- Joined
- Nov 27, 2005
- Messages
- 67,946
- Reaction score
- 3,859
- Staff
- #1
Hi everyone,
In the last week of being more involved in the site, I’ve gotten up to speed on the state of the timeline and the state of the site through conversations with staff, reviewing the site survey results, and conducting a staff survey for admins and mods to give me their feedback on what’s working and what’s not.
After doing so, I have come to a decision that I want to talk to you all about today.
We are canceling the previously-announced time skip, kicking off a review and revamp of the site’s rules and systems to make them more user-friendly, and, by December, launching a brand new timeline in lieu of a time skip.
Before getting into the plan, I want to first address my reasons for deciding to cancel the time skip and bring some transparency to what the planning of it has looked like so far:
However, I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have now.
In the last week of being more involved in the site, I’ve gotten up to speed on the state of the timeline and the state of the site through conversations with staff, reviewing the site survey results, and conducting a staff survey for admins and mods to give me their feedback on what’s working and what’s not.
After doing so, I have come to a decision that I want to talk to you all about today.
We are canceling the previously-announced time skip, kicking off a review and revamp of the site’s rules and systems to make them more user-friendly, and, by December, launching a brand new timeline in lieu of a time skip.
Before getting into the plan, I want to first address my reasons for deciding to cancel the time skip and bring some transparency to what the planning of it has looked like so far:
- First and foremost, I’ve found a staff team that’s pretty burned out by the current timeline. That echoes what I’ve seen from a lot of members as well. Although people are always attached to their characters, there doesn’t seem to be much drive to continue an overall site storyline for this timeline. The setting feels uninspired, and a 10 year time skip to the same era won’t change that.
- The time skip was largely the brainchild of one admin and, because of burnout with the timeline, not many admins or mods have been involved in planning for it. The intention was to launch it by August 31st, but the staff has been largely unengaged with the process of planning it. That reflects the lack of drive to continue this timeline.
- The premise with the Mind Invaders would have required extensive staff involvement in order to drive that plot, which won’t work with a staff that’s burned out on this timeline. I also don’t think the plot would have energized the community enough to fix the burnout currently in the timeline.
- Time skips rarely work, in my experience. Quite often they become last-ditch efforts to resuscitate a stagnating timeline and, after an initial burst of activity, the status quo of burnout is restored and we inevitably change the timeline not long after.
- Survey feedback from users and staff alike tells me that the site is too rules heavy, and that we added rule after rule to address one off problems to the point that the site is now bogged down in them. The site clearly needs an overhaul in terms of rules, and the current schedule for the time skip (only 28 days from now) is not enough time to really overhaul the site.
- Step One. Cancel the time skip and announce this commencement of a site overhaul. Between now and whenever the timeline change is, I encourage you to continue RPing your characters and pursue plots. We will also create site events to help keep activity going. It will be several more months until the timeline change, so you have plenty of time to keep playing your characters.
- Step Two. Commence a review of site rules and systems. This will be done independently of planning the story for the timeline change. The intention is to build an Operating System, for lack of a better term, that any story can be applied to. We will strive to create a ruleset that can have tweaks and amendments here and there, but should largely be stable for the foreseeable future and support any timelines we have moving forward.
- Step Three. Collaborate with members and staff to create the story of the next timeline and launch it prior to the release of The Rise of Skywalker. The goal will be to create a timeline that fits into the site’s canon but allows for easier access to storytelling. This means it will be less reliant on new members being Star Wars experts. We’ll also be looking at what made previously successful timelines work well and see if there are themes that we can replicate. Between an accessible and compelling storyline and a less complicated ruleset, anyone should be able to jump in.
However, I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have now.