Hey, Xathan here. I've noticed that the CBG has kind of...stagnated. We easily will go for 4-5 + hours without anything happening, without anything moving. Sometimes days pass when no one posts. I think we need to fix that, badly.
So, some suggestions:
Publicity: We already are beginning to have this, thanks to registering with that one thing where we were supposed to vote for the CBG, only the buttons when away and no-one voted and now it's only a memory. We should bring that back. Also, we should advertise on the WOTC boards and Giant ITP boards alot more. Spread the word and all that.
Hosting: The hosting thing is a huge plus. We need to expand it, and also make it so that people visiting the boards casually can see that A) we have it and B) what people have made using it.
3eProfiler: this should be made seeable and usable by non-members. It is another thing that will draw people here, and should be expanded upon.
Content: We should start producing more content, stuff that can be seen and used by everyone anytime anywhere, to encourge people to casually visit the CBG to pick up on content.
Any more thoughts? Questions? comments? Snide remarks?
EDIT: Another two thoughts. We should do more PhP and avertise how awesome our PhP system is, and also make some silly games like what they have on Giant ITP, for people to play with when bored.
The rolling story is a silly game... we should expand on it, maybe make some freeform roleplaying PbP's.
The Sable Cabal was made to increase activity, but it hasn't worked so well... part of this is that we are approaching the end of the school year, and Real Life is becoming quite distracting.
The Random encounters should be run again, maybe Xathan and I can help w/ that, but people do need to play.
Just a thought, for the Random encounters. Perhaps pre-made characters of different levels can be set up in the 3E profiler. Like the party that is being made for the dungeon thingy at WoTC right now. 3 premade stealth characters, 3 tanks, etc. Just a thought...
I like the premade character ideas. That would be great for the Random Encounters. Also, if you make a new character for a random encounter, you should have the option of making your character public, so that people can use it for later Random Encounters.
I'll put the voting thingy back. I don't really think it's stagnated that much, to tell you the truth. The posting comes and goes, most of it in the evenings, and almost never on the weekends. The problem is that not enough new people are coming by and brining new ideas. New ideas and new discussions are what makes a forum work. I don't think we should just blatantly advertise on GitP, or Wotc, because we really don't need to cause any sorts of controversies or problems. Maybe just PMing people would be a better idea. I've actually tried to get in touch with Rich Burlew to see if we could advertise over there, but he never got back to me. There's a Homebrew Forums at Myth-Weavers (http://www.myth-weavers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=141) that has some good games being made, that would be a good place to "harvest." ;) The problem with making the 3eProfiler available to non-members is that I don't want it to become a bandwidth-sucker. Right now, we don't have any problems, and I'm not having to pay ridiculous amounts, or ask for donations, because we're keeping within the limits of the server here. Anyhoo, those are just a few thoughts, feel free to keep posting.
I think we need to be realistic in looking at the fact that we're still a very new community. We're just a few months old; that's kinda like being a baby community. We may not be growing as fast as people are hoping, but I think we're growing fast enough to sustain ourselves. We just need to get some new faces in here every now and then and I think eventually this community will get to a point that everyone's satisfied.
I think everyone is satisfied. I know I am.
Yeah, I'm mostly satisfied too, but I would always like to see the CBG keep growing.
Indeed, I've been fairly satistfied and uninterested at the moment. But I figure that backing off for a while is better than jumping out like ElDo did.
I have some ideas for silly game that could be tossed around. I'll post a couple when I get home.
I only work from 2-7 mon-fri, and I somehow end up being a busy guy. Go figure. Must be all that sleeping... need to cut that out...
But I think we could use more active members. Like me, I'm inactive at the moment. But when I come back, I plan to comment and critique every single campaign settting that interests me even a little. Get ideas rolling again, get people building their campaign worlds, it's what I'm here for. That, and to hear how awesome Darkstone is. In the famous words of the first necron
"I'll be back"
Ooh! Silly games! I have one if you need one.
Yeah, let's get a couple games going in the Dragon's Den... and the Rolling Story can be really good too if people will participate.
Is "the Post" open to visitors yet? I'm putting the Mana System up tonight.
It is now.
No, it is NOW.
(you didn't make the categories visible, ish, so there was nothing there :))
I don't follow.... ;)
anonymous visitors saw a blank page with "no categories have been added yet" :)
Publicity:
I have been advertising both Dicefeaks (http://dicefreaks.com/phpBB2/index.php) and the CBG mutually on both sites and on WoTC's boards (http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8). Hopefully this will amount to something...
Content:
We should try making other content, Open Gaming Lisence if possible. For example, over at Dicefreaks, I've been working on vampires and half-vampires. I could put some of that material up here, either in the post or in the Meta board, and say that anyone can use it, because it is not setting specific.
If we continue things like that, the site could provide not just whole settings as it does now, but also setting components, allowing those who already have a setting, or those that use a published setting to find resources to customize any part of their campaign.
Just throwing stuff out there...
I agree about putting up content. Anything originally made by someone here should go up there, whether it be new classes, races, magic systems, or an entirely new way of running combat.
I'll get Ki up there in a couple more weeks - I have to work on it some more before it is anywhere near posting.