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Global PokédeX Plus Forums _ PANE Discussion _ The Future of PANE
Posted by: Toogee Dec 13 2015, 07:50 AM
I'm setting up a thread to discuss the elephant in the room. PANE has stagnated to the point where I'm not sure if anyone's around anymore. Even I haven't been RPing here. This topic is to discuss the next course of action or if any should be taken at all.
Our options so far:
1. Continue as Normal: Maybe 2015 was just a busy year for everyone? Maybe life will creep back in suddenly and I'm making a fuss over nothing. In that case, no changes will be made.
2. End the Story: What I believe to be the more likely scenario: we're old and have more responsibilities. It's not just PANE that's inactive; the general RP board hasn't seen a RP post since June. I'm not sure we still have a RP community left.
PANE was opened around 2008; seven years is a good lifespan for a RP. If everyone is done (or no one posts), then the board is locked and I ask an admin to archive the board. Note that this will likely automatically happen with no posts being made; see Uprising (or lack there of). If no one posts in this thread, this will be our default option in the poll.
3. Reboot: We archive everything and start anew. We move away from Furoh and start a new continent. Or we keep Furoh, but simply begin new stories. Lots of options here. Note that worldbuilding is time consuming; this is only an option if I get at least 10 people to support it, maybe 4-5 to put in the work.*
*EDIT: Note that if we get a majority for rebooting but not ten people, we can still reboot. There would have to be some restructuring involved, so it likely won't play the same as PANE.
If you have other suggestions, sound off here. Otherwise, please discuss.
Posted by: Rasu Dec 13 2015, 08:32 AM
I guess it was only a matter of time until this post showed up. I know I wasn't one of the more active peeps but it'd be sad to see PANE go. I've had some good times here, for all that's worth, and even have some new ideas should I ever get off my lazy ass and actually work on them. I'd go for a reboot or just continuing the already established characters and continent but, like you mentioned, do we really have enough people left to do either of those?
Posted by: Jonahman10 Dec 17 2015, 10:30 AM
Much sadness comes to me seeing this possibly come to an end. This will be the last of all the "great RPs" I used to participate in. But alas, it has followed the fate of many others. Like with the others, I will continue if other people continue, but it will be lamentable.
Posted by: Toogee Dec 17 2015, 06:30 PM
So far, the votes say continue as normal. People still want this to live. OK, two or three people, but still!
Maybe Darius should get back to it...
Posted by: Living Arrow Dec 19 2015, 02:33 AM
For me, I feel that the stagnant nature of gtsplus (I.e. Not really progressing beyond gen 4 in content) has resulted in this since traffic to the site dropped off massively. Without fresh people and input, it is really difficult to expect the community to stay all that active :/
I also had a personal issue with the RP boards with the loss of our friend Master Houndoom and found it difficult to remain focused on the site since one of the big reasons for me to keep coming back was gone. Saying that, I have made some more strong relationships with others on this forum which are still going today 
My vote is a little selfish but I'd go for a whole new setting and story and put PANE to bed as getting back into Darryn and Lori is proving to be problematic. Saying that, I think it is vital to make sure that the parent site is active and will continuously have decent enough footfall to keep the thing going (as in PANE's earlier days) and so I'd rather start up elsewhere rather than remain on this forum board.
Getting back to RPing has been on my radar for a long time now and I think at a fresh start is more likely to keep me on the wagon than forcing old content back to life.
Posted by: Toogee Dec 19 2015, 01:21 PM
Yep. I was hoping we'd be able to live off of a small community. I was wrong. My life got busy, so I wasn't able to keep up here. I suspect that's also what happened with others.
Getting back to RPing has been on my radar for a long time now and I think at a fresh start is more likely to keep me on the wagon than forcing old content back to life.
If you know of any forums with active RP sections, could you post them here? I've looked myself, but other forums seem to be no better off than us. I see Serebii.net has an active RP population though. I am involved in other forums with RP sites, but they're focused on Fire Emblem. Not sure if anyone would be interested in joining those sites.
My main concern would be that what little of our current population remains would not follow along. That would kinda suck. >_>
Added to the first post:
Posted by: 7eeveelutions Dec 19 2015, 01:31 PM
I think I'd go for a reboot, but with so few active members I don't know how well it would work. Maybe you could get one of the admins to mention it in the latest updates thing at the top of GPX+ to advertise it?
Or move it to somewhere else, like Serebii. I don't think moving it would be my first choice, but it would probably work.
Posted by: Toogee Dec 19 2015, 03:48 PM
I can do that. I'll wait until we've settled on what we're going to do with this. That being said, I threw in an announcement in the RP board to see if we can get a couple of them down here.
I'm going back and forth on moving, to be honest. On one hand, moving to an active community means we'll get the membership we need. On the other, this place is built for us. I'd like to think a reboot and a bit of advertising would do the trick, but I want to keep moving as a last resort.
Posted by: Rasu Dec 21 2015, 02:16 PM
I wouldn't be opposed to moving seeing how PANE is pretty much the only reason I keep coming back to this site. It's a shame the admins don't really care about this place as much as they used to but still, like it was already mentioned, this place was built for us so I don't see any alternative that would offer us the same kind of freedom we have here. It's a tough decision to make, that's for sure.
Posted by: Toogee Dec 27 2015, 07:40 AM
I'm going to go ahead and close the poll on Jan. 1. I don't think will get many more votes. This means we're likely looking at a reboot. I'll put up a thread for brainstorming new ideas then, but feel free to post any suggestions here.
I recently joined another pokemon RP on a different forum to get ideas for us. It occurred to me that, with so few members, it might be better to simply drag people here over there. The RP I'm in has a very similar setup to ours, it's only six months old and (after a false start) is still tweaking the rules. Anyone interested can PM me for details (I don't want to break rules and advertise directly, so that's why I'm vague).
The forum itself, rpnation.com, is very active and dedicated specifically to RPing, so if we decide to go for a new home, that's an option as well.
Posted by: Rasu Dec 27 2015, 05:26 PM
I took a look at the RP you mentioned but I dunno. It seems to follow the games a lot more compared to PANE's anime approach to battles, encounters and move usage. I obviously can't speak for the others but one of the things that drew me to PANE was the freedom of choice; the possibility to use all of the moves a Pokemon learned up to that point, the starter choices (this is a big one for me since I hate being forced to pick from a very limited pool of Pokemon I probably don't even enjoy), the way levels are assigned and applied, the ability to make up batshit insane combos with moves that would never work in-game. It just seems like Prismatic takes all that and either removes it entirely or makes it unnecessarily complicated.
I know I keep saying this but it looks to me like we're in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. This place has all the freedom that I, personally, find enjoyable in an RP but lacks activity. The other forums seem to have the numbers but lack essentials that make PANE a great experience. I'll probably move if it comes to that, to be honest, just thought I'd give my opinion first.
Posted by: SilverLugia456 Dec 27 2015, 11:25 PM
Hello,
I know I was active in this part of the rping in the forums for a little while and I apologize for my sudden disappearance and inactivity in the rps. I'm not sure entirely about how the future of these forums are going to go especially if there is the lingering of few members who are still active. In the poll at the beginning of the forum I voted for a reboot of the rp. The reason for this is because maybe the idea itself has kinda faded off from everyone. So to restart in a fresh new way maybe bringing in new aspects to consider to draw in new rp members. In the past I have rp on many sites and thinking back to how they were set up combining some of those ideas to this may make the rp forum group even strong.
Looking at the set up now its great to keep the the rules and information, RP school and the profiles. This helps with the organization of the rp players and to help out new members who would like to join in.
Something new to add may be different places where the rps could take place. We could have an overall big location, maybe a world or huge continent that is then split into different sections. Each section could be used as a location for different rps. This would give members more options of where their stories could take place. I've seen rps set up like this especially one that was based off of Kingdom Hearts where you had one overall world or location that branched off to other worlds that had their own forum where stories there took place.
Like I said this is only a suggestion from what I have seen and experience when I did rp on the GPXplus forums. I'll be honest I don't fully understand how the PANE rp group was originally set up so this idea may trail from that. I hope that this group continues to grow even if it is going to be reboot.
Posted by: Toogee Dec 29 2015, 07:23 AM
If you look at our map in the rules thread, we had the big location. Though we didn't have literal sections to post in, everyone was free to travel across the continent. It took players years to see everything (maybe five for my character, and she didn't see everything!).
To clarify, I'm looking for ideas in setting, storyline and possibly mechanics (leveling, how battles are run, etc). As far as how the forum is organized, I don't have the power to create new sections or get rid of old ones. I can probably ask an admin to add something, but I'm not sure.
Posted by: SilverLugia456 Dec 29 2015, 08:52 AM
Sorry about that, I wasn't sure what you were expecting when you asked for new ideas or suggestions. Thank you for clarifying that. Well in the next few days I can see if I can think of something or a few suggestions that I can post here. When it comes to setting and the mechanics I can probably come up with a few ideas to work with.
Posted by: Jonahman10 Dec 30 2015, 07:34 PM
I am a little skeptical of reboots because, in my experience, I found it a lot harder to get into, especially when I have invested somewhat in world building. They also tend not to be quite succesful as the original, but that would be rather difficult to do here considering the current size of the forum. But there might be a way of fixing this. For example, in the FEP Roleplay Skylessia, which if I remember correctly PANE happened to be modeled after, I was somewhat invested in the reboot which took place in the same world, but time shifted centuries later, even though it did not really last that long either. Other RPs that shifted world entirely but kept a system kept little of my own interest at all.
What might relieve some of these tensions and tendencies to lose interest when doing a reboot would be the ability to carry over some aspect of the world or characters moving forward. I do not think a reboot may really resolve our main issue here though; our small numbers and lack of incoming traffic. Perhaps a move would be more beneficial than a reboot, though personally I feel that it would feel rather odd not coming to this website for the RP.
Posted by: Toogee Dec 31 2015, 09:38 AM
Perhaps a move would be more beneficial than a reboot, though personally I feel that it would feel rather odd not coming to this website for the RP.
Keeping Furoh is certainly one of our options...assuming we don't move. I don't own Furoh or any of the assets like badges or gym leaders. I'm assuming we can't take any of that with us to another forum.
Posted by: Living Arrow Dec 31 2015, 12:47 PM
If we wanted to transfer any info, I am the sole creator of Team Deception and all of the Contest content so would be happy to share that. I'll take a look at the other rp you mentioned - maybe they would be open to ideas if their format is still young?
Posted by: Toogee Jan 1 2016, 04:17 PM
I'm going to assume everyone who wanted to voice their opinion, has. In which case, call me J.J. Abrams cuz we're doing a reboot!
I'm going to close the thread and create a new one specifically about what we want to see in the reboot. I need everyone to put in an opinion. Even if you didn't vote for a reboot, I still want to hear what you have to say.
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