My efforts to foster more official roleplay has gotten kind of slogged with tech work. We have ideas for the storyline and stuff to go on, but we've had trouble getting those efforts forward.

Instead, what do you all think to us just posting a big log of the general events/information/facts that we had planned, and then let you all run with it as you wish? It'd be a bit of a return to past times, where players could go forward, and then ask us questions or ask us afterwards what stuff becomes accepted as canon, and you all get a bit of an official outline of the direction we're interested in things going?

It *may* indeed involve some pretty big spoilers, but that may be better than us just sitting around twiddling our thumbs.

And as a caveat, the RP Guides have been a tremendous help during this time, and if some of them want to take a more hands-on approach shaping things, that seems worth encouraging. However there time is limited and not all factions are represented, and as such it seems like it may be a good thing to transfer more of the onus to the community as a whole.

If so, I'd spend a weekend or so doing an info dump of the Skyrates world.

Things which may be revealed:
What's going on in the Barrens?
What's going on in the Courtlands?
Who are the Hidden Fleet?
General population of skylands.
What are the pirates up to?
What exactly is under the sea?

Winning!



From my perspective this allows EO roleplaying to move on while we have some player momentum/participation.
We can incorporate all the treasures the devs/RP guides had planned and take ownership in a different way.

One possible tweak- would it make sense for you to reveal each factions' info on their respective factional forum? (to still be rolled out to the general audience over time). I guess that depends on whether people were reading other storyline etc. It keeps a sense of timing and revealing- or perhaps just adds a new bottleneck,

My curiousity demands answers either way!

Just be prepared to handle a barrage of questions...

I'm open to this. It would provide the ever so slight level of 'security' that the faction forums provide.

Re: questions

We'd be open to answering questions, and be especially responsive in the early stages.

If the RP guides are still active and interested, you could pass the information through them, for a pace in between structured roleplay and total infodump.

I'm in favor of a big old-fashioned infodump. At least, that's how I'd do it. But then again, if I were in charge of the Skyrates canon, the results might very well haunt your nightmares until your passing. No matter what you decide, any addition to the Skyrates world is welcome, and I look forward to seeing what you've got for us.

Be prepared for lots of questions regarding communication between skylands.

Not to be the cause of the first salvo of questions on here, but is the info revelation set purely on the topics listed, or is there potential for more, given input from the peanut gallery? Anyhoo, as Leo said, any addition is welcome and I too look forward to seeing what comes out of this. Cheers!

I fear shifting the onus to a few people has the potential of also getting slogged down.

Additionally, we don't have an RP Guide for each faction.

Generally, I like this.

I would only request that all the RPing to be done by this still happen in the forums and not in the chat tab, or at least the main plot points. I only ask this because real life gets many of us bogged down, some don't have the same schedules, and it's hard to get people all over the world in one spot at one time to participate in a real time RP.

I'm sure this is where you were going anyway with your idea, but I just wanted to state it clearly, so that everyone may have the chance to participate in their own time, and no one feels left out.

I do recall someone (Nero, maybe?) showing up after a long time away, and being slightly upset that things hadn't moved along, so this does seem like a way to do things.

Anything that gets folks up and running is ok with me.

Presumably, you have some idea how you would want things to unfold? The middle ground between a structured RP and infodump would be something along the lines of putting together a rough storyboard/timeline of events and dumping the appropriate info at each point in time, letting the RPers make their own story out of it. Although this still requires significant planning on the dev's part (and may still not be feasible due to time constraints), it might be one way to handle it.

General world information (eg General population of skylands) definitely could use a nice dump, since much of it right now is in the air and is actually limiting rather than enabling roleplay.

As for the other items which may or may not be general knowledge at least put out "word on the street" at varying levels of accuracy, source reliability and plausibility. If more detailed, precise and/or accurate knowledge need be distributed to specific persons/factions then I suppose that's fine, though I know, for instance, both Red and Blue have mentioned/alluded to very significant intelligence operations that one would think would pick up scuttlebutt that maybe other factions wouldn't like to be general knowledge.

The notion is that there's an overarching plotline for the Barrens excursion and that RPers in the Barrens have a chance to make a difference. If we are told what happens then suddenly there's not much reason for us to go there, except to be counted as part of the effort.

That said, it also doesn't work to not have anything happen since you leave good players limbo'd. Synopsizing what happens and allowing Barrens RPers to return may be the lesser sin.

I'd also be for the idea of asking each faction's leadership or RP guides to take charge of administrating their RP. If they don't respond and take ownership, then infodump to their faction forum and allow their available RPers, if anyone, to take the ball as they wish.

But IMO if Skyrates RPing is to be important, Skyrates must be allowed to make an impact through their participation.

It's already been said, but I'd just like to throw in my own personal THANK YOU to the devs for once again giving us Roleplayers something to work with.



Brilliant Lynx, couldn't have put it better. This, I feel, applies to all areas of RP. It's not that people and players don't try to make a difference, it's just that it's something of a challenge for them to do so. Of course, some ideas simply would not make sense in Skyrates Canon, but others are - in my humble opinion - top quality, and definitely deserving of a little more recognition.



Case in point.



Words cannot overstate how excited I would be to see something like that put into place. Of course, it'd be a drawn out and tedious process, and people would complain about their own work not being included... but hey, I think that with the appropriate / due patience and dedication, it could work.
Dev input is a must, however.



Is it out of the question to assign some more / new RP Guides, perhaps? I know for a fact that there are a wealth of very decent and friendly players out there who would be more than happy to assume the role. Try-outs, anyone?

At the end of the day, Roleplay as it has been is fine, fun and keeps people coming back (for the most part) to the server for extended periods of time.
That being said, it's never EVER too late or early to start building a little more focus upon just what goes on over in that dark little corner of the radio.
Some of my own personal questions are: Will any pre-existing Roleplay storylines be incorporated and/or focused upon in SR Canon? What future things can we expect from the train of thought presented in this thread? Just general mumbo jumbo like that,

Thanks again, everyone!

EDIT: Disregard my second question about the future, I see good Lord Gilbert has already covered that in his original post.
Also, long post is long. Sorry!

I'm down with this. And if that's infeasibly slow, then infodump away.