"Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

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Aqua Sol
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"Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Aqua Sol »

Everyone has a real life, that's understandable. It's no surprise when activity dips due to IRL stuff tying people up. However, a common issue I've noticed when talking with other people is that sometimes people do have time to log in and want to RP, but they don't see anyone online in the server. A lot of the times people won't log into an empty server and just wait around. And even if five different people have time to play during an hour or two, if all five of them check the server at different times, they'll all just see an empty servers. Even if all of them log in for five or ten minutes, the chances of them being seen within an hour are one in six.

A simple solution to help people be able to know when others are available and willing to RP in the temple would be a channel in the discord for people to post if they're currently available for RP in the temple. A way to simply let people know that even if you're not in game, you are available to log in and RP if other people want to do so as well.

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Xintr Wolfe
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Xintr Wolfe »

Some kind of 'availability board' like at a doctors office would be interesting but I have no idea how you could make that practical enough to use.

Maybe a pinned post on a discord channel you could add an emote to when you're availabe and remove it when not, you can see whos free by checking emote names? Wonder if it would be used.
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Fenn Rahm »

The channel itself alone will be sufficient, in my opinion. #commlink serves an almost similar purpose but it would be handy to have such a channel in Discord.
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Sirius Invictus
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Sirius Invictus »

The best thing (by experience) that can be done, is for the available person(s) to outright log into the server and be available in the server tracker list!

Everything beyond that, imho anyway, is redundant. No way better to denote and express availability than being on the server even if the server is empty (and remaining there for more than 5-10 minutes of course, otherwise the 'people checking and seeing an empty list' occurs). :)
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Joar Hasmal
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Joar Hasmal »

Sirius Invictus wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 6:05 pm The best thing (by experience) that can be done, is for the available person(s) to outright log into the server and be available in the server tracker list!

Everything beyond that, imho anyway, is redundant. No way better to denote and express availability than being on the server even if the server is empty (and remaining there for more than 5-10 minutes of course, otherwise the 'people checking and seeing an empty list' occurs). :)
That is straight up what I did this February, and much of July. I would log on to the server and idle there for about 1-3 hours, keeping the game alt-tabbed and doing something else (i.e. Netflix, writing, etc) while occasionally checking the client's server list. It didn't help with activity. If anything, it actually hurt my drive to RP because even when people began to log on around April-May, I felt largely demotivated from logging on the server and hoping people would show up.

In summation, I know that doesn't work because it's been tried before.

I think we should try Aqua's idea simply because regardless of success or failure, or if it turns out to be necessary or redundant, it is incredibly simple and easy to implement. We add another room to the JEDI Discord, or we set up a when2meet. It's something that can be done in less than five minutes, and if it ends up not working out, it can be removed just as easily as it was added. We have nothing to lose by at least giving it a shot and seeing what happens.
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Delmi N'jork »

Something like this could be useful; I think all of us at one point or another have been seeking RP but not seen people on or sat on a empty server for x amount of time.

Discord now (and for a bit) has had the ability to make the custom status. The green dot next to someone's name doesn't always mean they're around, but perhaps putting in "Available" or "Available to RP" in the custom status would alert those who are also seeking server activity. Of course, this relies on us changing/updating the status but perhaps this is a option we can explore.
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Aqua Sol
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Aqua Sol »

So while I love Delmi's idea, that only really works if the only RP community you're in on Discord is JEDI. If you're in another RP community for things like text RP or RP in different games, it could lead to confusion and what not.

Frankly, I agree with Joar. Just make a channel. People can post "Hey, available to RP for the next 3 hours" and what not. If you don't want to see it, mute the channel. If it doesn't work, delete it.

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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Sirius Invictus »

I dare say that the reason Joar's situation was what it was, and everyone's during the same time frame, was because activity had no way of perking up regardless.

People are currently preoccupied (understandably so) with COVID and its various aftermaths. Either in responsibilities or emotional ones which pull people towards various activities or lack of said activities.

Summer has always been a 'dead' period for JEDI, even without a pandemic affecting everyone's schedules.

Soon as that is over and done with (hopefully), you will realize that the usual methods of denoting availability (i.e. being ingame) will once more be 100/100 useful.

Another thing to remember would potentially be that not everyone (and not at every point in time) might want to RP with everyone else. Some people might prefer to see other names on the tracker list and/or might log into the game for different reasons.
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Ori Navarus
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Ori Navarus »

Throwing my rare two cents in. I believe this would be very helpful. I mean, of course alot of us do have the free time to stalk the temple page. Though, alot of us - including myself - struggle to do so, sadly. I wish I could check it more frequently but find myself occupied alot of the time, and even forgetting to check it and later regretting it.

I mean I've sat on the temple for two hours or so today and am yet to find a poor soul to connect and sit through my medicore rp with me.

Perhaps it's something that could be trialled? If it isn't used then scrapped?

What do we have to lose except potential activity by trying/not trying this?
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Iffo Rav'i »

After some investigation, we think there is a way to implement something.

The key issue that needs solving is keeping a players availability updated and 'valid'. My concern isn't people marking themselves as available it's the changing back to being unavailable especially instances where there is nothing to remind us to switch to unavailable (e.g no RP takes place).

If people are marked as available when they're not, the whole system falls down.

We think there is a way that we're just testing at the moment, so news shortly hopefully.
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Aqua Sol
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Aqua Sol »

I... I think you're overcomplicating something that doesn't have to be? This suggestion isn't to "fix" inactivity as some seem to think. It's to help bolster how people communicate readiness for rp in an easy to manage way. There doesn't need to be a form with a template or page they have to load up and type stuff into. A simple discord channel where they type "oh I'm free for x amount of time if anyone wants to rp" and someone responds with "oh sweet I'll load in" is fine. If x amount of time passes then their availability is simply no more. If they end up getting busy or unavailable they can just post "woops sorry something came up" and move on.

There's literally no need to make it more complicated than that because that then defeats the purpose of it being a simple way to foster more rp. A discord channel is easy to use, easy to see when someone's posted at a glance and easy to check often as people generally spend a lot of time on it.

As for the comment about people not liking rping with others... so? We're a community with an open singular rp venue that's relatively public to all members. This isn't going to be any different than someone loading into the temple and someone they don't like loading in. If someone they don't want to rp with happens to reply they can just say something came up or simply move on. I think most people are pretty mature about that aspect.

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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Iffo Rav'i »

Aqua Sol wrote: Mon Aug 24, 2020 7:41 am I... I think you're overcomplicating something that doesn't have to be? This suggestion isn't to "fix" inactivity as some seem to think. It's to help bolster how people communicate readiness for rp in an easy to manage way. There doesn't need to be a form with a template or page they have to load up and type stuff into. A simple discord channel where they type "oh I'm free for x amount of time if anyone wants to rp" and someone responds with "oh sweet I'll load in" is fine. If x amount of time passes then their availability is simply no more. If they end up getting busy or unavailable they can just post "woops sorry something came up" and move on.

There's literally no need to make it more complicated than that because that then defeats the purpose of it being a simple way to foster more rp. A discord channel is easy to use, easy to see when someone's posted at a glance and easy to check often as people generally spend a lot of time on it.
If that's all it is just use jedi-discussions? Its been used for similar things in the past (thinking in particular when the 'NA-Gang' used it to mobilise RP on the server).

If people want to let people know they are free to RP for the next 2 hours, the most clear and obvious way to do that, is to get on the server. Then look to use IC the #commlink (@ people, @ departments, @mentors) or OOC #jedi-discussions channel to drum up RP. Those available will respond and get on.

Hopefully we'll announce something to help indicate availability shortly, and its actually much less work than typing anything.
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Aqua Sol
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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Aqua Sol »

If people use Jedi-Discussions for this then when people have actual discussions, anyone who posted "I'm on if anyone wants to RP" or similar will have their post get bumped up and less likely to be seen.

We've explained in exhaustive detail why simply getting on the server isn't as efficient as the council thinks it is. I also... what do you expect people to send in the comms out of curiosity? COMMS: I am available for discussion please interact with me? Unless someone needs something very specific, it seems very unnatural character wise.

I did see the new adjustments to the discord server, and I think they're great. However, it seems to be made with the assumption that members of JEDI are only part of the JEDI community. Sometimes people do sit in voice chats with friends from other communities or groups while RPing on JEDI. That's how I found the community. Someone from this community was chatting with us while playing on the server and made a comment about something that just happened and we asked curiously what they were up to.

I guess, at the end of the day, my question is: Why is the council so against a simple text channel for this? You guys literally made an entire new category and voice channel but wont add a text channel. Is it due to not wanting to moderate another text channel? The channel could be put in slow mode to limit actual conversations in it. I'm just baffled at this point because it feels like such an inconsequential thing yet it's being treated like some possible big controversial issue?

I'm not trying to start a fight at all, I'm just genuinely curious if there's an issue I just can't see due to my position as a non-council member. I don't need any details or anything if it involves private matters. I'm just curious because different eyes see different angles, and if that isn't expressed then it's possible people may jump to conclusions.

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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Zel Mirra »

I think the voice channel is a perfect solution for this. No need to worry about message history, you can see at a glance who is actually available.

Some people don't like sitting around on an empty server on their own, and this gives them the way to show their availability without having JKJA running.

Now there is an argument for "But I can't be in this voice channel if I'm voicing in another server.", which I don't really have a counter for.

But the voice channel, saves potential confusion with days old messages being there.

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Re: "Available for RP" Channel in the Discord

Post by Iffo Rav'i »

I wrote a response but it came in at 1,100+ words which doesn't help anyone.

Aqua I'm happy to discuss all your points with you if you fancy a conversation drop me a message on Discord, however the two points I'll quickly address.

(( Standard disclaimer: I'm speaking as Iffo, not as a councillor or council ))
I'm just baffled at this point because it feels like such an inconsequential thing yet it's being treated like some possible big controversial issue.
On server RP is the heartbeat of JEDI. Looking back at similar threads/discussion every council has always pushed for maximising server RP. After all 2 people on the server RPing is more valuable than 68 people marked as available to RP but not actually RPing.

If a resident is available/wanting to RP - the ideal place for them to be is on the server. It doesn't matter if they're the only person connected or if they are the 32nd person connecting to take up the final slot. If you're available then you're available? Get on the server has been the message (and still is for what its worth :D )

Implementing any 'official' system, be it a text channel, status changing, voice channel, serves to alter that long held belief. It should absolutely be scrutinised by the council and be treated with healthy amount of consideration.

An availability system has its merits as evidenced by the trial of a new system and it isn't controversial in the slightest. However, it will never be inconsequential and it is ultimately on the council to deal with the consequences and have the subsequent conversations associated with them. (I've cut the couple examples for space, but again feel free to DM on discord if you're struggling to envision any.)
what do you expect people to send in the comms out of curiosity?
I mean, it can be whatever you want really? There is leeway to be creative and if you can't think of anything just use jedi-discussion?

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