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[Eric]

Because of the length of this post, I am seriously going to have an introduction first to summarize the point. This is both for those who read on and those who stop after I make my main point here in the first few paragraphs.

The village boards should not be the village grounds of certain clan-villages. It is not only wrong to try to push people out of the public boards (which was initially done when they didn't conform), it is outright rule breaking in SL terms, and disrupts the general public impression of SL.

Briefly I had requested that the village boards be renamed back to their country names; well, regardless of whether that gets implemented or not, I still want to present a different case that doesn't quite fit under "feature suggestions".

And that is the release of the village boards as village RP locations. Some people come here for the constant leveling in the forest so that they can get super resets. Then, with those super resets, they can Oro kill endlessly with all of the resets and feel like a boss.

Others, come here just to chat with friends and play around. They don't really feel all that inclined to leveling, and they definitely do not get the whole forum debates. They just want to hang out and RP as they please, whether it is naruto related or not.

And others are intensely naruto-related RP only, and they only want to play ninja (no pun intended... Wait, no totally intended there). As far as they are concerned, anything not canon or at least anime based on Naruto is not what they are up to and about.

And finally, there are those who don't fit into either three niches, and either bounce between them, are just a mix, or make their own niche.

The point is that the village boards should be a gathering and meeting place for all of these kinds. Little is stopping people from actually posting on these boards freely other than the villages associated with them.

Because my village, Konoha, is definitely one of the pots in this kitchenware, I'll use us as a clear example.

At some point (and even now) we have, without much holding back, seized possession of the Konoha Village board, and made it our village entirely. It's gates, it's walls, our defenses, ours ours ours. I didn't see a major issue with this, until I really looked at the situation.

After a chat, it dawned on me that, many of the non-board clans are not only still kicking and around, but they are in full swing in their own halls and stuff. Now, my own clan halls is about as lively as a graveyard on Christmas (not Halloween) and the village board doesn't fare much better.

So why do we still have a perceived control over it? It is certainly not within our limits to; they are open to the public for a reason. Capitalizing on the convenience, we made the village board ours at least in part to make it much easier to have cross-village communication. Of course, not everyone can have that kind of convenience, and in fact, we shouldn't really have it either.

So I have proposed that we stop patrolling the board like we own the location on the board. Granted, people are not going to flock to it instantly after we say "We're done here", as it would take time for people to get over their general avoidance of the board. But it's a start, and a start that can be implemented across the SL realm.

The village can, and should, exist within the halls of the clans. Making village boards the villages is outright wrong, and a wrong that should be righted, if for nothing else but the rule breaking nature of it.

"2. Be nice to each other. Harassment, stalking and other such things will not be tolerated. Your freedom ends when another players freedom is harmed, basically. There is no catalog on what exactly is covered, but a fine invention called 'commonsense' should give you a few hints on what is allowed and what not."

Shooing away people from the boards simply because they do not make an entry through the gates, if not harassment in a public form, is definitely harming the freedom of any non-village player. When we were doing this, either the moderators turned a blind eye or didn't see the issue with it. But there is an issue with it; no one should have to go through regulated gates in order to RP on the village board.

"But we're not physically stopping them!" Well, not anymore, we don't have to practically attack them to get them not to post 'out of line'. It's OOC if they really wanna play on the board and not follow the village regulations, and like sheep struck with a rod a few too many times in the past, they just avoid the mess altogether.

I will not claim to know every single feeling of everyone on SL. But what I do know is, whether they're dodging the village boards because of knowingly dodging shafters, or unwittingly out of habit or just plain preference, the dominance of the board is still wrong, and something that needs to be changed.

I vote "Free the Boards". As I come to a close, I bring back the point of this post: The village boards have been dominated by village-clans for far too long. It is not right, it is 'unlawful' on the premises of game rules, and it is disrupting the public view of SL. Anyone not in a clan would be awfully bored unless they either know someone or get into a clan right off the bat.

For the sake of the future of SL; end the monopoly, not just figuratively and RP only in the clan halls, but outright remove the gate restrictions and other things that have popped up on the boards.

[Ratatosk]

I will put my two-cents into this.

I am in the group of the "super-levelers". I haven't done much of the RP business due to how ridiculous some abilities are (Which I blame the manga at that point). But I agree it has gotten to the point where the in-game village board is taken over by RP extremists which is just wrong. I see only one issue about the clan halls only for village related RPing.

Example when you have outside visitors (such has a Suna Shinobi wants to visit Konoha) they will have to temporary leave their clan and join the clan they are supposedly visiting than when they are done leave and rejoin their rightful village.

I don't think it will be possible to code to make it so you can visit a clan without having you leave your own, though if possible it will have to be approved of someone very high ranking in the clan (likely only ranks 31 and 30 can approve in best case).

[UettoSenju]

This is actually a subject I have spoken a lot about in the last few years. I have to agree with you guys that it is out of hand and needs to stop.... whatever happen to the days when you just had random water-balloon fights in a random village. You could go where ever do whatever, then hit up the bar in the Gardens?

Now I am sure you area all aware that I take RP rather serious but I also love to goof around and due off topic stuff. There was a time at SL when there was no on topic off topic, in character out of character, official rp ooc rp (it was there but not like today) you were just free to be you all the time and do what you liked. And guess what SL did good during that time, damn good I might add.

It was a time of clans and I have preached to many that we need to go back to clans. This doesn't mean you don't get to rp and that you don't get to do other stuff... honestly clans were a lot better then villages. The thrill of a clan war was epic, unlike today were you just go to a board and post some then get voided in the end, back then you had to actually scheme. There as a place for everyone the rp fighter took part in the zoning aspects of war, the hard noise leveler did the PvP aspect, and then you had spies that would sneak in gather intl and try to take down your clan from the inside... making deals was more awesome just as much a stabbing other in the back was. Those were the days.

Like I have said before I blame my own generation for what is considered right today at SL, sense this OP village based system started to take over heavily.

But the simply fact is the rpers of SL are nothing more the power hungry fools... that is why Konoha has had such bad Hokage in the past everyone of them fell to this (for the most part). It's all about power... the best OP character, the strongest followers, the power to say what happens and what doesn't happen on a board.... power power POWER!!!

That was something I wished to break as Hokage, unfortunately Rl threw my a curve ball and I fell short of that goal. However I placed Nathan there cause he often felt the same as me... we had a goal to make Konoha open to everyone (of course attackers still needed to follow a certain system)  but you get the idea. In my mind it was to build up to what Eric is speaking of now.

Reverting back to Clan Hall based organizations leaving the boards open to all is so ingenious of an idea that the mass majority can't even see it. I think it is more that the fear it then anything...

So I say lets challenge each other, lets revert back the the elder ways, lets cross that boarder between in character and ooc and just go with the flow... shed this legit rp idea and back to the basics of 'Having Fun'.

[Kage]

Two commentary areas in each land. One for the land's village, and the other for the rest of the land itself. Ex: Konohagakure and the Land of Fire.

All the villages keep their respective RP areas, while also keeping an extra area of RP for other stuff. Kirigakure is pretty much already covered with their Beach Resort. But even that is rarely used. Heck, Kiri also has a commentary/RP area for their fountain, which is also rarely used. That's already three counts of areas for RP for Kiri. And if I remember right, Konoha's library has a commentary area too.

So why not just rephrase this suggestion into one for more commentary areas? It inspires more overall activity and RP.

[Eric]

Two commentary areas in each land. One for the land's village, and the other for the rest of the land itself. Ex: Konohagakure and the Land of Fire.

All the villages keep their respective RP areas, while also keeping an extra area of RP for other stuff. Kirigakure is pretty much already covered with their Beach Resort. But even that is rarely used. Heck, Kiri also has a commentary/RP area for their fountain, which is also rarely used. That's already three counts of areas for RP for Kiri. And if I remember right, Konoha's library has a commentary area too.

So why not just rephrase this suggestion into one for more commentary areas? It inspires more overall activity and RP.

The only reason I reject this idea is because of the way the system is already set up. The library is still the public library, and the fountain is still the fountain. But the main village board is the main issue; the library is hardly even used for comments anymore (not sure if it was ever all that popular).

SL population has declined considerably over the years, much less the bit that actually RPs in public. We already have enough commentary areas, many of them already considered free reign; it's just the main ones that need to be completely re-publicized again.

[Styx]

Well I like Kage's idea but I see your point Eric. Though there is a system that Neji could incorporate into SL. On LoB in the main locations there's two links that you can choose from to differ between RP and OOC comments. So why couldn't a system like that be setup where on one "page" it's the village and on the other it can be the Fire Country.

Though on what Kirk is saying I would love to see the rise of the Clans again and the off topic and silly RP return to SL. Where everything isn't so serious and power hungry but fun and enjoyable for everyone.

[Angra Mainyu]

on one "page" it's the village and on the other it can be the Fire Country

That's not a bad idea.

[Eric]

on one "page" it's the village and on the other it can be the Fire Country

That's not a bad idea.

It still doesn't solve the principle problem of a group of RPers controlling a public board. It physically divides the RP up, sure, but it doesn't seem to drown the horde of spiders threatening the insects that you feed your lizard...

[Angra Mainyu]

It still doesn't solve the principle problem of a group of RPers controlling a public board. It physically divides the RP up, sure, but it doesn't seem to drown the horde of spiders threatening the insects that you feed your lizard...

Is there ever a perfect solution? At the very least it'd provide ample(r) space for other factions to use at their leisure without being accused of x or y.

[Akasaka Rakudo]

Someone mentioned attackers would have to follow a procedure didn't they? Well that's really the only rp people need to "worry" about happening in their village, so shouldn't we decide what those are and then everyone else is just free to rp? I would say you just need to get the village to agree beforehand to being attacked, you could still rp sneaking into the village if you are able, people would just OOCly know about it and be prepared to rp with you.

[Eric]

It still doesn't solve the principle problem of a group of RPers controlling a public board. It physically divides the RP up, sure, but it doesn't seem to drown the horde of spiders threatening the insects that you feed your lizard...

Is there ever a perfect solution? At the very least it'd provide ample(r) space for other factions to use at their leisure without being accused of x or y.

"Perfect" solution is not what I had in mind. The point is to prevent any faction from having ownership of any of the public village boards, regardless if the amount of 'owners' is just more spread out.

In my opinion, the preferred solution is to just take the status back to the clan halls and the clan halls only, and the village boards remain completely free of any ownership that interferes with the ability for other people to freely RP there. There is not much room for compromise on that without breaking the game rules.

Someone mentioned attackers would have to follow a procedure didn't they? Well that's really the only rp people need to "worry" about happening in their village, so shouldn't we decide what those are and then everyone else is just free to rp? I would say you just need to get the village to agree beforehand to being attacked, you could still rp sneaking into the village if you are able, people would just OOCly know about it and be prepared to rp with you.

The village boards are not places for zone style fighting. That's what the zones are for. I do actually remember a mod attempting to make that point, but it became moot after it became the 'norm', despite the fact that we always have been technically disallowed from zoning in the village boards.