Good things only get better over time. Fine wine. Ripe cheese. Artists -- whether they be musician, painter, writer -- they seem to mellow and actually improve with age. The same might be said of longevity in the world of interactive storytelling where the group of writers and players have grown comfortable and close-knit over long periods of time. At least in an ideal world.
Sadly, for the vast majority of subscribers to internet role playing venues, the opposite is often true and over time you begin to realize you're surrounded by a lot of really miserable and obnoxious people who love to spread their disease around. Or the chronic underachievers who've never improved their ability to even write a coherent sentence. Makes you often wonder what it is about a text-based medium that attracts the illiterate.
So there I was, taking a personal assessment after twelve long years dedicated to a particular site with their own ftp storage, user-friendly chat rooms, nifty little profiles to manipulate with my own html creations, etc. But all around me were the same, disgruntled people, who year after year and year had never much improved their storytelling ability, their grammar, or their general outlook on why we even log in to the internet at all.
That's when a friend and I got together and began hunting search engines and toplists for other places where we might join a role play community and search for people who were like us. You know, the kind who want to write great stories and have lots of fun doing it.
Well, we searched and searched. And we finally joined one we thought looked pretty cool. Lots of member names listed, and a nicely written creed on the front page regarding a genuine love for great writers and storytellers. That was us! And my friend and I made the plunge.. leaving our old site of more than a decade behind.
On the new site we wrote for months. We wrote our hearts out. And though we got several pats on the back for writing in a style they'd never seen before, less than a handful bothered to come write with us. On top of that, I realized that much of the community there was not so very different from the one we'd left. A lot due to mere complacency and a lack of interest on the part of the staff. And a few people who were.. well.. a bit obnoxious and rude.
So, there we were back to square one again. Should we leave and look for a new site? Or..
How about we just create our own site! With chat rooms and forums and everything! It was the million dollar question, really -- what would you do differently if you had your own site?
Sadly, for the vast majority of subscribers to internet role playing venues, the opposite is often true and over time you begin to realize you're surrounded by a lot of really miserable and obnoxious people who love to spread their disease around. Or the chronic underachievers who've never improved their ability to even write a coherent sentence. Makes you often wonder what it is about a text-based medium that attracts the illiterate.
So there I was, taking a personal assessment after twelve long years dedicated to a particular site with their own ftp storage, user-friendly chat rooms, nifty little profiles to manipulate with my own html creations, etc. But all around me were the same, disgruntled people, who year after year and year had never much improved their storytelling ability, their grammar, or their general outlook on why we even log in to the internet at all.
That's when a friend and I got together and began hunting search engines and toplists for other places where we might join a role play community and search for people who were like us. You know, the kind who want to write great stories and have lots of fun doing it.
Well, we searched and searched. And we finally joined one we thought looked pretty cool. Lots of member names listed, and a nicely written creed on the front page regarding a genuine love for great writers and storytellers. That was us! And my friend and I made the plunge.. leaving our old site of more than a decade behind.
On the new site we wrote for months. We wrote our hearts out. And though we got several pats on the back for writing in a style they'd never seen before, less than a handful bothered to come write with us. On top of that, I realized that much of the community there was not so very different from the one we'd left. A lot due to mere complacency and a lack of interest on the part of the staff. And a few people who were.. well.. a bit obnoxious and rude.
So, there we were back to square one again. Should we leave and look for a new site? Or..
How about we just create our own site! With chat rooms and forums and everything! It was the million dollar question, really -- what would you do differently if you had your own site?
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment