Bringing URPG back to its former glory

Alright, so this has definitely been a recurring discussion on AIM for probably years by this stage, but I feel like it's most relevant the last few months. Honestly, URPG has hit quite a dry spell. There are probably about two members leaving for good if not long periods of time for every new member we get that sticks around. The last new member to actively become a part of URPG was months ago. Maybe none since last summer even? The URPG has survived so long and it's really brought me a lot of happiness and entertainment throughout the years, and not to mention how intricate and expanded and pretty much perfected the battling sim aspect of it is. The ultradex, the calcs, the refpedia, the vast expanse of knowledge most refs have is really impressive. The stories section has spurned out some pieces that could not just be published, but actually really help pave someone's career as a writer. The community that have all gravitated around one central thing important to us all, Pokemon, has built some incredible friendships and learning experiences.

Please, let's give other people the opportunities we got.

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There's been a lot of feedback on this on AIM and I really think everyone involved in the URPG now should have their say and weigh in on what they think on some of these issues. I'm going to keep this brief for now because I don't want to influence other people's thoughts, but I really want to see everyone's opinions on these things and the future direction of this community.

• The transition from getting your starter to meeting the community is not worth the effort. Any aspiring members have to browse the forum to find the URPG (the little subheading near the bottom) to even notice the URPG. They have to find the in-depth rules which they are heavily encouraged to read before posting anything, pick their starter, create a templated stats thread, discover that most of the URPG happens on AIM (and skype for discussions too), create an AIM account, contact a moderator to ask to join, and only then when they've done all of this do they stumble across any real trace of the community. That's a lot of work before any reward.
  
• The RPG part of URPG is misleading. Although there are RP aspects, this is pretty misleading imo. I distinctly remember a gang of about 20 or so people who were very invested in the RP forum here all joining the URPG in the BMG expansion. They all left within a few weeks max, probably disappointed with what this RP had to offer. The Park was under reconstruction then, but it is very seldom used to be able to roleplay. More to capture Pokemon for battles.
  
• Expand your horizons is vague and doesn't surmise the URPG very well.
  
• To anyone without access to the staff boards, the Moderators seem inactive. I know they have lives. I know that they have all committed themselves so much to the URPG throughout the years. Even if they're working behind the scenes, I just think a bit of face-time would really help. And, if a mod wants to leave, they really shouldn't be guilt-tripped into staying (in any forum, not urpg-exclusive by any means).
  
• The URPG is very battle-based. I know Smiles and Blue are working hard to develop the other areas, but I think advertising the battles aspect as the URPG stands now would be very effective in attracting members from other subforums. BMG has always had a high interest in showdown.
  
• The very untrue myth that BMG Mods hate the URPG. This is absolutely untrue. I was a Mod for quite a while. I saw every discussion thread about the URPG. There is no bad blood between us and the rest of the forum. It's very easy to see us as insulated if anything as people who URPG are rarely involved in other sections of the forum and vice-versa. I know mods have been contacted before about section collabing and things, but if we're gonna do it, we really do need to go all out for it to work.
  
• Is the URPG on too many forums? Three forums with two mostly inactive and the third heading that way isn't good. I know people who originated on PWN love that forum and don't want to see it die since the URPG has really helped it, but it kinda feels like dead-weight for me anyway. PWN gave Felly, Smiles and possibly a few other dedicated members! PXR, none really come to mind unfortunately. I'm not saying that we should cut all ties or anything. But it feels like we're half using those resources at best.
  
• BMG has several thousand active members. There are 10-15 who are active in the URPG from BMG I'd guess. We really gotta make use of this resource. I can definitely try work some strings but we'd need a definitive plan first. No half-assing.
  
• Older members aren't introducing newer members. There was a time when as soon as you signed up, you got some VMs from helpful members wishing you the ebst of luck, and advice, and what not. We should really get back on this!
  
• General disinterest in battling and reffing. This ebbs and flows to be honest. I don't feel as though it's so bad these days, but I really don't have high hopes for when the summer ends and school starts back up.

THERE ARE SO MANY TOPICS HERE, WITH A LOT OF OVERLAP. AND PEOPLE PROBABLY HAVE A TON MORE. PLEASE CAN WE GET SOME HEALTHY DISCUSSION GOING AND TRY GET URPG BACK UP ON ITS FEET. THIS IS A BIG ANNIVERSARY, LET'S MAKE IT COUNT WOOOO.



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Edit: so during my shower I was thinking of things that make the URPG so great, and there's definitely a common denominator (yay maths): the sense of community. That's when the URPG is at its upmost. This has been achieved in the past through FFAs, Tourneys, TinyChat, The Quote thread, iSketch, etc. This would be a great thing to work on - for instance we could have a urpg photo album thread where people post photos of themselves (or even a drawing of themselves if they want!) and weekly games nights where we do things like Cards against Humanity, Board Game Online, Transformice and iSketch, among all the other URPG fads throughout the years.

 

It's obviously a radical and some might argue extreme measure but I like the idea of re-branding and re-advertising the URPG, without a doubt the RPG aspect of the name was a definite put off for the first few months of me joining bmg because I was never a fan of role playing and I only signed up because I clicked on someones stats that were advertised in their sig.

Had the name involved something to better represent it's battling aspect I would have joined much sooner and I have no doubt that RPG is putting off people who don't want to invest time on reading up on the urpg


Also deffo change the "expand your horizons"

 

^ This.

The sense of community is what URPG is all about.

Once upon a time, I was a young newbie looking around the PE2k forum for some advice on the gameboy games. I looked around the forum, saw the URPG, thought "yuck", found the answer to my question and left.
Several months later I came back to PE2k with a new question, and in getting replies I started getting in touch with other forum members and started to enjoy the PE2k community. It was not until several months more, when all the PE2k friends I had were talking about this URPG thing, that I started looking at URPG again and this time joined, leading to 8+ years of immense fun.

Now, I hardly know anyone around here. I can still talk strategy with the proper resources on the latest generation by my side, but it just isn't as fun anymore because the active people are not the friends I talked with, interacted with, had fun with and became friends with for so many years. I genuinely feel sad nowadays when I visit URPG, purely because I remember it as a fun time with great friends, and now that they are all gone URPG just seems empty and pointless to me personally. I can battle, but it's nothing compared to the friendships I had here.

Constructively, I think the relation with the hosting forum(s) is massively important. When I joined URPG when it was hosted at PE2k only, URPG was a big part of PE2k. A lot of the active URPG participants and leaders were active PE2k'ers and PE2k moderators too, and vice versa. It was really hard to be a PE2k member and not have had a look at URPG. Wherever URPG is based, I think the leaders must try to make it more part of the entire forum community, rather than just be a subsection.

Also, totally agree on the role-playing aspect in the name being misplaced.

 

Ill admit I havent been active like Ive wanted to be. With my phone being spotty and then quitting working altogether, I havent been able to get on aim in 2-3 weeks now.

When I was on, I had talked to somebody about promoting the URPG on facebook groups, and they said go for it. (I cant remember who it was haha, prolly ash)

Anyways, I messeged the admins of a couple groups and got the ok to promote, but then when I was typing a generic post, I wasnt sure what thread/s to link to on here. Theres so many different aspects to here it would be nice if they were all at least briefly talked about in one big thread.

As for older members introducing news, I remember when I joined I probably had 15-20 people offering to help me get started. I think thats what helped me the most stick around like I did.

Also the social aspect helped a ton. Just going off of the ones you named,90% of the time i was on aim I was also on Tinychat/Isketch. Back when I was super active I was going through some hard stuff IRL, and URPG was a place where I could come and vent if needbe or just get away from it all and battle/run around in park.

Ill be back with more I bet, but its hard typing on mobile.

 

This is such a powerful thread, Synnamon! n~n I'm going to attack one part first.

and

From the outside looking in, the URPG is a very self-sustaining system. They have their own mods, own leader, own way of doing things, own game calendar, etc. There's a general sense of confusion about what the staff team of a forum can actually host for the URPG, concerning events and activities, as it might interfere with something else that the mods of URPG are planning. Then there's a general sense of confusion about how to implement these events. Say if I wanted to host an Art Competition for PWN, that only URPG members can enter, I'd talk to Monbrey and get approval. And then we'd have to discuss appropriate art prizes and time schedules and would he be willing to help run it, is it fair that members can only participate on PWN, etc.

You find that a) events organized by two staff teams can become slightly confusing and b) the URPG prolly has its own events ready to be run, anyway, so let's move on and organize events for different parts of our forum.

I think some general clarification about where the forum staff stands in regards to the URPG staff would help out a lot. What the forum staff can and can't do, etc. Open up the communication between the staff of URPG and the staff of the forums and we'll go very, very far.

The URPG is definitely a self-sustaining system in terms of its members, as well. It's one thing to ask the leaders to make the URPG part of the whole forum (and definitely an important thing to ask), but it's another thing to lead by example.

Get involved in the forums that host the URPG instead of just visiting that one subsection. Participate in our events, talk to our members, post in threads, etc. Ash, Bluey, Tychiel, Winter, VM, Proto, and Comm are examples of members who've done an excellent job of that and are actually a part of our community rather than just a part of the URPG. When the URPG as a whole participates in the entirety of the forum, it makes it so that non-URPGers will definitely get more excited about URPG and see what it's all about. Greet new members and tell them all about the URPG and how much fun it is! If we all work a little harder, we could make BMG, PWN, and PXR a URPG haven where everyone know's what URPG is and is dying to join it. It becomes easier to organize events and the two communities become one.

In regards to BMG and PXR, I know I haven't been the prime example of that. But I'm willing to start trying now if you are.

Also, note that we're reached a fascinating time on PWN where 5/6 of our staff are actively involved in the URPG. Take advantage of that, get excited in our forum and forum happenings, and you never know where that activity and interest will take us in regards to events and improving URPG - forum relations.

 

Going to reply to this piece by piece, whether or not you care what I have to say. Comments in blue.

Possibly more later, but in general I see a lot of problems and no suggestions on how to fix them.

 

yo Ash just a heads up: those were discussion points and not things to try turn at me "well i don't see YOU doing any of this".

Also, you're completely wrong regarding HiPS. As in, couldn't be more wrong. He left because of people in the URPG and nothing to do with staff saying anything to him. HiPS "got blamed for every wrongdoing of URPGers on BMG," is the kind of thing that people have said again and again and how the BMG mods hate us etc. when in fact so many have been really helpful and supportive in attempts to promote the URPG and give it its own reign, even in recent times.

 

I was thinking last night about this and came up with a point I haven't seen anyone else mention and that's how we expect newbies to jump right in and dedicate their free time to urpg while neglecting those who come to the forum for actual pokemon forum content.

We need to start doing more forum battles, downloading aim and making an account is a pretty big commitment for a user that joined up out of curiosity and never planned to dedicate all their free time to urpg, by revitalising the forum battle section we can show them that people are actively battling since from the outside looking in the urpg is just a couple of people posting in selected threads and not a battle rpg. Forum battling is the best way for a casual forum lurker that signed up out of curiosity to get themselves interested in the urpg since it means they can just post in their own time while browsing the forums and then when they get a taste for it they'll want to do it faster

also this kinda goes hand in hand with the arguement that urpg does not associate with users unless they get aim. Commander Hobbes requested a starter, posted in trainer station and hasn't done anything since because no one has responded

 

Well, sorry for believing what Hide in Plain Sight told me when he quit then. And thank you for completely ignoring every suggestion I made, only focusing on where I pointed out you're saying people should be doing something that you yourself are not but some other people are.

 

Lime green Purple font because I'm just so cool like that.

wow I talk a lot. ._.

EDIT: ew that color was terrible

 

Okay so there are two things I think I could comment in here (besides how my amazing tourney league would boost activity )

1. It seems that most other places like URPG give the trainers a little more of a start-up, namely 3 Pokémon rather than a single starter. I understand that with marts URPG makes it relatively easy to get new mons, but it'd speed up the jump into competitive battling if you could immediately have a team of three.

2. As it stands if I wrote 50K for a Sandile I'd get the same Pokémon as one given to someone who wrote 10K on the dot. Maybe a system could be put in place so that if you wrote x percent above the word limit you'd get x number of EMs in the mon you caught, and you could also give x EMs for quality. This would both benefit writing longer and better stories but also speed up the improving of Pokémon so that new players weren't immediately rolled over by Ash more Senior trainers.

 

I really don't have the time for a measured response at the moment, but one thing I'd like to point out in regards to Fawkes point about Forum Battles death causing a good portion of the slump in new membership retention:

If I recall, BMGf has an IRC chat thing built into the forum itself, does it not? I think it wouldn't be a terrible idea to start using that as opposed to AIM. I believe we had done an auction or two there when URPG first came to BMGf and at the time, all I could think was "Why are we not using this already?". It doesn't require anything further than being registered at BMGf and it functions like a more complete version of the AIM Blast chats. Just my two cents, I'll return with my dollar bills later =P

EDIT: More on chats and whatnot: People really need to stop being shitheads in the URPG endorsed chats. A certain level of behavior has become acceptable in there, but we really should be more careful about what we say (I'm just as guilty of this as most other people) because it can really turn off some of the new members we ACTUALLY get on AIM. We're up to four cents now.

 

I gave this topic thought when/after I posted a similar thread in staff many moons ago (though it was more me whining about my problems/disinterest and not really offering any solutions lol). anyway, at this point, I'm not sure there's a way to "force" a fix upon it. I think it's all dependent on activity and to a lesser extent community, and while we can encourage those things a bit through events/exposure/etc, most of it is out of our control. If only a few people want to play the game, then only a few people want to play the game and you're going to have a hard time convincing new people to join given such low activity.

Maybe the three forums URPG has aren't that active on their own, but I mean it's still three forums (compared to URPG's "former glory" when it was PE2K exclusive or basically BMG exclusive alongside a dead/dying PE2K), so exposure probably isn't the main problem. The rate of events could be increased a bit given their current rate, but again, if nobody wants to play the game, increasing events isn't going to do a whole lot even if you run them often. And personally, I never thought of events as that big a deal in my URPG experience.

Personally, what drew me in and kept me in URPG was, in this order: 1) internet friends, 2) beating gyms, 3) getting/having Pokemon and TMs and stuff. You rarely get number one right off the bat (it takes time to naturally make friends worth staying around for and you can't force this by being nice or some shit), and two and three represent a steep slope for any new user to buy into when they're starting out with one basic and 5k or whatever it is. That's been the core of URPG's appeal for I'd say the majority of users (and I assume the other sections carry staying power for a handful of people too) and that's the way it's been for a long time. We all stuck around for URPG with that. It's just that nobody new is doing that now, and as activity declines overall, it's going to be hard to convince new members to hang around when the battle section is dead-ish and there's not a whole lot of people to talk to.

If we're talking about "reviving URPG", making sure it gets and keeps its new members is the most important part. We can't really control that, I think. Do what you will with the sections of URPG and even its image/branding/exposure, but ultimately, it takes activity and community to build more activity and community, and you can't really force or control that.

tl;dr i think urpg is fucked until the next random activity surge, there goes my chances of getting this post liked

edit: okay i'll give some suggestions

Spoiler

1. like, if you want, do some battling and shit so there's battles and shit going on and URPG at least looks active-ish
2. I like litrjalgjrlagj's suggestion of increasing the number of starters you get. generally I don't like change and I started with one starter and I was fine so why do new people get 3 or some BS, but at the same time, this helps with the challenge of getting started.
3. also related with getting started, I want to find some way of making it easier to get TMs, at least for newer members. grinding for money/TMs should take a lot of time so that we're not getting everything we want when we want it, but it's a significantly less imposing task when you've already developed a roster of some TM'd-enough-to-be-competitive Pokemon versus when you're starting with no URPG job, one Pokemon and only enough money for like one or two TMs. I'd like to give new members enough of a push out of the gate that the idea of being good at URPG can hook them into staying.

 

Tbh nitro I think we're on the right track to increased activity rather than waiting. At the very least if we all try and encourage forum members to stick around through vms/pms/invites, have more fun non-urpg activities like tinychat, fun urpg activities like ffas and auctions, take part in all the forums in other sections and if we can get the ball rolling with people wanting to get gyms and badges, win story comps, be the champ and other urpg successes, the URPG will definitely have increased activity and interest.

That being said, these are the kind of things that all ignite each other. If three people are racing to get badges or lots of posts on forums or whatever then they'll encourage more. I'm personally gonna do more ffas, do the urpg times today hopefully, post on pxr and do some isketch/tinychat/cah tonight. Oh and ofc become the champ in due time.

what will YOU do???

E: a gym roll call probably would help too

 

log on aim to talk to fd

(but i editted my earlier post with some suggestions so it doens't look like a waste of a post)

 

Beeg words tiny baby man.

Also, Pidge has ignored my last two VMs sooo...

 

Regarding the option for getting EM's for additional characters, I feel like this would at some level encourage padding, which is gross and obnoxious and actually somewhat discouraged. Not sure if there's an easy, qualitative way to say "you did go write more and it was clearly good more rather than obnoxiously long sentences like this one that could've stopped at least thirty words ago."

I remember @WinterVines; mentioning making suggestions for something to this affect, though?

 

Okay. So my answers will be in red. Hold on to your hats, it's gonna be a long post. Before I post the long answers, here are my suggestions:

1. Give URPG its own online-hosted chat instead of using AIM. It's too much of a hassle.
2. More rewards available to new users. Make EMs easier to obtain, and Pokemon harder.
3. Let the Park have more freedom, somehow! We need plot, we need something DIFFERENT. I don't know what but I'm sure someone will have ideas!
4. Make the URPG slogan something different, for sure. "Be the best trainer you can be". I dunno.
5. Let moderators come up with brilliant, new ideas to implement. Encourage event planning. Give them feedback and motivation, give them DIRECTION! The active mods we do have are good, but I feel like people get burnt out so easily here because there's too much to do and it's a thankless job.
6. Can we PLEASE make URPG more than just battling?! Smiles and BlueTowel are coming up with ideas, let's implement some of them! Someone make their ideas a reality.
7. MODERATE THE BLAST CHATS BETTER. For God's sake. Don't let people spam, stop people from spreading rumors and saying unprofessional things about mods or other members on URPG, stop people from bullying or making inappropriate comments, make people feel comfortable about anonymously reporting harrassment. FIX THE CHAT. It's one of our ugliest problems.
8. Create a URPG welcoming committee. Friendly people to say hello to new members, help them with the rules, start them off on the right foot. It works on other forums extremely well and would encourage people to stay.

Synthesis's original post:

Spoiler

In response to WTP:

Spoiler

In response to Elysia:

Spoiler

 

I like the idea of using the BMGf IRC thing. All it requires is an updated Java client, really. You can also use other external clients, on your computer and mobile, and they're free. You'd have to download things on your mobile device, obviously (but you kids probably do that anyways :0), but on your computer, the Bulbagarden IRC thing just requires an updated Java, and if you don't feel like doing that, there's other online-based clients that you can use as well. One can also download an IRC client to use, but it's not mandatory to use it at all. I think the only restriction with the BMGf IRC is that you can only go on Bulbagarden based channels, but I could be wrong there as I don't use the one on the site to access IRC; I use a separate program altogether.

But yes, the IRC is cool, and we should be able to do what we do on AIM and more. c: If we do end up using the IRC, I'd be willing to write up a simple guide as to how to use it~ It wouldn't be too hard at all.

 

Coming from someone who spends most of their time in chat, I honestly don't think the chat is as toxic as you make it out to be proto and to a lesser extent wtp, I'm sure others would agree but maybe i'm just numbed to it, but I guess [General] should be a thing again if people are so worried