For Roleplayers... A few questions on preferences

[MisforM]

So I've been around the block a few times, and I've seen just about every site there is to see. I want to know what everyone here prefers when it comes to things within their roleplay sites, whether its the most common thing on sites or not. Basically, if you were going to make the perfect site just for you (NOT taking into account what is popular, only what you prefer), what are your answers to these questions?


What is the best way to set up a roleplay forum in regards to how accounts work?

On a roleplay site, when you visit or create it, what sort of chat do you prefer?

When viewing a site, which of the following are the most pleasing?

Feel free to click the links and answer on strawpoll, or add your two cents here in this thread... or both. Both is good.

[Kami]

Jun 12, 2022 14:15:07 GMT -8 MisforM said:

So I've been around the block a few times, and I've seen just about every site there is to see. I want to know what everyone here prefers when it comes to things within their roleplay sites, whether its the most common thing on sites or not. Basically, if you were going to make the perfect site just for you (NOT taking into account what is popular, only what you prefer), what are your answers to these questions?


What is the best way to set up a roleplay forum in regards to how accounts work?

On a roleplay site, when you visit or create it, what sort of chat do you prefer?

When viewing a site, which of the following are the most pleasing?

Feel free to click the links and answer on strawpoll, or add your two cents here in this thread... or both. Both is good.

Not to be That Person but I don't think there is a "best" way to set things up, personally. My preferences aren't necessarily the best, simply what I prefer. But to answer:

1. I prefer OOC + IC accounts. I used to be ride or die 1 account for everything but it got a lot more difficult as time went on / as the forums I were on grew in size to keep every individual user's OCs sorted.

2. I don't like chat. It's a forum, there are threads. What incentive do people have to RP / post in OOC areas if there's a chat sitting there? But, since other people seem to find it a requirement, I like either slack or discord, though the latter has better bot tools.

3. None of the above. I don't have a preference on how a site looks (as a user) as long as everything is legible. For my own forums though, I design & code everything to be accessible & fully mobile responsive.

[MisforM]

Jun 13, 2022 7:00:27 GMT -8 Kami said:

Not to be That Person but I don't think there is a "best" way to set things up, personally. My preferences aren't necessarily the best, simply what I prefer. But to answer:

1. I prefer OOC + IC accounts. I used to be ride or die 1 account for everything but it got a lot more difficult as time went on / as the forums I were on grew in size to keep every individual user's OCs sorted.

2. I don't like chat. It's a forum, there are threads. What incentive do people have to RP / post in OOC areas if there's a chat sitting there? But, since other people seem to find it a requirement, I like either slack or discord, though the latter has better bot tools.

3. None of the above. I don't have a preference on how a site looks (as a user) as long as everything is legible. For my own forums though, I design & code everything to be accessible & fully mobile responsive.

Oh no worries - I don't believe there is a best way either, I was just wanting know what people individually thought. I did forget to answer these questions myself, so here's my own answers. 

1. IC accounts, or OOC + IC accounts. Both work for me, though sometimes I feel like the OOC account gets wasted if you don't post OOC often enough. Plus, if you reply to a plotter as Character B, but its the plotter for Character A, usually one tags it with the two characters first then puts the plot below it. However, it can confuse people like 'why are you plotting for Character A' before realizing they play both A and B.

2. I don't care for any of the chats we currently have. I haven't heard of slack but I looked it up and looks nice. When it comes to cbox.ws, it feels old school and for some features that are already available in other chats you have to pay. Free is always better. I like having a chat though because then at least you can get to know the other players and not just the characters. 

3. If making a site, I usually do a premade and try to make it look unique because cookie-cutter sites are not as attractive as they might seem. Colors make a big difference. I just am not creative enough to come up with a good look, though I have the coding skills. I've converted skins meant for different platforms before and they look great. As a user, simple but custom used to attract me, but accessible and sleek and premade have been my favorites lately. 

[aineevenfall]

My results are in the vote, but I'll answer here as well.

What is the best way to set up a roleplay forum in regards to how accounts work?
I prefer separate IC accounts with the option to make an OOC account. If it's a site that I feel inclined to do a lot of OOC activity on, I definitely prefer to have a designated OOC account for that content.

On a roleplay site, when you visit or create it, what sort of chat do you prefer?
I agree with Kami on this one. I actually prefer no chat at all. But, that is by far the unpopular opinion! If there was to be a chat on the site, I would prefer something that is only accessible via the site. IMO, from many personal experiences, Discord really takes the members off the site in the long-run and hurts the longevity of the site's activity/run.

When viewing a site, which of the following are the most pleasing?
I have to admit that the AAA quality site themes that have been coming out for a lot of RP sites lately are super amazing and yet super intimidating at the same time. I find myself more inclined to join sites whose theme doesn't intimidate me. Which is sad, because I love the creativity of these hardworking individuals. The themes are amazing. Color preference, I'd either choose a Mixed theme or Light theme. Again the unpopular opinion, but dark themes have always hurt my eyes. I guess because most other general browsing sites on the web are typically light themed. I like image representation on the site but I love a description of the area more than the image.

[Adira]

Sadly, I can't participate in the poll because I'm Aine's roommate so we have the same IP. But I thought I'd write in here since she read me her reply and I thought I'd join in.

What is the best way to set up a roleplay forum in regards to how accounts work?
This one is kind of hard personally for me. On one hand, I like the OOC accounts + Character accounts. But I also like single accounts (which I think is pretty unpopular by this point???). I'm salty though about the first option since even though I like it, it feels like a waste because people from my past experience (before I quit rping) never did anything on the board anymore. They just chatted in discord, and posted in topics once a month (bit of an exaggeration but you get the point). So what's the point, why bother having multiple accounts just throw everything under one head, then it'll be even less work for members to do since that's what they seem to value these days.

On a roleplay site, when you visit or create it, what sort of chat do you prefer?
Again, I really don't know. Any type of chat sucks the life out of a forum, it's probably why this place doesn't have one. But discord for me is the worst. 99% of everything is on discord these days, so it's made the life/existence of an actual forum feel really moot point. It just creates a wall in your community because you'll always have those not comfortable with using discord and those who pretty much solely live in discord, so the two parties will never meet. I think ultimately, it would be awesome if proboards implemented some kind of notification on the side that popped up without the need to refresh, that way you could see when people replied to your things more easy. But for now, no chat is my vote since they usually are just a place for people to sit and talk rather than write. Not to say people can't talk, connect with people on site and then give your discord, and chat there.

When viewing a site, which of the following are the most pleasing?
I like beautiful but simple. The ones that have 10,000 things going on make my head spin, they can be super overwhelming and so I just avoid them.

I like lighter themes/medium themes, not dark. I find dark themes really depressing, like I'm just in darkness all the time with no light, lol. Seriously though it's how it makes me feel. I know it's an unpopular opinion.

For information...it depends. If a site has nothing but pictures/no effort at all put into it. Then I'll join it as a spoof site, something I know isn't going to last nor am I going to bother putting any effort into it.

But if I'm in the mood, and find a site that has a good amount of text (never a monumental amount) and pictures alike in it. I tend to take it more seriously and after putting effort forward into reading everything it makes me try harder for it to work out. Again this is unpopular, so I wouldn't take any of my answers into account if you want a successful site; at least in 2022 because the criteria will always change with the times. 👌

[MisforM]

So far what I've gathered is the following:

While seeming unpopular, no chat seems to be the choice for most people. Honestly I can agree with the point of it sucking activity out of the site, especially with discord or anything outside of the site itself. After all, this is for roleplaying sites and not for general chat sites. 

OOC + Separate accounts per character seems to be so far the popular opinion, which I honestly expected. Though, I don't see many RP sites with specifically OOC accounts much and only the separate accounts per character. Regardless, OOC accounts are very nice imo and can help prevent confusion. 

Finally, lighter themes that while simple contain a good balance between text and pictures. It's interesting because when I was younger I much preferred darker themes but nowadays I've been gravitating towards medium to light themes. Perhaps its a thing with getting older... oh dang... I've been RPing for 13 years so age is bound to catch up with me. 

As a hopefully future scientist, collecting the opinions and comparing them to the sites I see is very interesting. Most people who would post on this thread are likely admins of at least one RP site, I would assume at least. I do hope to collect some more opinions as time goes on and see what more think. Unfortunately 3-4 opinions is not a very good sample size, but those 3-4 people care enough to respond to a thread like this which can help broaden the scope.