I've been hearing a lot of feedback in-world and through registrations about some fundamental issues on RP etiquette. With the amount of effort we put on constantly updating the sim with new features, we're going to need help from you all now to push for improvements in RP between each other. Since our community has been featured on the SL Destination Guide, now is more important than ever to fix it as we see an influx of new players.

Our Philosophy

As a community leader, it is my intention to make sure we foster a philosophy that encourages an open mind and to always keep ourselves open to improvement. We should also be very open to helping others and taking help without offense. Through practice, we'll all become better writers and think quicker to the unpredictable scenarios our characters impose on one another. 🙂

The major points we need to address today are:

1) double/multiple posting
2) posting out of order

Let me begin by saying that no one is perfect; certainly no one is "better" at role-play than anyone else. We're all creative in our own ways! However, there are some technical aspects of text-based role-play that we need to practice and enforce to ensure fair and logical flow between players.

I also want to share my own personal experience. When I first started to role-play 4 years ago, I was completely new to the concept of free form text RP. Through years of observation and practice, I learned a lot. In fact, I still am learning! I don't consider myself better than anyone, even after all these years, because I know I still have issues like my ability to organize thoughts and responding without taking forever. In fact, this forum post will probably take me a good hour to post lol. I am, however, happy to say that role-play has still helped my writing and response times significantly than what they used to be, both in RL and SL, and I hope to continue getting better at it.

I can go on and on about my flaws, but I digress. Basically, I've called on our staff to begin enforcement of group title policies and called for ideas / new initiatives to help players on improving RP etiquette on the sim.

"DE" Title Enforcement

On the issue of titles, we'll be enforcing DE-only titles on the sim as it helps significantly with weeding out those who are not interested in story-based RP or haven't bothered reading the RP guide. I'm also taking measures to help enforce this mechanically -- in high-traffic RP hotspots, like Lulu's, players who have not even tried registering will be hit with an IM every X minutes w/ instructions on how and why they need to register their character. Remember, aside from helping players understand the background on DE, the registration process also streamlines the guide w/ emphasis on newbie mistakes like metagaming. It's also the necessary foundation that will enable a lot of cool new features I'm going to be introducing to DE like criminal rap sheets, medical histories, etc.

Those who continue to ignore the official policy of the sim will end up getting teleported home by either the registration scanning system or staff. We currently see on average 50-100 registrations a week -- the recurring feedback is that they're excited to find a place in SL where proper RP is encouraged and enforced. It's time we all recognize we are capable of the best and step up our game.

Residents (you) are encouraged to guide new players in the RP area to sign up! As soon as a player submits their registration, they will immediately receive the provisional "DE Drifter" role in the main RP group.

Resident-Run Group Policies

I will be releasing official group policies around RP businesses, gangs, and any other DE RP affiliated group that is run by a registered player. I have had some great discussions with our rental IC shopkeepers and have come up with a solution that will enable them to promote their group on the sim and even have a custom group title.

Gangs will also be required to register before being allowed to operate in our community. It's important we maintain a balanced RP environment so we aren't overrun by armies of criminals w/ an uncontrollable agenda. It's also a way for gang leaders to take responsibility in improving RP within their own group, collaborate OOC'ly, and enable communication between management and their needs. We will also promote their group by placing it into a well publicized "official DE group directory".

OOC Ambassador Role & RP Advisory Notes Initiative

Faerie has suggested a "player ambassador" program in DE to help pool together registered members who are willing to lend a helping hand to visitors and new members of our community. I'll make a special role in the OOC group and will setup a way to sign up somewhere on the sim (tba). Members in that role will also be given a folder of helpful mini-guides I am writing that address specific topics in RP etiquette, like post orders, single-posting, etc. When coming across a player who has an issue with a specific part of RP, the ambassador will be encouraged to engage them in an IM and address their issue in a helpful and constructive manner. These guides are written as simply as possible w/ a good amount of examples.

Look below this post to see the first set of notes.

New Establishments in the City

Kait and I put together a few new establishments, such as Pizza Slut Pizzaria and the Easy Eight Billiards Lounge. There are more IC businesses being setup and we're going to be actively looking for good leaders to take manager roles there.

You may have already noticed our instant invite system for registered players in these establishments, including Lulu's & the Busted Knuckle Garage. Our goal is to create 1-2 entree level roles that characters can quickly get into. It'll be up to them to RP there, become familiar, and have the manager promote them up the ranks if necessary.

The entire system is setup to streamline new players into RP areas they have an interest in. The process is fair and unbiased to a manager's timezone 🙂

Final Note ...

The above are really just a few of the things we have slated for DE. We've come a long way and in order to scale with our popularity, we'll need to work together to maintain DE as a fun and fresh place for our stories to thrive in!