A Few of Tide's Thoughts

[Silvertide]

Alright, so let me first tell you all a little about me. I am the leader of a RP that has been active for a little over a year. With this information, I can go on explaining. My RP is private. That means I am in a map I have made myself whenever I log on. That means I only interact with the people in my group. Sometimes I feel like a FH shut in. If you're in a map all the time, are you really part of the community? Every once in a while I'll check on what's going on, but other than that I am completely absorbed in my RP.  I feel that I'm not really a part of FH unless I go into the public maps and actually talk to people. What do you guys think about this?

Here's the next bit of my discussion. Making plots, after a while, is so incredibly taxing. My brain is fried. It is hard to be creative! Now, my RP is unrealistic, okay, so you think it'd be easy...but after making so many plots it just gets exhausting and I can almost feel the creativity being drained from my brain. When I ask my fellow staff members in my RP to help me think of ideas, it goes something like this:

Me: So, what do you think we should do about this? We need a plot that has something to do with this horrible disease, any ideas of where we should go with this?

Mod 1: Uhh, have everyone go out and try and figure out how to stop it?

Me: Well, that doesn't seem very interesting and blah blah blah, it wouldn't work.

Mod 1: idk

Mod 2: beats me

Me: Well I'll brain storm and we'll talk about it later then. *que hours of laying on my bed, trying to think about what the heck I should do next*

Like that. Pleasant right? When you have an unrealistic RP, the members get used to fun and exiting things, like killing bad guys with magic. So what you have to do is think of even more fun and exciting things, which..well, like I said, gets taxing. I'll be sitting around for weeks, thinking and thinking until I get a bit of inspiration and then I finally squeeze out another plot. But it's hard. Does anyone else struggle like this?

And my last but more trivial topic...The members. Oh the members. You can't have a role play without one, and yet they are the most exhausting aspect of it. You have to please everyone. Make sure everyone gets along. And most importantly, keep everyone in line without making them hate you. It's like juggling ten balls on your head. One member will always have an unfavorable side. And you know what you gotta do, you gotta deal with it, make sure not to get them angry, be mature and not argue with them, and you also have to make sure no one else ends up hating them. A private RP is a very tedious and exhausting thing, and yet the fun of role playing assures that I and everyone else keep coming back.
But then there's that other thing called getting more members. Let me tell you about this one. This is how it goes.

You get a new member.

They join the RP, and hang around for 1 hour before claiming that they have to either just go, or head over to another RP.

You come online the next day, and they are in another RP.

They eventually come on, hang around, and apologize as they let you know they have another RP to attend to after a few hours.

The next day they don't even come on, and you rarely see them online, and when they are, they're busy at that other RP.

Look, I understand if you have another more important RP to keep up with, but when you make the choice to join a RP, you have to make sure you stick with your decision and remain active. This scenario just happens way too many times. It happens even more times than the traditional 'the person only sticks around for one day and never comes online again' scenario, for me at least.
Before I continue to ramble on about my struggles, I'll end it here. If you can sympathize with any of this, feel free to reply below.

[Redlinelies]

This is how it goes.

You get a new member.

They join the RP, and hang around for 1 hour before claiming that they have to either just go, or head over to another RP.

You come online the next day, and they are in another RP.

They eventually come on, hang around, and apologize as they let you know they have another RP to attend to after a few hours.

The next day they don't even come on, and you rarely see them online, and when they are, they're busy at that other RP.

Look, I understand if you have another more important RP to keep up with, but when you make the choice to join a RP, you have to make sure you stick with your decision and remain active. This scenario just happens way too many times. It happens even more times than the traditional 'the person only sticks around for one day and never comes online again' scenario, for me at least.
Before I continue to ramble on about my struggles, I'll end it here. If you can sympathize with any of this, feel free to reply below.

I can very well relate to this, and I believe many others can too. I am not much of a roleplayer at all nowadays, but I did half a year ago try to host a lion pride group/roleplay in the game again. It was no big issue getting users joining, but the problem was to having them stick, or joining on a "serious" character. The issue really is that many people in FeralHeart are just character hopping like crazy and cannot prioritize certain characters and roleplays, nor are they willing to stick around through some empty and quiet times for the benefit of the group. Unless it's action packed drama or just someone being a joker, some people just don't stick around more than a few minutes.

Just as you said, it's understandable if people wish to go to a more important roleplay at the time or just do something else, but if you aren't going to provide anything to the group you joined, why join at all? You're just going to be an empty name in the list. Right now I'd consider this lion pride of mine dead, mostly due to me not being able to juggle it anymore with the stuff to do here around FH and then a new job coming into picture, but I might would've been more willing too if I knew users in general just were a bit more serious about joining lion prides. Though of course, this doesn't apply for all since I still see people go on those characters once in a while, but the majority(100+) others, do not.

I made a little rant thing on my own forum a while back regarding a very similar thing, could be of interest.

Feel free to deem this a semi-rant thread since there might be some derping in it, but over all this is something I wanted to put in a post for a while, and it keeps on bumping up from time to time. The subject itself is fairly directed at a certain type of groups in FeralHeart which is nothing else than Lion prides/roleplays. Straight off the bat, let me just say that I'm not the most dedicated roleplayer out there nor the best, neither can I say that I am the best roleplay hoster or leader, but I can say that it's the one type of roleplaying I have spent time on over the years before FeralHeart even existed, and also something I've ran three times now in the game itself since it kicked off. This leaves me here and now with a slight annoyance regarding a certain question some people ask themselves or tell others around them.

"There's barely any long term prides around..."
"I'm looking for a pride but everyone just dies after a day."
"Where did all the lion roleplays go?!"

Is that so? Have you ever wondered why that might be? Well let me tell you what I think might be the issue, it's you people. The general lion population on FeralHeart, it's the peoples outlook on prides and what is worth staying for and what isn't, it's your lack of patience.

Now I must admit, with time over years, things can change, people come and people go, but over all the game has remained the same game as it always has and the same tools in it as well, but somewhere down the line people have just lost track of things, gotten too comfortable and just expect things to get handed on the silver plate, and this probably goes for many types of roleplays and groups but I will stick with what I know. I do excuse if I step on anyone toes here but let me go in details a bit to clarify.

During the last couple of months now when I've been trying to build up a new lion pride/group with the help of friends, I've noticed the common thing of people mentioning how they're looking for an active and serious pride, how they have issues finding long term prides, how their last prides died out after a day or two, or how they are excited to get a chance to join this particular group. You as a leader are happy to provide a place for them and make sure that you are online for them, sort out group management and just be there in general. However, it doesn't take long before you realize the exact same people that said there was no good prides around do one of the following:

-Being situated at another place in the map with another Lion Pride group.
-Sit around in advertising areas with a yet a new lion character without a group.
-Create new King or Queen characters and try to start their own even though you already have several.
-Log on their pride character for just a few minutes, barely says "Hi", and then takes off.
(And many of these things happen when there is people online from the pride!)

This behavior above, is EXACTLY why there's no long term groups around, it's EXACTLY why you are having issues finding a good group. You people are choking these groups until they eventually die for real. It doesn't matter if a group leader is on more or less, or if the roleplay is interesting or not, if no one is giving dedication or is willing to go through some boring minutes for the greater good things will get nowhere. This is an issue since to my understanding the general population that's roleplaying lions just go to wherever there's sparkles at the moment, a bit like only cheering on the winning team in a sport, and always swap to whoever is taking the lead. I can buy that people want to join more roleplays and the world doesn't revolve around the one I have my paws in, but it's when people pretty much complain about there being no good lion prides, and then spend no effort into making things better for themselves. The harsh truth is that if you are just going to character hop, or group hop all the time, or never stay online because it's calm and quiet, you will not provide much, or anything at all to the group more than a name in it.

It cannot be sunshine all the time, the group cannot be action packed constantly, or have funny people online all the time. Neither can your favorite buds save you from boredom and you yourself will need to do something yourself, for the group, for yourself even. Don't get me wrong, I'm not deeply upset about this, neither am I pointing this towards any certain names, but somewhere I wish for people to understand this instead of making things worse for themselves and everyone around. Running a bigger long term group takes time and effort from both the ones hosting it, and the members in it, if one side just doesn't give a care all together the group will tumble with time and nothing can be done. So take a look at yourself, how you play the game, and what you do to ensure the groups you are in sticks around, question your own actions a bit and I'm sure you will get the greater picture.

Groups are really treated like commercial services inside FeralHeart. Unless it consists of friends or contacts that aim for the same thing as you, people will just go to whatever group interest them the most at the time being without any remorse. If it's one thing I've noticed over the years, is that many groups that last often involve with a lot inside or outside drama with it's members or even players around the area, many of the times this is OOC. If you are just out to have a social roleplay group that sit down and relax together, I do believe you're up for a really rough task in FH, it's just not interesting enough for new members of your group to stick.

I just want to clarify again that what is posted above doesn't apply for all users, nor roleplay hosters, but patterns has shown from time to time and I do believe a good majority actually take part and run their groups more or less intentionally in this manner. As much there is to say about this though, I do not think there's much that can be done to solve it, just the nature of this game, I believe and a real gamechanger(literally) would need to take place in order to mix around the bag. But I hope the post was interesting non the less, and I thank you Silver for posting/reminding of this.

[Silvertide]

However, it doesn't take long before you realize the exact same people that said there was no good prides around do one of the following:

-Being situated at another place in the map with another Lion Pride group.
-Sit around in advertising areas with a yet a new lion character without a group.
-Create new King or Queen characters and try to start their own even though you already have several.
-Log on their pride character for just a few minutes, barely says "Hi", and then takes off.
(And many of these things happen when there is people online from the pride!)

No problem and thank you for the response, because you made a good point. It really is the people that decide if a RP stays or not. And from your quote you also reminded me of something else that often happens in role plays.
When there are already many role plays around, people decide to make their own, even if they are already in a role play. I understand the feeling of wanting things done your way, but usually when people do this they don't understand the actual responsibility of leading a role play and they end up failing in the end. I know this from experience with all of the failed role plays I have had in the past that I started so carelessly. If you want a role play it isn't always the best idea to start a new one, you just need to learn to compromise. And like Red said earlier, you have to be patient with both the RP and the people so that in the end everyone will have a lot of fun role playing.