YO! I need some help with my Roleplay!

Is the RP a bit clunky? Or is it just a time issue?

  • Wait it out!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Your RP could use a bit of tidying up!

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • It's both, both is good!

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1

Nue

Gencha WILL be MINE!
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
  1. Look for groups
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per day
Online Availability
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, from 5pm-10pm US EAST
Writing Levels
  1. Douche
  2. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Primarily Prefer Male
Genres
Fantasy, Sci-fi, Modern, Warlike, and Furry RP's.
656c195f9e1b06e840f16ff8d19b142c.jpg

Let's be honest, my RP is in need of some help, and I need YOU!
Me?
YES, YOU! The wonderful community of IwakuRoleplay! I need you to help me figure out what the hecklebeans that I am doing wrong with this Roleplay in the link below:
THE RP LINK
The RP link above will take you toward my OOC thread of WarFact, a forum-sized intergalactic sci-fi RP. The first post in this thread is pretty much the same first post I used for my contest entry.

So first of all, what's the problem?
It could just be me being very paranoid, but I do compare my RP to the RP's of a similar suit, and they all seem to have gotten off the ground quite nicely, which is good for them! But mine is kind of stuck here in the mud, trying to budge. I have one CO-GM that's gone off the grid and another one that's still figuring out how Iwaku works. My RP has almost completely stalled, and almost nobody is so much as expressing their interest or disinterest, just...stayed quiet.

I want this RP to be something that people can enjoy, and the lack of people talking in my RP has left me quite glum...

So I decided "Hey, if the community isn't going to you, why not go to the community?" in order to ask the propping question:

"What is wrong with my Roleplay?"

So that's what I ask, for you to just briefly comb through that link's first post, and try to answer "What is wrong with my Roleplay?" Is it a problem with the administration? Is the RP too confusing? Is the Lore not catchy, or too contradicting? Or am I just paranoid!?!?!?

I want you to bring your fine-toothed combs, and your most expert critiques and answers.

Is this a roleplay advertisement?
NO! You don't have to join it at all! All I want is to hear the community's opinions on the RP, and how to make sure WarFact doesn't fall into the swamp!

Ok, I'm ready to give you my answer, how do I do this without offending you?
*The best way to offer critiques is to present a compliment, present your critique, and then presenting a possible solution to said critique.

As an example, if there is a lore inconsistency, don't just say "your lore is inconsistent" say "Your lore is very interesting, but..." and also state specifically where it is and offer a new bit of lore to make it consistent, that way I can easily solve the problem instead of getting all confused and angry.

*don't say broad, general things about the RP like "Your lore is boring" or "The RP is disorganized." That'll get me nowhere closer to solving the problem and will just make me upset.

*If I'm just paranoid, and overreacting to this, you can say that! Maybe all I need is some time! Just don't do it bluntly, saying blunt things look mean on the internet XC.

Thank everyone who participates helping me out and doing your part to make my RP a little bit crispier and cleaner!



 
There are lots of factors that can go into an RP's success. I haven't looked at the thread yet, but I have a feeling that the answer (at least from my perspective) will be a bit too complicated to fit into one of the options on the poll.

That being said, I'll come back and take a closer look at this later.
 
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OH, sorry, I missed that this is one of those Illium-style RP's that came out of WARP. :/ M'bad. I misread.

I don't really have any experience in these kinds of RP's, so, I'm really not sure what advice I can offer. Are you saying it's not doing as well as the other subforum-wide RP's? Some of those other RP's might have just had wider followings to begin with, and therefore more eager RP's to fuel them at the start.

Really the biggest thing I can suggest is just to advertise more and invite your friends. If you think you don't have enough players to get the RP going, it might just be that you haven't found them yet.
 
OH, sorry, I missed that this is one of those Illium-style RP's that came out of WARP. :/ M'bad. I misread.

I don't really have any experience in these kinds of RP's, so, I'm really not sure what advice I can offer. Are you saying it's not doing as well as the other subforum-wide RP's? Some of those other RP's might have just had wider followings to begin with, and therefore more eager RP's to fuel them at the start.
Ah, that's good to know, maybe I just didn't have that big of a following to start with, that makes me feel better!
Really the biggest thing I can suggest is just to advertise more and invite your friends. If you think you don't have enough players to get the RP going, it might just be that you haven't found them yet.
Okay, Thank you for the information! I'll send out some more ads and see where they go!
 
Before I permanently moved to Iwaku, I ran my own roleplay "subforums" on my old website. They were similar to the subforums that you earned from the contest, so I may be able to give some advice.
The first thing I have noticed right off the bat is that your text is almost illegible on the lighter themed backgrounds. Perhaps people want to join it but can't accurately read your text because it is too light on the lighter themes of Iwaku? To fix this you can use this Color Guide to pick a hex code color that is legible on all theme backgrounds. That may be one reason why you aren't getting as many interested players! The second thing I noticed that (in my opinion I would want to know) Is the little tiny locations on your map that aren't specified. I know you put the main "Territories" but for me, I'd really love to know all the individual locations of each territory that are too tiny to read in the map. ^.^ That could also be something you could improve on too catch more people's attention. I know it would make me more excited to play it if I knew a little bit about the locations within each faction/territory. ^.^

So far, you have a great start. In fact, after reviewing your thread, I want to help you GM it, if you're willing. I can put in a form if you'd like. ^.^ But anyways those are the things I noticed the most. As well it is always good to advertise your roleplay like Kaga said. ^.^
 
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Before I permanently moved to Iwaku, I ran my own roleplay "subforums" on my old website. They were similar to the subforums that you earned from the contest, so I may be able to give some advice.
The first thing I have noticed right off the bat is that your text is almost illegible on the lighter themed backgrounds. Perhaps people want to join it but can't accurately read your text because it is too light on the lighter themes of Iwaku? To fix this you can use this Color Guide to pick a hex code color that is legible on all theme backgrounds. That may be one reason why you aren't getting as many interested players!
Hmm, so is the text all white? I thought it was the standard text, oh well.
The second thing I noticed that (in my opinion I would want to know) Is the little tiny locations on your map that aren't specified. I know you put the main "Territories" but for me, I'd really love to know all the individual locations of each territory that are too tiny to read in the map. ^.^ That could also be something you could improve on too catch more people's attention. I know it would make me more excited to play it if I knew a little bit about the locations within each faction/territory. ^.^
Actually, those little 'individual locations' are just a part of a stock image of the galaxy that I painted the territories on, they actually weren't supposed to matter! :'D sorry about that XD! but I guess you can say *mind the little things*, or put down a better picture, but I feel as that pic captured the territories the most.
So far, you have a great start. In fact, after reviewing your thread, I want to help you GM it, if you're willing. I can put in a form if you'd like. ^.^ But anyways those are the things I noticed the most. As well it is always good to advertise your roleplay like Kaga said. ^.^
I don't mind at all! In fact, a moderator (for the Independent faction) has just opened up if you wish to take it. I would love for you to help me format my OOC post! I feel as if my content itself is great, but the delivering of it could use some work!
 
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Yes the text is completely white/gray on the light backgrounds and is super hard to make out. ^.^
Hehee oh my, well at least that explains why it is more of a zoomed out image then. ^.^
Definitely! Formatting pretty things is my specialty, I'll be happy to help. I will send in an app for that position right away!
 
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Hmm, so is the text all white? I thought it was the standard text, oh well.
Well there's standard (or non-colored) text and then there's actual white text.

The default text shows up as white on black backgrounds and black on white. But if you actually select white from the text color options, then it's white for everyone, even when it would be unreadable with their background. (And the same sort of thing happens when light-background users choose actual black as their text color.)

To change your text to non-colored, highlight it, then go to the color options, and select the box in the lower-right corner with an X in it.
 
I'm only speaking for myself here. I am going to name the points that bother me to the point of contributing to my decision to say no. I'm not going to sandwich my criticism between compliments, but I will do my best to keep my feedback constructive. If you are uncomfortable with this, I have used a spoiler tag for the rest of my post so you do not have to read it if you do not want to.

The RP is set up to be huge. However, considering you're already running into trouble, there is simply not a lot of trust as a foundation that convinces people you are capable of running something so big. I don't really know you. I just know most RP's fail and you're setting up something that requires even more to work and less to fail.

Now a lot of this is inherent simply to being a contest winner. You are adjusting your interest checking and community building to the schedule of contest managers instead of to your playerbase. Only way to circumvent that is to have a playerbase before even submitting this to the contest. You're giving yourself a lot of extra hoops and - to be frank, while I'm sure you could ask a mod for views numbers, you're making a world RP which you're trying to garner interest for outside of the OOC and interest check sections, on a site where the overwhelming majority of RP activity is in the star bedrooms where very few people are interested in work safe space exploring open worlds. If I wanted to start an RP, I would not want to deal with this handicap. So before anything else I'm going to say, understand that the nature of being a contest winner on Iwaku puts you at a disadvantaged position when it comes to attracting a playerbase. Especially a sufficient one for your RP.

Now onto the actual topic. There's two broad categories I'm going to address. Formatting and organisation.

Formatting-wise, all your text is centred. This does not work for anything but titles and maybe small paragraphs. If I have a different point in space to jump to every time I have to read the next line, it's quite uncomfortable. Images break up text and are huge. Illustrations are fine, but they shouldn't be a hindrance to reading so I'd make them smaller and probably align with text. Everything else on formatting is forgiveable IMO, but these two make your thread feel very cluttered. Fixing this in and by itself would make your thread feel more accessible.

The intro to your RP is strong, it briefly explains the concept and backstory to give an idea of what's going to be happening. However, right after, instead of using your hook to draw into people about exploring your world and options... You present them with what essentially looks and feels like a guidebook. You've just told people they're going to explore and now you're taking them by the hand. That's a huge contrast in feel to me. The thing is that could could easily have fixed this by just getting 2, 3 and 4 of your things to know up before you delve into the spoiler tags at all (both 1 and 5 are fluff rules, trim fat where needed.)

From thereon it's a huge organisational clutter. Spoilers within spoilers doesn't have to be a bad thing, which is why I didn't list it during the formatting paragraph, but it is essential you know how to use them. Use additional spoilers for additional information. Don't use them to hide information behind yet another click.

And that's where I feel the biggest problem in it's entirety lies; the information doesn't feel organised or properly condensed. You're telling people to get started, though recommending to read another spoiler, but at a point they don't know shit about your setting and still know virtually nothing past reading that second spoiler. Or you know, even having read the RP mechanics. Your intro is strong as a hook but not nearly strong enough to make me commit, despite that you already give me the option to. I have to jump back and forward in your post to make heads or tails out of it. I don't want to need to read it twice in it's entirety, only reread the specific parts of lore I want to use for my CS. And then there are 2 different race/species tabs and I don't know why there even need be. At this point, frankly, I would not still be reading if I were a player. However nothing of that has to do with any actual content, which is mostly fine and dandy. It's simply the way it is presented that feels cluttered and disorganised.

Proofread and edit your entire post from a player perspective. Ask yourself, what does a player want to know? What drives them? Or better yet, go read other people their OOC's and interest checks and explicitly write down what attracts and repels you from them. Then apply this knowledge to your own work,



One additional pet peeve. In a rules section, most GM's are really good at using to communicate basically nothing except a very condescending tone. Hardly exclusive to you, but if I read a rules section and it tells me a bunch of common sense, I let it weigh into my decision to apply or not. Of course all Iwaku's rules apply. Why make a point out of this not just here, but multiple points in the RP. Here's the shortlist of what you actually communicate in the rules;
2.No OOC in the IC, and vice-versa
5.Take all debates and arguments to PM
11.One may be a Kratzkin, but one MAY NOT be a member of the Kratzkin Empire
15. Any overtly violent acts (such as torture, excessive blood, etc) are allowed, as this rp is somewhat grimdark, but these things must be either placed in a spoiler or given an obvious warning prior to posting it. We don't wish to scare away people with our violent posting now do we?
I mean I guess you could make an argument for not screwing over important NPC's, but if I'm told not to godmode or be an asshole, I'm going to feel like you're talking down to me, because you're telling me to use common sense.

Now I'm sure it's not actually your intention to talk down to players. However, please remember you display both your concept and you yourself as a GM/person in a thread. Please make sure to present both with care.
 
Well there's standard (or non-colored) text and then there's actual white text.

The default text shows up as white on black backgrounds and black on white. But if you actually select white from the text color options, then it's white for everyone, even when it would be unreadable with their background. (And the same sort of thing happens when light-background users choose actual black as their text color.)

To change your text to non-colored, highlight it, then go to the color options, and select the box in the lower-right corner with an X in it.
Huh, I always thought that closed the color bar...

I don't select white though, I just do "clear all formatting" whenever I switch back to the default color
 
Huh, I always thought that closed the color bar...

I don't select white though, I just do "clear all formatting" whenever I switch back to the default color

:/ Strange...

Well, all I know is, clicking the X-ed out box will turn your text to non-colored, which will be readable on all backgrounds.