What you can do is get more people to join RPs. I know a lot of members who never set foot in COT, thus they never participate in your COT RPs. If you can convince more non-COT members to consider *gasp* actually setting foot in the COT forum, you have more potential RPers.

Personally, I love RPing, but don't have much of a desire to join an RP that has three new pages every time you come on. The more players, the harder it is to keep up.

What you can do is get more people to join RPs. I know a lot of members who never set foot in COT, thus they never participate in your COT RPs. If you can convince more non-COT members to consider *gasp* actually setting foot in the COT forum, you have more potential RPers.

 

Personally, I love RPing, but don't have much of a desire to join an RP that has three new pages every time you come on. The more players, the harder it is to keep up.

 

lol, it took some of these games days to gain a page. Demonic Beginnings crawled only a page or three a week. They aren't nearly as fast as some of the Bionicle RPGs, except for the old TFD series.

~Spink

What you can do is get more people to join RPs. I know a lot of members who never set foot in COT, thus they never participate in your COT RPs. If you can convince more non-COT members to consider *gasp* actually setting foot in the COT forum, you have more potential RPers.

You'll never catch meeeee!

You could just let them die, you know.

Yeah, that's what's happening. But seriously. After the rotten ones die, there will only be about three or four games left. We need a plan to get back on track after the games are dead.

I"m breaking my haitus from BZP to respond to this particular entry.

The best thing the judges can do is to stop permitting franchise based RPGs and force creativity. Currently Reality and The Last Stand are the only RPGs to have lasted a rather long time. This is because they are founded brainchildren with no 'real world' or storyverse to contend with. Thus, forcing a good portion of originality may be a great booster shot for the community.

I couldn't agree more. I'm in nine RPGs that all can't match the speed of the one RPG that I was playing this time of the year last year.

Originality plays a factor, yes, but when TSSOCT Mark 1 came out, I knew I had to work extra hard to make Downfall original, and every single other possible factor to make it successful. Yet it still crashed and burned, part of which I suspect was out of the complexity level.

Which brings me to this point. People need to recognize that a super high quality and extremely detailed RPG has a good chance of failure, and in my IMO, should the CoT Judges come across a massively large RPG (Like Fallout: Shattered Earth), it might be a good idea to tell them to water out the unnecessary parts. I know Downfall needed to be told that. My story was ten paragraphs long because I wanted voice.

In my personal opinion, to create a successful RPG in these conditions, one must find the balance between having enough details so that the RPG is clear, but not so much that nobody wants to read it. The first aspect is particularly tricky for creative 'IPs', as they require more creative thought and detail from the creator. But the second aspect is harder for when it is based on a long running franchise, say Demonata or Pokemon or whatever. More essential information to cram in. After all, the blockbuster RPGs mentioned all were extremely detailed, with the general exception of IF and Outbreak, which had the right amount of detail. I think IF failed because of the fact most people find it more fun to have powers, which is somewhat true, becuase RPG restrictions made IF's PC combat boring and repetitive fast. Although I for one, am tired of power heavy based RPGs. They're simply too many, and RPGs like IF and Break Point seemed like a breath of fresh air to me, but not, apparently to CoT's majority of RPers.

Outbreak's failure is a mystery. Even to Alex, who is far more involved in that RPG than I am, me having the only human charrie there. =P

Of course that is one small aspect of this problem. I think we need to put all our heads together with all the problems and try to come up with possible solutions to crack this RPing slur.

In response to Robo, I also agree with that point. After Downfall's failure, I've stopped wanting to take ideas from franchises, as they may be easy to write and come up with ideas for, don't tend to do well unless they're popular among on BZP members, like Transformers or Pokemon.

Outbreak's failure is a mystery. Even to Alex, who is far more involved in that RPG than I am, me having the only human charrie there. =P

You can say that again. Outbreak's downfall is a mystery, but I intend to live up to my name as doctor and figure out what problem ills Outbreak before it dies and becomes little more than a memory.

My personal opinion on the state of RPGs? Sorry, failsome, and crazy. Outbreak, Reality, Downfall, they all where good RPGs. Downfall met its downfall () first, Outbreak is dying a slow death well kicking and screaming to its end, and Reality... meh. It'll die in peace, hopefully. But why do they die? My doctor self tells me that the bad RPGs have AIDs, and they spread their sickness to other RPGs like a cold virus in a closed room. Some RPGs are strong enough to stand up to it for a little while; but in the end, they all will die from it. My computer-virus-programing tells me that the COT RPGs will die off until a few remain, and we'll just have to start over.

This plauge can't be stopped, in my opinion. We just have to ride it out.

The best thing the judges can do is to stop permitting franchise based RPGs and force creativity.

No.

People can play what they want to play.

RPGs are dying left and right. The RPG giant, Reality, is closing its doors soon. Supposedly blockbuster hits like IF, Outbreak, Downfall, and Demonic Beginnings have all crashed and burned.

TSTW! is still going strong thanks to my elite cadre of loyal RPers. Oh yeah!

If is dying because you're ignoring it Exo. You did the same thing with Abyss, and that became chaotic. Currently we're in the middle of some sort of Native invasion with no idea what to do. So we don't do anything. The blame lies solely with you for being away so gosh darn much

Downfall was based around the Darren Shan Demonata books right? That's sort of a niche audience you got there. And even then you get people like me who've read the books but don't join the RPG (in my case because I felt it would get out of control really quickly)

Outbreak I think has just run its course. People have played it, had fun, but now they want something different.

Demonic Beginnings might have been too complicated for people to get into

RPGs are dying left and right. The RPG giant, Reality, is closing its doors soon. Supposedly blockbuster hits like IF, Outbreak, Downfall, and Demonic Beginnings have all crashed and burned.

TSTW! is still going strong thanks to my elite cadre of loyal RPers. Oh yeah!

 

This is true. TSTW remains strong.

 

If is dying because you're ignoring it Exo. You did the same thing with Abyss, and that became chaotic. Currently we're in the middle of some sort of Native invasion with no idea what to do. So we don't do anything. The blame lies solely with you for being away so gosh darn much

 

That's a large part of it. I posted IF at a very inopportune moment. It was a time when I should've realized that I no longer had as much time to RP as I once had. So, I'm letting it die, because it doesn't seem like it'll pick up speed even if I return. Perhaps I will retry later this year.

 

Abyss has the same issue. However, I'm doing stuff to fix it. I'm writing a recap that I hope will remove confusion, and I've called on members to help me by posting a summary of their recent activities.

 

Downfall was based around the Darren Shan Demonata books right? That's sort of a niche audience you got there. And even then you get people like me who've read the books but don't join the RPG (in my case because I felt it would get out of control really quickly)

 

I didn't join due to unfamiliarity with it. (Not for lack of trying) It certainly is very obscure.

 

Outbreak I think has just run its course. People have played it, had fun, but now they want something different.

 

Agreed. Sometime, Alex will need to let it die and take up a new brainchild.

 

Demonic Beginnings might have been too complicated for people to get into

 

This may very well be the case

We should never try to stifle originality, but review each game on their own merits. There have been many franchise games that were highly successful. DBZ, Pokemon, Naruto, and Star Wars come to mind.

Compared to big RPGs, mine would stand no chance.

Then again, let's think to the brighter side. If bigger RPGs closed down, then the smaller ones'll get noticed and people will broaden their horizons.

I knew that a small portion of the small amount of BZPers that have The Demonata would want to play. I did everything I could to make it non Demonata fan freindly. That, I thought, was one of its strengths.

Or you could just let things happen. If they die, then they die, tough luck, cry, and move on. I mean, the time you devote here trying to 'find a cure' makes it sound like it's frickin' cancer or something. Just play your RPGs, have fun, and if they die...

...

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Make another one. =O

If is dying because you're ignoring it Exo. You did the same thing with Abyss, and that became chaotic. Currently we're in the middle of some sort of Native invasion with no idea what to do. So we don't do anything. The blame lies solely with you for being away so gosh darn much

Or you could just let things happen. If they die, then they die, tough luck, cry, and move on. I mean, the time you devote here trying to 'find a cure' makes it sound like it's frickin' cancer or something. Just play your RPGs, have fun, and if they die...

 

...

...

 

Make another one. =O

I don't know if that was aimed at me or Exo, but I'll go with me.

I'm not going write up a huge logical paragraph. All I'm going to say is this; I care for my RPGs, and I'll fight to find something that can save them. If there is no cure, then I let them die.

I let Outbreak I die when I saw no cure, and I just made Outbreak II. If this was aimed at me, you're argument has no effected on me. If it was aimed at Exo... I can't speak for him.

So rather than nourish other stuff like school or whatever, you're going to treat it like it's an ailing baby?

I am already nourishing other stuff like school. I'm doing extra work. I run quite often, so I have a sport to take up my time too.

This is what I do when I'm bored and have nothing really to do. And that happens quite alot.

Well, I think we were deluding ourselves if we ever thought that these RPGs would last together. Especially with Reality, the warning signs were manifest a while before it ended. We knew Robo had a busy life, but we seemed to think that Reality would be invincible to the necessary pruning that would inevitably take place.

Some RPGs failed because they grew in the shadows of giants like Reality. I didn't have time to join Demonic Beginnings, or If, or any of the others, because I was busy with everything else I was doing.

I think the best thing we can do is keep plugging away with what we've been doing - junk RPGs will come, and junk RPGs will go. Masterpieces will come, and yes, they too will go. Except that Reality is going to be saved to my CPU's memory at the next available opportunity. I think it, alone amongst RPGs, has had a profound enough impact on myself and COT in general to deserve a permanent memorial.