My concerns with Toro.

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Portalgunblaze
Posts: 233
Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2014 11:32 am
MC name: QuartzPT

My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10407Post Portalgunblaze »

Warning: I got like no sleep last night, so this post is a mess.
Right, I'm just gonna speak my heart one, one because I really want people to know, and two because this is the fifth time I have to write this... I really hate my internet connection.

Anyway. Hello everyone, my name is Tijmen, my usernames are: Tijmenking, Portalgunblaze, MechanicalAngel, QuartzPT. You may know me as Quartz, Portal or Tij, the last nickname I despise with a passion. Anyway, today I'm here to tell you about some things I noticed and have concerns with about our community. First thing first, I honestly love our community, the people are chill, rp is nice, artwork is cute, and there are more ships in here than Rotterdam. But everything has it's flaws, and I don't really see these get discussed that often, or at all actually, so I'll tell all of you em. Also, I will probably be name dropping players and characters in this post. I do not mean to say anything bad about anyone or harm them, I'm just trying to say what I noticed. I will not be removing any namedrops from this post, for I see it as censorship, and I find it would distort my message.

Right, the concern I have with Toro, which I will call: The mask of welcomeness(It sounds so stupid...)
Lately, I've been feeling like the server is trying to expand this community, via things like the PR team. I don't have a problem with the idea of Toro being a larger community than it is now, but I feel like the current efforts that are put in it are mostly being wasted. The fundamental flaw with all of this is one thing, Toro's community may be welcoming, but Toro itself is not. I'll try to explain this as best as I can, but I haven't really thought this out to much, so don't go hard on me, kay? Right, back on topic. Toro has a very welcoming community when you first join the server, everyone is all chat goes welcome and such, you get thrown into the Toro chat, people talk with you a lot and rp with you a lot for the first few days you arrive, etc. But that's it. Unless you are good friends with a current more known Toro member, or really stand out as a player, a good example would be Rialangset when she joined, who I thought stood out for her very interesting characters, personality and rp skill. Unless you're one of those two things, as a player, you seem to get forgotten quickly. I've spoken to multiple people who have quit Toro or stopped going on as much as they used to when they first joined, and they all basically say the same thing: Nobody would rp with them, they seemed unnoticed, everyone already had their IC and OOC groups, and joining one of those seemed near impossible. Now, last night, a player who has recently come back to our server went to the event and tried to rp with people, they then soon left. Here's a quote from them: "I left because I was bored and my attempts at Rp were shutdown.". The main point of a event is that people come together to rp and have fun, but this player was not able to do that, just because they didn't stand out as a player. If Toro wants to be a welcoming community, they have to be welcoming to everyone. And to be a welcoming community is not to just be nice to a person when they first join, but to also make them a part of the community.

Now, I've only talked about the community aspects of how Toro seems a bit unwelcoming to me. But there is also another huge flaw with Toro as a rp server. Simply said, it's even worse Icly welcoming than it is OOCly.
With most roleplays, all people who will partake in the RP join before the roleplay begins, so everyone starts equally and knows the story.
With Toro, this is not the case. People can join whenever they want, new players or new characters. Although this is necesarry for the server, it does cause a few problems.
First, the Pixelmon aspect. A lot of players, when they first join, do focus on the Pixelmon training a lot, and try to battle others. Most of the time, these will be people who have been in the server for a long time, and have their badass teams of lvl 100s. It not nice, when you're trying to become a awesome trainer, but every single serious trainer already has a op team. This isn't really somehting that can be avoided, but it's, you know, a thing.
Second. The rp groups and families. Prepare for some name drops everyone.
Right, a common complaint I've heard about Toro is that there are strickt and very unjoinable groups of players ICly and OOCly, and that it's hard to actually get some rp. Another complaint I hear, which I honestly don't really care about, is that the four main families(LeGrand, Knighton, Ross and Bryant) are all a bit too influencal and powerful. And that the fact all of these families are run by gms(Go check it, all of em) even makes it more unfair. That the families have too much IC power, and their players too much OOC. For new and returning players, it's difficult to be noticed and get rp, and they usually leave Toro a few weeks after they join, or go on it way less.

I'm going to do a small test and such and see how many players, who joined Toro in the last 6 months, have actually stayed and are active members of the community, and how many left.

Now my last little concern, is that Toro, is getting too serious. If you look back at some old characters and such from Toro, it all seems less serious. Things didn't have to be realistic. I think all of this realism takes a lot away from character's their uniqueness and the player's enjoyment rping and making the character. Realism is nice, but this is a rp server with elemental themed adorable pets with the powers of armies with their trainers fighting against a just weird evil Team run by a man who basically does fusion for things, maybe realism should come after fun, this server also has superheroes people, not very realistic. There are a few characters who I believe are perfect characters who go in against boringness and realism, which are the superpowered characters like Calixte or Crystal and the other Rosses. These characters have something different and special about them, something unrealistic, but the lovely and best gm SN0W plays these characters perfectly and realisticly. Btw SN0W if you're reading this, hi. I think these character's are the perfect example of a realistic unrealistic character, a character with something unrealistic, but done realisticly. I think that Toro would be much more interesting with more characters like these.

Anyway, do I have a conclusion to make? Advice? No. As I said earlier, I'm just telling people my concerns and what I thought. If you want to discuss all of this, go ahead. This is just what I think. Also, I got like 1 hour sleep last night, so I'm sorry if all of this is a mess, my mind is just broken.
Okay, that's all, bye.
brawler456
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Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2013 11:35 am
MC name: brawler456

Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10408Post brawler456 »

Now, I know Portal and I hate each other, however, his points are valid. Overall, I left Toro for the lack of Roleplaying opportunities with other people, and the staff didn't strike me as 'welcoming.' Am I perfect? No. I'm a hothead. I do know however, how to roleplay, and what should be expected of a server of this caliber.

The main point here I'm bringing up is the realism. Toro is a roleplaying server, on an unrealistic topic, mind you. Yet, the staff wants to enforce realism in all recent characters. Recently, I tried to modify my first character on the server, and he was denied. What was the reason? Possession. This may have been stetching it I will admit, but this still does not excuse the fact that we have people with bionic limbs in a supposed 'real' environment, or superheroes for that matter. Or should I bring up the hooker of Toro (http://www.toro-league.com/forum/viewto ... with#p3984)? Yes, this was a thing. Yes, realism is expected, but only to an extent. Prioritize the fun over the realism. A happy server is a good server.

On that topic of a 'happy server', that's a flaw I find that portal didn't mention. Everyone is too happy, nobody seems to show any other emotion than that, which to me is creepy. When I was first introduced to some of the staff characters, right away, they came off as overly jubilant, an unnatural smile on everyone's face. Let's face it, nobody is that happy. And, when I attempted to create a moody character, he was ultimately ignored. That also seems to happen to those who the staff deems 'too unhappy' to roleplay.

Now, my rant is over. There are more topics I'd like to address, but I'll see if Portal or someone else mentions them before ranting again. Good day to you sirs and madame's.
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Portalgunblaze
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MC name: QuartzPT

Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10409Post Portalgunblaze »

brawler456 wrote:Now, I know Portal and I hate each other, however, his points are valid. Overall, I left Toro for the lack of Roleplaying opportunities with other people, and the staff didn't strike me as 'welcoming.' Am I perfect? No. I'm a hothead. I do know however, how to roleplay, and what should be expected of a server of this caliber.

The main point here I'm bringing up is the realism. Toro is a roleplaying server, on an unrealistic topic, mind you. Yet, the staff wants to enforce realism in all recent characters. Recently, I tried to modify my first character on the server, and he was denied. What was the reason? Possession. This may have been stetching it I will admit, but this still does not excuse the fact that we have people with bionic limbs in a supposed 'real' environment, or superheroes for that matter. Or should I bring up the tinkerbell of Toro (http://www.toro-league.com/forum/postin ... 12&p=10408)? Yes, this was a thing. Yes, realism is expected, but only to an extent. Prioritize the fun over the realism. A happy server is a good server.

On that topic of a 'happy server', that's a flaw I find that portal didn't mention. Everyone is too happy, nobody seems to show any other emotion than that, which to me is creepy. When I was first introduced to some of the staff characters, right away, they came off as overly jubilant, an unnatural smile on everyone's face. Let's face it, nobody is that happy. And, when I attempted to create a moody character, he was ultimately ignored. That also seems to happen to those who the staff deems 'too unhappy' to roleplay.

Now, my rant is over. There are more topics I'd like to address, but I'll see if Portal or someone else mentions them before ranting again. Good day to you sirs and madame's.
*cries tears of joy* Brawler senpai, thank you. I hate you too my love :D
But yeah, Brawler actually got some good points. Especially with the possestion thing, why was that denied, while another character got to be possesed, TWICE. Because they were a staff member? Because it were different times?
If you're gonna be a unrealistic server, be a unrealistic server and stay that way.
If you're gonna be a realistic server, be a realistic server and stay that way.
You can be one or the other, but not both at the same time.
Also, yeah, all characters and players are always so happy. I notice this alot actually because my characters are depressed edgelords, just like me :D
Anyway, bad to see you again brawler(Nah, good to see you again man)
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Vernon
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10410Post Vernon »

Not a reply to anything said, but your link doesn't work for anyone without edit perms, Brawler.
brawler456
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Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2013 11:35 am
MC name: brawler456

Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10411Post brawler456 »

MadEyeZier wrote:Not a reply to anything said, but your link doesn't work for anyone without edit perms, Brawler.
I fixed it about five minutes ago, someone else told me.
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Skolarr
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10412Post Skolarr »

To be fair...while we do allow some (small) unrealistic things to happen, the possession of a human corpse by a pixelmon is in my opinion, a tad bit out there. Plus I feel like that kinda counts as a ressurection. Anyways, that's all I'm going to say. *scuttles away*
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RiaLangset
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10413Post RiaLangset »

While I am speaking with portal on the subject, I wish to make a counter point to the happiness thing.

There is a pattern to Toro that became obvious very quickly. There are periods of just pure, utter hell that characters go through. It could range from nearly meeting death by the hands of a twisted mutant made by a mad scientist, or being frozen in a block of ice from a madwoman wishing to destroy the world, even just watching some commies hold your daughter at ransom. Toroans, after a time, learn to appreciate peace when it lasts, and some moodiness stemming from said events is understandable, but people learn to overcome and be truly appreciative. Maybe, just maybe, they can have children and have them know happiness for perhaps a year or two until something catastrophic happens.

Much as I hate using my own character as an example, she was rather moody and not the best person to be around upon joining. After seeing some real things to be moody about, her personality slowly shifted. Now while she's not going to be brightening any rooms she enters anytime soon, even she has learned to prioritize and show her smiles a bit more often, as it helps put her, and others at ease, and lets the peaceful times be better.

So in comparison, when a moody character tends to come around, and is crippled by it or (as is often the case, this does not reflect upon you) refuses to move past whatever event in their past to make their present so miserable, Toroans who have been through hell and back will eventually give up. They will try, they truly will, try to help said moody character, but to a point. Otherwise, they have a tendency to drag others down or demand attention from said moodiness. So wither it is intentional or not, characters that had been here a while will, consciously or unconsciously, stray away.

Kind of hard to sympathize with a new player that is wandering around groaning about their parents being murdered by Team X,Y,Z in another region when the person they are talking with got sucked into a nightmare and had Darkrai tell them that their life is going to be horrible as wraiths made of one's personal fears is wandering about, and overcame it. Perspective is a really, really tricky thing.
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Portalgunblaze
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10414Post Portalgunblaze »

Now, because my innitial post was a mess, and some other stuff was added and discussed and such. I'll make a list of what I think are the current concerns, and which ones I am trying to fix and which I simply find unfixable.

----------- Flaws/Concerns/WhateverWhoCares
1. The community seems welcoming at first, to a few, but you'll easily be forgotten once unless you're a friend with a current more known player(Example: Foska. Sorry for mentioning you Foska bby.) or you really stand out as a player(Example: Ria).
2. People have their own rp groups which simply shut people out of them. It's hard for returning and new players to find rp, because everyone else already seems to have people to rp with.
3. Too many players leave the server soon after joining.
4. Pixelmon aren't worth training and it seems unfair, since everyone that actually battles Pixelmon already has extremely high teams. (I don't this one can be fixed at all, but I have a few ideas.)
5. OOC groups are hard to join as well, you may be thrown into Toro chat, but it doesn't feel like you're noticed.
6. The four main families seem a bit unfair and simply over powered. The fact they are all run by gms and former gms, makes it worse. (There is no real fix to this either, unless Q suddenly started murdering families and all their busineses went bankrupt or something, but this isn't fair to those players. I understand why these families are so powerful, but it's still a concern.)
7. Toro seems to be unsure if it wants to be a realistic server or not, like a teenage girl can't decide what she wants to wear.

-------------------- Fixes that I have have thought up with Ria in like 10 minutes.
1. Rp hotspots(Idea by the glorious Ria). Rp hotspots would basically be mini events, like a local store is having a sale, or a mini sport event. Although these are already used a lot, they should be used more heavily. Maybe ones where characters are put in groups perhaps? So more characters can get to know eachother.
2. The Forum Post for the Lonely Rp's(idea by yours truely.). Basically, it would be a forum post where people who don't get a lot of roleplay, can tell a bit about their characters and such. People would meet on the post, and go meet up to rp together if they like eachother's characters. This can be done over Skype or MC.
3. Random Pixelmon Events(Another Ria Idea, hehehe, that rhymed.) There would be Pixelmon themed random events, like a bunch of Pixelmon suddenly showing up at one place(The porygon event? Remember that one) or a shiny or otherwise rare pokemon having been spotted somewhere, and then people would try to find it and capture it. Or the Toro people would need to fight together to defeat a strong Pixelmon, etc.
4. Tournaments and contests. Tournaments and contests have always been a big part of pokemon, but they nearly never happen on Toro. Having these types of Tournaments happen, would allow people to actually have fun with their Pixelmon, rp more, show off their character's and their Pixelmon's personality and such via contests, and all sorts of other things. One idea I really liked, which again came from Ria, was to give all people in the contest 3 eggs and let them train those, then fight with them. This would make it much fairer, since the old players wouldn't be able to use their lvl 100s and such.

I will be adding more ideas and such as I think of em.
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Portalgunblaze
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10416Post Portalgunblaze »

Skolarr wrote:To be fair...while we do allow some (small) unrealistic things to happen, the possession of a human corpse by a pixelmon is in my opinion, a tad bit out there. Plus I feel like that kinda counts as a ressurection. Anyways, that's all I'm going to say. *scuttles away*
Well, possession has happened in the past in Toro, 3 times with the same player, and two times with the same character. While these characters were not dead, it's still a unrealistic.
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Chakurano
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Re: My concerns with Toro.

Post: # 10417Post Chakurano »

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.
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