New Forum Features

[Maikuolan]

Good news, and good to hear. :-)

[G]

The staff are happy to announce we are introducting a BRAND NEW FEATURE to the site - well, kinda.
We did introduce this previously as a trial run, and it was taken offline in order to properly troubleshoot and decide how best to implement it. Well, we (finally) got it sorted!

RPActivity is a new way to get rewarded for your contributions to RPA! Your activity across the site will earn you points; race your friends to climb to the top of the leaderboards and claim the glory of that number one spot!

Without giving too much away, there are more exciting things coming in the near future, too! So start earning those points - you'll be happy you did! Because of these super exciting new things we will be implementing soon, we will not be awarding points for past activity - everyone will start accumulating points from this point forward, starting at 0.

We hope you enjoy this new feature, and look forward to revealing more surprises soon!

[Salroka]

Are we to assume ALL activity will contribute? Or will there be a way to negate specific subsections of the site from adding to points? Spamming Downtown, for example... some folks would get a crapton of points for senseless things while some of the RP Purists will get little to nothing. Personally, I do not go downtown more than maybe once per month. So yeah, this sort of thing is a nice idea, but could easily be manipulated in a method similar to the Reputation system.

[G]

Unfortunately no, it's not possible to award different amounts for posts in different areas; however, contributions downtown or in the creative areas are still valid contributions to the forum overall. There are different ways to earn points aside from purely posting; you can check out the leaderboards on the activity tab to see some of the different criteria. There will also be benefits to the points you gain regardless of where you rank with other people's points, which as I said above will be revealed in the near future.

[Craze]

You guys just HAD to confront me with how much time I waste on this site, didn't you?

Jokes aside, though, this is pretty neat. Fun lil side quest.

[G]

how much time I waste on this site

You mean.. how much time you spend totally constructively on the best site everrr!

[Crazywolf]

Really I have the same view as Beta on this. I don't mind having it as a bit of harmless fun but unless there is some way to weight posts in different sections then it won't be able to authentically measure people's actual activity/contribution in the real or complete sense. Aside just the length of posts and time it takes to craft them I think it should be said as well roleplays are also the forums bread and butter - ie. the thing that attracts new members. (If you take a starbucks analogy roleplays are the actual coffee and downtown is the extra froth or chocolate sprinkles that they sometimes add on top.)

[G]

As I already stated it is not possible for us to give different point amounts for different sections. I agree that roleplaying is of course the main purpose of RPA (and what brought us all here) however I think downtown and the social areas are also valuable as they are a big part of how our members connect with each other - for me, personally, I came here originally purely to RP. What kept me here and made this place a second home was the community, and the real and lasting friendships I've made here. It is intended as a fun feature, not a measure of worth or merit on the site - everyone here contributes in their own way and I don't think anyone's contribution is worth more than anothers', regardless of where you choose to spend your time here everyone is a valuable member of this community to us.

[Craze]

MAKE DOWNTOWN GREAT AGAIN!

[G]

You guys might have noticed the 'vote for rpa' links that staff have added to the front page, and our signatures! We are now listed on TOPRPSITES, if you love this community and would like to promote it's growth please click to vote for us and move us up the listing! You can vote once a day, and it only takes a second. Thanks everyone <3