consider the following.

[Deleted]

hello!

most of you won't know me, but i'll keep introductions brief nonetheless. i rp'd here actively between 2007 and 2014, and was a rp teacher, gm, assistant and moderator during that period. last time i posted it was to create this thread, which had the happy result of allowing people to train in the same thread without sacrificing a rp thread slot. true, i haven't actually rp'd here in a long time, but as i virtually grew up on nfrp, i still stalk it often, and still have its best interests at heart.

who cares hoho okay fair enough bucko right you are. well, i might have an idea that will help you all out! i'm sure i'm not the only person who's thought of it, but i'm the only person i've seen post about it.

let's start with the basis. at any one time, how many of the villages are what you would consider to be 'active'? now sure, there might be tons of bios that we could dredge up to say, "technically __gakure has 20 people in it!", but i'm talking about devoted players who are actively attempting to roleplay with others, who are just itching for events, who are submitting training posts often; not merely those alts who appear during bonus events and such.

even back when i was rping actively, i remember the most frequent complaint i heard from kages was, "nobody in my village is actually on their main..." or, "i try to create activity, but there's just nobody around."

those of you who have been kages: how often have you crafted event ideas for your village members only for it to fall flat from lack of playerbase? village members, does it seem to you that there is hardly anyone else in the village you chose?

would you enjoy it if there were more?

from what i've observed - and correct me if i'm wrong, by all means! - it seems that at any one time, somewhere under half of the villages can meet the aforementioned 'active village' criteria. this has been a persistent theme for, well, years now. one could call it a problem and leave it at that, but here at kaizu incorporated, we prefer to focus on solutions.

could these problems be fixed by merging the minor villages into the major ones?

let's do the math: half as many villages, twice as many people in each. twice as many people to participate in events, twice as many people to interact with, twice as much cohesion, half as many tumbleweed-ridden ghost towns that people are reticent to join.

whoa whoa whoa, kid, i hear you say, logistics problems multiplying like rabbits in your mind, do you have any idea how much effort that would take? wouldn't it suck for like, a whole host of people? well, it would take a bit of effort in the short-term, certainly.

someone else could maybe come up with a better plan, but it would be roughly a case of: each minor village is assigned a major one to be dissolved into, whereby those from the minor villages would (at the most involved) have to resubmit their characters, merely replacing their allegiance from one title to another.

nobody would have to redact their pasts of course, seeing as down to almost the tiniest detail everything could feasibly have occurred inside the reassigned villages. the pre-existing kages from the merging villages could compete in a revote to decide whom the new kage will be, et cetera (with even those who have not yet revamped able to vote providing they meet other voting criteria).

after that initial roadbump, things ought to run more or less as they always have, only much more cohesive and healthily! the countries could still exist of course, simply without the villages being able to be signed up for by players. there are fringe issues like village-specific jutsu, but i'm sure decisions could be made about those as well. staff will have a much better idea of how to handle things like that than i will.

nfrp has always had ten villages! it's a part of its core identity! well, to quote the great rick sanchez: "scientifically, traditions are an idiot thing." no ok but for real, i get it. and probably many of you are attached to the village in which your character has lived for a year, or two years, or twelve. and honestly if i were still gunning for takigakure as hard as i was back in the day, i wouldn't want to give up that sick headband, because it's objectively the best.

but i'm sure if you consider the pros, you'll find they outweigh the cons. and seeing as the problem seems to be such a persistent one, it may be the only solution.

thoughts? am i an idiot? should i go back to my corner? you decide!

much love.

[Hon]

Ko here

tbh I don't really like the idea. I know the different villages can lack activity but it isn't as if there are 20183 villages. I personally find ten a reasonable amount, it allows the broadness of different regions and for more story telling. Nothing is stopping people meeting those from another village creating personal alliances or enemies or kagé working together to increase their activity in both mains and alts.

[The Bearer of Bad News]

and yet kochou, how often do you see this actually working? i've tried to work things out with stone under draven, mist under moon, and grass under aimi. consistently things have fallen through. so the least you can do is not be one of those guys - the flat-earthers, the climate change deniers, and so one. use your head, and acknowledge the population density IS an issue. as for if this is the way to address it? hard to say.

As a kage of a minor village, one which would be removed under this idea...i'm not inherently opposed, even though it would probably mean my being demoted in favor of a more popular inumbent. that doesn't mean im necessarily in favor though either. on a surface level, it seems like the simplest solution. as mentioned before though, it only appears simple. there is a host of logistical fuckery involved like you said, not to mention people potentially getting placed into villages they didn't want to join for whatever reason. village jutsu i don't think is that big of a deal in all honesty. theyre outdated as hell and all either useless or bonkers overpowered, so you could just as easily merge the two sets as just remove them all and it wouldn't make much difference.

ultimately i think this is a viable choice, but not a first choice. i havent seen any other viable ideas so far though, and don't have any of my own, so a credit to kaizu for even offering his take on what's sure to be an unpopular topic.

[👺 Usiel]

I'm sorry but I will not be fusing villages in. Too many people worked to gain stories within the respected villages. Having less villages will only have people coming in asking "Where's the other villages". Concentrating on only half of them doesn't feel right. We are still working on ways of getting and keeping more members, one of them was reducing requirements of gaining TP. We are also doing other events out of character and making that a thing now. I'm sorry but I will not be molding villages at this time.

[Nira]

That said, I wouldn't mind if any kages were willing to form a closer partnership.

There's a lot of emphasis on secrecy. Finding village gates is a bit of an ordeal, and locations are one of the grails on the site. Even so, I'm sure there's a compromise in here that's missing a single piece.

I know there's something that has been in the works for villages that opens up a lot of possibilities. I think there's a way to take the one extra step needed to interconnect villages that form alliances with each other.

So, with that vague promise, I'll see if I can make that extra step happen.

Thanks for taking the time to hop back here, kaizu! We appreciate the effort you put into thinking up and putting together this suggestion.

[Deleted]

everyone could still have their stories.

for the vast majority of the site's history villages were instantly being entirely terraformed with the instantiation of each new kage, which was often and has been numerous. if there are any characters left with intricate backstories threading back before the changes, what about the villages between now and then has truly remained consistent besides the words used to refer to them? what then would changing the words truly do? the stories survive.

anecdotally, i can tell you that you can have a perfectly functioning naruto rp with only five villages. people occasionally ask you where the other villages are or if they can create into them, and you simply tell them: 'they don't exist' or 'they're not an option', and people go, 'oh, okay'. 

if someone comes back and demands to know where their village went, it can be said: 'x was merged with y in order to give people more interaction opportunities', or any number of potential reasons, because there are quite a few.

again: yes, there are cons, but there also huge potential pros. what about those?

i'm not asking anyone to defend efforts to keep up with shifting demands. of course staff are working tirelessly to formulate and maintain new ideas to keep the players engaged; nfrp wouldn't be one of the longest-lived rp sites on the net if that weren't the case. 

but can anyone seriously claim that any of these continued efforts have managed to return nfrp to a time when 300+ people would show up daily? is there a day on the horizon where ten villages will be barely enough to contain the playerbase?

with anywhere between around a fifth or sixth of the population, there's an attempt to man the same number of stations. as many OOC events can be run as you like, but there may be more efficient ways of approaching the problem.

it seems to me to be a case of expending huge energy to keep a rickety old ship afloat than instead crafting a more streamlined one. 

anyway: take it or leave it, friends! thank you for your consideration. i bid you adieu!

[DJ Loki]

I'll say this as the Kusakage... having to merge Grass, with some other larger village would be terrible. So I would be forced to step down as Kage, join one of the larger villages, being either Earth or Fire, since those are the two it is bordered to. Both of those Villages are not on friendly terms with Grass, and Grass and Stone are kill on site. Also it would be unfair for me, for Grass to have to join either of those, because, Grass is just as active as Konoha( if not more so, at the moment) and is definitely more active than Stone.

Will also just have to throw away all the Events that I have planned for Grass, that would make no sense if done in other villages. So you're basically giving a big screw you to all the smaller villages, even if they are more active than the larger ones. And honestly, it doesn't promote more interaction, it just limits options.

[The Bearer of Bad News]

sure it is. just like waterfall was before you. but how long will it stay that way? how long does it EVER stay that way?

village activity is cyclical. dead, booming, dead, booming. what we need is consistency. hopefully nira's pet project makes that happen, but theres no reason for you to be so utterly dismissive of the only person to actually put forth an idea.

plus i dont think you actually read it. like, at all. because your complaints make no sense in the context of the suggestion. borders were never mentioned so thats meaningless, you obviously wouldn't be "kill on sight" anyway because you wouldn't be grass ninja anymore but rather ninja from the other village, and as the "more active" of the villages (for the time being) you would obviously win the special election and become kage of the merged village. Yes the other Kage would be forced out of power, but who were they exercising power over to begin with?

besides, being more concerned with your own authority than the well being of your people is a worrying trait. i for one would gladly sacrifice my crown if it meant the people i'm looking after would have a better experience for it.

ultimately the point is moot anyway. heero has flatly declined to follow through with this, and nira has already expressed that something is being worked on. so your complaining is completely extraneous.

[👺 Usiel]

I'm in agreement with Loki here actually. Look yes sometimes a village rises up to booming activity, then falls, while other rises, and then falls. As i said before we are finding ways of keeping activity within all villages by implementing more events, more fun and possibilities in the site. We lowered the need of writing for TP. By reducing villages I'm lowering the choices and people will start asking "What about these villages, what happened to these villages" I'm sorry but I'm not reducing the villages guys. If you have other suggestions to keep people around and bring people here to stick around I'm willing to listen.

[Deleted]

to some extent heero, it seems that you might not be totally tackling my point? maybe i've just worded it improperly, or the basic idea truly doesn't sit well with you because it would feel like too fundamental a change. that's all well and good. now, please excuse me. this simply couldn't be let slide.

---

I'll say this as the Kusakage... having to merge Grass, with some other larger village would be terrible. So I would be forced to step down as Kage, join one of the larger villages, being either Earth or Fire, since those are the two it is bordered to. Both of those Villages are not on friendly terms with Grass, and Grass ??? and ??? Stone ??? are ??? kill ??? on ??? site. Also it would be unfair for me, for Grass to have to join either of those, because, Grass ??? is ??? just ???  as ??? active ???  as ???  Konoha ???( if  ??? not ??? more ??? so, at the moment) and ???  is ??? definitely ??? more ??? active ??? than ??? Stone.

I will also just have to throw away all the Events that I have planned for Grass, that would make no sense if done in other villages. So you're basically giving a big screw you to all the smaller villages, even if they are more active than the larger ones. And honestly, it doesn't promote more interaction, it just limits options.

yeah, all the characters in the smaller villages just like straight up like, die. sucks bro.


it's not like you get to keep your pre-existing playerbase but also gain more in the process, so of course which of the two merging villages presently has the most activity is exceedingly relevant to the conversation. i can't believe i didn't think of that.


it's not like what was 'muh village' doesn't amalgamate IC, but rather OOC. only a fool would think that the idea was to merge them OOC as though people had been existing in a different place all along so as to cause minimal disturbance.

May 11, 2017 18:51:40 GMT -7 @atrox said:

the pre-existing kages from the merging villages could compete in a revote to decide whom the new kage will be

in short:



think big. think of solutions. but most importantly,


think of other people.

[👺 Usiel]

There is no need for insults. Loki is expressing how she sees it as it affects her due to the fact that she's Kage of a Village and has brought up some points that even though her village isn't one of the great 5 villages, it's still pretty active. So don't go insulting people for expressing their opinion on the matter. As I said before, I agree with Loki, I will not be merging the cities together or pushing it in that direction. I'll be locking this thread now. Thank you for your time.