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Post by GreyWolfVT on Oct 1, 2023 17:29:53 GMT -8
I can stop attaching files in my game if that helps.
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Post by Daos on Oct 1, 2023 17:37:42 GMT -8
No, that's not necessary. Besides, there's plenty of space now, so there's no need to hold back. It will take years to fill it back up again.
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Post by Daos on Dec 4, 2023 16:41:27 GMT -8
Another Autumn, another recap on forum activity. September - 48 posts a day October - 36.9 posts a day November - 32.8 posts a day Wow, okay! After only breaking a record in August (42.4), we've now done so again in September. The new record is 48. That said, things have declined a bit since then. But overall, activity is--generally speaking--up from previous years. I don't expect it to get much higher than that, though, at least not any time soon. I'm running six of the nine current games, and although I still want to run The Mystery of the Missing Patrol when it's released (whenever that might be), I'm not sure how many more games I can juggle at once. I might have to start cutting back soon, as I have way too much on my plate at the moment. But that might not be for awhile, either. I can probably wrap up Cleric's Challenge I in another...four or so months (based on its current progression). But the rest of my games are pretty far from a natural ending point, so unless there are any TPKs along the way, it's going to be a long time before any others end. In any case, I don't expect things to change too much by winter's end. Time for the last update of the year, so here's the stats for the Autumn. September - 36 posts a day October - 29 posts a day November - 24 posts a day Yeah, I was expecting that. There's been a huge drop of activity during the fall, especially last month where it was fairly common for the daily post count to be in single digits. Those numbers will likely continue to drop into the winter, too, at least until I'm able to end some of my current games and start up new ones, because then I can start recruiting again and hopefully can increase the site's population. One of the few games not run by me, Princes of the Apocalypse, ended recently due to lack of interest. Fun fact, until Gravity offered to run it, I had planned to run it myself...after Tyranny of Dragons ended. Yeah, at the time, I didn't realize that it would take half a decade to finish that game. (We're 2 years in, and still haven't even reached the half-way point). Princes of the Apocalypse lasted two years, and there was still so much material left, I imagine it would have taken another 3-4 years to finish it. This just cements in my mind that long term campaigns are not the way to go for pbp games. That said, as always, if anyone wants to run a new game, let me know. Even if it's just a one-shot, the extra activity and potential new players it might bring in could be helpful. As for my own games, I've got Chronicles of Overmorrow up and running, albeit quite slowly, so I'm actually at seven games right now, at least until I can finally end Octhania. I'm still hoping I can wrap it up by the end of this month, but the combat posts take so long to finish (up to 4-5 hours now), I'm only able to update 2-3 times a week. For the games I am trying to end, here's my new, updated timeline: Gontoria - 1.5 years [February 2024] Octhania - 1 month [December 2022] Past Glory - 1.5 years [February 2024] Tyranny of Dragons - 2.5 years [February 2025] Champions of Krynn - Unknown (1.5 years?) [February 2024?] A few things to note: Once Octhania finally ends, I intend to start focusing efforts on shortening Gontoria. I feel I can shave off some extra sidequests and maybe get that down to around 6 months or so. Or at least a year, we'll see. I don't want to butcher it, but I do want to focus on steering it to a natural ending sooner. Champions of Krynn is sort of up in the air right now. See, we're about 25-30% through the second chapter, so clearly in no hurry to finish. But I was told the third chapter would be released some time this year. However, I recently heard that it has been pushed back until the summer of next year. And again, we haven't even reached the half-way point yet in chapter two, so maybe it won't matter...but it's more than likely that we'll finish before the third chapter is released, in which case...I'm not really sure what to do. Three of the players are in other games, so they might not mind a hiatus but at least one of them is only in that game, so what's he supposed to do during the wait? Well, I guess I'll worry about crossing that bridge if and when it comes. This is what happens if you run a game that isn't complete, I suppose. In my defense, though, their original timeline said they'd be releasing a new chapter every three months on the dot, so I thought I was golden. Ah, well. Anyway, my goals for the winter are to finish Octhania, shorten Gontoria, finish the current module in Matinee, and hopefully get Past Glory, Tyranny of Dragons and Chronicles of Overmorrow to their next chapters. Analytics for 2023 Autumn: September - 20.8 posts a day October - 26.3 posts a day November - 22.5 posts a day Something of a decline from previous autumns. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I continue to track these metrics. Just masochistic to some degree, I suppose. We're now down to four games, as Greywolf ended his game, so the site is again 100% dependent on me to maintain activity. Which is probably why things have been so slow lately; I've been working so much, I haven't had time to post as much. The Foreign North is still in the air. Technically, it's ready to go now--has been for awhile. But I didn't want to start up two games at the same time, so I decided to give Renosia some time to breathe. And by the time it did, I realized it was the holidays, and past experience has taught me that's a terrible time to start up a new game--everyone is so busy, including myself. So consequently, the plan is to wait until January. Although...I wonder if that's still wise. Considering how hard it's been to juggle four games lately, adding a fifth may be a bad idea. Maybe I should just let that one go. I don't know. We'll see how things look in a month. Still no word on the third chapter of Champions of Krynn, if anyone is still wondering. Not even a vague release window, never mind a date. Anyway, not much else to report. I'll do my best to keep the four remaining games chugging along.
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Post by Daos on Mar 2, 2024 17:22:08 GMT -8
Let's compare this winter to previous ones: December - 33.4 posts a day January - 44.6 posts a day February - 41.9 posts a day So mostly an improvement from last year. Definitely an improvement from the year before that. There are three active games not being run by me, and the 8 games I am running (with one exception) are running fairly smoothly right now, for the most part. So everything seems good, activity has never been higher, and yet... And yet, I am suffering from pretty bad burnout. I have been for months. The holidays were especially rough, and I've managed to get things under control again for the most part, but nevertheless, I need to scale back. I realize that fewer games means fewer posts, and thus less activity, but increasing activity means nothing if I drop from exhaustion. So I'm going to be closing down a couple of games eventually. (I want to emphasize that last word, lest anyone worry I'm going to shutter a random game suddenly and without warning.) First, Cleric's Challenge. It's been a month since the last post there, and it's only one player anyway, so I might as well give it the axe. For the rest, most of my games have a definite 'ending' that we are nowhere near close to reaching. Most are also modules, so are a little bit easier to manage (i.e., less work is involved). There are, however, two games that don't fit into either of those above criteria--Lost Souls Octhania and Past Glory. Neither are modules and both are sandboxes. Meaning they have no specific plot, and therefore no specific ending. They just keep going until I decide they stop, or the party TPKs, or everyone just quits. So my goal is to start steering both of those games toward a satisfying ending. This means making them more linear, but I don't think anyone really cares about that, to be honest. Anyway, I think I can steer Octhania toward a definite, satisfying end before the end of the year (probably). Past Glory will take a bit longer than that; maybe I can wrap it up sometime in 2023. Although originally I had planned to immediately replace both games with new ones once they ended, I will be holding off on that until some of my other games end naturally (for instance, I was going to run a Taladas game after Past Glory ended). I'm still going to replace them, just not immediately. I need to be more conscious of how many games I am juggling. Even if it hurts the site's traffic, I can't keep overextending myself. My stress levels were off the charts during the holidays, and although they've leveled off some now, I don't want to risk it happening again. I've also been working on a new 5E setting, and when it's done, I probably will want to run a game there. So clearing up some of my older games to make room for that is a good idea anyway. (Which I guess means, at some point in the next few years, I'm finally going to cross that threshold where I am running more 5E games than 2E games.) Anyway, it's difficult to judge how long it will take to finish those games. My current prediction models have Octhania ending somewhere around November or December, and Past Glory maybe some time mid-year of 2023 (around summer, perhaps). I'll recalculate at spring's end when I update here again. Winter is over, allegedly, so let's do a recap. December - 20.3 posts a day January - 17.9 posts a day February - 25.8 posts a day Oof, yeah, that's pretty abysmal. I haven't seen numbers that bad since I started tracking them back in 2018. All the more reason to end as many of my long terms games as soon as I can, and replace them with short term games so I can start recruiting new people again. My prediction to end Octhania by the end of December was, of course, way, wayyyyy off. I ended it literally yesterday. And only because I seized the narrative and made it happen; had that final battle, which had raged for five months, been allowed to run its natural course, it's entirely possible the game would continue until way into April, if not later. And that would have been intolerable; I was usually up until 4AM or later trying to get a single post for that game up. I couldn't keep that up for much longer, to be honest. So after five years, it's done. That's one less thing for me to worry about now. Now I just need to finish Gontoria and Past Glory. I've already started work on their replacement games in my off-time, but those sorts of things take time. That said, I'm no longer worried about ending either game 'naturally.' Basically, as soon as their replacements are ready, I'll probably just go ahead and end them, satisfyingly or not. Because honestly, my most recent estimates had those games ending in about a year from now, but realistically it will take much, much longer than that. And I don't have that kind of energy anymore, especially considering the absolute lack of enthusiasm from the PCs in either game. So my new goal is to hopefully end and replace both games some time this year, maybe in the next 3-4 months, but we'll see. At least now I know what is replacing them. Gontoria will be replaced with a Renosia game, and Past Glory will be replaced with a Taladas game. I'm pretty excited for them both. Tyranny of Dragons came very close to ending, but the group eventually voted to continue for one more chapter, at least. I'll probably check in on everyone after each chapter, just to see how much life that game still has in it. Champions of Krynn faces the same problem as before. We're now more than half-way through chapter two, but chapter three is not scheduled to come out until the summer, so it's entirely possible we'll finish too early and then...I don't know. Just wait, I guess. Not a great plan, but I'm not sure what else to do about it. (And this is all, of course, actually assuming the Nexus sticks to its new schedule; they were always 2-3 months late on their old schedule, so...). Module Matinee is going well enough; we recently started a new module for it. And Overmorrow is chugging along--we're still on chapter one after three months, but otherwise it seems to be progressing well. At least I'm back down to six games again. (Well, seven if you want to count Purify Pilgrimage). Hopefully that will make my overall workload a little easier to manage. And once my new system is in place, I'm hopeful burnout will be less of an issue, because it will be easier to end and switch to a new game if one becomes too much. So just to recap: Lost Souls Gontoria has been going for over six years, is down to two players, and will be ending as soon as its replacement is ready. It will be replaced with a game that takes place in Renosia, and I will recruit for it when the time comes. Module Matinee is still on its current Dragonlance run; we just started the third Dragonlance module. So far, the party of five seems invested, so this might continue for awhile. Lost Souls Octhania is over after five years. Past Glory has been going for four years now, and still has four players. It will be ending as soon as its replacement is ready. It will be replaced with a game that takes place in Taladas, the northern continent, and I will be recruiting for it when the time comes. Tyranny of Dragons is coming up on its third anniversary. We're down to 3 players and it will continue for as long as the party is invested in it and there's still enough of them to keep things going. We aren't even half-way through it yet. Champions of Krynn is just over a year old now. We still have 4 players, but it's not clear the third chapter will be released before we finish the second one. So it might be going on hiatus soon. Chronicles of Overmorrow is about three months old and has 3 players still. But it's working under my new system, so if it doesn't work out, it's easy enough to replace. Once the first adventure is complete, I'll have a vote to see if the players want to keep going or not, just like in Matinee. Winter analytics for 2023/2024. December - 16.5 posts a day January - 18.4 posts a day February - 13.7 posts a day The numbers just keep dropping. Nothing really has changed since last time. I've decided to keep The Foreign North on indefinite hold for now, as I just don't have the time and energy to get another game going. Maybe once one of the four active games ends, I'll swap it in.
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