Hello!

Over the past couple weeks, we've seen a flurry of feedback both in-world and here on the forums. The concerns we've heard are all legit; it really comes down to this:

THE PROBLEM

Our group is growing quite quickly; how are we going to maintain quality free-text RP for our community?

It's true -- the groups is over 3200 and rising quickly. At the moment, it's as simple as clicking a sign on the wall to attain a desired role and heading down to the streets to play. The issue we're facing is the overwhelming percentage of folks who grab a role without reading the guide or even the rules; the result is our more serious players dealing with people who haven't bothered to read the basics and aren't interacting fairly.

DE is truly unique and I approached this issue as such. Unlike any other sim we run, majority of the community simply holds the main RP group with the new roles we started several months ago. I spent a ton of development time making sure we had a system which allowed us to keep it that way. With these recent concerns brought up and the solutions I've heard, I went back to the drawing board and have come up with a solution that I'm confident will work.

THE SOLUTION

• All roles except "DE Drifter" will require application process -- it will confirm their basic understanding of IC vs OOC, guide new players to form a brief backstory, and provide an opportunity to share their initial thoughts via feedback submission.
• As mentioned, "DE Drifter" role will remain as-is; anyone wishing to explore the sim can click on the sign for a quick add.
• Establishing new groups for important areas of DE including DEPD, DEMH, etc. and putting leaders in charge of them to grow their RP.

With every idea, there's a pros and cons .. and these are the ones that will apply here I believe:

CONS:

• More time spent coding for me! I'm not a fan of it ... but I do care a lot about role-play and facilitating a creative environment for people to enjoy it so it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Most of the code is already written; it's just a matter of customizing it for DE. If the technology exists (which I created), why not make use of it?!
• BeBe and I will have to process apps nightly; last year alone we did over 6000 for our other communities ... however, we enjoy reading everyone's backstories and feedback -- gives us a good idea of what folks are interested in!
• To maintain the integrity of this transition, -everyone- will have to sign up through the system, including existing members! However, since all of you are already established players, your application won't take more than 2 minutes to put together. I'll also give 3 days advance sign-ups so that when we make the switch, those who have signed up won't see any "downtime" with their role.

PROS:

• Anyone with an official role other than "DE Drifter" has been vetted; that means they've read the rules, guides, and demonstrated basic knowledge of RP in their app.
• New application system will help guide people in the creation of their character's and backstory
• DE will be setup to put quality and creativity above traffic

Overall, this move is necessary if we are to grow as a community who's serious w/ RP. I've spent a lot of time working the system from scratch so that it specifically caters to DE but the core concept is a tried and proven setup. We have this already up and running for the DE Emergency Services group and let me just say that it's amazing to see great submissions for those roles. However, it becomes unbalanced when a vetted officer is dealing with criminals and deviants who aren't; it's a hit or miss and from what I've been getting from them, it's a miss more often than not.

If you have questions or concerns, please post them here! Kait, Eph, or I will be happy to answer. I still have a day or two before we are ready to launch the pre-release signups for our existing members -- I will send a notice when that's ready!