Let's bring back the site! (For good this time!)

[Danielle]

The Clan Renaissance has been pretty dead for a long time now, and that makes me really sad. We had such a great community of active roleplayers that kept growing all the time, and then the ball was dropped and now it’s so quiet. I’d like to apologize for that, and for the fact this isn’t the first time the site has gone inactive like this. You’re most likely reading this because of the email I’m going to send out after posting this, so as I said there I’d like to give this one more go, and I hope you’ll help me make the site back into the amazing place it used to be! As mentioned in the email I’ve graduated from high school now, and that was the main thing keeping me from working on anything here. Now I have plenty of time to spend on the site, so I’ll be around quite a bit! c: Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things quickly~

The main reason I’m making this thread, however, is because I’d like to get everyone’s opinions on how we should proceed with the site and get some discussion going. I don’t want to make the decisions all by myself, since this roleplay is meant to be member-driven. The main concern is the fact that many of the cats will now be inactive due to people no longer being interested or able to spend time on the site. I’ve got a few ideas, but as always feel free to give me your own as well!

As a side note, anyone who does return to the site for the first moon or so after this long quiet period will be able to reclaim their cats without having to go through the adoptions process ^^

So, onto the discussion. My first idea, which I think would be difficult to do well but also the best for keeping the plot intact, would be to continue on as if nothing had happened and simply work around the cats with no players, or perhaps treat them as NPCs. This way we’d be able to keep the plot going with minimal disruption, so it’s my current choice, but I’d like to hear everyone else’s opinions as well.

Another option is changing the plot, such as erasing certain characters or events from the game history, or changing the day an event happened or is supposed to happen. That would give us more time to prepare for things like the gathering, which is supposed to happen very soon, or account for cats that are no longer active. This could work pretty well but I'm also worried about potentially leaving holes in the game's history and lore.

The last I could think of was doing a sort of “reset” of the game, in which everyone would keep their characters but everything that has happened up to this point is considered erased and we start over from scratch. Personally I would rather not go with this option since it would get rid of all of the relationships and character building done up until now, but if the majority sees it as a good option I don’t mind.

This was pretty lengthy for my first post back on the site, so thank you for taking the time to read it! Please let me know what you think regarding the relaunch of the site and hopefully we can make The Clan Renaissance even more active than it ever was before!

EDIT: Since there hasn't been a whole lot of input on this since I posted it a while back, I'm going to go with option one for now and keep going as if nothing has changed. Any characters played by people that aren't around can be treated as NPCs, which means that anyone can control them in a limited capacity like moving them around or having them say a few things. I'll make an official list once it's determined who's sticking around and who's gone inactive. I'll start deleting accounts in a couple weeks' time, but if you haven't gotten a PM from me about it then you have nothing to worry about ^^

[Karith]

I haven't been on here for a long time...sorry about that. School was difficult this year and I sort of forgot about this website in the chaos. But now that school's over and I'm settled into my new house (yeah, I moved over the summer) I'd like to try and get into this again.

I only had one character, Robin, and never really got into role-playing with her. She wasn't involved in anything important plot-wise (considering I only made one post with her.) As such, I'm okay with a reset, and feel that that would be the best option if many of those with important characters did not return. But I'd like to see how many people come back before we do anything like that.

For now, I'm going to try and get back in touch with Robin's character, reacquaint myself with the site. Are you interested in continuing with that roleplay we started with Robin and Moth in November or do you want to restart it?

I hope some other people come back ^-^

[Danielle]

It's nice to see you again! :D I know what you mean with school being busy, it can get so hectic sometimes. It's nice that it's summer now though and you can have some time off. I hope the move went well and you're enjoying your new place!

Yeah, a reset would probably be the best option in that case. If we do decide to go that route then I have a few other things I'd like to ask but for now I'll wait and see what everyone thinks ^^

I should probably do the same with my characters, it's been so long since I've played them and I'm a bit rusty. I'd be fine with continuing our thread from November! Even if we do end up doing a reset, it'll be good to warm up a bit as well as boost site activity c:

I hope so too! I miss the little community we had ^^

[asilentbeast]

I actually never received any e-mails (I can't even remember what account I used for this so no wonder) and decided to sign in and check things out after Zesha mentioned the possibility of returning. I'll admit I initially left because activity was so low and I felt the site wasn't going anywhere, but I'd be willing to try again.

Considering I deleted all of my characters before leaving because I'm greedy and didn't want anyone adopting them I'm unsure if I should re-create them or just add new ones.

I honestly think it may just be better to go with option three and start over. No reason already built upon relationships can't happen again or start anew.

[Zesha]

You better have saved Flame and Rex, asilentbeast! You know they were my favorite. :P

Also, hello! I'm indeed returning. I will admit that I will probably only be active during the days of the week I work (Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) but I'd like to get back into this site. As for why I'll be active the days I work... it's because my friend likes to pester me to go do stuff with him. Bah, social interaction.

I'd like to go with the reset simply so my characters won't be ancient, and uh... because I don't know what's happening anymore. xD; So unless someone would like to give me a comprehensive summary...

[Danielle]

It's good to have both of you back, it feels like things are finally starting to pick up again~ I was sort of wondering if trying to bring the site back was a lost cause after all, but I didn't want to give up quite so quickly. I've decided to really give this site the attention it deserves, since I really do miss it. I got discouraged too easily before, but that won't happen again c:

That's odd about the email... I wonder if you turned off emails from the site, since I know that's an option. Though it could just be that you used an email you don't normally use to sign up. Or maybe the emails just didn't send properly to everyone, who knows. I think I've figured out how to send PMs to all members, so I'll probably do that for updates from now on instead anyway.

It's fine with me if you recreate your old characters! In fact, I'd be quite happy if you did since I miss them too ^^ The fact that you deleted them actually gave me an idea to offer an alternative to disowning and putting characters up for adoption, since I realized not everyone would be alright with that happening. I'll probably make a discussion thread about it sometime tomorrow now that there are more people to discuss it with~

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what's happening anymore either, and that's never a good sign xP So it sounds like we're all in favour of a reset, then. It seems like the best course of action to me too, now that I'm really thinking about it. I have something else to figure out now, though: would you all prefer we kept to the current time (Strawberry Moon 2015) and just reset all the character interaction, or should we bump it up to the current IRL date (Sturgeon Moon 2016)? I'd have to fix all of my spreadsheets that change according to the moon, but it might be better for the site overall since it'll be more like a true reset. I'd assume we would keep the ages of all characters the same, so the birth moon on each character sheet would also have to be changed, but that would be fairly easy once I'd updated the new spreadsheet I made yesterday. It might not matter either way, but I figured I'd offer the option.

Ahh, I always get so wordy, sorry about that ;; It feels nice to be doing stuff for the site though, I've missed it more than I realized. Once we really get the reset underway I'm excited to see how things go~

[Zesha]

I think we should move it up to current time, just to keep from confusing new members. Or would it confuse new members? I'm not sure. Also, I'm going to have to remind myself how the moons go, because I was confused by that for a while. xD

So, my vote is for moving it up to the current IRL date (Sturgeon Moon 2016) and adjust moon phases accordingly.

Also, I still want to make a character named Blue Moon born on a Blue Moon. I also might drop Scratch, since I didn't really use him anyway... xD

[Fox]

It might be easier to do somewhat of a mixture of a few different options. I don't know what all went on before I joined, but continuing on as if nothing changed would work, but so would the acting as if inactive characters weren't there. Say three cats are in a thread together and become friends. One cat/Rper goes inactive. If that inactive character had some effect or special input on the other two, we can act as though that cat was an NPC. If that cat was just there to be there and didn't help anything move along, just act like they weren't there.

At the same time, a reset would be nice, just so that everyone could get their characters back in line, get used to what characters they have/had, and get the feel for who those cats are and what they will go on to do.

[asilentbeast]

I guess I better get on re-creating some of my old cats then. xD I'll also need to reacquaint myself with the moon system. Not sure I ever got the hang of it the first time.

I also vote for switching to the current date/moon whatever option we end up choosing.

[Danielle]

Alright! Looks like no one is opposed to bringing the in-game time up to date along with the reset, so that's what we'll do. I'll change the info in the sidebar and say that the moon began today, though it'll end on September 30th like usual since August just began a week ago. Everyone will need to edit the birth moons for their own characters to keep them the same age but in line with the new date. I was not looking forward to manually checking each character's birth moon, so I put together this spreadsheet for any characters under 60 moons~ Hopefully it helps everyone else as much as it helps me ^^

[Zesha]

THANK YOU. This is very helpful. I'm gonna go edit my characters before I have to go to work.

[Danielle]

I'm glad it works well :D There was a little error in it last night though, hopefully I caught it before anyone used it as a reference. I figured out Blackcloud's birth moon since it's way over 60 moons, and it turns out she would be born in the Blue Moon 2004!

[Zesha]

God Blackcloud you're so old.