My concerns with Toro.

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Portalgunblaze
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10418Post Portalgunblaze »

Chakurano wrote:Now... just quickly throwing my two cents in before I head off to lunch. The "prostitute character" was a joke application made way back in February of 2014 as an alt, and was accepted by somebody who no longer is on the server at all. That player used the character for about half a day before going back to their main.
TL;DR: Our standards have changed over time as the server refined itself, and such an application would probably not pass today without some serious changes.
Should have realised it was a joke character... Woopsie
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RiaLangset
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10419Post RiaLangset »

Also, small thing, the four main families talked about are mostly known because of how long they have been here and how many children they have shot out. However, new players, should they band together beforehand, could easily emerge on server as another large family. The Pasta family, essentially starting from the bottom, are a recent example of this. There's a lot of 'em, and they are getting noticed through roleplay.

Hell, give the Mielke's time, and they'd probably get large, too. XD

Fame isn't instant, takes a lot of work, time, and patience...

And a loooooot of rp. That said, I should probably mingle more with the LeGrands. And the only Byant Kio annoys would be Abby. tsk, tsk...comin' for you, Autumn. Somehow. XD
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atonofkittys
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10420Post atonofkittys »

I feel the concerns against "the four big families" of Toro are unfair. I am a part of two of these families, so take this as you will. The reason these families may appear large compared to everything else is the characters and players involved in those families have played on Toro for years. Sam Knighton was brought in when she was around 20, and she's in her mid-50s now. Thomas Bryant was around 18, and he's now around 40. Vincent and Mimi LeGrand have been here since the start of the server, which was around three years ago. It is to be expected that families grow over time. Anyone can have a large family in Toro. Anyone can! ^^ Like the Penns, the Mielkes, the Arujis, for example, who are all starting to grow rapidly. But the four families you have pointed out, and subsequently the GMs, are some of the longest-running players on Toro. The characters have families, and they've had children, and there will be more children in the future probably. So it's to be expected they would grow larger, and having a larger presence means there's more options. This is something that happens on every role play server, or probably even faction servers, who knows. And it's not really a bad thing. It's just a natural part of things.
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Vernon
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10421Post Vernon »

Alright. Let's start talking, shall we?
So, Portal, you know me. Brawler, you probably don't. I'm Vernon. I'm an ET-C and a member of App Team and of Lore Team. So let me take you through a trip of Toro, and how our rules have changed.

Disclaimer: Forgive me if I'm a bit wrong, everything I know about Toro before I came was all hear-say.

So let's start when Toro was created, by Peach and Griff. They created us a server, a map, and started developing it. I'm assuming they made the original sets of rules, and started hiring staff, running the server themselves.

Skip forward a while. Toro had expanded, and had more/revised rules. New staff, new players, everything was good. People had some wacky characters, yes. Things were more lax.

But then everything changed when a certain GM started stirring up trouble. This is where Theo Ross first got his powers, because this GM said it was okay.

Since then, we've gotten stricter on what we can, and cannot, do. Most, if not all, acquiring of powers needs to be done through IC methods on server. For example, we had Twig, who obtained his powers via a Haunter possessing his mind. Sadly, Twig was not an example of obtaining powers going good. There was a lot of OOC and IC issues with Twig and his RPer. This is part of the reason we're so strict on powers, specifically possession.

After that even, Theo, who was vastly overpowered, lost his powers in a rather weak explained manner, because he was a problem.

The reason why the Ross children were allowed to keep their abilities was because, while Crystal had combative enhancing abilities, she cannot control them. I play Crystal's girlfriend. She's constantly shocked almost any time she touches Crystal. Crystal suffers because of those powers. The hero work is the only way she feels like she's not a monster, not a freak, not some battery. That's mental suffering and pain.

As for the other hero, Edgar works his ass off to keep up, to stay strong, and to protect his family.

Now let's address the "Cliques" issue.

A clique is a group of people. Think of the Jocks at your school, or the nerds at your school. Those are called Cliques.

Toro has Cliques, yes. Why? Because all communities have them. It can be hard to get into one, but that's also true for real-life. It can be hard to RP with these people, and often, they might shut you out. I understand that, and I really do think this is a problem. However, this is not a problem for staff. This is a problem that players themselves have created. We cannot fix that, unless we make a rule where you can't RP with the same person X number of times, which we won't do that, since it limits RP heavily. As staff, we encourage new players to have their characters make friends, not enemies, so they'll get more RP. In real life, you don't generally talk to people you don't know very well, do you? Unless you're trying to make friends.

Lets move on to the Pixelmon issue. The "Badass team of level 100's" thing is kind of a weak argument. As staff, it's not our job to regulate, and if it was, it'd be impossible to regulate that. Most people you ask say that Toro is a life simulation RP server with Pixelmon thrown in the mix, not the other way around. Think of Toro that way, and things may make more sense why not everyone is a damn trainer.

NOW FOR THE FAMILIES!

The Rosses, Bryants, Knightons, and LeGrands seem over powered?

Maybe because they're old and well respected families. The LeGrands are the richest family in Toro. How do you wanna nerf them? They rarely ever fight. Wanna take away their money? We can't do that.

The Bryants? Tom's an idiot, (Sorry Tdf). He's muscle. Autumn rarely ever fights either. Besides, the Bryants became well known BEFORE Tdf was even on staff!

The Rosses stay in their little shells, and hardly ever come out.

They're not over powered, they're just relevant. They're old and respected families. They may be run by GMs, but Vincent LeGrand and Theo Ross are both, if I recall correctly, the first characters that KC and Sn0w made. They've been around for a long time. The Mielke family is also respected, but not as well known. And I like to think that the Penn's soon will too.

Now that all that is aside, let's look at your fixes.

They're good ideas, and they're things that we should attempt to do. Tournaments and Contests are an easy thing to do but need planning, and random Pixelmon events are fun too. The problem is, with Random Pixelmon events, we need players on. We don't have players on as frequently as we should. And, because ETs don't have Pokespawn perms, or the ability to use NBTEdit, the most we can do is place down statues and have RP battles. And by the time we've done all that, players have gotten off.

NOW LETS MOVE ON AGAIN! TO THE NEXT SUBJECT!

Greeting new players:

So, we encourage new players to go out and find RP. We should, and will continue to do that. However, it seems that some staff members feel we need to go to new players and RP with them. I try to do this, personally, and it doesn't always work. We try to be friendly, and try to keep people in the community, but honestly, it seems as if some people are hell-bent on finding reasons to leave.


I think I've covered everything. If any other staff member would like to add on to this, go ahead and do it.

If I covered anything someone else brought up, I'm sorry, I wrote this, not really looking at responses made after I started.
Last edited by Vernon on Sun Jan 24, 2016 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Portalgunblaze
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10422Post Portalgunblaze »

Now, I think I need to make one thing obvious. These are not just my concerns, these are from multiple people, some I know well, other I don't. I made this post so people could see these concerns community members have.
atonofkittys wrote:I feel the concerns against "the four big families" of Toro are unfair. I am a part of two of these families, so take this as you will. The reason these families may appear large compared to everything else is the characters and players involved in those families have played on Toro for years. Sam Knighton was brought in when she was around 20, and she's in her mid-50s now. Thomas Bryant was around 18, and he's now around 40. Vincent and Mimi LeGrand have been here since the start of the server, which was around three years ago. It is to be expected that families grow over time. Anyone can have a large family in Toro. Anyone can! ^^ Like the Penns, the Mielkes, the Arujis, for example, who are all starting to grow rapidly. But the four families you have pointed out, and subsequently the GMs, are some of the longest-running players on Toro. The characters have families, and they've had children, and there will be more children in the future probably. So it's to be expected they would grow larger, and having a larger presence means there's more options. This is something that happens on every role play server, or probably even faction servers, who knows. And it's not really a bad thing. It's just a natural part of things.
I know all of this, as I said in my reply. It's just a concern that I have seen some people have, that's why I wrote it down. This was one of the most minor concerns, but it was a concern. There are no fixes for it, and in my opinion, it doesn't need any fixes. It's part of the realistic side of Toro, it would be logical there would be people with more connections and riches and such. The main concern was that these families might have a little bit too much power, this was made worse by the fact the people who are the heads of these families are gms. This was a concern only a small amount of people had, and it wasn't a big concern. Maybe concern isn't the right word for it, but it was the only one I could think of.

Now to cover Vernon's reply.
First thing is first, look up at the reply I wrote to Kitty.
Second, I honestly like the ideas of the Ross with their powers and the superheroes. And I understand why the server used to be less realistic, and is now going for a more realistic approach, let's just say, I was involved in a lot of the Garrett and his possesion rp, and it affected my other rps as well.
Third. Cliques? Did I say anything about cliques? If I did, call me the biggest hypocrite in the world.
Fourth. I know the staff is trying to encourage new players to go out and rp, I'm not a idiot(While most of you by now probably think I am.) But the concerns are still there. I've talked with a lot of people who left the server or stopped going on so much, and they have these concerns and reasons. I made this post, so their concerns could be heard, and this community might be improved, or that people atleast get answers to their concerns.
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Adkillz
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10423Post Adkillz »

Good uh, morning fellas.
I'm Adam, although you probably know me as adkillz or the Aussie.

Firstly, this is all entirely my opinion on this whole situation. I'd like to say that I do see fairness in your points. For example, even I, as a staffer, used to find these groups a little intimidating, but that was just me thinking they were. But in the end these groups aren't doing anything wrong, it is perfectly normal to stick with your friends in my opinion. I do the same thing at school, chill with my closer friends. It's sort of just the way things work. But that's not saying we don't try to get players involved, we, as staff, are always trying to think of ways to get our player base involved. Sometimes we even fight over who gets to RP first with the new player, it's kinda funny. But going back to the groups, when I actually tried to RP with them, I had a blast. Every single RP I've been in, even though it's only been every now and then since I sort of just, build, and nothing else, have been fun and unique in their own way. The thing is, these RPs didn't come to me. I didn't stand around watching and emoting from a distance. I got involved. I perused Roleplay. Staying silent and emoting from the distance is not how you get involved. I'd know, I played a moody character at one point. He had like, 2 friends. It was awful. But I understand why, it was awful because I played a character that wouldn't constantly dwell in the past. He would always be upset, or angry, or rude, and no matter how hard other players tried to interact with him, they all ended up being pushed away. So obviously after enough time had passed players ended up giving up on him, the amount of roleplay I got decreased. I can't say I regret my character, but that's because I was fully aware that he would have no friends. I knew other characters wouldn't like him, because that's simply logic. I wouldn't like someone who was constantly rude to me, and made my life blatantly depressing.

This one's sort of short, but that's because the answer is simple. The people who have been on the server the longest, will always have the stronger pixelmon. They worked extremely hard for their pixelmon to be the way they are, it would be unjust if we got in the way of that. I do however like the idea of leveled tournaments, or just more tournaments in general. Maybe we CAN HAVE someONE dedicatED to ThAT. *WINK wiNK at staff or something I dunno it's 3:32 in the morning*

The family thing is pretty much the same as the pixelmon. Hell, the Legrands have been here since the dawn of time. I'm surprised they're not richer. But in all fairness, the Bryants were a big thing LONG before TDF became staff, or a GM.

And I don't see any trouble with OOC groups. As long as you're a nice person I'm happy to talk to you. In fact, I see two new players, one player who hasn't even joined yet, having a nice conversation in Toro chat right now.

Benji seems to have answered that that special CP pretty well.

Also, looking at these ideas, especially the one about random events. We sort of already do that? Vernon & Benji are the kings of random events last time I checked. They sort of just makes stuff on the spot and BOOM, fun for everyone. In fact Toro-chat states that there just might be a mimi-event tomorrow.

Aaaand now I'm bored. gl hf oh hey Vernon!
Last edited by Adkillz on Sun Jan 24, 2016 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RiaLangset
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10424Post RiaLangset »

I'll add that part of the newbie problem may also lie in me, and my terrible positioning of the pixelmon lab compared to spawn. While new players are instructed in ways on how to reach the Tyrian Lab so they may have their starter and ger precious info icly, I see...maybe half of them, most usually being 'I don't need that RP, I got this' and well, there's an rp they left willingly.

And of those half that come here, 10% ever return to the lab to show the pixelmon she gave them, to talk, etc.

Perhaps one day, I can find away to get better transportation to this cliche' beginning of 'Welcome to the world of pokemon', but in the meantime, newbies often have a hard time because they are not willing to go to the very first guide that they probably should. Staff is welcoming, very welcoming. But if they do not go to the ic person who's very job it is to not only greet them and give them a pixelmon, but they are also given items to help them catch up to other players:

EXP Share
Lucky Egg
Pixeldex
10 Pixelballs
5 Greatballs
And various potions

Along with these items designed to help them, the professor is also there to help explain the towns, the rent system, and can direct them to known jobs (hence, we have a job center). She will tell them where to find free/cheap food until they find their feet, and oocly shall explain where to get free money until they can get a job. It may seem like tooting my own horn, but I feel that if people just hop in and expect rp at the drop of a hat without getting prepared, then of course they may feel left out or behind.

Some things, after a bit more work and organization, shall be in place where the professor can be even further involved to try to keep players involved and interested, but they must be willing to do something. Now, this may or may not be fact, it just an observation I have noted as I watch the 'new trainer' item boxes slowly gather dust, despite the decently constant new players.
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Portalgunblaze
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10425Post Portalgunblaze »

ZTrueChaos wrote:Good uh, morning fellas.
I'm Adam, although you probably know me as adkillz or the Aussie.

Firstly, this is all entirely my opinion on this whole situation. I'd like to say that I do see fairness in your points. For example, even I, as a staffer, used to find these groups a little intimidating, but that was just me thinking they were. But in the end these groups aren't doing anything wrong, it is perfectly normal to stick with your friends in my opinion. I do the same thing at school, chill with my closer friends. It's sort of just the way things work. But that's not saying we don't try to get players involved, we, as staff, are always trying to think of ways to get our player base involved. Sometimes we even fight over who gets to RP first with the new player, it's kinda funny. But going back to the groups, when I actually tried to RP with them, I had a blast. Every single RP I've been in, even though it's only been every now and then since I sort of just, build, and nothing else, have been fun and unique in their own way. The thing is, these RPs didn't come to me. I didn't stand around watching and emoting from a distance. I got involved. I perused Roleplay. Staying silent and emoting from the distance is not how you get involved. I'd know, I played a moody character at one point. He had like, 2 friends. It was awful. But I understand why, it was awful because I played a character that wouldn't constantly dwell in the past. He would always be upset, or angry, or rude, and no matter how hard other players tried to interact with him, they all ended up being pushed away. So obviously after enough time had passed players ended up giving up on him, the amount of roleplay I got decreased. I can't say I regret my character, but that's because I was fully aware that he would have no friends. I knew other characters wouldn't like him, because that's simply logic. I wouldn't like someone who was constantly rude to me, and made my life blatantly depressing.

This one's sort of short, but that's because the answer is simple. The people who have been on the server the longest, will always have the stronger pixelmon. They worked extremely hard for their pixelmon to be the way they are, it would be unjust if we got in the way of that. I do however like the idea of leveled tournaments, or just more tournaments in general. Maybe we CAN HAVE someONE dedicatED to ThAT. *WINK wiNK at staff or something I dunno it's 3:32 in the morning*

The family thing is pretty much the same as the pixelmon. Hell, the Legrands have been here since the dawn of time. I'm surprised they're not richer. But in all fairness, the Bryants were a big thing LONG before TDF became staff, or a GM.

And I don't see any trouble with OOC groups. As long as you're a nice person I'm happy to talk to you. In fact, I see two new players, one player who hasn't even joined yet, having a nice conversation in Toro chat right now.

Benji seems to have answered that that special CP pretty well.

Also, looking at these ideas, especially the one about random events. We sort of already do that? Vernon is the king of random events last time I checked. He sort of just makes stuff on the spot and BOOM, fun for everyone. Infact Toro-chat states that there just might be a mimi-event tomorrow.

Aaaand now I'm bored. gl hf oh hey Vernon!
Damn I'm writing a lot of replies.
Let's see, first. Although you may have had a good expierence joining these groups, others have not. I'm sorry I'm going to have to namedrop another person. But a good friend of mine, T0MANATOR99, who I believe is one of the greatest friends I have ever made, was the person I was talking about for last nights event. He really tried to get involved, but his attempts were shutdown, this isn't the firsttime this has happened. Just because with one person it goes well, that doesn't mean it goes well with everyone. It would be best to thrive for more rp for our new members. Stuff can always be improved.

And I already answered all others I think -shrug-
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Adkillz
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10426Post Adkillz »

I know you're talking about Tom. He was the only person that left early, last time I checked. And perhaps he just got unlucky. If he had walked up to me and started a conversation I would have happily role-played with him!
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Chakurano
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10427Post Chakurano »

Portalgunblaze wrote: Damn I'm writing a lot of replies.
Let's see, first. Although you may have had a good expierence joining these groups, others have not. I'm sorry I'm going to have to namedrop another person. But a good friend of mine, T0MANATOR99, who I believe is one of the greatest friends I have ever made, was the person I was talking about for last nights event. He really tried to get involved, but his attempts were shutdown, this isn't the firsttime this has happened. Just because with one person it goes well, that doesn't mean it goes well with everyone. It would be best to thrive for more rp for our new members. Stuff can always be improved.

And I already answered all others I think -shrug-
Alright, so... I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I'm struggling to understand this. Are you saying this is an issue the staff have to deal with? Or is it that this is an issue for the whole community? Because there were plenty of non-staff there, and this was an event with "RP hotspots" like you suggested a while back. So I'm struggling to understand what you're trying to suggest here.
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