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Lady Airlea
Mar Member 2011

Lady Airlea

Posts: 5,379 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Dear 42.

It's me again. That person who does stuff time to time, sort of but rarely supporting big, sweeping community initiatives.

But I think its time we talk about the shape our house is in.

Runescape's playerbase isn't what it was ten years ago. Or five years ago. Or four years ago. The Roleplay community is no exception. We've suffered a very sharp decline, especially these past five years.

The current culture of the game puts a lot of emphasis on maxxing, comping, efficiency, and working alone as an Ironman. These qualities while not excluding roleplay, do mean interest in our little part of the world has dried up.

People leave. We have periods where people migrate back, or periods where people have more time to roleplay. But largely, we are in decline.

As for new people? We... Really haven't had any really new people in a while. When I ask around, many of our newest members to the community either don't stay long, or have been here for years within private roleplay only to step out to the public sphere because the private stuff dried up.

We need new people. And it won't be easy, but we need it. The decline in people has led to many proclaiming other views on the community are the problem. "This group is too toxic and drives people away." "This group is full of snowflakes and gets triggered and blacklists."

Some people think one is right, some think both are, some think neither. Maybe.

I am not going to propose bridging tensions between the shards in this community. Realistically, it isn't going to happen. The tension is there, people will disagree, and trying to force people to get along just makes it worse.

So what is my big, "Community fixing" solution? Well, either read the title or the next post.
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The One True Nat
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30-Apr-2017 23:21:21

Lady Airlea
Mar Member 2011

Lady Airlea

Posts: 5,379 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Recruitment.

Not to any one clan. Not to any one "piece" of the community. Simply establishing a set-up to recruit new people to World 42.

Before I get into the how, let me explain the why:
- As a community, we are concerned for longevity. Some of us think more interaction with everyone will keep the community moving, others think interacting with those who you can agree with will keep it moving.
- We have spent so long debating and arguing about acknowledgement, blacklists, moderation on servers and access to them that we have truly, ultimately, neglected to work on solving the problem. We spent so long trying to see where the cancer is, that it's too late to start chemo.
We need new people and Jagex hasn't helped us get them. So we need to do this ourselves.
- As most arguements stem from difference of view on RP and how it affects the long term health of the community, looking past these views to join in recruitment elsewhere will help the community repair naturally, or at least add enough people that we can step back from being concerned about the health of the community.

HOW:

I would be lying if I said it was going to be easy. There will be plenty of leg work.

We need to reach out to people. Across the Runescape community. Across the main places people in the community gather. It will open us up to trolls, and it will open us up to people being new who will need patience.

This means...
- Runescape Twitter. Make a handle, tweet about skilling progress, interact with Jmods, TWEET ABOUT YOUR RP.
- Reddit. Sign on. Post looking to recruit. Post events that are newbie friendly. But maintain an active enough presence on RS Reddit so people know ans like you.
- Tumblr. Same deal as the above two. Maintain a presence, talk about your roleplays, post acreenshots, keep involved with the people there.

And finally, the biggest possible source of recruitment...
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The One True Nat
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30-Apr-2017 23:21:33 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2017 23:40:50 by Lady Airlea

Lady Airlea
Mar Member 2011

Lady Airlea

Posts: 5,379 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Lorehounds. I'm talking about Scrying Pool. The Lore Forums. The places people who love this game and its story gather.

Lorehounds have, most recently, brought more people poking around the community than not. Lorehounds love this game, they love the people, and many already have roleplay-like qualities in their clans.

When it comes to Lorehounds though we have one, huge, glaring problem.

Our canon. I am NOT saying "Lets all switch to NPCS." But that is a turn off to many lorehounds. It's one we can market and make appealing, but it is a turn-off to many players. Especially those here for Jagex lore.

I think it may be time for those places who don't function on NPC rule to compile their history in a simple read. Think the Justinian Code, but instead of law we are looking at 42's canon.

This s worthwhile. We need to make things simpler for new people. We can recruit plenty from Lorehounds and those just not aware there is a Runescape Roleplay community. This can help our community last longer.

We will need to work together. We will need to work hard at this. But if we really push, we should be able to bring some more life back into this community, and give us another few years.

- Nat
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The One True Nat
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30-Apr-2017 23:21:51 - Last edited on 01-May-2017 00:24:24 by Lady Airlea

Lord Pyro I
Nov Member 2018

Lord Pyro I

Posts: 4,255 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Think this is possibly one of the funniest things I've come across in a long time, Nat thank you.

But I should remind you april fool's day was last month. "The greatest endeavors are achieved because of their selfless intent"
#WarIsComing

01-May-2017 01:26:34

Angry Adair

Angry Adair

Posts: 2,850 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Lord Pyro I said :
Think this is possibly one of the funniest things I've come across in a long time, Nat thank you.

But I should remind you april fool's day was last month.

Actually isn't this what you've been doing for years Pyro? taking people from the main bulk of runescape? isn't that why at one time most of your guild was pvpers and pvers? you should sue Nat for taking your ideas.

#You must construct additional pyrons Noice.

01-May-2017 02:11:16

Lord Pyro I
Nov Member 2018

Lord Pyro I

Posts: 4,255 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Angry Adair said :
Lord Pyro I said :
Think this is possibly one of the funniest things I've come across in a long time, Nat thank you.

But I should remind you april fool's day was last month.

Actually isn't this what you've been doing for years Pyro? taking people from the main bulk of runescape? isn't that why at one time most of your guild was pvpers and pvers? you should sue Nat for taking your ideas.

#You must construct additional pyrons

What? No that's just because it wasn't a strictly rp clan (it was maybe 10% for RPers lol) "The greatest endeavors are achieved because of their selfless intent"
#WarIsComing

01-May-2017 02:20:55

BloxzorKBG

BloxzorKBG

Posts: 1,191 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
i probably sound like a broken record with how much ive repeated this story but

during my time in w41 I would spend actual hours walking around the world or waiting in Falador, watching for newbies to show up. I could tell if they were looking for the RP community, after a while, by picking up on certain traits- a name related to RP, a status related to it (a more obvious trait), outfits, and whether they were running around killing guards or just trying on new outfits and walking around the square

using this strategy i managed to recruit tons of people- we managed to keep W41's population stable rather than on the decline for a pretty long time


I can only imagine how much more effective these kinds of tactics Nat mentioned would be in W42 than in W41, given that's employing multiple platforms and far more than one singular person

get out there and recruit peeps
Kingdom of Hynafiaid
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Bloxzor
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"Faith without works is dead."
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W41 Squad

01-May-2017 02:28:44 - Last edited on 01-May-2017 02:29:16 by BloxzorKBG

Lady Airlea
Mar Member 2011

Lady Airlea

Posts: 5,379 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
BloxzorKBG said :
i probably sound like a broken record with how much ive repeated this story but

during my time in w41 I would spend actual hours walking around the world or waiting in Falador, watching for newbies to show up. I could tell if they were looking for the RP community, after a while, by picking up on certain traits- a name related to RP, a status related to it (a more obvious trait), outfits, and whether they were running around killing guards or just trying on new outfits and walking around the square

using this strategy i managed to recruit tons of people- we managed to keep W41's population stable rather than on the decline for a pretty long time


I can only imagine how much more effective these kinds of tactics Nat mentioned would be in W42 than in W41, given that's employing multiple platforms and far more than one singular person

get out there and recruit peeps

That's one thing I wanna talk about in general. A recruiting discord. Organize recruiting efforts and teaching events, crash course people who are interested and get them a taste of the clans around. But I don't know if there's an interest for people to take part in something like that.

I feel like a new player plunged right to a server of dozens of longtime RPers might scare them.
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The One True Nat
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01-May-2017 02:32:04

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