How and where do you post about your characters, supergroups, and seeking-connetions. And why?

[chase]

I see a lot of lists of character lists and supergroup listings on the forums, discords, and wiki's out there, and I do notice some overlap, but not a lot.   I'm wondering why you prefer to post where you prefer,   What makes one more useful than the other to you?  Do you cross-post for visibility?  Is one just easier or generates more response?   Is there a dealbreaker for one?

My mains were mostly on Liberty back in the day so I never felt part of the VirtueVerse community- only ever got an account there last year, but felt like I was intruding, in a way.   I'd look at the change history and see very little new activity, so maybe this was meant to be reflection of the live game, like paragonwiki?   Then I find the "Everlasting" category with over 400 charaters listed and realize I may have thought wrong.

 

I gravitated to the unofficial Homecoming 'verse alternative FBSA when Michiyo put it up less than a year ago.  It's got a decent bit of activity in the 30-day history and 240+ articles is good for an unadvertised site, but it's also far less than the one VirtueVerse category.    I also like seeing the "recruiting" category (for Supergroups) and  "looking for contact" category (for players) but the few folk using it does underscore whether there's enough critical mass using those features to make it sustainable.  Is there a similar field in VV?  )

My work schedule's made my gaming time unreliable, so I haven't made  much use of offline "looking for contact" lists in forums or discords, but I know they exist and am curious in how people have used them, and what their results were.   I even see people post characters to various Facebook groups.

 

Part of this is for my own interest- I've had very little time to participate lately, and when I have a chance TO participate, I'd like to understand the community and where different parts of it connect.  Part of this is my interest is as a developer on what drives people to adopt one thing over another.


 

[Greycat]

Hmm.

 

I flat out don't use "seeking" type lists. I prefer to just have connections happen. Might be a response to a SG recruiting, or an event, but ... yeah, I don't put "personals" out.

 

Discord -

Usually if I'm on one (actively,) it's a SG or coalition and I'll have a subset of characters there - since the few I'm actively on generally have a "cast of characters" for RP. Quick reference sort of thing. Rarely updated with "recent events," since the people involved know what's happening.

 

Here -

I started a list of characters. Also quick references, also not really "live." I don't tend to go back and edit them.

 

FBSA:

I've started pages. Eventually I'll get them done - this would probably be the closest to a "master list" for me, at least for my primary RP characters and ones I otherwise find interesting, character-wise. The ones I'd most likely try to keep up to date, though that falls behind as I'm horrible at updating and wiki-ing.

 

Virtueverse itself, IIRC, had some database issue. When I went over to look at a few old characters there, the info was ... wrong. I'm kind of not bothring over there.

 

So I guess in general I'm fairly scattershot about what I put where and what I do with it.

[Coyotedancer]

I also came from Liberty, so never got involved with the VirtueVerse site or that server's players. By and large, I still don't interact with the people in those circles. They've never seemed particularly open to those who weren't part of their original set.  

 

I do have a character list here, but to be honest it's more for my own amusement than anything else. I suspect I may be the only one who's ever looked at it beyond the first post. 

 

I'm not a huge fan of Discord, and only use it for voice-chat when I'm playing the game with my nephews.

 

I don't post "want ads". I'm not that desperate for someone to talk to. 😝 

[_Kai_]

Virtueverse is very much in the state it was in when Live shutdown, with some people adding new pages/content and deleting old characters, and some leaving them there, so its a questionably working site with eight years of content that hasn't been touched in ten years and a small fraction of relevant 'current' stuff so it definitely would feel weird to someone who just got into it with Homecoming.

 

I don't posts 'lists of characters' here or elsewhere because frankly that sort of thing is overwhelming, a firehose of information often way, way too detailed for anyone curious enough to stop in.

 

I haven't used FBSA only because I was _religious_ about keeping my Virtueverse pages up to date back in the day and there is still an undercurrent of Signing Up For A Huge Time Commitment when I think of 'character wiki' so I just....haven't gone over there. 

 

I hang out on a couple of Discords, the main HC one and City of Roleplay, because I was always a fan of IRC and I make connections far, far better to people over characters, and that OOC friendship can then lead to IC interactions.  I have not made use of the Seeking Connections channels there in a long while, but I did early on when attempting to pull together a late night Pacific RP channel/group, and do still keep an eye on them for anyone who seems like a fun character of mine to meet just because I know it's hard to get started with RP that isn't hoping to stumble into a decent conversation at Pocket D when you have time to be on.

Edited September 15, 2021 by _Kai_

[Kal5]

I use FBSA only for the "main" I am playing at any time, then put a link to it in the in-game bio. I don't put every character I have there.

 

I also post seeking connections for specific things my character is actively looking for on various RP discords. I find it better to have a clear project or goal in mind rather than a list of random interests. It gets more results.

 

But honestly I get the most results from the discord for the actual group my character is in.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Kal5

[Crystal Dragon]

I kind of like organic meetings and introductions, even with my SG recruitment. I find that the most interesting characters tend to be very well immersed in the game, or avoiding being publicly advertising about it their interest in finding groups and roleplaying.  I've been avoiding using FBSA because I prefer using my own carrd pages and brief bio descriptions. I do encourage players to use it though that come to the Welcome Wagon classes, just cause it is a community feature that was given to us to use. I suppose it's very much up to the player. There's forums here, super group recruitment in-game (LFSG is kind of new but it's there as a global route, just don't spam it and remember it's a public space.) and basic word of mouth. Everyone has their own flavor though on how they go about it. I agree with Grey here. While discord is useful, I don't talk all that much on there and kind of do my own thing between each class schedule. 

[chase]

22 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

I also came from Liberty, so never got involved with the VirtueVerse site or that server's players. By and large, I still don't interact with the people in those circles. They've never seemed particularly open to those who weren't part of their original set.  

 

I do have a character list here, but to be honest it's more for my own amusement than anything else. I suspect I may be the only one who's ever looked at it beyond the first post. 

...

Intermittent reader here- usually when your sig reminds me to check if Kai's had any diary entries (nudge, nudge :P)   Maybe it's just me, but the forum structure and my infrequent visits mean I miss when things are updated.

 

13 hours ago, _Kai_ said:

...

 

I haven't used FBSA only because I was _religious_ about keeping my Virtueverse pages up to date back in the day and there is still an undercurrent of Signing Up For A Huge Time Commitment when I think of 'character wiki' so I just....haven't gone over there. 

...

 

For FBSA, I convinced myself I'd sart with just what I wanted in the character bio, but had to edit down to make it fit- kinda a non-abridged version.   Then I figured I'd amend it with the types of rumors or possible hooks that players might pick up without talking to me--we rarely meet someone "blank" - hearing about them at work or social media or a friend of a friend- so I figured this might let people that found it use it to "fast forward" through typical introduction chatter to points of common interest.   

Then... well, yeah, a rabbit hole, but I'd never imagined updating it with constantly-unfolding character biographies like I see in VirtueVerse.  My God, that is a full time job!

 

5 hours ago, CrystalDragon said:

I kind of like organic meetings and introductions, even with my SG recruitment. I find that the most interesting characters tend to be very well immersed in the game, or avoiding being publicly advertising about it their interest in finding groups and roleplaying.  I've been avoiding using FBSA because I prefer using my own carrd pages and brief bio descriptions. 

I'm very interested in your carrd pages.  Back when I was a liberty-ite that felt out of place with VirtueVerse, I'd used an old blogger site to store character profiles and the old comic guides, then when the game was down I'd go and tinker on them in a nostalgia haze, not really caring if it was seen  Carrd would have been far simpler.

 

[Crystal Dragon]

19 hours ago, chase said:

I'm very interested in your carrd pages.  Back when I was a liberty-ite that felt out of place with VirtueVerse, I'd used an old blogger site to store character profiles and the old comic guides, then when the game was down I'd go and tinker on them in a nostalgia haze, not really caring if it was seen  Carrd would have been far simpler.

Admittedly I have only one I keep regularly updated at this time, but I am working on getting several carrd sites up for the two and a half dozen characters I play regularly and linking them to the character descriptions in-game. I *love* using blog pages for character journals, summaries of the day, and such, sometimes for story writing when I'm not in the mood to put up with random people in general. It's handy honestly. (Considered using Tumblr, but after seeing how the wow community went to town with it, I avoid the hell out of that space these days even for my personal journaling.)

[Ruin Mage]

Well, if I could toot my own horn for a brief second:

The City of Roleplay discord is going to be revamping / remodeling specific channels soon. That's a good way, or should be, to post about characters, groups, and more.

[Crystal Dragon]

@chase Managed to get the old blr updated with bios for all my crowd of characters. It's on the List of Character Lists thread. 🙂

 

[Andreah]

I mainly post here, and in my supergroup's private discord.

 

I've considered using FBSA, and made an account (I had a lot of trouble getting that set up -- the site's process for it was not intuitive to me), but I haven't put anything there so far, mainly because the time investment required and it doesn't seem like a high traffic area. I know that if I post something interesting here, it will get a few dozen eyes on it; on FBSA? Not so much., or no evidence of it. Here people can react/like/comment and I like that. It feels more like a conversation.

 

I was in Shade's City of Roleplay back in the beginning, but I left it because I feel Discord is a terrible tool for large active communities; everything gets lost in the torrent of chatter and resulting scrollback. However, if that's not an impediment to you, I can recommend it.

[twozerofoxtrot]

I've only done it for two characters but I used Virtueverse until FBSA started up. It was easy enough to migrate by copy and paste, with a few adjustments. I really like how Michiyo lets us host files on FBSA.

 

I'm too unreliable a player to go seeking connections for RP, or even to join RP SGs. I just sort of embrace RP casually here and there in teams and when I'm tabbed out from the Pocket D parking lot.