Why Asari Are The New Quarians

Right, so I promised I'd write this, and I will. Keep in mind, these are my personal opinions, and they are not meant to insult anyone, nor are they meant to be an absolute judgement.


The community is, near as I can tell, mostly stagnating. We may be getting new members, but we're also losing old ones. This is something that happens to every RP board eventually as people lose interest in the subject of the RP. Mass Effect 3 has come and gone with its controversial ending, thus a lot of the people who didn't like the ending up and left. This was understandable. However, the remaining members though they try seem to be forming groups that can be described as insular at best.

There was a time when people could do an open thread and expect a reasonable amount of people to join it. We had storylines develop due to what happened in open threads because people were willing to push it. That doesn't happen as much anymore; you get maybe two or three people joining in, and the rest leave open threads alone. You have people who will find themselves only RPing with the same group of people over and over again because that's their comfort zone. RP-wise, this is the equivalent of the "Hugbox" idea established by our mods. Forum threads need arguing, but people also need enemies and conflict to keep their stories compelling and interesting. Conflict is the breath of life to RP, and it needs to be shown, not simply talked about.

The main issue here is everyone isolates themselves. Whether intentionally or unintentionally. You find yourself playing with the same people over and over again, and outsiders find it hard to break into the group. People aren't able to RP with the main group, and it seems like nobody wants to RP with them, that nobody is interested in doing so. I'll admit, oftentimes I feel like an outsider, and I'd formed a minor RP clique as a result of it. However the clique itself doesn't exist anymore. Still, the reasons are there. You end up feeling like you aren't welcome in any of the group RPs, and that the people who don't want to RP with you are elitist. Of course, this may not actually be true, but that doesn't change the way it feels. The onus is on us as a community to make people feel welcome to RP with us. We can't shut them out of RP entirely. Now, that's not saying "don't play an asshole." Far from it, just be welcoming to new people into your RP.

To attract new people, we need to not only be welcoming, we need to be compelling. This doesn't necessarily mean board-spanning plots that involve intrigue, spying and combat, though those do help, but it also includes RP where a character has more common life issues. Slice of life can be interesting, but you have to show us more than just the good times. Your character has been working a job for a hilariously bad customer and goes off on them. Your character just found out that a family member whom they are close to is dying of some obscure disease. How do they react? Nobody's life is constantly perfect, and if you're going to do slice of life, show your space aliens some imperfection. Show that they are more than just wish fulfillment.

We've seen the results of isolation firsthand. It causes rifts to form between RPers and for them to take anything that tries to cross the rift in a negative fashion. It also works both ways. Both sides of the rift start thinking it's the other person's issue. It's their job to apologize to you for ignoring you. It's their job to reach out to you for RP with you. After all, they're the ones who rebuffed you. All the while you forget when you rebuffed them. When you pushed them away. It's easy to feel like the victim when this isolation happens. Unfortunately it is up to you to fix it. Most people when they read that will say that it doesn't apply to them, but it does. It applies to you. It applies to me.