OverTechnology? OverRedundancy?

[OsakanOne]

I've seen 2 StarFighter topics which have been turned down.

Two new players who've probably got one long look at this RP and are now having second thoughts about your roleplay.
As it stands, I'm new and I'm already having second thoughts. I'm sitting in to see if the roleplay itself is worth my time, otherwise I'm uppong and leaving.

Your "army" has no land based vehicles. Only massive ships, power-armors and psychic catgirls running around in spandex. It's a navy!

When your interest in being canon over-rules your interest for fun, things really start to slip.

What is your burn-out rate for new players? I looked at your rank/award system and most of them have left or been removed from inactivity.

Says a lot, kids.

 

[Zakalwe]

Show me a single large RP which doesn't have a large 'burn-out' rate as you put it. I certainly prefer to think of it as a baptism of fire - if you don't like the RP then don't hang around here trying to change it withing a day of getting here. After a few weeks if people keep around we usually have players which will last many months, and sometimes many years.

 

[Derran Tyler]

One thing I've said before is that the Star Army suffers from being too focused on its tech level as opposed to the reasons why tech exists.

The smallest warship fielded by the Star Army can lay waste to entire planets. The Mindy power armor has the ability to wipe out hundreds of square miles with its main weapon.

Yet at the same time, just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean you will.

The same roles for military units that exist today should still exist in this RP. You're still going to need infantry to capture and hold ground that you just don't want to destroy. Said infantry doesn't need to be able to wipe out entire population centers with a stray shot.

 

[Zakalwe]

And we are begining to deal with that problem with the recent Slyph and Harpy power armours which are a fairly massive step down in power from the Mindy and Kylie.

I agree with you Derran that we need greater versatility in some areas, but that's more a design feature than anything. No one on this site would turn down specialised armour for infantry, although perhaps the presense of your excellant PHALANX has reduced the neccesity of this.

Oh and Osakan? We do have tanks. Quite a few actually. We haven't used them in an RP for quite some time because of most of our RP being space based, but Wes often does concept art for them. There's also a very decent helicopter floating around.

 

[OsakanOne]

I'm not trying to change it...

...I'm just a bit worried because I migrated from an RP that lasted a good 4 years on IRC that burned out a few months ago.

Maybe scared or paranoid.

It was pretty painful, considering how much work we put into it.

 

[Derran Tyler]

The thing about the PHALANX was that it was always designed as an infantry unit - it could operate in space, but it was never intended to be on the same level as the starfighters the NDI fields.

The only reason I gave the PHALANX the Longinus battle rifle was to quell the cries about it being ineffective (it never was) somehow because it couldn't wipe out a city with a single shot.

 

[Wes]

Gradually, I've been working on the technology stuff here. I'm satisfied with the level of technology--it's too advanced sometimes, if anything. I'd much rather see things expand outward than upward. So, fleet sizes have been reduced many times, spread weapons are being replaced with single-target ones, ships have had stats nerfed, and total annihilation weapons are being reworked as time goes on. It's a slow and ongoing process, because anything sudden would hurt the continuity. In any case, I'm well aware of the issues as a GM and am definately taking action.

The Star Army's tanks aren't used much, because we haven't had a ground-based plot in a while. Basically, I'e found a small spacecraft makes a very fine plot vehicle and have been sticking with that most of the time.

Maybe scared or paranoid.

It was pretty painful, considering how much work we put into it.

I can certainly understand.

I'm not trying to change it...

It's okay to change things here. Your characters have more power than you'd think. ^_^

 

[Yangfan]

There are two issues that I would like to address:

When your interest in being canon over-rules your interest for fun, things really start to slip.

Unfortunately, some aspects of some people's ideas of fun results in making things not so fun for the other players (hopefully not delibrately). In lieu of pistols at dawn , the players at SARP have come up with a set of rules (some obvious, some unspoken) and have been vocally enforcing them when people step out of line. We're still interested in fun, of course, but every time people gather into a community, boundaries have to be established and enforced.

What is your burn-out rate for new players? I looked at your rank/award system and most of them have left or been removed from inactivity.

The burn-out rate is high amoung new players, yes. Although I surmise that most of them either discover they can't committ the necessary time (most plots are fairly active), or are overwhelmed by the depth of the setting. We rarely hear complaints/suggestions from the new players, and Wes do address them on the rare occasions that they come up. For example, both the CCG and the menu bar have been modified due to suggestions from new players.

 

[Tom]

Don't worry. This has been an issue with the RP for quite some time. When I came here about a year ago, I took issue with several aspects of the RP (Psionics, ST Technology, etc) and I still continue to voice my concerns to this day.

I can't design a ship to save my life, so I just don't. Back then, I found fun in character RP and didn't pay any attention to the technology. Of course, when I felt said technology would ruin the game's role play experience, I became one angry hornet. We've made some progress since a year ago in regard to toning the more ridiculous aspects of the world down.

There are two distinct interests that lie in the RP (and, according to the early results of the poll, divide the populace almost in two): Those who stress the RP over the technology and those who stress the technology as a shaper of the RP. The debates get pretty intense sometimes.

All I can say is don't let it discourage you from playing. The RP experience itself is quite rewarding, especially if you just focus on getting your own character's small part of the large story working. Fellow RPers of the same mindset will flock together and have a great time at it.

I know I have.

 

[Legix]

Might be potentially opening a hornet's nest, but I'm going necro on this thread for some pretty simple reasons.

The first is that I still see some of the issues years down the road. There is more gear for ground-based stuff (which is realistic, since even in a space-age you'd never lose value of ground-craft), but there is a really hard niche for trying to find things that aren't already done and done absurdly of high stature. When a problem is still something people can relate to over 10 years later, it's concerning. The burn-rate thing isn't part of my complaint (all sites go through new people if they're good. Otherwise you have quality drop in roughly 80%. 20% tend to slip under as an exception to this), but I'm going to quickly point this out.

Making ships is ridiculous. Not statistic-wise, but without feeling like you're probably mirroring something else in some manner. There's just so much crud (finished and not-finished), it's probably almost impossible to make something fit without it being absurdly too strong or just crudely too weak. There's a lot of factions I feel (maybe I AM wrong) will simply be restrained because they'd step on toes to get stronger/change their equipment. Like if we had a faction surge in power armor technology, Yamatai would be in conflict and likely require a downgrade/different surge. I might be wrong, but this seems like the sort of reaction the site would hold toward most things right now. Equal/similar = not tolerated.

If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I figured I'd voice this here. Just trying to make sure the species had their own technological quirk was difficult and this thread makes me severely worried that I'll end up having to run stuff through a weakening gutter just to get my stuff passed.

TLDR: I'm probably just being a dolt, but I felt like voicing this. A lot of people and submissions I've seen have had me on edge about this and the necro seemed like a good time to say it.