threads made in the Stats section for various topics and it just seems like a mess.  A bit more organization could probably go a long way, and bring battles back into popularity.

All that said, I really do like the idea of an “everything goes” month.  That might help the mods get a feel of what works and what doesn’t, like an experiment.  Parts of it may go wrong, but the whole thing will be such a great learning experience that I think it might develop improvements on the site.

So, that’s what I have to say right now. o3o I don’t know if I’ve really contributed or just babbled, but I do hope it’s the former.  XD

[Shieba]

I find the banned words incredibly restricting. Can sex scenes be written without them? Certainly. Can I do it without dropping into purple prose? No. And if anything really stops me from writing, it's me having to force myself to look at my words instead of writing freely and forcing myself into a different writing style. I rather not write at all then. Also I have a lot of crude, foul-mouthed characters who use these words a lot in their language and I can't RP these characters like I normally would, either. Given that I write novels with them, I do write them "naturally" a lot, so putting such a character change on them makes me feel very uncomfortable.

And I think you misunderstood me (because I phrased things horribly). While I find some rules restricting and they're driving me away from Evelon, I am fully aware that they're needed since Evelon is a pet site and not a "just pick whatever character you want to RP and go"-site like tumblr. All pet sites seem to need currency and all that stuff. It's probably just me growing as a writer and hence not wanting to follow these rules anymore. Nevertheless, your forum host is dumb and restricts much more than other forum hosts and the fact that, for example, you can't delete your own posts in a thread if you're not a mod, makes so many things - like pen editing - so much of a pain as well. As an admin in a writing forum which offers these things and also lets you write whatever you want, I shake my fist at your host and forum software. Seriously.

I fully agree with a key and breeding post limit, but what is, for example, the harm in saying "We make a key sale every X month. Everyone who doesn't have a key for species Y may buy one and only one then"? This would stop key hoarding and at the same time get rid of the sniping system which causes frustration while still keeping breeding amounts under control. I for one notice that I hoard my BBs because there hasn't been a sale in forever and estimating when the next comes around is impossible, if there will ever be one again...

I do agree with the rarity thing, though. Evelon focuses way too much on hoarding. In fact I feel like the rarity thing is actually a real hassle; keeping my pen updated has become a hassle for me long ago because needing to make sure that every pet I own is in there so that it matches the ten million lists we have... yeah, no. But every pet site comes with rarity issues, I think, though the fact that breedables are only custom-obtainable through sales and customs through raffles really don't make things better. I wish Evelon would have a system like Flight Rising, where user could buy the right to create a custom pet, then color it themselves and then send it to the admins to approve and turn it into a useable image. But yeah, I am aware that's impossible. Still... I said that before in another thread (Morey's), but I need specific images for my pets; I can't use replacement pets. And that's where the time thing comes in again - if I need a pet, I need to wait until a sale/I win a raffle/a miracle occurs and I get the Diosol I want in ten million years. And then I need to wait another amount of time which might or might not be very long until the pet is done. By then, my plot has died for sure. So yeah, again, by now I prefer Tumblr where I just jump into RPing whenever I want because I can use my own images and am not restricted like that.

I would really like to see something like keeping the five-sentence-rule, but also give KS in the no-limit-areas, like maybe two per post? But I have the nagging feeling that nope, the forum software doesn't make that possible.

As for the anything-goes month, it might spark some interest again and that's good, though I wonder if it would be permanent. Even something as big as the Kuhna release pretty much only kept the interest of people for a short while. I feel like Evelon has been slowly dying, simply because it gets no new members and the older ones marry and get children and big jobs and just don't have time for it anymore. This is nobody's fault, but yeah. I feel like staying here is just watching the site die at this point and that investing more money or time is a waste since there is no one around who RPs a lot.

A last word on battles... I love my stats and Traits, but I agree they are too complicated as well and keeping track of it is impossible. I don't wanna have to recount all my post for my pets anymore. It's a hassle and takes too much time out of my day. Also going through the passive Trait list for a single pet takes what... half an hour? Yeah, too much time.

I just feel like everything on Evelon could be more simple, for everyone's sake. For example, Kodai has this system where she needs to approve of restricted Traits. At the same time, we are now allowed to have as many Traits as we want, but only are allowed to use 6/7 in battle. What the hell is the harm in dropping the restriction approval system and just saying "Have as many Traits of all kinds as you want, but only two of your six may be restricted in a battle and you can only use one Shrine Trait per battle, but you must still match the stat requirements, of course". Boom, everyone could finally use all the Traits which fit their pet, but they still have a restriction in place - and Kodai has less work.
Or this war thing Krypto has offered, with the random pairing of people for secret missions. Waaaay too complicated for everyone and too much work for her, which is why it... never came to be? Restricting people not to fight with that pet in the time of the RP instead of just allowing them to swap out the pet for another if it dies during the RP time... that's an unnecessary rule there, again restricting people from maybe making the battle RP they want to.

[Middy]

Shieba, I really agree with most everything in your above post. Especially about it slowly dying, which is sad. I want to see more life put into it, but most of what I see are journal posts nowadays (I am at fault)

Many of us do have busy lives, but I do have someone on here that is very special to me. I keep coming back in hopes things pick up, but hey I am at fault of having a VERY stressful and busy job (emotional exhaustion is setting in) so I just can't be here all the time.

[Azura Rayume]

I actually have a question that is kind of related to the inactivity thing, particularly the war.

If I made a directory of all the open RPs available in both Purine and Imperial "common" areas (ones available to both sides), as well as a place for people to seek out RP and battle partners, would anyone use it? I've made open RPs before- some get people, some don't- and I partly wonder if it's because people don't realize that they're there. It would be a central activity hub for anyone looking to RP or battle in the RP Advertise section.

There could also be a similar thread for breedings. Have a key but don't know who to breed? Want to see if anyone out there has a similar idea? Have a central location for all those "Looking to breed" threads where people can advertise their own or look through the ones still available. So long as people let the person running it know when their thread closes. You could also post things like "X male looking to breed. Wanting adventurous personalities and natural colors. PM for offers and details" in it for quick pair-ups or "Giving key to interesting pairs. PM with ideas" if you have a key you don't want anymore and want to be a nice person.

[Thunder]

I originally wasn't going to reply to this since I wasn't sure how far off-topic this would go, but it seems we are firmly seated in this discussion now, so I figure it won't hurt.

While I agree that revamping the Shrine Trait system would be nice, 1) Shieba, there is nothing preventing you from battling without receiving your requested Shrine traits. If you enjoy battling so much, why not just use temporary traits in their stead and have fun with what is readily available? Your pets are already really strong without the Shrine traits too; they'd win a lot if you even if you sent them into battle as they are. 2) Our battle system suffers from a greater problem- a lack of interest in it among our user base. We can't deny that there's just a handful of people who are interested in battles. The only individuals who I can remember being eager for them are me, Shieba, Freezy, Millie, Gray, and Talcen. With this in mind, it's honestly not a surprise that anything related to battles is not being worked on as quickly as other features. As Shrewd said, our small, unpaid staff team's motivation is seeing active users. And we have very few users actively engaging with the battle system. Before battles, people want pets. Before battles, people want breeding. Any website/game/company/whatever with decent staff and agenda setting abilities should be working based on an idea of what their customers want. So, the battle system is a lower priority on Evelon.

I feel that the lack of interest in the battle system stems from perceptions that it is overly complicated, as Pickle and Shrewd stated. I personally don't find it hard, but that's only because I've been using it for a long time and was fairly active with the revamp; other users may be much more confused. There's a lot to keep track of, and some of the traits have gimmicks to them that might be hard to comprehend. In other words, our battle system suffers a lack of accessibility. I'm not even sure we should talking about Shrine Traits until we figure out how to make the battle system more understandable and workable for everyone. Or even abolish the system entirely if it ends up that very few people would be interested in a fix.

On "leaking" information about upcoming features, I personally feel the two tried and true methods are 1) making it a complete surprise like the Kuhna revamp or 2) giving out information at a steady, reliable pace. As everyone probably knows, I play video games a lot, and these two techniques are what I see from gaming companies that know how to get their customers completely and utterly hyped (*cough cough Nintendo*). If I understand correctly, Shieba, your frustration stems from the fact that for the features we have "leaked", there is no steady, reliable pace of information. The frustration is understandable; sometimes I feel the same way when the Smash Bros. 4 website has the same "pic of the day" up for several days straight. And I think this is something Evelon could improve on. However, I think it's important to keep in mind that the mod team is small, has a lot on its plate, and also has to deal with situations in real life that could slow down Evelon work. Evelon does not have the manpower that gaming companies have. The mod team is also not truly hired. If Evelon was their primary occupation, we'd definitely be seeing features arriving and updating much faster.

Stemming from that, having more people on the staff team would lift a weight off our current mods. The problem is, Baal needs to approve of new staff, and as previously pointed out, it can be very hard to get in contact with Baal regarding Evelon stuff. The other problem is that, as Shrewd said, lots of users who have volunteered to help with things have not done their jobs. We cannot make new staff if users do not meet qualifications. And, as our user base ages, the users who do have the potential to become staff might end up not having enough free time to be staff. Evelon's demographic is mostly females in their teens or 20's, and recently, lots of our established female users have gotten married, had kids, found jobs, etc.

Creating a campaign to attract new users to Evelon may be a good way to not only inject more activity into the forums, but also provide us with more potential future staff. Newbies, of course, have to take time to learn about the forums. But once they're established, they might be the people most willing to help the site grow. I would much rather prefer giving the mods more help than having to drop promising features.

In opposition to Shieba's viewpoint this time, I have zero qualms about the roleplay rules on Evelon. We have a entire RP section dedicated to those one-liner, crack sorts of RPs you might find on Tumblr (and I think it's important to keep in mind that Tumblr is NOT a website dedicated to roleplaying). Writing at least five sentences may encourage developing better writing skills. It is possible to write sex scenes and other mature things without using forbidden words. Do I think censorship is silly in most cases? Yes, especially as it pertains to writing. However, and this is a VERY BIG however, there are possible legal ramifications to posting what many websites refer to as "objectionable content" in their terms of service. Take, for example, what Proboards, another forum host, says in their ToS:

"You represent and warrant that you shall not use the Website or Services to upload, post, transmit, display, perform or distribute any content, information or materials that: (a) are libelous, defamatory, abusive, or threatening, excessively violent, harassing, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or pornographic... ProBoards reserves the right to terminate Your use of the Website and Services or Your uploading, posting, transmission, display, performance or distribution of Objectionable Content. ProBoards, in its sole discretion, may delete any Objectionable Content from its servers. ProBoards intends to cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials or agencies in the investigation of any violation of this Agreement or of any applicable laws.

I am not sure what our host's ToS says on the subject, but it's probably pretty similar. I'm also not an expert on what any actual legal ramifications might be, but I'd prefer what is honestly a very lax degree of censorship to potentially having the entire website- and the staff team plus Baal- coming under fire from greater forces.

I feel like rarity will inevitably be a thing on pet sites; I don't think we can do much about that. We also can't just give out KS willy-nilly. That was exactly what brought down the whole farming system and drove our market crazy back in the day. But the system should be fully capable of adding KS gains to areas that normally do not give out KS. How else would we introduce new RP areas?

I'm...not really sure how I feel about an "everything goes" experiment. I feel like people are so used to how the forums have been running that even if such an idea were implemented, people would still follow our normal rules out of habit. I did like the idea about trying not needing LLPs or ELLs for same gender breedings, though. Maybe that could be a breeding season at least?

Azura, I like the idea of an RP directory for the war. As for the breeding search directory, I believe something like that was suggested when we talked about what to do with the Breeders Listing section? It's certainly been proposed at some point.

Finally, the last thing I want to say in this stupidly long post is an agreement to something Shrewd brought up. Evelon community, you really should speak up in discussions. I feel like I always see the same few people pitch in during big conversations like these, and that does not represent our interests as a community well at all. We should all try our best to minimize complaining/panic and maximize productive discussion. Society crumbles without conversation.

[Shieba]

Responding to Thunder mainly.

Concerning battles: 1) I agree with you that my pets would probably win the battles even without the Shrine Trait, but this isn't about winning, this is about my plot. I need the Trait in action to continue my plot and character development. My plots are... complicated like that. 2) I have to agree with you on that, Thunder. The lack of interest in battles are probably really what makes revamps there slow since it's not priority. For me, who always saw battling as the most interesting part of the site (more than breeding, that's for sure), this is highly frustrating, but I absolutely understand that I'm one of the few here.

I personally didn't found the system hard, either, but that was before the Precision revamp; now it's hell, LMAO. I still like it and I love battling, but I absolutely think that the whole system is impractical.
1) The new Precision calculation is way more difficult than the old one.
2) Calculating your stats is horrible, if you want the bonuses of the areas since, in case you ever mess up, you have to redo everything, find all your posts, find out what post was made when (not fun when you had several RPs with the pet at once) to see what bonus was in effect when you levelled up...it's a pain.
3) Searching through ten million Traits takes time. A lot of time.
You are right with claiming that the accessibility is lacking. I don't even think the system in itself is too complicated (apart from the new Precision rule), I think it's the work one needs to put into it. A lot of users already have problems with keeping their pen up to date; keeping up with their stats is even far more challenging. I am honestly not sure how to fix that issue, though. Abandoning all bonuses would be my first suggestion and just give a fixed amount of stat points which may be distributed by the user upon level up might be a good idea. That way, in case anyone ever needs to recalculate their level, they at least can leave out the time checking (but yes, I am aware that presents the issue of users changing their stats to meet tourney requirements. Don't mind me, I'm just brainstorming here).

I am fully aware that RL might throw stick and stones in the way of Evelon work, Thunder. I just wish that the mods would keep us updated. Like... "Hey guys, I knew I said Morey would announce an end date soon. But stuff came up and it will take X more time. I will keep you updated." Or, if a mod knows that they won't be able to post the raffle result on the day the raffle ends... make the raffle longer by a day or ask another mod to roll the result. Don't make people wait for four days for something that can be done in ten minutes. Stuff like that, mainly.

I agree that having more staff would be a wonderful thing, but I honestly don't see how it can be done at the current point. Evelon is, as it is now, not very attractive to new users. They have no way to purchase customs they want and no one knows when the next sale will be. They will see a mainly dead forum. I think to make Evelon attractive, we would need a more active forum first, but to get a more active forum, we need more users. It's not an easily solved problem. I think it would really, really help if Baal would allow the Modmins to make more decisions in her stead, but that probably won't happen, I guess.

As for rules and censorship and stuff, it is a personal issue of mine as the rules of Evelon - no matter if they have to be like that because of the host or because people think they are good that way - clash with my writing style and personalities of my characters a lot. But this is really my own, personal problem. People who write differently will not see any issue with that at all and that's good. I write novels for mature audiences, not for teens and, as you said, Evelon is mainly teens and young women who probably aren't into fetish smut and cursing characters, so this is my issue and my issue alone and I will have to decide for myself if I continue to RP here or not in the limits I have. Currently, I don't think I will; I have grown too much as a writer to want to limit myself like that anymore.

Azura, go for the directory if you want. I personally won't use it, but I can imagine that others might find it very helpful.

And, as a last note, I FULLY agree with Thunder (as I agreed with Shrewdie before) that people should speak up more. Far more. Seriously.

[Kyrit]

Or, if a mod knows that they won't be able to post the raffle result on the day the raffle ends... make the raffle longer by a day or ask another mod to roll the result. Don't make people wait for four days for something that can be done in ten minutes. Stuff like that, mainly.

Just posting to say the last raffle took so long due to something that couldn't be foreseen. Krypto got an eye infection, which kept her away from the computer. We didn't know this until after she posted the raffle results, and it's not like she could give express warning on an infection. And Shrewd and I both couldn't have rolled for the raffle since we both entered it.

Quicker raffles are something we do need to work on, but I just wanted to state there wasn't much that could be done about Krypto's sudden absence.

[Shieba]

Just posting to say the last raffle took so long due to something that couldn't be foreseen. Krypto got an eye infection, which kept her away from the computer. We didn't know this until after she posted the raffle results, and it's not like she could give express warning on an infection. And Shrewd and I both couldn't have rolled for the raffle since we both entered it.

Quicker raffles are something we do need to work on, but I just wanted to state there wasn't much that could be done about Krypto's sudden absence.

Yup, I understood that and I think no one complains if something like that happens once in a while, but delayed raffle results are the norm. For example the May raffle - which you held - ended on May 18th and you posted the results on June 3rd. That's two weeks and neither Krypto nor Kodai participted, so even if you were busy, there was nothing which should have kept either from rolling the results, even if you were unable to give notice. After a week or so someone should have done something. I am very, very glad I didn't participate in the raffle because I would have flipped a million tables in these two weeks. I think this was the most extreme example we had so far, but the results are always late. Heck, even a post saying "Sorry, the mod doing the raffle is unable to post results, expect them on [insert date]" would be super-helpful and keep frustration away.

[Thunder]

Abandoning all bonuses would be my first suggestion and just give a fixed amount of stat points which may be distributed by the user upon level up might be a good idea. That way, in case anyone ever needs to recalculate their level, they at least can leave out the time checking (but yes, I am aware that presents the issue of users changing their stats to meet tourney requirements. Don't mind me, I'm just brainstorming here).

I'm actually very open to this idea too. This leaves a lot less to keep track of since you can easily figure out how many bonus points you have left to spend based purely on your pet's level. You'll still have to keep track of how many posts they have, of course, but it's much less math to do already. I'm not worried too much about users changing their stats for tourneys; we've been doing a pretty good job of changing up tourney entry requirements so even if you invest a in one stat a lot for one tournament, that pet can't necessarily enter a different tournament. It should also be the case that once you invest your bonus points, those points have to stay that way. You can't put a point in Precision and then upon your next level up, change your mind and move it to Speed.

[Kyrit]

Oh boy, look at this thread. It's been over half a year without any relevant posts. *brushes it off* Well, obviously it didn't distract from Evelon work since I... never did it. XD Anyways, during my time that I'm working on updating our rules section, I've come upon the part where I am working on the information about customizing pets and ordering customs. Getting to this part brought this old project idea to my mind again, and I had a sudden realization. What if I just made animated images instead of making horrid color splatter examples that would make any artist cry? There would be three types of examples for each pet; one with all the basic layers of a pet, one with optional markings that are available for free but that you don't have to use, and a third for the different available add-ons for that pet. I don't have access to all my files right now since it's almost 12:30 at night and I'm going to bed soon, but I did at least dig out a Choopa from our Dropbox to test this on.



As you can see, the image rotates between each layer. I didn't add any text, since that would make it take a lot longer to make the animation, but the animation goes in the order of layers listed in the Custom Availability List, with the exception that I left out the teeth since you couldn't really see the difference when I colored them. I haven't bothered making an example for the optional markings yet, but yeah. Opinions? Would you guys rather these little animations or the color horrors? I'm assuming animated images, but I don't want to do them and that not be the case.

[ToxicShadow]

As I commented in the IRC, I am definitely in favor of the animated images. They seem more efficient and much easier on the eyes.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

The animated images are really good, but they can cause loading issues (for example in my case; my tech has problems with gifs and things ).

Perhaps also having a text list below or beside them in order would help users identify anything they missed, or give users who can't load the images a fighting chance?

[Kyrit]

The text list (that already exists, though it's way outdated by now), will continue to exist. =) I would just be adding the animated images (as links, so as not to burden those that can't load a lot of images at once) to the written list.

[Kyrit]

Two more basic examples have been done, though none of the ones I've done yet show the optional markings you can get for free. But yeah, two more ideas of how they'd look. As a side note, for those that thing maybe there isn't enough time before frame changes; I do not know if older versions of Photoshop are the same, but in PS CS5 when I open a gif I can go through each animated frame as a different layer. As such, if you want more time to examine the image you can always save the gif and try checking it out in PS.

I've decided that from here on what I'll do is open a 'shop' and allow users to request up to 2 pet species at a time. When I get those pets done they can request 2 more. Users will be given the option of suggesting a pet's generic form, a picture with additional available markings, or a picture with available edits for a pet. I won't do all three at once (though you could use both suggestions to get me to do 2/3 at once), that way I'll hopefully get to requests faster. Granted, this is still considered a side project, so 'faster' may or may not be all that fast, depending on the day.

[Kyrit]

So, I'm far too lazy to set up a shop or anything. I do want to post to announce that I am taking requests now though. So post away with any requests you might have.